67.

Slipping into his clinical mode, Jonas went to Dr. Fowler's office, now at Eighth and Spruce Streets, a short walk from Stan's house. The man who buzzed Jonas in was wild-eyed and unkempt. "How are you, Dr. Speller? You look exactly the same as when we-" Dr. Fowler's greeting melted into befuddlement. "Would you like to lie down?"

The offer about the couch seemed inappropriate. "No thanks," Jonas said. "It seems like such a long time since we've talked."

"Come now," Dr. Fowler said. "It's only been a long weekend."

Jonas stared in disbelief.

"Metaphorically speaking. Hahaha. Hahaha," Fowler t.i.ttered. "You didn't think I was serious, did you, my boy? Remember that weekend?" Dr. Fowler winked. "Did you enjoy the concert?"

"What concert?"

"The one where they played Invitation to the Dance. You didn't think I forgot, did you?" The chaos in Dr. Fowler's office was palpable. Every inch was consumed with scrawled notes and pages torn from electrical engineering journals. On the desk was a dog-eared Volume I of The Standard Edition of the Works of Sigmund Freud, open to Project for a Scientific Psychology, a work of historical interest only.

"Speaking of which," Dr. Fowler said, "can't you feel the energy field between us? I see micro-volts radiating from your head like the earth's magnetic field. Kandel deserved his n.o.bel Prize, but he didn't put his observations together with Freud's and Galvani's, like I have. We're constantly recharging each other's batteries, funneling energy into neural networks that underpin the transference-countertransference paradigm during the middle to late phases of a.n.a.lysis." Dr. Fowler grabbed Volume I. "It's all here!" He pointed at a sketch he had drawn in the margin of this page.

Dr. Fowler's demeanor changed abruptly. "I never thanked you for stopping treatment with me. I've thought about it many times, Dr. Speller. You were right about the oedipal struggle I enacted with you. When I finally accepted that you knew more than me, I felt myself opening up to a new understanding of the psyche."

Such lucidity surprised Jonas. He said, "I had such mixed feelings about what happened in a.n.a.lysis with you. I felt like you wanted me to hate you. Was that your intention?"

"It took a long time to recognize that your idealization of me made me uncomfortable. That was my issue, not yours. I interpreted it as a boundary violation; that you didn't just want to be like me, that you wanted to be me."

"What's so terrible about that? I can't be the first a.n.a.lysand who felt that way. Why did you have to be so nasty?"

"Honestly, I was full of myself for making training a.n.a.lyst so young. Not that that makes it right. My own training a.n.a.lyst had been a tyrant; he wouldn't tolerate the smallest departure from orthodox practice and ideology. Sad to say, I internalized his intolerance and a.n.a.lyzed like him. I shouldn't have. It took your blowing the whistle to awaken me to the fact that one size didn't fit all, that each a.n.a.lysand had his own needs. I wished I had figured that out earlier, like you did."

"I can't believe you couldn't see that your att.i.tude colored the a.n.a.lytic situation. You completely dismissed the relational component of psychoa.n.a.lysis. And every time I said something about that, you dealt with it like I was a rebellious child. That wasn't right."

"You're right. It wasn't right. You were ahead of the curve, and it threatened me. I a.n.a.lyzed how I was taught. It was the best I knew at the time. You were trying to enlighten me. I was too full of myself to listen."

Jonas noticed a blue vase of tulips. "It was her, I mean your wife, who made sure you had fresh flowers, wasn't it?"

Dr. Fowler's smile turned vacant. "My wife. You mean Iris? We were discussing something else. That's right, open-mindedness and giving people what they need. You would agree that some people need tough love, wouldn't you?"

"Sure. I treated a woman whose husband was a flaming rageaholic. The wife's earlier a.n.a.lyst was a protege of the husband's therapist, who was afraid of becoming the object of the man's tirades. By the time the woman got to me, she believed her husband's rages were normal. I was too late. The fallout royally screwed up the couple's daughters, one of whom killed herself when her fiance dumped her after a vile outburst."

Dr. Fowler nodded, then began scratching furiously behind his shoulder. "G.o.dd.a.m.n laundry, they make my shirts stiffer just so they'll itch, and since I called them on it, they've made them even stiffer. They're doing it on purpose to torment me. I know it."

"How can you be sure?"

"The smell. I hate the smell. How would you like it if someone tried to poison you with cleaning solvent?"

"You haven't been ill in the last few months, have you?"

"What are you getting at? Did those thieving magpies from the Inst.i.tute put you up to this?"

"Let's get something straight. There is no conspiracy. I see where your theory is going; they don't. You picked up that when Freud wrote the Project he didn't understand that the brain worked both chemically and electrically."

"It could be the pills they gave me."

"Pills? What pills?"

"My eyes bothered me one day after tennis. Iris got me into the Will's Eye Inst.i.tute. At first, they thought I might have a brain tumor, but they diagnosed pseudo tumor ceribri."

"You look weary. Are you sleeping okay?"

