Spin Doctor

by Leslie Carroll

  “Well then, I just might check it out tonight,” Alice said. “As long as you also promise me that if I tie on a few too many over this Eric Witherspoon news you’ll pour me discreetly into a taxi and never mention the incident again.”

  “Girl Scouts’ honor,” said Claude, crossing her heart.

  “I think that oath only applies to promising not to burn the toasted marshmallows,” Naomi quipped.

  Claude shot her a look. “A lot you know. That’s the Campfire Girls you’re thinking of.”

  These days Claude and Naomi could turn anything into a full-fledged blow-up. I knew that much of the tension between them was really related to the deeper issue of the adoption, but my God, could they bicker!

  Naomi shrugged in disgust. “Girl Scouts, Campfire Girls, whatever. Funny how it’s totally okay when they throw a bunch of little girls together like that and then the same people go wacko when some of those little girls begin to like each other more than they’re ‘supposed to,’ whatever that means.”

  Claude looked uncomfortably from Alice and Mala Sonia to me and then back to Naomi. “Maybe we should save this for our next session, baby.”

  ME

  Eli phoned at six P.M. to say that he needed to work late again—something about inking—and Ian was sleeping over at a friend’s house, so I accepted Claude and Naomi’s invitation to head down to Sappho. I ran into Alice, who was there with her pregnant friend Isabel Martinucci. Izzy was very anxious—once she learned that I was a therapist—that I not judge her harshly for hanging out in a bar while she was expecting a baby. “Don’t worry, I don’t do that,” I assured her.

  “Good, because we judge ourselves harshly enough!” a tipsy Alice said, raising her martini glass.

  It was hard to converse above the music. Although Sappho is a very sophisticated night spot—and I did enjoy its atmosphere of elegant decadence with just a whiff of danger—I think I may be too old for this kind of thing. I was never much of a partier, actually, even in my youth.

  From the sidelines I watched the women dancing with one another as awkwardly as junior high school kids, or tentatively making out on couches or plushy banquettes, unsure of what—or where—to touch, getting off on acting “wicked.” Tonight, in keeping with the Weimar theme, many of the women were dressed like Dietrich, in black tie and tails, often paired with hot pants instead of trousers, and accessorized with fishnet hosiery, high black heels, and rakishly worn fedoras. Alice and Izzy, since they were both professional actresses, really got into the idea of being costumed. Alice had taken her ensemble to the theatre and changed clothes in the dressing room after her Grandma Finnegan’s Wake performance.

  “I feel like shit,” Izzy announced suddenly.

  “Let’s find the ladies’ room then,” I suggested.

  “No, not that kind of shit. I’m not going to puke or anything. This is only Diet Coke,” she said, raising her glass. Izzy suddenly burst into tears.

  Alice put her arm over her friend’s shoulder and began to comfort her. “Do you want to get up? Move around a bit? Let’s take a walk. How’s that sound?”

  Izzy shook her head. “I…feel so…unloved,” she sobbed. “Sorry,” she immediately added, fishing for a tissue in her evening purse. “My hormones are going insane.” She assumed an expression of forced cheer. “Don’t mind me! I’m okay!”

  “Hey, you want to dance?” Alice asked her.

  Izzy nodded. “Yeah. That’s like a moving hug. And I really need a hug. Damn! I used to act this way when I was drunk!”

  “Well, you have a different ‘excuse’ now,” I said. “The hormones. It’s okay. I seem to remember being pretty wacko both times I was pregnant too.”

  “How old are your kids?” Izzy asked.

  “Eleven and sixteen. And as temperamentally different as two kids could possibly be. One is an angel and the other…isn’t.”

  “I hope this is a girl,” Izzy said, patting her belly. “They’re much easier.”

  “It’s a myth!” I snorted, wondering what the hell Molly was up to tonight. She said she was going to the movies with a girlfriend this evening, having promised on all she held sacred (so I had my doubts) that she’d do her homework first. At her age, most of her classmates go out on weekday evenings as long as they observe a curfew, so it’s bootless for me to try to force her to stay at home. I did remind Molly that it was a school night, but I’m pretty confident, from experience, that my words carried all the weight of a mayfly.

