* * *
Jewish people are at loose ends during Christmas. Mostly we go to the movies because there isn’t any line for tickets or we eat Chinese food. Not the same for Frank who loves Christmas and insists on cooking a gargantuan meal for our friends. Our friends, some of whom used to be my friends or his friends. It’s an Iowa Christmas redux: ham, turkey, mashed potatoes, sweet potatoes, gravy and Jell-O mold salad. Not a fresh green vegetable in sight.
I check my messages before rolling into bed at midnight. Frank warns me not to.
“It’s a holiday, for Pete’s sake. Leave it alone.”
There’s only one message and it’s from Randy.
“Hey, Doc. Thanks for calling. Sorry I didn’t call you right back. Good news. Dr. Johnson is going to recommend I return to work. Didn’t want to ruin my Christmas by making me wait for the results.” There’s a pause. “Dr. Johnson has been real helpful to me and Rich too, so…we’re going to continue seeing her for a while. Separately and together. Thanks for everything. Merry Christmas.”
Dr. Johnson? The smarmy, smiling blond with the over-the-top sales brochure? I had no idea she was doing the evaluation and I have no idea why I have no idea. Why the hell didn’t I ask? What was I thinking? Something’s not right. Fitness examiners don’t continue as treating therapists. And the protocol when a client switches therapists is for the new therapist to consult the old therapist first. There are a lot of reasons clients quit therapy prematurely. Randy was far from ready to stop one month ago. She was still symptomatic. If Randy wants to switch therapists, I can’t stop her. It is her choice, but there is a process for termination. You just don’t up and quit. Johnson should have called me and she should have sent Randy back to me for a final session to handle any unfinished business. Apparently every therapist knows this except the eager-to-help Dr. Marvel Johnson.
When Frank sees that I’m still awake at four a.m., he asks me what’s wrong. I tell him dinner was delicious and I’m too full to sleep.
* * *
Frank waves a cup of coffee under my nose.
“Merry Christmas, Dr. Meyerhoff.” He’s sitting on the bed, fully dressed, smiling like the proverbial Cheshire cat. “Wake up, time’s a-wasting.”
I slide into a sitting position. A dim light filters in through the window. The sky is half black, half gray.
“What time is it?”
“Six-thirty. A.M.”
“Why are you waking me up this early?”
“I’m a contractor. We’re on the job at the crack of dawn.”
“I’m a psychologist. I sleep ‘til nine and take August and the week between Christmas and New Year’s OFF.” I try sliding back under the covers without spilling my coffee. It doesn’t work.
“Merry Christmas,” Frank leans over to kiss me and plops a small, wrapped, ring-sized box on my stomach. He’s smiling so hard his lips are stretched thin and I can see his teeth. This can’t be. Not a ring. I’m not ready for this. I just want to enjoy things. This is too much pressure. He wants too much from me.
“Open it.” He sees the expression on my face. “It’s not a ring, Dot, for Christ’s sake.” He looks disappointed, like I’ve taken all the joy out of whatever kind of surprise this is. Inside the box is a folded piece of paper. A copy of a reservation for two at the Big Sur B&B. I hide my relief behind my exuberance.
“How lovely. I’ve always wanted to go there. When?”
He’s smiling again. “Right now. Get a move on. You can stop by your place, get whatever you need; it’s gonna be cold, maybe rainy. Maybe we’ll have to spend the whole time inside.” He gives me a playful leer. “We’ll grab breakfast on the road.” He kisses my cheek. “Christmas in Big Sur: no crowds, no stupid music, no TV, and no cell phones.”
“But—”
“No buts. We’re out of here. Before your damn phone rings. Contractor’s orders. Now, get your sweet ass out of bed and get going.”
I have to talk myself down in the shower. Today is another big demonstration in front of city hall. ‘Christmas for Lakeisha.’ I’d planned to watch it on TV. What if Randy shows up like she did at the funeral? What if she falls apart and needs help? I turn the water off, grab a towel, and think to myself, “so what?” I’m not her therapist anymore. I’m going to Big Sur with Frank, maybe the best man I’ve ever known. Kind, generous, funny, and still sexy. If Randy needs someone, she can call Marvel Johnson.
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
It’s the first Monday after the holidays. I’m in the chief’s office before the staff meeting.
“How was your holiday?” I ask.
“Quiet. And yours?”
“Go anywhere special?”
“No.” Talking with her is like bottom fishing. She gives nothing away: no emotion, no give and take.
“I was out of town on Christmas myself. How did the demonstration go?”
“Captain Pence said it was peaceful—emotional, but peaceful. There was a crowd of approximately 175. Several speeches, including one by Ms. Gibbs.” She might as well be describing a trip to the supermarket, all the while sorting through papers and putting them in the folder she carries into the staff meeting.
“You didn’t go?”
“I thought it best to stay away. Particularly after the reception I got at the funeral. Captain Pence is perfectly capable of dealing with any problems. I appreciate his willingness to come in on Christmas Day. He has children.”
