Carrie Pilby (9 page)

I wonder what it is that makes someone the kind of person who does try to change things. Maybe I should be that rare person. That would be a positive step. Petrov hasn't put it on my list, but I know that looking for ways to make the world a better place could help me become more a part of it.

Perhaps setting this engaged guy straight is a start.

I stay on the phone, wade through two minutes of instructions, and press 1. It asks for a box number, and I tap it in.

“Hi,” says a friendly sounding voice. “My name's Matt. I'm twenty-six, and as I wrote in the ad, I'm about to marry a great girl.”

He actually sounds normal. I have to prevent myself from being lulled. I have to remind myself that he's a pig.

“I guess I'm happy, but I'm also too young to stop having a good time. Maybe you're in a similar situation. Obviously we'd have to be discreet. If you want to talk more, leave a message on my phone, or send me an e-mail via the Web site.”

Beep.

I think for a second. I made the call. I might as well do this. Maybe I can even sound seductive.

“Hi, Matt,” I say. “You sound
really
cute. I sympathize fully with your situation. I'm dating a great guy, but there's just no chemistry. I want to see if it's right. When I saw your ad, I thought this might be a…well, a discreet way to do it, like you said. Give me a call sometime and we can talk.”

I leave my phone number so he can call and we can get this over with. I say my name is Heather. That's a good all-around name. I'll bet no one named Heather has ever not had her call returned.

I don't mind that Matt will have my real number because if he creates a problem later on, I'll say that Heather was my roommate and she moved to Namibia.

I have one more call to make this evening—to Petrov. I'm supposed to have an appointment tomorrow. But it's certainly still going to be far too blizzardous for therapy. I call his answering machine and say, “Hi, it's Carrie Pilby, I'm just calling to make sure tomorrow's appointment is canceled because of the storm, and I'll assume I don't have to go unless you call me by nine tonight. Bye.”

Hey, I'm giving him a whole hour. Otherwise I have to make other plans. Maybe Matt from the personals, who in high school was probably the president of Future Adulterers of America, will call and arrange to meet for breakfast, since his fiancée, future president of Wives Who Look the Other Way, will think he's at work.

 

Before I go to bed, I review my own written personal ad.

I decide to take out “or psychos” because that will only give the psychos a warning to disguise themselves. I put this in an envelope, which I will drop in the mail in the morning. I bet I'll get some promising responses. And then I'll meet some really great people. I feel good about this as I drift off to sleep.

 

The trucks have been out all night, and the streets are clear by morning. Petrov calls me and apologizes for not having gotten back to me the night before. He says that our appointment is definitely on. Curses.

The subways are running regularly. I wonder what Petrov did last night during the storm. He's divorced. He has two adult daughters. I've seen their pictures on his desk. I wonder if he was alone, or if he has a girlfriend or something. Hey, maybe he has no girlfriend and secretly, he's attracted to me. Maybe that's why he's always so interested in my love life. Imagine if it turned out that he became my date, and he was the one I ended up spending New Year's with. Wouldn't that be a scorcher of an ending?

Of course, he knows my dad, so that's a real turnoff. Or maybe it's some sort of kinky turn-on for him. Maybe we'll make out on December 31 at the top of the Empire State Building, far above the 1,336 red, white and blue lights, and then head to his place to talk Gestaltism till dawn.

 

“Your childhood memories are interesting,” Petrov tells me during our appointment.

“Thank you. That's because I'm so interesting.”

“You
are,
” Petrov says. “But the
kinds
of memories you've been having are interesting. They're very feeling-oriented and sensory. I think it once again shows that you're hurting yourself by not doing the things that you enjoy. Things that deep down
appeal to your senses, not only to your mind. The things that make you truly happy.”

“Hmm.”

“Look at what was on your list,” he says. “Cherry soda. Taste. Starfish. Orange, bumpy things. Look at what you remember. Blue robin's eggs. Red fire engines. You need to satisfy your senses just as much as your mind.”

“Maybe.”

“Which brings me to our goals list. Do you have it with you?”

“Yeah.”

 

ZOLOFT®

1. Do things from list of 10 things you love
   
2. Join an org./club
   
3. Go on date
   
4. Tell someone you care
   
5. Celebrate New Yr's
   

“How are you doing with your goals?”

“I've made preliminary advances on getting a date,” I say. I think of my personal ad and my message for Matt the Cheater. “I have to work on joining an organization.”

“Okay. So what are you doing about getting a date?”

I don't think he would like me placing personal ads. Nor would he like me responding to ads from engaged men who want to cheat. My dad would not like this, either. “I don't have to tell you,” I say. “A date is a date.”

“Okay,” Petrov says. “So, what else have you been up to? What did you do during last night's storm?”

“You first.”

He sighs. “I had a friend over and we watched a movie.”

“A
friend?
Female or male?”

“Uh…female.”

“Was this a girlfriend?”

“Let's talk about you.”

“What movie?”

He doesn't say.

“Was it porn?”

“Carrie. Look. You have to know that there are limits. I am not asking you anything very personal, but I do need to make progress and find out how to help you to meet people and get out there and find some happiness. This isn't about me. It's about you. You would feel better about opening up to people if you could open up to
me,
but you won't even talk to me, and you're
paying
me.”

“My father. My father is paying you. I don't need to tell you how I spent last night's snowstorm, last October's nor'easter, the Blizzard of '96, or Hurricane Andrew.”

“I realize it's personal.”

