Adventures of Pebble Beach

by Berger, Barbara

  “What do you mean?” Pebble fumbled with her feelings. She sensed herself in bed with Einar.

  “Oh come on, Pebble, why would a woman like you go all the way to Greenland…if it wasn’t to visit a man?” Pebble realized Einar was right; it wasn’t a particularly brilliant deduction. Anybody could have figured it out.

  “Well, it was okay.” Every time Pebble thought about Albert since her return, it was like falling down a dark tunnel. God he was wonderful, more wonderful than any man she’d known, but he drank and she had more pressing problems at the moment.

  “You don’t sound like a woman who’s madly in love.” He wouldn’t let it go.

  “I need time to think,” Pebble said lamely, knowing that all the thinking in the world wouldn‘t help.

  “Women who are madly in love don’t need time to think,” Einar shot back.

  Pebble knew he was right.

  The whole time Einar talked Pebble’s mind was racing…I ought to give the fucker a piece of my mind…but I need work, I really do. The first of the month’s coming up and then who am I going to turn to?

  “Did you think about my job offer, Pebble?” He was asking her straight.

  It was now or never. Yes or no.

  “Well I have…”

  “And…?” he wasn’t going to make it easy for her. He was a power person.

  “Well, I’d like to know a little more about the job.” She’d go on welfare before she’d go down on her hands and knees and beg.

  “Sure, sure.” He had to admit she was cool, he liked her for that. “Why don’t you come by my office when I get back from France next week and we can talk about it?” Damn, he’s going to let me wait.

  “Okay,” she said, “when will you be back?” Her money wouldn’t last forever.

  “Let me see.” She heard him flipping through the pages in his calendar. “Why don’t we meet for lunch on Wednesday, then we can talk the whole thing through.”

  “Okay,” Pebble replied, “Wednesday it is.”

  “Shall we meet at Copenhagen Corner? That would be easier for me as I’ll be coming from a meeting upstairs at the House of Industry.”

  After a conversation like that, it was easy enough to decide to go to therapy. Therapy, after all, was a vague concept for Pebble anyway, a kind of catchall meaning “help”. And whatever “help” was, Pebble sure needed it and needed it bad. She might have been promising herself help for years, but now was different. Before, help would have seemed almost extravagant, but this time Pebble was really in over her head. And there was something else, too. Until very recently, actually until the moment in her conversation with Einar when she definitely decided to go to therapy, Pebble wasn’t exactly the kind of woman who did things for herself. Now that might sound strange, but it was true. Doing things for herself was, well, too out-of-character for Pebble, at least up until Einar called.

  But, after Einar the Worm, and Peter, and Fem-Ads and WonderLift, and Albert and Slim, she figured why not. She figured, If not now, then when? It was all too crazy. Soon she either wouldn’t be able to afford it or (if she worked for the Worm) she’d be too busy to go. And besides, Copenhagen in mid-winter was a crazy place no matter what you did. Half the population suffered from SAD (seasonal affective disorder) and was on the verge of suicide anyway, so why should an American like Pebble be an exception to the notable Nordic blues? No one gets through darkness easily.

  Once Pebble decided to go to somebody, she was surprised at how hard it was to figure out “who” and “what” she needed when basically all she needed was help. (Help being in Pebble’s book something like a loving man and money in the bank.) It was hopelessly confusing, and between friends, rumors, gossip, and the Internet, Pebble realized she was floundering in a sea of hope and promises sometimes called psychological counseling, psychotherapy, cognitive behavioral therapy, rebirthing, Rolfing, gestalt therapy, healing, aura balancing, crystal healing, encounter groups, sister-bonding, family therapy, co-dependency support groups, behavioral therapy, psychoanalysis, NLP, transactional analysis, bioenergetics, creative visualization, alcoholics anonymous and more. Pebble suspected she needed all of it even if it often sounded like a lot of mumbo-jumbo to her. She was, however, quite sure she didn’t need Michel Lang. He was the latest hot “healer” in Copenhagen – the rage in circles who dabbled in past lives, astrological dating and aura balancing. Pebble found it hard to believe that a 30-year-old man (he called himself a male therapist) who’d studied with some guru with an unpronounceable Indian name in southern France and attended two Sufi meditation camps in Switzerland could help any woman over 25. Even if he’s the hottest hotshot guru in the world, how can he understand me? First of all he’s a man, and second of all he’s younger than me, and third of all he’s never been married and has no kids. How could he possibly know what the world looks to me when I get up in the morning and see my empty bed and my over-40 face in the mirror? Any woman who supports two teenage boys on her own wants comfort and Pebble Beach, making her own decisions for the first time in her life, was no exception. She wanted someone who’d understand. If Pebble was going to have a therapist, she’d have to be a woman.

