Authors: Lisa Lutz
At the age of fifty, Ernie met the woman of his dreams. She applied for a receptionist position at the muffler shop he co-owns with his brother,
they dated for six months, decided to test their relationship on a four-day vacation in Reno, Nevada, and by the second day, decided to wed. Her name was (and still is, I presume) Linda. Maiden name: Truesdale. She has red hair, brown eyes, and is covered in freckles. I took note of this fact because redheads are easy to follow. Depending on Ernie’s financial situation, I thought I just might cut him a break.
This was Ernie’s first marriage and he wanted it to work. But women had always been a mystery to Ernie and so he tried to solve the mystery through cheap self-help books. When I first met with Ernie (well, the second time) he was reading a battered paperback titled
Women: Everything You Ever Wanted to Know and More.
He had recently finished a chapter on secrets and realized that his wife had a few.
I asked for the hard facts first, not wanting to be influenced by Ernie’s interpretations. To begin with, his wife would often disappear for hours at a time and use a flimsy excuse for her absence. Ernie never pressed her on this issue because he didn’t want her to feel smothered. Then there were the expensive items of clothing and perfume that would show up after these unexplained excursions, with no dent on their mutual credit card. The money had to come from somewhere. Those hours that passed without him—she had to be doing something. Ernie had a feeling he didn’t like in the pit of his stomach, but he told himself that he was imagining things. It wasn’t until last weekend, when he cleaned out the garage and found a shoebox full of $3,000 in cash, that he decided to look at the matter more closely.
I then asked Ernie what he thought might be going on and he handed me a handwritten sheet of paper that listed, in descending order of preference, his list of possibilities:
While I was no expert on Linda, I decided that Ernie should leave with at least a shred of hope. I told him that option D was extremely unlikely. Then I asked him a question my mother always asks whenever we consider taking on a domestic case.
“Ernie, if we do find out that your wife is having an affair, what will you do?”
Ernie consulted his shoes for the answer: “We’d have to go to marriage counseling, I guess.”
His reaction was calm, which was what I was looking for. You can’t predict human behavior, but I would’ve bet a week’s wages on Ernie being a peaceful man. So I decided to take the case.
Then we talked money. Ernie didn’t have much of it, so it was a short conversation. I would be on call for the next time his wife planned an excursion. I cut my usual rate by half, which is 75 percent less than what my parents would charge for the same work. Ernie was getting a deal, but the job seemed easy enough.
It didn’t mean anything to me—I’ll tell you that right now. So don’t get any ideas. There was no significance in me doing a favor for a friend of Milo’s. A few hours of watching a redhead didn’t mean I was back in the game. That’s what I told myself, at least.
(THERAPIST #1: DR. IRA SCHWARTZMAN)
[Partial transcript reads as follows:]
ISABEL:
This week has pretty much been the same as any other week.
DR. IRA:
So nothing of interest happened?
ISABEL:
No. It was a dull week.
DR. IRA:
I see. And how do you feel about that?
ISABEL:
Good. Very good.
DR. IRA:
So there’s nothing you’d like to discuss?
ISABEL:
Not really.
DR. IRA:
Are you sure?
ISABEL:
Let me think about it. [Long pause.
1
]
ISABEL:
I thought of something.
DR. IRA:
Go on.
ISABEL:
Only two more weeks.
DR. IRA:
Excuse me?
ISABEL:
Only two weeks left until the final session of my court-ordered therapy. [Dr. Ira consults his notes.]
DR. IRA:
Indeed you are right, Isabel.
ISABEL:
So our time is nearing its end.
DR. IRA:
Should I interpret that to mean you plan to discontinue therapy after your final session?
ISABEL:
That was my plan.
DR. IRA:
[disappointed] I see.
ISABEL:
We should do something to celebrate.
DR. IRA:
What do you mean?
ISABEL:
What’s customary for celebrating the end of therapy?
DR. IRA:
There is no custom.
ISABEL:
I was thinking of bringing in a cake. I should probably order it now, if we want anything decent.
DR. IRA:
I think it would be better if we just focused on the next few sessions.
ISABEL:
You’re saying no to cake?
DR. IRA:
I don’t feel that cake is appropriate.
ISABEL:
Why not?
DR. IRA:
Let me ask you a serious question, Isabel: Do you think you’ve made any progress?
