I nodded to her.
“Why?”
I shook my head-I couldn’t listen to what the producer was saying and what Dulcie was saying at the same time. “Excuse me, Miss Danzig, could you hold on a second?”
I put my hand over the mouthpiece. “Dulcie, wait till I get off the phone, okay?”
Her words rushed out of her. “You have to do it, Mom. You have to. The Today show? How could you say no to that?”
My daughter’s eyes didn’t typically shine over anything having to do with my occupation. Quite the opposite. She thinks my being a sex therapist is embarrassing. Occasionally, she even calls me Dr. Sin, in the derisive way that only a thirteen-year-old can. All too often, she’s introduced me to her friends or their parents as a heart doctor.
But here was something that involved me professionally that Dulcie wanted me to do. And I’m a sucker for making my daughter proud of me. I’m a softie for bending my own rules to see her smile.
“What is the subject of the segment, Miss Danzig?”
While the producer explained that the show was doing a week-long series on the sexual dissatisfaction of women in long-term relationships, I filled a pot of water and put it on the stovetop to boil.
“It’s a trend we’ve spotted. Women seem more frustrated sexually than their male partners. Especially working women. For many of them, their interest in sex increases the more they work, while men have the opposite reaction.”
I poured salt into the water. Supposedly salt makes the water boil faster and the pasta taste better. I saw that once on an episode of Martha, and anything I can do to make the food I cook taste better, I remember. I seem to be missing the cooking gene; I can even ruin prepared food.
“It’s not a new trend as much as women’s sexuality is a hot topic now, thanks to drug companies who are making huge public relations efforts to hype their female sexual-dysfunction drugs.” I tried not to sound as if I was educating her, but I wasn’t sure I’d succeeded.
“That’s a good point. I’m making a note of it and will pass it on to our writers and researchers.”
I cut through the plastic of a package of precooked chicken breasts and started to slice them into strips. I was probably using the wrong knife-they were shredding.
“So, is that what you want me to discuss?”
“No. We’d like you to be on the show the final day of the series to talk about when it’s time to stop trying to cope with your sexual frustrations yourself and seek a sex therapist.”
The water wasn’t boiling yet.
“We’ll need you here at 7:30 a.m. for hair and makeup. Your segment will probably air between eight-thirty and nine. Is that doable? Do you need a car to pick you up?”
Dulcie’s face broke into a grin as I gave the producer my address. Meanwhile, the water in the pot still wasn’t boiling. I checked for flames. I’d forgotten to turn on the burner. I sighed.
“Something wrong?” Miss Danzig asked.
Once I hung up, I continued making dinner: pasta with chicken and pesto sauce.
When the penne was almost cooked, I opened the last of the prepared food-the sauce. Scooping the emerald paste into another pan, I turned the heat on, added the chicken, and gave it a quick stir. Then I left it on low to find Dulcie and tell her it was time to eat.
She wasn’t in her room. Or in her bathroom. And she wasn’t rummaging around in the makeup box in my bathroom, which was one place I found her too often.
Our six-room apartment, on the fifth floor of a prewar building on the corner of Eightieth East and Madison Avenue, was not that big. Since she wasn’t in either of the two bedrooms or bathrooms, and obviously not in the kitchen, she had to be in the den.
I’d taken the formal living room and dining room- spaces we’d never used-and had the walls ripped down, creating a large, cozy, book-lined space with comfortable couches and an entertainment area in one corner and my ersatz sculpture studio in the other.
Dulcie was standing in the dark, looking out of the windows that faced the street. Her shoulders were slumped and her forehead was pasted against a windowpane. She was too preoccupied to sense my presence.
Too often I can feel my daughter’s pain. Both physical and mental. I can’t read her mind-I am not psychic-but we’re in sync in this way. So without knowing why, I knew she was sad, because I was suddenly sad.
When it comes to my daughter, I’m not a good therapist: I’m just another parent. All I could think of as I stood watching her was how treacherous the world is for a thirteen-year-old girl. Especially one like my daughter, whose parents are divorced, whose mother works full-time, and who has aspirations of becoming a serious actress. Anything could shift her into melancholy. Just as anything might shake her out of it.
“Hon?”
She turned. Her face was in shadows and I couldn’t read her expression.
“Dinner’s ready.”
“Okay, I’ll be right there.”
I could hear the worry in her voice. As much as I wanted to ask her what was wrong, I held back. The direct approach didn’t usually work with Dulcie, just as it hadn’t worked with her father and, in most cases, didn’t work with patients. Most people don’t know what’s wrong unless they’ve been educated through therapy to identify their feelings, express them and work through them.
Being the daughter of a psychotherapist, Dulcie was better than most teenagers at dealing with her feelings and naming the issues, but she still preferred to talk around her problems and let them surface on their own.
Back in the kitchen, I gave the heady garlic-and-basilscented concoction one more turn, then dumped the pasta into a colander. Quickly-I always take too long and the pasta gets cold-I emptied the colander into a wide ceramic bowl, added the sauce and the chicken, tossed it and scooped it on two plates.
I was just putting everything on the table in the kitchen-we are luckier than many New Yorkers, who live without eat-in kitchens-when Dulcie came in and sat down.
I poured her a glass of milk and myself a glass of wine and joined her at the table. She took the first forkful and her nose wrinkled slightly. This came as no surprise. I’d probably burned the pesto, or hadn’t gotten it hot, or there had been too much water in the pasta. Rather than ask her, I took a bite.
Something really was wrong. It definitely didn’t taste right. The meat was sour and salty and didn’t work with the pesto. I put my head down. It’s usually faster for me to smell what’s wrong.
How had I missed it? Had the scent of the garlic in the pesto overpowered everything else? Or was it because I was on the phone when I’d been cutting up the food? Because I’d been thinking about the sexual frustrations of women in relationships? Because I’d been wondering why Nina Butterfield was suddenly pushing me to make a bigger name for myself? Unlike my father, who lived in Palm Springs with his second wife and was simply satisfied that I was productive and healthy, Nina had aspirations for me.
“Mom-what is this?”
“I was on the phone…” I started.
Dulcie was stifling a laugh. She was such a good kid; she was trying so hard to hold it in.
“It’s awful. What is it?” she asked.
“Instead of chicken, it’s filet of sole cooked in soy sauce.”
“Soy sauce and pesto?” Dulcie couldn’t hold it back; she was laughing out loud and I laughed with her. I think I would cook badly on purpose to make my daughter laugh like that. There wasn’t very much that could bother me when she was happy.
“Peanut butter and jelly?” I asked.
“Let me help you. Or else it might be peanut butter and mustard.”
We scraped the food into the garbage can and started from scratch. And while we made the sandwiches, I watched her from under lowered lids to see if the shadows fell upon her face again. But they didn’t. Not that night. We were safe. For at least a little while longer.