Three
Lucas
Monday morning, I’m all settled into my new office and have opened up shop. This office, besides being more affordable, is also smaller than my previous one. But since my beloved secretary, Agatha, retired, I’ve switched to a virtual assistant, saving money and space. Like most New Yorkers, I’ve had to cut square footage down to the bones. It’s the philosophy of this entire building, with a shared concierge and communal waiting area on the ground floor.
My first clients are the Newmans, a couple in their late thirties who I’m meeting for the first time. From how they’ve been talking to each other so far, I’ll be seeing a lot more of them in the upcoming weeks.
“You know, Doctor,” Mr. Newman says, “that women on average use three times as many words as men.”
“We shouldn’t make this a battle about gender,” I say, as Mrs. Newman rolls her eyes and retorts, “That’s because we have to constantly repeat ourselves!”
“Oh, sorry,” Mr. Newman snaps, “it must be my brain filtering you out in a valiant attempt to protect me from your yapping orders all day long.” He mimics the blah-blah-blah hand gesture. “Yap, yap, yap.”
“How? You’re never around,” Mrs. Newman seethes, then turns to me. “You know what he does, Doctor? He pretends he has to work late every night, but I know he’s lying. He can’t be having a crisis every single day, it doesn’t make sense. Unless he’s having an affair, of course. Last week, I called his secretary, and she said he’d left already, but he didn’t come home until two hours later. No traffic is that bad.”
Mr. Newman completely disregards the accusation and stares at me with a satisfied grin. “See, Dr. Keller, I won this one.” He makes the hand gesture again. “Yap, yap, yap… It never ends.”
I take a deep breath. “Mr. Newman, this isn’t about winning. You and your wife are on the same team. If she loses, you lose, too. Part of counseling is to go back to a win-win mentality. But before we can do that, we need to re-establish trust. Mr. Newman, please respond truthfully: Are you having an affair?”
The husband scoffs, clearly offended. “No.”
I sigh in relief. Without a third person involved, my job will be a lot easier.
“Okay,” I say. “Are you pretending to work late to avoid being at home?”
He hesitates.
“Please be honest,” I encourage. “This is a safe space to share.”
He nods. “Yes.”
His wife turns on him, mouth gaping open, ready to attack, but I silence her with a raised hand.
“Thank you for being forthright, Mr. Newman. Now we finally have a starting point. Could you please explain to us, in your own words, why you don’t want to spend time at home?”
Mr. Newman shifts uncomfortably in his chair. “Whenever I’m in the house, I’m either treated like the handyman or an unwanted guest. We never talk about anything interesting anymore. I wouldn’t even know why she’d want me home.”
“Why would you feel like an unwanted guest?” Mrs. Newman asks.
“You’re always busy running after the kids, and never pay me any attention—”
“That’s not true—”
“All right,” I say. “Let’s put a pin in the discussion. The issue is clear, and the good news is, it’s fixable. To start, I want you both to think about an activity you enjoyed doing together when you first met.”
The troubled couple considers my request for a few moments, until Mrs. Newman says, “Art. We could spend hours talking about an exhibition when we were in college.”
“Art, great.” I smile. “That’s fantastic. Starting this week, I want you to institute an artistic date night. Visit the Met, pick a floor, a time period, and go to dinner afterward. Just the two of you, phones off.”
“What if something happens to the kids?” Mrs. Newman asks.
“If you prefer not to turn off your phone, then put it on ‘do not disturb.’ Set your home number or the babysitter’s as the only calls that can get through.”
“I can do that?” Mrs. Newman mustn’t be very techy. “How?”
“I can show you,” I offer.
“No need, Doctor, I can teach her later,” her husband says. Look at them—already working together, and they haven’t even left my office yet.
“Great,” I say, and peek at the clock mounted on the wall behind the Newmans. “I’m afraid our time has run out.”
We all stand up, and I escort them to the door.
At the landing, I stop on the threshold while they call the elevator.
“Art date night,” I repeat. “Let’s try it out, and next week we can discuss how it went.”
We say our goodbyes, and I go back to my desk to write a few notes while the session is still fresh in my mind.
But I haven’t sat down for five minutes when a riot starts outside.
“Diana! DIANA!” a man is shouting. “Let me see her!”
I get up again and poke my head out on the landing to find a bald guy with a flourishing mustache, dressed in a tweed suit, knocking desperately on the corner office’s door.
“Excuse me,” I say. “What is all this racket?”
The man points at the door. “She’s forbidding me to see my wife.”
As if he’d used the magic summoning words, the door flies open and The Wicked Witch of the West Office emerges in the flesh. “I’m not preventing anyone from doing anything, Mr. Cavendish,” she says coldly. “Your wife doesn’t want to see you.”
Ms. Vivian Hessington, Esquire, is back to wearing a skirt suit—burgundy today, pencil skirt as tight as ever—high heels, and that severe bun on top of her head; must be her lawyer uniform. I preferred her in the casual clothes of the weekend—correction, I don’t prefer her in any guise, because she’s the most aggravating woman in the world.
“Of course,” I scoff. I should’ve known she was responsible for the commotion.
Medusa turns the stare of death on me. “Found good parking today?” She doesn’t leave me time to reply before she returns her attention to the poor bastard she’s torturing. “Mr.
