Good to Me (9 page)

“I know, I have to concentrate really hard to talk like I got—I mean have—some sense.”

“Speaking of Harmony, what time are we expecting her?”

“Her schedule says ten. Her first appointment is at eleven o’clock. You have an appointment at ten.”

“Yes. With a Jeffrey Wright?”

“Yes, and then you’re free until your one o’clock.”

“What are you doing for lunch?”

“Traci and Mercedes are coming to eat lunch with me in the courtyard.”

“Oh. I guess I’ll call April and see if she can meet me for lunch. Since you seem to have everything under control out here,
I’m going to let you work.”

“All right then, you gone on back there and keep yourself together or I’mma call Emmitt and give him a piece of my mind.”

“You are getting more like Momma everyday. Do you know that?”

Iesha smiled. “What? Being protective over you?”

“Yes.” Charity smiled back. “But, it feels good to be loved.”

Charity sat down at her mahogany wood executive desk and unsnapped her black leather-bound pocket Bible. She knew that if
she were going to continue to walk in peace, she needed some Word to meditate on. She sat quietly flipping through the Bible
waiting for peace about its passages. She slowed down in the Book of Isaiah and read chapter 54. It seemed like verses five
and six just leaped off the pages and into her spirit. Rereading the verses helped her to understand them.
For thy maker is thine husband; the Lord of Hosts is His name… For the Lord has called thee as a woman forsaken and grieved
in spirit, and a wife of youth, when thou was refused, saith thy God
.

“Thank you, Jesus. You are my husband and today that is more than enough. You know how to love me. You provide for me. You
meet my every need. Thank You, Lord.”

She encouraged herself by reading several Psalms until the unexpected sound of the phone’s intercom made her jump.

“Charity, your ten o’clock is here.”

“Thank you, Iesha. Let him know I’ll be right out.”

“Take your time, he’s filling out his paperwork.”

She went to the restroom to refresh her makeup and to make sure she was showing no signs of distress.
God forbid a therapist has problems of her own
, she kidded. She continued to praise God for lifting her spirit through His Word and presence. As she walked to the waiting
area she reminded herself that she could do all things through Christ, Who strengthens her.

She extended her right hand to initiate a handshake to a well-dressed brown-skinned gentleman who was flipping through the
pages of a
Black Enterprise
magazine from the coffee table. “Mr. Wright? Good morning. I’m Charity Phillips.”

He stood to meet her. “Good morning.” He looked at her left hand for a wedding ring. “
Ms
. Phillips. It’s a pleasure to meet you.”

She half smiled and pointed in the direction she led. “Follow me. My office is this way.” She felt uncomfortable walking in
front of him. Her whole backside burned, like someone with x-ray vision was watching her. “Did you have any trouble finding
us?” she said, making small talk to diminish the discomfort she felt.

“No problem at all,” he said, sounding like he was smiling and talking about a totally different subject.

“Come on in,” she said, stopping at her office door to allow Mr. Wright to walk in before her. She motioned to a chair in
front of her desk. She didn’t like conducting sessions from beind her desk, but at this moment she knew that was where she
felt more comfortable.

She laid her daily planner on top of her Bible.

He leaned back in the chair and clasped his hands behind his head. “A Bible reader,” he acknowledged. “My sign that I’m in
the right place.”

Charity smiled to be polite. She flipped through the chart that Iesha compiled with the paperwork he completed, and the case
summary and recommendations from the court. “Mr. Wright, what brings you here today?” she asked without looking up at him.

“Ms. Phillips, I’d prefer you talk to me as opposed to that file.”

“Forgive me, sir. I usually get a chance to review charts before I see clients. I apologize for not being able to do that
today. Give me a few minutes, will you?” She read the five pages of information in less than three minutes and looked up at
him. “Thank you.”

“That’s better,” he shifted his weight to the front of the chair. “Now, I’ll admit that I’ve had some problems in the past,
but I’m not as bad as those papers make me out to be. And as far as those run-ins with the law,” he crossed his legs. “I was
at the wrong place at the wrong time, and with the wrong people. But I’m going to follow the court’s recommendations, which
is why I’m here. They sent me for a psychiatric evaluation. Waste of my time. I could’ve told him that he wasn’t going to
find anything. But he recommended outpatient counseling and the judge ordered it. Et cetera upon et cetera.”

