After much anticipatory anxiety, the day of my dreaded appointment with Mitch Buchannon finally arrived. Part of me had hoped that he’d call to cancel because he was just too embarrassed to face me, but I was clearly projecting. When Mitch strode into my office with his customary swagger at two minutes past nine, the only one who exhibited any discomfort or embarrassment was me. Fortunately, Mitch seemed to be oblivious to my flushed cheeks and inability to make eye contact. With loose-limbed ease, he flopped down on my sofa and stretched his long arms out along its back.
I followed suit, taking a seat in the chair facing him. However, my posture was much less relaxed. In fact, I’d never felt so uptight in my life. I knew it was my job to say something, anything, but words, which had always been my greatest allies, failed me.
“Well, this is awkward.” Mitch broke the ice with a good-humored grin.
“Yes, yes, it is.”
He leaned forward, placing his elbows on his knees. “About the other night, Doc—”
“We don’t have to talk about it if you don’t want to.” I was way too quick to let him off the hook and I knew it, but I was a coward and I just wanted to forget that Mitch had ever confessed to loving me and write it off as nothing more than a drunken delusion on his part.
“You did a nice thing coming to pick me up at Hal’s, and I want you to know I appreciate it.”
Appreciation was fine; appreciation I could handle.
“I’m glad I could help, but it was a one-time occurrence. Our doctor/patient relationship has boundaries, and I don’t want you to get into the habit of relying on me—”
“Don’t sweat it,” Mitch casually dismissed my concerns. “I understand. No more late-night phone calls. No more dumping my problems on you outside of our sessions.”
“I think that that would be best. I don’t want you to get confused about my role in your life.”
“I’m not confused.”
I was relieved to hear it. Obviously, I’d gotten myself all worked up over nothing. In the sober light of day, Mitch was perfectly reasonable and had a firm grasp on reality. He just happened to be one of those mushy drunks who told everyone he loved them. It didn’t mean anything, so there was no need for further analysis of his feelings. We could just move on and—
“You’re the woman I love.”
“No, I’m not,” I balked.
“Yes, you are. I’ve been giving it a lot of thought over the last few days . . .”
Damn it, why did I have to encourage him to be more introspective?
“. . . and I guess I’ve loved you for a while; I just didn’t have the guts to admit it. The booze gave me the courage I needed to be honest with myself, and with you.”
Lord, help me, he seemed sincere.
“Okay.” I took a deep breath in an effort to stanch the feeling of panic that was rising in my chest (or maybe that was acid reflux?) Great, I was giving myself an ulcer. “Let’s backtrack for a minute here. In our first session, you said that you’d never been in love before, right?”
“Right.”
“So, it’s possible you don’t know what love is and are misinterpreting your feelings.” I reached for my trusty pad of paper and a pen.
“Why don’t you tell me your symptoms?” I asked as if love was some kind of disease.
“Let’s see.” Mitch raked his fingers through his long, sun-lightened hair while he contemplated my query. “I think about you all the time.”
“Uh huh.” I made some notations on my pad.
“I look forward to seeing you and feel like our time together is always too short.”
“Okay.” More scribbling.
“Your opinion of me matters more than anyone else’s. I compare every woman I meet to you. I fantasize about—”
“Alright, I think I have a clear picture of your feelings now, thank you.” Although I was a trained psychologist, I did not feel equal to the task of discussing Mitch’s fantasies about me.
“So, it’s love, right? It has to be. I’ve never felt this way about anyone before.” His luminescent green eyes were fixed intently on mine.
“Well,” I paused to clear my throat self-consciously, “there are varying degrees of love, starting with infatuation and progressing all the way up to a deep and abiding emotion that can bond two people for life.”
“It’s more than an infatuation.” He seemed very sure of that. “I think we should go out on a date and see where it takes us.”
“What?!?! No,” I shook my head vehemently from side to side, “that’s insa—, I mean completely inappropriate. I don’t date my patients. It would be a breach of ethics.”
“Fine.” He shrugged his broad shoulders. “I came to you for help with my intimacy and commitment issues and you’ve cured me, so there’s no further need for therapy. Consider this our last session.”
