Aka Amy

It only took me a day or so to get back into a normal routine after our vacation. I exchanged some emails with Niamh, she sent some family pictures and told me a little more about that side of the family while I sent her a few pictures of my mom and myself and gave her a bit more information about the two of us.

I also shared some more information about my granny, and scanned a few pages of her old journal and sent those to Niamh as well.

On the Friday Amy and I went out for Canada Day, we had a fancy dinner and some drinks then watched fireworks. After that our weekend was almost normal, with my girlfriend at her computer Saturday night to join her friends for their gaming session while I curled up on the sofa with a book. That was probably the only significant difference, rather than cramming for finals I was able to relax and read something fun.

Then Sunday night Amy made us a nice meal and the two of us took it easy, so I'd be all rested up and ready for my first day at my new career the following morning. And when Monday morning arrived, she made sure I was up with plenty of time to have a shower and get dressed, she even made me a nice breakfast before sending me off to work.

I was about five minutes early as I pulled into the parking lot. I found a spot around the side of the building, that Bev referred to as the 'staff lot'. She liked to keep the spaces in front available for clients, for obvious reasons.

There were some butterflies in my stomach as I emerged from the car, which both made sense but at the same time was mildly annoying. I'd been working at Beverly's practice as a co-op student for more than a year, it wasn't like my first day at a brand new job.

On the other hand it was my first day of work as a real full-time employee. I'd graduated, now I was back from vacation, and I'd be starting to do real work. Bev would still be my supervisor, but soon I'd be seeing my own clients. And that's where the first-day butterflies were coming from.

I mentally braced myself as I walked up to the door as calm and casual as I could manage. I stepped inside, then stopped as I found myself looking at an unfamiliar face sitting behind the reception desk.

She was a middle aged woman, average build and average looks. Her wavy brown hair was cut in a casual off the shoulder style. Her make-up was attractive but conservative, but her attire was decidedly casual. The blue jeans and plain pale yellow blouse looked ok on her, but I knew Bev usually liked her staff to dress a little more professionally.

The stranger gave me a pleasant smile as I entered, along with a typical greeting. "Good morning, how may I help you?"

"Hi," I greeted her back. "Are you a new receptionist? What happened to Rosa?"

The woman shook her head, "I'm just covering for Rosa, she called in sick today. I'm actually one of the therapists here? I just started last week. Are you here to see Beverly?"

Just like that all the first-day butterflies I'd been trying to suppress were back in full force, and they were quietly panicking. I had no idea Bev was planning to hire another therapist, and the fact that it happened while I was on vacation felt like a bad sign. I wasn't normally one to catastrophize, but I couldn't help worrying that somehow I'd lost my job before I even started. Maybe the vacation was a bad idea, maybe Beverly thought it was unprofessional of me to ask her for the two week delay. Or maybe she just wasn't as happy with my work as I thought, and she used my time away to find someone better.

"You're a therapist?" I finally responded as I stood there forcing myself not to give in to the panicky butterflies in my gut.

My possible replacement and new nemesis nodded, "Psychologist actually, although I'm brand-new at it. I just graduated from UTM last month."

Hearing that did absolutely nothing to calm me down. My two-year college psychotherapy program was ok, but my competition just finished a three-year university psychology program. Her degree beat my diploma hands down.

"Hello Theresa," Bev greeted as she emerged from her office. "I see you've met Emma. She'll be working part-time with us, two or three days a week. Why don't you get yourself settled then come and see me so we can go over your schedule."

I blinked at her then looked back and forth between my boss and the woman who was apparently my new co-worker.

"Oh, you must be Theresa Fuller?" the stranger asked with a smile. "It's a pleasure to meet you. Bev's told me about you, I'm looking forward to working with you."

"Nice to meet you too," I replied automatically, while my head was still trying to catch up to the situation.

A couple minutes later I was sitting in one of the guest chairs in Bev's office. And even though we were supposed to be discussing my new schedule I couldn't help asking about the other new hire.

