The Breakup Doctor (19 page)

“Duncan O'Neill?” I asked, extending a hand.

“In the flesh.”

“Brook Ogden.”

“Yes. The Breakup Doctor.”

I cringed at the title as we settled back down at the table and gave the waiter our orders. When the server left, Duncan leaned back in his chair and tented his fingers.

“I'm about to tell you all about my relationship woes, which are between me and my husband, Wagner, and I'm desperately hoping you're the sort who's as open-minded as you seem from your column.” He'd put emphasis on the word
husband
,
watching me closely as he said it.

I nodded. “Love can be complicated no matter who you're with. Ready when you are.”

His expression cleared. “Wonderful. I had a feeling from your column. You just sounded...fair.”

My juice came and I took a long sip, hoping it would revitalize my confidence.

Duncan waited until our waiter had finished warming his coffee and left. “Well. Wagner and I have been together for ten years,” he began. “Which is like dog years in a gay relationship—each one counts for seven hetero years. We were married in Canada in 2007, and have been inordinately happy far more often than not. There's no one else I'd rather do things with, tell things to, or even argue with. He's more than my lover—he's my best friend, and I flatter myself that I'm his.”

I felt an ache in the back of my throat. It sounded...lovely. I nodded for him to go on.

Duncan paused and looked out over the bay, where a midsize Regal was just puttering in alongside the restaurant's dock to tie off.

Then he gave a hard sigh and continued. “One of the things that makes us work so well, in my opinion, is that we have always had an understanding about extramarital relationships. Things...happen—but we both agree they must be strictly physical and are kept completely separate from our marriage.”

He stopped talking to take a sip of his coffee but his eyes never left my face, and one corner of his mouth lifted into a smile.

“You're doing a lovely job of not reacting to that, dear, but I can feel your surprise from here.”

Actually, I was thinking who in the hell was I to judge anyone else's choices?

Duncan put down his cup and leaned forward. “You're a mental health professional—how often do the studies say men think about sex?”

“Every seven seconds, according to the Kinsey report,” I answered automatically.

Duncan nodded. “Well, that's a bit overstated. But I can tell you—it's pretty often. You get
two
men together, and it's a safe bet that most of the time, one of us is thinking about having sex. Wagner and I
are
in love. Deeply. But we're realistic, and we both know there's no sense throwing away something as solid and rare as what we have over the occasional insurmountable impulse.”

A pelican lit on the wooden dock just underneath the patio where we sat, its scoopy beak bobbing up into the air as it swallowed whatever it had just plucked out of the water. I tried not to come to snap judgments about people in my practice, but I did pay attention to my instincts. I liked Duncan O'Neill. I wished I had his self-assurance.

“You two sound like you have a committed, healthy relationship,” I said honestly, “on terms you both agree upon.”

The cheerful, open expression abruptly left Duncan's face, and the downcast look that replaced it seemed out of place. “Yes, well, I thought so too. Until recently.”

The waiter sidled back up to our table, delicately setting the plates in his hands down in front of us.

Steam was still rising off my omelet, along with a delicious, spicy scent, but I couldn't have forced a bite down.

Duncan unfolded his napkin and set it down in his lap, staring down at it for a moment. Perhaps he was reflecting on my complete inadequacy to help him, or anyone else. “I feel like such a pathetic fool,” he muttered, so softly I almost missed it.

He
felt like a fool? Before I thought about what I was doing, I reached under the table and gripped his thigh. Duncan looked up at me, startled. That made two of us. I retracted my hand. “You're not a fool, Duncan. Or stupid. You're just...trying to cope with your pain.”

He smiled, a small one. “Thank you,” he said quietly, and the constriction in my throat eased ever so slightly. When he picked up his fork and started to eat, so did I. Between bites Duncan started telling me the rest.

“Wagner drinks a bit. That's not an issue,” he said, holding up a hand. “I drink a bit too—spirits can blunt life's harsher edges, as long as you don't use them as a crutch too often. But sometimes, well, he can...overdo it. As can we all,” he hastened to add. “But when Wagner does it...” He trailed off and then stopped, and I waited, not wanting to interrupt. “When Wagner does it, sometimes he turns...he turns...”