A
bout a year and a half ago, I briefly moved back in with my parents, into the attic apartment where I’ve lived most of my adult life. During that brief phase of regression, I had a bird’s-eye view of a suspicious neighbor’s activities. Let’s call the neighbor John Brown, because that, it turns out, is his real name. To make a long story
1
short, I began investigating the suspicious neighbor maybe more than I should have—or more than society deems acceptable. A restraining order was filed (against me) and the next thing you know I was in some serious legal trouble. (You met my octogenarian lawyer just a few pages back.)
Having a restraining order filed against you is one thing; violating that restraining order puts you in an altogether different boat. To anyone contemplating a ride in said boat, let me make a friendly suggestion: Don’t do it. Just let it go.
Anyway, back to how I ended up in therapy. You see, my retired-cop father had some connections and so did my ancient lawyer, so they convinced the district attorney that court-mandated therapy was the appropriate way to deal with “someone like Isabel.”
2
I was required to see a
psychologist or psychiatrist roughly once a week for three months. I was given three months to begin therapy, and I took my sweet time. In retrospect, I should have been more proactive and found my own shrink;
3
instead, my mom found one for me. I have only lukewarm words to say about the shockingly mild-mannered Dr. Ira, but this I can say for certain: He was not the right shrink for me.
Eleven weeks and three days after my court ruling, I made an appointment for the following Monday at eleven
A
.
M
. My dad phoned me on my way to the session to impart some information he thought I should have.
“Sometimes they don’t talk right away,” said my dad. “So don’t just sit there and give the doctor attitude. You might have to talk first. Okay?”
“Who is this?” I replied.
My dad sighed and said, “Don’t blame me for all of your problems, either.”
“I won’t,” I said. “I plan on blaming Mom.”
Dr. Ira Schwartzman’s office was (and is, I presume) located on Market Street, right by the exit to the Montgomery Street BART and Muni station. It seems my mother thought convenience was the most important factor in finding me a therapist. The office was unlike the shrinks’ offices you see in movies and television. The waiting room could fit inside a decent-sized closet. It contained two cloth chairs and a wooden coffee table. The furniture was marred by age—coffee stains, frayed edges, worn wood.
Dr. Ira Schwartzman opened his office door.
“Isabel?” he asked.
“That’s me,” I replied as I got to my feet.
The doctor invited me into a room not much bigger than the waiting room. The furniture was superior to the waiting room furniture but similarly outdated. What the office lacked in cinematic authenticity Dr. Ira Schwartzman certainly made up for in his physical being, from the comfortable loafers and tan corduroy trousers to the white oxford shirt and the brown sweater with patches on the elbows. Dr. Schwartzman had one of those kind, wrinkled faces that give you the sense that you could tell him anything and he wouldn’t judge you. Unfortunately, it was my plan from day one not to tell him a thing.
Dr. Schwartzman sat down in his comfortable leather chair, snapped a tiny cassette into a tiny tape recorder (he should really update to digital), and asked me if I minded if he recorded our session, explaining that sometimes he likes to revisit some topics to figure out a better way to help his patients. I told him it was alright and pulled out my own palm-sized digital recorder and asked him if he minded if I, too, recorded the proceedings. Dr. Ira seemed pleased, which I assumed meant he thought I was taking the whole therapy thing seriously. I didn’t want to lower his expectations at that moment, so I just switched on my recorder and launched into my introduction.
[Partial transcript reads as follows:]
ISABEL:
Dr. Schwartzman—is that what I should call you?
DR. IRA:
Most of my patients call me Dr. Ira.
ISABEL:
Dr. Ira it is. So, you know why I’m here, right?
DR. IRA:
Why don’t you tell me?
ISABEL:
I have to come here. If I don’t, I could go to prison. This seems better.
DR. IRA:
So you’re here to avoid prison? Is that what I’m hearing?
ISABEL:
Yes.
DR. IRA:
Is there another reason?
ISABEL:
I think that’s a pretty good reason. [Long pause.
1
]
DR. IRA:
How does it feel being required by law to seek therapy?
ISABEL:
Not great.
DR. IRA:
Can you elaborate?
ISABEL:
I think that states it pretty well.
DR. IRA:
Is this your first time in therapy?
ISABEL:
Yes, totally.
[For approximately ten minutes, Dr. Ira launches into what seems like a scripted exposition about the rules of therapy. If I threaten to hurt anyone, he can report it to the police, blah, blah, blah. Then the real work begins. When he was finished, our session continued.]
DR. IRA:
So is there anything you’d like to discuss?
ISABEL:
I can’t think of anything.
DR. IRA:
Well, why don’t you tell me about your family?
ISABEL:
They’re pretty ordinary, really. Just like any other family.