“You are far from cured. This crush you have on me is what I would consider to be a major setback.”
“It’s more like an evolution. I’m growing as a person, opening myself up to new feelings and experiences, just like you told me to.”
Wonderful, I’d created a self-actualized, love-spewing monster.
“You know what we should do tonight?” Mitch asked. “We should go dancing. I know this great club—”
I groaned and buried my face in my hands.
“I know what you’re thinking - it’s one of those sleazy pick-up joints I used to hang out in, but you’re wrong. My taste in clubs has improved, along with my taste in women.”
“Mitch,” I looked up at him, “I cannot go out with you. Not today, not tomorrow, not ever.”
“What’s the problem? You find me attractive, don’t you?”
Before I could respond, he answered for me, “Of course, you do. Every woman does. I’m pretty much irresistible.” He flashed me his pearly whites and dimples.
“Your attractiveness and irresistibility are beside the point. I,” I placed my hand on my chest and spoke very slowly as if English was not his first language, “am your doctor. You,” I pointed to him, “are my patient. Nothing’s going to change that. So, we need to make the most of the professional relationship we have, which means getting to the bottom of these feelings you have for me.”
Yes, good, Pilar, bring it back around to psychology.
“Are you familiar with the term ‘Transference?’”
“Nope,” he replied with a frown.
“It’s the process whereby emotions are passed on or displaced from one person to another,” I explained.
“So, you think I’m transferring my love for someone else on to you?”
“More or less. Because you had unmet emotional needs as a child, you’re transferring the love you had for your mother to a woman who seems to be nurturing and kind - me.”
Mitch scratched the back of his neck before saying, “That doesn’t sound right. I’m pretty sure I never had the hots for my mother.”
“The sexual component of your attraction to me is not about your mother; it’s about you being turned on by the feminine ideal I represent as your therapist. I’m a good listener, I’m sympathetic, supportive, reassuring . . .”
Mitch was looking really confused, and I didn’t blame him.
“It’s complicated and hard-to-comprehend, I know. That’s why I printed up some informative articles about Transference reactions for you.”
Getting up from my chair, I walked over to my desk to retrieve the pages that I’d organized and put into a manila folder.
“I could have sworn I put it on top of this pile,” I muttered as I leaned across my desk, sifting through the largest stack of files sitting on it.
“Ah, yes, here it is.” With the folder in hand, I whirled around and bumped right into Mitch who’d trailed me across the office.
I grunted with surprise.
“Sorry, I didn’t realize . . . here’s the material I mentioned.” I pushed the folder up against his chest, expecting him to take it from me and back off.
He didn’t. Instead, he leaned in to me and sniffed my neck. “You smell good enough to eat,” he murmured in a low, sexy tone.
Lovelorn romantic one minute, Casanova-on-the-make the next. This guy had more personalities than Sybil.
“You are invading my personal space, Mitch.”
He chuckled throatily. “Yeah, I guess I am. What can I say? When you love someone, you just want to be near them. You know, Doc,” he placed his hands on my desk, one on either side of my body, “I’ve had some really steamy fantasies about you and me and this desk.”
I wasn’t sure if Mitch was trying to shock or seduce me, but he was definitely testing me and it behooved me to keep a cool head and remain professionally detached. I wondered what Freud would have to say about a patient fantasizing that he was having sex with his therapist on the therapist’s desk? The desk was obviously a symbol of the psychologist’s power and by placing the psychologist in a position of subjugation on that desk, the patient was, in essence, stripping away that power and reclaiming it for— no, no, no, that was all too highbrow. I was attempting to communicate with a patient, not write a paper for one of my graduate studies classes. I needed to break it down to the basics and put everything in terms Mitch could understand.
“Fantasies are one thing, and reality is another. We are in the latter at the moment, so I would appreciate it if you would comport yourself accordingly.”
“I can comport myself any way you want me to, Doc. I’m very flexible.” Mitch smiled salaciously as he moved his body closer to mine.
“You may not realize this,” I said, bending back towards the surface of my desk in order to avoid full-frontal contact with him, “but you are reverting back to your old, self-defeating patterns of behavior.”
“Am I?” His lips were now poised right above mine. I could feel his warm breath fanning my mouth when he spoke.
