The Exit Coach

by Megan Staffel

  When she reached the river she found a spot screened by a budding tree where there was a flat, fairly level stone she could stand on. She held the box aloft, turned it over, and removed the lid. The hard, pebbly bits of bone, all that was left of the modest man she had admired, but found impossible to live with, dribbled into the beautifully clear water. Ten years ago those bones had worn the flesh of a person she had considered her friend, even after the break-up, though as a friend, husband number one still drove her crazy. She said a little goodbye: “Gordon. Sweetheart. I miss you terribly. Things are fine here. I hope they’re fine where you are.” Then she walked back, slowly, carefully, waving to the driver every few steps so he wouldn’t leave her.

  The next stop was the lesser river, the river of transportation, industry, and secret chemical dumps. She told the driver to take her to the World War Two submarine anchored just south of the Towers and instructed him to park as close as he could get. Feeling his eyes on her back, Lana walked over the expressway towards the water. After the Towers had been built, the neighborhood had been cleaned up, but there was no hiding the roar of millions of cars under her feet. A tanker chugged downriver, but the Delaware was so big, so wide, there were no ripples, not even any sloshing against the pier. She held the box containing Willow’s father over the water. Before dying, husband number two had let go of his bowels all over her bathroom and that final gesture in a long and boring illness still felt like a commentary on her: I shit on you and your ridiculous lies!

  “Bye, bye!” she cried as the chalky chips sank into the sludge. Then she returned, slowly, carefully, waving to the driver the whole time, but he didn’t once bother to wave back. Even so, she tipped him well.

  When Lana closed the door to her apartment she noticed that already her rooms felt lighter, happier. Maybe Willow was right. Everyone needed to move onwards.

  “I’m glad you did that,” said Barbara Cohen.

  Lana was wrapped in the dull light that squeezed through slatted blinds, molded into the hard modernistic chair the therapist provided for clients, while she lounged in an old-fashioned tufted recliner. “It was cleansing,” Lana said, although it hadn’t felt cleansing at all. It had simply been a duty, assigned by Willow, that she had performed. She said musingly, “I want to be married again.”

  “Why?” Barbara asked and Lana thought about how to answer.

  “If there was a man in my life, I would feel protected.”

  “But haven’t you told me that you’re done with men?”

  “I can still want one around, can’t I? It would be comforting.”

  “You’re the one who told me you loved the simplicity of your life without them. You said men were too complicated.”

  “But they’re also convenient. Look, I miss intimacy. We might as well be clear about that.”

  Barbara believed sex was the root cause of all neurosis and so every once in awhile, Lana delivered what she hoped would be a significant confession.

  “I miss touching, whispers, the goodnight kiss. I miss the company of a man, that solid other person who shares a space.” She was thinking that a husband was like a best friend you could cuddle with when she remembered Viagra. Who wanted an old man with the erection of a twenty year old? The whole notion of collapsed, dessicated people having intercourse disturbed her because the truth was… What was the truth? Well, she hesitated to name it, because once you said a thing, there it was, out there, and Barbara, who was relentless and smart, would pin it to her record. But the truth, the secret truth, was that a man who couldn’t get it up was her preference. Saying it out loud would invite discussions she wasn’t willing to engage in, so she reached for something more general. “Sex scares me.” There. That was an actual true statement.

  Barbara seized it immediately. “Back to your core issue,” she said in a careful and professional tone. “Why does sex cause fear?”

  “Everything causes fear,” Lana said, falling back on a statement she’d made many times before. But the clock on Barbara’s desk chimed softly. Time had run out so they’d begin with sex and fear at the next session.

