What Looks Like Crazy (8 page)

I tapped on the bathroom door. “Mr. Lewey, it's me, Kate. Are you okay?”

“No, I'm
not
okay,” he said. “I'm hyperventilating, and I'm not coming out until those people leave.”

I could hear the anxiety in his voice, but I knew the crowd wouldn't leave until they'd eaten every last doughnut and croissant. Some of the seniors would ask for to-go bags.

“Please let me in, Mr. Lewey,” I said.

“Are you alone?”

“Scout's honor.”

The lock clicked, and he peered through the slit. He did a double take at my dress. “How come you're dressed like a call girl?”

“Just let me in, okay?”

He stepped back. I scooted inside, and he slammed the door behind me and locked it again.

“I shouldn't have scheduled you for this morning,” I said. “I forgot we'd have visitors.”

He was trembling. “This is going to set me way back.”

“It doesn't have to, Mr. Lewey. Do you think you could follow me to my office?”

He put the toilet lid down and sat. “No way am I going out there.”

“Perhaps if we tried a deep-breathing exercise,” I suggested.

“How do you expect me to relax when I'm sitting on a toilet and you're wearing that dress?”

“This will be an excellent learning tool for you, Mr. Lewey. It is important for you to know that you can call on the skills you've learned, no matter where you are.”

He seemed to be considering it, when a sharp knock on the bathroom door startled me and made him jump.

“Don't let anyone in here!” he yelled.

Mona called out from the other side. I cracked open the door. “What are you guys doing in there?” she said.

“We're in the middle of a session.”

Mona smacked her forehead. “Silly me. I should have known that.” She leaned closer and whispered, “Jay's out front. He said he had something you'd want.” Mona sighed. “I have to tell you, I got goose pimples just thinking about it.”

I hoped Jay had my thong. “Mr. Lewey, I have to step out for a minute,” I said. “Mona will guard the door while I'm gone. Just work on your breathing techniques.”

I spied Jay eating a chocolate éclair and talking to one of the residents of the retirement home. I motioned him toward my office, and he stepped inside. I caught the scent of his aftershave, and my stomach did a flip-flop. “I'm in the middle of a session,” I said, trying to control my breathing.

“You're holding a session in the bathroom in
that
dress?” He popped the last of the éclair in his mouth.

I watched him chew and had images of that mouth kissing my neck, my eyelids, and my breasts. I had images of those lips pressed inside my thighs. I tried to reel in my thoughts. “Did I happen to leave anything at your place?”

“Why did you run out on me, Katie? I didn't hear the fire alarm go off.”

The look in his eyes made my heart skip a beat. “It's complicated.”

“You
make
it complicated.” He reached into the pocket of his jeans and pulled out my thong.

I snatched it from him and tried to slip it on discreetly. “I have to get back now.” I put my hand on the doorknob.

He covered my hand with his. “Call me.”

“Yeah, okay.”

“I'm serious, Katie. We need to talk.” He pulled a pen from his pocket, took my hand, and wrote a phone number on my open palm.

My breath caught in the back of my throat as I noted the way his dark hair fell against his forehead, as I recalled running my fingers through it, smelling the scent of his shampoo.

“My cell number, in case you've forgotten it,” he said. He raised my palm to his face and pressed his lips against it. I bit my bottom lip to keep from sighing in pleasure.

It was well
past lunchtime, and I'd seen three patients. Thanks to Mona's housekeeper, I was finally dressed appropriately and wearing regular panties. With an hour to kill until my next patient, I decided to treat Mona to lunch at the sandwich shop downstairs. She wasn't at her desk, so I hurried down the hall, thinking I might find her in the kitchenette.

I paused at the doorway. Sitting in a chair at the table was a middle-aged woman reading a magazine. Her feet were propped on another chair, where a much younger woman in a white lab coat was applying polish to the woman's toenails.

The girl looked up and smiled. “You must be Dr. Holly.”

I nodded. “Have we met?”

“I'm Nancy. I used to be the manicurist at the salon downstairs. I don't remember seeing you. Mona said you don't get many manicures.”

I looked at the woman in the chair.

“I'm Ida,” she said, glancing at me from over her magazine.

“Mona said it would be okay if I used the kitchen until I find another job,” Nancy said.

She couldn't have been more than eighteen or nineteen. “Where is Mona, by the way?” I asked.

“She's having lunch with her boyfriend. I told her I would answer the phone while she was out.” Nancy had barely gotten the words out of her mouth before the phone rang on Mona's desk. “Oops, there it is.” She hurried from the room.

“So you're a psychologist, eh?” Ida said.

I nodded and turned to go.

