Apparently, my Velveeta bake-off had caused me to miss about ten days of classes. In a school with only nine violinists, this wasn’t going unnoticed.
“Won’t you open the door so that we can talk?”
“Listen, Dean Henderson,” I said. “I’m busy right now.”
“So I’ve heard,” he said. “While we all love cheese creations…”
“Not cheese. Velveeta.”
“Right,” he said. “Velveeta. While we all love Velveeta, I was wondering if you were coming back to class any time soon.”
“Well, Dean Henderson, I just need to make a few more things.”
That seemed to satisfy him.
While waiting for my Velveeta cheese bread to rise, a towering six foot two Amazon-like woman with spiky magenta-red hair, closely resembling the crown of Woody Woodpecker, walked into my room from the bathroom. She had no boobs and small shoulders, but a thick waist which was balanced by size 18-plus hips and thighs. Her skin was alabaster white but her eyebrows were thick, long, and jet black. Her nose offered a landing spot for a flock of sparrows and her lips were circled with black lip-liner and painted blood-red. She looked like a cross between a middle-aged Elvis Presley with a spiky-punk hairdo and Marilyn Manson at age 48, but she appeared to have taken makeup lessons from Boy George.
She was wearing form-hugging black stretch pants, a scratchy Shetland wool blue and green sweater, black ballet slippers, and drop gold earrings that hung to her shoulder.
I thought that she must be the mom of my suite mate, Kimmy.
“Oh hi,” I said. “Kimmy’s not here right now.”
She peered at me. “Who’s Kimmy?”
“Who are you?”
“I’m Roberta. Are you Courtney?”
My recent experience in the mail room had taught me not to answer that question.
“Who wants to know?”
“I’ll take that as a yes.”
“What do you want?”
“Well, to begin with, this weather is making my hands so dry that I feel my skin is going to shed. Do you have any hand cream?”
I looked around.
“Take this.”
I handed her my Vaseline Intensive Care.
“You can keep it. It creeps me out.”
She squirted some on her hands and rubbed her hands together. I felt sick. “Hmmmm, Vaseline Intensive Care. I’ve never thought of that.” she said.
“Well, uh Roberta, as you can see, I’m very busy right now. You’ll have to excuse me if I don’t show you out.”
“Well, Courtney, I wasn’t planning on leaving right now,” she said. “You see, the dean of the music school, and well, your roommate, are worried about you. Would you like to talk to me?”
“Do you have any good Velveeta recipes?”
“I’m not here to talk about that.”
“Then I need to get back to work. I have to knead my Velveeta cheese bread.”
“Look, Courtney, I’m from the school counseling center. I really want, no, I need, to be present with you right now,” said Roberta.
That was the first time I had ever heard that.
“Um Roberta, I have no idea what you just said.”
She handed me her card.
“Why don’t you come to the school counseling center? We might have some things to work on and we’ll… talk.”
“I don’t think that I have anything to talk about.”
She looked at my Velveeta creations.
“Well,” she said, “we might. And if you come talk to me, I’ll give you my recipe for broccoli and Velveeta soup.”
“Really?”
“Really.”
I still haven’t gotten that recipe.
And after fifteen years, I was getting tired of never getting any explanations of “the work” that we were allegedly doing. And I hated that fake hug thing that I had to do when I finished a session or Group.
But the thing I hated most was holding Roberta’s hand.
That repulsed me.
“I know you never explain things. I know that’s not the way you work. But I’ve completely forgotten why I’m supposed to sit here and hold your hand for 45 minutes.”
“Funny how you always forget when someone wants to show how much they appreciate you,” said Roberta, without a hint of sarcasm in her voice.
“The part that doesn’t work for me is where I hand you the check for $180 at the close of our time together, twice a week,” I said.
Make that twice a week and throw in an extra $40 for Group.
“Why should that negate my feelings for you?” said Roberta.
“Because I feel like I’m paying you to like me,” I said.
“I don’t see how that makes my feelings any less real,” said Roberta without a trace of irony.
“Isn’t that another line of work?” I said. “Paying someone to imitate feelings for you?”
“When you say things like that, I feel so sad. I see that I still haven’t penetrated your veil of cynicism,” said Roberta.
“It’s not that I’m cynical, it’s just that I have questions,” I said.
“That’s just it. That’s not what our work is about,” said Roberta.
“What?” I said.
“Questions,” said Roberta.
“Why not?” I said.
Roberta shot me an icy look.
Experience had shown me that Roberta felt I was just inches away from pushing some implied therapy boundary and receiving the resulting penalty.
So who were those mythical people who got to leave therapy with Roberta’s blessing?
How does one become “whole” and what did that mean?
When was it that Roberta would tell you “you have no more ‘work’ to do?”
Was it like a ceremony, with robes, music and inspirational speeches where you were given a certificate that stated that you had now graduated to a perfect life?
Or was it like being before a parole board where someone carefully listened to you accept responsibility for your behavior and then decided whether you should be sprung from therapy-prison?
Fifteen years of therapy, on and off again with Roberta, had convinced me that the whole process was closer to a parole board review.
