‘She was aiming for the tree, not you,’ Hattie explained.
‘Becauseshewasn’t supposed to be here!’ Jen retorted.
‘It goes without saying that Sophie will keep this to herself,’ Hattie added, soothingly.
‘It also goes without saying that next Thursday evening, between six and seven, I’ll be in my bedroom with the curtains closed,’ I added, before getting the heck out of there, trusting my dog would follow me when she was ready.
* * *
Thirty minutes later, Laurie, Kalani and Deirdre burst into the studio in a flurry of hugs, discarded jackets and jitters.
‘Remind me again why we agreed to this,’ Laurie asked, scanning the plastic sheeting set out underneath four tables and central pile of, amongst other things, newspapers and plastic buckets.
‘Because for the first time in years, Kalani revealed that she’s actually human,’ Deirdre replied, although her expression was also wary.
‘Yes. And I expect no less from the rest of you. It’s someone else’s turn on the beanbag of blubbering.’ Kalani pointed her finger at each of us in turn.
‘Blubbering is by no means compulsory,’ Hattie said, with a shrug. ‘This is your session, Gals. What you want to get out of it is up to you.’
‘Yeah, right.’ Kalani rolled her eyes.
‘Now, today we’re going to keep it simple, acclimatise gently, as it were, to the process of art therapy.’
‘Aren’t these wire clippers?’ Deirdre asked, picking a pair up off a table. ‘That’s not my idea of keeping it simple.’
‘Simple as in we aren’t going to splatter our deepest, darkest emotions all over the so-called artwork,’ Laurie said.
Hattie responded to that with a raised eyebrow before turning to Kalani. ‘Didn’t you get my message about wearing tatty old clothes you don’t mind getting ruined?’
Kalani smoothed her hands down her faux-snakeskin dress. ‘This is old.’
‘Kalani, you bought yourself that for Christmas. It cost a fortune,’ Laurie pointed out.
‘Were we supposed to wear something old and tatty?’ Deirdre gasped. ‘I didn’t see that message. I’ve worn my best jumper.’
‘Perhaps she didn’t bother sending it to you,’ Kalani muttered out of the side of her mouth. ‘If you ask me, that outfit needs to be ruined as soon as possible.’
It was a harsh comment, but accurate. Deirdre was wearing a fuzzy, peach polo-neck that made her appear to have no neck and a very uncomfortable bra. It suited her auburn hair and pale complexion even less than the beige hoodie she’d worn last time. Her jeans were sagging in all the wrong places, with a damp ring around each hem from where they’d dragged on the wet ground.
‘Deirdre, I love you, but if that’s your best jumper then you need therapy more than I thought,’ Laurie said, with a sympathetic smile.
‘Hey!’ Hattie exclaimed. ‘That is not a therapeutic approach to another Gal’s outfit. If Deirdre prefers to focus on her internal beauty, choosing clothes she’s comfortable in rather than hiding behind a ridiculously expensive, glossy image, then she shouldn’t be judged and definitely not shamed for it.’
‘Ouch!’ Kalani smirked, seemingly in no way offended by this non-therapeutic dig.
‘I don’t mean to shame her!’ Laurie put her arm around Deirdre. ‘But I don’t think Deirdre dresses like this because it makes her feel comfortable. She never used to wear this stuffbefore. She dresses like she doesn’t care about herself because that’s how she feels. She’s forgotten that she’s the loveliest person anyone could meet. Hopefully by the end of this, she’ll have remembered who she is, again.’
‘Thanks, Laurie,’ Deirdre sniffed, tilting her head to rest against her friend’s.
‘Oh, come on. We’ve not even started and you’re already welling up!’ Kalani shook her head in mock horror. ‘Hattie, you’d better hurry up and explain what this pile of junk is for.’
We were making papier mâché animals, representing ourselves this time, rather than other people.
‘Ourselves how?’ Laurie asked. ‘Who we are, or who we want to become by the end of all this arting?’
‘Or who we used to be, before someone smashed up our self-esteem and stomped on the pieces?’ Deirdre asked.
‘That’s up to you.’ Hattie smiled back. ‘But take a few, careful moments to think about it first. Which you do youwantto recreate today?’
