by Nancy Pearl
George’s presents included a cashmere scarf, a pair of sheepskin slippers, a bottle of Italian wine, four Riedel wineglasses, a lamb’s-wool sweater, and a mug inscribed my favorite dentist.
Todd had sent his father a silk tie, his mother a boxed set of Upstairs, Downstairs, George a furry hat with earflaps, just like the kind they used to wear as kids, and Lizzie a pair of suede gloves.
“Oh,” Lizzie said, stricken with guilt. “I didn’t get Todd anything.”
“I did,” George assured her. “A Dallas Cowboys warm-up jacket. That should confound the Aussies when he wears it.”
Elaine and Allan were beaming. It finally occurred to Lizzie to wonder if George had ever brought another girl home for Christmas with his family, and, if so, what happened to her. Could it have been the girl he was with the night they met? What was her name? Lizzie thought she might ask George about it on the plane ride home.
George surveyed the stacks of gifts he and Lizzie had gotten. “We’ll need another suitcase to carry all this back to Ann Arbor, Mom.”
“Easily solved. You can take one of ours and just bring it back next time.”
Allan looked at his watch. “We’d better get over to the shelter. They’ll be serving lunch soon. Who’s going with me? George? Elaine? Lizzie?”
Elaine spoke first. “I’ve got lots and lots of cookies and a couple of casseroles for you to take, but perhaps Lizzie and I will stay home. Is that okay with you, Lizzie, or do you especially want to go?”
“No, staying here is fine. We can eat cookies and try some of the teas from Mr. and Mrs. Goldrosen in my new teacups.”
“Lovely,” Elaine said, “and listen, I’m sure they’d be happy to have you call them Gertie and Sam.”
“Of course they would,” Allan added.
Sam, maybe, Lizzie thought. Not Gertie.
“I’m devoted to mismatched china,” Elaine said as they were sitting at the kitchen table, drinking their tea—Elaine, Earl Grey, and Lizzie, Assam. “It just seems more festive to me. I don’t mean to inflict my taste on you, though. It’s too late to return these, now that we’ve drunk from them, but if you’d rather have two sets that match, I’ll keep these and send you some others.”
“No, no,” Lizzie assured her. “I just never thought about it before. They’re lovely.”
They sat in companionable silence while they sipped their tea.
“So, Lizzie,” Elaine began. “George told us your parents are important psychology professors at U of M?”
“Um, yeah, I guess so. A lot of people think they’re important, anyway.”
“I was a French major as an undergraduate, but I once considered going into psychology. I always thought I might be a good social worker or school counselor.”
“I bet you’d be wonderful at that. Do you ever think about going back to school to get a degree?”
“Oh, I’m not sure I even want to at this point. I think I’d rather be lazy and eat cookies and drink tea. What area of psychology are your parents in?”
“They’re behaviorists, so they don’t do counseling or therapy.”
“What are they like? Are you close to them? Were they okay with you spending the holidays here?”
Lizzie paused. How to explain? How much should she tell Elaine? (“You’re probably one of the most self-centered people I’ve ever met,” George had said.)
“I’m so sorry,” Elaine said instantly. “Is that too personal? You don’t need to answer. I’m just always curious about people’s lives.”
“No, it’s okay. I just need to figure out how to explain them to you. It’s like”—she fumbled with her words—“they’re just not the sort of people anyone could be close to.”
“That must be sad for you. And difficult.”
“Not really. Not anymore. It was harder when I was a kid. See, not only would they never do counseling, but they think psychologists who do do that are a joke. Or they would think it’s a joke if either one of them had a sense of humor. Psychologists like them, behaviorists, don’t believe in an ‘inner self.’ There’s actually a famous joke, or at least famous in behaviorist circles and of course those who dislike behaviorists, that goes like this: Two behaviorists meet on the street and each one asks the other, ‘How am I?’”
Elaine smiled. Lizzie wondered if she should go on. “Is this more than you want to know?”
“No, no, don’t stop. I’m fascinated. Do they really not believe in an inner self?”
