Suzanne Davis gets a life

by Paula Marantz Cohen

  Later, I asked Derek if his ex-wife, who, after all, had primary responsibility for the kids, had anyone to help her out.

  “No,” he said. “Her mother comes by once a week so she can go to yoga, but other than that, she’s on her own.” “That’s pretty impressive,” I said.

  Derek, used to thinking of his wife as a harridan who was trying to soak him for all he was worth, considered this for a moment. “I suppose it is,” he said and grew quiet for a while, until he realized that Brad had barricaded himself in the bathroom and was repeatedly flushing the toilet while screaming at the top of his lungs. Some high-level negotiation had to ensue between father and son through the bathroom door, so Josh and I retreated to Derek’s bedroom with our Tootsie Pops to play Nintendo.

  ALONG WITH HELPING him with his children, I also accompanied Derek to events related to his job in the mayor’s office. We were invariably seated with the Gartenbergs, since he and Roger worked together. While Roger and Derek talked business, Pauline discoursed with me, mostly about Rose’s precocious development.

  One evening, however, our conversation took a different turn. It was approximately four months into my relationship with Derek, and we were seated with Pauline and Roger at the mayor’s black-tie gala for the Transit Authority, about to dig into our poached salmon and julienne vegetables. Derek and Roger were deep into discussing the impending sanitation workers’ strike when Pauline leaned forward in a confidential manner: “I’ve wanted to speak to you about something, since I know you’re smitten with Derek,” she said.

  I had not realized that I seemed smitten with Derek. The idea that anyone could be smitten with Derek, whose modest good looks did not wear well on continued viewing, was, to my mind, unlikely. But I chalked Pauline’s phrasing up to the naturally hyperbolic tendencies that women get into when they speak about men, given how few functional ones there are out there, especially in New York. Besides, there’s no accounting for tastes, and Roger, Pauline’s husband, was no Brad Pitt either.

  “My only concern,” she said now, continuing her confidential whisper, “is that he might not want to have more children.”

  I have to say that Pauline’s remark gave me a jolt. You may think that this is a conclusion that I would have arrived at on my own: a man in his forties with a depleted bank account and two out-of-control kids might not, it could be deduced, feel a pressing need for further procreation. But for some reason, I hadn’t thought of that. I had proceeded under the assumption that if you became involved with someone, then married him, you then, inevitably, had children with him, unless some physiological impediment reared its head, in which case you expended a great deal of time and money on fertility specialists and, if that failed, you adopted from China.

  I had, you might say, been continuing on with Derek on automatic pilot, with this scenario in mind. I imagined, I suppose, that once I married Derek, his impossible children would be returned to that other world whence they had come and that I would then proceed to have my own impossible children, who would not seem so impossible since they would be mine. If pressed, I would have admitted that I wouldn’t want to sever my relationship with Brad and Josh entirely; I would simply bestow upon them a half-brother and half-sister (my mixed-gender preference). But not to have children of my own? I could see how this might be fine for some people—Eleanor, for example—but for me, children were part of the marital package. They were a non-negotiable item.

  “I know you’ve thought about this,” said Pauline, making me feel all the more blockheaded for not having thought of it. “I may be wrong, of course. And since he’s crazy about you, he might want more children.”

  Again, the notion that Derek was crazy about me, given our rather perfunctory lovemaking, struck a false note.

  “But there’s also the financial factor,” said Pauline. “Bath-sheba plans to bleed him for every last cent.”

  I have neglected to mention that Derek’s wife’s name was Bathsheba. This in itself might have been a warning that her hold on his financial future might assume Biblical proportions.

  “She wants to send the boys to Ethical Culture or Jewish Day School,” continued Pauline.