I presume from this that Chief Reagon does not. If so, it makes me wonder why she wasn’t here for the demonstration. It’s traditional for officers who don’t have kids to work the holidays and let officers with families stay home to celebrate. This was a high-profile event, potentially explosive. I can see why Jay Pence would be eager to stand in the spotlight. But it’s a missed opportunity for the chief. Just showing up at HQ for a few hours would have gotten her some Brownie points with the troops.
I don’t understand how this woman rose so high in the profession. Most chiefs I’ve known had egos as big as their mobile command centers. And they needed them. Everyone takes pot shots at the chief: the community, the city council, the troops, and the media. An image of former Chief Baxter, a little fireplug of a man with a huge secret ego, flashes in my mind.
She stops sorting papers for a minute. “How is Randy doing? You know, of course, that the fitness-for-duty evaluator found her fit to return to work.”
“You haven’t spoken with her yourself?”
“I left messages on her voice mail. She never calls back.”
“Did you keep trying? It means a great deal to the troops when the chief takes a personal interest in them.”
She dips her head and looks at me over the top of her reading glasses warning me not to push her.
“There are times, Doctor, when it is best to leave people alone.”
I don’t know if she’s talking about Randy or about herself.
“I haven’t seen Randy in almost a month,” I say. The chief’s eyebrows lift, just slightly. “She’s been preoccupied with the fitness evaluation. Then last week she informed me by telephone that she’s going to continue her therapy with the evaluator, not me.”
“Good.”
“No. It’s not good. In fact it’s very irregular.”
“What do you mean, irregular?”
“Where did you find this evaluator?” Now she cocks her head to one side.
“Dr. Johnson approached me. Asked to speak with me about a county-wide crisis intervention team she was forming for first responders. One of the additional services she offers is fitness for duty.”
“Did you ask for credentials, references?”
“Of course.”
“Does she have police-specific experience?”
“Apparently so, though from another state. Why are you asking?”
“I wish you had asked me to recommend an evaluator, or at the very least, asked if I’d ever heard of Dr. Johnson.”
“Counseling and evaluating are t
wo entirely separate functions. I believe you said so yourself. What has Dr. Johnson done to upset you?”
“First of all, she’s stolen my client. It’s unethical for fitness evaluators to provide therapy to someone they’ve just evaluated. Check the guidelines issued by the International Association of Chiefs of Police. Secondly, if a client chooses to engage another therapist, industry standards dictate that the second therapist should consult with the first and encourage the client to have at least one final visit to discuss her reasons for termination.”
Chief Reagon closes her folder of papers and stands. “With all due respect, Randy Spelling is not your client. Kenilworth PD is your client. You see our officers as a service to the department. You’re on retainer to meet your basic expenses and to assure that you’re available. Do not exploit this arrangement to build your private practice.”
I can’t believe what I’m hearing. Amortize all the hours I’ve spent worrying about Randy, not sleeping because of Randy, and I would have made more money flipping burgers at McDonald’s.
“As I said a moment ago, I thought we both agreed that it was best to keep the fitness and counseling functions separate. For your information, I did call a few other psychologists, but very few of them are doing fitness evaluations these days, apparently because they have become so litigious. Those who do have long waiting lists. I felt Dr. Johnson was a good fit. She’s closer to Randy’s age than you are, and I hoped that might make it easier for Randy to talk to her. She’s from out of town and has no preconceived notions about our department. And no waiting list.” She looks at her watch. “I have to go. It’s past time.” She opens the door of her office and walks down the hall towards the conference room.
It takes me a minute to catch my breath. I feel like I’m in a fun house of mirrors. First she shoots me down. Then she picks me up and dusts me off. Who is this woman? And will I ever understand her?
CHAPTER NINETEEN
Dr. Marvel—accent on the “vel”—Johnson, brimming with Midwestern enthusiasm, is sitting in my office, on my leather couch, absolutely elated to meet me because she’s read all my books, and I don’t know this, but I’m her hero and her mentor. She’s a farm-fresh blond, tall and lanky with big hands and feet, wearing tailored slacks and one of those 1950s style sweater sets that are all the rage, pale blue to match her eyes. Probably exercises regularly and eats only organic food. Her voice twangs cheerfully, with trilled Rs and As flat as the plains where she grew up.
“I admire you so much. You were so helpful to Randy. She said so herself.”
“Well then,” I say, trying to keep the anger out of my voice, “Why didn’t you send her back to me so we could finish our work?”
She smiles. Her too-white teeth remind me of evenly spaced kernels on an ear of corn. “I tried. I told her she needed to see you at least one more time for a proper termination, but she just wouldn’t. She kept saying she felt more comfortable talking to me. For a variety of reasons.”
I wonder if Dr. Johnson has ever heard about idealized transference. A therapist is rarely as good or, for that matter, as bad as her client thinks. “And I’m working with Rich, too. With all the attention on Randy, he’s been feeling abandoned.”
“Where was it that you went to school?”
