The Breakup Doctor (17 page)

“Can we convince you to come back sometime?” she asked on the air. “Maybe even as a regular feature—what do you think?”

“I'd love it,” I said, meaning it. Not only had the appearance wound up being a blast, during which I felt I'd honestly done some good, but I could only imagine what the exposure might do for my client list.

For a moment, I let myself dream really big: clients would come pouring in from the column and this show and word of mouth, and I'd have more money than I knew what to do with. I would pay off all my debts, rent the most gorgeous office space in town, and turn my house into the showplace I'd once dreamed it could be when I signed my name to the stack of papers that made it mine.

The Breakup Doctor was turning into more than just a stopgap solution while I got my practice back together. Maybe it would wind up being the key to getting not just my career, but my whole life back on track.

  

Sasha called before I'd even made it into my car, bubbling words in my ear like “confident” and “professional” and “a natural.”

Even the gaping wound in the living room wall that stared at me as I let myself in the front door didn't bring me down off the high I'd ridden since leaving the radio station. I hardly registered the hole, just floated right past it into the kitchen to start the coffee I desperately needed.

As I poured water into the back of the percolator, I glanced over to where my computer monitor rested on a corner desk in the adjacent den, surprised to see the shifting patterns of my screen saver. I remembered powering it down right after Sasha came over last night.

Dim memories started to seep in as I measured out scoops of coffee: Waking up suddenly in the darkness of my bedroom, Sasha gone. Unable to go back to sleep, I'd lain awake rehashing yet again what had gone wrong between Kendall and me. The thoughts chased around in my head pointless as rabbit racing until I made myself get up. And then...then there was a black hole in my memory.

I sent another foreboding look at the computer. I was so relieved I hadn't made any stupid calls to Kendall last night in my inebriated stupor, I hadn't stopped to think what else I might have done. Rambling, drunken emails were only marginally less awful than rambling, drunken phone calls. I felt sick in a way that had nothing to do with my hangover.

The walk to my desk felt like the Green Mile, and I jiggled the mouse with dread blooming in my stomach. My email account snapped up on the monitor—but it was the one the paper had given to me, I saw with a flood of relief.

I clicked on the inbox—forty-three new messages already just from this morning. I scrolled past the new ones and noticed another stack of messages that I didn't remember looking at, but which had been opened.

I clicked on Sent Mail. Apparently I'd made some replies too. That could be bad.

The subject line of one message caught my eye—Re: ASHAMED. My reply was sent at 3:21 a.m. My hands felt a little clammy. There was no telling what I might have said to people in the state I'd been in.

  

Dear Ashamed,

You should NOT feel embarrassed! What did YOU do wrong? You just came home and there was your boyfriend in the driveway, telling you he didn't love you anymore and kicking you out. Is that YOUR fault? No sirree it is not. You know whose fault that is? Your BOYFRIEND'S.

  

A little overly emphatic, maybe, but so far, not too damaging.

  

Don't you let that make you feel bad about yourself. His judgment is not YOURS, and don't you adopt it!!! This man decided to leave you, for probably NO GOOD REASON, and you know what that makes youuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuu?

  

Little glitch there.

  

LUCKY! Yup. Think about THIS, Miss Ashamed—you could have ended up with that man, that man who looked into your pretty, pretty face (I know I don't know you but I KNOW you are pretty) and said I DON'T LOVE YOU ANYMORE. Phew! Close one—you escaped from winding up with a guy who didn't love you like you deserve to be loved. Be grateful you found out now. Now go find the man who will, because he's out there, and you WILL find him.

  

I signed it,
Good luck, and lots of love, your Breakup Doc.

Well, it wasn't the careful verbiage I might have employed sober, but overall it wasn't bad advice. Good to know that even blind drunk my best instincts kicked in. I clicked on another of my replies, this one headed,
Re: Now What?

  

Dear Left Behind in Lehigh,

First of all, I am very sorry. Having your husband leave you for someone else after thirteen years must be hurtful and confusing.

  

At least I'd adopted a professional tone in this one.

  

Seriously, that totally sucks.

  

Or not.

  

Because what is trust, then? What does a commitment mean? What is “marriage” if you can walk out the door as easily as you can leave a restaurant after you've finished your meal? I'm sure you're thinking, “None of it means a thing. None of it ever mattered. I don't matter.”

