He sat on the sofa in Frank Jansen’s waiting room, his thigh pressing against Estelle’s. She was nervous. He felt an occasional quiver run through her leg. She was reading a magazine, or just pretending to read it; he hadn’t seen her turn a page for several minutes.
She’d pleaded with him to come with her and he’d finally agreed. “Just the first time,” he said. “Unless he thinks I should continue to come, too.” He was willing to do anything Frank Jansen suggested. All his hope was focused on the man behind that big oak door.
He slid his hand into hers now, weaving his warm fingers between her cool ones. She didn’t look at him, didn’t lift her eyes from the magazine.
Frank called them into his office and motioned them into soft upholstered chairs, set close together. The walls of the room were covered by books and woolly wall hangings that matched the man himself, with his gray mop of hair and full beard. Janni had said he was an overgrown hippie. She told them he knew about the living arrangements at the Chapel House. They wouldn’t have to waste time trying to make him understand.
“Tell me why you’re here,” he asked.
“He made me come,” Estelle said.
Frank raised his eyebrows. “Just from looking at you I wouldn’t guess you’re that easily coerced.”
“He told me that if I refused to start therapy he would end our relationship.”
“I see. The relationship’s important to you, then.”
“It’s everything to me.” Her voice was a whisper. Cole felt cruel.
Frank turned to him. “Why would you make your relationship with Estelle contingent on her being in therapy?”
Cole cleared his throat. “I don’t think she’s content with herself.”
“That’s not it,” Estelle said. “I’m not the one doing the complaining. You’re the one who’s not content.”
Frank looked at Cole, obviously waiting for him to speak.
“I’m the one doing the complaining because she’s costing me my friends. She’s been . . . verbally abusive to them. She . . .” His mind went blank. “I don’t know,” he said, feeling foolish.
Estelle smiled, crossing one long leg over the other. “A pretty weak argument for forcing me into therapy, wouldn’t you say?”
“Do you two fight much?”
Cole said yes at the same time that Estelle answered no.
Frank smiled. “I see,” he said.
Cole turned to her. “How can you say that we don’t fight?”
“We make love far more than we fight,” she said to Frank. “One outweighs the other.”
This was going nowhere. “Look.” Cole sat forward in his chair. “She nearly got fired because she can’t get along with the other women at work. She’s so possessive of me that I can’t breathe. She’s critical of everyone I care about.”
“Why are you with her then?”
“I love her.”
“You don’t make her sound very lovable.”
He hesitated, looked at her. “She used to be. She still is, sometimes. When we’re together. Alone. She’s different then.”
Frank turned to Estelle. “Cole’s painted a picture of an unhappy, insecure woman, Estelle. Does that fit?”
“He’s the reason I’m unhappy. He won’t live with me. He makes it sound as though I’m the sick one in this relationship. But what do you think of a grown man who’s afraid to leave home?”
“Who’s in the Chapel House now?” Frank asked.
Cole started to answer but Frank asked Estelle to tell him.
“Janni and Jay. Janni owns the place. You know that, I guess.” She went on to describe Jay as unobtrusive, Janni as pushy and interfering. “She hates it when I’m there,” she said. “I can feel the icicles when I walk in the door.”
“Who else is in the house?”
“Maris Lavender. She’s this miserable, funereal black woman who thinks the world owes her an apology for screwing up her life.”
“It does,” said Cole. He looked at Frank. “Her husband was killed in a car accident two years ago. Her mother died of leukemia when Maris was fourteen, and a year later her two brothers died in a fire in their house.”
“Wow,” Frank said.
Estelle looked annoyed. “She probably struck the match.”
“Estelle.” Cole looked at Frank. See what I mean? he said with his eyes.
“And then we have Kit.” Estelle turned in her chair to look at Cole, and he was afraid of what she might say. “Kit is out to snare Cole. She’s sneaky and subtle. She has this goody-two-shoes demeanor, innocent as a lamb, but what she’s really after is getting him into bed with her.”
He felt relieved. She thought it was Kit who wanted him. She didn’t know she had it backward.
“Assuming Kit is out to get Cole, as you say, do you think she could succeed?”
Estelle shrugged. “He’s only human. The flesh is weak.” She looked at Cole as if she were examining his weak flesh. “I don’t understand why he’d be attracted, really. She’s a runner, and she has that look . . . you know, like a malnourished greyhound. But Cole is enormously attracted to women. All women. That’s why he became an obstetrician. To legitimize his obsession.”
Cole had to laugh. “You don’t really believe that, do you?”
Frank held up a hand to silence him. Estelle was on a roll, and he seemed to want her to continue. “Who else?”
“In the house, you mean? No one. But we haven’t talked about Virginia.”
“Virginia?”
“Cole’s mother. She thinks I’m the devil incarnate. She would do anything to break us up. She had a mastectomy two weeks ago and she clings to Cole as though he’s her husband. He’s with her nearly all the time that he’s not working, and I never get to see him.”
“Are you saying that Cole’s mother had a mastectomy in an attempt to break you two up?”
Estelle looked suspicious. “Of course not. But she probably would think it had been worth it if it did.”
“Estelle, please don’t talk that way.”
“You want me to tell it all, don’t you, Cole? Let out every insane thought in my head?”
He looked at her, not certain what to say.
“Do you think you’re insane, Estelle?” Frank asked.
Cole expected her to say no, but she hesitated. “Everybody wonders if they’re insane at one time or another,” she said, her dark blue eyes serious.
“Yes, many people do,” Frank said thoughtfully, tapping his fingers on his chin. He leaned forward in his chair. “Tell me why you nearly got fired,” he said.
She recounted the incident enthusiastically, and Cole watched the lines deepen on Frank’s forehead as she spoke. He wished he could change the subject or walk out the door. What had he expected? That Frank would have to pull every word out of her? She was exposing so much to him. He hated hearing her sound so transparently crazy. He wouldn’t come with her again.