  Besides, the man might be a quack, even though he was adored by hoards of lonely Danish blonds. Just the thought of divulging secrets to a man she didn’t know upset Pebble. A male therapist might have greasy hair and want to massage her body. Pebble had heard that therapists did things like that in order to “heal” and “relax tensions”. And if somebody like Michel Lang massaged Pebble, he might actually touch her. What if he touched my genitals? The thought sent chills up and down Pebble’s spine. She had all kinds of wild (and erotic) notions about therapy. You never know these days. Pebble was more than skeptical, she was downright afraid. She did believe one thing, however – a woman who was a therapist couldn’t be a quack. And a woman wouldn’t change Pebble’s life unless Pebble wanted it changed. That was important, too. A man might.

  So what am I going to do? Worry? My phone’s stopped ringing anyway. Pebble finally settled on Irene Dorfson because her friend Clare declared in no uncertain terms that Irene was the best therapist in town. Pebble had no idea how Irene actually helped Clare because Clare seemed just as confused as she’d always been, but Clare adamantly insisted that she was happier, even if her life was still a mess. Knowing Clare well, Pebble figured that must count for something.

  Irene Dorfson poetically called her approach to therapy a “cocktail” treatment. Pebble thought it sounded dangerous like crack cocaine or something which fried your brain, but Irene’s brochure said soothingly “A unique combination of psychotherapy, gestalt therapy, and intuitive massage.”

  And Clare had sighed profoundly while Pebble fingered Irene’s shiny brochure and said, “Irene’s so perceptive.” Which did it. Pebble had always been a sucker for Clare and her scatter- brained ways.

  So Pebble went. Perceptive or not, the woman’s major expensive. I’ll have to work for Einar just to be able to pay for this. Besides the cost, there was another surprise, too. Irene might be a woman, but she filled the space a man would fill. Why didn’t Clare tell me she looked like a man? Their first encounter was unpleasant. Pebble had been expecting…well she didn’t know quite what…but she definitely wasn’t expecting Irene. Irene was so big. Her weight, height, appearance, she was positively unsettling. But the worst part of it was that Irene seemed so serenely satisfied. Pebble had never met anyone as serene as Irene.

  Is this what satisfaction looks like? Pebble felt intimidated by the woman and guilty for thinking she could just as well have gone to a man. Am I so afraid of therapy or what? Why can’t I even give the woman a chance? She knew she would if Irene had been a business colleague.

  They sat down in two very comfortable chairs in Irene’s roomy office which was located in a renovated 17th -century brick building by Christianshavn’s Canal in the old harbor section of Copenhagen. It was a fashionable address, and an expensive one, too. Architects and p
sychiatrists flocked there in droves to live in expensive, renovated designer-condos along the waterfront. And when the sun reappeared each spring, people gathered along the canal to eat lunch and drink beer. But on this mid-winter day, the benches along the canal were deserted.

  “Pebble,” Irene was saying as Pebble gazed out the window, “the only way I’m going to get to know you, is to give you some homework.” She sat very comfortably in her armchair. Pebble didn’t like looking at her. “I always do this little assignment with my new clients to get the ball rolling. You see, I don’t really know you and you probably don’t really know what you want to tell me.”

  Pebble felt all choked up in Irene’s presence. She had planned to say so much, but ended up saying nothing. It was hard enough to smile sweetly. Why can’t I tell this woman that my career is in shambles and Albert is an alcoholic and Slim’s back in town? Before she arrived, she’d thought it would be easy to explain. She’d been planning a quick expedition. In and out fast. No need to drag things out, even if this was therapy.

