by Susan Isaacs
“Are you?”
Jane shrugged. “I don’t know how much I’m supposed to tell you,” she said. She’d talked about sex, but she’d never been able to tell the other psychiatrists that she couldn’t have an orgasm. That, and about her father. She hardly ever thought about him at all, but being with a psychiatrist made her remember. She looked away from Dr. Fullerton to the wall of diplomas behind him, too far away to read. Then she remembered how, when her father had lifted the covers to get into her bed, he’d hold them up for a minute before getting in beside her, watching her turn away from him, draw her legs up defensively, cover her breasts with crossed arms.
She looked down at her lap. The doctor was watching her reaction. Her dress was blue linen. She felt flustered. She nearly broke into a nervous giggle. When she’d walked into the office she’d wanted to say, Hey, we’re twins. We’re both wearing linen today. She hadn’t.
“This is not the sort of therapy you’ve had in the past. If the fight with your husband has a bearing on the treatment of your phobia, then it should be brought up. My function is simply to deal with your phobia in its context. You may want or require additional therapy at some time, and if you like I can recommend another psychiatrist.”
Jane made herself look right into the center of his eyeglasses. Her arms were as cold as the chrome arms of the chair. “I don’t get all that much out of sex,” she said. “Well, sometimes. Not that much lately.” She waited for him to ask, What do you mean by lately? He didn’t. He didn’t even move. “I’ve never had an orgasm,” she finally said.
“Never?” She might have announced that her favorite color was red. Neither his voice nor his glance altered.
“No.”
“Have you ever masturbated to orgasm?”
“No.”
Judson Fullerton made no note in her folder. He didn’t even reach for his pen. “You might want to consider additional therapy” was all he said.
He couldn’t believe how she was dressed. “Are you sure you want to wear that?” Nicholas asked.
“What’s wrong with it?” Jane snapped. She turned from the mirror where she was putting on an earring. Diamond and ruby drops. He’d bought them for her a month before, to celebrate her first trip into Manhattan.
“Nothing. Forget it.”
Her dress, a cocktail wrap of red silk, looked entirely proper from the back. The front plunged halfway to her waist.
She gazed at herself in the mirror. “It really doesn’t show that much,” she said. She held the pads of her thumbs under her ears, pushing the lobes forward to see that her earrings were properly placed.
“I said forget it,” Nicholas said. It showed all the cleavage she had and at least a third of her breasts. “What are you doing for a bra?”
“Does it look like I’m wearing one?”
“To anyone who knows what’s under there.”
Jane spun around. “If you don’t want to go, fine. Just say so. But you don’t have to insult me.”
“Stop it. I was kidding.” He walked across the long bedroom of their Manhattan apartment and stood behind her. He put his hand into the deep slit of her dress, “You know how I love them.” He cupped his hand under her breast and held it even higher than the sewn-in bra. It felt pendulous in his hand, and he let it drop back into the bra.
“You don’t think they’re too saggy?” she asked.
“No. Of course not.”
They were. She was in terrible shape. Her body could look good, especially in a dress like the one she was wearing, but it had as much muscle tone as an overripe piece of fruit. That’s what she was like, something past its peak. For years he’d thought her quintessentially feminine, utterly desirable, but now he was beginning to feel as if he had brainwashed himself. Now that she’d gotten out of the gentle, flattering light of the house, now that she was so involved with herself that she barely had time for him, he could study her and see her with great clarity. He peered down into her dress. She was like a melon gone soft. Still sweet, but the flesh was far too yielding. When he made love to her, he avoided touching her belly; it rose up, as if to meet his hand, but it was mushy.
She pulled her hair behind her left ear, pinned it into place, then covered the pins with an antique diamond clip. He hated her hair now. She’d cut it the week before without even warning him. She’d just said, “Could you have Ernie pick me up at Kenneth’s?” and he thought she’d gone to get a trim or have her nails done. When she’d gotten back to Connecticut and climbed out of the car, her beautiful hair that had hung to her waist was gone, chopped off to shoulder length: black, straight, ordinary hair. And she’d come at him grinning, saying, “I know it’s a shock, but I just had to do it. You’ll get used to it.”
“Is my makeup okay?” she asked.
He looked into the mirror rather than at her. “Fine.”
“Ready to rock and roll?”
“Don’t you want to take something? A shawl or some kind of sweater?”
“Nick.” She exhaled. He could hear her impatience, as though she were dealing with a difficult child. “You asked me what I wanted to do and I told you. If you don’t—”
“Let’s go.”
How do you want to celebrate? he’d asked. Five months and you’re a new woman. Do you want to go to Europe? Oh, Nick, I can’t fly. I’ll probably never be able to fly. One step at a time. That’s all I can do. He’d suppressed his sigh. All right, what then, Jane? A big party? A cruise? Should I charter a boat? Do you know what I want? she said. I want to walk into the best restaurant in Manhattan on your arm, right past the chic-est people in the world, in a low-cut dress and great jewelry, and I want everyone to say, Who is that man with that gorgeous woman? Listen, he’d said, it would be easier if we slip in through the kitchen. They arrange it so I sit with my back toward the rest of the restaurant and no one bothers me or stares, no one comes up asking for autographs or—All right, Jane. If that’s what you want. That’s what I want, she’d said. The new earrings and your grandmother’s diamond necklace and a dress that goes down to my belly button. It will be the first dress I shop for myself, Nick. I’m going to go to Bendel’s and get in the elevator and do it. Alone. And if I can’t find what I want I’ll have it made. Good, he’d said. Wonderful.