I am tearing up, here, Left Behind. This is heartbreaking. And it SHOULD be—because it mattered to YOU. You came into the relationship believing in it, didn't you? Believing in forever. Giving your whole heart. And your husband took it and stomped all over it like a grape.

But remember this, Left Behind, my friend: stomped grapes make wine. And you know what's way better than a whole unbroken grape? A glass of wine.

  

I winced a little bit at how sozzled I sounded, but I was actually somewhat impressed with the metaphor.

  

I want you to remember this idea, okay? In the next few weeks and months, as things get a little tough, you remember you gotta crush some of those grapes to get the wine. And in time you are going to be a fine, fine wine, friend. I promise. I'm going to check on you, okay? You believe in yourself, and until you do, I will believe in you for you.

  

Again I signed off,
Much love, your Breakup Doctor.

I sat back, blinking. For all their somewhat drunken tone, these weren't actually bad letters. Not that I could ever imagine saying these things to a patient sober, but...I'd say them to Sasha. And I'd do it because I knew that what she needed at times like that was lots of love and support and self-esteem building. I wouldn't worry about proper therapeutic conventions.

Rather than the disaster scenarios I'd feared, maybe a little too much to drink actually helped me figure out how to be a better Breakup Doctor.

Suddenly my eyes drifted to the bottom of my screen and I noticed that I'd had another window up last night. My personal email account.

My eyes flew wide open and my headache from the morning made itself screamingly known to me again. I sat straight up, fast—which hurt—and brought up my Outlook account. I skipped past the handful of new messages in my inbox—Sasha, a client from my practice, and Faryn Mitchell, an old friend from high school I heard from about once a year, for her annual Ragin' Pagans camping party. Then I clicked on
sent mail
with every prayer, plea, and bargain with God running through my head.

And there it was. My masterpiece.

  

Kendall,

Sasha says you're a douche with gonorrhea, but I say you have to sprinkle a lot of manure to get your garden to bloom. So I'm writing to tell you I'm grateful for all of your shit.

I sank my head to my hands and rubbed my face as though I could erase myself. Dammit, I knew better: Don't drink and dial, and don't drink and email. More than anything I didn't want to continue reading, but I forced my eyes back to the monitor.

  

Looking back, I wonder how I overlooked for so long the fact that you were completely lacking ethics, morality, and a soul. I am a professional counselor! You'd think I'd be experienced at looking through fake people who put up walls to hide their deep inadequacies and insecurities.

But listen, I'm writing only for professional reasons. Because I always try to grow as a therapist—and, unlike some people, as a human being—it would be useful to me in my practice to help my patients understand their own dysfunctional relationships by figuring out what makes them fall apart. So strictly for research purposes, can you tell me why you are such a complete dick?

Thanks,

Brook

  

I felt a hot rush of mortification. Not just that I had sent this piece of garbage to my ex-boyfriend—which was humiliating enough. But also that I could name at least ten times that Sasha had composed similar emails in fits of hurt and anger and I had tried to rationally talk her off the ledge and convince her not to send them. She always did, though.

And now I was no better. I, who had always prided myself on my dignity and levelheadedness where relationships were concerned, had turned into...Sasha.

Say what you want to about technology—how it's improved our quality of life, allowed us to enjoy more leisure time, opened up the world to us right in our own living rooms—the computer revolution has its ugly downside. Back in the olden days a letter like this would have had time to simmer in my mailbox, perhaps mellowing like a fine wine overnight, when a girl might wake up in the sane and sober light of day, realize how over-the-top she had been, and thankfully, sheepishly retrieve the letter before the friendly postman took it away.

Now with the click of a button, all opportunity for second thoughts vanished. There were no do-overs with email. Just like a mentally ill person in danger of harming herself or others, I was committed.

  

Contrary to what the movies would have you believe, it's not that easy to hack into someone else's email account.

I tried every password I could think of. Kendall's birthday. My birthday. His mom's name—no. Name of his childhood pet (which I knew only because we'd played the porn name game lying in bed one night: the name of our childhood pets and the streets we grew up on. I was Benji Bahama; Kendall, who'd lived for a time in Hawaii with his military family, was Poco Wiliwili, which made us laugh so hard I literally thought we would choke to death).