My stomach sank.
Violent
, was what I feared Duncan was about to say, and no one should tolerate that.

Duncan seemed to be choking on his words. “He turns
straight
!”

I blinked. “What?”

“He flirts—outrageously!—with
women
.” He looked so miserable and horrified that I wanted to get up and hug him.

“Is that part of your agreement?” I asked.

“Absolutely not!”

I clattered my fork down to my plate. “Then that is bullshit, my friend. Total unacceptable bullshit.” Even as the words were leaving my mouth, I was horrified at myself. Where was Wise Therapist?

“I know!”

“Does he do more than flirt?”

“I don't know,” he said sadly. “We've always kept that part separate from each other, out of respect. So I can't ask, can I, after we both agreed to those terms nearly a decade ago?”

“You most certainly
can
ask. In fact, you have an inalienable
right
to.” Wise Therapist had apparently ceded the floor to righteous Founding Father. My usual careful phrasing was nowhere to be found, my tongue tripping along without any input at all from my brain. “So let me get it straight: It's not the idea that he's screwing around that's suddenly bothering you, right?”

“Of course not. A man has needs.”

“It's that it might be with a woman sometimes?”

His face crumpled. “Yes! I just can't handle it, and I'm afraid we've come up against a brick wall. I don't see any alternative but to end it all.”

My heart leaped in alarm. “Oh, Duncan, suicide is never—”

He cut me off with a dismissive snort. “Of course not suicide, dear. Not my style. I meant
us
...our marriage.”

“Oh. Well, have you talked to Wagner about this?”

“No. One of the things that makes us work is that we don't indulge in petty jealousies.”

“But this
isn't
petty to you!” I sputtered.

“I can't
say
anything,” he wailed. “What if he...what if he thinks I'm insecure? It's so unattractive.”

“But that's how you're feeling, isn't it?” His fingers curled around mine and I realized at some point I'd reached across the table to put my hand over his. Disconcerted, I gave an awkward squeeze before pulling my hand back. “You told me yourself Wagner's your best friend. If you can't tell your best friend when you're worried about something, or hurt, or yes, even insecure, something's a little off, isn't it?” Guilt flared inside me as I spoke the words. Wasn't that what I was doing with Sasha?

But this wasn't about me. This was about Duncan.

“At least
talk
to him,” I said. “Tell him exactly how you feel—have an honest, straightforward discussion about it. You owe each other that much.”

He frowned, but nodded.

I pulled a small notebook from my purse. “Look, I'm going to make a list of some specific questions you might ask him—and some you might ask yourself—to start to know exactly what you're dealing with.” What was I doing? My job was simply to lead the horses to water, not shove their faces into the river and make them drink.

But Duncan had brightened at my words. “Oh, that's very helpful. It's hard to think straight sometimes when I'm so upset about it.”

I looked up and gave him a real smile. “Of course it is. We're not wired to think calmly during a crisis—we're wired for fight or flight. Sitting and facing the tough stuff flies in the face of human nature.”

“You're very kind, you know that? I expected your wisdom. But your warmth is a lovely bonus.”

I felt myself flush. I wasn't at all acting like the kind of therapist I'd been trained to be. I'd cursed, initiated physical contact, and objectivity was out the window. I was acting like Duncan was a friend—like he was Sasha, rather than a professional client. And as for wisdom...clearly I was no expert on how to handle relationship issues. I didn't know what to say, so I just tore the page I was writing on from the notebook and handed it over.

When we finished eating I paid the bill and we stood to leave. Duncan reached out a hand to shake mine. I wasn't sure who was more surprised when I leaned forward instead and pulled him into a quick hug. Wise Therapist had now been taken over by a Care Bear.

“It's going to be okay, Duncan,” I said when we broke apart, my hand still on his shoulder. “Whatever happens, you're going to be fine.”