“I’m so excited,” Jane said. “A little nervous, but mostly good, wonderful excitement.”
“Good.” He handed her her evening bag. “Let’s go.”
“Nick?”
“What?” he asked. She looked so flashy. People would stare, then see him. It would be awful. He dreaded the entire evening. He took her arm and led her toward the door.
“I feel like my life is just beginning.”
24
Nearly everyone is willing to discuss the Cobleighs, and, apart from the knife-in-the-back remarks that are endemic to show business, most people interviewed speak of the couple in glowing terms. Phrases recur: “Top drawer,” “The best and the brightest,” “A perfect match.” However, few will speak for attribution, as if the price of their friendship…
—Boston Globe
“Would you be more comfortable over there?” Judson Fullerton asked. She had not seen him in several months. For the first minute she’d thought he’d grown, but then realized she’d never seen him standing except for the first time she came to his office, when he’d risen and extended his hand. “On the couch.”
“Thank you.” Jane moved from the patient chair, where she’d automatically sat, to a chrome and leather couch that looked like someone had found two more chairs exactly like the one she’d just been in and glued them all together. She was not more comfortable.
Dr. Fullerton lifted the chair she’d been sitting in and brought it opposite her, close, about three feet away. He sat. She felt more than uncomfortable. She looked past him, across the room. On his desk was a pile of papers and folders under a large paperweight. The paperweight was a chunk of crystal, and a sword-shaped letter opener, like Excalibur, was embedded
in it. He must have seen her looking at his desk. “I was just getting caught up on some paperwork,” he said. “The only solid block of time I can get is on weekends.” It was late Saturday afternoon. He was dressed casually, in slacks and an argyle sweater. He’d opened the door of the clinic himself, and she’d been as startled by his sports clothes as if he’d been naked. “I hope you’re not uncomfortable,” he said. “About putting aside the doctor-patient roles.”
“Not at all,” Jane replied. “I mean, I wasn’t in analysis or anything. And a lot of the volunteers were patients. Like Ellie. Weren’t they?”
“Yes.” His glasses were off, and he looked like another person. Younger, less serious, less trustworthy. His eyes, which she’d finally decided were light brown, were actually hazel, although the left one had a thick line of brown from the pupil to the bottom of the iris.
“No. I mean, I’m glad to be here.”
“Good. First, I want to thank you personally for your donation to the clinic. It was very generous.”
He had written a “Dear Mr. and Mrs. Cobleigh” note thanking them for their five thousand dollars. She had wanted to give ten. Ten? Nicholas demanded. Are you kidding? Five’s overly generous. He doesn’t need more. Come on, stop being so touchy. You know what I mean. He has a minimal overhead and fifty suburban ladies in tennis dresses doing all the work for him. Who do you think really helped you? Him? Or that Italian woman who was here almost every day?
“You’re welcome,” she said. “I’d like to do more. That’s why I want to get into the next volunteer training program. Not only for altruistic reasons. I mean, here it is 1978, and every other woman my age has had a chance to become a person in her own right. I mean, the women’s movement marched right by my door, and I was locked in the house. Here I am, thirty-eight years old. Practically the only housewife left in America.” He crossed his legs, resting his right ankle on his left knee. She looked directly at his face to keep her eyes from being drawn to the apex of the triangle created by his legs. “And I’m a housewife whose children go away to school and who has people to clean the house and do the laundry and drive and do the errands. I’m not what would be diagnosed as overtaxed.”
“I’d be happy to have you in the program.”
“Oh,” she said. “Thank you. I didn’t expect it would be that easy.” He didn’t say anything. “I mean, I thought you’d require sixteen credits of psych and five thousand miles of solo driving. I still can’t drive to Manhattan,” she added.
“One step at a time.”
“But then, I don’t have to drive. That’s part of the problem. My husband’s…” She searched for the right word. “My husband’s position really helped me avoid a lot of the confrontations I would have had to face years earlier. I didn’t have to drive the children. I could have a hairdresser come to the house to trim my hair.” She realized she was talking like a patient. A boring patient. She felt her face flush. “Anyway, thank you for letting me into the program. I mean, I appreciate your confidence.”
“I’d like more from you than that,” Dr. Fullerton said.
“What?” She couldn’t look at his face. She studied the navy and maroon diamond shapes on his sweater.
“I’d like more from you than just being a volunteer. Let me be frank with you. The most important thing we can do is get the word out to phobics that they can be helped. That they’re not doomed to being locked in their houses or out of their cars or away from any place that has cats or escalators or what-have-you for the rest of their lives. They can be helped in a relatively simple, nonthreatening manner. Nonthreatening in the sense that they don’t feel they have to delve down and come up with their childhood traumas and hand them over to a psychiatrist for microscopic observation in order to overcome their problem.”
