“How much does this therapy cost?” Couldn’t hurt to ask, though I had no conscious intention of joining a therapy group.
“Super cheap—only seventy bucks a week.”
I blew a hot breath out of my cheeks. Seventy bucks was chump change to Marnie, who ran a lab at Northwestern University and whose husband was the heir to a small family fortune. If I skimped on groceries and took the bus instead of driving, I might have an extra seventy bucks by the end of the month. But each week? I made fifteen dollars an hour at my summer internship, and my parents were Just Be Happy people, so I couldn’t ask them. In two years, I’d have a job locked down, but on my student budget, where would the money come from?
Marnie said Dr. Rosen’s phone number out loud, but I didn’t write it down.
But then she said one more thing.
“He just got remarried—he smiles all the time.”
Instantly, I pictured Dr. Rosen’s heart: a red grammar school cutout for Valentine’s Day with hash marks etched across the surface like bare tree branches in winter. I projected onto Dr. Rosen, a man I had never met, a gut-wrenching divorce, lonely nights in a sublet efficiency with freezer-burned microwaved dinners, but then a twist: a second chance at love with a new wife. In the chest of a smiling therapist beat a scored heart. My chest filled with curiosity and a slim, quivering hope that he could help me.
As I lay in bed that night, I thought about the women in Marnie’s group: the presumed cutter, the felon, the daughter of the drug addict. I thought about Blake, who had formed tight bonds with the men in his group. After his sessions, he would come home brimming with stories about Ezra, who had a blow-up doll for a girlfriend, and Todd, whose wife dumped all of his possessions out on the sidewalk when she wanted a divorce. Was I really worse off than these folks? Was my malady, whatever it was, so impossible to cure? I’d never given bona fide psychiatry a chance. Psychiatrists have medical degrees—maybe whatever was wrong with me required the skills of someone who’d dissected a human heart during his training. Maybe Dr. Rosen would have some advice for me—something he could impart in a single session or two. Maybe there was a pill he could prescribe to take the edge off my despair and score my heart.
3
I found Dr. Rosen’s number in the phone book and left a message on his machine two hours after my dinner with Marnie. He called me back the next day. Our conversation lasted less than three minutes. I asked for an appointment, he offered me a time, and I took it. When I hung up, I stood up in my office, my whole body shaking. Twice I sat down to resume my legal research, and both times I popped out of my seat thirty seconds later to pace. My mind insisted that making a doctor’s appointment was no big deal, but the adrenaline coursing through me hinted otherwise. That night I wrote, I got off the phone & burst into tears. I felt like I said the wrong stuff & he doesn’t like me & I felt exposed and vulnerable. I didn’t care if he could help me; I cared about whether or not he liked me.
The waiting room consisted of bland doctor’s office fare: an Easter lily, a gray-scale photograph of a man stretching his arms outward and turning his face toward the sun. The bookshelf held titles like Codependent No More and Vandalized Love Maps and dozens of AA newsletters. Next to the inner door, there were two buttons: one labeled “group” and one labeled “Dr. Rosen.” I pressed the Dr. Rosen button to announce myself and then settled in a chair along the wall facing the door. To calm my nerves, I grabbed a National Geographic and flipped through pictures of the majestic Arctic sea wolf galloping across a treeless plain. On the phone Dr. Rosen had sounded serious. I heard East Coast vowels. I heard an unsmiling gravitas. I heard a stern, humorless priest. Part of me had hoped he’d be too booked to see me for a few weeks or months, but he offered an appointment forty-eight hours later.
The waiting room door swung open at exactly one thirty. A slight middle-aged man in a red Tommy Hilfiger golf shirt, khaki pants, and black leather loafers opened the door. His face wore a slight smile—friendly but professional—and what was left of his wiry grayish hair stuck up all over his head, slightly reminiscent of Einstein. If I passed him on the street, I would never look twice. From a quick glance, I could tell he was too young to be my dad and too old to want to fuck, which seemed ideal. I followed him down a hall to an office where northern windows looked out over the multistory Marshall Field’s building. There were several patient seating options: a scratchy-looking upholstered couch, an upright office chair, or a black oversize armchair next to a desk. I chose the black armchair. A slew of framed Harvard diplomas drew my eye. I respected the Harvard thing. I’d had Ivy League dreams but state school finances and test scores. To me, those Ivy League certificates signified that this guy was top tier. Elite. Crème de la crème. But it also meant that if he couldn’t help me, then I was truly and deeply fucked.
Once I settled in the chair, I took a good look at his face. My heartbeat accelerated as I took in his nose, eyes, and the straight line of his lips. I put them altogether and realized: I knew him. I pressed my lips together as the knowledge
