The Second Assistant

by Clare Naylor

  “Oh, dear.” She smiled patiently. “It’s perfectly usual to feel that our sessions are a little crowded at first. You’ll get used to it in time. I assure you.”

  I wanted to sprint from the room. My first therapy session was giving me the willies—quite literally, as I’d apparently been a man most of the time—and now I had a crick in my neck because I had sat up on the sofa so quickly. I wondered if my remaining fifteen sessions of psychotherapy could be transferred to an osteopath instead. Or whether I could just cash them in for a voucher at Barneys.

  “And they’re also telling me that you’re in pretty good mental shape, Elizabeth. You just need a little fine-tuning.”

  “Really?” I liked the sound of that. A few afternoons on the couch and I might be the emotional equivalent of a Ferrari, slick and able to navigate all life’s bends and forks in the road with ease and style. And really, who better to help one on life’s path but those who’d already been and gone and done it? Dead People. “Okay, then, sounds fine.” I reshuffled back onto the couch and got comfortable. “And these voices, can they tell me where I’m most likely to meet Mr. Right? Or do they have some sort of code of ethics that prevents that?”

  15

  I don’t mind if you don’t like my manners. I don’t like them myself. They’re pretty bad. I grieve over them on long winter evenings.

  —Humphrey Bogart as Philip Marlowe

  The Big Sleep

  Making my way to the laundry room in the basement always gave me the creeps. You took the elevator down twelve levels to the dank cellar and then walked a long corridor with locked metal doors on all sides and blinking rows of fluorescent lights. I was always certain the superintendent was going to pop out of the furnace room at any minute, having just fed a delinquent rent payer into the burning inferno. Perhaps this was my greatest fear because I was perpetually on the verge of being that delinquent rent payer. The whole scenario was sheer neurosis, though, as our super was a stoned old hippie who was too busy trying to see the universe in a leaky tap to care about my financial woes. I scurried down the hall, my laundry basket in my arms, and pulled the door tightly shut behind me, finally relaxing into the reassuring detergent warmth of the quarter-fed Laundromat.

  I pulled out my change and fed it to the hungry machine. Per usual, stuffing so much into the machine that I had to throw my entire body against it to get it shut. I was busy pouring in my fabric softener when the door opened. No one had ever joined me in the laundry room before, and it took me a moment to get up the courage to overcome the looming, ax-wielding shadows in my mind and turn around. I assumed that any self-respecting person sent their laundry out or had their own personal machine in their apartment, the height of luxury. But I was wrong. There stood Alexa, my yoga neighbor, in pale blue Nuala, very intently filling four washing machines with what seemed like a lifetime of laundry. She caught me looking, so I waved hesitantly.

  “Hi, I’m Elizabeth. I live next door.”

  Alexa smiled in a very relaxed way. “I know you. You’re my quiet neighbor. Nice to see you again. Hope your head got better after that nasty hockey-puck bash.”

  “Oh, it did. Thanks. And thanks for the Neosporin.” I smiled. I had assumed she was a cow because she was so stupidly pretty and flirty, but she just seemed really sweet, actually.

  I was about to head back up to my apartment, very certain in the knowledge that my few Banana Republic items were safe from potential thieves. Even I didn’t want my wardrobe—so I was certain that nobody else would. But Alexa stopped me with an inquisitive look.

  “Hey, Elizabeth, did you ever meet my friend Noel? Tall, dark, handsome. Studio executive at Fox? He does private sessions here on Tuesday at nine?” she asked. I didn’t even have to cast my mind back. I knew exactly who she was talking about.

  “Yeah, I do remember seeing him. I think I met him while I was taking the garbage out.”

  “Well, what do you remember about him?” What I very vividly remembered was that I’d had three enormous bags of garbage, a box from my new toaster, and my keys in my mouth. Noel had run smack into me as he came out of Alexa’s door, causing my bags to drop and half my garbage to be cast all over the hallway. Unbeknownst to me, my keys got lost in the four-day-old Chinese takeout containers, and in my haste to clear it all up, I threw the keys down the garbage chute. Noel, who’d been the cause of all my problems, hadn’t even had the decency to stop and help me pick things up. He hadn’t even grumbled an apology. Instead he’d looked at me with a smirk on his lips, stepped over the garbage (and me) with distaste, and yelled for someone to hold the elevator.