  This struck me as a slightly odd set of educational alternatives, but regardless, an expensive one. I must have had a shell-shocked look because Pauline now moved into damage-control mode: “I don’t mean to be a naysayer,” she hurried to amend, “I mean, I introduced you—though I may have thought that Stephen would be better”—I recalled that Stephen was the wispy math teacher and insufferable do-gooder/ loser—“and Derek does have steady work, unless of course the recession gets so bad that the mayoral staff will have to be cut, and even Roger worries about that and he’s been there five years longer. …” She trailed off. But she had painted a vivid picture: Derek possibly losing his job, with two unmanageable children and a harridan of a soon-to-be ex-wife who intended to bleed him dry. What was I getting myself into?

  This conversation put a damper on my next evening with Derek, when we went for Indian food on lower Lexington Avenue and then up to my apartment for a night of love, which is to say, a stretch of heaving and shifting, culminating in Derek’s groaning loudly and sinking back onto the pillow. Normally this would have been succeeded by his drifting off immediately into a deep if restless slumber, but tonight he sat up, obviously prepared for serious conversation. I had been thinking hard about Pauline’s comments and was considering how I might best put an end to the relationship without deeply wounding Derek. He, however, began to speak first.

  “I know this is going to hurt,” he said.

  I could not imagine what was going to hurt. He had already done his usual poking about, and it was clear that he was not about to launch into that again. In fact, he had pulled the sheet up over his lower body with uncharacteristic modesty.

  I waited expectantly.

  “Bathsheba and I are going to give it another try,” he said.

  Once again I found myself jolted. I had not had an inkling that he was on better terms with Bathsheba. It’s true that I hadn’t heard him inveigh against her for the past few weeks, but I had put this down to simple fatigue with going over the same material again and again. Now that I thought back on it, however, I realized that he had cancelled our usual Saturday outing with the boys for two weeks in a row, saying that he wanted to spend more time alone with them for bonding purposes. I should have been suspicious, given the difficulty he seemed to have keeping one boy, much less two, from running out into heavy traffic or getting lost for hours in sporting goods stores. I can only assume that I was in a protracted state of obliviousness, a state necessary for me to have continued on in the relationship for as long as I already had.

  It now appeared that Derek’s time spent bonding with the boys had also been time spent re-bonding with Bath-sheba, and that this had led to the reconciliation. Pondering this, I had to admit that there was some logic to it. Derek had grown fractionally better in the parenting role, if only because I had shouldered some of the burden, thereby prolonging his endurance. Bathsheba must have noticed this and realized that taking him back might improve her own situation.

  “You’re actually responsible, in a way, for bringing us back together,” said Derek, affirming my supposition. “When you asked me a while ago whether Bathsheba had help with the boys, it got me thinking about how difficult that job is and how well she’s doing with it, which I never really appreciated before. I told her, and she was grateful to hear it.”

  So there it was. I had played peacemaker between these two warring parties. In truth, there was a certain satisfaction in knowing that I had opened Derek’s eyes to his wife’s sacrifice and also that I was now rid of him, given what Pauline had pointed out concerning the procreative future of our relationship. Still, it didn’t do much for my self-esteem to have him break up with me, especially as he had seen fit to engage in his lackluster lovemaking before relaying the news.

  I therefore told him that I was glad to hear th
at he was getting back with his wife, that it was a relief not to have to spend any more time with his bratty kids, and that also he should know he was lousy in bed. I then told him to go home, and I didn’t even back down when he asked if he could spend the night on the pullout couch. I sent him off, even though it was 1 A.M. and raining.

  I was called the next morning by Pauline. She said that she had heard how hurt I was by Derek’s revelation, but that I should remember what she’d said about his not wanting more children. It seems she had known that Derek was entertaining the idea of going back to his wife, which only made me feel worse, given that, had I been more tuned into what was going on, I would have had the chance to save face and break up with him first.

  “He’s a big A-hole,” I told her.

  “I’m sure he is,” she reassured me. “But you know, it was hitting below the belt to say those things about his kids. They had nothing to do with it. I know you’re hurting, but the kids are innocent bystanders.” Derek had apparently relayed to her the details of our conversation.