She nodded. She had never heard him talk so much. He had a trace of a New England accent, more like Amelia’s than a Boston one, as if he’d come from New Hampshire or Maine.
“Now, how can we best reach them?”
It wasn’t a prep school accent. He’d gone to public high school. A self-made man. She didn’t know how she knew, but she knew. He lacked the loose-limbed ease of Nicholas and his friends; they were graceful men, self-controlled, but their arms and legs took up a little more space than they were perhaps entitled to. Dr. Fullerton’s arms stayed close to his body. Even his casually crossed legs did not extend beyond the limits of his chair. And his clothing, while surprisingly elegant for a psychiatrist—so much like Nicholas’s—was too perfect. They were the same cordovan loafers, but Nicholas’s were a little scuffed, as if scheduled to be shined the following day; Dr. Fullerton’s gleamed dark, flawless red.
“I suppose the best way would be to get as much publicity as possible. Newspapers, TV.”
“That’s right.”
He seemed to be waiting for her. She didn’t know what to say. “Well, I guess that is the best way,” she repeated. She couldn’t breathe deeply enough. She had been on a diet and had finally gotten into size ten pants, but the waist was very tight and the top of the front button was gouging into her stomach. There might be a roll of flab hanging over her pants. She shouldn’t have tucked her sweater in; it was a gesture only the naturally thin should make. She yearned to touch herself to see if she was bulging, but she was afraid he’d realize exactly what she was doing. They were always aware of how women patients felt, how self-conscious they were. Now he knew she was thinking about him and was waiting for her to come to her senses and say something. “That’s how I found out about the clinic. In the Record.”
“Yes. But that’s just one small local paper. We want to reach out to all of Fairfield County and northern Westchester. To the whole metropolitan area, for that matter. There are other clinics in the city and on Long Island. It comes down to this, Jane. Newsworthiness. Are we newsworthy?”
“Yes. Of course. Look at the work you’re doing. Look how my whole life has been turned around.” He was giving her his steady psychiatrist look, more unnerving without his glasses. She kept wanting to stare into the eye with the brown streak and so deliberately made herself look into his other. “Oh,” she said. “You want me to—you want me to go public. To get publicity.”
“I’d like you to consider it. I know it’s asking a great deal and that it’s an imposition.” He uncrossed his legs and leaned forward. “And believe me when I say I’ll understand if you say no.”
“Can I think about it?”
“Of course. Jane, I know there must be enormous pressures living in your situation, and the need for privacy must be very, very strong.” He seemed to have more color, as though infused with compassion. He had never looked so human. His face was close enough that she could see the tops of his cheeks were pitted with acne scars. “I don’t want you to feel used.”
“I appreciate that.”
“That’s the last thing I would want. It’s just that there are so many people out there who are suffering, and you could help us to reach out to them. Just think about it. That’s all I ask.”
“I really do want to help,” she said.
“I know you do, Jane.”
“Let go of my arm!” Jane cried.
“How could you do it?” Nicholas shouted. “How could you?”
It was only nine in the morning, and already he was wiped out. They’d been going at each other since seven thirty, an out-of-control fight where shrieks plummeted into growls, roars into groans. “How could you?” he kept wanting to know. Fifteen minutes into the fight, he’d dashed up the stairs, chasing her. His ankle had turned and he’d fallen hard on his ass, had bumped down step after step on the base of his spine, until near the bottom of the stairs he was finally able to grab the railing and stop himself. He sat there, his robe gaping open, cradling his twisted ankle, trying to overcome the agony in his back and catch his breath. When it came, he began to cry. It was too much, that Jane could betray him. He’d remained there, his face in his hands, heaving with silent sobs. His unshaven
cheeks scratched against his hands; a man should not cry like this. But he could not stop until he heard the housekeeper sliding open the parlor door, checking to see—now that the shouting had stopped—if the coast was clear. He’d hauled himself up and limped upstairs.
“How could you?” His voice was steady now. It had been for nearly an hour. But he was worn out. His hand was shaking so much his grip on her arm weakened. Jane pulled out of his grasp and leaned against the bathroom sink. Four finger marks splotched her upper arm. She stared at them, then rotated her arm to observe the tender inside part, inspecting the red circle from his thumb. She probed it delicately with her finger. “For Christ’s sake,” he said, “stop carrying on. I didn’t hurt you.”
“You did. Look.”
The newspaper was still rolled in his pocket. He pulled it out and shook it at her. “You look!” He unrolled it. It was folded to the offending page. “Look, I said!” She turned her back to him and opened the door of the medicine chest. He slammed the paper against her nose. “Read it, goddamn it! The goddamn New York Times. No? All right, I’ll read it. ‘In 1969, Nicholas Cobleigh began his film career and his ascent to stardom. In that same year, Jane Cobleigh, his goddamn wife, began her descent into what she calls her “private hell.”’”
Jane tried to pull the paper from his hand. She succeeded in ripping off two thirds of it. “Stop it! Please, Nick. Listen to me. It’s nothing. It’s—”
“Eighteen years of marriage,” he said. “And it’s nothing to you. Piss it away for the women’s page of the New York Times.”