Spin Doctor (8 page)

“Well, you're so good at it,” Eli replied. From the tone of his voice, it appeared to be an attempt at mollification as well as a period on the subject. Closing his eyes was another hint that should have tipped me off, but I couldn't let it go.

“I want us to work as a team: to share the responsibilities.” I looked at Eli, playing possum, and waited for a response. None was forthcoming. Not only had I wrecked the afterglow, but I'd made myself crabby and tense—and even acted needy, a real turnoff—in the bargain.

“And,” I added, “when it comes to Molly, specifically, more than fifteen years of experience in the field, a Ph.D., and a zillion lightbulb jokes tell me that people can only change if they want to.” Actually, I believe that people can't change who they are, fundamentally, in many ways—unless of course they need medication to balance the chemicals in their brain—but they can change their behavior, which affects who they are and what they do. “Molly may always be a sullen loner, but she doesn't have to be a sullen loner with lousy study habits.”

“I'm going to sleep,” Eli announced, grabbing a fistful of bed-clothes. “And we may just have to let go and let Molly go her own way, even if it's not the way we want her to go. Because I still think people don't change.”

I couldn't fall asleep after that. The whole postcoital conversation had made me too gloomy.

FAITH

“Look! Will you look at this blouse, Susan!”

For a split second I thought that Faith wanted me to notice a rip or stain somewhere on the fabric. Then I re
alized that she was crowing over another breakthrough. “It's blue!” I exclaimed, clapping my hands. “Brava!”

Faith's color heightened beneath her rouge. “Well, the sales-clerk called it ‘indigo,' but it's a step. It's definitely a step!”

I'd never seen her in anything other than a shade of purple. “Yes! You took another risk and survived! You look wonderful, Faith. You should try it more often.”

“Well,” Faith demurred, “I almost bought an
orange
sweater for the fall. Rust, you'd really call it, I suppose. But I'm not quite ready for that yet. It's just…too much of a departure for me. You know, I'm the woman who dips one toe at a time into the swimming pool. Of course we have another couple of months to go until the weather starts getting cooler. Perhaps I should have purchased it nonetheless—and saved it for that rainy day! But you know my relationship to money.”

“So what happened?” I asked excitedly. “I'm dying to know what precipitated the momentous decision to buy a garment that wasn't purple.” Unlike some therapists who seem to thrive on their patients' anxieties so that they feel they have something to “fix,” I become delighted when my clients make tangible progress. For Faith this forward momentum was materially evident, so to speak, in her “indigo” blouse.

“Holy cats, it looks like it lost a tooth,” Faith suddenly blurted, and I worried that she had suddenly become senile. Catching my totally perplexed expression, she pointed to the line of washing machines. Until a few days ago there were six of them in a row, all white and shiny and gleaming like a perfect smile. Now there was a gap where number four—Ian's “boggart machine”—had stood. Stevo had finally removed the defunct unit after leaving the yellow “crime scene” tape across it for weeks. He's repeatedly promised the tenants that a new machine is on order. I won't hold my breath. Every time someone
asks Mala Sonia about it, figuring she's got the most direct line to Stevo, she makes the “crazy sign”—spiraling her index finger in front of her ear—and mutters
“dili”
under her breath. I asked Eli what
dili
was and he laughed and told me the word meant “mentally retarded.”

I smiled. “Faith…?”

“I know, I know. But I wasn't evading that time; I was
observing.
You asked me several sessions ago to work on living my life for myself and not for Ben's memory. Well, you'll be tickled to know that I took your advice to heart; and Susan, I've noticed that I notice more now. Truly. All since I decided it was time to take those baby steps forward. Ever since the night I decided to sleep on Ben's side of the bed. Would you believe it, now I even sleep on the diagonal sometimes! I feel so
racy.
It's terribly unlike me. And this week…I decided it was time to get out more; and you know how I always loved the opera and the classical concerts at Lincoln Center and the jazz series at the 92nd StreetY. So, guess what I did?” I smiled and waited for her to continue. “It was very spontaneous of me, but I called each of them on the phone, and I bought a subscription. The expense itself was
a lot
more than a baby step. It felt like a tremendous leap forward, you realize.”