  “What I want you to do is to write down every situation you can think of – in your whole life – when you wanted to say no, but didn’t.”

  Pebble thought that this was about the oddest assignment she’d ever heard of. What does this have to do with anything?

  “I don’t care how stupid the situation was,” Irene continued, “just write it down. It could be that you didn’t say no because you were afraid to, or it could be that you would have felt guilty if you’d said no. I don’t care what the reason was. Just write it down.”

  “Okay,” said Pebble, but she didn’t know why. And I’m paying for this?

  “After you make your list,” Irene continued serenely, “and I want you to do this tonight and come back tomorrow so we can get started – I want you to write next to every situation why you didn’t or couldn’t say no. I don’t care how stupid it sounds, write it down. Don’t censor yourself, Pebble, please. Be honest.”

  Honest? Pebble wished she could at least look Irene straight in the eye, but she couldn’t. She kept gazing out the window while Irene droned on about honesty. “Honesty,” her voice seemed to grow even larger, “is the key to successful therapy. I won’t be able to help you if you’re not honest with me.”

  Pebble didn’t realize therapy was like going to school.

  * * *

  That night Pebble paced up and down in her tiny office, struggling with Irene. The woman’s dumb. Insane. What does this crazy assignment have to do with anything? Pebble would have preferred work, anything was better than this. What if I really do become as well-adjusted as Irene? Will I end up being as fat and unattractive as she is, too? God, what a mean and vicious thing to think. What’s wrong with me? What did the woman do to make me react like this? I’m the one who called her for help. It was crazy. Pebble simply couldn’t bring herself to look at the task Irene asked her to do. She was too confused. Life was too difficult, and the list Irene wanted her to make was totally unrelated to anything that was happening in Pebble’s life right then and there. And I’m paying her for this. I guess I really do need help. Pebble was tempted to call Clare, but Clare would have some idiotic explanation and Pebble didn’t want to admit to Clare that she didn’t understand what was going on. I won’t do it. That’s all. Nobody can force me to. It was a comforting thought until she realized that she might as well not go back to Irene in the morning if she didn’t do the assignment. Am I going to give up therapy this easy? Well, maybe Irene isn’t the right therapist for me. But how will I know if I don’t give her a chance? Pebble wanted to escape from her life, but since she couldn’t, she went into the living room to talk to her kids. They were eating popcorn and watching a movie on TV. The last thing they wanted was to talk to Pebble. She wandered back to her office and tried calling Molly in New York, she could always kill a good half hour talking to her mother, but Molly wasn’t home. In despair, she sat down and read Vogue magazine.

  A chilling thought struck her somewhere between the Hermes scarves and the new Estee Lauder Advanced Time Zone something ad –That honesty bit Irene talked about. Ruthless honesty she’d said. I have to be ruthlessly honest with her if I’m going to get anywhere. But what good will that do me in the real world? I’ll never make a living being ruthlessly honest. All that would happen is that Adam and Jon would starve.

  Once Pebble started writing her list, it turned into a deluge. All kinds of awkward situations popped into her mind. At first she hesitated to write them down. It was embarrassing. Things like not wanting sex, or not wanting to have sex a certain way…God, it got worse and worse. But then she said to herself, Ruthless honesty’s getting easier. (It was almost 2 a.m. and she had a nine-thirty appointment with Irene).

  She wrote and she wrote. Oh well, I’m the one who’s paying for all this. And she wrote more, which was almost more than she could cope with. Am I really afraid to say no so often? It was a real eye-opener. It boiled down to Pebble saying yes an awful lot of times in her life because basically she couldn’t handle the consequences of saying no. It also dawned on her that maybe she’d been blaming Slim for things when in fact it was her own fault. She could have just said no. Why blame him because she didn’t have the guts to stand up for herself. That wasn’t his fault. It was embarrassing because it turned out she was the one who was bankrupt. She was the one who failed to be true to herself. Maybe this Irene is really onto something…

  By 4 a.m. Pebble was too tired to go on. I guess I wasn’t brought up to say no. She was so drained that she fell asleep with her clothes on thinking, Nice girls don’t make waves, only loud mouths do.