Suddenly, I had a horrifying vision of Margo, or God forbid, another patient, walking into my office and catching me in what appeared to be an extremely compromising position with Mitch. I’d be mortified and my credibility as a psychologist would be shot all because this big lug had decided that I was his dream girl.
Shoving Mitch’s bulky frame away, I scrambled out from underneath him.
“This session is over,” I announced in the most authoritative tone I could muster while tucking my silk blouse, which had somehow managed to work itself loose from the waistband of my skirt, back in.
“But I have thirty-two minutes left,” he protested.
“You can use that time to read this file.” I smacked him in the chest with the manila folder that was still in my possession. “Pay special attention to the subsection on Sexual Attraction. We’ll discuss it in detail at your session on Friday.”
“Sexual attraction’s not something I really need to read up on. But if it’ll make you happy . . .” He took a few steps back and gave me a flirty wink before exiting to the waiting room.
I spent the rest of the day kicking myself for not having been more firm with Mitch. I knew I should have told him that making a pass at me was inappropriate and threatened to refer him to another doctor if he did it again. But I’d let myself get flustered, and he’d left thinking I was just playing hard-to-get. So, now this was all some big game to him, a game he was confident he’d win because he was so “irresistible.” UGH
* * *
I was standing over the sink, eating some cold, two-day old Pasta Carbonara out of a Tupperware container without utensils, when my phone rang. I sucked up some noodles and answered with my mouth full.
“Hey-row.”
“¡Hola, Pee-lar! ¿Cómo estás?” a young boy inquired.
“Nate?”
Childish laughter echoed in my ear. “Yep, it’s me! Poppa said it would be okay if I called you. I hope you don’t mind.”
“Of course not.” I ripped a paper towel off the holder hanging underneath the kitchen cabinet to my right and used it to wipe the cream sauce off my fingers. “What’s up?”
“I played in my first Tee-Ball game today.”
“That’s terrific! Did your team win?”
“Nobody wins in Tee-Ball,” he informed me. “We don’t keep score. We’re supposed to be learning the fundamentals and having fun. Of course, I already know the fundamentals, but not all kids watch as much baseball as I do.”
“So, how did you do today?”
“I hit the ball twice, so I got on base. And the second time, I got to slide into home.”
“Wow, sounds like you have the makings of a great baseball player.”
“Coach Castaneira said I was a ‘natural,’ and he let me play Shortstop for a couple of innings. Derek Jeter plays Shortstop, you know. That’s the best position on the field. You can catch ground balls and fly balls there. We’ve got another game next week. We’re playing the Red Sox. Will you come, Pee-lar? Please,” he begged. “If you come, we can go to my house afterwards and have dinner. I could ask Poppa to grill out some hamburgers, and you could meet Vinny, mi tortuga.”
“That would be nice, Nate, but I think that you should check with your parents first to see if it’s okay.” I didn’t want to intrude on any family time.
“Poppa’s always saying that we should invite you over. He likes you a lot.”
I hadn’t gotten any formal invitations yet, so maybe Mrs. Dr. Ford wasn’t so keen on the idea? “What about your mother?”
“I don’t think she’d care, but I can’t really—”
“Nate,” I heard Ford call his son’s name, “it’s time to get ready for bed.”
“But, Poppa, I’m on the phone with Pee-lar,” he protested.
“And you’ve talked long enough. You’ve got summer camp tomorrow, and I don’t want to have to drag you out of bed in the morning because you went to bed late. Now, give me the phone and go put your pajamas on.”
“Pee-lar hasn’t given me my two Spanish words yet,” the child stubbornly refused to relinquish the phone.
“Dulces sueños, Nate,” I interjected.
“What does that mean?”
“Sweet dreams.”
“Oh. Dulces sueños to you, too, Pee-lar.”
“Great, you got your two words. Now, go brush those teeth,” Ford ordered. “And don’t think that just getting your toothbrush wet is going to fool me. I’m going to check to see if your breath is minty fresh or not.”
With a sigh of exasperation, Ford brought the phone receiver up to his ear. “Sorry about that. Bedtime is always a battle of wills around here. I probably shouldn’t have let him call you this close to eight, but he was so excited about the game and he was dying to tell you about it.”