“It's not that,” I say. “You're only asking because you hope I'll say I spent last night alone, so that you can give me your sophisticated Psych 101 explanation. You actually revel in my problems. If I'm miserable, then it means that the rules and moral codes I stick to aren't true. And that makes you feel better about your own life, and about all the things you do, like having spent last night with what's-her-name. So maybe I did spend the storm alone, but if I spent it alone, I chose to. Just like you chose
not
to.”

“But what's interesting is, I didn't even ask you whether you spent it with a person,” he says. “I asked how.”

“But that's what you were getting at.”

He doesn't say anything, just sits in his armchair. His hair is damp with snow. He must have gotten into the office right before our appointment.

“Well, here's the truth,” I say. “You and everyone else in the
city spent last night snuggling under the sheets with someone, talking about ski trips and Christmases past and intertwining your cocoa-singed tongues, and I was just alone with my blankets. Is that what you want to hear?”

Petrov sighs. “Believe it or not, Carrie, I
would
like to see you happy,” he says. “I
would
like you to come in here one day and say, ‘Hi, Dr. Petrov, life is going great. And I'll tell you all about it.' If you were happy, I'm sure we'd still have things to talk about—not necessarily to work on, but things you might want to tell me about your life, because despite what you think, it's only human to want to talk to someone, whether things are going great or they're going terribly. But with you, I
don't
get the sense things are going great. And you could potentially be a great person and have a major impact on the world, but first you deserve to figure out early in life how to pull yourself out of misery. Analyzing everything to the hilt without focusing on your emotional side isn't going to do it. Do you really want to look back when you're thirty-five and say, why the hell did I spend all those years miserable?”

“But I'm
not
miserable.”

“You'd be more convincing if you could even look at me when you say that.” He looks at me when he says that. “You know what? Not only do I
not
like seeing you upset, but I don't even think that you
think
I do. I think you're putting up your last defenses.”

I look at him. I can't figure out whether his eyes are gray or blue.

“One of these days, you should decide you are going to let someone get to know you,” he says. “You can start by trusting me. You and I don't have to be adversaries. Nothing you say goes beyond these walls. I tell your father nothing. I tell your neighbors nothing, I tell my friends nothing, I tell my colleagues nothing. If you like, you can spend a session railing off,
even cursing
me
out, and I will sit here and not pass judgment. I'm here to be used. Take advantage of me. Do it because I ask you to.”

“What if I'd committed a crime? You would have to tell my father then.”

“I would have to tell someone if it was serious,” Petrov says. “Yes. That's true.”

“So then, what I tell you is not 100 percent confidential.”

“A fine point. But I'll make a deal. All noncriminal activities, I won't report to your father or anyone else. So open up to me.”

“Fine.”

“Tell me something about yourself that you've never told anyone.”

“I slept with my English professor.”

He stops.

Guess he wasn't expecting anything good.

He's waiting for me to say more, but I don't. Let him squirm.

“You once slept with your English professor?”

“No, not once,” I say. “I guess…well, there are seven days in a week, but we used to take a day or two off….”

“We don't need to get that specific.”

Ha ha, you bastard.

“Now,” he says, “is this actually sleeping, or…”

I give him a look.

“Okay, you had intercourse.”

Brilliant.

“And how do you feel about that?”

“Fine.”

He looks at me.

Interesting how he naturally assumes it wouldn't have been fine. Interesting how he naturally assumes I couldn't have handled it. It's so condescending.

He asks, “Have you had other…sexual relationships?”

“That guy who has the session right before me, the really short guy, I looked him up after his last session with you,” I say. “The two of us went to South Street Seaport together and made out by the docks. In that little area behind the mall.”

“Come on.”

“I'm sorry, but we did.”

“Why?”

“Because if you go to the front of the mall, the view isn't as good. Behind the mall, you have the bridge and all the ships…”

“Carrie…”

“Okay, so I'm kidding about the seaport, but I did look him up. I figured he was lonely, like me. I kept finding excuses to pass his apartment, and eventually, I bumped into him and talked to him. And we went out. And then we went back to his apartment. And then, I might add, into his bedroom.”

“I hope you're joking.”

“I'm not.”

“And you slept with him?”

“Well, we were about to, but the phone rang.”

“Ugh.” Petrov wipes his eyes.

Then he smiles.

“All right,” I say. “So I'm kidding. But not about my professor.”

“Okay. Well, I'll ask again. Is he the only person you've been with?”

“Yes.”

“Good.”

“And Rudy Giuliani.”

“Stop that.”

“Okay. He was.”

“And…why do you think you haven't been with anyone else since? Did he hurt you?”

“See what you focus on? The negative. I was happy when I was with him. It ended. Most people aren't as smart and well-read as he was. That's it.”

“Was this guy married?”

“No.”

“Do you think—and I'm just asking because I want to find out how this relationship affected you—do you think you're withdrawn because of your relationship with him?”

“I think I had my relationship with him because I was withdrawn.”

He nods and writes something down.

“Where is he now?”

“Still at school, I guess.”

“Why did the relationship end?”

I don't know if I want to tell him this.

“Because…like the rest of the world…he wanted me to be someone I wasn't.”

“Well, he knew who you were to begin with, didn't he?”

“He liked me at first. He said I was fresh, and young. He liked that I was innocent. But then he wanted me to be not-so-innocent. Everyone wants to have their cake and eat it, too. It's like people who wish and wish that someone nonpolitical would run for office. But as soon as the person does, then they're not nonpolitical.”

“I see what you're saying. But you did have intercourse with him.”

“To see what it was like. So that people couldn't tell me I was complaining about things I knew nothing about. People like you, who assume I've never done anything. Just because I have morals doesn't mean I haven't done anything.”