“Maybe you could give me your opinion.”

I knew what was coming. The minute people discovered I was a psychologist, they proceeded to tell me about some friend or family member who had always acted odd, and I was expected to diagnose that person on the spot. “I doubt I can help you,” I said.

“It's about Nancy,” Ida said as though she hadn't heard me.

“I've just met her,” I said. “I don't know anything about her.”

“Well, I'm concerned. I don't want to hurt her feelings, but I think this toenail polish has too much orange in it. What do you think?”

 

“I brought you
a sandwich,” Mona said, only minutes before my next patient was due to arrive. I motioned her inside my office and told her to close the door.

“Why do we have a nail salon in the kitchen?” I asked.

“Nancy's boss fired her,” Mona whispered. “Said she wasn't bringing in enough customers,” she added.

“How many laws are we breaking, since we don't actually have a license to operate a nail salon?” I asked.

“It's only temporary. Till Nancy finds a job. She doesn't want to lose her regular customers in the meantime. Plus it works to our advantage, on account of I've come up with this great marketing plan.”

I tried to hold my fear at bay. “What marketing plan?”

“For the next two weeks, all new patients get a free manicure. The ad is in today's paper. There's a coupon.”

I just looked at her. “Mona, does it strike you as odd that none of the other businesses in this building offer open houses or coupons for manicures?”

“Kate, as your publicist, I need to remind you: Trust me.” She checked her wristwatch. “You'd better eat that sandwich fast. Your next appointment will be here any minute.” She excused herself and headed toward the restroom.

The phone rang, and I answered it.

“I need to speak to Dr. Holly,” a male voice said.

“This is Dr. Holly.”

“You're a nuisance,” he said. “A troublemaker,” he added. “I don't like troublemakers.”

I noticed he had a lisp. “Who is this?” I asked.

“You don't need to know my name. Stop making trouble, and I won't make trouble for you.”

He hung up, and I stared at the phone.

“What's wrong?” Mona asked when she came out of the bathroom a few minutes later. I realized I was still holding the phone. I could feel my mouth hanging open.

I repeated what the man had said. Mona and I simply stared at each other, perplexed frowns on our faces. It suddenly hit me. “I'll bet you anything he's a member of Bitsy Stout's church. They're all a bunch of nutcases. Bitsy put him up to it to scare me.” I told Mona about my statue.

“He threatened you,” Mona said. “You should call the police.”

“I can't prove anything,” I told her. “I don't even know his name.”

“Would you recognize his voice again if you heard it?”

I thought about the lisp. “Yeah.”

Mona shook her head. “I don't like this, Kate. You don't want some crazy religious fanatic coming after you. Watch your back.”

I gave a mental sigh. Like I didn't have enough to think about these days, I thought.

 

According to the
DSM—the
Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders
, published by the American Psychiatric Association—Cynthia Reed suffered from body dysmorphia. To put it plainly, she imagined grotesque physical defects and spent much of her time and money on plastic surgery. At thirty, she had already been nipped, tucked, plumped, lifted, and suctioned, and although the results had made her prettier in some ways, I was concerned. A lot of body dysmorphics continue to have enough work done that they end up looking odd.

I'd only recently begun seeing Cynthia, but she had agreed not to have any body parts changed or rearranged without discussing it with me beforehand. Which was why I was more than a little disappointed when Mona slipped into my office to announce Cynthia's arrival and inform me that she'd had another procedure.

“Holy cow,” Mona whispered. “She's had her lips plumped again. If they get any bigger, she'll be able to give blow jobs from across the room.”

I should have known something was up. Cynthia had cancelled her appointments two weeks in a row. The first time was allegedly to take her ailing mother to the doctor. “Did you say anything to her?” I asked.

Mona shook her head. “What? You think I'm that insensitive?”

When Cynthia sat down in my office, I pretended not to notice her lips. She was an advertising executive and was always dressed to the nines. “How's your mother?” I asked.

She gave me a funny look, as if she expected me to reprimand her for falling off the plastic surgery wagon. “She's better,” Cynthia said. “It was her blood pressure. Her cholesterol was high. She has gained thirty pounds in the last couple of years, and it's causing health problems. Dad is furious with her, of course.”

Cynthia's father was a health nut and had been for years. He was obsessive—measuring and weighing his food, keeping exercise journals. And he was highly critical of Cynthia's mother and, I suspected, Cynthia as well. Although Cynthia resented the constant tension when she visited, there was a part of her that didn't want to disappoint her father and risk losing his love.

“I am so angry with my father for making Mom feel bad about herself,” Cynthia said. “I have to bite my tongue not to say anything.”

