“You’ll be proud of me, Doc.”
I looked up from my notepad where I’d been scribbling some thoughts about my last session with Mitch. “Oh, really? Why’s that?”
“Well, I had plenty of offers from beautiful women for hot, sweaty, no-strings-attached sex this past week and I turned them all down.” Leaning back against the sofa cushions, Mitch locked his fingers behind his head and gave me one of his it’s-good-to-be-me grins.
“You showed remarkable self-restraint then.”
“No shit. There aren’t too many men who could say ‘no’ to twins. Gorgeous 18-year-old twins with a fetish for licking warm honey off of—”
“Yes, well, it sounds like you did an admirable job of resisting temptation.” It was suddenly very warm in my office. I pushed the sleeves of my cream-colored linen blouse up to my elbows and considered unfastening the button at the neckline.
“I think I was being tested by God, or the universe, or something.”
“If that was the case, then you passed the ‘test’ with flying colors. How did that make you feel?”
Mitch ran his fingers through his damp hair while he pondered my question. I wondered if he’d come to my office fresh from the shower or if he’d been at the beach. Maybe he was one of those guys who liked to get up early and go for a swim in the ocean? He had to do some kind of strenuous exercise to maintain that physique of his.
“Pretty good, I guess. More mature, more responsible.”
“That’s excellent. By refraining from casual, impulse-driven sex, you’re showing more respect for yourself, as well as the women you encounter. The next step is for you to start viewing women as something other than sex objects.”
Mitch looked confused. “What else are they?”
Somewhere on the planet, Gloria Steinem let loose a primal scream.
“Women can be many things: colleagues, friends, mothers, partners, teachers. If you open yourself up to the possibilities, you can learn a lot from women and they can enrich your life on many levels, not just the physical. One of the reasons why you’ve never been able to achieve true intimacy and a lasting relationship with a woman is because you’ve never looked beyond the external.”
“You mean appearance?”
“Right. Tell me, what’s the first thing you think about when you meet a woman, any woman?”
“Uh . . . well . . . I don’t . . .,” he struggled with his reply.
“What’s the first thing you thought about when you met me?” I reworded my query, making it more specific.
“Do you want the complete, uncensored truth?”
“Of course.”
“You’re not going to like it.”
“No matter what you say, I’m not going to judge you.”
Mitch eyed me skeptically for a moment.
“Alright,” he finally relented. “When I first met you, I thought, ‘Man, this chick is smokin’! She’s got a great rack and an ass to match. I bet she’s a wildcat in bed. Those intellectual types always are, once you get their clothes o—’”
“Yes, thank you,” I interrupted him before I started blushing. “You just proved my point. You only see women on a superficial level.”
“And how am I supposed to change that?”
“Start thinking about women as people, not just potential conquests. Engage them in conversation. Ask them questions about themselves and listen, really listen, to their answers.”
“Okay.” Mitch slid forward to the edge of the couch and fixed an interested gaze on me. “Why did you become a psychologist?”
I chuckled nervously. “I didn’t say that you had to practice this approach on me.”
“Why not? You’re a woman, and I’ve objectified you in the past. If I’m going to turn over a new leaf, then I might as well start with you. So?”
It was a strange twist on role-playing, but thinking that it might benefit my patient I decided to answer, “I became a psychologist because I’m interested in people and why they behave the way they do.”
“And how many years of school did that take?”
“I went to four years of college, then I moved on to graduate school for five years where I earned my Psy.D, which is a Doctor of Psychology degree.”
“Nine years of school?” Through pursed lips, he emitted a low-pitched whistle of amazement. “I only made it through three months of junior college. You must be really smart.”
“I like to think so,” I said with a smirk.
“Are there any other doctors in the Alvarez family?”
“That’s very good,” I commended him. “You asked about my work, my education, and my family. And you complimented me on my achievements and intelligence rather than a physical attribute. See, it’s not that difficult.”
“Yeah, well, you make it easy, Doc. You’re more than a pretty face and a hot body; you’re actually interesting. The same can’t be said for most of the beach bimbos I meet.”
“Then, you need to expand your horizons and look for women outside your work environment.”