  Alice devoured the maraschino cherry in her cocktail, followed by several valiant though unsuccessful attempts to tie the stem into a knot with her tongue. Izzy slurped down the remainder of her diet soda, then the two of them negotiated their way to the crowded dance floor. The music was a sultry though occasionally strident German torch song that managed to simultaneously relax me and make me nervous. I leaned against the ruby-colored banquette and sipped my vodka tonic, closing my eyes—with one hand on my purse, of course—letting the tune get under my skin. A few moments later I returned my focus to the dance floor, wondering why I’d accepted Claude and Naomi’s invitation. It had nothing to do with socializing in the same venue as some of my clients. In many instances, avoiding those situations is impractical. My laundry room clients are women I’ve grown fond of; we frequently run into one another in the building, chatting informally when we do. To maintain appropriate boundaries, the only actual rule I enforce is that the dirty linen aired during the sessions in the basement stays in the basement.

  My ambivalence tonight came from something else entirely. I just wasn’t in a dancing mood and felt guilty that I wasn’t enjoying my complimentary drink.

  I watched Alice and Izzy doing the junior high hug-and-sway. Izzy suddenly burst into tears again on Alice’s shoulder. Without missing a beat, Alice removed the white pocket square from her tuxedo jacket and dried her friend’s eyes. It was a touching, unguarded moment that suddenly made me realize that I have no girlfriends whose shoulders I can cry on. In fact, I have no friends who I feel as close and connected to as I do with some of my clients. I’ve heard colleagues voice similar complaints: their personal life suffers while their professional one thrives, but misery having company doesn’t make it any less depressing.

  A tall, ponytailed blonde in the de rigueur black fedora caught my eye. She was holding her much shorter partner so tenderly; and though their dancing wasn’t going to win them any Fred and Ginger (or Ginger and Mary Ann) awards, the two of them looked like they were more than just good friends. Particularly after I saw them kiss. I felt like such a voyeur, but for some reason, they mesmerized me. Perhaps it was because I was certain there was something familiar about the way the shorter woman moved, always listing ever so slightly to port, because her left leg was just a fraction shorter than her right.

  When the couple turned, and her slouchy fedora slipped back on her head, I caught a good look at the blonde’s partner’s face. I knocked over my drink, and practically vaulted the low black granite cocktail table trying to reach them.

  “Molly! What the hell are you doing here?!”

  She abruptly stopped dancing and looked just as shocked to see me. “I could ask you the same thing, Mom.”

  I steered her into the corner where we’d have some semblance of privacy and plopped her onto the cushy banquette. Her friend hovered guiltily about two feet away. “Don’t sass me, young lady,” I heard myself say, sounding like my own mother. “Don’t make me list your transgressions in front of your friend. I’m assuming this is the same Lauren you told me you were going to the movies with tonight.”

  Molly started to laugh. In the past few years she’s perfected the teenage snort. Its very tone and delivery mocks mothers. “Yeah, right. Lauren.”

  “Molly, first of all—no, second of all—even though you’ve only got four days left until summer vacation, this is a school night. First of all, you’re underage—in a bar—how the hell did they let you in here in the first place? And what the heck is s
o funny about Lauren? You haven’t fazed me or freaked me out by French kissing with a girl, you know. The piercing on your…you know…was infinitely more outrageous.”

  “Then I’m losing my touch.”

  “I do, however, want an explanation. And an apology for lying to me. It’s one thing to say you’re going to the movies on a school night. You promised to do your homework first, and I gave you the respect of taking you at your word. But a nightclub? This isn’t acceptable, Molly. And I have a feeling it wouldn’t be acceptable to Lauren’s mother either.”

  “Lauren,” Molly scoffed again, as though I was an idiot. “We are so lucky it’s so dark in here,” she added, in a tone I can only describe as adolescent self-satisfaction. Are there any other mothers out there whose skin crawls at teenagers’ overuse of the word “so”? There’s another affectation that seems designed to annoy parents.

  Molly took me by one hand and her tall blond partner by the other and dragged us all off the dance floor and into the narrow hallway that led to the bathrooms. She finally halted in an alcove housing those cumbersome chrome-plated dinosaurs otherwise known as pay phones where the light was at least bright enough to see the numbered buttons.

