Queen of Broken Hearts (9 page)

It was about this time last year when I saw that Elinor Eaton-Yarbrough was on the list of my afternoon appointments. I'd been surprised to see her name; when we'd first met, she'd hinted that she might be coming to see me, but I hadn't expected her. As a therapist, you develop a feel for potential clients, and Elinor did not strike me as a serious candidate for therapy, especially the kind that I do. I rarely have success with anyone who refuses to follow up with group work, and she had let me know in no uncertain terms that kind of therapy did not appeal to her.

At one time Lex and Elinor Yarbrough's (or Eaton-Yarbrough, the name she uses professionally) move into Fairhope would have been the talk of the town, and they still created quite a stir. Over the last few years, however, Fairhope has become such a hot spot on the Gulf Coast that the appearance of new people is more commonplace, and our population includes several nationally known writers as well as Nall, a world-famous artist who studied with Salvador Dalí. Although everyone in town was talking about the retired naval captain who purchased and would be running the new marina, it was when his wife appeared and opened an expensive boutique downtown that the tongues really wagged. Actually, it was Elinor Eaton-Yarbrough herself, rather than her upscale boutique by the name of My Fair Lady, that attracted the attention of the locals. Everybody was going in just to catch a glimpse of her.

A few weeks after My Fair Lady opened, I'd gone in, too, but not out of curiosity. I desperately needed a suitable outfit for a presentation I was giving at a conference in Chicago, and I was willing to splurge on it. The initial article on my work with divorcing women had just come out in a magazine; I'd been on national TV, and it was the first time I'd been asked to be the keynote speaker at a prestigious conference of my peers. I'd never been one to pay much attention to my appearance, but I wanted to look as confident and put together as I could for the occasion. I was surprised when Elinor herself waited on me. Since I've always been hopelessly fashion-challenged, she listened intently when I said I needed a couple of smart outfits for a conference I was attending, one for the talk and one for a reception the day before. What I didn't tell her was, if I didn't dress the part and feel confident in myself, I'd give myself away, and everyone at the conference would be able to tell I was terrified.

I'd already heard all about the glamorous Elinor Eaton-Yarbrough, and she didn't disappoint. She was everything I expected and more. Had I met her on the street, I would've figured her to be European, French maybe, because her obvious sophistication was so out of place among the laid-back population of Fairhope. Although I'd already heard from the town gossips that Elinor was in her early fifties, she made the lovely young college girls she hired in the boutique look unformed and insipid in comparison. She was absolutely stunning, a statuesque blonde with high cheekbones, ice-blue eyes, and the confident carriage of a runway model. Fairhope had never seen anything quite like her. The men of town looked at her as though a goddess had landed in their midst, and the women jealously speculated on everything from the color of her pale eyes (surely that color could be obtained only with contacts!) to her flawless skin (did the credit go to the shockingly expensive creams she sold in the boutique or to a face-lift?).

Elinor's personality turned out to be as intimidating as her looks. Used to bubbly, overly friendly Southern women, shoppers were made uncomfortable by the inscrutable gaze of the Boston-bred Mrs. Eaton-Yarbrough, and most reported that they felt they were being evaluated and found wanting. Even though I'd thought myself immune after the various types I'd encountered in my business, I, too, felt uncomfortable under Elinor's cool scrutiny. Her disdainful look told me how little she regarded my sense of style, and she couldn't hide her horror at my loose, rumpled linen pants and top when I discarded them to try on a black suit she'd picked out for me.

“You
have
to wear black,” she retorted when I asked for something a little less … severe. Truth of the matter was, I almost fainted when I saw the price tag—more than I made in a month. Naturally, the black suit turned out to be so perfect that I would've mortgaged my soul to own it. The black-and-bronze heels cost almost as much as the suit, but they made the outfit, and Elinor pointed out that since they also matched the bronze silk pantsuit necessary to make my wardrobe complete, I saved money by not having to buy another pair of shoes. At this bit of logic, I caught the eye of the young salesclerk helping us and winked, but I ended up buying everything I tried on. Hand it to Elinor: In spite of her disdainful attitude—or maybe because of it—she was very good at her job.