He frowned. “I’ve never really looked for women. They’ve always just come to me.”
“Therein lies your problem. You’re not being selective; you’re just taking whatever is offered to you. If you want to find a woman of quality, then you’re going to have to put some effort into it.”
“Effort, huh?” It was obviously a foreign concept to him. “Alright, yeah, I can do that. Where do I start looking for these women of quality?”
“They’re everywhere. You just have to keep your eyes open, although I would advise against looking in bars and clubs. It’s hard to make a real connection with anyone in those places.”
“No bars and no clubs. Got it. You know, Doc, the stuff you say makes a lot of sense. I think that these sessions are really helping me.”
“I’m glad to hear it.”
“Maybe I should start seeing you twice a week?”
I actually heard the sound of a cash register ka-chinging in my head. I did some quick mental calculations and concluded that if Mitch doubled up on his sessions, I’d make $300 a week on him. $1200 a month! But how would a lifeguard get that kind of money? $1200 was probably a whole month’s salary for him and as much as I could have used the extra revenue, I didn’t want to break the poor man’s bank.
“I appreciate your enthusiasm, Mitch. I really do. But I don’t think your problems warrant two sessions a week.”
“But if I came in twice a week, I could resolve my issues twice as fast.”
“It doesn’t necessarily work that way.”
“I’d still like to do it. That is, if you have room for me on your schedule.”
Oh, I had room. I had plenty of room. And seeing Mitch Buchannon’s scruffily handsome face twice a week certainly wouldn’t be a hardship. He was sort of a diamond in the rough and the more time I spent polishing him (I meant that figuratively, of course), the better chance I had of helping him realize his full potential not only as a man, but as a human being.
* * *
“Hey, neighbor.”
As fate would have it, Ford and I were both leaving our offices at precisely 5:47 p.m. that day.
“Pilar,” he greeted me with a lopsided grin.
“You saw patients today?” I could tell because for the first time since I’d met him, Ford was wearing a suit rather than jeans. Sara would have been able to name the designer of his perfectly tailored black suit at ten paces, but I didn’t know my Armani from my Savile Row. Ford’s blue-and-white striped dress shirt was a little funky and he didn’t wear a tie, so his overall appearance was professional, but not intimidating.
Sitting his briefcase down, he stuck his hands in his pants pockets. “Yep, I’m officially a practicing psychiatrist in the state of Florida.”
Obviously not finding what he was looking for in his pants pockets, he started to pat the pockets in his coat. “Damn it, where are my keys? I must have left them on my desk.”
He opened the door that led into his outer office and strode back in. I wasn’t sure if I should follow him or just wait. I opted for the latter. Several minutes passed during which time I could hear desk drawers being slammed shut and papers rustling.
“Find them?” I called out and received a frustrated grumble in return.
Men always made the simplest tasks so difficult.
“Where did you last see them?” I inquired as I entered his turned-upside-down office.
“I had them in my hand when the temp agency called me about a receptionist.”
Good, I thought, he needed one. Doctors tended to get scatterbrained when they had to handle administrative duties, as well as see patients. Before I’d hired Margo, my office had been a disaster and I hadn’t known whether I was coming or going half the time.
“Okay and you’ve checked the surface of your desk and the floor around it?”
He nodded.
“What about those bookshelves behind you? Or maybe you dumped them in your briefcase?”
“Nope.”
I scanned the room quickly. “You filed some patient folders after your phone call, didn’t you?”
“How did you . . .,” he glanced over at his file cabinets and saw that his keys were lying atop the middle one. “I’m an idiot.”
“Once you get some help in here, you’ll feel less rattled.”
“I probably shouldn’t have scheduled so many patients on my first day,” he conceded as we walked back out to the corridor.
He’d had an overwhelming number of patients on his first day? I’d only seen two people in the entire first week that my practice’s doors had been open. I was probably going to hate myself for asking, but I had to know.
“How many patients did you see today?”
He locked his office door and turned towards me. “Let’s see, there were two manic depressives, a schizophrenic, an exhibitionist, an obsessive-compulsive, and a patient with Intermittent Explosive Disorder. So, that’s six in all.”
