Maybe You Should Talk to Someon - Lori Gottlieb Page 0,63
then wants me to consult with my therapist about his wife, and his wife consents? Do I have to disclose that he’s my therapist?”
“Absolutely,” Hillary says.
“Not necessarily,” Mike says at the same time.
“Exactly,” I say. “It’s not clear. And you know why it’s not clear? Because this kind of thing NEVER HAPPENS! When has something like this ever happened?”
Hillary pours me some tea.
“I once had two people come to me individually for therapy right after they’d separated,” Mike says. “They had different last names and listed different addresses because of the separation, so I didn’t know they were married until the second session with each of them, when I realized I was hearing the same stories from different sides. Their mutual friend, who was a former patient, gave both of them my name. I had to refer them out.”
“Yeah,” I say, “but this isn’t two patients with a conflict of interest. My therapist is mixed up in this. What are the odds of that?”
I notice Hillary looking away. “What?” I say.
“Nothing.”
Mike looks at her. She blushes. “Spill it,” he says.
Hillary sighs. “Okay. About twenty years ago, when I was first starting out, I was seeing a young guy for depression. I felt like we were making progress, but then the therapy seemed to stall. I thought he wasn’t ready to move forward, but really I just didn’t have enough experience and was too green to know the difference. Anyway, he left, and about a year later, I ran into him at my therapist’s.”
Mike grins. “Your patient left you for your own therapist?”
Hillary nods. “The funny thing is, in therapy, I talked about how stuck I was with this patient and how helpless I felt when he left. I’m sure the patient later told my therapist about his inept former therapist and used my name at some point. My therapist had to have put two and two together.”
I think about this in relation to the Wendell situation. “But your therapist never said anything?”
“Never,” Hillary says. “So one day I brought it up. But of course she can’t say that she sees this guy, so we kept the conversation focused on how I deal with the insecurities of being a new therapist. Pfft. My feelings? Whatever. I was just dying to know how their therapy was going and what she did differently with him that worked better.”
“You’ll never know,” I say.
Hillary shakes her head. “I’ll never know.”
“We’re like vaults,” Mike says. “You can’t break us.”
Hillary turns to me. “So, are you going to tell your therapist?”
“Should I?”
They both shrug. Mike glances at the clock, tosses his trash into the can. Hillary and I take our last sips of tea. It’s time for our next sessions. One by one, the green lights on the kitchen’s master panel go on, and we file out to retrieve our patients from the waiting room.
22
Jail
“Hmm,” Wendell says after I make my book confession well into our session. It’s taken me a while to get up the courage to tell him.
For two weeks I’ve moved over to position B planning to confess all, but once we’re face-to-face, catty-corner on the couches, I stall. I talk about my son’s teacher (pregnant), my dad’s health (poor), a dream (freaky), chocolate (a tangent, I’ll admit), my emerging forehead wrinkles (not a tangent, surprisingly), and the meaning of life (mine). Wendell tries to focus me, but I’m skating so quickly from one thing to the next that I outmaneuver him. Or so I think.
Out of the blue, Wendell yawns. It’s a fake yawn, a strategic one, a big, dramatic, gaping yawn. It’s a yawn that says, Until you tell me what’s really on your mind, you’ll stay stuck exactly where you are. Then he sits back and studies me.
“I have something to tell you,” I say.
He looks at me like No shit.
And out comes the entire story in one fell swoop.
“Hmm,” he says again. “So you don’t want to write this book.”
I nod.
“And if you don’t turn in the book, there will be serious financial and professional repercussions?”
“Right.” I shrug as if to say, See how screwed I am? “If I’d just done the parenting book,” I say, “I wouldn’t be in this situation.” It’s the refrain I’ve been repeating to myself daily—sometimes hourly—for the past few years.
Wendell does his shrug-smile-wait routine.
“I know.” I sigh. “I made a colossal, irrevocable mistake.” I feel the panic well up again.