  All of which resulted in my being locked out of my apartment and having to wait for the super to get home. Only to learn that he had no spare keys and that a locksmith after hours would cost me four hundred dollars. So as I had rent and credit-card bills to pay and didn’t feel overjoyed at the prospect of forking out more cash for a couple of bits of metal, I spent three hours digging through the building’s garbage until I found my keys in an empty jar of peanut butter. In other words, Noel had left a very distinct impression on me.

  “Why, is there a problem?” I asked now. I didn’t want to admit that I’d spent an entire evening wishing him under a bus if perhaps she was about to tell me that that was where he’d ended up.

  “He’s been suffering from a rather overinflated ego since he was promoted to senior vice president. I was just wondering if you noticed anything?”

  “Like what?” I asked cautiously. I didn’t want to damn her friend yet, in case she spent the next year meditating on my demise.

  “Like, was he bad in any way?”

  “Well, to be totally honest, he was one of the biggest assholes I’ve ever met. And that’s saying a lot, considering I work at an agency.” I launched into the entire story of the garbage and my keys while Alexa listened patiently.

  “I’m so sorry, Elizabeth. You should have told me. I would have made him pay for a locksmith. But thank you so much for your honesty. I was looking for exactly that kind of input.”

  “You’re welcome. I hope it helps,” I said. I was about to walk out of the laundry room when Alexa stopped me again.

  “What are you doing tomorrow night?” My God, I was making friends left and right!

  “Nothing, really.”

  “Would you come to Noel’s intervention?”

  “Oh, God. I’m so sorry. I feel really guilty now. I didn’t know he had a drink or drug problem. I’d never have been so rude about him if I had.”

  “You have nothing to apologize for, Elizabeth. Ever.”

  “Sorry. A habit I picked up at the new job.”

  “You’re doing it again.” She smiled kindly at me “Noel isn’t an addict. He’s just an asshole. It’s an asshole intervention. Basically, since he got this new job, his ego has been flattening mankind. His wife is thinking about leaving him, his sister won’t speak to him, and his best friend is advertising in the personal columns for a new one.”

  “Oh, no,” I said. But I wasn’t surprised. Noel really looked like a cock.

  “And then I had to give up teaching him because his energy was so twisted. It was making me sick. The bottom line is he needs an intervention or he’s going to be left alone, disappointed, and broken.”

  I wanted to laugh. Was she kidding? I looked into her earnest, soft brown eyes and realized that she was deadly serious. “How does it work?”

  “Well, he’s brought unaware into a mutually supportive group of friends and family, and then we go around in a circle and tell it like it is. Either he gets help and finds his old self again or we turn our backs on him. It’s a very serious and intense process.”

  I imagined a roomful of earnest people with twisted energy and a furious, egomaniacal executive. To be honest, it was just a bit too much like work for me.

  “Alexa, I don’t think I really know him well enough to be there. It sounds incredibly personal.”

  But Alexa was busy writing an add
ress and time on the back of her butter yellow business card. “I promise you it’s not. We have an entire spectrum of people coming. It’s important to have those that are less involved, too, because they’re also the people who his horrible behavior affects on a daily basis. Even the mailman’s coming, and we really need you and your story, Elizabeth. Please?”

  Well, I figured that I had nothing better to do, so it might be uncharitable not to. Plus, I might meet some new people, which would make my mother happy. “Sure. I’ll come over after work. Is there a dress code?” I felt it was safer to ask.

  “Not really, but maybe something spiritual or colorful. Orange is a healing color. And we don’t want him to feel like it’s his funeral. Also, we’re ordering in from Mr. Chow, so is there anything you don’t like?”

  God, what heaven! I was definitely there.

  “I love everything. I’m looking forward to it. Well, you know, I’m looking forward to helping. See you tomorrow.” I waved and practically pranced down the hall, wondering whether I should have mentioned that I was very, very partial to sweet-and-sour prawn balls.

