When they reached the compa.s.s in the City Hall courtyard, the heart of Old Philadelphia, she kissed her father good-bye, and they headed their separate ways.

22.

Sunday, November 21, 2004

Melinda remained in seclusion throughout the rest of the weekend. Frightened her daughter might have done something to hurt herself, but afraid to set off another explosion, Victoria didn't know what to do. Martin agreed to check on Melinda but all he got through her closed door was, "I know you and Mother are trying to get rid of me."

"At least we know she's alive," Victoria said.

Martin pressed Victoria about getting Melinda help.

"I'm going to call Dr. Speller-my psychiatrist during college-tomorrow," she said. "I trust him. He'll know what to do ... I hope. I'm falling apart, Martin. How can you just sit here reading your Sunday Times while I'm going out of my mind? I can barely keep my thoughts straight."

Victoria had never told Martin the details about her therapy and how ill she was during college. All she told him was that the relationship with her parents had been awful and that therapy helped with the transition from Abington to living on her own. Beyond that, Victoria never spoke of her feelings for the man she felt had saved her life.

"I'm not just sitting here," Martin said, moving closer to Victoria, who stiffened involuntarily.

"Try and relax," Martin said. "This Dr. Speller. Where is he?"

Victoria moved to her favorite chair, a recliner from Grandma Jeanine's apartment. Her fondest memories of childhood were sitting on her grandmother's lap, listening to stories. She drifted into dissociation, her fingers tracing circles on the armrest. "He practices in New York City. I hope he remembers me," she said, her voice trailing into a whisper.

"He helped you?"

"Yes. He helped me." Martin's cellphone buzzed once. Victoria asked, "Did we hear anything from Gregory?"

"He just texted," Martin said. "They're done for the day. He had a great time. He wanted to know how your breathing exercises were progressing. He also said to tell you his skull is intact."

"Oh," Victoria smiled. "Guess he wore his helmet."

"Breathing exercises?"

"He said it would help me stop worrying so much."

"That's a good suggestion. They're just getting on the road now. Gregory won't be home until late. How about take-out for dinner?"

"I'll go to Whole Foods and get something we can nuke," Victoria said. "It'll be good to get some fresh air. We should ask Melinda what she wants to eat, don't you think?"

Martin concurred.

"I don't want her feeling we don't care. Then again, I don't want to set her off, either. You go up and ask. The last time I got near her she thought I was following her around."

"'Following her around.' The last thing she told me was that she thought we wanted to get rid of her. Back in law school clinic, I had a case where a family argued that their son was incompetent to manage his trust fund, which he wanted to spend on electronic surveillance. I represented the son, who thought his brain was being controlled by a neighbor's television remote. He said he heard voices commanding him to file a cla.s.s-action suit unless the manufacturer recalled their devices. He was up night after night trying to get the telephone number and address of RCA's CEO. He turned out to be schizophrenic."

"You don't think ..." Victoria shuddered.

"G.o.d, I hope not," Martin said. "Gregory's right. Take some deep breaths. And get some air. You know how to read text messages, don't you?"

"Yes. Gregory showed me."

"Good. Why don't you go to the store now? While you're out I'll speak to Melinda. Keep your phone in sight and I'll text you whatever she wants."

"How am I ever going to get through this?" Victoria lamented.

"Let's just get through today. Hopefully your doctor will set us in the right direction tomorrow."

"Call me if anything changes with Melinda," Victoria said on her way out the door.

Whom should Victoria encounter in the prepared foods section but Denise Mather, her opposing attorney in the Duke's case? Not that Victoria couldn't hold her own, but Mather was a street-tough bulldog inside the body of a Sophia Loren. Typically, nothing bothered Victoria about work, but today was far from typical. Denise looked good in her open beaver coat, her dark hair shining and a handsome man on her arm. Enough to remind Victoria of another dark-haired woman from long ago.

23.

Monday, April 5, 1982

In therapy, Victoria and Dr. Speller worked hard to understand the dark-haired woman, who, in Victoria's mind, epitomized power, grace, and womanliness-a s.e.xual dynamo without compunction about satisfying her carnal appet.i.te. Ten times tougher than her dainty nail polish, the dark-haired woman was just as formidable in tights and track shoes at the Penn relays as she was in an evening gown at the opera, or the naughty negligee she slipped into and out of if and when she wanted a nightcap.

"There's something we need to talk about," Victoria began her Monday session. She blushed. "I realized it after Bucky and I had s.e.x two nights ago. Understand, Bucky is cute, and I like him. But I want someone bigger. More manly. And I finally understand something about the dark-haired woman. No matter what I do, I'll never be like her."

"Never?"

"There's more. It goes back to the summer before I turned twelve. You know I was such a tomboy. I acted c.o.c.ky around girls; I liked showing them up. One day on the playground, everyone was admiring a new girl who was tumbling like a cheerleader. She landed perfectly after a cartwheel, ending in a twisting backflip. She goaded me into trying, but I got all dizzy and fell on my face. I get dizzy when my head moves too fast. It's something I was born with.

"The girl was a grade older, and she had dark hair and a contemptuous sneer like, 'Who do you think you are?' Her chest bulged, and she wore pink ribbons. I had always thought that pink looked silly on girls.

"I wanted to outdo her, so even though my head was still spinning, I climbed up the swing set. The crossbar was really high. When I looked down, I remember thinking how easily I could fall. Sound familiar? The people on the ground yelled for me to come down.