"So who's Emma?" I asked, in what I hoped was a casual tone. I still couldn't shake the feeling that I'd been replaced while I was away. Or if not replaced, then maybe this was going to be some sort of evaluation period where I'd be competing against the university graduate.

Bev had a sip of her coffee before responding, "She's a recent graduate like yourself. She studied under a friend of mine, Dr. Riley? That's how I know her. She was looking for part-time work and she brings some unique skills to the practice, so I decided to bring her on board."

I nodded slowly as I asked, "What sort of unique skills? She can't already specialize in something if she's only just graduated, right? Or..."

My stomach lurched a bit as another possibility cropped up, "Or was she already working as a therapist, before going back to school to get her psychology degree?"

"Tess I'm sorry," Bev gave me an apologetic smile, "I just realized how this must seem to you. She's not here to replace you, and you're not competing with her. Jerry Riley told me Emma was looking for part-time work and said she was one of his top students, so I decided to give her a chance. I'll be supervising her as well as yourself."

"Thanks Bev," I smiled, and I knew she could hear the relief in my voice. "It was a bit of a shock to come in for my first day and meet another new hire that seemed to be doing the same thing as me."

"So what about her unique talents?" I added. "If she's only just starting she can't already have a specialty, can she?"

"How about I let her explain that for herself?" Bev responded. She got up from behind her desk and moved to the door, then asked "Emma would you mind joining us for a few minutes?"

Beverly took her seat again, and Emma settled into the other guest chair next to mine. Then our boss asked, "Emma, I was just telling Tess a little about you but I thought it'd be best to let you speak for yourself."

"Sure," she smiled, then introduced herself to me. "My name's Emma Carter, and I'm actually fairly new to all this. I spent about eighteen years dividing my time between being a single mom and waitressing. When my daughter left home for college I decided to finally get a proper education myself. I remarried last year, my wife and I live less than ten minutes from here so this is an ideal location for me. And I expect I'll be here two days a week most of the time. Three days a week if it's busy or if someone's away and I'm needed to cover for them."

Emma continued, "I don't have much experience obviously, just six months as a co-op working with Dr. Riley, but my focus and interest is helping patients with plurality. That was the subject of my thesis."

Beverly added, "It's a good read. Atypical Presentations of Plurality Outside the Clinical Setting."

"Plurality?" I asked. "I can't say I'm familiar with the term, at least not in a psychotherapy context."

"In this context, plurality refers to the phenomenon of more than one personality or individual occupying a single body," Emma explained.

Suddenly I couldn't help thinking about my girlfriend, and the questions I'd had about how she experienced herself as Amy Price, Amy Sullivan, and Amethyst.

Bev must have caught the distant thoughtful look on my face and misinterpreted it, she added "Clinically it's referred to as Dissociative Identity Disorder."

I was familiar with that term, it was the sort of thing we spent maybe a day on at some point in my second year. The prof only touched on it briefly, basically just enough to say what it was and that it was rare. Meanwhile the new hire was already contradicting our boss, before I had a chance to get a word in.

"I'd argue that point," Emma stated to Beverly. "That's a medical diagnosis which may or may not apply to a given individual. Plurality is not a medical term, nor is it necessarily a problem in and of itself. The key word in DID is the last one, disorder. If plurality isn't causing a patient stress or negatively impacting their life then it's not a disorder."

She added, "And from what I've read and first-hand accounts from people I've spoken with, in some cases of DID the most disruptive aspects of their condition don't stem from being plural but are more related to PTSD and the traumas they've endured."

"Of course," our boss conceded. Then she smiled and commented to me, "This is the unique talent Emma brings to the team. She has a fresh perspective, along with up-to-date training in her area of interest."

I looked to Emma and asked, "How does that work? Or, I suppose if someone's plural but not disordered, then what sort of help do you bring them? Do they even need help?"

She explained, "Plural patients can still suffer from anxiety, depression, addiction, and so on. Anything that can affect a singlet can also affect a system. However, treating a system as a singlet often won't work. Especially if only some members of the system are affected. A rough analogy would be like trying to treat someone for depression when it's actually their spouse or child who's depressed."