The one thing practicing therapy helped her do was not to let her feelings show and to emotionally detach from situations.
If I’d applied that principle to Emmitt two years ago, I’d be over him by now
. She remembered her graduate school adviser telling her that if she lets a client get under her skin, “that’s a warning that
you have some unresolved issues with someone they are reminding you of. They may be reminding you of yourself or someone else.
People are just a reflection of yourself.” As she recalled that statement, she realized that this man was Emmitt with a different
face. Just as charming and manipulative as he wanted to be. The psychiatrist may not have diagnosed him with anything, but
she could think of a diagnosis. Sociopath.

She fixed a smile on her face. “Compliance. That’s my sign that you’re in the right place. What would you like to gain from
therapy, Mr. Wright?”

His smile was incongruent with his body language. “You tell me. You’re the therapist.”

That was Emmitt up and down and she knew how to handle his type.

She made direct eye contact with him. “In order for us to make significant gain here, Mr. Wright, the goals we set will have
to be mutual. Why don’t you tell me what you would like to accomplish and I will help you identify how we can meet those goals.”

He fidgeted in the chair and straightened his tie. “Uhm mum,” he cleared his throat. “I would like to…” he started, regaining
his composure. “Find out why sistahs have problems with brothers such as myself. Why they can’t handle a fine, professional,
and successful brotha like me. Every black woman I know—my mother, my sisters, and my wife—got their opinion about how I need
to be living, what I need to be doing, and how I need to be doing it.”

“Do you think that my race and gender will hinder us from working together?”

“Your sex—” He smiled, or smirked. “Excuse me, your gender and race is why the courts recommended you to me. They think I
should work with a black female.”

That sounded like a Judge Fulton recommendation. She made a mental note to call her. “Okay, that’s one goal—to explore the
resistance in your relationship with women who play a significant role in your life. I’d like for us to identify at least
two more.”

“You make it sound like that resistance is on my part. I told you, there is
nothing
wrong with me.”

“You’re right, Mr. Wright, there is nothing
wrong
with you. But I think exploring your role with the women you’ve mentioned might help you understand why you keep making wrong
decisions and finding yourself in the wrong type of situations. And by the looks of the court’s case summary,” she said, flipping
through his chart, “a female was involved in each charge.”

“Where did you go to school?”

Charity looked pointedly at him. “We have about twenty more minutes in our session and it would benefit us best to use the
time talking about you. Are you ready to proceed with your second goal?”

“I was just wondering if you know what you know because you learned it from the books or from your own personal experience.
You look to be about my age. I don’t know how you would be able to help me if you haven’t been through the same thing.”

“Nineteen minutes and counting.”

“Just what I thought, book sense.” He stood up and walked over to the window. “For a second goal, I would finally like to
talk about a family secret. Something that happened between me and my sister Janice that my family doesn’t talk about.” He
kept his back to her.

Charity waited in silence.

“Uhm mum,” he cleared his throat. “I’m not prepared to talk about that today but I would like to get there.”

“Very good. Two down and one more to go.”

He walked back toward Charity and seated himself. “And finally,” he said in the softest voice he’d used since he’d been there.
“Since I see that you are a Bible reader, I would like to talk about how I can get back to where I used to be with the Lord.
Are these three goals attainable?”

She retrieved a piece of paper from the desk’s file cabinet drawer.

“This is a treatment plan,” she slid it across the desk to him. “We’ll list the three goals that you have identified and I’ll
work on the objectives, the ways in which we can meet these goals. We’ll meet twice a week for the first month, then once
a week the next month, and eventually once a month until we terminate therapy. Does that sound workable for you?”

He nodded.

“Okay, when you return on Thursday, if you agree to the objectives, I’ll have you sign the plan and we’ll begin to work on
them.”

“I would like to meet three times a week.” He smiled.

