Free Searching for Tina Turner by Jacqueline E. Luckett Page B

of his first session, Kendrick stepped into the waiting room and told Lena that Dr. Miller wanted to see her. Lena
     assumed he wanted a payment and stepped into the tiny office, checkbook in hand. Once inside, she was surprised by the kitschy
     coziness of the middle-aged doctor’s office. Flowered cushions on a slouchy sofa. Masks smeared with white ash, African spears,
     and fertility goddesses with swollen bellies and distended breasts. Their shared heritage seemed all the more reason to like
     him.
    “My grasp of family dynamics will constitute a critical area of Kendrick’s therapy.” Dr. Miller settled into his recliner,
     his stubby legs struggled to reach the ottoman. “Kendrick has given me permission to discuss our conversation with you. While
     I will not breach doctor-patient confidentiality, I do sense that there are other issues, as they relate to you, specifically,
     that cause Kendrick to question your… value.”
    “As opposed to his father’s? And measured by what? His income as opposed to my… non-income?” Lena focused on the cable-stitched
     afghan folded over Dr. Miller’s armrest. The stitches were uneven and lumpy: a gift from a feeble-handed grandmother for her
     adored grandchild. “What does that have to do with why he took drugs?”
    “There may be clinical depression. I’m not certain, of course, we’ve only spoken once. It’s like a puzzle, and I have to fit
     all of the pieces together to assess the reasons Kendrick chose to use drugs so heavily. What
you
have to consider is the impression you’ve created and how it will affect his relationships with women and his view of women
     in general. Especially if the woman appears to be weak.” Nothing moved on Dr. Miller’s body, not his eyelids nor a finger
     chilled from the air conditioner’s breeze.
    Lena pushed off the sofa like a baby and stumbled to the door. She glowered at the therapist and did not bother to ask how
     he could make such a snaky assumption after only fifty-five minutes with her son.
    Now, Dr. Miller stands in the middle of the parking lot, four plastic grocery bags in one hand, and pats his jacket and pants
     pockets with absent-minded vigor. Lena pretends to search underneath the car while Bobbie yells, “Give it to him! Give the
     phone to him!”
    Lena shakes her head no and stays lowered until she hears a car engine start. The doctor, his head swiveled in the opposite
     direction to monitor the parking lot traffic, drives away when she peeks over the hood. In the car, Lena pulls
I, Tina
out of her purse and riffles the edges with her thumb to let Tina provide inspiration, this time for how to keep away from
     people she doesn’t like. “Don’t laugh. I’m reading Tina Turner’s autobiography. I like her guts.”
    “She has more than guts—surprise, I read the book. I own bookstores, remember? And she left without fear and without money.”
    “I haven’t been on my own since I was thirty-one. I could never make as much money as Randall does. Maybe Lulu is right.”
     Like John Henry, Lena is not much of a risk taker.
    “Sell yourself short if you want to, but all you have to do is want it bad enough.” Bobbie puffs on a cigarette and yells
     to a distant voice in the background that she can’t help right now, that she’s unavailable for a while so would they please
     close her door. Papers rustle, and Lena imagines stacks and to-do lists atop her sister’s antique desk. “Once she left, Tina
     only looked forward and took every opportunity that came her way. She even cleaned houses, for a minute, until she got a break.”
    “Stop smoking. I can hear you puffing all the way from here.” Lena swerves out of the parking lot and steers through the streets.
     “I want my life to be the way it was. And I don’t know how to get it back.”
    “You wouldn’t be so into Tina if that was your intention. And slow down, I can hear you gunning the engine
all the way from here
.”
    “It’s not