Intensive Therapy Part 15

Glad to be alone, Jonas rushed through his checklist without much enthusiasm. The talk with Jennie about Gil and Gracie was still on his mind. Jonas surveyed the three haphazard stacks of journals on his couch, which hadn't been used for cla.s.sical psychoa.n.a.lysis in twelve years. The view across Madison Avenue was dismal, Mount Sinai's Guggenheim Pavilion looking like the t.i.tanic on end just before it sank.

At 4:30 PM, the telephone began droning: meep-meep, pause, meep-meep; meep-meep, pause, meep-meep. Had his family or a colleague needed him, they would have called on his cell phone. Maybe it's a new patient, he thought; although, that seemed unlikely.

The sounds reminded Jonas of the heart monitor in the intensive care unit the night his father died, the trauma of which propelled him into psychoa.n.a.lysis with Fowler.

"This is Dr. Speller," he said dispa.s.sionately into the handset.

"Oh," said a surprised woman's voice. "I didn't expect anyone to answer. I thought I'd get a message. My name is Victoria. I doubt you remember me ..."

Jonas's heart flipped over backward. "You don't know if I remember? How could you think such a thing? What is it, Victoria? What's happened?"

"I ... I ... it's ... it's ... my Melinda. I have a daughter. I have a son, too. Gregory. This is so strange. You can't imagine, or maybe you can. Or even if you can't it doesn't matter. Well, here I am. Or is it here we are? I told Martin I was going to call someone. I can't believe I ... Martin, that's my husband. I looked online. I thought I might not find you, or that maybe you had died. I knew that was silly. But I thought it anyway. Thank G.o.d you're alive. It's been so awful. You won't believe it." Victoria stopped abruptly, as if she needed to catch her breath. "Where are you?"

"In my office on Madison Avenue at Ninety-eighth Street, on the seventh floor. Guess I haven't moved up in the world much. And you?"

"I'm a lawyer in Center City. So's my husband, Martin. We live on Rittenhouse Square in the townhouse we practice in. I'm looking out of my office now. It's drizzling. Everyone's wearing raincoats and carrying briefcases and umbrellas with wooden handles. The only things missing are the derbies and apples. I'm becoming one of them."

"I love Magritte," Jonas said. "This is amazing. I was just thinking about Philadelphia before you called. What's the matter? You sound worried."

"It's about my daughter, Melinda. Something's very wrong with her. She's been just horrible."

"Are you sure it's not about you?"

"That, too. I told my husband I was losing my mind. But you're two steps ahead of me-let me catch up. Either your mind is faster or mine has slowed down, although it never stops racing."

"Someone's coming for a session in a few minutes. Let's set a time for us to talk."

"I need to see you. Soon," Victoria said.

"Fine. I can probably shake loose sometime tomorrow."

"Now that I hear you, I don't want to wait. What about this evening?"

"Seriously?"

"I'm fifteen minutes from the Thirtieth Street Station. Trains leave every hour. There's a five-fifteen Acela train that gets in around six thirty. What's the fastest way from the station?"

"A cab'll take forever. Come by subway. Follow the signs and look at a transit map. Take the blue line ..."

"I'll figure it out."

"When you get to Ninety-sixth Street, turn right on Madison and go two blocks. The building looks like a hairbrush; it's so ugly you can't miss it. I'm in 716. You'll have to sign in. What name shall I say?"

"My license says Victoria Schone-Braun. I should be there by seven. Are you sure that's not too late?"

"Not at all. I have a dinner meeting I can miss. Call my cell phone if you have any problem." He gave her the number. "I'll call Jennie and tell her an emergency came up."

"I'm on my way."

Victoria. Jonas was so glad to hear her voice. A slide show of memories played through his mind: waiting for her after she tore out of his office that first day; running into each other at the pizzeria and the baseball game; the bakery and the Lake George dreams; even her identification with Esther in Bleak House; and their emotional farewell. Her poem had hung in every office he ever occupied.

