The Breakup Doctor Read online

  “Lisa...” I downed the cup of water I held that she had been studiously ignoring, dropping the cone into Sasha’s trash bin. “I completely understand what you’re feeling right now. If you’re looking to talk to a professional about it—”

  “Then you’ve come to the right person!” Sasha caroled.

  I swiveled my disbelieving gaze over to my chirpy friend, who wore a toothy simian grin. I blazed over another telepathic message to her to shut up, but all I said aloud was, “Sash, let’s not—”

  Apparently our Wonder Twin powers were deactivated. “Her hourly rate’s pretty high. But since you’re a friend, I bet Brook will give you a discount.” She fixed her aqua eyes on me and sent a little mind message of her own that I heard as clearly as if she’d shouted it at me: Go with it. “Won’t you, Brook?”

  “The money’s not a problem,” I heard Lisa say. “Whatever it costs is fine. I just need to fix this. Now.”

  “Hear that, Brook?” Sasha said with wide, meaningful eyes. “It’s not about the money for Lisa. She is happy to pay for your help. Immediately.”

  I wasn’t an idiot—I got it. I was desperate for money, fast. Lisa Albrecht’s unfortunate marriage woes seemed to be the universe’s strange answer to my prayer.

  But it didn’t feel right. Lisa was vulnerable. She was simply looking to deal with the pain of her troubled marriage, not start a formal course of counseling. Agreeing to work with her this way would be like...

  I paused. Like helping Sasha through one of her many devastating breakups. How was this any different from what I already did for my friend?

  Well, in one very important way: Lisa Albrecht was apparently willing and very able to pay me for my services.

  And what was wrong with that?

  I dragged my gaze away from Sasha’s bulgy-eyed jump-on-this-already expression and looked at Lisa, schooling my features into a look of soothing sagacity. “Then we should get started,” I said with calm authority. “How soon can we meet—somewhere besides here?”

  Hard determination filled Lisa’s swollen, tear-tracked face as she reached out a hand and pumped my entire arm. “We can start right after work. Seven o’clock?”

  We arranged to meet at a nearby café later that evening, and Sasha tossed out an hourly rate that was a lot closer to Uta’s and Tom’s than it was to my lowly LMHC scale. Lisa nodded as if she’d quoted her the cost of a movie ticket.

  “That’s fine. I’ll see you at seven.” She started to leave the cubicle, and I was just about to open my mouth to Sasha when Lisa popped her head back around the partition. “Oh, and can you get me the first column this week?”

  “First... What?”

  “Of course she can,” Sasha fired back.

  “Start with fifteen inches—we’ll run it this Friday. If it tracks well we’ll run it weekly and bump it up—maybe twenty-five or -six inches.”

  I nodded knowledgeably, wondering what she was talking about.

  “And come up with a title for it,” Lisa said. “Something catchy.” Her head disappeared, and we heard the loud snuffling of her blowing her nose again as she retreated.

  I turned to Sasha, to see her looking smug and delighted with herself. She slapped her hands together as if she’d just finished tidying a room. “You’re welcome.”

  “What was that?”

  She gave a self-satisfied grin. “That was Sasha to the rescue. I knew we could convince her to try you with a weekly. And the consulting? Bonus!”

  “What happened to ‘this isn’t a good day for this’? I thought we were going to wait?”

  Sasha’s perfectly groomed eyebrows shot up. “Who cares what the tactics were if you won the battle?”

  I shook my head and lowered myself to Sasha’s chair. “I don’t know, Sash. It feels a little weird. Like ambulance chasing.”

  Sasha crossed her legs like a Buddha. “Brook, how is it weird? You work with people having issues; Lisa is clearly having issues. You are amazing at counseling people post-messy-breakup; Lisa is experiencing a messy breakup. You are desperate for money; Lisa has some she wants to give you. Problem? Solved. Who loses here?”

  I shook my head, thinking hard. She made sense, but something still seemed off about it. It felt like taking advantage of someone in a tough situation. After all, usually when I did this, it was for free, because I cared about my friends and what they were going through. I said as much to her.

  She shook her head, intractable. “Totally different. Lisa is not your friend. She is, in fact, now your client. Just like all the other clients who come into your office and need your help, and whose money you have no qualms about accepting.”

  “But that’s different. That’s therapy.”

  “And this isn’t?”

  “Well, yes, of course it is. But it’s...it’s not like I’m doing anything special with the breakup thing, Sash. It’s easy—it’s just common sense.”

  Sasha made a scoffing noise. “Huh. For you, maybe. You don’t really get affected by things like most people do. You’re so logical and matter-of-fact. Even after...well, after last summer, when no one would have blamed you for—”

  “Sasha.” My voice was flat and hard.

  “What? Brook, you never even broke your stride after Mi— after he called things off. You just went ahead and closed on the house and moved on like he was a blip on your radar. Most people can’t handle things that calmly. You’re cool as a popsicle about breakups.”

  She was trying to bolster me up, but I bristled at her implication. It reminded me of Uta’s words about me being stone-cold. She and Sasha made me sound like some unemotional ice princess.

  “What do you mean?” I bit out. “I get affected by things. It’s not like I’m a robot or something.”