I was sure I had it with
stkbrkr
, but no. Clever Kendall didn't pick anything easy. Knowing him it was probably random letters and numbers, and he probably changed it every day. Like anyone cared about hacking into his personal business.

Well, except for me, at the moment.

I even entertained the thought of letting myself into his condo again to erase it before he read it. The only reason I didn't was because I wasn't sure I could sneak in and out quietly enough not to wake him up. Or whoever might be sprawled in bed with him.

That thought carved into my belly like a knife through rotten fruit: Kendall lying in his bed—the bed we'd shared, and might share forever, I had thought—with someone new.

No. I wasn't going down that mental path today. The damage was done, and now I had to face it like an adult and move on.

But first I wrote a quick letter and sent it:

Just a warning that my computer has been hacked or has a virus or something. If you get any emails from me with the subject line “Hey, ass face,” DON'T open it!

Now
I'd start being an adult.

twenty

  

My doorbell rang just past noon. My dad stood on the front porch, his face beaming with pride that brought a rush of tears to my eyes I had to blink back.

“Hey, there's my little radio star!” He held up a bakery bag shiny with oil that had seeped from whatever was inside. “There was a special at the bakery. I can't eat all this...”

While I forced down a few bites of the sticky pastry, he asked to see the leak in my guest bathroom. Once he'd seen the black fur behind the sodden drywall, and the corroded pipes, browned and lacy like a wedding dress stored in a musty basement, he went out to his truck and came back with a full complement of tools and armfuls of PVC pipe.

My first appointment of the day wasn't for a couple of hours, so I spent part of the afternoon helping him scrub and sand and spray bleach.

Mold, my dad told me, could cause everything from irritated eyes to skin rash to serious head and lung congestion. “You go stay with that boyfriend of yours while things clear up here,” he said with a wink.

My stomach dropped at the word, but I couldn't tell my father what had happened. He had enough to worry about on his own. I just agreed with a smile like a rictus as he pushed his shirtsleeves up higher and settled in to remove the ruined pipe.

“Dad, you've done enough,” I protested. “We can finish another day.”

“Go on, sweetheart,” he said, shooing me away. “I wanna go ahead and get this done.”

“But I'm leaving you with such a mess,” I said, staring at the gaping cavity of my wall and the piles of sodden, blackened drywall we'd removed.

Dad reached out and awkwardly patted my shoulder. “Sometimes you can't avoid doing a little more damage before you can start fixing things, doll.”

  

With my dad's insistence that I stay out of my home, I sought asylum with Sasha, but we didn't see much of each other over the next couple of days, between her work and my back-to-back consultations—including two cheating spouses, one floundering long-distance relationship, a porn addict, and one woman who claimed her husband was “emotionally dead inside.”

But on Friday afternoon her car was in her spot when I parked in the apartment's visitor lot, and I found her in her bedroom getting ready for a date, contemplating herself critically in front of the cheval mirror in her bedroom in an outfit that looked tailored to her perfect body. And probably had been. I never knew how Sasha funded her clothing habit.

I lowered myself onto her bed, leaning against her headboard to watch the fashion parade. “So who is it tonight?”

Sasha eyed me in the reflection. “Does it matter? You don't usually care.”

I sat up, stung. “I care. Why would you say that?”

Sasha turned to look at me. “No offense, Brookie. I just mean that you never seem to want to know much about anyone I go out with. Why now?”

I fingered the coverlet, uncomfortable. Sasha made me sound like a rotten friend. “I'm an asshole,” I muttered. “No wonder Kendall left me.”

Sash sighed and came over to sit next to me on the bed. “You're not an asshole, sweetie. Or at least, that's not why that asshole bailed on you.”

“Ha, ha.”

She patted my hand and stood, headed back to her closet. “Chin up, baby. You're going to get through this.” Her voice grew muffled as she rummaged through her clothes.

“So tell me about him,” I called out guiltily.

There was a beat of silence, and then, “No, you're right. Why bother till we know if he's just a sprinter or in for the marathon.”

She stepped out in a little wrap dress that made her waist look twelve inches around before the skirt flared into a flippy little flyaway that ended just above her knees. The watercolor blend of blues and greens and teals made her light aqua eyes practically jump out of her face.

