I’ve been sharing my writing process as I work on my current novel. This week, as I was writing, I realized the Narrator (still no name) still doesn’t know what’s happening even though I do, and she would naturally see a doctor out of concern that she’s hallucinating or something like that. So, that’s where this week’s section went. I’ll decide in revision whether this should be built out more as a concern or whether that will slow the pacing too much.

Here’s the next installment:

“Do we have any witnesses who’ll be willing to share their stories?” I asked, taking notes on paper. Cell phones and other electronic devices were banned from the room and I suspected it was swept for bugs on a regular basis.

I used a shorthand method I’d developed over the years as a reporter. Lawyers could subpoena all the records they wanted but they couldn’t decipher them; if compelled to testify, I could make the notes say anything I wanted them to say. Youth and charm is overrated when you have age and cunning.

Arnold glanced at Magdalene and said, “We can get some witnesses.”

“That’s not what I meant.” I tried not to sigh but wasn’t especially successful. “We need information that can stand up to scrutiny. Verifiable facts. Credible witnesses.”

“Then no,” Arnold said, putting his empty hands palms down on the table. He gave a brilliant smile. “But that’s why we have you.”

Everyone around the table broke into relieved smiles. They hated hiring me, and they hated paying me, but boy did they enjoy making their problems my problems.

*

The sparks came again as I was walking to my car in the public parking lot across the street from the Ronald Reagan State Building on Spring Street, and I absentmindedly brushed them off my arm before remembering that they weren’t coming from the outside.

My steps slowed without my thinking about it and I looked around carefully, wondering whether it was going to be talking squirrels again and what I was going to do about it if it was.

A couple of suited men, lawyers probably, walked towards the courthouse. They sidestepped around me; I was a boulder in the sidewalk blocking the flow of pedestrians.

One of them glanced over his shoulder at me as they passed. A wolf’s head, long lean muzzle, a gleam of fang, yellow eyes, and I clapped my hand against my suddenly galloping heart.

Werewolf, my mind said and I stared blankly after the man. Werewolf.

In a suit?

I remembered what Dahlia had said the other day.

“Method actor,” I said out loud, firmly, and crossed the street to ransom my Charger from the garage.

*

“No, I haven’t had any recent head injuries,” I said to my doctor, a young woman who looked like she should still be in school studying French and history and not scribbling prescriptions on a pad.

“I’m going to schedule an MRI,” she said and gave me what I suppose she thought was a reassuring smile.

“Sure,” I said, imagining brain tumors, cancer, and myriad psychological disorders. I vowed not to Google any of this until the MRI was completed.

She poked at the computer, then showed me some information about a menopause support group. “Do you want to note the info down? Or I can  have the nurse print this out before you go.”

Like W.C. Fields, I’m suspicious of any group that would have me as a member and I couldn’t really imagine wanting to sit around and group about hot flashes with a bunch of other women, but I put the Meetup information in my phone. Maybe I’d be desperate enough to join some day. Maybe some day soon.

I texted Dahlia as I left and she gave me a heart emoji that I guess was supposed to signal support, and then she did something women her age almost never did and called me.

“You okay?” she asked without the usual small talk.

“No, I am not.”

“Didn’t think so.” She was quiet for a moment, letting me decide how or if I wanted to fill the silence.

“I guess there are a few things it could be that won’t kill me.”

“There you go,” she said. “Looking for the positives.”

“Heavily outweighed by the negatives. I mean, do I want brain tumor or do I want psychotic break? Do I want—”

“I doubt it’s psychosis,” she said reasonably. “Or someone would notice, especially your doctor.”

“My doctor is about twelve years old,” I said. “I think she still moves her lips when she reads.”

“Ageism is so ugly.”

I smiled. “Consider me chastised. Let’s just say I don’t have full faith in her diagnostic abilities, whatever her age.”

“Go to a different doctor. Get a second opinion.”

“Need a first opinion first,” I said.

“Ask AI. In fact, I’ll ask AI.”

I heard her fingers clacking on the keys. Then she said, “No, don’t ask AI. You want to meet me for a drink or something? I got a couple hours of work to do but I could meet you after.”

“Another time,” I said. “I’ve got some work to do. It’ll be good, take my mind off this bullshit.”

“You go, girl,” a voice said from the hedge on my right. I ignored it and walked to my Charger, planning my next move.