“Wow, you had a busy day.” I was jealous.
“I’m getting a lot of referrals, which is nice. Shall we?” He motioned in the direction of the stairs.
“I hope traffic won’t be bad. I promised Nate I’d be home by 6:30 so that we could grill out hot dogs. I used to be able to get away with being a few minutes late, but now that he can tell time . . .”
He took my arm when we reached the steps, which I thought was a very gentlemanly thing to do. I wondered if he helped ladies out of cars and stood up every time they left the table, too?
“It sounds like your son is very bright.”
“Precocious is probably a better word. He could read and spell and do addition and subtraction by the time he entered kindergarten. He makes his teachers nervous. They want him to skip first grade and go straight to second next year.”
“And you’re not keen on that idea?”
“I don’t know. He is more advanced academically than most of the kids his age, and I don’t want him to be bored in school. But . . .”
“You’re worried about how he’ll fit in with the older kids?”
Ford stopped just before we reached the front door in our building’s lobby. “Kids can be brutal, and it’s not easy being labeled ‘gifted.’”
“Is that the voice of experience I hear?”
He smiled at my perceptiveness. “Busted. I skipped the 6th grade and spent the next two years getting into scuffles with kids who thought that being smart made me a wimp. My own brothers were the worst. I got this scar here,” he pointed to a jagged white line across the knuckles of his right hand, “when I punched Danny in the kisser because he called me ‘Brainiac.’ He was wearing braces at the time.”
“Ow!” I said, shaking my hand as if I could feel the pain of metal cutting into flesh.
“14 stitches, but it was worth it,” Ford assured me with a wink as he held open the door that led out to the street.
“Things got better for me in high school,” he continued when we were outside. “I started to run track when I was a sophomore and the cool factor that came with being Jefferson High’s star sprinter offset the geekiness of my 4.0 grade average.”
“Did your son inherit your athletic ability, as well as your intellect?” I questioned while pulling my sunglasses out of my purse.
“Nate does love baseball. He’s absolutely obsessed with the Yankees. Derek Jeter is his idol. When he grows up, he wants to be a Shortstop . . . or a Herpetologist.”
I laughed. “Your 5-year-old knows what a Herpetologist is?” I wasn’t even sure that I knew.
“His mother got him a turtle for his 4th birthday. He asked for a reptile encyclopedia last Christmas, and the rest is history. Where’d you park?”
“Hmmmm?” I was still filing away the fact that a Herpetologist was someone who studied reptiles. I planned to impress my nephews with that information the next time I saw them.
“Where’s your car?” he repeated.
“Oh, over there.” I gestured at my Miata.
“Damn, how’d you score such a great spot? I’m two blocks up, and it took me forever to find that space this morning.”
“The secret is to get here early. I usually come in around 6:30, then I beat the other business people and tourists.”
With a frown, Ford said, “I have to drop Nate at school at 7:00, so I guess I’m screwed.”
He glanced up and down 11th Street. “Looks like we have a break in traffic. Do you wanna make a run for it?”
He jaywalked? Ford just kept getting more perfect every minute.
I nodded, and he grabbed me by the hand, pulling me across the busy road. We were almost clipped by an El Dorado whose driver honked at us angrily and yelled a Spanish epithet out his window. I stopped in the middle of the thoroughfare, raised a fist in the air, and yelled something equally derogatory at the hunk-of-junk’s bumper, which was just barely holding on with the help of some silver duct tape.
By the time I reached the curb, Ford was already there, laughing so hard that he was having trouble catching his breath. “Did you just insult that man’s mother?” he queried in between gasps.
I shrugged, feeling a little embarrassed. “Latinas and their fiery tempers. It’s cliché, but true.”
“And I thought the girls in Brooklyn were tough. Damn.”
“You’re going to be late for your cookout with your son if you don’t get going,” I reminded him.
Ford looked at his watch. “Oh, shoot, you’re right. I only have half an hour now.”
He started to back away from me. “Lunch? Later this week?” he shouted.
Chuckling, I made the “Call me” sign.