  Thursday was her weekly consultation with her nutrition counselor. That morning, Lana checked the living room to determine if it was still a beautiful place. Her plants and furniture were arranged in a pleasing manner and the Chinese scroll, hanging over the antique table, was bathed in sunlight from the window. The scroll was from the Qing dynasty, very old, a mountain scene painted in faded inks, a river meandering between jagged cliffs. It was such a beautiful object, she wondered sometimes if the scroll were the real reason she’d married Willow’s father. It was the scroll she’d fallen in love with. The small river, beginning in the mountains, spilling down through the cliffs, was like a child moving farther and farther from the place she was born. That river was as determined to escape its beginnings as she had been. She had left the big dining room, the Sunday meals, the beef tongue sitting at the center of a table where the cousins pinched and poked each other while the aunts and uncles examined the lives of everyone in the family: who was more deserving, more faithful, more willing to suffer the hatreds and discriminations of the chosen people. When she was eighteen she’d moved to Philadelphia and never went back. So the river winding through the mountains belonged on her wall, in her living room, and the man who came with the scroll was a bonus. At least until he lost all of his money and took up with another female. His disease was another trial, but unlike pennilessness or philandering, it was, thank the Buddha, fatal.

  Lana made the preparations. She brewed imported green tea in an earthenware pot and set out an assortment of Japanesey snacks, all from the one natural foods store that made deliveries. When everything was ready, her phone rang, the desk clerk announcing her visitor, and soon Marlene Osaka was seated across from her. On the floor, she’ d parked a case filled with various supplements, all of them costly, all of them with names that eluded meaning: CoQ10, Essential Seven, 5 HTP.

  “Very good,” Marlene was saying. “Your skin has improved tremendously. Have you noticed? It’s tighter, more alive.”

  “Yes,” Lana agreed, stirring so much enthusiasm into her voice she herself was convinced. “It’s so much smoother.”

  “Now, can you remove your glasses? For just a moment?”

  Lana stared trustingly into milky space.

  “Yes, just as I thought.” Marlene’s finger came out of the mist and pointed to the grey, crinkly bags under her eyes. “Too much refined flour. That’s the cause.”

  “Oh dear,” Lana said, but really, weren’t eye bags the least of it? Her entire physical statement was wrong. Large breasts, frizzy hair, eager, thrusting nose…nothing was subtle.

  “Your body is storing too many toxins. All the heavy metals from city living, they get sent to the liver, which is why you’re taking liver cleanse, but the overflow goes into these membranes under your eyes. That’s why they’re puffy. These bags are what greet every person you look at, and luckily, I have a specially formulated ocular toxin release, developed for this very problem, and I’m going to prescribe a heavy dose for the first few weeks till we see a diminishment. Now, I’ll just take a little measurement,” she said, brandishing her tool.

  Marlene had a wand for measuring things that could not be measured. It was the size of a travel tooth brush with a little button that made a very small ruler pop out. She had measured Lana’s belly sag, her upper arm sag, her shoulder hump, and now she leaned forward and measured the bags under her eyes. As she did so, she made tiny marks in her book with a mechanical pencil and then she bent down to rummage in her satchel, glossy hair curtaining her movements.

  Lana felt such longing she said, apropos to nothing, “I need to do something about this.” She indicated her own hair. “It’s so dry and lifeless. What do you use in yours?” If only she could be Marlene Osaka.

  “Two capfuls of this liquid in one cup of water twice a day and I promise we’ll see results.” Marlene added numbers to her bill and se
t a white bottle on the table.

  “My hair,” Lana reminded her, touching the impossible fluff that surrounded the face she had despaired over for so many years. She was a musk ox from the Museum of Natural History, eons old, reconstructed with moldering fur.

  Very gently, Marlene touched her chin and turning her face towards her, her marvelous fingers resting for just a second on Lana’s cheek, she fluffed out Lana’s curls. “Please, show me your nails.”

  Lana held out her hands and Marlene peered down.

  “Ah,” she said.

  “What?”

  “Ridges. That means a lack of calcium. Please, would you open your mouth?”

  “Ah,” Marlene said again, peering into her mouth. “After the toxic release, we’ll need to supplement with a formula that’s aimed specifically at hair, teeth, and nails. A calcium, magnesium boost fortified with silica from an ancient herb called horsetail.”

  “That sounds good.”

