Dr. Huidobro says I need to try rejection therapy to help me move beyond Raúl.
Each day, I must collect three rejections rooted in whatever scares me most, thereby loosening knots of neuroses obstructing essential connections.
“The parts of the brain that experience rejection are the same portions that feel physical pain,” Dr. Huidobro says, “which is why you numb your body with alcohol and drugs.”
“Will you have sex with me, Dr. Huidobro?” I ask.
“No!” Dr. Huidobro says with a shocked expression. “Oh, I see what you’re trying to do, Golden.”
“Please,” I beg.
“No cheating!” Dr. Huidobro says. He chuckles and shakes his head.
Three seems achievable, but it’s hard to identify what I’m most worried about being rejected for, because I worry about so much.
Which fear holds the key to healing?
“I would like you to give me this supplement for free,” I say to the teenage cashier at Sandwich Massachusetts Supplements and General Nutrition. Feeling increasingly humiliated, I show him the store’s most expensive bottle of clarified mugwort. The teenage cashier has large, beautiful eyes shaped like almonds and painful-looking pimples on his chin.
He looks at me for a time with his large, beautiful eyes shaped like almonds before he gestures toward the door with his painfully pimpled chin, like, go ahead and take the mugwort with you for free, my brother.
“Unexpected,” I say. “Another request. Will you move into my house to keep me company for the rest of my life? I’m so lonely.”
He looks me up and down before he says, “From the bottom of my heart, sir, I would accept your offer, but I’m married. If I ever get divorced, however, check in, and let’s see where we’re at.”
I can’t decide whether I’ve just received a rejection. In the short term, it’s a “no,” so good enough. That’s one.
On the bus back to the house, I turn to my seatmate, an old woman with a lacy veil on her face. “Can I ask you a favor?” I say.
“You can ask, but I guarantee nothing,” she mutters. She lifts her veil and narrows her lids.
“Will you mourn me when I die?”
“What a thing to say!” she blurts.
“Yes or no?”
“I see we do know each other,” she says. “Where have we met?” She turns to look at me with swollen red eyes. Mascara rivers down her wrinkling cheeks.
“I don’t know you.”
“I’m a professional mourner,” she says. “I have just come from a funeral. You, my dear, are asking the right woman.” She gestures delightedly toward the mascara on her cheeks before she hands me a card that reads, “Erlinda Gutierrez de la Plancha” in sparkling gold letters. Beneath the name Erlinda Gutierrez de la Plancha, in italicized sparkling silver letters, the card says: “quality tears at affordable prices.”
I say, “But for free. I need you to do it for free. Will you mourn me from your heart of hearts, because you’re sad I died, and without charging my bereaved for the service?”
She fixes her veil back over her face. “Honey, I’m running a business. I need to feed my kitties. I need a roof over my head.” She leans over to grab her business card back and a smell like crushed flowers wafts from her wrist.
Rejection number two, though I had to push, because, once again, I almost received a yes.
I decide not to take any chances for rejection number three, so I call the American president at his private number.
The president emails me every day, begging for my money, my time, my affection. He can’t get enough of pinning me under his withering gaze. He answers his secret direct number breathing heavily, aflame with adoration for me, Golden, specifically.
I demand the president stop loving me. I urge him to stop contacting me. I beg him to forget me. That’s when I hear the words I need to hear, and I can hang up the phone filled with relief as clear and sharp as winter air.
No matter what I do, no matter what I say, no matter how deeply Raúl hurt me in the past, I know the American president will never stop loving me, and he will never leave me alone.