“I feel worlds better already,” Duncan said. “Thank you. I'll start working on my homework right away, and I'll be in touch soon to get together again.”

“Good. Don't you back down—you deserve to know what's going on.”

Duncan was looking at me with a warm, genuine smile. “It must be lovely to always know the right thing to do. That kind of certainty is such a gift.”

I pushed out a smile and said goodbye, hoping he couldn't read in my face what a fraud I actually was.

twenty-two

  

Tattoo in haste, repent at leisure. It turned out that removing a tattoo took a lot more time—and money—than getting one. The doctor estimated that mine would take nine to twelve treatments to fully remove, at $270 a pop, with seven to eight weeks of recovery time between each session—and we couldn't even start until the freshly tattooed skin had healed. That meant that one night's stupid, drunken decision would take me more than a year to undo. If I was lucky, the treatments wouldn't leave a visible scar—but they would likely do nothing to erase my invisible shame.

Between that, client meetings and keeping up with my column, and heading over to Dad's whenever I had any downtime to make sure he wasn't left alone too much and had food in his refrigerator, the next week passed by in a blur. I hardly saw Sasha. Partly I was avoiding her—I felt guilty at keeping so much from her. But she was out nearly every night anyway, and I feared she was back to her old relationship patterns.

But I was hardly in a position to judge.

At the end of the week my dad pronounced my house dry and mold-free.

“How's about Monday to start the work—good for you?” he asked as we dropped off his tools in my garage, along with the supplies we'd bought at Home Depot to fix the drywall. “Hate to interrupt your weekend with Kendall.”

I flinched. I kept meaning to tell him, but every time I opened my mouth I thought about my dad all by himself in his house, lonely and miserable and missing my mom. I didn't want to give him one more thing to worry about. I was keeping an awful lot of things from an awful lot of people lately.

“Monday's fine, Daddy.” Lately the childish nickname kept slipping out.

Dad wiped his hands on a rag he'd tucked into his belt. “Hey, you hear about your mom, gonna be in the paper?” He actually sounded proud.

“Did she call you?”

“Oh, well, you know, she's really immersing herself in the play. That's a hell of a role she's got there. Stu told me.”

“Did
Stu
talk to her?”

“I wish you'd give her a ring, hon. Check on her. Let her know you're thinking of her.”

I pressed my lips shut so I wouldn't spit out what popped to mind, which was,
But I'm
not
thinking of her
.

“I've been pretty busy myself, Dad,” I hedged instead.

My father looked down at the towel clutched in his hands, his body seeming to sag. “She's still your mom, Brook.”

Yeah. I wished
she'd
remember that.

After he left I drove back over to Sasha's to pick up my things. With the mold cleared up there was no reason for me not to be at my own house, but I wasn't in any hurry to leave. Maybe I'd stay one more night and move back home in the morning, and tonight we could have a silly, giggly slumber party together, like we used to when we were kids.

But Sasha was in her bathroom putting on fresh makeup when I let myself in at her apartment. She had on a fitted sleeveless black wraparound top, with a pair of flowing cream palazzo pants that would have looked overdone on anyone else, and I knew without her telling me that she already had plans.

“You look hot,” I told her honestly. “Another date?”

She smiled. “Same one.”

I sighed. “Oh, Sash. Don't you think it's a bit much, a bit fast?”

Sasha shrugged, her smile disappearing.

I felt bad. “Maybe we can do something tomorrow night?”

“We
are
doing something tomorrow night. Jan and Faryn's party.”

“Oh, I forgot.” I sagged against the jamb. “I hadn't planned on going to that this year, with...everything else.”

“We always go. It's awesome.”

“Sash, at last year's party you woke up in a clearing on Faryn's neighbor's property—three houses down. You threw up green for two days from Jell-O shots. I had skid marks on my elbows for a week and a half from where I took a facer after you convinced me to get on your shoulders and play chicken against Spencer Halloway and Hunt Jackson.”