  “It will help,” Marlene said, sipping her tea, holding the cup in her long-fingered goddess hand. Lana had seen hands like it in the galleries of Eastern Art at the Philadelphia museum. “But I have to wait until after the release?”

  “It would be best,” Marlene said.

  “Will you remember?”

  “Of course,” she said. “I’ve made a note of it in my book and I will make a note on your weekly chart.” Lana watched as the instructions were put in both places, and then she saw how, with a secret movement, a barely perceptible tilt of her head, Marlene glanced at her watch. But Lana jumped in before she could make any sounds about leaving, and cried out, “You are so wonderful! I am so grateful for all of your help.” Without a pause, without waiting for a reply, she opened her checkbook and went on in a gay, friendly tone. “I always benefit so very much. What do I owe you?”

  Marlene showed her the total and then ripped off a copy of the bill and Lana wrote a check for one hundred over the amount as she always did and, on the memo line scrawled, for you. She kept a mental tally of these gifts, and by now, figured it came to a thousand dollars. She took Marlene’s melon colored jacket out of her closet and held it open as first one and then another creamy arm slid into the silken sleeves.

  “It’s always a treat to spend an afternoon in your beautiful apartment. I so enjoy looking at all of your pretty things.” Marlene leaned close and pecked Lana’s cheek with closed lips.

  “Love you,” Lana called.

  In the middle of the night a cat yowled in the parking lot. An emergency vehicle screamed down a nearby street. People laughed below her windows, and in the artificial light squeezing through the blinds Lana saw her mother Sylvia sitting in her room like an invited guest, accusing her. But of what, she wanted to say. Of what? Not wanting to stick around and be a good Jew?

  At age fifty-seven Sylvia had died from a massive heart attack. Now, the same thing was happening to her at seventy-nine. She felt heavy. There was something heavy sitting on her chest, suffocating her, and now with the husbands in the rivers, there was no one. She turned on her bedside lamp, put on her glasses. That was better; everything came into focus. Could she speak?

  Oh my god, she couldn’t breathe, she couldn’t speak! It was a heart attack! She was having a heart attack! She was dying! Exactly! There was numbness! Numbness in her upper arms! Constriction at her throat! A heavy weight on her body, oh my god, oh my god, who to call? Who could she call at two fifteen in the morning?

  The last number she’d called on her phone. Of course! What could be easier? She stared at the buttons, searching for redial. Then she remembered, the last call had been to Marlene. Could the new ocular rinse cause diarrhea? But Marlene hadn’t answered and she had left a long and friendly message, acknowledging all of the silly things one had to acknowledge with modern women, that she knew how busy she was, how very little time she had, that she was willing to wait, but the diarrhea was really a problem. Should she continue to take the formula or should she stop? Now, she lifted the phone to her face, because even with her glasses, her vision was wavy. A heart attack affected the entire body, so no wonder her vision was wavy. Redial! Redial! Where was the button? As she stabbed it with her finger, she thought about how she would present herself.

  “Yes?”

  “This is Lana. Lana Leicester? Lana Leicester Smith? At the Towers?

  “Yes, can I help you…”

  “I left you a message. Could diarrhea be an effect of the ocular rinse?” As she said these words she realized that she could talk and, therefore breathe, and she knew, in a flash, that it wasn’t a heart attack at all, merely a moment of panic. “I’m sorry Marlene. It’s so late. Forgive me. But I woke up and I’m having a panic attack. I’m worried about my heart. I was scared, so I pushed redial. I’m so sorry, but it’s hard to be alone and I was wondering if it was at all possible. Are you up? It sounds like you’re up. It’s my heart. My mother, you see….” But her mother had rejected her.

  “You should call 911.”

  “This is so awful, I’m so embarrassed. Who calls at this ridiculous late hour?” She laughed, just to show she saw the humor of it.

  “You should call 911.”

  “There wouldn’t be traffic. You said you lived just on the other side. I just….”

  “You should call 911 if you think you’re having a heart attack.”

  “I’m scared,” Lana bleated.