She shrugs and smiles. “You probably have never heard of it. Christian Connect Institute of Psychology. In Nebraska, where I’m from. I had great teachers. It was one of my professors there who recommended your books.” She rolls the word “great” out like a ribbon. She looks at me and when I say nothing in response, she continues in the grand Midwestern tradition to chat me up. “I put myself through college as an EMT, driving an ambulance. I could see the stress we were all under. My father was a fire fighter. He died of a heart attack when he was forty-seven. I’m not saying it was job stress that caused his heart attack, but maybe. All the smoke, the chemicals, the heavy lifting, being around people in pain. He loved his job, but he always used to say that his best day at work fighting fires was someone else’s worst day ever. Anyhow, since I was a kid I knew, in my heart—” she points to her heart for emphasis, “—that working with first responders was my calling.”
“So you have a Psy.D. in psychology. Not a Ph.D.?”
“That’s right. I wanted the Psy.D. because it’s a practitioner’s degree. Ph.Ds. are interested in research. I want to help people.” I can feel my face getting flushed. She scrambles to recover her status as a sycophant. “Not that your research hasn’t helped a lot of people.”
And then it hits me. I’m not just feeling old. I am old. Fifty on my next birthday. Marvel’s winding up at the same time I’m winding down. Her eager, optimistic attitude is a sharp contrast to my own sense of limitation. I’m being slowly replaced by younger people. A woman half my age stole my husband. Marvel has only stolen my favorite client.
“I don’t want there to be any misunderstanding,” Marvel is saying, shaking me out of my morose reflections. “I am a bona fide psychologist with a license to practice in two states. I can show you.” She reaches for her purse and I stop her. My urge to humiliate this woman has its limits. “Christian psychologists do not reject science; we use all the same modalities as secular therapists. It’s just that we recognize the place that God has in our lives and the suffering that comes with a spiritual disconnect. As you know, losing God can be one of the most painful consequences of post-traumatic stress.”
I know this only intellectually. I’m an atheist. I never had anything to lose in the first place.
Marvel takes a long breath. “One of the reasons that Randy, Rich too, wanted to continue seeing me, despite your skill and caring, is that she felt that you couldn’t understand how important her faith is to her and the pain that taking a human life—which is against her religious beliefs—has caused her.”
She folds her hands in her lap and waits. She’s said what she needed to say and now she smiles benevolently, her mouth making a tiny crescent. She searches my face with her eyes, looking earnest and concerned. I don’t buy a word of this. Everything about her has an air of theatricality, as though she’s practiced this little charade in front of a mirror, arranging and rearranging her face to match the desired emotion. The insides of my stomach are roiling and so is my brain. I want to throttle her, call her a fake, and throw her out of my office. It’s only because I don’t want to give her the satisfaction of seeing how upset I am that I hold my tongue. The smart thing for me to do would be to thank her for stopping by and the second she leaves call Gary for a consultation. Only I don’t want Gary to ask me why I’m feeling so threatened and competitive.
“Well. This is a surprise,” I say. “Neither Randy nor Rich ever mentioned any of this. I had no idea either one was a devout Christian.”
“This is exactly why Christian-based psychology is becoming so popular. Most secular therapists never raise this issue. Nor do they think to ask about their client’s spiritual or religious beliefs. This sends a message that they are uncomfortable talking about God, so it never comes up. What has given Randy great relief is to give her suffering over to God. To recognize that what happened was God’s plan. Do you practice your faith?”
My father’s religion was a combination of socialism and paranoia. He was a cultural Jew, not a religious one. My mother’s religion is optimism with side trips to Buddhism, Sufism, yoga, feminism, and macrobiotic cooking. I’m not about to explain any of this.
“Police officers relate well to Romans 13, verses 1 and 2,” she says. “I use them so often I can almost say them from memory.” She closes her eyes. A wintry blast slaps against my office window. “There is no authority except that which God has established. Consequently, whoever rebels against the authority is rebelling against what God has instituted, and those who do so will bring judgment on themselves.” She opens her eyes. “Do you see? That unfortunate young woman caused her own death. She defied God when she defied Randy’s orders to get out of the car and put her hands in plain sight
.”
“So you think that the appropriate punishment for defying God’s orders is death, regardless of the circumstances? Remember, there was no crime involved. Lakeisha was just a scared kid living in her mother’s car.”
“That’s not for me to say. The point is that police officers are ministers of God’s authority on this earth, as it says in Romans, and as such are in a spiritual war against the forces of evil. I’m not saying the young woman was herself evil, but she clearly was in the grasp of evil forces. Once Randy realized this, she felt a great deal better.”
Now I know this woman is full of crap. Randy has her own ideas about policing and wasn’t afraid to question authority. Religion aside, I cannot picture her joining up with a squad of self-inflated members of anyone’s chosen army to keep the rest of us safe from the forces of evil.
“One more thing, Dr. Meyerhoff, and I do appreciate your giving me so much of your valuable time. I want to leave you with this.” She takes a laminated index card from her purse. “This program is an outgrowth of my dissertation research on Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder. It’s a twelve-step plan to heal from PTSD, similar to the twelve-step Alcoholics Anonymous program. In the short time that we’ve been working together, Randy has moved very quickly. As of this week, she’s already on step nine. I’ll just leave this for you. You might find it helpful.”
The Right Wrong Thing Page 11