Intensive Therapy

by Jeffrey Deitz

  He wasn’t especially pleased when his colleague Christopher Cantley, assistant director of residency training, stopped in for a curbside consult. Cantley wanted an opinion about which medication to use for a traumatized patient whose wife had died in a gruesome car accident. A recent study had touted Paxil for combat-related posttraumatic stress disorder, but the patient wouldn’t take it because of sexual side effects. Cantley wanted to know what Jonas would prescribe.

  “Are you sure the man needs medication?” Jonas inquired.

  “He says he’s having panic attacks,” Cantley replied.

  “Hmm. Sexual side effects … Is the man dating?”

  “Yes. For the first time in three years.”

  Jonas said, “Maybe that’s what has him upset. You know, how old stuff gets stirred up.”

  “I didn’t think about that.”

  “How often do you see him?”

  “Once a month, for medication management.”

  “You might want to try meeting more often and for longer sessions,” Jonas said tactfully. “I treated a widow whose husband died on September 11th. She had a guilty depression once she started dating again. It turned out the new man was much more sexually satisfying than the dead husband. For her it felt like cheating! We met regularly for a while; she got well quickly once we talked it through.”

  “How often did you meet?”

  “Twice the first week. Then once a week for the next couple of months; about ten sessions, that’s all it took. It always felt like she was flirting with me, but I just let it be. She kept saying how I was the only man she ever talked with so frankly. How special I was. I was like her summer romance. I remember her last session because she came in dressed to kill. Unconsciously she had acted out the affair with me, got it out of her system and went on with her life. No medication could have done that. Talk about the power of psychotherapy.”

  “You know,” Cantley said on his way to the door, “I think you’re onto something. My patient’s probably a wreck worrying about sexual performance. Before I prescribe anything I’ll tell him to come in and talk about it. Thanks, Jonas.”

  “Sure thing,” Jonas said. “You can always find a medication that doesn’t cause sexual dysfunction, but therapy can be just as powerful; besides, I like the side-effect profile a lot better.”

  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 classical psychoanalysis in twelve years. The view across Madison Avenue was dismal, Mount Sinai’s Guggenheim Pavilion looking like the Titanic 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 psychoanalysis with Fowler.

  “This is Dr. Speller,” he said dispassionately 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 God 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 fucked up.’

  “A Hassidic 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 Nazis, and I imagined being God’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 entitlement. 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-associating.”

  “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 analyst,” 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, God, 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 sex, 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 classes 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 sex. 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 class; 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 orgasmed 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 bisexual, 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 sex 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.”

  “What do you want to know?”

  “I don’t think about sex like I used to. So with Jennie, it’s not like when you and she were younger, right?”

  “No, sex is better. We’re in a different place than years ago.”

  “I wish I had that,” Victoria said. “Does she work outside the home?”

  “My, you certainly are curious.”

  “You want to kid around, that’s fine,” Victoria snapped. “I can use some levity in my life. But no patronizing bullshit. Agreed?”

  “I was trying to be lighthearted. I didn’t mean to offend you.”

  “You hit a nerve,” she said. “Let’s leave it at that.”

  “Fine. Just don’t expect me to read your mind. Suppose you take a moment to reflect out loud on how you’re different from twenty years ago. It’ll save us time.”

  “I have a whole work persona now,” Victoria said. “I’m good at what I do. I go to court, and I fight. I claw like a tigress. I don’t give up. Plaintiff or defense, makes no difference; I’m with you for the duration. I just started a trial today that could explode at any minute.”

  “That’s good, Victoria. I always hoped you’d end up someplace where you could use your natural instincts.”

  “It’s the wifing and mothering I’m insecure about. Except for Gregory. That’s why I asked about your wife. I need to know how other people do it.”

  “Jennie used to work for Sotheby’s, shepherding high rollers around Europe and preparing them for the auctions. You want to see raw instinct, watch an auction. It’s war. After we adopted our children, Jenny developed an antique home-furnishing business. It keeps her hand in the art world but lets her set her own schedule. Everyone loves her, especially her customers.”