  “Really? Name one time you’ve shredded all the clothing a guy had at your house with a box cutter. Or keyed his car, or had revenge sex with his best friend, or broke into his house and peed in his shampoo.”

  “Oh, come on, that’s not fair. That’s just not how I deal with things. My way of coping is to remind myself to hold on to the most important thing I have left after a breakup.”

  She raised her eyebrows. “All his good DVDs?”

  “Ha, ha. No…my dignity,” I said, trying not to sound too pointed.

  Sasha waved away my words like a swarm of no-see-’ums. “Oh, that.” I’d already lost her attention. She was looking down at her computer screen, not at me, her body blocking me from seeing whatever she was so intent on. “If Lisa wants to run this thing Friday, you’re going to need to turn the column in to her by Thursday morning. Plus you have to meet with her tonight and get started with her on the counseling. And how many patients do you have left between now and then—any? Wow, you’d better get busy.”

  My little mental rowboat was bobbing crazily again. I’d gone from idle to overbooked in minutes.

  “What do you think of this as a column intro?” Sasha pulled back so I could see her monitor, where she’d typed a few sentences:

  Health troubles require a doctor. Car troubles require a mechanic. And dating troubles require Brook Lyn Ogden, LMHC, relationship expert.

  I read through it, then looked over at my best friend.

  She flashed me that smug grin again. “You’re back in business, baby.”

  three

  I was beginning to think working with Lisa Albrecht couldn’t possibly be worth the money.

  We were sitting at one of the outside tables at the McGregor Bistro, a row of purple bougainvillea blocking the sight of traffic on McGregor Avenue. Foxtail palms rustled in the breeze over our heads, casting spiny shadows in the moonlight as the patio slowly emptied out.

  I began with the careful, objective listening approach I used with my patients, letting Lisa tell me—repeatedly, in great detail—the whole story of her husband’s departure fr
om their home. All while she never met my eyes once. Instead she stared fixedly down at her iPhone, texting expertly with her right hand while taking occasional bites of her sandwich with her left.

  They’d been college sweethearts and had their two sons young, the year after they both graduated. Lisa was hired by the Boston Globe right out of school, and since Theodore was still looking for a job when she got pregnant with twins, it made more sense for him to stay home with the babies at first, until he could find a position that paid enough to make day care worthwhile.

  “But that’s not how it worked, was it?” she asked me the third time we got to this point in the tale as her fingers continued flying over her keypad. I assumed the question was rhetorical, but wondered for a fleeting moment if it was a test to see if one of us, at least, was paying attention.

  No, that was not how it had worked, as I thoroughly knew by now. Instead Lisa did very well in her job, and her career began to take off. She liked being the breadwinner, and Theodore liked being a full-time dad. They agreed he should stay home permanently and raise the boys.

  When Lisa was offered a plum position as features editor for the Fort Myers paper, the family pulled up stakes and moved to Florida. They’d both grown tired of harsh Boston winters, and they were worried about the high school in their rough neighborhood. Theodore started working on cars in their garage, and eventually they invested in a small mechanic’s shop for him to run. He spent his days there until the boys got out of school, and everyone, Lisa kept repeating, was happy.

  Then, two mornings ago, as Lisa stared sleepily out the kitchen window, she saw her husband hurling suitcases into the trunk of his car. She’d dropped her coffee to the counter so hard it sloshed everywhere, and ran outside.

  Theodore had looked at her as coldly as if she were a stranger. “The boys graduate in a few months,” he’d said. “I did my job. I’m out of here.”

  “He tore off while I stood there watching him,” she said to her iPhone screen, her jaw set and her teeth gritted. “Like he’d just told a nasty boss off and clocked out for the last time.”

  “That must have been hurtful.” I was trying not to repeat myself, but I was running out of neutral observations.

  Lisa looked up at me as if I had picked up my sandwich and begun enthusiastically French-kissing it. “My husband walked out on me with no reason and no notice after almost twenty years of marriage. This afternoon you watched me have a quasi–nervous breakdown in my office in front of you, a complete stranger. ‘That must have been hurtful’?”

  I took a steadying breath. “Clearly Theodore has been feeling some things he neglected to share with you,” I forced past a clot of annoyance. She was in pain, and, as some patients did, was simply taking it out on the person available. “What does that make you feel?”

  Lisa threw her sandwich back down on her plate and regarded me incredulously. “This is the expert relationship advice I’m paying you for? I’ve got an absentee husband and two devastated children, and you want to know how that makes me feel? Jesus, I could buy a mood ring a hell of a lot cheaper.” She dismissed me from her attention as if I were an annoying fly she’d finally flattened.

  I watched for a moment, disconcerted, as she resumed working the keypad. Usually even someone as difficult as Lisa wasn’t hard for me to handle. I wanted to help people, and if someone was willing to open themselves up enough to come to me, I’d stick by them even when their emotions sometimes made them prickly and defensive.

  But Lisa wasn’t my usual client. She hadn’t sought me out on her own. She didn’t seem to really want my help; she’d just been railroaded into it by the Sasha Express in a uniquely vulnerable moment. I wondered if I should just quietly pay the bill and leave. As engrossed as she was in her phone, would Lisa even notice? My stomach felt tight. I hadn’t been able to help her at all. I’d failed.