  “Okay,” I told my daughter, “talk.”

  Acting as though I had greatly incommoded them, Molly turned to her friend with a shrug. “I guess we better come clean,” she said, removing the blonde’s hat.

  Now that her friend’s face was no longer shaded, I wasn’t sure which of Molly’s lies I should be more pissed off about.

  “Ma, meet Laurence.”

  “Laurence.” I let the word sit on my tongue for a couple of moments, tasting it. It took every ounce of my willpower to refrain from reaming out my daughter in front of her friend. “Laurence. Do you have a last name, Laurence?” He mumbled something, genuinely embarrassed.

  “Jacobs. Laurence Jacobs,” Molly translated sullenly.

  “My mother was a real Olivier freak,” Laurence said sheepishly.

  He’s lucky she didn’t name him Heathcliff. “So, Laurence-not-Lauren, does your mother know you’re out this late?” Eek, I was suddenly channeling another mother again: someone from the Eisenhower era who wore aprons and sensible heels every day instead of faded Levi’s and clogs.

  “Yeah, I guess. She doesn’t care, though. She and my dad aren’t home anyway.”

  “And how do you know my daughter, since she’s never bothered to mention your name before?”

  “Mom,” Molly wailed, “stop giving him the third degree. We’re not kids!”

  “I’m afraid that the State of New York would quibble with you on that point.”

  Laurence opened his mouth to reply but received a shot in the ribs from my delicate daughter, who decided to speak for him.

  “Laurence goes to Fieldston too. He’s also a junior, his father is a lawyer and his mom is a realtor who’s allergic to cats so they had to give theirs away last year. We met in the Environmental Club that Mr. Nivon leads after school on Thursdays, okay? So, he’s, like, socially responsible.”

  I rolled my eyes. “And tonight would be a shining example of his social responsibility?”

  “He doesn’t drink.”

  “Yeah, but you do,” Laurence quietly grunted, then immediately realized the gravity of his misstep in the loyalty department. Unfortunately for Molly, this time his mumble was articulate enough for me to decipher. While whistle-blowers are often regarded as heroes, the kid would not be someone I’d want on my side if cracking under torture was ever going to become a factor. It wouldn’t surprise me if Molly broke up with him over this transgression.

  “Excuse us, please, while I speak to my daughter,” I said to the boy, then pulled Molly toward me so we were nose-to-nose. “What were you drinking tonight and how many have you had?”

  “God, Ma!” she whined. “I’m fine.”

  “No. No, you’re not. And I’m not just talking about underage drinking. I’m talking about lying to me. You didn’t tell me where you were really going tonight—”

  “Did you really expect me to? Mom, sometimes I think you are totally—”

  “You didn’t tell me that you actually went out with a guy.”

  “So now I can’t date?”

  “Of course you can date. Don’t put words in my mouth. Dating at sixteen is fine. Speaking of which, how long have you been dating Laurence and why did you feel you couldn’t tell me?”

  “Since March and it’s none of your business.”

  “As long as you live under my roof, eat my food, can’t afford to pay your own tuition, and are below the age of eighteen, I’m going to have to disagree with you on that point.” With Molly, no matter what she’s into, if you need to ask how deeply involved in it she is, it’s always safe to assume that the answer is “very.” She’s been pushing the envelope since she pushed her way into the world. I wasn’t even about to ask the Sex Question as far as it concerned Laurence. Not in the middle of a nightclub, certainly. So I bit my tongue and chose a less inflammatory query instead. “So, why, Molly, as long as you were somehow managing to sneak into nightclubs with your boyfriend—which is another issue that I’ll get to in a moment—did you choose to come to Sappho, since, it appeared to me, from your performance on the dance floor, that Laurence is a heterosexual male.” I regarded Laurence’s almost pretty, clean-shaven face. “And tonight he’s masquerading as a straight woman who wants to pretend she’s gay for a few hours.” Shakespeare would have had a field day. “Either of you want to tell me what I’m missing here?”

  Laurence blushed and shuffled his feet; at least his dress shoes were polished and his tuxedo pants neatly pressed. Then he reverted to teenage mumble mode.

  “Sorry, I didn’t hear you.”