  I told Pauline I wasn’t hurting, and his kids were brats. Yet even as I said it, I began to weep.

  “There, there,” said Pauline. To her credit, she seemed genuinely concerned. “I didn’t want to tell you this before— but he’s not worth crying about.”

  “I know,” I whimpered. “It’s just that I’ll miss his kids.” I don’t know why I said this, having made it clear that I couldn’t stand them, but it kind of slipped out. But, let’s face it, it was true. The kids were not mine and a big pain in the ass and had probably already forgotten they had ever met me. But I’d grown fond of both of them—especially Josh, given all the sugar highs we’d shared together. It was, according to Eleanor, another sign of that incorrigible maternal instinct that drew me to the little shits like a moth to the flame. “It’s in the genes,” she explained. “Thank God I’m a mutation.” Eleanor is actually a rather kindhearted person, but she is not, as noted, susceptible to what she terms “kiddie charm.” She believes that such susceptibility, like the first high you get from crack cocaine, is what causes so many women to marry jerks and then lose all their brain cells while engaged in the mothering racket. And that’s pretty much a direct quote.

  Pauline, however, being deeply invested in said mothering racket, couldn’t help but be moved by my inadvertent confession. “Oh, Suzanne,” she said. “I’m so sorry. You are such an exceptional and loving person. I know you’ll find someone better than Derek to be the father of your children.”

  It was ridiculous, but I felt a welling of gratitude. This was the nicest thing anyone had said about me since my father died, if you don’t count what Dr. Chitturi says once a week, which I don’t, since I pay her $200 an hour to say it. I also happened to like Pauline’s phrasing—she wasn’t saying I would find Mr. Darcy to father my children, just “someone better than Derek,” which was the sort of modest, realistic statement I could believe in. From a cost-benefit analysis, Pauline’s words made me feel momentarily better. OK, I had lost a set of surrogate kids and a boyfriend with a taste for ethnic food—but I had gained a friend.

  ALTHOUGH PAULINE’S WORDS had soothed me momentarily, they couldn’t entirely keep me from being depressed. I had wasted a lot of time while my biological clock was ticking, only to be rejected by someone I didn’t even like. I suppose it would have been more traumatic had I liked Derek, but again, comparative thinking will only get you so far. My self-esteem had taken a nose dive, which isn’t good when the baseline for your self-esteem is already pretty low.

  Fortunately, I had my Monday morning appointment with Dr. Chitturi to help me through this. One of the immutable features of my life for the past three years has been my Monday morning appointments with Dr. Chitturi.

  I should point out that I am no stranger to therapists, having frequented them on and off ever since I suffered from mild bulimia in the ninth grade. But one thing notable about my particular brand of mental illness is that it is low grade. I mean I did throw up after meals in high school for a while, but I couldn’t keep doing it; I just didn’t have that kind of drive. I also tried cutting myself for a few months in college, but only because my roommate did it and I didn’t want her to feel that I was judging her. Yes, I have issues with my mother, but I can’t say I hate her the way I hate, say, Hitler or Osama bin Laden. It’s true that she is an extremely annoying person who brings out the worst in me (because, let’s face it, I want desperately to please her and never feel I can, to paraphrase Dr. Chitturi)—but I’d be lying if I said she didn’t mean well and didn’t think that everything she was doing was for me—a particularly toxic brand of selflessness that many mothers appear to have perfected.

  Also, although I’ve thought about death, mostly fantasizing about some of the nice things people would say about me at my funeral, I have never seriously contemplated suicide. This is not only because I’m lazy and somewhat cowardly, but also because I’m just not miserable enough. I’ve been pretty miserable, sure, but not that miserable. There have been times when I’ve wished I could give myself that little shove into extreme misery so that I’d get to spend a few months in a nice facility where they have yoga classes and soft-spoken nurses who give you medication in little paper cups. But, try as I may, my misery has never been acute enough to win me these sorts of perks.

