LITMIR.BIZ

      Renee Buchanan, my two o’clock patient, had been on a particularly hateful rampage of some considerable duration. In honor of the one-week anniversary of Howard’s death, I decided to take it easy with her. Just stay cool, I advised myself. It’s only negative transference. Nothing personal. For extra insurance, I stuck my Freud action figure in my pocket. As Renee lay on the couch pounding the cushions with her fists, I fingered the hard pointy tip of Sigi’s goatee.

      “Just how am I supposed to get beyond this, Dr. Good-man?” she said. Her Louisiana drawl made two words of my name, and the reverse stress seemed to question my gender. “This jerkweed makes hundreds of millions of dollars a year,” she went on without a pause for an answer. “He starts having unprotected sex with this foreign whore who has millions of her own. Dumps me. Then tells the judge that he’s bankrupt, and I get nothing.”

      The jerkweed, M. King Buchanan III, was a venture capitalist and entrepreneurial genius that Renee had snagged from wife number three at a jet-setting Mardi Gras party. We’d been plumbing the depths of her outrage at the turn-about dealt her by an Italian heiress ten years her junior, outrage unmitigated for Renee by the fact she’d been awarded over three million dollars in the court’s generous interpretation of her pre-nuptial agreement.

      “Nothing?” I said finally, noting that I’d failed, despite conscious effort and frantic Freud-fingering, to disguise the irritation in my voice.

      I’d been having trouble controlling my irritation with Renee. I’d done my homework. I’d analyzed my feelings about her, my countertransference, as best I could, and knew that my reaction was multi-determined. For one thing, this woman was just plain irritating. She irritated family, friends and co-workers, and I’m sure she irritated the daylights out of M. King. Strictly speaking, this would not be called countertransference since that term is more properly reserved to describe an analyst’s idiosyncratic emotional reaction. And on that more personal level, it was relevant that Renee had recently started to be competitive with me. This was okay. In theory. But, in reality, she was prettier and younger and thinner already, and the nasty nature of her competitiveness added insult to injury. Then there was the stuff about money and divorce. I knew I’d never come out as financially set as she if Richard and I ever finalized our split. And I also knew she could make a lot more selling high-end real estate—if she’d quit pitying herself— than I’d ever make doing therapeutic piecework. There was more than enough resentment to go around in the room.

      As usual, Renee resisted my attempt to rewrite her story. “You can’t be referring to that diddly-shit excuse of a settlement. I’m living in a condo, trying to learn a job I detest, and now they’re building a ten-thousand square foot house in Terrell Hills. They tore three houses down for the lot. Three houses in Terrell Hills! Do you have any idea what that cost? Probably not. What do you know about the real world? Life out there isn’t fair, and no one gives a damn. No one gives a goddamn about me. I’m including you, in case you missed that point.”

      I hadn’t. And the shrillness in her voice made me want to comfort her as much as I imagined M. King Buchanan III wanted to give her alimony. It came to me that Renee’s growing anger probably had everything to do with the fact that she’d just had to start paying for her own analysis. The cost of her first two years of therapy had been covered under the divorce settlement. Psychoanalysis was exactly the treatment Renee needed, but its initial appeal had primarily to do with the price it extracted from her ex. Now—although she was far from being able to admit it—she’d realized our work was helping her, just as she had to cover her own tab.

      “Can you tell me more about that feeling?” I said. It was a lame response to her assault on me, but my adrenaline was pumping. I needed time to get my emotions reined in.

      Renee propped herself up on her elbows, rotated her head toward me and dropped her jaw. “Just what don’t you know about that feeling after all this time? You a-maze me.” She shoved herself back down on the couch and pulled five tissues from the box one-by-one before bursting into practiced tears.

      I crossed my arms and watched the performance: the lithe sweep of one tissue separating from the other, the prolonged dab at the corner of the eyes, the ratcheting intake of breath. Every move was choreography. Renee was a naturally beautiful woman, a tall creamy-skinned blonde with narrow hips. The kind of woman other women hate at first sight. Despite her endowments, she suffered from profound self-doubt, and the divorce from King had ripped open childhood wounds that had never done much healing. The relentless attempts she’d made to enhance herself in the wake of that trauma had only served to detract: her overly done make-up, her stiff couture clothing, her breast augmentation and revised breast augmentation, her quarterly Botox injections, her face lift. On the surface, Renee would seem to be the antithesis of my patient Allison. Exhibitionism vs. inhibition. Anger vs. depression. But it was only a different veneer for the same shaky core.

      “It’s just like my childhood,” she finally said. “The sun rose and set on that snot-nosed brother of mine. I was so goddamned good to try to get Momma’s attention. So helpful. Pretty in my white pinafore. She looked clear through me. Right at him.”

      I commanded myself to visualize that sad little girl. I wanted to feel for Renee. I really did. It wasn’t like I didn’t have experience with childhood longing. I tried to parlay sympathy for my child-self into some feeling for Renee, but I just didn’t seem to have it in me right then. Some patients are easy to love. Others take a while. Love in itself doesn’t cure, but no analytic cure comes about without it—or without some hate for that matter. Deep therapy is deep for the patient and the analyst. I trusted I could eventually come to love Renee, but we had a way to go.

      “It wasn’t fair, and no one seemed to care,” I said. It was a mechanical response, but one I knew would mollify her.

      “Story of my life. I’m that little girl all over again. I hate what Momma did to me. I can’t bear it. I won’t,” she said, jabbing the cushion of my couch hard with her elbow.

      Yes. Renee hated her Momma, and I was Momma’s effigy, making my little girl pay for what she needed. I put my head back and closed my eyes again. I learned early on that being the target of primitive rage puts me to sleep. It’s some psychic possum reflex that’s like intravenous anesthesia right to my brain. Anyway, I must have dozed for a second. How else to explain the cold draft on my right shoulder and the distinct smell of Old Spice? Howard Westerman was the only man I’d known, besides my father, who wore that scent. My body jerked. The movement made my chair squeak. I was a little disoriented, but as far as I could tell, I hadn’t missed much. Renee was still revved.

      “And you know what kills me? He kept my Mercedes. I’m driving the old Volvo that we let the housekeeper use. How the hell am I supposed to pass for a successful realtor driving that piece of trash? I can’t afford a Mercedes.” There actually seemed to be some pain in her voice. “Unless I stop this analysis. That’s a threat, in case you missed it.”

      Morrie Viner, anxious for his three o’clock appointment, coughed at the consulting room door. We’d gone two minutes over time. I had to make some connection, tie things up and end the session.

      “You’re angry about the unfairness,” I said. “But I heard some sadness under your anger. We need to look at that.” I took a deep breath. “Our time is up for today.”

      Renee made no move to vacate. “I’m a little worried about you,” she said. “Wouldn’t you normally have gotten a new car this year? A car starts to look shabby after three years. Especially a black one.”

      Her words felt like a knife in my gut. I squeezed the arms of my chair and pushed my tongue into the roof of my mouth, sensing what was coming. Renee had the high-speed gossip access of a niche realtor, and she used the information without mercy.

      “It’s none of my business,” she said, “but with your being separated from your husband and all, finances must be tight. This isn’t the kind of real estate a working girl supports

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