And like any smart prisoner who was desperate to be released, I knew what I had to do.
I had started lying to her.
Instead of telling her, “I was tooling around Culver City at around one a.m. and needed to score. So, I bought myself a pound of Velveeta at all night Vons,” I invented a new scenario. My new scenario featured the person Roberta wanted to see.
I told her, “I was tooling around late, around nine p.m., and I suddenly felt an enormous craving. But like we discussed, I realized that cravings don’t last very long. So I drove home, put on the Lilith Fair: A Celebration of Women in Music CD, and concentrated on my feelings. The cravings soon passed.”
I couldn’t look at her after I said these things because I was afraid I would start laughing, so I’d gaze off into space, sigh, and say, “Sometimes it’s hard to know what to do.”
I knew after I told her what I thought she wanted to hear that her eyes would be glowing. And then she’d say “Do you know how much I’m appreciating you right now?”
This was a problem. Her response completely repulsed me.
But she had a whole range of activities that completely repulsed me.
Tell her, “No, I’m repulsed and feel like bitch-slapping you when you do this,” and it was three more years in therapy.
Respond with “I feel so warm when you do this,” and you could see the parole board reconvening to consider your early release.
And along with the lying came the language.
There was a special therapy language which I began to understand through Group, a language mainly spoken by the inhabitants of Planet Therapy.
The key phrases were:
(1) “I don’t feel heard” — “I don’t feel heard” meant that th
e therapy veteran was not persuading anyone of her point or was losing an argument. A smart therapy vet would generally follow that line with a temper-tantrum or a crying jag mixed in with some unintelligible rumbling about “my mother,” some mucus, and a nose blow. Endless boxes of Kleenex, the designer ones with little flowers on them, were strategically placed around Roberta’s office.
(2) “I don’t feel seen” — “I don’t feel seen” was something Roberta would say right after she had said something so remarkably stupid that I had shot her a “You Moron” look. A therapy vet—such as Frank—would generally use this line during a time when their behavior was completely irresponsible, like during those 72-hour periods when Frank would lose himself—and his wages—in a 24-hour casino off the 710 Freeway or at the nearest Indian Res.
(3) “Work” as in, “This is our work” or “Look how much work she/he is doing.” I realized that Roberta—or therapists in general—referred to therapy sessions as “work” because they got paid very well for it. And maybe early on, I thought there was some connection between therapy “work” and becoming successful in “work.” Work—something I got paid for—which was a result that I desired. But as I put in my time on Planet Therapy, a question about the kind of “work” we were doing began to evolve: For my “work” to be completed, was I expected to become a mini-version of Roberta and parrot Planet Therapy speak without thought?
(4) “I take responsibility for it” — “I take responsibility for it” was the one phrase that could be used to exonerate all behavior from bestiality to premeditated murder. It was a therapy incantation. Once said, it was as if the reprehensible behavior had magically disappeared or self-corrected.
Too many times in Group, I saw someone admit, “Yes, I got drunk and slept with my daughter’s boyfriend. But I take responsibility for it.” Unfortunately, it never quite worked for me because I never understood how that magic phrase was equivalent to correcting the horrific behavior, especially when the person who had just uttered their “responsibility” line didn’t actually seem to feel guilty or even remorseful.
And that’s when I would get in trouble. Because after the person would utter the hallowed, “I take responsibility for it,” I would—according to Group—be judgmental. I would ask, “How? How do you take responsibility for it?”
Roberta didn’t like that. She really didn’t like that. She seemed to always add an additional six months to my Therapy Sentence by adding to the chorus of screaming Group members.
“Courtney,” she’d say, “can’t you see how much work she’s doing? She just took responsibility for getting drunk and sleeping with her daughter’s boyfriend.”
“How? How is she taking responsibility for it,” I’d ask. “Don’t you think what she did is disgusting?”
Roberta would always give me an icy glance and say, “That’s very judgmental.”
“Ok…” I’d ask, “but has she apologized to her daughter?”
And Roberta, without missing a beat, would always respond, “That’s irrelevant to our work here.”
I knew which lie I was supposed to tell. I was expected to say “Yes” when asked, “Can’t you see how much work she’s doing?” But occasionally I would forget and be honest about my feelings. In those moments, I would reply, “No, I really don’t see how much work she’s doing.” Then Roberta would reward my honesty by throwing me out of Group for an alleged violation of the Implied Therapist-Patient-Group Agreement.
Of course, there was also Roberta-Speak, a sub-dialect of therapy so obscure that the ancient language of the Incas would have seemed accessible by comparison.
“The Group is feeling a primitive pain.”
“You’ve lost the way back to your emotional home.”
“You’ve violated:
(1) the Implied Therapist-Patient Agreement;
(2) the Implied Group Agreement;
(3) the Implied Therapist-Patient-Group Agreement.”
What did any of this mean?
Don’t think that I didn’t try to find out. During many sessions with Group, I would confess that I didn’t understand what any of this jargon meant.
That was a mistake.
