“How did Don react to your coming here?” I hadn’t asked before. When Carol phoned to say her husband had signed the consent form, she commented, unasked, that Don still didn’t believe in psychotherapy but was willing to allow it if the school thought it would help Gene. Since she wasn’t my patient I didn’t probe. At least, that’s what I told myself.
On hearing the question, Gene froze, legs rigid, arms at his side, a frightened quiescence. “What?” His standard first defense, pretending not to have heard.
Instinctively, I sensed the truth. My intuition about the meaning of Gene’s reaction was complete, fitting perfectly into the puzzle of his history and personality. I sensed that Carol had lied to me, never informed her husband, forged Don’s signature, and made Gene a partner in the deception. My guess should have excited me. It didn’t; I was dismayed. But how could I feel good? I ought to have, I must have known this might be a key question and yet I had asked, telling myself it was neutral, an exit, not an entrance. Could I drop it? Review both my stumbling on it and the likelihood of my intuition being correct? I checked the clock: five minutes to go. So what? I could run over — I had a half-hour gap anyway and I didn’t believe in cutting off productive time. Out of fear, I was spinning my wheels, and that also bothered me. Gene lay still, hardly breathing, playing possum.
There was no way I could simply let it pass. “Your mother said Don wasn’t going to approve of your coming here,” I said. I didn’t want to appear to be trapping him, although I might be. “How did he react?”
“I dunno,” Gene said quickly and looked at his watch, something he never did.
“We have time,” I said.
“Okay,” he said.
“He didn’t say anything to you about your being in therapy?”
“No,” Gene said easily. He took a relaxed breath. “He’s never said anything to me about it.”
And I knew why. At least I felt sure; but of course I could be wrong. Anyway, to make the accusation was dangerous, whether I was correct or not.
“Does he ask you what we talk about?”
“No,” Gene said, relaxed.
“So you’ve never discussed it?”
“Nope.”
“How about your mother?”
“Oh yeah. She always asks what we talk about.”
“Do you tell her?”
He nodded.
“You know you don’t have to discuss our sessions with her if you don’t want?”
“Yeah,” he was sarcastic. “Thanks. I know.”
I let him go. I had twenty-five minutes free. I had a problem; I was rattled. I wanted to run up one flight and interrupt Susan’s group. Glancing at the master schedule, I noted she was working with family members of alcoholics and drug addicts, shocking them, no doubt, out of their illusions about themselves as victims, waving her gangly arms, her broad forehead wrinkling sternly. Later, she would support them, when they took their first frightened steps toward independence. I wondered what it was like for Harry when he made love to her, exciting that skinny contraption of energy and strength? I laughed, knowing this meant I was feeling truly needy and inadequate.
I called my cousin Julie at her office. She had been appointed as the artistic director of the West End Forum, one of the most prestigious off-Broadway theaters in New York. Her assistant put me through when I said it was urgent, although she was in a meeting.
“Rafe?” she asked.
“I love you,” I said.
“What’s wrong?” she said.
I laughed. “You should be the shrink. Are you free tonight?”
“First preview. Wanna come?”
“If I can talk to you at some point.”
“Definitely. Although after the performance I may need you to treat the cast and playwright first.”
“After I treat them, you’ll close in one night.”
“What’s wrong?”
“I think I should go into plastic surgery.”
“Oh, so you want to be in show business too.”
“No, I just think I should only be treating the surface of things.”
“What does Susan say?”
“I don’t want to ask her.”
“But I thought she’s your teacher, your trainer, or whatever.”
“I have to be more phallic. Time to grow up. So I want to ask your opinion. That’s my version of maturity.”
She laughed. “Boy, are you in trouble.”
“Boy is right. I’ve got patients till nine.”
“You can see the second act.”
I don’t remember the play. The second female lead came offstage screaming at the male lead after curtain, but Julie and the playwright seemed pleased with the performance. After they had a brief conference, I got Julie to myself for a late dinner in a Japanese restaurant next door to the theater.
I told her about Gene and my dilemma. “I’m convinced the mother never informed his father.”
“You mean …” Julie had cut her shimmering black hair short, but she still reached for the missing mass from time to time, and ended up teasing the bristles at her temples. She did this for a moment before finishing, “You mean she forged his signature?”
“I guess. The important thing is that she’s told Gene to keep it a secret from me.”
“Wait a minute. I can’t get over this. This woman is so scared of her husband, she forged his name—”
“That’s not important—”
“What’s she scared of? Does he hit her?”
“No. Much worse. He ignores her.”
Julie frowned. I noticed for the first time — it was too dark in the theater — that her eyeliner was iridescent blue. She was dressed in a black silk man’s shirt and tight black jeans. She had a man’s haircut, lipstick very red — her appearance was eccentric. Was it some sort of dress code for theater people? Julie had worked as the artistic director of a regional theater in the Midwest while I did my residency. When she came to New York for this new job a year ago, she dressed like a hippie — worn jeans, work-shirts, hair long, usually no makeup. I wondered (and noticed that I wondered) whether this new style was a lesbian costume. In the Village I had seen this look on lesbian couples; for that matter, her former hippie appearance also fit their dress code. The playwright was a lesbian. That was the subject of her play and she told me it was autobiographical. There had been a lot of physical affection between the artistic director and the author. I’m a sick person, I thought and fell further into despair.
“Hitting her would really be better?” Julie asked while I spiraled down.
“That’s not my problem. Gene can’t keep that secret from me. It’s a terrible burden.”
“So confront her.”
“She shouldn’t exist!” I cried out.
Julie laughed. “What does that mean?”
“She’s not there. In therapy, the patient and me, that’s the only reality. I can’t go outside, step into his real life, without weakening the transference. If I call the mother, whether she denies it or not, I’m diminishing Gene, making him a child, a bystander, when I want to shore up his ego. Build it really. He doesn’t have one. He’s a creature of his parents.”
Julie peeled off a pink sliver of ginger and chewed it thoughtfully. “Gotta tell you the truth, Rafe.”