The lady behind the reception desk has a name tag informing us that she is Darlene. Darlene is in her late fifties, wears fuchsia lipstick, and has a framed picture of her cat near her desktop. When she’s done gathering up the multitude of papers, she battles a stubborn stapler, hoping to keep the stack together.

We take a seat across from an elderly man and his wife. They are having an argument but doing so in a whisper. She looks like she’s rethinking every decision she’s ever made in life, and he looks like he’d sign away his soul for an exit—any exit. I guess the calming blue has failed to actually calm anyone.

My uncle plows through the paperwork, and I turn my focus on the coffee table in the center. I smile to myself, because I think I might have found reason number two.

There are three magazines on the table, all of them facedown, only the ads on the back showing. I turn to my uncle.

“If I turn these magazines over and there aren’t any Black people on there, that makes it number two, right?”

“Okay, but not just the cover. You have to look through the entire magazine.”

“Deal.”

I turn over the first magazine—Harper’s Bazaar.

We skim the pages.

Strike one.

“The next one could be O. You know how Oprah do,” he says, filled with hope. He turns over the second magazine—Redbook. It’s worth a look, and so we dive in.

Strike two.

The final magazine is mine to turn over. My heart actually skips. I need this to get me a step closer to getting the hell out of here. I turn the magazine over—Town & Country.

Ha! We don’t even need to open it—Gwyneth Paltrow is on the cover.

The light from the inner office spills out onto the waiting room and a woman enters the waiting area. She’s a white woman in her early sixties. She has clear gray eyes and wears a tasteful gray blouse and pencil skirt. My uncle stands up and prods me to do the same.

He leans in and whispers, “She’s already here, so no, there is no time for strike three. The school says she’s helped other students. Try it, Bit-Bit.”

Damn it. There has to be a way to get out of this . . .

She extends her hand to me and smiles warmly. “Hello, my name is Dr. Wolkoff. It’s nice to meet you.”

We shake hands. I try something. “Hello, I’m Ayomide.”

“Hello, Ayomide,” she replies.

Damn.

Perfect pronunciation.

My uncle grins because he knows he’s won. We begin to head back toward her office, but then it hits me . . .

I call out to her, “Doc, I’ve had this song stuck in my head all day. Do you know what it is?”

“Hum it,” she says.