Group would respond with a series of snickers. Roberta would consider my confession an act of aggression, and always say, “It means whatever you want it to mean.”
5
Testosterone Poisoning
“You’re not the best-looking woman I’ve ever slept with,” said Dr. Ted. “I know you think you are. But you’re not.”
Dr. Ted and I were having coffee at one the four unavoidable coffee franchises on San Vicente Blvd. This franchise actually knew that its coffee sucked and had just attempted to retrain its baristas. This was definitely an interesting choice for a conversation starter. But I had no idea what he was talking about.
“You know there are these actress-models, well, they’re out here for a while, and maybe they’re 27, 28… sick of waitressing and know they aren’t gonna be a star… I’m beginning to look pretty good to them,” said Dr. Ted, “because I’m a doctor.”
“Yes you are, Ted,” I said. “You’re a doctor with a leased Mercedes. How’s that working for you?”
Ted looked at me.
“I’ll bet I’m even beginning to look pretty good to you,” he said.
I was hoping we could have a friendship. Guess not.
It appeared that Dr. Ted had a bad case of T.P.—better known as Testosterone Poisoning—that lethal combination of money, career success, and newfound entitlement which transformed former male dorks into pure monsters.
Dr. Ted had classic Testosterone Poisoning. He had clearly been a kid who hadn’t had a shot at the popular girls and burned with resentment thinking how “he’d show them.”
In L.A., a town where being male and straight made him very eligible, he was having some success with women. What made him stand out from the rest was that he was: (1) educated and finished with his education (i.e. some poor woman/partner would NOT be required to put him through med school by waitressing at Norms; (2) currently employed with a visible means of support other than parental hand-outs; and, (3) unless he succumbed to professional burn-out or some latent desire to be an Olympic Curler, he had a definable career path that did not include the unlikely careers of rock star, movie/television star, or Calvin Klein underwear model. Of course, those ER and Grey’s Anatomy writers who had first been M.D.s always made you wonder if there was a secret passion to be a screenwriter—currently in remission—that was hidden under that M.D. veneer.
But when I first met him I felt sorry for him. He had a really red face, like a newborn baby. He had acne scars, deep pits covering four inches on each side of his face, from jaw to cheekbone. His eyes were tiny, mud-brown, and hidden behind the thickest uni-brow west of Zagreb. He wore glasses, heavy glasses, with thick lenses. His hair was a coarse, unruly, dark brown/black that required a glob of styling gel and 30 minutes with a blow dryer to control. His clothes, striped colored pants and a bright colored T-shirt, were too tight, indicating a fight with his weight, a fight he had clearly won and lost, gaining and losing the same 35 pounds over and over.
He had a very low voice and mumbled when he spoke, never looking me in the eye, because one eye didn’t seem to go straight.
“What?” I said.
He had come over one night when I was packing up to move out of my apartment. I was listening to music.
“I like this music,” he said.
“You like Bartok’s Concerto for Orchestra?” I said.
“Yeah. Can I come in and listen?”
“Sure.”
We sat and listened for about two minutes.
“I really like this…” I said.
But before I could get to “part” he had grabbed my arms, pulled me toward him and lifted my shirt.
“You want this, don’t you.”
I jumped backwards.
“What are you doing?” I said.
“S
top playing games. You know you want it.”
“I think you have me confused with someone you met… in your head.”
“You can’t deny that you sense the attraction. You send me these signals—you like me all right, I can see it in your eyes—and then you won’t touch me.”
“Those are generally the opening lines for a statutory rape conviction. Has this ever worked for you? Really?”
Ted let go of me and sat down.
“Sometimes. Girls still go for that ‘gonna be a doctor’ thing,” he said.
In an alternate universe.
But then again…
“I might have some vile friends who would go for your ‘doctor’ thing,” I said.
“Yeah?” said Ted.
One friend. The only friend who would think that dating a doctor would raise her position on her Eco-Chain.
Marcie.
“There’s this weird guy, you know, Ted,” I said.
“The med student,” said Roberta during a session, “he really admires you—didn’t he ask you to show him the CDs you liked?”
“Yeah,” I said. “He’s a resident now. But I don’t know about the admiration.”
Roberta looked at me. “Does it make you uncomfortable when someone expresses their admiration for you?” she said.
Ugh. I hated this particular line of Roberta’s questioning, because I knew that Ted has no admiration for me. But if I told her that, this would start a year of “work” with Roberta on my low self-esteem. The easiest way out was to find a middle ground. “I don’t know,” I said. “Maybe.”
“What’s making this so difficult for you?” said Roberta. I wanted to tell her that what was making this so difficult was that she was completely wrong about Ted.
I looked Roberta in the eye and attempted to convince her that I was seriously considering her analysis of Ted. “Well,” I said, “we were listening to the music. And then he put his hand down my shirt and pulled my breast out. And I shoved him away.”
Roberta was silent.
“I think he’s kind of an asshole,” I said.
“You’re awfully judgmental. He appreciates your ripe womanhood,” said Roberta.
Ted calls.
Almost Royalty: A Romantic Comedy...of Sorts Page 7