“Whoa,” I said involuntarily.

“Good?”

“Gorgeous.” Her expression cleared like the sun had come out, and I swung my legs over the edge of the bed and went over to where she stood. “You look beautiful, Sash,” I said simply, reaching out to fine-tune the silky fringe of honey-colored hair skimming those amazing eyes. “He won't know what hit him.”

“You think?” But she was over the hump—I could see the confidence come back to her face as she turned to look herself over.

“Mack truck. Have lots of conversation ready, because he'll be lucky to retain the power of speech.” Sasha giggled, and I went back and sat down, perched on the bed with one leg drawn up under me. It reminded me of a hundred other times we'd gotten ready for dates together, and I was suddenly glad for the mold that had forced me to come spend a few days with her.

Sasha trotted into her closet and came out seconds later with two different shoes on—a beaded turquoise kitten-heeled sandal and a metallic gold peep-toe pump. “Which one?”

I pointed. “The pump. Look at your calves.”

Sasha turned so she could see behind her in the mirror. “Oh. Yeah.” She turned back around to face me. “Okay, I'm gone. Wish me luck.”

“He isn't picking you up?”

Sasha looked uncertain. “Well...”

“Good girl!” I blurted in surprise. For years I'd tried to impress on Sasha a list of rules for her many first dates, hoping to force her to slow her pace: no getting into strangers' cars, new men didn't get to know where she lived, and no going anywhere except the designated meeting spot. Finally my admonitions had sunk in.

Sasha grabbed up her purse—a fringed gold clutch that matched her shoes—and then hesitated. “I feel bad leaving you. Are you going to be okay?”

“Of course.”

She chewed her lip. “Yeah, but I know the whole breakup thing is pretty fresh. Listen, why don't I reschedule and we can—”

“Sash,
go
,” I cut her off. “I'll be fine. When you get home we can sit and have ice cream and cookies.”

She frowned into my face for a few moments, as though staring at a topographical map of some particularly rugged terrain she was preparing to traverse. “All right. Don't do anything I would do.”

“
Wouldn't
do.”

She shook her head. “No... I meant it the way I said it. Do I need to take your cell phone with me?”

“Sash, please. Go. Have fun,” I said, waving her out, hoping against hope that she'd take my advice and
not
sleep with this guy on the first date.

  

Sasha didn't make it back by the time I'd created an improvised stir-fry out of the dozens of veggies I found in her fridge. She wasn't home by the time I finished eating, or cleaned up the kitchen, or sat and watched two
Sex and the City
reruns. I knew what that meant.

Same old Sasha. When was she going to grow up?

I was dangerously bored—Sasha may have had a point about not leaving me alone. Solitude gave my mind too much room to race, and my thoughts weren't healthy ones. Trying to distract myself, I browsed the titles on her bookshelves:
Snag that Man!
;
When Love Hurts
;
Turn Adieu into I Do
. I yanked the last one out.

Sometimes when he says, “Goodbye,” what he's really saying is, “I'm scared.” That's when it's up to
you
to hear the hidden fears and pain of the little boy inside him.

Blech
. I snapped the book shut and threw it to the floor. What was Sasha doing with this kind of garbage? No wonder she had so much trouble with relationships.

I checked my cell phone—just to see if I'd somehow missed a text or call from her, I assured myself.

Nothing.

I tossed the phone down on the guest bed and it lay there, staring indifferently up at me with its blank LED eye. I gave it a prod to make it stop. And then another prod. And then some more prods until—miracle of miracles—all that prodding resulted in a text message:
We need to talk.

Goodness, look at that. Like a Ouija board. Well, I couldn't mess with fate. Clearly the universe meant for me to send it, so I thumbed in Kendall's speed dial and hit send so quickly I didn't give myself time to remember I was strong and independent, and didn't want anyone who clearly didn't want me.

And then the phone and I faced off in a staring contest.

Beep or something, damn you.

Nothing.

There was every chance it didn't send correctly, I reasoned, so I sent the same message again and waited for the reply.

And waited.

Sometimes cell towers freaked out. Just to be safe, I hit send again.

Maybe twenty or thirty more times.