  “Stop embarrassing my boyfriend, Mom!” Molly screeched. “You should consider yourself lucky that I have a boyfriend, instead of just hooking up, like most of my friends do!” She gripped me by the elbow just as I had done to her a minute or so earlier and steered me farther away from Laurence. Then she decided it wasn’t far enough and after issuing him a curt “Wait here,” dragged me into the ladies’ room.

  If I do find out she’s been “hooking up,” she’s going to be grounded for life.

  “I am so tempted to have it out with you right here, Molly,” I fumed.

  Molly lowered her voice to a whisper. “I thought you wanted to know what Laurence and I were doing in a faux gay bar.”

  “I do.”

  “Yeah, so that’s why we’re having this conversation in here where he can’t hear us, so you can’t embarrass him any further than you already have. I am so going to have to make it up to him after tonight.”

  I gave Molly a look of death. At least she had the good grace to wince.

  “Okay,” she said, “you asked why we came here. You want the truth, Ma? Are you sure you can handle the truth?”

  “Stop paraphrasing Jack Nicholson and get to the point, Molly.”

  “Because he likes to see two women, you know, kissing and stuff. It turns him on, okay? And when he’s turned on, I’m the recipient of that turned-on-ed-ness, okay? And that’s fine with me!”

  I suppose I should just act like the modern mother that I keep trying to think I am and be grateful that her boyfriend “de semester” doesn’t drink, and not fret too much about his less wholesome tendencies. “Molly, you were talking a few minutes ago about social responsibility,” I said, lowering my voice to a hiss. “How did you two get in here? Weren’t you carded? And how do you feel knowing that you could be getting Claude and Naomi in deep shit? Everything your father and I have attempted to instill in you aside, haven’t you absorbed any sense of ethics from attending the Ethical Culture schools for almost thirteen years?”

  Molly folded her arms across her chest and narrowed her eyes, leveling a challenge at me. “The bouncer doesn’t care.”

  “Are you telling me that you’ve come here before?”

  “I didn’t say that.” It
was hard to tell whether she was lying to me, particularly after her admission about Laurence’s turnons. “Look,” she added grumpily, “the bouncer let us in with a whole crowd of people all dressed up like we are and he didn’t check IDs, okay?” No, not okay, I was thinking. “I didn’t even see Naomi and Claude. Are they here? Why would we be getting them in trouble?”

  “Because they own this place. And if they don’t know their bouncer is admitting minors to an establishment that sells alcoholic beverages, I’m about to enlighten them.”

  “God, Ma! Who are you now, the FBI?”

  I could have argued that the FBI had nothing to do with it and that it was the New York State Liquor Authority they’d all have to reckon with, but I didn’t feel like getting into semantics with my teenage daughter.

  The door to the ladies’ room opened and Alice and Izzy poked their heads inside. “There you are!” Izzy exclaimed. “We wondered what the hell happened to you. Do you know there’s a guy in here? A guest, I mean; not a bartender. Waiting right outside in the hall, in front of the pay phones.”

  I told them an emergency had just come up but that there was no bloodshed, everything was fine, and that they should go ahead and continue to party without me, apologizing for being unable to spend any more time with them this evening. I did not divulge that I needed to drag my disobedient and soon-to-be-grounded daughter home by her tailcoat…after a discreet word in the owners’ collective ears.

  “You don’t have to act like the Gestapo,” Molly moaned as I led her and Laurence toward the nightclub’s exit. My patience exhausted, I chastised her for equating her Jewish mother with a Nazi, particularly on Weimar Nacht. “It’s just an expression. You have no sense of humor!” she protested.

  “Not tonight,” I said grimly, catching sight of Naomi speaking to the bouncer. I caught her eye and she turned around.

  “Leaving so soon? Hey, we’re going to have a costume contest at midnight…Oh, shit,” she muttered, recognizing my teenage daughter. “That’s Molly!” She shook her head apologetically. “Don’t worry, Susan, this is not going to happen again. Carding!!” she shrieked at the bouncer. “Carding! What have I told you about checking ID? Every ID. Do you want to get us shut down? I am not going to lose the business that Claude and I have been building up for seven years because some no-neck is too lazy to do his job. Next time this happens one of us is going to be facing unemployment—and it’s not going to be me!”