“What would happen if you or your mother told him how you felt?”

“He'd get mad.”

“What does he do when he gets mad?”

“He pouts. He goes hours, days, weeks without saying anything.”

I nodded. I don't like pouting. It creates tension and prolongs issues that need to be aired and solved. I suspected Cynthia's father, who was obviously a control freak, gained a certain amount of control through his pouting. “What would happen if you and your mother ignored the pouting?”

“It's hard to ignore,” Cynthia said.

“But suppose you tried. Suppose you and your mother went shopping or out to lunch and left him alone to pout?”

She seemed to think about it. Finally she smiled. “There'd be nobody around to watch him do it. I guess it would be a drag for him, huh?”

“It would definitely take the fun out of it,” I said, smiling too. “It's hard to be a really good pouter without an audience.”

Her smile faded, and she looked thoughtful. “I just wish he'd stop.”

“Why should he, when it gets him what he wants?” I asked. “When he has a wife and daughter who go to so much trouble to win his approval?”

Cynthia averted her gaze. She folded her arms and sat quietly. It appeared as though she was trying to hug herself, to provide the comfort and closeness and, especially, the acceptance she'd probably never gotten from her father.

It amazes me how many well-meaning parents screw up their kids' lives. If it weren't for poor parenting, I'd be out of business. I dreaded having kids, because I knew I'd screw up their lives just like my mother had screwed up mine. It's like a torch that must be passed from generation to generation.

“He has made me feel bad about myself for a long time,” Cynthia finally said. “When I was a little girl, I was chubby. He called me—” She reached for a tissue and dabbed her eyes. “He called me Doodlebug. Do you know what doodlebugs look like? They roll up into fat little balls when they're scared. I hate him for making me feel like a fat bug,” she added. “He
still
calls me Doodlebug, and he knows I hate it.”

I just nodded.

“And you know what's worse? He used to have a weight problem when he was younger. Who does he think he is, making people feel fat? Not just fat,” she said, “but not good enough. I've felt that way my entire life.” Her bottom lip trembled. “I hate feeling bad about myself.”

“Especially when you have so much going for you,” I pointed out. “You have a great career. You own a lovely home, and—”

“And I have wonderful friends who like and respect me,” she added. “Most men find me very attractive.”

“You
are
very attractive,” I said, although I feared that one or two more times under the knife would cut away her nicest features. But the only person who could convince Cynthia she was good enough, inside and out, was Cynthia.

This idea is so elementary that I don't know why everybody, including me, doesn't get it. No, we have to drag ourselves through a mire of angst in order to figure it out.

Cynthia was probably going to have to confront her father to get validation of her feelings before she could begin to heal.

“Have you ever thought of telling your father how you feel?” I asked.

“Many times,” she said. “But I can never work up the nerve. Plus—” She paused again and swiped at more tears. “It would be painful. And when I'm in pain, I get angry. Really angry. I'm afraid I would lose control.”

“Perhaps you could practice by writing down what you'd like to say to him. Sometimes writing things down helps ease the pain and anger,” I added.

She nodded, but the tears continued to fall. There are times when it's best to keep quiet and let people cry. So I let Cynthia cry, and I made sure she had fresh tissues when she needed them.

It's not easy for me to watch people go through pain. Nor is it easy for me to remain professionally detached. But it's the only way I can help them. If I allow myself to get mired in their suffering, I'll go under with them. Somebody has to stand onshore ready to throw the life preserver.

My job could really depress me if I let it. I guess that's why some therapists become cynical or make bad jokes. That's why I was so familiar with the protective shield Jack Hix used against his nagging wife.

In my mind, I had a special closet filled with nooks and crannies, and that's where I stuffed all the really bad crap I heard. I couldn't afford to carry it around with me on a daily basis. I'd had to teach some of my more troubled patients to do the same thing between sessions so that they could carry on their lives outside my office.

Finally Cynthia's tears subsided. I'll admit I was impressed. Most women end up with mascara running down their faces. Cynthia's mascara was obviously waterproof.

“How are you feeling?” I asked.

“Much better,” she said. “I didn't realize I was so hurt.”

“I'm glad you were able to get some of it out,” I said gently.

I reached for my appointment book. Cynthia had spent so much time crying that her session had ended. But it was just as well: I suspected she had been through enough for one day.

“Do you think you could come back on Friday?” I asked.

She looked surprised. “So soon?”

I nodded. I figured that since Cynthia was in touch with all her pain, it would be best to get her back in as soon as possible, or she might end up with a bad nose job. We agreed on a time. “I'm going to give you some homework,” I said. “I'd like for you to write a letter to your father and bring it with you next time.”