“Right? How fun was
that
!” Sasha dipped a fat, fluffy brush into a vat of loose powder and then tapped it on the side, most of the powder sprinkling off. “You
have
to go. We always have a blast there. It'll be good for you.” She shrugged. “You never know—maybe you'll even meet someone.”

“Among the same people from high school who've been coming every single year since we graduated? Doubtful.”

Her forehead wrinkled up at my acidic tone. “Brook, I'm worried about you.”

I moved my gaze from hers in the mirror. “Don't be. I'm fine.”

She turned to face me directly. “You're
not
fine. How could you be?”

Her tone was the one you use with sick people who don't realize how ill they are, and she was regarding me with a concerned, pitying look I didn't like being on the receiving end of. At all.

“Really, Sash,” I said, reaching down to the lipsticks lined up on the counter and making a show of investigating each color, “I'm totally okay. I've even kind of met someone.”

I wanted to snatch back the words the second I'd uttered them. I'd only meant to deflect her—not tell an out-and-out lie. But her entire demeanor had changed as soon as she heard the words, and I knew a Gitmo-worthy interrogation was coming.

“You did! Who? Where?”

I yelped—loudly. Her playful slap wasn't that hard, but it landed right on my still-healing tattoo.

“Oh, don't be so dramatic,” Sasha said, with a roll of her eyes. Then she turned thoughtful. “You know, maybe this
is
just what you need—a couple of dates with someone nice who can get your mind of off Ken”—she bit off the word—“things. Where'd you meet him?”

I racked my brain frantically. For a second I thought about using my new client Duncan as my fictional potential new boyfriend, but I didn't think I could sustain that with any believability if she asked too many questions. Before I thought it through, I blurted, “At the hospital. The night I got my tetanus shot.”

Mistake.

“Brook!” Her arms were crossed and storm clouds knotted her brow. “That was two
weeks
ago! Why didn't you tell me!” Then her eyes got huge and she gasped. “That was even before you and K—” Again she caught herself. “Sneaky girl. You know what? Good for you. What's his name? What's he do?”

Mortifyingly, to save my life I couldn't pull up the name of the man I'd met in the emergency waiting room, so I focused on the second question. “Uh, he's in building. A...construction worker.” I had no idea if that was exactly true, but it wasn't as though it mattered.

Sasha's forehead crinkled again, and then she shrugged. “Perfect. No possibility of commitment—the ideal rebound guy.”

“There's no such thing as an ‘ideal rebound guy,' Sash,” I replied automatically. “Rebound guys are a bad idea.”

“Are you kidding?” She pulled another brush from a leather case and turned back to the mirror to blend a light shadow along her brow bone. “They're part of the process. How else do you forget about your ex and feel good about yourself again?”

I watched her for a moment, struck dumb. How was it that after a lifetime of friendship with me, Sasha still hadn't absorbed
any
of the breakup rules? As the number one recipient of my post-dumping ministrations over the years, she was a terrible advertisement for my services.

“Sasha.” I kept my tone level—a patient parent guiding her child. “Rebound guys are just a way of avoiding dealing with the pain of a broken relationship.”

Sash stopped tapping her brush into a sparkly copper-colored eye shadow to give me a “well, duh” look. “That's the point.”

“No. Completely against the point. You have to work through your feelings so you can move past them. And the way you feel good about yourself is from inside—not outside.” I might not be walking the walk, but I could still talk the talk.

Sasha blew off her brush and set it into its space in the fancy leather case, retrieving a bigger one. “Blah blah blah. I've read all the self-help books. My way's quicker.”

What did it matter, anyway? If Sasha hadn't altered her breakup MO in more than twenty-five years of friendship with me, she wasn't going to start now.

By the time I pulled into my driveway, I was wondering if Sasha was right. Maybe the best way to forget an old love really was in the arms of a new one. Or as she said...if not to forget, at least feel better about yourself. I could use a little of that right about now.

Inside I threw my suitcase into a closet and dug around in my purse until I found what I was looking for.

And then I made a phone call.