T
hat was how my therapy began. I’ll spare you sessions two through nine (you’ll thank me later, or not, if you like). Suffice it to say I lied to Dr. Ira about my family, which I’m sure you’ve guessed already if you read either of the previous two documents or glanced at the appendix. If not, you don’t know much about me, so maybe I should mention just a bit more.
I am a licensed private investigator who has been working for the family business, Spellman Investigations, since the age of twelve. No, that is not a typo. It sounds fun, I know. But after decades of having your boyfriends investigated, your bedroom searched, your phoned tapped, your vehicle tracked, and your every move documented, it gets old. In my family, we don’t ask questions; we investigate.
After the trouble I had last year, I decided to take an extended break from the family business. It was my job that got me into trouble, so I figured a temporary career change might solve some of my problems. Unfortunately, my job skills were limited, so I began working at a bar, the Philosopher’s Club, which used to be my own personal watering hole.
I assumed bartending wasn’t bad work if you could get it, but I didn’t know that on a good night I could earn $200 in tips. Sure, you have to be on your feet the whole time, but you don’t have to sit on your ass in a car for eight hours waiting for someone to leave when you know he’s not going
to leave. I’m not saying that I saw a future serving drinks for a living, but I am saying it was a nice change of pace. I liked not having my parents as bosses. I liked not being concerned with what other people were doing besides what they poured down their throats.
I needed a change and I got it. As for therapy…I’ll admit that with Dr. Ira, I didn’t give it my all. I saw therapy as a punishment—which it was. There’s no way I could call it anything else. So, like I would any punishment, I thought I’d simply endure it. My point is that it never occurred to me I could get anything out of therapy. At least it didn’t until long after Dr. Ira decided to take a stand.
I moved into David’s house on Monday at 6:00
P
.
M
. Within the first twenty-four hours, I slept in his bed, used his electric toothbrush (I changed the head), moved the chaise longue closer to the television, drank a single shot of each liquor on the do-not-drink list,
1
and visited exactly one porn site just for the sake of his browser history.
David occupies a restored three-story Victorian all by his lonesome. Even for a married man, or a married man with two children, a couple of dogs, a cat, and a giant tropical fish tank, his 2,500-square-foot home is a lot of space, especially for anyone accustomed to San Francisco living. I made plans that week not to make plans so I could fully enjoy my brief time living in the lap of luxury.
I suppose I should mention my own living situation.
For the first eighteen years of my life, I occupied a single room on the second level of the Spellman family residence, located at 1799 Clay Street in the lower Nob Hill district of San Francisco. For the next ten years I resided in an attic apartment (approx. 700 square feet) at the very same address. At the age of twenty-eight, I decided that it was time to move out of the family home and began subletting a one-bedroom apartment (approx. 650 square feet) from Bernie Peterson, a retired police lieuten
ant who was friends with my uncle Ray (now deceased). Last year when Bernie was having marital difficulties, he decided to move back into that apartment. After months of being an unwelcome guest in an assortment of locations, I eventually realized that I had to find a place of my own with a lease in my name. That is when I moved into my current residence—a studio apartment (350 square feet) in the Tenderloin. My bachelor apartment is sandwiched between two other bachelor apartments, one occupied by a sixty-five-year-old retired schoolteacher with a snoring problem (Hal) and the other inhabited by a thirtysomething woman who I can only assume is a hooker; either that or she does a lot of entertaining. I don’t sleep well in my apartment, and frankly, asleep is the only condition in which I don’t feel like complaining about my apartment. Perhaps that explains why I was so pleased to have four weeks of vacation from my real life.
After I found some time to unwind and reorganize David’s liquor cabinet,
2
I began my preliminary investigation, which consisted of ransacking my brother’s office looking for some sign of foreign travel preparation. My theory was this: David is a type A, education-obsessed individual who would not consider traveling to a foreign land without taking a serious crash course in its language, culture, and key sightseeing attractions. I was looking for at least a minor collection of
Italian for Beginners
tapes and travel literature. What I found was a gun.
It wasn’t in an obvious location. I should mention that. It was taped to the underside of the bottom right drawer on his desk. This was confusing for a number of reasons:
A) David has never been the gun-toting type, or even the taping-a-gun-to-the-bottom-of-a-desk-drawer type. B) David doesn’t like guns; he’s more of a pepper spray kind of guy. C) I knew there was a C, but frankly, the discovery of the gun was so alarming that I couldn’t come up with a C at that moment.
To be honest, I had no idea what the gun meant, if anything. I was only sure of two things at the time of my discovery: David wasn’t in Italy, and my investigation was far from over.