I Like You Just the Way I Am

by Jenny Mollen

  Dr. Carl wore a dark velvet blazer with a white button-down shirt underneath, no tie, great shoes, and casual pants. He was handsome in a daddy-figure way and seemed to possess a flair for the dramatic. Tussling his almost inappropriately long hair out of his face, he motioned for me to follow him down the hall into his corner office. He walked with purpose, and I almost scored a second workout just trying to keep up with him.

  Inside his office, everything was made of dark wood. He owned one of those giant wingback chairs, which instantly made me kind of pissed that all psychologists didn’t have them. Note to all therapists everywhere: Wingback chairs legitimize you!

  Dr. Carl curled up into his seat Indian-style as he started asking questions. “So, why are we here?”

  “I’m a student at Antioch and—”

  He cut me off. “Why are we really here?”

  “Well, we are here because I’m here and you’re here.…” I waited for his eyes to give me some kind of hint that I was on the right track.

  Dr. Carl continued to stare straight through me, which in turn forced me to ramble. I pulled out all the buzzwords I could think of.

  “I’ve been in and out of treatment since I was six years old. I’m somewhat of a perennial child with abandonment issues and a serious attachment disorder. My mother is a narcissistic love junkie and my father is a controlling egomaniac, so obviously I was never seen, and as a result became a fucking actor. I’m not really into drugs or alcohol, but I do get a high off starving myself. I’ve been on Zoloft for the last four years. I’d be up for a little cog behavioral work here and there. I’d even be down to explore an Electra complex if you felt I needed to. But for the most part, I’m just looking for school credit. Have you ever read The Drama of the Gifted Child? Mind-blowing stuff, am I right?”

  Carl looked at me like I was out of my goddamn mind. “I think we should see each other twice a week.”

  I started seeing Dr. Carl every Tuesday and Thursday. And unlike other people I’d worked with, he tried to avoid talking about the past. He wanted to focus on the present. When Dr. Carl would get worked up, he’d always do something extra-dramatic for effect. He never did a perfect round-off back handspring across the room the way I’d hoped, but he did once crush a Starbucks cup with his forehead. He was quirky and unconventional and more or less a complete enigma.

  And I loved him. Well, I guess I didn’t really love him, but I thought I did, which is what good “transference” is all about. The reality was, I didn’t know one thing about him. That’s actually what I loved about him. That, coupled with the fact that the only thing we did when we were together was talk about me. Dr. Carl was selfless in our sessions. It was something I hadn’t experienced often in life, and it made me certain he was hiding something.

  Sometimes on my way out of the parking garage, I’d try to guess which car was his. I wondered if he had children, what my life would be like if he were my dad, and how big his penis was. Over time I found myself increasingly frustrated with the fact that Dr. Carl refused to disclose even the tiniest morsel about his life. I didn’t feel like I was asking for too much. I just wanted to know simple things like, was he married, or totally head over heels in love with me? Anytime I tried to inquire about his personal life, he managed to avoid the question.

  “Jenny, Freud would classify this line of questioning as avoidance. My relationship status is irrelevant. Nondisclosure is my policy. If I start making our time about me, that’s behaving like your parents and it’s retraumatizing. It can contaminate the transference, blur our boundaries, and shift your focus from yourself. Believe me, the more you know about me, the less help I’ll be to you.”

  “Why doesn’t Dr. Carl want to be friends?” I thought as I walked through the parking lot later, peering into the driver’s-side window of the Mercedes E class I’d convinced myself was his.

  * * *

  “He’s just being a tad too professional, don’t you think?” I lamented to Eric one day over lunch. “Should I start wearing makeup to our sessions?”

  “He’s your therapist, you aren’t supposed to know anything about him.” Eric flossed his too-white veneers into my tuna salad.

  Eric and I had become close friends. At first we were friends in the way that you are nice to your drug dealer because you don’t want him to kill you, but after several weeks surrounded by menopausal women wearing their pets’ ashes in lockets around their necks, we’d actually forged a bond.