The only time I elicited a flicker of warmth from Elinor was when, as she questioned me about the occasion for the new clothes, it came out that I was a therapist specializing in divorce recovery. The salesclerk overheard us and pointed out that I'd gotten a lot of attention based on the innovative methods I was developing. “Dr. Ballenger was on
Good Morning America
not too long ago, Mrs. Eaton-Yarbrough,” she added breathlessly, and one of Elinor's perfectly arched eyebrows shot up as she regarded me.

“Oh? I've never heard of a divorce therapist, even in Boston. You're not a marriage counselor, then?” she asked me, tilting her head to the side curiously. I explained that I didn't work with couples, only men and women who were having problems dealing with a separation or divorce, and that a lot of group work was involved.

“I'm not interested in group work or baring my soul before strangers,” she told me with a sniff, “but if you see patients on an individual basis, I'll make an appointment.” Her pale blue eyes darted around the store to make sure no one was listening, and she confided in a low voice, “I'm planning on asking my husband for a divorce, and I might need some help because he'll go berserk when I do. Will you see me?” Before walking home with my arms full of packages and my bank account depleted, I handed her my card and explained where Casa Loco was located.

Elinor Eaton-Yarbrough's session was as close to a disaster as any I'd ever had, and she never returned. Hostility radiated from her like a bad sunburn, and none of my usual tactics worked with her. At that time I hadn't met Lex, but I knew from the talk around town that Elinor was married to the man who ran the new marina and had charmed the locals with his hearty good nature and zany humor. He sounded like the last person on earth to be married to a woman like her. But one thing I'd learned in my practice: The old adage about opposites attracting must be engraved on God's golden throne. Still, though I thought I'd become immune to the unlikely matches that people made, the Yarbroughs took it to a whole new level. During her session, Elinor echoed my thoughts.

“None of my family nor friends understood why I married Lex,” she told me, crossing her long, shapely legs and fidgeting with a silver cigarette case, flicking it open and shut, open and shut. She'd been appalled by my no-smoking rule, snapping, “How like you uptight Southerners! If you can't smoke in your therapist's office, then where?” How about most places in New York City, I thought, but kept my silence.

“Tell me what it was about your husband—Lex, right?—that attracted you,” I suggested. That was my usual opening gambit, since most of my clients were disillusioned with their spouses, and it helped for them to remember the days before hurt and bitterness set in. I'd heard almost everything in response, but rarely had I seen anyone struggle for an answer like Elinor did. I felt, then quickly suppressed, a flicker of sympathy for the man unlucky enough to have married her. Elinor finally told me that she'd most likely married Lex because her parents were so opposed to the match. She and Lex had met when she was “slumming” in a bar in Boston (her phrase), and he was a young officer assigned to the nearby naval base.

“He was boisterous and raw-boned and hilarious, so very different from the Ivy League boys I'd been dating,” she mused. “He won me over when a brawl broke out, and he took charge so masterfully, then made sure I got home safely. I felt protected or something, like he rescued me. My knight in shining armor. Ha! I was such a wide-eyed innocent back then.”

That image was certainly difficult to conjure, but I proceeded with my usual follow-up question: What was it that had held them together through the years? There was no hesitation this time. “Mostly it was our daughter,” she said simply. “I've wanted to leave a dozen times, but even when she went away to college, Alexia couldn't stand the idea of her parents not being together. Not only is she named after her father, she dotes on him, and he on her.”