"System?" I asked.

Emma apologized, "Sorry, 'system' refers collectively to the various people or identities within a plural person."

At that point our boss spoke up, "Sorry to cut this short but we still need to review your schedule Theresa. Perhaps you and Emma could continue this conversation later?"

"Sorry boss," Emma apologized as she got to her feet. On her way back out of Bev's office she smiled at me and suggested, "Maybe we can talk more over lunch? Sorry I tend to ramble on about this stuff. It's a bit of a passion for me."

"Ok," was all I had time to say before she'd disappeared from view. Then my attention was back on Beverly as the two of us finally started discussing my new timetable.

The day settled down substantially after that, and before long things were almost completely back to the way they were before I'd graduated. I didn't have any clients of my own yet, but I had my own intro page on the practice's website. My business cards had been ordered and were due to arrive in a few days, and I had a fairly relaxed schedule for the next two weeks.

In the meantime I'd continue helping Bev, and I'd also be working with Emma here and there. Even though she'd done co-op work, every clinic had its own way of doing things and Beverly wanted me to make sure Emma knew how we did things at our practice.

When our lunch-break rolled around I ended up talking with Emma some more, though she didn't dominate the conversation quite like she had earlier. Instead she asked about my interests as a therapist, and what sorts of things I was focused on.

So I explained that my main goal was to provide queer patients with a safe, welcoming, and understanding environment where they were free to be themselves while we worked together on their mental health. And that I especially wanted to help young gay and trans people overcome the unique challenges they faced at home, at school, and elsewhere in their lives.

Emma gave me a knowing smile as she commented, "You quoted that almost word for word off your intro page on the website."

"Sorry," I mumbled as my cheeks went bright red. I hadn't meant to do that, but she'd sort of asked me the same question Bev did when we were putting my intro page together, so I gave her the same answer.

"No, don't apologize!" Emma insisted. "Honestly it was great to hear you say it. There was a passion in your voice that text on a screen just can't convey. I can tell you feel very strongly about helping queer people, and honestly Tess it makes me happy to hear it."

That put a smile on my face, and I found myself fidgeting with my engagement ring as I thought about my girlfriend and the magic she'd gifted me. I definitely had strong feelings about helping queer folks, but being able to perform miracles for them in the name of my queer Goddess girlfriend was something I couldn't exactly brag about to my co-workers.

Then Emma lowered her voice slightly, and in a vaguely conspiratorial tone she commented "That's actually one of the reasons I wasn't interested in continuing to work with Dr. Riley. He was a good prof and I'm sure he's good at what he does, but as a white cis-het neurotypical man he's got some serious blind spots when it comes to issues affecting marginalized folks. And unfortunately he gets grumpy whenever someone points those blind spots out to him."

I looked at her and in the same quiet tone responded, "Ah, gotcha. I get it, I've met some folks like that. You don't have to worry about that here though, Bev's pretty open-minded and accepting when it comes to those sorts of things."

"That's what I'd heard," she nodded. Then she glanced at the ring I was still fidgeting with and commented, "That's very pretty. And meaningful, I take it? You've been playing with it since you mentioned helping trans and gay youths."

I found myself blushing slightly again, "You're very observant. And yes, it's very important to me. It's an engagement ring, from my girlfriend."

Emma grinned, "Oh, congratulations!"

"Thank you," I smiled. "You mentioned you just remarried recently, right?"

"That's right," she replied happily. "My wife Carol and I met in my first year at university, she works in their IT department. We just celebrated our first anniversary in May."

I responded, "A belated happy anniversary to Carol and yourself then. And welcome to the clinic. I'm looking forward to working with you."

Despite my initial apprehension I found myself warming up to my new colleague. Knowing she was queer herself helped a lot, and beyond that she just seemed very friendly and approachable. And I had a feeling I'd be talking to her more about her area of interest at some point. Especially in light of my girlfriend's situation.

She thanked me, and the two of us chatted a bit more before our break ended and we both had to get back to work. Not that either of us were terribly busy, but I knew Bev would want us to at least look busy when clients came in.