"Sleeping? What with all this work to do on the Project? I'm so close." Dr. Fowler pointed at three formulae-laden sheets of legal-sized paper taped together like a foolscap. "I want this so badly. After you terminated with me, the Inst.i.tute never really trusted me again, which is what I want this paper to fix."

"To do that you need a clear mind, a rested mind. What about the pills?"

"That day after tennis my eyes became so blurry I could hardly see a thing. The ophthalmologist said the optic nerves were inflamed, and he prescribed high doses of steroids for three days, after which I was supposed to taper off. But I didn't get any better, so I doubled the dose, figuring I'd get quicker results."

"You what? Where did you get the extra pills?"

"I called in a prescription for myself."

"I can't believe you did that. It's very dangerous."

"I only did it for a week."

"One whole week? That's enough to throw you into a-"

"Into a what?"

"Mania or hypomania-you know, an altered state of mind. In the old days, they used to call mania brain fever."

"Is that what you think happened?"

"I think it's still happening. You need to calm down."

"I am exhausted," Dr. Fowler said. "I try to sleep, but the equations flit through my mind like an electric billboard. You don't think I'm crazy, do you? That's what they think about me."

"Crazy is not in my lexicon. Overworked? Yes. Exhausted? Yes. Affected by high doses of steroid pills? Most definitely."

"What about my theory? I can't afford to lose it. You promise you won't steal my ideas?"

"Of course not. You helped me through the worst time of my life that first year after my father died. You were there for me. Do you trust Stan Amernick? Or if you prefer a woman, his wife, Marta, is excellent, too. Either one will take good care of you. I promise."

"I'm so exhausted," Fowler repeated. "Oh. I just told you that, didn't I?"

"I'll talk to them as soon as I leave here."

"Thank you, my boy, thank you. I didn't have it in me back then to tell you that I admired you. I'm sorry if I caused you grief."

"It all worked out, Dr. Fowler. I learned to trust my unconscious mind. Everything turned out for the best."

68.

Tuesday, February 15, 2005

Victoria felt exhilarated. The windowless, magazine-strewn cubicle outside Jonas's office felt like a cage. She had been counting the days until the February 15 double session, yearning for a furlough from the sterility of her relationship with Martin.

When Jonas had heard about her fight with Martin, he pointed out how Victoria's treatment of Martin paralleled Lorraine's att.i.tude toward Morris. Victoria was so agitated and depressed, she couldn't process his comment fully at the time. When it sank in after a few weeks of family sessions, Victoria began fuming-who the h.e.l.l was Jonas to compare her to Lorraine?-which rekindled smoldering resentment of every man she had ever counted on. The h.e.l.l with Jonas, Victoria told herself, determined that she could do her own therapy. Besides, if Jonas could take a vacation from her, she could take a vacation from therapy. She became so maniacally furious with him that she couldn't think of one good thing Jonas had ever done for her. The more heated she felt toward Jonas, the more dissociated and disconnected she felt from Martin. Dr. Milroy became the "good doctor" in Victoria's mind; his work with Melinda seemed nothing short of miraculous. It astounded Victoria how quickly Melinda came to see her as a confidante, chatting with her busily as if they had always been best friends.

Instead of asking Jonas to renew her medication, Victoria asked Dr. Milroy to take over prescribing. When he deferred, Victoria interpreted the refusal as a sign that she didn't need medicine anymore, so she stopped taking it toward the end of January. Within only a few days, the bad thoughts returned; however, she was convinced that Jonas would ream her out royally for consulting Dr. Milroy, so she was afraid to call.

There matters stood until Victoria heard the warmth in Jonas's voice message. Clearly, he wanted to see her, which rekindled another flame within her that hadn't burned so brightly in twenty years. She stayed up the entire night before their appointment, trying on different blouses and s.e.xy lingerie. With Martin away on business and the children well situated with family, she called the sw.a.n.kiest hotels in New York City, dreaming about having wild anonymous s.e.x with men overcome by her s.e.xual allure. Even though she hadn't slept in forty-eight hours, a sense of total well-being intoxicated her. Victoria's raw s.e.xual appet.i.te screamed for relief. If only I got a good s.c.r.e.w.i.n.g, she thought, all my angst would disappear.

For the appointment, Victoria wore her usual business suit over a creamy silk blouse with a plunging neckline. She added a gray-and-white Wedgwood cameo pendant suspended from a black ribbon choker to draw Jonas's eyes toward her decolletage. Her round diamond earrings sparkled, as did the hint of glitter on her face. She left her jacket open to reveal the sheer bra she had chosen.

Somewhere between Trenton and Newark on the train to New York City, she took off her wedding ring. The antic.i.p.ation of being alone with Jonas, whom she hadn't seen in over a month, had her feeling like a teenager planning a secret rendezvous the night her parents left town. The idea of being alone with Jonas created a pleasant tingle throughout her body. As the train neared Penn Station, Victoria exchanged her black boots for a pair of s.e.xy heels.