  * * *

  The next morning, Irene insisted that Pebble read her list aloud. Pebble thought it was a pretty stupid idea until she found herself sobbing hysterically while trying to read what she’d written.

  If Pebble expected mercy from Irene, she should have gone to someone cheaper. Irene was not only expensive, she was tough. Good and tough. She kept her mouth shut.

  “It’s funny how one thought leads to another when you start writing it down,” said Pebble between sobs, hoping for a respite.

  “What’s so upsetting about all those situations?” Irene asked. She sounded almost bored. She still filled the space a man would fill.

  “Well, if I’d said no, it would have had consequences.”

  Outside a cold rain mixed with ice and snow battered against Irene’s windows. Christianshavn’s Canal looked forlorn in the pale February light.

  “What kind of consequences?”

  “Well, saying no might have caused an upheaval, you know.”

  “An upheaval? No, I don’t know.”

  “Well, it was especially with Slim.”

  “Why especially him?”

  “He was so bossy,” Pebble started crying again.

  “Lots of men are.” Pebble hadn’t noticed how soothing Irene’s voice was before. It brought on a deluge of tears. “You said, if you’d said no to Slim, it might have caused an upheaval,” Irene continued. “What kind of an upheaval?”

  “Well, we might have had a fight.”

  “And?”

  “I mean, he might have gotten furious…” Pebble kept right on crying.

  “So?”

  “Well, I wasn’t sure I could survive without him.” The words just flew out of Pebble’s mouth. It was a revelation.

  “I see.” Irene was right there.

  Pebble knew her make-up was smeared all over her face, but she didn’t hate Irene anymore.

  “Pebble, I want you to move over to that chair over there.” Irene pointed to a chair on the other side of the room. Pebble couldn’t see what was wrong with the chair she was sitting on, but she was too upset to protest. She got up and walked over to the chair by the window. “Here?” She was at a loss. What did moving to another chair have to do with survival?

  “Yes there. Now please sit down.”

  Pebble sat.

  “Now I want you to look at th
e woman who was sitting in the chair you just left. I want you to look at yourself sitting right here besides me, where you were just sitting, okay?”

  Pebble looked at the empty chair and tried to imagine herself sitting there. It seemed pretty dumb, but she was putty in Irene’s hands anyway.

  “Look at yourself very carefully and see yourself just as you were a minute ago, sitting there reading your list and crying.”

  Pebble understood.

  “Now, what would you like to say to that woman sitting in this chair in my office, reading her list and crying?”

  Pebble Beach knew right away what she wanted to say – she didn’t even have to think about it. Her reaction came so fast it shocked her. Her heart pounded furiously in her chest. She didn’t dare say what came to mind.

  “Come on now,” Irene prodded ever so gently, “what would you like to say to her?” Irene knew that Pebble knew but didn’t dare. “Be honest now, ruthlessly honest. Remember what I said.”

  Still Pebble sat motionless, as if turned to stone.

  “I’m never going to tell anyone, Pebble. I promise.”

  The magical kindness in Irene’s voice seemed to set Pebble’s inner torment free. “I’d like to say to her…God, it’s so difficult…” Pebble put her head in her hands and wept. Irene waited and her silence was kind. When Pebble was done she looked up and wiped her nose with her sleeve, liking Irene more than she’d liked anyone in her whole life. “I’d like to say…” The room was still completely quiet and for no reason Pebble could understand, she noticed the silence and herself and giggled ever so slightly. Irene was present and serene as a Buddha. She didn’t rush Pebble, she’d seen this happen before.

  “I’d like to say…”

  One more false start was one too many. Irene changed tracks unexpectedly from soothing Buddha to competent midwife. It was time to help the birthing, “Well then, say it, girl.” Her voice was firm.

  It was as if she’d slapped Pebble, but she got at Pebble’s words, clung to them and forced them out into the world.