  “Lisa,” I began, but she never took her eyes off her screen. I cleared my throat. “Lisa.”

  “I heard you the first time.”

  “Look, this doesn’t seem to be what you... I don’t think I...” I was talking to the top of her head. She really ought to color all that gray. “I’m just going to take care of the bill and go, okay?”

  “The hour’s not up.”

  “I... What?”

  “I’m paying you by the hour. You’ve been here for forty-two minutes. The hour’s not up yet.”

  It was just as well that she wasn’t looking at me, so she didn’t see me gaping at her like a fish. There wasn’t one moment in the evening so far when I’d felt as though Lisa had any particular desire for my presence. Did she just want me to sit here and watch her work her iPhone nonstop?

  “Who are you texting?” My voice shot out like a whiplash before I could assume the measured, sympathetic therapist tone I’d been maintaining.

  Lisa never even looked up. “Who do you think? We have things to discuss.”

  “Would you please put the phone down so we can talk?”

  “What? No. We are talking.”

  I had been forming some theories about Lisa Albrecht over the course of the evening. She was a successful businesswoman who was the provider for her family and de facto head of the household. She was probably good at her job and felt her most comfortable and confident there—clearly she derived a lot of her self-image from her career and position.

  Maybe because she was in a position of power and authority, she had developed a no-nonsense, cocksure demeanor that allowed for no admission of personal culpability or weakness. You would do it Lisa’s way or you wouldn’t do it at all. This mind-set was evident in the way she was acting with me tonight.

  With one of the patients in my practice, this would be a long-term, gradual process where, over months or years of therapy, we’d gently begin to question the tenets that had allowed the client to develop these unhealthy thought patterns.

  But Lisa Albrecht wasn’t a normal patient. She was someone who was paying me to “fix” her as quickly as possible, but then sat there making it almost impossible for me to do so. She was acting like a spoiled, self-centered child who expected the universe to revolve around her and was used to getting her own way in everything. She didn’t need counseling so much as parenting. And suddenly I understood the vast benefits of working outside the confines of the traditional therapist/patient relationship.

  I reached over and snatched the phone out of her hands.

  “What are you doing?” she said, startled.

  “You’re paying me to help you. Not watch you stalk your husband.”

  “I’m not stalking him. We’re communicating. Isn’t that what you therapists like for us to do...communicate? Give me my phone.”

  Her sarcasm and imperious order snapped the last thread of therapeutic objectivity I had been clinging to. I popped the phone into my purse and leaned back in my wrought-iron chair.

  “Since you know the price I quoted you for my services, you know my time is valuable. If you want me to work with you, don’t waste it.” I worried Lisa’s scalp would shoot off from the top of her head like a bottle rocket, but now that the tide was rolling I couldn’t stop it. “Texting isn’t communicating, and most people over the age of eighteen know it. If you have things to talk about with your husband, you talk to him. But you’re not ready to do that until you can take a step back and approach him as an adult.”

  Lisa’s glare shot flames hot enough to ignite me where I sat, and my stomach curdled. What was I doing? I had just blown my own plans sky-high: I had forgotten professional boundaries and begun treating her as if she were Sasha, someone I could say anything to, could freely speak my mind with. Lisa had every right to get up and walk out—and I fully expected her to—to demand her phone, her money, and the column assignment back, leaving me mired smack in the financial morass I was in twenty-four hours ago.

  “Fine,” she gritted out through a tight
jaw. “What is it I’m supposed to do now?”

  My heart started beating again. It had worked? I hid my relief by pulling her iPhone back out of my purse and working the keypad.

  “What are you doing?”

  I didn’t look up—if Lisa saw uncertainty she’d pounce. “Changing Theodore’s name in your address book. It’s best not to pick up the phone right now if he calls.” I held the phone out so she could read the screen, where I’d changed her husband’s name to Don’t Answer.

  “That’s crazy. I have to answer.” She reached for the phone again, but I held it just out of her grasp. If stripping off my kid gloves was the only way to reach her, I was keeping them off.

  “No, you don’t. But he won’t be calling. Not for a while, anyway.”

  “What are you talking about?”

  “Lisa, he’s looking for some space, obviously. Or else he wouldn’t have left. By texting him constantly for the last several hours—and I’m assuming for the two days before that since he left—you’ve given him exactly the opposite. You are now the enemy, keeping him from getting what he wants. And he will avoid you.”

  Her face crumpled like a sinkhole. I’d stepped too far over the line, and was losing her again. I backpedaled fast, softening my tone. “You’ll get to talk to him—eventually. But you have to make it a good thing in his mind—something he wants. And that means giving him room when he needs it. How can he miss you if you won’t leave him alone?”

  “I... He...” She swallowed again, clenched her jaw. “Okay.”

  “Good girl!” I burst out before I could censor myself. But Lisa didn’t take offense. Instead, she preened. I made a mental note: Responds to praise.

  It was going to be a later night than I expected. I leaned across the table.

  “Let’s talk about what you’re going to do next.”