When I started graduate school, I found out I could apply the hours of my own therapy to the three thousand supervised practicing hours I had to accrue before being eligible to take the licensing exam. So I briefly saw a therapist who also tried to force the victim card on me. She worked out of a guesthouse behind her McMansion on North Bay Road. Walking past the glossy nouveau riche driveway lined with luxury sports cars made the therapy bungalow in the back seem like someone’s silly little project, like this was a scrapbooking room and not a serious, professional office.
But the tacky surroundings were not the problem. The problem was that we somehow got on the topic of virginity, and Gloria insisted that I had been repeatedly raped by Carlos. She screeched, “Until you acknowledge that you were a victim of rape, I’m not sure you’ll be able to find peace. Ever.” I thought about storming out, but I was already there, sitting on her white leather couch that didn’t lend itself to being comforting or cozy. And certainly learning how not to be a bad therapist was going to be just as important as learning how to be a good one. So I stayed.
I said, “First of all, Gloria, it wasn’t rape. I know because I was there. And extremely willing. And I enjoyed it.”
“Fine. Statutory rape. You can’t debate that. It’s the law.”
“The law is debated all the time. By thousands of people called lawyers.”
“He should not have touched you. You were a child. You didn’t have the ability to make a decision like that, especially when being pressured by an adult man.”
“He didn’t pressure me.”
“There is no shame in being a victim.”
“I know that. But in this case, I wasn’t a victim. And I’m not ashamed. And I think I should tell you that I was much smarter than Carlos. Higher IQ. Better educated. With more societal advantages. I was actually the one in control. So perhaps I’m the one who raped him? Repeatedly. Maybe he’s the victim.”
Gloria was too miffed to respond. And I could see then that having Dr. Alisha Goldman as my first therapist in New Haven was like winning money the first time you go to Vegas. You think, Great! This is how it goes! Cozy blue corduroy couch, insightful clear-minded therapist who gets to the heart of the matter in minutes! Then you keep going back to different slot machines and roulette tables expecting the same advantageous lucrative outcome, only to lose over and over again, finding therapists like Gloria. And you learn that first time was the exception and not the rule.
I missed seeing Alisha, and finding her equal would be nearly impossible. So, I made a decision and I called her. Phone sessions weren’t ideal, but they would still count toward my hours. We had a shorthand, and I hoped we could jump back in like no time at all had passed. But time had passed, two years, and when I called her office, I got a robotic voice telling me the line was disconnected. I remembered the names of the other therapists in her wing, since I saw them listed whenever I flipped the little light switch on to let her know I was there waiting in the lobby. I got hold of one of them and he was happy to give me her forwarding number. And as he enunciated the digits, my stomach did a flip. Her new number started with a 305 area code. That was Miami.
“And how does that make you feel?” Alisha asked.
I sat on a new, sea green couch with soft yet supportive cushions. “Hurt.”
“I understand. Let’s talk about that.”
“Why didn’t you tell me you were here?”
Alisha answered this one carefully. “You had stopped seeing me once you graduated. So when I decided to move here, it seemed unprofessional for me to try and find you and reach out. I didn’t want to assume you still wanted or needed to be in therapy. I didn’t want my move here to influence your decisions or put pressure on you to continue to see me.”
Humph, was all I could think.
“So, why did you move here?” I asked.
This was the question she seemed to have been dreading.
“I will be honest with you, Ruby, because I think you can hear this and not run wild with its possible implications. I moved because I was ready for a change. I moved here because in our sessions together, you made Miami seem so magical.”
I grinned, ear to ear. No, my mind wouldn’t run wild with ideas that Alisha moved here because she was secretly in love with me, or obsessed with me, or stalking me this whole time. I would settle on the truth: I made a big enough impression on this woman that she moved to my hometown. The hurt was replaced with swelling pride.
I asked, excitedly, “So? Do you like it here?”
It was Alisha’s turn to grin. “I love it. I absolutely love it! The eclectic people, the vibrancy, the warmth.”
“Yeah, once you get used to the warmth, you’ll never want to tackle a Northeast winter again. Below seventy is coat weather here. And you’ll understand why tropical fruit is not supposed to be refrigerated. I like to think, if it’s too cold for a banana, it’s too cold for me.”
As the seconds ticked on, the interrogation room became way too cold for a banana. It was air-conditioned to the gills, and I could feel the temperature continue to drop. Even a hearty mango would shrink with chill. I wrapped my arms around my shivering shoulders to hold in some of my body heat. I said, “I was upstairs, asleep with my friends, when Mr. Vale died. That’s all I know.” Detective Jackson took this as a definitive end of this round, moving on to the next. And he started to fidget with the third photo in the lineup.
CHAPTER 16
WITCH
When I started with Dr. Don, I noticed the lighting in his office was off-center, creating a gloomy feel. I think I picked up a little of the symmetry bug from Ameena because I felt there should be two big lamps, one on each side of the couch. He didn’t care one way or the other, so I brought in a giant ceramic gold-painted 1970s-style table lamp that I had had since childhood. I had looked at it so often for so long, it never occurred to me that it was hideous. It just was what it was. My mother was happy to dole out my old bedroom belongings since they no longer fit her needs or decor. So I took the lamp to Dr. Don’s office. The very lamp that gave me reason to park at a meter right out front instead of around back, therefore leading me to find Mr. Cat in the garbage. So the lamp took on a great deal of importance to me. A sign of destiny.
After a few years of my happy internship, Dr. Don got a new client, or patient (I had noticed different psychologists preferred one term to the other), named Evelyn W. I had not yet decided if I liked calling the people I met with in session clients or patients. It seemed the word client made them in charge, and the word patient made me in charge. And each individual case warranted a different title. In the case of Evelyn W., she was so awful I called her neither and instead called her the Witch.
The Witch was forced into therapy because of a court-ordered mandate. She never would have sought out self-reflection and personal betterment on her own. She slapped a crying child in line at the grocery store to make her “shut the fuck up.” The mother of the child pressed charges, and since the Witch had no kids of her own to take away because of possible abuse and she had no priors, the judge sentenced her to pay a fine and seek help for her anger-management issues. No jail time. So Evelyn W. booked her twenty mandated sessions.