“Well, at least they don’t believe that the notion of an inner self—or inner life—is useful for what they call the science of psychology.” Lizzie emphasized the last three words and added air quotes around them. “And it’s really important for my parents to think of themselves as real scientists.” More air quotes. “Just like physicists, or biologists.”
“How curious,” Elaine said as she stood up. “Let’s make another pot of tea—I want to hear more.”
While the water was boiling Lizzie said, “I think George is terrifically lucky to have you and Allan as parents. It’s just so nice here.”
Being in Tulsa at his parents’ house with George made Lizzie anxious (how did she feel about him, anyway?), but spending time alone with Elaine was calming and comforting and gave her some idea of what her life might have been like if someone besides Lydia had been her mother.
Elaine gave her a quick hug and then said, “You’re sweet. I see why George likes you so much. Okay, finish what you were saying before. I feel as though I should be taking notes. Are you going to give me an exam at the end?”
“Of course,” Lizzie said. “And I should warn you that I’m a very hard grader. Anyway,” she went on, “all those early behaviorists saw that real scientists, like biologists, only studied things that they could see, and you couldn’t ever see the mind. Except perhaps your own. And that might be enough to write poetry, but it wouldn’t pass muster as a scientific study. They believed that all that you could see was behavior. So they gave up any examination of the mind or the inner self, and just studied how people behaved. And if people insisted on talking about their ‘inner experience,’ well, that was just considered verbal behavior. Kind of embarrassingly bad behavior, in fact. Problem solved.
“I think it’s all bullshit,” Lizzie went on, “what my parents and their friends believe, and not just because they’re my parents and I’m rebelling against them. Everyone knows they have a mind. And I’d hate a life without poetry in it.”
Elaine nodded, a clear encouragement to continue.
“My parents think that people are like animals, and they’ll do what they’re rewarded for and won’t do what they’re punished for doing. And they think that’s a great insight.”
“Maybe some behaviorists should become animal trainers,” Elaine joked.
“Actually, a lot of them did go on to become pretty good animal trainers. And people trainers too. My father spends his days running lab rats to try to shape their behavior in particular ways. And because of that, he’s discovered some pretty effective ways of controlling people’s behavior too.”
“I’ve read about behavior modification. It’s all the rage in pop psychology books these days, isn’t it?”
“Yeah, but Mendel and Lydia usually publish only in academic journals that only their friends read. They’re not at all interested in dumbing down their theories for a mass audience.” Lizzie had a sudden flashback to the terrible afternoon that Jack showed her the article in Psychology Today. That hadn’t dumbed down anything at all. “They used to try their theories out on me, though, all the time. Once, when I was almost three, and my father was training rats to press bars in their cages in order to get food, they decided to see if they could train me to stand up whenever they entered the room, so if I was sitting down and reading or playing with a toy when they came in, they’d be all cold and ignore me, but the minute I got up they started paying attention to me and acting loving. And sure enough, just like a rat, I learned what to do. It was like turni
ng the handle on a jack-in-the-box. As soon as either one of them came into the room I, I’d pop right up. Things like that went on all the time. It didn’t end until I left for college.”
Lizzie shuddered. She hadn’t realized before how much she actually knew about her parents’ work and how awful it still was to remember when she was compelled to jump to attention without ever really knowing why. She hadn’t ever told anyone else all about her parents. Oh, Marla knew quite a bit, but here she’d poured it all out to George’s mother. Gosh, she thought, Elaine would have been a great therapist.
“That must have been very hard for you.”
“Well, I had Sheila, my babysitter. She was wonderful. And I actually learned a lot from Lydia and Mendel. When I got to be a teenager, I manipulated them like crazy, and they were positively clueless. That was fun.”
“Did they like George?” Elaine asked, unable to imagine any parent not approving of George as a date for their daughter.
“Like George?” Lizzie repeated stupidly, not understanding.
“Yes, when he came with you at Thanksgiving.”