  “Call a friend or a family member.”

  “Please...”

  “I can’t talk now; I will see you at our next scheduled appointment.”

  “Oh my god,” she wailed. “Oh my god!” But then she stopped, remembering the checks. It had to be a thousand dollars. Wasn’t it? How many hundreds had there been? “No, I don’t think so!” she announced, her heart beating a war dance. She would show this little snip, this little twat. “I’m quitting! And I will never recommend you or any of those boutique products you sell for outrageous prices to any of the people I know. No one, nothing, never!” She stabbed the End button.

  Then she walked to her kitchen. Did she really walk to her kitchen? Was everything working? Arms, legs, brain? She opened the cabinet and took out all eight Nature’s Wisdom products. She dropped them in a grocery bag and headed towards her door. Then she paused. Should she put a coat on over her nightgown? Slip shoes onto her feet? No, she should not. She should simply do it. She should not hesitate. She should not overthink the first spontaneous act of her life. So, with a burst of strength, she flung her door open and marched into the hallway. She did hear it close behind her, but paid no attention. She padded past all of the other doors, where everyone else was sleeping the sweet restorative sleep of mild people. Nighttime was theatre for the fierce! Feet on the carpet, eyes on the textured wall, she flung open the small door next to the elevators, pulled down the metal cover, and dropped, one by one, each Nature’s Wisdom bottle into the trash chute. They shot through the metal sleeve, journeying from the sixteenth floor to the dumpster in the sub basement.

  At the next session with Barbara C., Lana had nothing to say about sex and fear, but she feigned interest and waited until the game was in full play. Then, when she had center stage, she wondered timidly if Barbara might be able to prescribe something to help her sleep. Barbara asked why and Lana said, “Because if a siren goes off I wake up and think I’m having a heart attack. I want something that will make me sleep through sirens and cat fights and drunk teenagers laughing in the parking lot.”

  Barbara suggested she invest in a white noise machine. Or simply set up a fan. Lana ignored these remarks and announced, “You will be pleased to hear I have expressed myself in a bold manner.”

  “Really?”

  But Lana, catching the half-lidded glance, didn’t answer.

  So Barbara rephrased, gave it more conviction: “Wonderful! I’m so anxious to hear!”

  “Anger,” Lana said, amazed that the emotion that had eluded her for her entire life didn’t possess a more elaborate sound. “For once, I c
ould feel it.” Now there was a flicker of interest in Barbara’s eyes, so she described, moment by moment, the events of that night. She reported the excitement of walking down the hallway in her nightgown, ended with the last Nature’s Wisdom bottle hurtling down the chute. “And then,” she added, as though it hardly mattered, “I couldn’t get back in. I had to wait until 6:00 a.m. when the parking attendants arrived.”

  “So what did you do?” Barbara asked, and for once she seemed involved. After all, anyone could get locked out of her apartment. And if Barbara dumped her trash at two in the morning wearing only a nightgown... well, even a doctor with a lot of fancy degrees could be embarrassed.

  “I sat there. I had nothing on, literally, except for a thin, an absolutely nothing little see-through thing.” Lana paused to gather herself. “Those boys who work in the sub-basement. They’re youngsters! Well, the night attendant, he must have been asleep because it wasn’t until 6:00 a.m. Let me tell you, they had a fright the next morning. Help me! Help me on the sixteenth floor! A voice in the corner by the dumpster. And when they came up, which they did, all three of them, well, I don’t have to tell you, everything was exposed.” Lana indicated the generous slope of her chest. “But they were very gentlemanly. Didn’t stare. Not one bit.”

  When Lana saw that the pad in Barbara’s lap, where she continuously took notes was blank, she was flooded with a feeling of success. Here it was. After so many years, and so many checks written to Dr. Barbara Cohen, the client/therapist relationship had dissolved. For the first time, they were simply two women, two equals, two human creatures picturing a situation. She felt the glow of companionship and wondered if that were all she had ever really wanted. Just that. Not a cure, not a change.