The Last Place

“I think our hour is up,” she told the doctor.

“The intake interview usually takes a little longer. As my secretary told you when you made the appointment.”

“Oh.” She went back to combing the strings on the chair’s arms.

“How’s your appetite?” He was reading from the form again.

“Lusty.”

He smiled. Good, he had a sense of humor at least.

“Sexual desire?”

“Um-well, I’m hetero. I told you I had a boyfriend.”

“I’m asking if you’ve noticed any changes in your sex drive as of late, whether it’s increased or decreased.”

She had to think about this. Crow was only twenty-five, six years younger than she, and his need for sex was so regular that she seldom pondered her own level of desire. She ate at mealtime, she had sex at bedtime.

“No change. Actually, my relationship is one of the best things in my life.”

He looked up as if he had never heard a more startling revelation. Talk of good relationships must be suspect here, or rare. It was probably more common for people sitting in this wing chair to confide they were diaper-wearing shoplifters with a fetish for rutabagas.

“Good, good for you. Do you exercise regularly?”

“Almost obsessively.”

Another verbal minefield. He paused, his pen poised over the sheet clamped to his clipboard. “What makes you say that?”

“I was joking. I am pretty intense about my exercise regimen-it’s the reason I can afford to eat as much as I do, and I love to eat. I row in the warm-weather months, like now, and also run and lift weights. Rowing is great exercise, but it’s also very meditative. I get a little crazy in the winter, when I can’t get on the water.”

Crazy, she had just described herself as crazy. The word seemed to hover over her in a balloon, like an exclamation from some comic strip character. But Dr. Armistead didn’t seem to notice. He was double-checking his list, what he had checked off, what he hadn’t, trying to decide if she was naughty or nice.

“That seems to cover it. Now Theresa-”

“Tess, please.” Mickey Pechter had called her Theresa too.

“Tess. It’s clear you don’t want to be here. Even if I didn’t know your counseling was court-ordered, I could tell by your body language, your avoidance of eye contact, that you have no desire to enter therapy. Well, I’m going to let you in on a little secret. No one wants to be here. Many of my patients are here conditionally-because of substance abuse or arrangements they’ve made with their employers. Those who seek me out are unhappier still, almost desperate in their pain. I’m a doctor. No one likes to go to the doctor.”

“Or the dentist,” Tess said. “The dentist is even worse, for some reason.”

“All you have to do is show up every week for the next six months, and you’ll have fulfilled the court’s mandate. You can come in every week, on whatever day and time works best for you, and tell me you feel fine, and we can talk about the weather or the Orioles. I’ll make a mark on your card and you can take it to your probation officer, and everyone will be happy. Except you.”

“I am happy.”

“At times, perhaps. Certainly you have every reason to be. You’re an attractive woman with what appears to be a successful business. You’re in a relationship that sounds healthy and nurturing in every way. I think you drink more than you should, but you don’t seem to abuse alcohol or any other substances. So how do we reconcile that woman with the woman who decided to remove a man’s body hair and then, just for good measure, kicked him as hard as she could?”

“How can they know I kicked him?” Tess caught herself, horrified by what she had almost said. She had been about to point out that it could have been Whitney. She had stopped short of perjuring herself, but Judge Halsey would not be pleased if he learned she had withheld information. Less than one hour in therapy, and she was ready to give up a secret she had kept from everyone, even Crow.

“He had a bruised rib. It’s on the hospital report.” He looked at her keenly. “Is that what you meant? Why are you so surprised?”

“I just didn’t think a bruised rib showed, you know? But this is confidential, right? You can’t tell anyone what I say here?”

“Absolutely. Nothing you say here will be repeated to anyone, not even Judge Halsey.” He waited to see if she had anything else to say. She didn’t, but she was relieved to have the ground rules made explicit.

“Look, are we done yet? I know you said this could take longer than usual, but I told a friend I would meet her at the Casino Shop at noon. She wants to take me to lunch to make up for…” Tess’s voice trailed off. It wasn’t that she was, once again, about to implicate Whitney. No, Tess had been on the verge of saying to make up for me having to go through this crap, and she didn’t want to appear that hostile.

“The Casino Shop?” It was a thrift shop housed in the hospital’s old recreation hall, run by the ladies’ auxiliary. “Does she volunteer there?”

“She shops there, if you can believe it. She’s decided that she’s really into her heritage, but her heritage happens to be white-bread WASP. So she buys martini shakers, and those old mixing glasses that have drink recipes on the sides. In fact, she’s begun drinking sidecars and Manhattans. If anyone ought to be here, it should be her. She’s clearly nuts.”

And the Nair had been her idea, after all. Everyone thought Tess was the bad influence. If only they knew.

“I’ll keep that in mind. But for now, Tess, for the next six months, it’s you and me. Let’s make it worthwhile.”

“The problem is, I don’t have a problem.”

“Perhaps you’re right. But why don’t you open yourself to the possibility that our sessions can be beneficial-if not in the way the judge intended, then in some other ways instead. That won’t hurt, will it?”

She wanted to clutch her middle and stagger around the room, gasping “It hoits, it hoits,” like one of the Jets in West Side Story, taunting Officer Krupke. Instead, she shook Dr. Armistead’s hand and told him she would see him next week.

“I’ll even try to remember my dreams,” she promised.

“I would be curious to hear about the bad ones, but it’s not required. We do more than dreams in psychotherapy.”

“Yeah, but my dreams may be all we have. What can I tell you, Doctor? Despite what the judge thinks, I’m just not that angry.”

The eyebrows shot up, twin caterpillars caught by a sudden gust of wind. He could not have looked more skeptical.

CHAPTER 4

“What do you think about this?” Whitney opened a grocery bag and pulled out a lamp with a crude wooden base and a yellowed parchment shade that showed mallards in flight.

“It looks like someone’s shop project,” Tess said, grateful for the Corner Stable’s reliable gloom. “And not even a high school shop project, but middle school shop, or from the arts and craft class at a camp for children with no motor skills.”

“I know it’s kitschy, but I thought it was good kitsch, not bad kitsch.” Whitney never sounded more WASPish than when she attempted a word like kitsch, which wasn’t Yiddish but should be. Still, her mere proximity to the item did give it a certain cachet. With her sharp-featured face and chin-length bob of butter-yellow hair, Whitney had an aristocratic air that was virtually contagious. The Corner Stable looked better because she was sitting in it, and the lamp was almost tolerable as long as she was holding it. Almost.

The problem was, Whitney couldn’t hold it all the time. Not unless she wanted to become the Statue of Liberty of Greenspring Valley, raising her mallard ducks to the skies, a beacon welcoming the waves of nouveau riche that continued to wash up on her shores.

“Trust me, it’s bad kitsch. If I look at it much longer, I’ll have nightmares. Which would at least give me something to talk about to Herr Doktor next week.”