“You bet I realize! Faith, that's terrific! And I couldn't be prouder of you. Congratulations!”

She rose and added another two quarters to her permanent press cycle. “Goodness, it seems to cost more and more to do the laundry down here. There was a time when that same fifty cents would have bought twenty minutes of drying time. Now it buys twelve.” Faith emitted a disgusted little sigh. “Uch. Inflation.”

She watched her garments swirl behind the glass like purple eddies. “I had forgotten how costly the opera tickets are. My subscription to the Met is higher than my annual rent!”

“That's because your apartment is rent-controlled. But I take your point.”

“I must say, I think I've taken several long strides lately with these lanky legs of mine.” Pleased with herself, Faith used her right index finger to tick off her accomplishments on her left hand. “First, the bed. And an indigo blouse. And the music series subscriptions. Ouch! I think that last one hurt the most, frankly. My wallet is shrinking as my horizons expand. I'm not terribly sanguine about that, I'll have you know; however, I suppose it's all part of the head-shrinking process too.” She sighed again. “But it's true, of course, that you can't take it with you. I have no children to leave it to, and I'm making sure my charities won't suffer just because I've decided it's time to spend a little money on myself.” She looked dubious. “All right, I don't really believe that last remark. I just thought it was something you'd like to hear. The part about spending money on myself, I mean.”

“Faith.”

“Telling you what I think you'd want to hear: I suppose that's cheating.”

“You're only cheating yourself.” Then I told her where to find designer shoes at a discount.

ALICE

“It feels so weird, talking to someone other than Gram about what's going on in my life,” Alice said. “I'm definitely not used to it yet, so bear with me.” She told me about the “name game” her grandmother used to play that was Irene's folkloric way of sizing up a person. It had something to do with tea leaves. No wonder Alice had been such a vulnerable mark for Mala Sonia.

“I'm still at that place where I wake up every morning and expect her to be there.” I nodded, encouraging her to continue. “I'm not even sure whether there's, like, an appropriate mourning period I should observe. I could have sat shiva for her, but she married an Irishman and never felt particularly Jewish, so I don't know who I'd be doing it for. Not for me. I'm not a religious person.” Alice began to tear up. Sometimes I think I've made more women weep than Barbara Walters.

“Why are you crying now?” I asked softly.

“I know you're probably going to think this makes no sense, but every time I've ever mentioned to anyone that I don't feel any particular religious connection, I start to cry.”

“What do you think that's about?” I gently continued.

“I don't know. Maybe that means I really do feel something, and I'm lying to myself. Gram didn't believe that there's some guy up there,” Alice said, pointing toward the grimy ceiling, “with white hair and a flowing beard looking like something out of an Italian Renaissance painting, but she did believe in a higher power.” Alice tapped her chest. “In here. Like a moral compass in a way.” She took a deep breath. “I believe what Gram believed. And though I say I'm not religious, I feel a
spiritual
connection to the world and to that force inside each of us. Yet, at the same time, I do think of Gram up in ‘heaven' looking down on me. Watching me. Remember what Mala Sonia said that day about her wanting me to be happy? I certainly believe that's the case.”

“Well, of course it is, but you don't need a Gypsy psychic to tell you that.”

Alice looked embarrassed. “I did have her read my cards after all. It was just twenty bucks, so I thought, what the hell?” She shrugged sheepishly. “I expect you want to know what the reading said.”

I nodded. “Yup.”

“Oh! Do you ever cry like I just did? I feel so stupid. So vulnerable. I feel like whenever I talk to you, all I ever do is cry. And I'm really an upbeat person, I swear it! Ask Izzy.”

“Alice, your favorite relative—the person you were closest to—passed away very recently. It's totally understandable that you're feeling this vulnerable and your emotions are so raw. And yes, I do sometimes cry like that, and feel stupid about crying, even when I know it's stupid to feel stupid. I cry like that when people are nice to me. Spontaneous acts of kindness and generosity—and I'm a puddle. Now…back to you. I'm dying to hear about Mala Sonia's reading.”