  “But don’t you feel like he should be a little more relaxed, since my seeing him is kind of a school thing?” I Googled the words “Dr. Sandford Ph.D.” on the laptop in front of me.

  “Jenny, when I was in prison—” Eric started.

  “Yeah, Eric! You were in prison! Shouldn’t you know people who can find this shit out for me?”

  “Actually, I was about to say that I reached a point of Zen, of not having to know or be in control of everything around me.”

  “What do you mean? Like, when you didn’t have money or cigs to bargain with?”

  “I mean, I became a better person. And so should you.”

  “Umm, helloo, I am in therapy, aren’t I?” I said as I doodled Mrs. Jenny Sandford and Dr. and Mrs. Carl Sandford in the Moleskine notebook I’d bought from the campus bookstore.

  Back in class, my fellow students shared detailed diagrams of their family systems in something we in the mental health biz referred to as a genogram. A genogram is like a family tree that also tells you how fucked up you are. It allows you to see patterns and understand family dynamics by describing each member’s personality traits, medical history, and emotional relationships. It also lists any significant sideline characters such as stepchildren, therapists, and slaves. For example, a family tree might tell you I had a great-uncle on my mother’s side, but a genogram would let you know that he was a homosexual alcoholic with schizophrenia and an unhealthy addiction to pretzels. I contemplated bringing my genogram home with me for Thanksgiving but worried it might turn out like the New Year’s I picked everyone’s resolutions out for them.

  Luckily, I was interrupted by a vibration from my phone, which I was certain was the big break that would change the course of my life forever. I excused myself from the classroom and started mentally packing a sensible suitcase for next year’s Sundance film festival. Outside, I opened my e-mail in-box to find a message from Dr. Carl. But it wasn’t sent from the e-mail address I’d written to. This was his private e-mail!

  All it said was “Yes.” Just, “Yes.” In retrospect, I think Dr. Carl was probably just saying yes to my request to change our appointment time the next day, but in the moment, it sure seemed like he was saying yes to every wild, warped, neurotic thought or hope I’d ever experienced under his care.

  I printed out the e-mail, laminated it between two pieces of wax paper with an iron, and pasted it to my rented refrigerator.

  I imagined all the questions it could be the answer to.

  “Am I your favorite patient?” Yes.

  “Am I your prettiest patient?” Yes.

  “Don’t you think I should be famous already?” Yes.

  “Do you love me?” Yes.

  “Is it okay that I masturbate to you sometimes?” Yes.

  “Do you masturbate to me sometimes?” Yes.

  “Don’t you want to blur the boundaries of our relationship as much as I do?” Yes.

  “Should I dye my hair red?” Yes.

  “Should I dye my hair black?” Yes.

  “Should I taunt people who were mean to me in high school during my future Oscars speech?” Yes.

  “Should I just go ahead and put that shoe-shaped couch on a credit card because I deserve it?” Yes.

  “Am I a good person?” Yes.

  “Am I a great person?” Yes.

  “Don’t you wish I were your daughter?” Yes! Yes! Yes!

  Before I got into my evening homework assignment (an essay on cultural sensitivity), I hopped on Facebook to touch base with m
y business contacts, letting them know I wasn’t currently committed to any particular project and that if they moved quickly, they could swoop in and nab me at a reasonable rate. After writing a small essay as my status update, I noticed new names on the right side of my screen in the “People You May Know” section.

  At the top of the list was Dr. Carl.

  I called Eric.

  “I’ve been staring at it for the last half hour. It’s his real page!” I shrieked as I paced around my unfurnished living room. I totally planned on buying a couch in the shape of a shoe and other trendy home furnishings just as soon as I got the next residual check from my groundbreaking guest spot on 18 Wheels of Justice, starring Lucky Vanous on TNN.

  “What can you see?”

  I couldn’t see much. The picture was blurry and totally not a good representation of his overall vibe. His age wasn’t listed, but his birthday, February 3, was.

  “I knew he was an Aquarius!” I said to Eric, whom I’d managed to lure over to my house with the promise of cupcakes I didn’t actually have.