So much had happened in the last twenty years: marrying Jennie; moving to New York and starting a practice; Jennie's breast cancer; adopting Gil and Grace; Speller and Bodenheim's ascendancy in New York's legal world; the accolades Jonas received for his papers and workshops integrating psychodynamic theory, behaviorism, and neurobiology as the Prozac era evolved. Yet Victoria's call reminded him that something was missing.

Jonas's next session was at 5:00 PM. Prominent Manhattan socialite Jill McCutcheon had been arrested for shoplifting a four-carat diamond from Tiffany's while in a cocaine-enhanced hypomania. The scandal made the front page of both of New York's tabloids: The Daily News, "Gotham's Diamond Jill"; and The New York Post, "The Party's Over."

"So, Jill," began Jonas, imagining Victoria on her way to Penn Station. "How've you been this week?"

"The medication is finally working," Jill said. "You were right about my needing huge dosages."

"That's because your metabolism is still revved up from all the cocaine. Your body burns medicine like a furnace. Is the Lithium blunting your thinking or making you gain weight?"

"No. So far so good," Jill responded. "Although I wish people at Narcotics Anonymous didn't recognize me. It seems like everyone knows what happened to me. Something touching happened at Saint Vincent's last Thursday. After I told my story, a purple-haired girl who sounded higher than the Empire State Building said, 'That's so f.u.c.ked up.'

"A Ha.s.sidic man hooked on Oxycontin said, 'I've felt like stealing diamonds for years. It would be easy to palm one. The one I wanted most was flawless; it must have weighed five carats. And it had nothing to do with money. I felt it was looted by the n.a.z.is, and I imagined being G.o.d's messenger returning it to its owner's descendants.'

"'Yeah, yeah,' the girl said. 'You kleptos are all the same. You've got an excuse for everything.' That whacked me in the gut, because somehow in my mind, I felt I had a right to the diamond I stole."

Even with half his brain on task, Jonas picked up on Jill's sense of ent.i.tlement. He said, "Did anything come up in connection with the last session?"

"You mean about my parents?"

Jonas nodded.

"You remember me saying that when my father was a state senator, he trotted me and my mother out for his election campaigns. He treated us like the family jewels, which has to be why I stole one. Then, it hit me. I coveted the diamond pendant my mother used to wear. Get this. The diamond I stole was bigger than hers."

"Diamond envy?" Jonas chuckled aloud.

"I know. It's so trite, wanting a bigger diamond than my mother's."

"You wouldn't have acted out the fantasy if the urge hadn't been fanned by your cocaine-laced soirees."

"It's all connected. My parents hosted a notorious salon for New York's glitterati. The city's most famous writers, composers, and actors sipped and sniffed away their evenings right in my living room. Sometimes, I'd wake up in the middle of the night hearing the piano and the laughter. I felt left out. I promised myself that when I grew up, my parties would be the envy of all New York."

"Some psychiatrists might call that a delusion of grandeur," Jonas said later, as Jill's session drew to a close. "But I disagree. I think you've been intoxicated with the belief that in order to be worth something, you have to be the hostess of hostesses in the world's most glamorous city. Dreams like that die hard. Believe me, I know. Diamonds are pretty, but time is more precious. You're thirty years old, Jill. Do something with your life. The clock's ticking."

And so were the minutes until Victoria appeared.

30.

Thirty seconds before seven o'clock, Victoria arrived, pulling a Tumi Rollaboard. One glance and Jonas felt as if her last appointment had been only a week ago. Victoria had become a stunning woman. The way her eyes darted around his office was so familiar it reminded him of their first appointment.

"Well," she said, still breathless from rushing. "Here I am."

"So you are. It's so good to see you," Jonas said.

"I need a moment to settle." Victoria meandered around the office. There was the old-the Academy poster, her Robert Frost poem, and the new-a three-generation family picture of Jonas and his family in front of the Matterhorn, a letter from the dean confirming Dr. Speller's promotion to full professor of psychiatry. When she saw the couch, she smiled. "Is this an antique or do you actually use it?"

"Nope. The real thing. I see you haven't lost your sense of humor."

"I always wondered what couches were for," Victoria said.

"We used them to encourage people to say their thoughts and feelings out loud. We called it free-a.s.sociating."

"Did it work?"

"You and I did fine face-to-face instead, which is the natural way people communicate. It's how infants connect with their caregivers. The couch fosters regression-going down the ladder of time-which helps recover buried memories, but it doesn't always help therapy. It can just as easily lock someone into his past."

"That's what must have happened with my mother and her a.n.a.lyst," Victoria said. "She never got past being upset with me."

"Is Lorraine a factor in what's happening now?"

"You remember her name?"

"I told you a long time ago, I remember everything. What's happening now?"

"My daughter is driving me absolutely insane. I can't figure out why she's so hateful. Do you have children?"

"A son and a daughter. They're adopted."

"How old?"

"Gil is sixteen. Gracie is twelve."

"So, you know what adolescents are like to live with."

"Oh, G.o.d, yes. Without them, I wouldn't have realized how stupid I am."

"And your son?" Victoria said.

"Is there a reason you want to know more about him?"

"I'll get to that in a minute."

"Gil, short for Guillaume. William in French."

"How are you and Jennie?"

"We're good. For a while, I was afraid I was going to lose her to breast cancer. I think the fertility drugs did it."

"That must've been awful."

"We were scared for a long time. But she's fine now. And your family?"

"My son's name is Gregory," Victoria said. "I wanted to name him Jonathan, but it didn't work out. You have no idea how important he is in my life. Gregory's the only one who really gets me. Do you have that with your son?"

"I wish I could say yes, but I can't."

"Maybe that has to do with being adopted. I love Gregory so much, it frightens me. If anything happened to him, I would dissolve completely. Melinda's envious."

"What about Melinda?"

"I'll get to her. Gregory makes me feel like I'm a good person, not just a good mother-that I'm leaving my mark on this earth. Remember that last session, when you said how special the connection was between you and me? Well, that's what it feels like with Gregory. We finish each other's sentences. He knows what I'm thinking even before I do."

"And your husband?"

"Martin is ... Martin is Martin. He's very handsome. Like my father, but in a different way. He's good to me, and we work together beautifully. He's my exact opposite. He rarely gets riled up. I know he's mad at Melinda now, but that's because she has me upset. I can't remember the last time he was mad at me."

That didn't sit right with Jonas. It sounded as if she took her husband for granted. "And as a lover?"

"We'll get to that if and when we need to, "Victoria responded sharply.

"You don't think it's important?" Jonas asked.

"I said, 'we'll get to it.' That's not why I'm here." Victoria shifted in her chair. "But as long as you're asking about s.e.x, you should know I had an affair before we got married. 'Affair' might not be the right word; it happened only once. Martin doesn't know. Martin must never know.

"Remember how I took ballet cla.s.ses to work on my balance? After therapy, I kept it up during law school. All the instructors were women, except for one man who had such a beautiful body, it drove me crazy."

"Crazy?"

"I don't know what happened. It was like someone turned on a switch. I was in a frenzy for days-all I thought about was s.e.x. Anyway, I figured nothing would happen, because everyone knew male ballet dancers were gay. Apparently not this one. He spent extra time with me one-on-one. When he touched me to accentuate a pose, the feeling was delicious. He asked me for coffee one evening after cla.s.s; I knew what he wanted. Martin was busy with exams. By the time we got back to his apartment, I was so hot, I almost o.r.g.a.s.med in his hallway. I didn't feel guilty. I figured, why not give into it?"

"Jesus, that was reckless," Jonas said.

"Not completely. I knew enough to ask if he was safe. He said he was bis.e.xual, which got me worrying about AIDS. So, he wore a condom, which felt like throwing cold water on my crotch. He wanted more, but the condom thing killed it, and that was that. Martin's been the only man inside me without a condom."

Jonas said, "Are you going to tell me about Melinda?"

"I'll get to her in one more minute. But since we're talking about marriage, I want to ask you about your wife."

"I'll tell you, but what's behind your question? We're here about Melinda. And about you."

"Are you happy with her?" Victoria said.

"Jennie? Yes, Very happy."

"Does the s.e.x mean as much now as it did when you were younger?"

"This has to do with you and your husband?"

"Yes, it does. But you didn't answer my question."