As the session went on, I realized with a sinking feeling that Elinor was one of those clients who blames everything on the other partner and goes to a therapist only seeking verification of her position. She scorned my oft-repeated adage that she could not change her partner, only herself. She haughtily informed me that
she
wasn't the one who needed changing. She admitted that she'd agreed to move to Fairhope as a last-ditch effort to save their marriage, and even then only because their daughter had begged them to give it one more try. When Lex had retired from the navy and decided to fulfill his lifelong dream of running his own marina, Elinor had agreed to move from their home in Baltimore to Florida, had even been eager to live in a warmer climate. Earlier in their marriage, they'd spent a few years at the naval base in Pensacola, she told me, and she'd been surprised to like it so much.

“But of course, Florida is not really the
South,
is it?” she added. However, they soon found the cost of purchasing a marina anywhere in Florida prohibitive. The one in Fairhope, not all that far from Pensacola, was the only one remotely affordable, and Lex had snatched it up. Elinor had never been to Alabama—never wanted to, she assured me—but had been so taken with the charm of Fairhope that she'd decided to stay and open a shop like the one she'd had in Baltimore. In the short time they'd been here, both the boutique and the marina had flourished, but not the marriage. She'd decided to ask her husband to move out for a trial separation, she told me, then she'd file for divorce once he had some time to adjust. The reason she had come to me, she repeated, was for advice on the best way to make sure everything went smoothly.

“So your husband is not going to want a divorce?” I inquired, and Elinor looked at me in astonishment at such a question, since any man would surely be broken up at the thought of losing her.

“He'll go ballistic,” she assured me.

“Are you afraid of him?” I asked anxiously, and Elinor rolled her eyes.

“Afraid of
Lex
?” She snorted. “Hardly. Oh, he rants and raves and carries on, but it doesn't mean anything. Plus, he adores me too much to harm me. He's going to be so devastated when I finally leave him that I worry about what could happen. And I don't want Alexia to take his side if he runs to her for sympathy.”

My usual practice during a first session was to urge my clients to preserve their marriage if at all possible, so I suggested that rather than rushing into a divorce, she spend a week or so keeping a journal, writing down the pros and cons of her marriage in order to make sure this was what she really wanted. To my utter astonishment, the suggestion outraged Elinor. She stormed out of my office, saying all she wanted from her marriage was
out,
and she'd counted on me being more supportive. I sent her a follow-up letter, urging her to return so we could continue the session and discuss her options. When I heard from the local gossips that she and her husband had separated, I wasn't surprised. Neither was I particularly surprised to hear that she was bad-mouthing me all over town. But when Rye said she was telling the high-society crowd she hung with that
I
was the one who'd talked her into filing—that she hadn't wanted to because of her daughter—that did it.

I returned to My Fair Lady and asked Elinor if I could speak to her in private. With a huff, she showed me to her office and closed the door. I told her that I had no control over her conversations with her friends, but if I heard again of her saying I'd been the one to urge her to file for divorce, I'd have no choice but to contact my attorney. “Don't think I don't know what you're doing, Elinor,” I said tightly, my voice trembling. “You're shifting the blame because you're afraid to tell your daughter it was your idea, aren't you?” She denied it, of course, but I stood my ground, refusing to let her intimidate me. After I left her shop that day, the gossip stopped.

Now here I am, facing Elinor Eaton-Yarbrough on my own front porch. Who would have thought that, long after the disastrous session in my office, her husband and I would become friends, and as a result, she'd decide she wanted him back, out of my clutches? Lex appears to have no idea that's what she's up to, but it's obvious to me. Doesn't take a therapist to see it, either, just another woman.

“Elinor? Are you looking for us?” I ask her, admittedly not the sharpest of questions.
Oh, no, Clare, I'm standing on your porch at eleven o'clock at night for the hell of it.

Her pale eyes are cool as she stares at me, but she forces a smile. “Oh, hello, Clare.” Elinor and I forged an unspoken truce when Lex was in the hospital, having no choice but to be civil to each other. “Are you okay, dear?” she coos, wrinkling her lovely brow in concern.

“Why wouldn't I be?” I say rather sharply. I know where she's going, but I'm not about to give her the satisfaction of showing it.