The therapist laughed. All right, what are Andie and Clarissa doing?
Going to Puerto Vallarta, the patient said between lingering gasps and sniffles.
Can you join them?
Andie’s college friend was supposed to go with them, but now she has the flu. Andie says I can have her room.
Perfect! said the therapist.
You think I should go with them?
It is a nice resort, yes?
Yes. Fancy. Balconies overlooking the ocean, pools with swim-up bars. She laughed. Poor people in white jackets serving piña coladas.
Then she began to weep gently again. But Charlotte …
Charlotte, said the therapist.
This means I’m leaving Charlotte, said the patient.
Perhaps yes, perhaps no. She may or may not mean what she said. You can find out after the holidays. The doctor was quiet for a moment. Then she said: But you must do what is best for you. I believe you need rest and the support of good friends like Andie and Clarissa.
Yes … but … I feel so alone.
And she softly wept.
The therapist spoke gently while her patient gently cried, counseling her patient to be careful, monitor her drinking, take no drugs, be mindful of whom she befriended.
I will be here for you, the doctor said in a firm voice. Any time, day or night, you may leave a telephone message for me. If it is an emergency, you must do so. Now you will promise—swear!—that you will call me if you come undone in any way.
The patient coughed, blew her nose, laughed. I swear, she said.
They stood. I heard the analyst walk over to the patient, then there was a rustle of fabric. Thank you again, the patient said, her voice slightly muffled, as if it came through whatever stuff covered the nook of Dr. Schussler’s shoulder.
39.
I waited. Dr. Schussler did not turn on the sound machine. It seemed an eternity before she gathered her things, turned off the lights, and went home. I stood all that while in my overcoat, sweating under my many layers, finally tumbling into the street. I coughed my way toward Market Street.
Puerto Vallarta. A small travel agency down the block from our building had a sign in the window: a five-night package, airfare and hotel included, the “luxury hotel” shown on the poster boasting “all balconies facing the ocean.” It was just as the patient desired: balconies, breezes, her silk dress fluttering across the sun-browned skin of her body. I had never noticed the agency’s existence; there was no reason I should have. But now: Puerto Vallarta.
Although it was nearly nine o’clock, a light showed from within. I stepped into the shop.
Its atmosphere could not have been more unlike the posters of bikini-clad models that covered the walls. At a piled-high desk sat a woman of about my age smoking a long cigarette that dangled from her lips. She and her desk comprised the whole agency, a tiny space into each surface of which had seeped the grime of the street and the reek of age-old cigarette smoke.
Help you? asked the woman, the cigarette remaining in her lips as she spoke.
I stood by her desk—the side chair was piled as high as her desk—and inquired about the package in the window.
Which one? she asked without looking up. I got lotsa packages.
I indicated the trip to Puerto Vallarta, in particular the hotel shown in the poster in the window.
Too late, she said, her cigarette dropping ashes as it dangled. Sold out.
Before that moment, I was certain I did not actually want to go to Puerto Vallarta. I had merely been inquiring, I thought; only wished to feel closer to the patient, know more about the details of her trip, perhaps even what she would spend, what she could afford, therefore the style and conduct of her life. But upon learning that this agent could not help me, the sweat began to boil on my skin; coughs suddenly wracked my chest. Her! Her! Her! sounded in my head, growing ever louder, so that my coughs seemed to come from far away, from deep underwater. I could barely hear my own voice when I said:
That is very wrong! Why is your sign still in the window? You should not advertise what you cannot deliver!
She looked up.
Mister, she said, Christmas is around the corner. Everyone knows you have to book in advance. I can get you to Mazatlán, if you want.
How dare she! I thought. What was this Mazatlán? Who is this hag to thwart me?