"I felt a tingling between my legs, but I ignored it because I had to concentrate on scootching across to the other side. Well, that night I felt the tingling again. I remember worrying that I had hurt myself, so I went to the bathroom and locked the door."

Victoria caught Dr. Speller's eyes. "Please don't laugh at me," she said. "This part is so humiliating. I decided to look at my v.a.g.i.n.a in the mirror to see if anything was wrong-not that I knew what to look for. I brought a chair into the bathroom to stand on to see between my legs in the mirror.

"Somehow, I touched myself in a way that made the tingling stronger. Then, I felt an ache inside. It got so intense, I almost screamed, but I didn't want my mother to know because she'd make me go to the doctor. And he'd have to examine me down there, because that's what doctors did when something was broken. And I didn't want that."

Dr. Speller barely stirred.

"Then, I went numb between my legs, and I figured I had really damaged myself, because it didn't seem right that I should be tingling one moment and then feeling nothing the next. So I touched myself again, and the tingling and the ache came back stronger than ever. I didn't know if I wanted to make it stop or keep going. My v.a.g.i.n.a felt dry, so I put some Vaseline on one of my fingers and found the spot that ached. I rocked back and forth, and when the ache finally went away-which felt so good-some liquid squirted out, which made me even more convinced I had done something to hurt myself.

"After it ended, all I wanted was to go to sleep and hope I would be all right in the morning, so I wouldn't have to tell my mother."

Dr. Speller started to talk, but Victoria hadn't finished.

"I had no idea what had happened. I walked around in a fog for days, hoping the tingling wouldn't come back, but I couldn't forget how good the release felt. I don't know how any man can understand. You're the first person I've ever told."

"It was masturbation and o.r.g.a.s.m," Dr. Speller said matter-of-factly.

"Lorraine was useless. I had no girl cousins. My friends were all boys. What was I supposed to say?"

Dr. Speller looked on sympathetically.

"Don't you understand? By the time girls in gym cla.s.s were budding b.r.e.a.s.t.s and giggling about second base, I was fantasizing about someone touching my v.a.g.i.n.a. I didn't connect s.e.xual intercourse with that feeling until later. But by the time I was thirteen, I dreamt about s.e.x night after night. I told myself it was because of what I did to my v.a.g.i.n.a-that no normal girl would feel this way. The feeling went on and on, even in my dreams, the release always accompanied by the fluid. I still don't know what it means."

Dr. Speller said, "This explains why you feel so different from other young women, Victoria. No one told you that s.e.xual longings can develop early, especially in tomboys. There's a name for the spot inside the v.a.g.i.n.a where the ache comes from. It's in all the women's magazines-the G-spot, it's called. Men have one, too, at the base of the prostate gland. This isn't about good or bad; it's about health. You have a very healthy s.e.x drive. In fact, you have a lot of drive, period."

"And the fluid?"

"It's quite common and very normal."

"Really? How can you be sure?"

"I'm a doctor. I read about it," Dr. Speller said in his clinical mode. The next moment, he turned bright red.

"What is it?" Victoria said.

"Nothing."

"I know you better than that. Out with it."

"Let's just say I've experienced it first-hand." The mood changed instantly.

"Oh, probably with that dark-haired woman of yours," Victoria said with a smirk. "You can't tell me it's normal for a thirteen-year-old girl to be dreaming about having s.e.x."

"It's not as weird as you think, Victoria."

She liked the way he said her name. It rea.s.sured her that he wasn't disgusted.

He said, "However, you need to get a handle on your balance. It sounds like you don't think it can be developed."

"Can it?"

"You won't know unless you try. Your natural gift is mental agility; lots of people would kill for your mind. But balance-wise, you have a handicap. That doesn't mean you can't work at it. You may never become as graceful as you want, but you'll never improve unless you try."

"How would I do that?"

"I treated someone who wanted to learn golf so he could play with his father and older brother. The trouble was that the man had horrible balance, which ruined his swing and his pleasure in being with the family. Instead of bemoaning his fate or giving up, he took ballet and strengthened his core. Yoga, too. It centered him. Now he enjoys the game."

"I'll never be as graceful as I want."

"Probably not, but you can get better. So, stop complaining about being klutzy and work on becoming more graceful. It's not that complicated."

"Are you sure I can really change?"

"If I weren't, I'd be doing something else with my life."

Victoria liked that Dr. Speller shared some of himself during the session. It meant he liked her.

24.

Sat.u.r.day, November 20, 2004

"The conference couldn't have gone any better," Eddie told Jonas and Pete. "Everyone's thrilled. People are still talking about yesterday, Jonas. They can't wait to have you back. You sure know your medicine and psychiatry. What a dynamite combination."

"That's right," Pete said. "You told us a long time ago not to underestimate you."

"Time to celebrate," Jonas said, hoping to shake off the malaise from his previous day's pillow talk. "The girls gave us the night off. What do you say to some juicy steaks and a stint at the c.r.a.ps table?"

"Feels like old times," Pete said. "You know what I mean?"

"Oh, I remember everything about that weekend." Eddie said. "We wouldn't be here if it weren't for that, would we?"

Sat.u.r.day, October 8, 1983 The minute the Philadelphia Phillies clinched the National League championship, Jonas's telephone rang.

It was Eddie. "Hey, Jo. What are you doing next weekend? Since I made partner, I get a few perks, including tickets for the Series. How about a birthday bash? That is, if you've got next weekend off."

"No problem. Between teaching and practice, I don't have to moonlight anymore. Only I'm not third-generation Philadelphia, so I'm a psychiatric trash receptacle; I get the cases no one else wants. Not exactly what I had in mind."