At 4:31 PM, Jonas's office door opened, and several people came out, everyone in a good mood. One of the men reminded Victoria of the young Jonas minus the big hair. Another had the build of Bucky Bleyer, her first lover. At that moment, Victoria felt more like twenty-three than forty-three. The intense mood swing of the past forty-eight hours felt so welcome it didn't occur to her that anything was amiss.

Jonas seemed unable to take his eyes off her; he looked her up and down like never before. "Whoa," he said. "You didn't come from court just now, did you?"

Jonas looked very manly that day, in a muted gray sweater-vest over an off-white collarless pullover. His tailored pants drew Victoria's eye to his muscular b.u.t.tocks and thighs. Until that moment, she hadn't consciously registered how handsome Jonas had become.

Victoria said, "No, I came from the office. Martin's away again until Thursday. Charles and Danielle are with the children. Melinda loves being with her grandfather, and you should see how she hovers over Gregory; I've never seen her so devoted to someone other than herself."

"That's good," said Jonas, continuing to eye Victoria up and down.

"I'm in the city by myself," she said.

"What's Martin doing?"

Victoria tossed her head back, letting her hair fly freely. "He's in D.C., preparing a mock jury trial in a huge case-millions upon millions at stake. Fourteen teenagers and a pregnant woman died when a man who worked at D.C. Bank & Trust jumped off the Calvert Street Bridge onto a tour bus. The deep pocket is the bank, which had just fired the man who committed suicide. There's a five-year paper trail of complaints against the nasty b.a.s.t.a.r.d-his specialty was hara.s.sing older employees into quitting-that D.C. Bank & Trust sent to manage the branch. There's even an internal e-mail from upper management congratulating him on the fine job he had done 'clearing out the dead wood so quickly and efficiently.'"

Jonas hadn't taken his eyes off Victoria. "Are you sure you're not making too much of it?"

"This is huge. Huge," she said feverishly. "I'll show that Denise Mather-the attorney on the case I just finished dealing with-a thing or two about media presence."

"I'm surprised Martin left Philadelphia," Jonas said.

"He has no idea that I'm in the city. I like it that way."

The room seemed secluded; Jonas's couch looked more like a divan in a brothel than anything therapeutic. She imagined bolting the door. "It's just as well. I wanted Martin gone. He and I might as well get it over with. It's not so much that I want to be divorced; it's that I can't see staying married to him. The only thing we talk about outside of family therapy is work. It wouldn't surprise me if he's s.c.r.e.w.i.n.g one of the women attorneys he's working with in D.C." She pictured Martin pinioning his panting mistress and humping her with abandon.

"Hopefully, he'll start talking about something other than work and the children once he gets laid. But it's only a matter of time, and the suspense of not knowing when he's going to ditch me is h.e.l.l. I can't remember liking him, let alone loving him."

"Oh." Jonas blushed. He didn't stop looking at her. When his eyes settled on her torso, occasionally drifting lower, Victoria felt even s.e.xier. The idea that he found her alluring intensified her tingling and the ache. She wondered if he was undressing her mentally.

Jonas said, "I've never seen you looking this way. Are you going somewhere after here?"

"That depends."

"Depends on what?"

Victoria had never conjured explicit s.e.xual fantasies about Jonas until that very moment. She pictured herself dressed in the skimpy negligee she'd packed for the trip, drinking expensive champagne with him in the sleek room she had booked for the night at The Carlyle, one of New York's cla.s.siest hotels.

"On how the session goes," she said.

"Oh." Jonas crossed then uncrossed his legs uncomfortably. "How are Melinda and Gregory?"

"Please, not today. I want a break from them."

"You don't want to fill me in on what's happening?"

"Not really," she sighed impatiently, when what was really happening was her longing for Jonas to lead her to the couch and strip her.

Slipping into dissociation, Victoria said, "You get thirty seconds for the bullet points, and that's all. Gregory's coming along. It's getting easier to accept what Dr. Liddle and Dr. Breckenridge say about his progress without my mind taking off in horrible directions. Melinda's group therapy with Dr. Milroy has catapulted her forward socially. It's all in here." She handed Jonas three singled-s.p.a.ced pages she had brought with her to the session. "Melinda left this on the kitchen counter. It's an essay she wrote comparing her brother to Harry Potter. She's taking Gregory to Barnes and n.o.ble the night the sixth Harry Potter is released, so they can be the first to get it. And the Barlow case settled, I'm thrilled to say. You can't imagine what a load it is to have that off my mind.

"That's enough of that." Victoria's voice trailed off.

She recalled the last session in Philadelphia, when Jonas told her he liked her. She stretched her arms behind her back, her chest protruding even further. "I sure feel better than when I went to bed the other night. It must have been my dreams."

"Your dreams?"

"I think I was dreaming about you. Only this time we weren't in a bakery!" Victoria looked Jonas up and down. The Carlyle fantasy sharpened. She pictured Jonas with his shirt off. "All I remember about those dreams is that I woke up feeling warm."

"I remember that bakery dream," Jonas said. "That was a long time ago. You've changed a lot."

"Really? How?"

"You're all grown up! And you seem so much better than the last time I saw you."

"I hope that means what I think it does."

"What's that?"