“I enjoyed his recap.”
“I know I’ve said it before, but I really appreciate you being so good to Nate. This last year . . . this move has been tough on him, and you’ve been so helpful with the Tee-Ball and the Spanish. He likes you a lot.”
Funny that Nate had just said the same thing about Ford.
“The feeling is mutual.”
“I was thinking about you today.”
For some inexplicable reason, that knowledge made me feel as giddy as a schoolgirl.
“Oh, really?” I feigned nonchalance.
“Yeah, I was wondering how your appointment with that lovesick patient went. I would have stopped by your office at lunchtime, but I had an emergency at the hospital that tied me up for several hours. Then, I went straight from there to the game. So?”
“The session was a disaster.”
“Elaborate,” he prompted.
“I tried discussing, arguing, analyzing, intellectualizing, explaining, reasoning, I even had printed materials on Transference in all its forms, but nothing would dissuade this man from thinking that he loves me. He went so far as to ask me out on a date, and when I said, ‘no,’ he made advances.”
The line went strangely quiet. I couldn’t hear breathing, or background noise; there was just dead air.
“Ford?” I queried tentatively, thinking that we’d been disconnected.
“Sexual advances?”
“What other kind of advances, are there?”
“I just wanted to clarify,” he said, sounding uncharacteristically irritable.
“It wasn’t like he pounced on me or anything. He just made some double entendres, said that I smelled good enough to eat, and tried to maneuver me into a horizontal position on top of my desk.”
“Drop this patient, drop him now,” Ford advised.
“That wouldn’t be right. I made a commitment to help this man. He’s got problems—”
“His main one being an overactive libido. You need to refer him to another therapist, Pilar. You’re in over your head. I don’t know what this man’s motivation is, but it goes way beyond Transference. He’s manipulating you and he’s manipulating the situation.”
“And you’ve come to this conclusion based on the small tidbits I’ve shared with you from my sessions with him?” A smart man would have taken note of the edge in my voice. Alas, despite Ford’s many degrees and elevated IQ, he was just as obtuse as the other members of his sex when it came to reading signals from women.
“You’ve told me more than enough. It’s clear that—”
“I’ve spent hours delving into this man’s psyche and you’ve never laid eyes on him, but you think that you’ve got a better handle on what makes him tick than I do?” I was incredulous, bordering on offended.
“You’re too close to the case; you’ve lost your objectivity and you’re leaving yourself open for—”
“I don’t remember asking for a performance evaluation,” I said waspishly.
“I’m just trying to give you the benefit of my experience—”
“No, you’re being judgmental and supercilious and . . . and . . .,” I struggled to find another adjective that would be appropriately disparaging, “. . . bossy.”
“And you’re being hypersensitive, which tells me that deep down you know I’m right about this whole Mitch thing; you just don’t want to admit it.”
“Stop analyzing me!”
“Stop being so stubborn and cut this patient loose!”
“Poppa!”
Ford groaned with frustration that was probably caused by me, not his five-year-old.
“Coming, Nate!” he yelled.
“I’ve got to go and tuck him in.”
“Fine,” was my snippy reply.
“Are you mad at me?”
“Yes.” I affected the same wounded tone my mother used whenever she wanted to make someone feel guilty.
And it was effective because Ford was instantly contrite. “I’m sorry if I sounded like I was being critical. You know that I think you’re a wonderful therapist.”
“What was that? I didn’t hear you.”
Ford chuckled. “Yes, you did. You’re a wonderful therapist and you know it, but—”
“Ah-ah! If you’re going to give me a compliment, don’t qualify it.”
“Okay, I won’t. Will you concede that I might have a valid point about this Mitch character and proceed with caution?”
“I will keep your concerns in mind when I see the patient again on Friday.”
“And if that session is more of the same with him hitting on you and not respecting your authority . . .”
“. . . I will refer him to another psychologist.”
“A male psychologist?”
“Naturally.”
“Good. I’m glad that that’s settled.”
Oh, it was settled alright. If Ford thought that I was some lightweight who couldn’t handle a frisky patient, then he was about to be proved wrong.