  I turned left off Laurel Canyon and wended my way up narrow streets that used to be hippie hideaways and now were worth not a penny less than $1.5 million for a three-bedroom ranch house. Unfortunately, $1.5 mil didn’t seem to include anywhere to park. Plus, you couldn’t walk anywhere from your house without ending up roadkill, and since only one car could fit up the narrow road at a time, there were endless traffic jams. Still, the area was one of the closest and most accessible canyons to Hollywood. Which was obviously fun for some.

  I followed Alexa’s directions and continued my ascent. In L.A., the more successful you became, the higher up you lived. So obviously Noel had done quite well for himself, because my wheezing Honda was still climbing, albeit reluctantly, ten minutes later. I finally found number 106 and parked my car at the bottom of the long row of gorgeous machines that were there to witness Noel’s de-assholing. I had a sneaking suspicion that quite a few people there were just longing to bitch at Noel with impunity. And if his family had sold tickets, even more people might have come. I suspected that some pretty evil things might emerge in the name of healing, and I’d spent the majority of the day contemplating leaving a message on Alexa’s cell phone canceling. But the lure of Mr. Chow was too much for a girl to resist. I’d never be able to get a table there, let alone afford to eat there in real life, so this was my perfect taste of that famously fabulous restaurant.

  Unless, of course, I went on a date with Bob, and that was out of the question. Bob was still in pursuit and had actually called me at the office today asking if I’d go to some gallery opening with him. I was shocked into silence, because I had no idea Los Angeles had galleries and I couldn’t figure out how Bob could make something as innocent and public as an art opening sound quite as perverted as he had. Not wishing to risk another date, in case he had installed cameras in the bathroom and was planning a feature film, I sweetly declined. But he’d called back, and I’d hung up on him, since Victoria was standing over me waiting to yell. The scary part was that he seemed to get off on my putting the phone down on him, which made him a very tricky character to lose. Perhaps someone would organize an asshole intervention for Bob, but I was pretty certain he was too far gone and that too few people would care.

  I walked up the gravel path lined with perfectly trimmed and watered box hedges, and looked for the doorbell. But Noel’s house was minimalist chic gone mad, so I couldn’t find one. The architect seemed to have taken an ugly ranch house and covered the walls with gray concrete, enlarged the windows, and replaced what was probably a pitched, tar-shingled roof with beautiful copper panels. The polished slate stairs leading to a stark, handleless door gave the entire house the appearance of a very unfriendly Zen garden. Finding no doorbell or knocker in sight, I eventually just banged on the white, wooden expanse with my fist and offered a prayer to Buddha that getting out would be easier than getting in, just in case I needed to make a dash for it.

  I waited for someone to answer the piece of wood. Seconds later Alexa opened the wood and threw her arms around me in a fantastic bear hug.

  “Elizabeth, I’m so glad you made it.”

  There were no frills here, like a hallway, so we were immediately in the imposing white space of Noel’s living room, where a crowd of twenty-odd people were eating a fully catered meal of dumplings and lettuce cups.

  “Everybody, this is Elizabeth,” Alexa announced. “She told me the trash story.” There were looks of concerned empathy from the guests and a few oohs and ahs.

  “Has Noel arrived?” I was suddenly frightened of seeing him. His hatred for me was inevitable, and unfortunately he wasn’t drunk or on drugs and so would remember this entire evening with perfect clarity for the rest of his life. I decided that maybe I should quickly bolt down a bit of Chinese, and then I could slip out in the commotion of his arrival. I walked over to the food and started filling my plate. A man dressed in some type of religious garb came over and started piling strictly vegetarian options onto his plate, while I stared at his robes trying to figure out what order he was with. They were a deep purplish red and looked similar to what the pope might wear, but he had no collar and no cap.

  “Isn’t the feng shui just glorious in this house?” he said. Not the pope, then.

  “I don’t know much about feng shui, but I certainly felt very peaceful when I knocked on the door,” I said. Which wasn’t strictly true, but then neither was it the fault of the décor. It was due more to the fact that I was possibly about to take my seat for a potentially life-ruining ceremony.

  “You’re very astute. I’m Lee, Noel’s feng shui consultant. I went with him to every house he considered buying and either gave it the thumbs-up or -down. This one was glorious, though. But there were a few crucial defects we had to fix before he even moved a shoe box in.”

  “Wow, that’s quite a job. What did you have to do to this house? It seems just perfect.”

  He laughed and rolled his eyes in mock horror. “You have no idea, Elizabeth. This interior designer had just done it up and was trying to sell it as is. At a premium, I may add. The walls were a deep wine red, and there wasn’t a single water feature.”

  “What’s wrong with red? I thought it was good luck in China?” I asked timidly, hoping this wasn’t blasphemy.

  “Not in the bedroom, darling. It kills the will. You know what I mean. Takes the lead out of the pencil.”

  I certainly understood what he was driving at. “That’s no good. But why water, then?”

  “Money. Flowing water promotes the influx of cash. The last guy who owned the house went bankrupt. Before Noel moved in, I added the fountain in the front and this magnificent piece of design in the dining room.”

  He beckoned me to follow, and I walked into the next room. Noel had taken a section of the roof off and replaced it with a piece of clear plate glass. Under it he’d built a restaurant booth with banquettes that seemed to meet the heavens. One of the banquette walls had been replaced by another piece of glass with a flowing waterfall effect that you could actually lean against while you ate your pizza—but I guessed that anything as commonplace as pizza never crossed the holy threshold of this temple. I sat down at the table and leaned back looking at the sky—which was admittedly a little smoggy, but who’s keeping tabs?—and listened to the tinkle of water flowing all around me. I felt like I was in an aquarium. True genius. Though Noel was an asshole, he had really good taste, and for a moment I really wanted to be him.

  “You are really and truly amazing,” I told Lee. “I’m dead broke, but one of these days I won’t be, and I’d love to hold on to your card so I can track you down.”

  Lee smiled knowingly, without a hint of mockery. He knew how quickly people rose in this business, and he wasn’t going to look a nag in the mouth, because it just might turn out to be a gift horse. “Call me anytime, sweetcheeks. Maybe if I have a minute, I’ll do a consultation for
you on the house.” He laughed. Out of kindness, so did I.

  “That’s funny. Thanks, Lee.” And I was about to give him a little bow or something but was interrupted by a small brunette, Noel’s wife, Sandy, who was hurrying around the room like a wasp in a jar trying to get everyone seated. “Quick, everyone, sit in a circle—Noel’s home.”

  Everyone dived for chairs, and I decided to perch on a sofa arm, away from the ominous-looking leather library chair they’d chosen as Noel’s seat. I didn’t want to be in the line of fire if he decided to lash out at someone.

  We sat in expectant silence as we heard the key turn in the lock. Sandy went over to the door and greeted him. Oh, God, this was like watching the dentist scene in Marathon Man—always even more painful because you knew it was coming.

  “Hi, babes. I’m exhausted. I thought you had your knitting circle tonight. This fuck cut me off when I was driving home, and I—” Noel walked through the door, tossed his leather Gucci briefcase on a bench-cum-morgue-slab, then sidestepped his wife without kissing her. Presumably, on an ordinary night, he would have charged on in and asked what was for dinner, but this evening he stopped dead in his tracks when he saw the group of people looking expectantly up at him from his sunken living room.

  “Are you having a party?” He looked bewildered and confused.

  “No, baby, it’s an intervention. For you. You’ve changed, and no one likes who you’ve changed into.”

  Noel assessed the room, and for a moment looked positively shaken. Like a newborn colt unable to understand the evil world he’d been born into. But then, almost as if a door had slammed, he put on his mental armor and sneered.

  “This is bullshit. I’m out of here.” He turned to go, but his best friend from college, the president of his fraternity, stood up.

  “Noel. I think you need to stay and hear everyone out. You may not agree, and that’s your choice, but everyone here loves and cares about you and has taken the time to be here for you. So just sit down and listen.”