Nothing, nothing,
nothing
. I picked up the phone and started hitting the corner of it on Sasha's nightstand—
bam! bam! bam!
—until I heard an ominous crack.

The sound triggered a little sanity in me.

Stop this. Get ahold of yourself. This isn't who you are.

I threw on some flip-flops, snatched up my car keys, and headed out to the Honda.

  

Downtown
is a grand word for the business area of Fort Myers. Originally built as a base of operations for the U.S. military to fight the pesky Seminole Indians who insisted on defending their ancestral lands, it was eventually abandoned and lay fallow for ten years before being settled as a residential community. It was another decade before Thomas Edison, our town's patron saint, discovered the sleepy tropical town of Fort Myers and built his sprawling white riverfront home and laboratory along the Caloosahatchee in 1887 just outside the confines of the downtown area.

I drove past the relentlessly white Edison home on my left, newly restored after damage from hurricanes and termites. Mercurial Florida carries devastating risks you can count on, yet they never seem to deter people from trying to thwart the certain and eventual wrath of nature.

But even Edison's august patronage couldn't turn the riverfront town into a metropolis. Despite grand plans over the years, including a recent face-lift and image makeover that renamed the area “the River District,” a term I'd never heard cross the lips of any native of Lee County, the downtown area could only ever be described as “quaint.”

Bricked streets gridded several blocks' worth of buildings, some of them dating back to the turn of the previous century. Only the old Arcade Theater building still fulfilled its original purpose, housing the Florida Repertory Theater. The rest of downtown's remaining historical buildings had been bastardized into kitschy boutique stores, restaurants, and lawyers' offices.

Though I was grateful to one such of the latter, as what Sasha and I called “the lawyer lot” provided one of the best parking areas in town after hours, a secret held by only a few natives that allowed us to find parking even during the most crowded events downtown. I'd shared the coveted secret of its existence with Kendall, and I knew that if he were prowling around downtown tonight, this was where I would find his car.

But there was no black Mercedes in the lot. I drove up and down the gridded streets, checking the street parking on either side, looking for it. Nothing. There were lots off Bay Street near the Harborside Convention Center, and scattered lots in the banking areas and city hall. But no Kendall there either.

Then I made the same circuit again, crawling so slowly past the entrances to every bar he usually frequented that cars behind me honked in irritated impatience. I shot a hand out my open window, my middle finger stabbing toward the sky.

Where was he?

A car in front of me suddenly peeled out of a street parking spot, and I whisked my car into it.

I sent another message.
Kendall, we need to talk. Where are you?

I sat in the dark, waiting. After a while I turned off my engine and leaned my head back, lifting my phone in front of my eyes every so often to check the screen.

We need to talk!
I punched in angrily. I sent it.

Still no response. This time I called. It went to voicemail after only a few rings, and a haze of red literally filled my vision.
Fuck
leaving a message. I hung up and called again. And again. And again. Finally the line stopped ringing and went straight to voicemail—Kendall had turned the damn thing off again to avoid me—and this time when his recorded message ended and I heard the beep, I screamed unintelligibly into the phone like zombies were tearing my flesh off.

A girl walking by my car on the sidewalk who barely looked legal jumped about a foot into the air before turning to cast me a nervous look and scurrying away.

I shut the phone off and threw it into the foot well, tipping my head forward over the steering wheel and trying to breathe. Minutes dragged by as I listened to the sounds of the downtown bar scene. Music seeped out of several bars on Hendry Street, bleeding together into a cacophonous noise. Bursts of laughter punctuated the drone of chatter from people passing by on the sidewalk.

What on earth was I thinking? Screaming into Kendall's voicemail like a crazy person? I needed to calm down. I was acting irrationally, erratic.

I was acting like Sasha.

That thought was all it took to throw me into action. I needed to get out of downtown—Kendall could be anywhere, and this was
not
how I wanted to run into him. And I needed to steady my fraying nerves. A drink would help take this frazzled edge off—but I'd learned my lesson about cracking open a bottle, so going back to Sasha's wasn't the best idea either.

I'd head up 41 toward her house—far from any of Kendall's usual haunts—and stop somewhere along the way to have a soothing glass of wine. Once I'd unwound from the tight coil my nerves were in, I'd go back to Sasha's and sleep off this terrible, unsettled mood.