“She did the reading in her apartment,” Alice told me. “Have you ever been down there?” I shook my head. “A total mess. Everything is filthy. And it stinks. Like sweat and cat piss and who knows what. And there's dirty clothes all over the place, like a bunch of ragamuffins did a striptease from room to room. For a woman who does so much laundry all the time, you'd think the place would smell better. I guess none of them have met a stick of deodorant. And yet,
she's
sort of sexy. Like a poor man's Sophia Loren in a way. That exotic voluptuousness, and the bright colors she wears. Yeah, she's sort of a stereotype but I think she does it deliberately. It certainly sets her apart from the rest of us drab drones.”

“You're hardly drab, Alice. Or a drone.”

“You never had any of my day jobs.”

I laughed. “I take your point.”

“Okay, so the first thing she does is yell at one of her boys in Romany and the kid cowers. Then she barks something else at her little daughter and the poor girl starts to wail. I can't begin to imagine what she said to her. So all the kids—maybe four of them—plus two mangy cats and a ferret—aren't ferrets illegal
in New York apartments—anyway, they all scatter like rats at the sound of the Pied Piper's first trill, and then Mala Sonia takes a rolled up magazine and clears off her coffee table with one huge swipe, like this.” Alice demonstrated the maneuver with tremendous dramatic flair. “I'm not sure Naomi's right about her, though. If Mala Sonia's ripping off
gaje
right and left, you'd think she and Stevo would live better. I'm sure they don't pay any rent, since he's the super.”

The state of the super's apartment made me think about the general inattention to decor in our building. Would it kill the landlord to authorize Stevo to employ his wife's love of bright colors in the laundry room? Alice had just used the word “drab” to mischaracterize her personality.
This place
is drab. I glanced at the two-tone gray walls, darker from floor to about waist level, then a lighter hue from there to the ceiling. The uneven cement floor is painted the same slate shade as the lower walls. Fluorescent strip lights suspended over the room's center table and sofa also do little to enhance the atmosphere.

“Mala Sonia asked for my money up front, by the way,” Alice said. “So I took a twenty out of my wallet, to show her in good faith that I had it, but I didn't want to pay her until she actually gave me the reading. She wasn't too happy about that, but I pretended I was getting up to leave, so she relented. Then she asked me to think of an important question—something I needed an answer to—while she shuffled the cards. ‘Don't tell me out loud, just think very hard your question,' she said.” Alice was a gifted mimic, imitating Mala Sonia's accent and mannerisms to perfection. “‘But I caution you this: don't use word “ever” in your question. Like “Will I ever get married?” “Ever” very bad for cards.' Then she laid out what she explained was a modified Celtic Cross: six cards instead of ten. I asked her why she wasn't giving me the full Celtic Cross, and—get this! She told me that
her basic twenty-dollar reading was for six cards. For the full Celtic Cross she charges fifty!”

I rolled my eyes. Though I shouldn't have been surprised. Naomi was right. “Okay, so what was your question for Mala Sonia?” Alice hesitated. “Alice, I know we behave like this is a gabfest much of the time, but what's said in this room stays in this room. We're also in a doctor-patient confidence mode here. It's not like I'm going to tell anybody.”

“Oh, all right,” Alice sighed. “It was so dippy, though. All I thought to myself was, ‘
What the hell is going to happen to my life now?'
That's pretty vague. It's not like, ‘Will I get involved with a great guy?'”

“Will you?” I asked, chuckling. “That would be cool.”

Alice held up her hand. “Wait.” She settled back into the corner of the sofa, tucking her legs underneath her. “I think what must have happened was that the hypothetical ‘great guy' question pushed the vaguer one to the back of my mind. So, she's got the six cards all laid out and she says, ‘Everybody looking for love. Everybody want to know will they meet love of their life. You want to know about Mr. Right, but cards may tell you about Mr. Right Now. Who may not be right for you in future. So you come back for second reading.' Yeah, right. At least I was too wise to fall for
that
trick.” Alice laughed. “So I told her I wanted to change my mind. My new question was, ‘Is my role in
Grandma Finnegan's Wake
going to make me a big star?'