Page 28 - WTP Vol.X #8

Dr. Nini Perlo’s office was in her house, a mid-cen- tury modern structure made of wood and glass. Her therapy patients parked in the driveway, entered through the front door and and waited in her living room. Picture windows opened onto a large garden, bursting with roses, poppies and peonies, several fruit trees and a craggy, old maple. At the far end of the room, divided by a Steinway grand piano, there was a cherry table with eight chairs and a vase of fresh flowers. Closer to the door, a couch, two chairs and a low table, stacked with thick, oversized art books, an occasional novel and a crystal bowl, formed a loose square. On the piano, a pile of music and a portrait of a younger Nini rested. A colorful Miro print hung near a nineteen twenties etching of an old Jewish woman wrapped in a shawl. From week to week, only the flowers and the sheet music—Bach, Beethoven, Chopin, the Romantics—changed. Careful not to leave too many clues, Nini closed the doors to the rest of her house. When she was ready for a pa- tient, she called down from her office, “You may come up now.” Jack, her husband, had told her, “You wel- come them as if you were some kind of queen, wait- ing for your minions.” She’d said, “Don’t be ridiculous. I’m just being polite.”
The office was small and light, with two large win- dows that looked out on the maple and a bird feeder busy with cardinals and nuthatches. There was a wall of books, a small desk, two modern grey chairs, Nini’s black Eames chair and a simple analytic couch. Only the desk was sloppy, the papers untended and askew. The notebooks she kept about her patients—large Moleskin journals, red, sky blue, emerald, yellow
and orange—leaned against each other in a small shelf within arm’s reach of her chair. An oil painting, a moody seascape of the view through Nini’s Truro bedroom window, hung over the couch. When she met a patient for the first time, Nini stood at the top
of the stairs. Today she was waiting for Livy Wein- berg.
Livy, a slim woman in her late twenties, was dressed in a skirt, t-shirt and bright red sandals, a ratty backpack slung over her shoulder. Her eyes, two different colors, the left hazel, the right a pale
icy blue, were curious and alert. A crooked smile revealed a gap between her two front teeth. She took the stairs two at a time and shook Nini’s hand but stopped in the office doorway to scan the room. At the sight of the couch, she drew herself up and said, “I’m not lying down,” then ran her eyes across the bookshelves, ignoring Bettelheim, Bowlby, Horney, Jung, Piaget, H.S. Sullivan and Winnicott but halting at Nini’s leather bound set of the complete works
of Freud. Livy’s lip curled and she smirked, “Oh,
god, please don’t tell me you believe in penis envy.” Before Nini could speak, Livy cried, “Stop! Don’t tell me. If we like each other, I don’t want to know, and if we don’t, it won’t matter. I can’t see a therapist who believes in penis envy.” Nini, who prided herself on her superb training with some of the top analysts in Boston and New York, was amused. “I like that,” Livy said, pointing at the seascape. “Did you paint it?”
“Thank you,” Nini said. “I did. Would you care to sit?” She nodded at the grey chairs. “Take your pick.”
Livy chose the one farthest from Nini and the couch, folded herself into the lotus position and waited.
When Nini asked what had brought her into therapy, Livy sighed and shuddered, then said, “What am I supposed to call you?”
“You may call me Nini or Dr. Perlo. It’s up to you.”
After a long silence, Livy said, “Men. Specifically, my father.”
~
Livy didn’t begin with her father. Instead, she told Nini about Ian, her current boyfriend, who’d threatened to leave if she didn’t figure out why
she was scared of commitment. “You’re great at seduction,” he’d said, “as long as you’ve got one foot out the door. I want more.” Livy hadn’t known what frightened her most, the thought of losing him or
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The Ideal Audience
susAn WAdsWorth