Lizzie thought for a moment. She’d never considered that before, what her parents might think of George. “I know it sounds weird, but Lydia was never around that day to introduce to George. And Mendel’s simply pathetic. He’s indifferent to everything but Lydia and his rats. Lydia’s much more critical, so maybe it’s better that she didn’t meet George. Anyway, he was my first boyfriend to darken their door since I started dating.”
“You didn’t bring any of the boys you dated home? I would have hated it if I’d never met any of George’s girlfriends.”
Lizzie suddenly wanted to know more about George’s other girlfriends, but didn’t know if she should ask Elaine about them. “Well, my parents didn’t care about anything I did, unless they planned to modify my behavior, so I tried never to do anything in front of them. I was always so careful. But here’s the kind of thing they did care about. Or at least Lydia did. When I was a freshman a boy named Dane Engel called me. According to Lydia, who answered the phone, he asked to speak with me. And that did it for him.”
“But why? I don’t get it.”
“Because one of Lydia’s pet peeves is that you should never say ‘talk with’ someone, it should be ‘talk to’ someone. She refused to let him talk to me and when she’d hung up, after basically saying he wasn’t welcome to call again, she told me why she’d done what she did. For my own good. My own good! Give me a fucking break. Oh, gosh, sorry—I guess it still bothers me.”
“No, no, no, that’s fine, don’t be sorry.”
“I think that’s one of the reasons I like George,” Lizzie told her. “He’s smart but not a snob. I get the feeling that even if I did something stupid, like say ‘between you and I,’ George might flinch but he wouldn’t kick me out of his life.”
“You’re absolutely right,” Elaine responded. “George seems to be endlessly forgiving. I could tell you horror stories about the mistakes Allan and I made as parents, but nothing seemed to rattle George enough to make him give up on us.”
Elaine changed the subject back to Mendel and Lydia. “Do you think your parents wanted you to be a psychologist too? Did they mind when you told them you were planning to major in English instead?”
“God, no. I think they probably feel that as long as they’re psychologists, nobody else needs to be.”
Elaine shook her head, but whether it was in disbelief or sympathy, Lizzie couldn’t tell. She was about to share some of her mother’s other strong dislikes with Elaine—Roget’s Thesaurus and fantasy trilogies were high on the list—but stopped when they heard Allan and George at the door.
That night they went out to a Chinese restaurant for dinner. This was the culminating tradition of the Goldrosens’ Christmases. “Our last meal,” Allan joked.
After the waiter left with their orders, Elaine picked up her bottle of Tsingtao beer. “I propose our first toast: to a wonderful time together this year and to us all being together next year, same time, same place. Only with the addition of Todd, because we miss him dreadfully.”
They clinked glasses and drank.
“Who’s next?”
“I am,” Allan said. “To Lizzie, who was a good sport and a wonderful guest. We’re so happy George brought you home for Christmas.”
“Hear, hear,” George and Elaine chorused.
“Well,” George said, “I was going to propose a toast to Lizzie too, Dad, so how about this: to Allan and Elaine, the best parents anyone could have.”
“Oh, Georgie, that’s wonderful you feel that way,” Elaine said, tearing up slightly. Allan took out his handkerchief and blew his nose.
“Can I do one?” Lizzie asked. “Or do you have to be a Goldrosen to participate?”
“You’re an honorary Goldrosen, so have at it,” George said.
“Okay.” She raised her glass. “First, George, I’m so glad you invited me. You can’t imagine how nervous I was about coming.” She turned to smile at Allan and Elaine. “Thank you both so much for everything. I can see why George is such a nice guy, having you both as parents.”
George thought that being a nice guy wasn’t exactly the ringing endorsement you want from your own true love, but Lizzie was so stingy with saying, or maybe fearful of saying, anything positive that George knew he had to be grateful for even that crumb.
Allan blew his nose again. Elaine reached out and took Lizzie’s hand. “You should have seen me the first time I met Gertie and Sam. I couldn’t even talk because my teeth were chattering and I was sure I was going to vomit all over their shoes.” Everyone laughed and Elaine went on, “I hope you’ll come back soon, Lizzie.”