  “His personal e-mail is obviously the one he uses for this stuff. That’s why you couldn’t find him before. Now Facebook thinks you guys are friends because he’s in your e-mail contacts. Where are the cupcakes?” he asked suspiciously.

  Ignoring him, I proceeded to spin out in my head.

  “His bio sounds like he’s Tony Robbins,” I said. This was a side of Dr. Carl I really didn’t know, a side that sounds more like the self-promoting, image-obsessed father I was in therapy to disentangle myself from.

  “The whole reason I wanted Dr. Carl to be my dad-husband was because he was different from my current dad-husband! I mean, yes, I love that he’s an Aquarius, but how am I supposed to live with the fact that he calls himself a ‘therapist to the stars’? That’s obviously not going to work for me as I continue to get more and more visibility. And what about the fact that he has only fifty friends? That kind of makes him seem like a loser, right?” I spun around three times as fast as I could in my swivel chair trying to un-see what I’d just seen.

  Eric was half-listening, his torso now wedged into my oven, looking for cupcakes.

  “Did you look at his friends?” Eric shouted, still not giving up the hunt.

  I clicked to see the fifty people Dr. Carl deemed worthy of Facebook friendship. Most were randoms over forty who looked like they owned a turtleneck in every color, talked about wines like they were talking about people, and had crazy hairy vaginas.

  “You don’t have any cupcakes, do you?” Eric walked out of the kitchen, realizing he’d been duped.

  “We can go buy some.” My eyes were once again glued to the screen.

  He sat down next to me and pushed my hands away from the keyboard.

  “You are really bad at this.” Eric zipped through Dr. Carl’s friend list and clicked on a young girl with the same last name.

  “How did you know—?” I started, but stopped myself just in case Eric’s answer was “in prison.”

  “This must be his daughter.” He scrolled through the girl’s page.

  Lisa Sandford was twenty-one, in art school, living in Santa Monica, hotter than expected, and totally Dr. Carl’s daughter.

  If Dr. Carl had a real daughter, then what did he need me for? My abandonment complex kicked into high gear. It was as if I thought I’d booked a series regular role as “Therapist’s Daughter,” and it turned out to be a one-day co-star as “Crazy Patient #342.”

  What the fuck! Not only did Dr. Carl have a child, but he had a child younger than me? I always thought he looked at me like a daughter, but now I knew he probably looked at me like someone who could babysit his daughter and probably chaperone her on a school trip to Washington, D.C.—where I’d have to use credit cards and IDs for rental cars and hotel incidentals.…

  I was starting to panic.

  Lisa had three photo albums available for perusal. I arbitrarily clicked one open and started snooping. The first album was composed mainly of her girlfriends graduating from what looked like high school. The second album seemed to depict her as someone who’d recently read The Secret, with lots of vision boards and comments like “Go straight.”

  But the third album was the jackpot. It was titled “Sandals Jamaica Christmas” and was filled with pictures of Dr. Carl, Lisa, and one of her girlfriends. One photo showed them snorkling and giving the thumbs-up. Another showed them eating conch fritters.

  This album told me several things about Dr. Carl:

  1. He was not with Lisa’s mom,

  2. He knew how to swim, and

  3. Much like Professor Wallace Shawn, he ate food.

  But it also got at something deeper, something almost imperceptible to the human eye: Dr. Carl was lonely. In all the pictures, his eyes just seemed to drift toward the horizon like he was in search of something he had yet to find. True love, perhaps? He was also a Beverly Hills Ph.D. who was choosing to vacation at a Sandals resort. He was better than that, but maybe he didn’t think so. Maybe he came from humble beginnings, had a fear of trusting, and just never felt good enough. I was certain some if not all of this contributed to his split from Lisa’s mother.

  Poor Dr. Carl, I thought as I wondered what the Jamaica trip would have been like if I had been Lisa’s friend. I’m sure we would have played it cool the first few days, kept our mutual attraction under wraps. Maybe we would have gone out to see a steel drum band after his daughter passed out from the muscle relaxer I put in her rum and Coke. Maybe he’d touch my leg in the cab back to the hotel. Then maybe carnal desire would win out and I’d move my toothbrush into his suite.

