Private Eyes

by Jonathan Kellerman

  “Are you saying Melissa’s a threat to her progress?”

  “Melissa means well, Dr. Delaware. I can certainly understand her concern. Growing up with an ineffectual mother would give her a stake in being hypermature. At some level, that would be adaptive. But things change, and at this point in time, her hovering serves only to reduce her mother’s self-confidence.”

  “How does she hover?”

  “She tends to make herself rather conspicuous during crucial therapeutic moments.”

  “I’m still not sure I understand.”

  “Okay,” she said, “I’ll spell it out. As you may know, treatment for agoraphobia needs to be in vivo— to take place out in the real world, where the anxiety-provoking stimuli are. Her mother and I literally take steps together. Out the front gate, around the block. It’s a slow but steady process, calibrated so that the patient experiences as little anxiety as possible. Melissa makes a point of being there during important moments. Watching. With her arms folded across her chest and this absolutely skeptical look on her face. It’s almost comical, but of course it’s a distraction. It’s gotten so I’ve scheduled things around her— aiming for breakthroughs when she’s at school. Now, however, she’s out of school and more . . . conspicuous.”

  “Have you ever talked to her about this?”

  “I’ve tried, Dr. Delaware, but Melissa shows no interest in talking to me.”

  “Funny,” I said. “She sees it differently.”

  “Oh?”

  “She perceives herself as trying to obtain information from you and getting rebuffed.”

  Silence. Then: “Yes, I’m sure she does. But that’s a neurotic distortion. I’m not without compassion for her situation, Dr. Delaware. She’s dealing with a lot of ambivalence— intense feelings of threat and jealousy. It can’t be easy for her. But I need to focus on my patient. And Melissa could use your help— or someone else’s, if you’re not so inclined— in sorting things out.”

  I said, “She’d like me to talk to her mother. In order to clarify her mother’s feelings so she can sort out the Harvard thing. I’m calling to find out if that’s okay. I don’t want to disrupt your treatment.”

  “That’s wise of you. What, exactly, would you discuss with Mrs. Ramp?”

  “Just her feelings about Melissa’s leaving— which, from what you’ve told me, sound pretty clear. After hearing it firsthand, I’d be able to deal with Melissa’s doubts.”

  “Using your advocate role to propel her forward?”

  “Exactly.”

  “Well, I don’t see any harm in that. As long as you keep your discussion circumscribed.”

  “Any particular topics you’d like me to stay away from?”

  “At this point, I’d say everything other than Melissa’s college career. Let’s just keep things simple.”

  “Doesn’t sound as if anything about this case has been simple.”

  “True,” she said, with a lilt in her voice. “But that’s the beauty of psychiatry, isn’t it?”

  • • •

  I called Melissa at nine and she picked up on the first ring.

  “I checked with my contact— he’s a police detective on temporary leave so he has some free time. If you still want McCloskey looked into, it can be done.”

  “I want it,” she said. “Tell him to go ahead.”

  “It may take a bit of time, and investigators usually bill by the hour.”

  “No problem. I’ll take care of it.”

  “You’re going to pay him yourself?”

  “Sure.”

  “It could end up being substantial.”

  “I’ve got money of my own, Dr. Delaware— I’ve paid for things for a long time. I’m going to pay your bill, so why not this—”

  “Melissa—”

  “No problem, Dr. Delaware. Really. I’m a very good money manager. I’m over eighteen, meaning it’s totally legal. If I’m going to go away and live independently, why not start right now?”

  When I hesitated, she said, “It’s the only way, Dr. Delaware. I don’t want Mother even knowing he’s back.”

  “What about Don Ramp?”

  “I don’t want him involved, either. It’s not his problem.”

  “All right,” I said. “We’ll work out the details when I see you tomorrow. Speaking of which, I spoke to Dr. Ursula and she says it’s fine for me to meet with your mother.”

  “Good. I already talked to Mother and she’s willing to meet you. Tomorrow— isn’t that great? So can we cancel our appointment and do that instead?”

  “All right. I’ll be there tomorrow at noon.”

  “Thanks, Dr. Delaware. I’ll have lunch set out for you. What do you like to eat?”

  “Lunch isn’t necessary, but thanks anyway.”

  “You’re sure?”

  “I’m sure.”

  “Do you know how to get here?”

  “I know how to get to San Labrador.”

  She gave me directions to her house.

  I copied them and said, “Okay, Melissa, see you tomorrow.”

  “Dr. Delaware?”

  “Yes, Melissa?”

  “Mother’s worried. About you. Even though I told her how nice you are. She’s worried about what you’ll think of her. Because of the way she treated you years ago.”

  “Tell her I understand, and that my horns only come out during the full moon.”

  No laughter.

  I said, “I won’t be in the least bit rough, Melissa. She’ll be fine.”

  “I hope so.”

  “Melissa, part of what you’re dealing with— a lot more important than money management— is breaking away. Finding your own identity and letting your mother do things for herself. I know it’s hard— I think it’s taken lots of guts for you to go as far as you have. Just calling me took guts. We’re going to work it out.”

  “I hear you,” she said. “It’s just hard. Loving someone that much.”

  9

  The stretch of freeway that connects L.A. to Pasadena announces itself with four tunnels whose entries are festooned with exquisite stonework. Not the kind of thing any city council is likely to approve nowadays, but this bit of progress was carved into the basin long ago, the city’s first conduit to ceaseless motion masquerading as freedom.

  It’s a grubby and graceless asphalt belt now. Three narrow, street-level lanes, bordered by exhaust-warped maples and houses that range from Victorian Relic to Tobacco Road. Psychotically engineered ramps appear without warning. Concrete overpasses that have browned with time— L.A.’s stab at patina— throw spooky shadows across the blacktop. Every time I get on it I think of Nathanael West and James M. Cain— a Southern California history that probably never really existed but is gloomily gratifying to imagine.

  I also think of Las Labradoras and how places like the upper-crusty parts of Pasadena, Sierra Madre, and San Labrador might as well be on the moon for all their cross-pollination with the urban tangle at the other end of the freeway.

  Las Labradoras. The Farm Girls.

  I encountered them years before I met Melissa. In retrospect, the similarity between the experiences seemed obvious. Why hadn’t I made the connection before?

  They were women who called themselves girls. Two dozen sorority sisters who’d married very well and settled into estate living at a young age, gotten a couple of kids off to school, and started looking for ways to fill time. Seeking comfort in numbers, they banded together and established a volunteer society— an exclusive club, sorority days renewed. Their headquarters was a bungalow at the Cathcart Hotel— a $200-a-day nest they obtained gratis, including room service, because one of their husbands owned a chunk of that hostelry, and another, the bank that held the mortgage. After composing bylaws and electing officers, they searched for a raison d’Être. Hospital work seemed admirable, so most of their early energies were focused upon remodeling and running the gift shop at Cathcart Memorial.

  Then the son of one of their m
embers was diagnosed with a rare and painful disease and transferred to Western Pediatric Hospital, the only place in L.A. where the ailment could be managed. The child survived but suffered chronically. His mother dropped out of the club in order to devote more time to him. Las Labradoras decided to offer their good services to Western Peds.

  At the time, I was in my third year on staff, running a psychosocial rehab program for seriously ill children and their families. The chief of staff called me into his office and suggested I find a niche for “these girls,” talking about budgetary problems for the softer sciences and emphasizing the need to “interface with positive forces within the community.”

  One Tuesday in May, I put on a three-piece suit and drove out to the Cathcart Hotel. Ate boiled-shrimp canapÉs and crustless sandwiches, drank weak coffee, and met the girls.

  They were in their mid-thirties, uniformly bright and attractive and genuinely charming, projecting a noblesse oblige tainted by self-consciousness and self-awareness: They’d gone to college during the sixties, and though that consisted, typically, of four sheltered years at USC or Arizona State or some other place where the foment hadn’t really taken hold, even protected seÑoritas had been touched by the times. They knew that they— their husbands, their children, the way they lived and would continue to live— were The Enemy. The privileged battlements all those unwashed radical types clamored to storm.

  I wore a beard back then and drove a Dodge Dart that teetered on the brink of death. Despite the suit and my fresh haircut, I figured I had to look like Radical Danger to them. But they accepted me warmly, listened intensely to my after-lunch talk, never removed their eyes from my slide show— sick kids, IV poles, surgical theaters. The one we staffers, during the blackest of moments, called the Tearjerker Matinee.

  When it was over, they were all wet-eyed. More certain than ever that they wanted to help.

  I decided the best way to make use of their talents would be to have them serve as guides for newly diagnosed families. Psychosocial docents whose goal was to cut through the procedural red tape that hospitals produce even faster than debt. Weekly two-hour shifts in tailored uniforms that they designed themselves, smiles and greetings and guided tours of the misery. Working within the system to blunt some of its indignities, but no swan dives into the deep waters of trauma and tragedy, and no blood and guts. The chief of staff thought it was a great idea.

  So did the girls. I set up a training program. Lectures, reading lists, tours of the hospital, debriefings, discussion groups, role-playing.

  They were first-rate students, took detailed notes, made intelligent comments. Half-jokingly asked if I planned on testing them.

  After three weeks they graduated. The chief of staff presented them with diplomas bound in pink ribbon. A week before the docent rotation was scheduled to begin, I received a handwritten note on ice-colored stationery.

  LAS LABRADORAS

  BUNGALOW B, THE CATHCART

  PASADENA, CALIFORNIA 91125

  Dear Doctor Delaware,

  On behalf of my Sisters and myself, I wish to thank you for the consideration you’ve shown us during these past few weeks. We girls all agree that we learned a tremendous amount and greatly profited from the experience.

  We regret, however, that we will not be able to participate in the “Welcome Mat” program, as it presents some strategic problems for some of our members. We hope this hasn’t caused you any undue inconvenience and have tendered a donation to the Western Pediatric Hospital Christmas Fund in lieu of our participation.

  Best wishes for a wonderful year and our sincere appreciation for the terrific work you do.

  Faithfully yours,

  Nancy Brown

  President, Las Labradoras

  I found Ms. Brown’s home number in my Rolodex, dialed it the next day, at eight in the morning.

  “Oh, hi,” she said. “How are you?”

  “Hanging in, Nancy. I just got your letter.”

  “Yes. I’m so sorry. I know how terrible this looks, but we just can’t.”

  “You mentioned strategic problems. Anything I can help with?”

  “No, I’m sorry, but— It’s nothing related to your program, Dr. Delaware. Just your . . . setting.”

  “My setting?”

  “The hospital’s. The environment. L.A., Hollywood. Most of us were amazed at how far down it’s slid. Some of the girls think it’s just too far to travel.”

  “Too far or too dangerous?”

  “Too far and too dangerous. Lots of the husbands are against us coming down there, too.”

  “We really haven’t had any problems, Nancy. You’d be here during the daylight hours, using the VIP parking lot.”

  Silence.

  I said, “Patients come and go every day with no problem.”

  “Well . . . you know how it is.”

  “Guess so,” I said. “Okay. Be well.”

  “I’m sure it sounds silly to you, Dr. Delaware. And to be honest, I think it’s an overreaction— I tried to tell them that. But our charter says we either participate as a group or not at all. We took a vote, Dr. Delaware, and this is the way it turned out. I do apologize if we’ve caused you problems. And we do hope the hospital accepts our gift in the spirit in which it was offered.”

  “No doubt the hospital does.”

  “Goodbye, Dr. Delaware. Have a nice day.”

  • • •

  Notes on good paper, monetary buy-offs, phone brush-offs. Must be the San Labrador style.

  I thought about it all the way to the end of the freeway, onto Arroyo Seco, then east on California Boulevard, past Cal Tech. A quick series of loops through quiet suburban streets, then Cathcart Boulevard appeared and I resumed the eastward trek, into the wilds of San Labrador.

  The Farmer Saint.

  A canonization that had eluded the Vatican.

  The very origins of the place were grounded in a buy-off.

  Once the private domain of H. Farmer Cathcart, heir to an East Coast railroad dynasty, San Labrador looked like old money but had been chartered as a city for only fifty years.

  Cathcart came to Southern California at the turn of the century in order to scope out commercial possibilities for the family. He liked what he saw, began buying up downtown rail lines and hotels, orange groves, bean farms, and ranch land on the eastern borders of Los Angeles, assembling a four-square-mile fiefdom in the foothills of the San Gabriel Mountains. After building the requisite mansion, he surrounded it with world-class gardens and named the estate San Labrador— a bit of self-aggrandizement that made Episcopal tongues wag.

  Then, midway through the Great Depression, he discovered his funds weren’t infinite. Holding on to half a square mile, he subdivided the rest. Parceling the gardens out to other rich men— tycoons of grand but lesser stature who could afford to maintain two- to seven-acre properties. Attaching restrictive covenants to all deed transfers, which ensured his living out the rest of his life in sweet harmony with nature and the finest aspects of Western civilization.

  The rest of his life didn’t amount to much— he died in 1937 of influenza, leaving a will bequeathing his estate to the city of San Labrador, should such a city exist within two years. The tycoon tenants acted quickly, setting up a charter and pushing it through the L.A. County Board of Supervisors. Cathcart’s mansion and grounds became a county-owned but privately funded museum-cum-botanical gardens that nobody visited— before the freeways.

  During the postwar years the land was subdivided further: half-acre lots for the burgeoning professional class. But the covenants remained in place: no “coloreds,” no Orientals, no Jews, no Mexicans. No multiple dwellings. No alcohol served in public places. No nightclubs or theaters or places of “base entertainment.” Commercial establishments limited to an eight-block segment of Cathcart Boulevard, no commercial structure to exceed two stories, architectural style to be in the Spanish Revival mode, with plans approved by the city council.

  State and
federal law eventually nullified the racial restrictions, but there were ways to get around that, and San Labrador remained lily-white. The rest of the covenants withstood tests of time and litigation. Perhaps that was due to sound legal basis. Or maybe the fact that lots of judges and at least two district attorneys resided in San Labrador had something to do with it.

  Whatever the reason, the district’s immunity to change remained strong. As I cruised down Cathcart, nothing seemed different from the last time I’d been there. How long ago had that been? Three years. A Turner exhibition at the museum, a stroll through the library and grounds. With Robin . . .