She kept on talking like she didn’t hear him. As she flipped through to the end of his chart, she found something. “Mr. Wright,
did the psychiatrist you met with talk to you about the findings of his evaluation?”

“Not really.”

“Did he prescribe any medications?”

“Yes, he prescribed two, Resperidol and another one I can’t recall the name of. He called it a mood stabilizer.”

“Lithium?”

“Yes. That’s it, lithium.”

“Did he tell you why he was prescribing the medications?”

“Yes.” He shifted in his seat. “He mentioned something about me being a schizophrenic.”

“Do you know what that means, Mr. Wright?”

“Yes,” he quipped. “I’m a well-educated man. I know what that is.”

Charity softened. “Okay. Do you agree with his findings?”

“No. But because I have a maternal aunt who is a true schizophrenic, I do take the medications.”

“Does that mean that your aunt had psychotic episodes, periods of time where she was not in touch with reality?”

“Shoot, yeah! I was scared of her when I was little. She was crazy. That’s why I know I’m not schizophrenic.”

“So, you’ve never had any episodes?” She didn’t press when he refused to answer and took the expression on his face to mean
that he hadn’t. “Well,” she admonished, “in order for us to work together, I need you to stay on the medications. And at some
point I would like to meet with you and your wife. Okay?”

“Fine with me. Except that the medications are affecting our sex life and we’ve discussed me getting off of them.”

“Don’t make any decisions about that yet. Let’s see how much progress we make in at least six weeks before you do. This is
what I would like for you to do for homework.” Before walking him to Iesha’s desk to check out, Charity encouraged him to
identify at least three black women he could relate to in a positive way. She asked him to find them through the music he
listened to, the books he read, or through the television shows he watched if he could not come up with ones he knew.

“That’ll do it for today,” she said when they reached Iesha. “I’ll see you Thursday. If anything comes up before then,” she
said handing him her business card, “call me, Mr. Wright, okay?”

He glanced at the card and smiled. “Call
you
Mr. Wright? How about Mrs. Wright?”

The progress she thought they made went right out of the window. “I meant, Mr. Wright, you can call me if something comes
up.”

“I know. I know. I just like the way you say my name—Mister Right. And that I am.”

If he hadn’t winked, she wouldn’t have known he punned his name.

Wallace was nowhere to be found in the courtyard. Iesha had looked the place over twice. Even though there were countless
people crowded in the two-leveled dining area, and the lines of the ten restaurants were extremely long, she knew he was not
there. When it came to finding a man she was interested in, she had the senses of a lioness on the prowl for food.

“No you didn’t!” Iesha heard Mercedes but did not see her or Traci. “These are Burberry’s. Bur-ber-ry’s. You betta watch way
you stepping before I—”

“Sorry about that, ma’am,” Iesha interrupted. She pulled Mercedes by the arm and Traci followed.

“Nah, E,” Mercedes clumsily walked with Iesha pulling her arm. She looked in the direction of the woman who accidentally stepped
on her foot. “That tramp stepped on my new shoes. And then looked like she wanted to bow up at me. I’ll pull that corporate
America weave out of her head.”

“That woman did look like she was gonna hit her,” Traci added.

“Both of y’all shut up.” Iesha frowned. “I’dda looked like I wanted to hit you too. Y’all up in here acting like fools. Do
y’all know where y’all at? Y’all cows embarrassing.”

Traci and Mercedes looked at each other in disbelief.

Traci laughed. “What?” she asked Iesha. “Sadie, who did we have to pull out of the drive-thru window last week after she reached
in to slap the cashier?”

“Esha.”

“And who was the reason we had to leave the club early on Friday night because she heard someone talking about her in the
bathroom?” she asked in one breath.

“Esha.”

“That’s what I thought. Now we embarrassing her.”

Iesha laughed with them. “All right y’all got me. But this is different. I work here. How y’all gone start a fight where I
work?”

“And the girl at Burger King wasn’t working when you hauled off and slapped her?” Traci asked.

“Is y’all gone eat or drill me all day? I only got an hour for lunch.”