  Eric binged on a box full of stale Cap’n Crunch left by the previous tenants and then went home. I thought about my session with Dr. Carl the next morning and wondered what, if anything, would be different now that I knew what I knew.

  * * *

  “Yeah, it’s weird,” I said, in some of my worst acting to date. “I think I’m just in need of a big vacation. Jamaica or somewhere tropical. Need to reconnect with the earth, get wet, blow some bubbles, you know?”

  Dr. Carl’s face gave away nothing.

  “So how was your weekend? Did you get out of the house much?”

  Again nothing, which I’d learned from school meant he was taking a “Rogerian stance.” Basically just shutting the fuck up and waiting for me to solve my own problems. Knowing what he was up to, I continued.

  “It’s just kind of disconcerting that you know so much about me and yet I don’t know anything about you besides that you’re an Aquarius.”

  “And how do you know that?”

  Thinking fast, I rolled my eyes and tried to cover. “Oh, come on, Doc, it’s so obvious that you’re an Aquarius. Like I don’t know an Aquarius when I see one.” I laughed nervously before plunging into a rant about how offended I was that I’d never been molested.

  * * *

  “I’m telling you, he’s an impenetrable forest!” I told Eric over coffee. Dr. Carl’s unwillingness to be straight with me was making me insane. It consumed my thoughts—and also distracted me from the fact that I was now basically living with Eric.

  “I think this is just you not being able to respect boundaries or stomach rejection,” he said, like he’d actually been paying attention in class.

  “Obviously!” I spooned the foam off Eric’s latte and ate it. “It just feels weird. He’s making me feel like a total stalker.”

  “Well, you are. And that’s okay,” Eric said. Finally, some validation.

  “You know what? I’m over it. His life is his life. Right? I can respect this bizarre nondisclosure tic of his. Besides, I’m probably seconds away from leaving grad school anyway. And don’t worry, I’ve already told my agents I’m gonna need your airfare negotiated into any and all future contracts.”

  I downed the remainder of Eric’s drink and motioned for the check, but before we got up, Eric grabbed my laptop.

  “Just to protect you from yourself,
we are going to block both Dr. Carl and Lisa, okay?” he said, logging into my Facebook.

  “Fine.”

  “Password.”

  Guilt washed over my face. I bit my lip, trying to maintain calm.

  “What is it? Why are you blushing?”

  “No, nothing. I mean, Eric, you were in prison. Giving you any of my passwords does seem a little—”

  “Bullshit,” Eric said. “Dish now.”

  “It’s H-O-T…,” I started.

  “Yeah…”

  “C-A-R-L.” I exhaled.

  “Hot Carl? Do you even know what that is?”

  “No. What?”

  “It’s like when someone shits on your face,” Eric said. “You’ve never heard of a Hot Carl? Cleveland Steamer? None of this rings a bell?”

  “Eric, I’m straight.”

  “Wow.” He lifted his eyebrows in disbelief and logged in to my page.

  Then, as if he’d seen a ghost, Eric’s face went white.

  “What is it? Did someone I went to high school with have a stillborn or something?” I turned the laptop toward me.

  The glare of the screen seemed to wash out everything but a single word:

  CONGRATULATIONS!

  Less than three minutes ago, Dr. Carl’s daughter, Lisa, posted a picture of Dr. Carl with his new fiancée. Dr. Carl was engaged.

  “She’s so much older than me!” I gasped.

  “Good for him,” Eric replied.

  “No, totally.” I said, “I’m sure a woman like this will absolutely make Dr. Carl happy.” I clicked on her name and went directly to her Facebook page.

  Anya Finkelstrum was a forty-five-year-old wedding planner from Boston. She currently resided in Topanga Canyon, six miles away from her eighteen-year-old son, Bengie, who just started his first year of college at Pepperdine. What Anya’s page didn’t reveal about her, I was more than happy to make up in my head: