by Phoebe Fox
Tom looked everywhere but at me, like a dog following the progress of a fly. “Yeah, Brook...the thing is...” He glanced over at Uta, who gave him a look of either encouragement or intestinal distress. “I’m going over to the Centeredness Center.”
His announcement was punctuated with another sickening crash behind me, and the cracks and thuds of concrete raining to the ground.
I gaped. Tom stood there with an apologetic expression, staring over my shoulder.
Like a cut-rate retail massage business, the brand-new Centeredness Center offered counseling packages to “members” and kept a stable of therapists in house. Its plush Naples offices, about thirty minutes south of Fort Myers, were designed to impress, with attractive women in tight-fitting saffron robes behind the front desk, a smoothie bar in the lobby, and themed “meditation areas” throughout its five thousand bamboo-floored square feet. It was slick, streamlined, soulless...and had been the butt of most of our office jokes ever since it had opened.
I knew better than to laugh now, though. Tom looked too embarrassed.
“Oh,” I said, at a loss. “Oh...well, okay. Wow. Congratulations. To you both, I guess. That... Those seem like...like really positive choices. And forward movement, great...” Psychobabble—literally.
Concrete crashed behind me. I read an article once about how a building is demolished. If you remove its support structure at a certain precise point, everything above it will simply collapse. The wrecking ball is just the trigger for the demolition. It’s gravity that brings the building down.
“Thanks for understanding, Brook,” Tom said, and now the apology in his tone was earnest. “I’ve been talking to them for a while—they’re really taking off down there—and—”
“No worries, Tom. This could be a great opportunity for you. For both of you.” I made myself look happy for the two of them.
But Tom didn’t seem to notice; a relieved smile came over his face. “You’re always solid as a rock, Brook. Nothing fazes you.”
“Yes. You are tough.” Uta nodded, startling me with her approval. “What is the expression? Stone-cold?”
I would have corrected the idiom, but at that point, fiercely maintaining the smile that now felt frozen and carved into my face as my professional life literally crumbled behind me, I wasn’t sure that Uta hadn’t said exactly what she meant.
two
I’d spent six years building a practice with Tom and Uta. Struggled to build a client list, a reputation. Worked ridiculous hours and invested untold amounts of energy into helping the people who came to me understand and solve the problems that were keeping them stalled in their lives. Now, in a morning, all of it was gone.
I went home and made pages of notes for my options: rents at various buildings around town (which I couldn’t afford), names of existing practices (that weren’t hiring), and lists of every therapist I knew to see whether anyone was looking to start a new practice with a partner (they weren’t).
When I finally came to a dead end, I called all of my patients, reluctantly making referrals for those who felt they couldn’t hang around waiting until I found an option for my practice.
I even, to my shame, pulled up the Web site for the Centeredness Center to see if they were still hiring. “The Centeredness Center openheartedly welcomes mental health practitioners from all disciplines and schools of thought,” the Staff page said. “PhDs only, please.”
No matter how long I looked at the information in front of me, it continued to tell me the same thing: Unless I could come up with a big chunk of money—fast—I was temporarily out of business.
I scoured my brain for more ideas while I drove to Kendall’s condo and started dinner. Since we’d started dating, I hadn’t spent a single night at my own dilapidated house, and he’d recently suggested we make it official and I move in.
I’d asked for some time to think it over, and I hadn’t given him my answer yet. I knew he wasn’t Michael—was nothing at all like Michael. Kendall was stable and solid—a hardworking, successful investment broker on the way up, not a flighty musician chasing fame and glory. But we’d only been together a few months, and I’d learned my lesson the hard way about rushing into commitment.
By the time I heard his key in the door it was almost nine o’clock. The chicken was like rubber, the tomatoes deflated into wrinkled red lumps, the asparagus soggy and limp. He appeared in the kitchen doorway as I was shoveling the mess onto two plates, the tired circles under his blue eyes giving his sheepish expression a mournful Basset hound look.
“Sorry.”
I shrugged. “It’s okay.”
“I should have called.”
“You were busy.” I tried to let it go, and set our plates on the breakfast bar. “It’s not as good as when it was fresh.”
Kendall glanced at it apologetically. “I already ate with a client.”
“Oh.” I picked up the plates and whisked their contents into the stainless-steel trash can beside the counter.
“Hey!”
“It’s too overcooked to reheat.” I clattered the plates to the granite countertop.
“Brook...” He moved closer to me, so close I could feel his body heat radiating against me. He put his broad hands on my shoulders and turned me around, looking into my eyes. “What’s wrong?”
Recrimination flooded me. I was pouting. That wasn’t a healthy or adult way to handle my feelings. I took a breath.
“I’m sorry. I’m frustrated and annoyed because I had a terrible day at work today, and I wanted to talk about it with you, and you weren’t here. And then you didn’t call, and I felt unimportant. And throwing away dinner was a childish way of demonstrating my anger and hurt.”
Kendall grinned, and then he started to laugh. I glared at him until he said, “Every man in the world ought to date a psychologist. They’re the only women who actually tell you what’s on their mind.”
The grin, the laugh bubbling up from his chest and vibrating against me as he held me, and the sheer relief of telling him what I felt all combined to let my stomach finally unclench, and I relaxed against him and let myself smile.
“I’m not a psychologist,” I said out of habit.
Kendall pulled away and kissed the tip of my nose. “Close enough.” He led me to the sofa and pulled me down beside him, and the empty feeling in my chest bloomed into warmth as I told him about my day.
It wasn’t until he asked about Sasha’s emergency this morning—it felt like days ago now—that I realized my answer had been staring me in the face all along.
I was up so early the next morning I even beat Kendall out of bed, jittery with anticipation, and sharply at eight thirty I pulled through the chain-link gate at Sasha’s office and into a visitor’s space. The Tropic Times building was located just outside of downtown Fort Myers, on MLK Boulevard in an area of town a few blocks off the river dotted with run-down little apartment buildings, hotels that were two-star in their heyday forty years ago, and one of the highest crime rates in the city.
Sasha came out to the lobby when the receptionist called her to announce me, but the expression she wore didn’t match her initial excitement when I’d run my idea by her.
“I’m not sure this is going to work out today,” she said in a low tone, confirming my suspicions.
“What’s the matter?”
She just shook her head and motioned for me to follow her into the inner sanctum.
Like every newspaper office I’d ever seen in the movies, the news area was a bleak, cheerless mélange of messy desks clustered together without even the courtesy of cubicles in most places. People were hunched ferret-like over keyboards, their faces washed sickly white from the overhead fluorescents and necrotic blue from the light reflecting from their monitors.
“Head down. Head down,” Sasha hissed as we made our way through the chaos, and she pushed me
toward the stairwell in the back corner.
“What was that about?” I asked when the door shut behind us.
She shook her head. “Manny Erwin. Sports editor. You don’t want to know.”
“Sash!” I gave a long-suffering sigh as I followed her up the stairs. “You know better than to date at work.”
She shot me a withering glare over her shoulder. “I didn’t ‘date him at work,’ Brook. Don’t jump to conclusions.”
Guilt plucked at me. “Sorry.”
“I dated him when he was at the Cape Coral office. How was I supposed to know he’d get transferred?” She shoved open the door on the second floor and we emerged from the bowels of hell. It was quiet enough to hear soft classical music piped soothingly throughout the floor, with polite cubicles offering employees at least the illusion of privacy and giving the impression that the floor was nearly unoccupied.
“Wow,” I said.
“Yeah. Features department. Much more civilized.” She pointed us over to a corner, where behind a partition her desk nestled fairly removed from the others. I took the burnt-orange upholstered chair wedged into the narrow space in front of her metal desk, and Sasha plopped onto the desk instead of into the swivel chair behind it.
“So what about this not working out?” I asked again.
Sasha sighed. “This may be the wrong day to do this,” she said in a low tone.
“What’s the matter?”
“Shhh!” Sasha glanced around like Maxwell Smart on a caper. “It’s Lisa, my editor. I don’t think this is a good day to pitch your idea. This morning she—”
“I’ve only got a minute,” a female voice barked out. “What is it?”
Sasha jumped to her feet and stretched her face into a toothy smile at the woman who’d just appeared at the opening of her cubicle. The woman was short and almost skeletally thin, with glasses too blocky for her face and hair of an indeterminate not-quite-blond shade hanging limply on either side of her cheeks. Most startling were her eyes, the color of her irises lost amid the bright red sclera surrounding them. Unlike Sasha, this poor woman apparently did not cry prettily.
“Oh, Lisa,” Sasha said. “I meant to call you. The timing is all off. Let’s reschedule for—”
“What are you talking about?” Lisa asked impatiently, flopping into the chair behind Sasha’s desk. “You wanted a meeting. I’m here. She’s here. I’ve got five minutes. Go.” She fixed her swollen, reddened eyes on her watch, and then on me.
Lisa looked like a taxidermist’s experiment in capturing human grief, her face frozen into stiff lines of pain and her eyes blank and far away. I found myself wholeheartedly agreeing with Sasha that this was not the day to pitch her the idea I’d come up with yesterday—writing a few advice articles in the paper for singles—and wishing I’d made a quiet escape before Lisa had shown up. I wondered if she would notice—or move—if I gathered my things and slipped out past where she was slumped in Sasha’s chair.
I couldn’t say what was natural: Woman, what on earth is troubling you? I had just met Lisa Albrecht, and she was Sasha’s boss, not a client or a friend. But I couldn’t ignore that she was sitting there clearly in pain, either.
“I’m sorry,” I said, leaning forward. “It looks like you might be having a really tough day. Are you okay?”
No sooner had the words left my lips than Lisa’s eyes spilled over and a choked-off, animal sound came out of her mouth. And then the dam burst and she was sobbing, but in a silent way that was horrible to watch, her face growing dark with the effort she was making to hold it in. She straightened and rose from the chair and made a vague wave in our direction, turning to leave. Her shoulders were heaving, and inhuman noises were coming from her, and she was heading back out to the main floor—where anyone encountering her would think she was either having a seizure or needed the Heimlich.
Sasha’s eyes were like ping-pong balls, but she seemed frozen in place, so I rushed to Lisa’s side, putting a restraining, supportive arm around her. “Okay, Lisa. Okay.”
“I’m fine,” she said, but she stopped walking, just standing there, stalled, at the entrance to the cubicle.
“Of course you are,” I said, keeping my voice calm and relaxed, as though I expected this were something that happened daily at the Tropic Times offices.
Lisa pulled halfheartedly away, her words coming out jerky. “I need...to get...work.”
“Yes, I know you do.” I was all business, a matter-of-fact Mary Poppins with an unusually wayward ward. “But why don’t you sit back down for a minute and we’ll get you some water?”
“No, I... No water—” Another of those helpless strangling sounds came out of her throat. “I’m... This isn’t... I...” Lisa again tried to push past me, but I tightened my hold on her shoulders.
“Lisa, you’re the boss,” I said firmly. “You can’t go out there like this.”
Lisa stared straight ahead for a long, long moment, and then tears started spilling again from her eyes like a silent Niagara, and she collapsed against me as if I had stuck a pin in her. “I can’t... I just... He—ggghhh.” The end of whatever she was trying to say was lost in another choked sound from her throat.
I guided her back to Sasha’s chair. Sasha gesticulated ferociously at me, but I couldn’t tear my eyes off of Lisa long enough to make out whatever she was trying to convey. I made a sideways C of my hand and mimed pouring something down my throat, and Sasha rolled her eyes and made a clear “duh” expression that told me that was what she’d been trying to get across. She darted out of the office while I knelt in front of Lisa and patted her hands in her lap.
“I’m not... I don’t usually... This is mortifying,” Lisa said, sniffling.
I reached over and plucked a handful of tissues from a box on Sasha’s desk. “Please don’t be embarrassed. People tend to do this in front of me at least once or twice a day. I’m a therapist.”
“Oh.” She took the tissues I handed her and swiped at her red nose. “You are?”
I nodded. “I’m in practice here in town.” Or will be again. Soon. If you put me on the payroll.
Lisa gave up on stanching the flow from her nose and blew loudly into the tissue. “A therapist. God, isn’t that just what I need.” I couldn’t tell if the comment was meant rhetorically.
“You’re doing great, Lisa.” This from Sasha as she came back into the cubicle with a paper cone of water in each hand.
Lisa looked flatly at my friend with a quelling expression. “Really? This is ‘great’?” She turned her eyes back to me. “My husband. He...” She took in a long, shaky breath. “He walked out on me.”
This is one of the odd side effects of my career. The same way people will confide their medical complaints to someone as soon as they find out she’s a doctor, or spill their personal gripes to an acquaintance when they learn he’s a lawyer, I am often gifted with the most intimate revelations in casual conversation as soon as someone learns I’m in the mental health field. I’ve had complete strangers come out of the closet to me within fifteen minutes of meeting them, or confess to having been abused, or tell me they secretly cross-dress, or—more often than you might think—break down into sobs, as Lisa Albrecht had. When I’d assured her this was nothing new for me, I wasn’t just being polite.
“I’m sorry. What a fool he is.” I said it to cheer her, to bolster her confidence, even though at the moment, with her eyes swollen almost shut and red as raw steak, mucus streaming from her nose, she didn’t exactly look like the one that got away. I took one of the paper cones of water from Sasha and held it out to Lisa.
“Out of nowhere...” Lisa said. “I had no idea.”
I nodded, trying to look sage while discreetly remaining silent. This was Sasha’s boss, after all. And, the practical part of my mind insisted, hopefully mine soon.
“This is sort of Brook’s spec
ialty,” Sasha piped up.
Lisa turned those throbbing eyes on me. “Really? What do you mean?”
I pushed the paper cone toward Lisa again, though she didn’t seem to see it. “She means relationships are one of the areas I work a lot with in my practice,” I said, with a downward inflection I hoped gave the sentence an air of finality. I did not want Sasha launching into a résumé of the times I’d talked her down from this same ledge. Not in front of her boss.
Sasha made a scoffing noise. “Please. You’re a savant with this kind of thing.”
I tried through best friend telepathy to send her a message: Don’t say any more, Sash. You work for her. When things settle down she will hate that you know all her personal info, that you saw her like this. And you don’t want her knowing your deepest-darkest either. Don’t mix your work and personal lives, I told her with my mind.
But Sasha blithely trotted on as though she could not, in fact, read my thoughts. “I can’t tell you how many times I’ve gone through something just like this. All our friends come to Brook for help with breakups. She’s brilliant at it—she’s like a breakup guru.”
Lisa’s gaze shot to me. “A breakup guru?”
I rose from my crouch and turned to snatch the other paper cone from Sasha’s hand, using the opportunity to glare her into silence. “Well, that’s not the kind of—”
“What do you charge?” Lisa barked.
“I’m...sorry?” I had mulled over on the drive to the Tropic Times building what I might net as a freelance writer, but I wasn’t sure when we’d skipped from whether I’d be doing it at all to how much I would get for it.
Lisa made a rolling motion with her hand. “Your services. The breakup guru thing. I need it. How much?”
“Oh...well, that’s not exactly—”
“And I need you to start today. Can you do that?”
I felt as if I were caught in the wake of a speedboat that had cruised too close, leaving my mind bobbing out of control. She wanted me to what...coach her through her fight with her husband? Like a spot-trainer who targeted the heart, instead of the thighs? That wasn’t the way therapy worked.