  As a result of my low-grade mental illness, most of the therapists I’ve seen haven’t taken me very seriously. They took my money, but I always thought they were in cahoots with my mother and felt I ought to pull myself together and stop bellyaching.

  Dr. Chitturi, however, was different, which is why I’ve been with her for so long. “Your mother is a very narcissistic woman, Suzanne,” she tells me at almost every session. “She has done a lot of damage to your sensitive psyche.” Hearing Dr. Chitturi say this always puts me in a better mood. You’d think that I wouldn’t have to pay an arm and a leg to hear someone say what I already know every week for three years, but that’s how therapy works.

  Dr. Chitturi’s appearance also has a soothing effect on my nerves. She wears saris and has one of those dots on her forehead, a look that somehow works for me, don’t ask me why. I once caught a glimpse of her in the supermarket and she was wearing sweat pants and a tee shirt and her face was dot-less, which made me think that maybe she dresses up only for our sessions. This disturbed me a little until I realized that even if it’s true, I don’t care. When you go to a therapist you want the production values. Dr. Chitturi, in addition to the saris and the dot, has colorful cushions with little mirrors sewn into them and uses an air freshener that smells like incense. I like the whole package, and the only problem is that she’s a psychologist, not a psychiatrist, which, if you know anything about these things, means that for medication I have to see someone else. It’s a pain-in-the-ass division of labor, just another instance where the system seems designed to make you nuts—only in this case, you’re already nuts.

  Fortunately for me, Eleanor happens to have accumulated a practically endless supply of antidepressants and anxiety meds during her divorce from the sociopathic Ronnie, a hedge fund manager discovered to be involved in more than the run-of-the-mill illegalities common among his peers. Eleanor, who had realized early on that Ronnie was a mistake but hadn’t bothered to do anything about it for years, had finally gotten up the energy to leave him after his name was published in the papers and he started getting death threats from former clients. It was during this difficult patch that she accumulated said pharmaceutical collection, of which I have since become the beneficiary. Dr. Chitturi would probably chastise me in her pleasant singsong voice if she knew I was medicating myself (“Suzanne, it is not a good thing; you could make a very large mistake”), but I have not seen fit to tell her.

  The day after Derek broke it to me that he was returning to Bathsheba, I immediately made an early morning run over to Eleanor’s to forage for Xanax in her medicine chest. The Xanax calmed me down enough to get a few hours of fitful sleep
that night. But it had worn off by the time of my appointment Monday morning, and I presented myself in Dr. Chitturi’s office looking properly unhinged.

  “You appear to be very agitated today, Suzanne,” said Dr. Chitturi when I plopped down on her sofa with its mirrored cushions. “Please feel free to tell me about it.” Dr. Chitturi talks this way, which gives me the sense that what I have to say actually carries some weight. For me, style is everything in therapy, and, as a result, I always get a lift from the way Dr. Chitturi expresses what seems like genuine interest in what is bothering me, even though I am paying her $200 an hour to do so.

  “I must conclude that you had a particularly difficult weekend,” continued Dr. Chitturi. One of the reasons I schedule my appointments on Mondays is that I invariably have a difficult weekend, though this one, as she noted, was particularly difficult. “Tell me about your distress,” she urged sympathetically.

  Again, Dr. Chitturi had hit the nail on the head. Derek was my distress, and just getting this called by the right name made me feel better already. I told Dr. Chitturi that Derek had broken up with me and was going back to his wife.

  “But you did not like this man,” noted Dr. Chitturi, sounding puzzled. “The last time we talked you said you were going to end this relationship.”

  “I know I did,” I moaned plaintively, “but I wanted to do the breaking up. It makes me feel like a miserable loser to have him break up with me.”

  “Suzanne,” said Dr. Chitturi, fastening her benign gaze on me with a certain severity, “you are not a loser. You are a very caring and compassionate person who did not want to hurt this unpleasant man’s feelings.”