Later, when they were maneuvering their chopsticks with varying degrees of facility (Lizzie was the most inept), Elaine started telling dentist stories.
“Now, Lizzie, I know you’ve never heard this story, but, George, I’m sure I’ve told you about Dr. Sidlowski before.” She turned to Lizzie and said, “He was my regular dentist’s partner. I went to him once, right before I left Montreal for Bryn Mawr because Dr. Gratz was on vacation or something. I’d broken a tooth after eating too many pieces of this really crusty sourdough bread at lunch. I was just beside myself—who breaks a tooth at age eighteen? Don’t answer that, George,” she said hastily as he started to speak. “It was a rhetorical question. Anyway, they took me in right away, and when Dr. Sidlowski asked me how it happened, of course I blamed the bread. But then he asked how many pieces of bread I’d had, and I told him three, which was agonizingly embarrassing. And then he said in this critical voice, ‘Well, clearly the first piece sensitized it, the second piece loosened it, and the third piece cracked it. Perhaps you should take a lesson from this.’ And I have. I almost never have three pieces of bread right in a row, and I certainly don’t when it’s that crusty sort of sourdough. I’m glad I never had to go back to him again.
“I wonder if any of his patients ever complained about the way he talked to them. I suspect there’s a way to find out. It’s that sort of question that keeps me up at night.”
“Nothing keeps you up at night, darling,” Allan said.
Elaine chuckled. “You’re right. But if I were the kind of person who did lie awake at night and ponder various questions, that’s what I would ponder. If Dr. Sidlowski was ever made aware of what an awful person he was. There I was, already suffering from guilt and shame, and look how he treated me, with more guilt and shame. Don’t ever be like that, George,” she ordered, but it was unnecessary to say that, because everyone at the table knew there was no way that George would ever commit the sin that Dr. Sidlowski had.
“There’s a book I really enjoyed that has a dentist in it,” Lizzie began, “called Do the Windows Open? Have you read it, Elaine? It’s by Julie Hecht. It’s a collection of linked short stories about this really neurotic woman. In one of the stories she’s at her dentist’s and . . .”
She paused. Should she continue?
Okay, why not? she thought. It’s probably inappropriate but also really funny. Okay, whatever. I’m going to go for it. George loves me, right? Isn’t that what he said? I’ll think about what I’m going to do with that piece of information tomorrow or the next day. In any case, let him see the real me. Let them all see the kind of person I really am.
She began again. “So the dentist is drilling away, and, I can’t remember her exact words, but she’s musing to herself something like ‘Dentists have the highest suicide rate of everyone in the medical professions,’ and then she goes on to say, ‘Not high enough, in my opinion.’ For some reason I think that’s really funny.”
For several minutes after she finished, no one spoke. Finally Allan coughed. Elaine looked up from studying the remains of the Chinese food on her plate. “Are you getting a cold, Allan?”
George interrupted before his father could answer. “Hmm, I can see how people who hate going to the dentist might find that funny. And you know, it very subtly makes an excellent point: people with depressive personalities shouldn’t go into dentistry. Think about it: people come to you in extraordinary pain, you have to inflict pain to cure the original pain, and you’re working on something that’s only a bit bigger than a grain of rice, with little or no margin for error. I remember one of my teachers saying that what a dentist needed most was a steady hand, steady nerves, and an untroubled heart.”
Lizzie looked at him gratefully.
“That’s why we love George, isn’t it, Lizzie?” Elaine said somewhat mysteriously.
“Yes,” Lizzie said slowly. “I suppose it is.”
* The Defensive Tackles *
M’Ardon “Mardy” Preatty, built like a fire hydrant, was undrafted and later signed by the Lions after a so-so career at Clemson. Although he never became the game-changing pro player that his high school coach had predicted he’d be, season after season he managed to hold on to a spot on the team. Of course, the team as a whole wasn’t very good in any of the years he played for them. Lizzie occasionally saw him on television at the end of a lopsided game and she never failed to point him out to George, although she never went on to mention under what circumstances they’d met.
