Hanging Time

28

Milicia immediately picked up Jason’s altered mood when she arrived five minutes early for her three-fifteen Friday appointment. Unlike the last time she had been there, the two doors separating his waiting room from his office were open. She could see him sitting in his desk chair, writing in a black and white speckled notebook. He was so engrossed in his work, he didn’t look up at the sound of the door.

“Hi, is that me you’re writing about?” she asked coyly, sweeping into his office without waiting for an invitation. She was eager to try again with him, had dressed specially for the occasion, and didn’t want to sit in his waiting room like a patient. She was more than a patient, much more.

“Hello, Milicia.” He looked up. And, wonder of wonders, he smiled, put aside the notebook, and rose to greet her.

He hadn’t smiled at her before. Milicia beamed at her moment of triumph. See, he really did like her, after all. She raised an eyebrow, pleased at her success.

She had been desperately trying to figure him out, had decided to change her style of dress and see what happened. This time she was wearing a well-tailored red, white, and blue print silk jacket with gold braid, gold twisted rope, anchors, lifesavers, and other nautical symbols on it. She thought it signaled Doctor, save my life. Classy. The little blouse underneath was white, and her navy skirt was softly pleated.

After several unsuccessful shopping expeditions both on the East and West sides, she had finally found the suit on sale in a boutique on Lexington Avenue. She thought it might appeal to Jason, and she was right. It seemed that Jason liked the classy look.

“How are you?” she asked as he stood, waiting for her to sit down.

“I’m fine.” He smiled again. It made him altogether a different person. Nicer, more attractive. Finally, accessible.

She was encouraged. She’d been afraid she was losing her touch. Until this minute Jason seriously irritated her. She was beginning to think he was a waste of time. She’d met him three times now, and throughout their encounters his face had been as closed and guarded as any she’d ever seen. He was like a poker player, cards always close to his vest. Or one of those mass murderers you read about in the newspapers—real flat, an ocean so dense, not even the shallows close to the shore could be penetrated by the naked eye. What was it with him?

Milicia didn’t like getting things wrong. She needed to be liked, approved of, desired. So far her failure rate with men had been very low. What was it with Jason? She’d wondered, as she shopped for the perfect suit to wear on her second office visit, if his opacity was a side effect of his profession. She had no way of knowing. Charles was the only other psychiatrist she knew. Charles was an open book. She knew by the way Charles’s eyes traveled over her body exactly what he was thinking. For Charles, as with other men, beauty and sex were the way in. She was pretty sure she could get him with the crook of a finger.

With Jason, though, something was wrong. His eyes never flickered with the lustful interest that always put her in control. She couldn’t figure it out. It wasn’t exactly that he wasn’t engaged by what she had to say. She could see that he was listening, asking questions, thinking. But he was impersonal about it. He seemed to be looking, not at her, but beyond her all the time. It made her uneasy. She had the uncomfortable feeling that he might be gay. If he was gay, he’d be useless. He might not care, wouldn’t do what was required.

And what was required now was to get the situation with Camille under control. This horrible boutique thing put the Camille problem in a different league. A crime had been committed. A person was dead. It had been in the paper and on the TV news. For the first time Milicia was scared, really scared. The police were involved. Even if the police didn’t figure what happened, it wouldn’t be all right. Camille was a time bomb that was going to go off in a bunch of different ways over and over. And with Bouck to cover for her, there was no telling how far she could go.

Milicia needed a person with authority to take over and do what had to be done. She’d been confident when she met Jason that he was that person. He was smart. He’d put the pieces she gave him together, because that was the only way. She couldn’t just come out and tell him her sister had crossed the line and murdered somebody just to hurt her. She couldn’t say that. She didn’t know him well enough, couldn’t be sure he was trustworthy. It all sounded too sick and crazy, even to her, who knew the truth about what happened long ago. Jason had to come to the right conclusions himself. And if he couldn’t do it, she’d just have to find someone else. On the way to his office she’d decided this was his very last chance to drop his reserve and help her.

Now she felt vindicated. She stood there for a moment, basking in the feeling of happiness that he projected at seeing her. Then she sat in the chair and adjusted her skirt primly to cover her knees.

His expression changed slightly. He liked prim, reserved. She got it now, had his number.

“I was so happy to see you on the street the other day,” she said softly, thinking that next time she would wear paler lipstick and tie her hair back. She looked down, suddenly shy. “Some people have that effect. They just make other people feel good.”

Jason returned to his chair, the smile fading just a little as if the shift in her manner set him thinking.

Quickly she adjusted. “You seemed very busy, but just seeing you for a minute eased my distress.…”

“Oh?”

“Yes, I really have the feeling that you’re very strong. You understand the system. You can help me.”

Now his smile was gone and the penetrating examination was back. Milicia looked away from the gaze that had made her uncomfortable before. She needed help. Why was he holding out?

A tear gathered in the corner of her eye. She had thought so much about this in the two miserable years since her father did the ultimate irresponsible thing—crashed the car, killed both himself and his wife in a fiery wreck—left her with a maniac she couldn’t control who was determined to ruin her life. Now there was someone who could help her, and he seemed to be holding out on her. Why? She shook her head.

Jason saw the tear. “So what’s going on?” he asked gently.

She waited for a minute, still filled with the hot rage she had felt each time her parents rushed to Camille’s aid at every breakdown. Camille crashed herself over and over, with all engines burning. And each time her parents had dealt with it through a boozy haze, pretending each incident was only a phase Camille had to pass through on the way to settling down and finally being good.

But she isn’t good. She’s a bad seed, like a mean dog that couldn’t be tamed no matter what. Still, all Camille’s life they had patted her on the back and hid her away at home in Connecticut for months at a time until she calmed down. While she, Milicia, was ignored.

Oh, yes, the pretense that Camille was not crazy had always maddened Milicia. Just as it hurt and enraged her when they pushed her, the good daughter, away just because she was strong. Milicia was the one who had to go out and conquer the world on her own. Milicia was the one they kept at bay, fading out like used up lightbulbs whenever she craved love and tenderness.

Milicia’s tears brimmed over, and she caught them in a tissue, gathering them tightly in her fist. It still burned her up that they never cared about the things Camille did. How Camille took over the dog given to both the girls for Christmas and made such a fuss about not sharing it that her parents took the puppy back to the store and punished them both. How Camille stepped on a baby bird that had fallen out of its nest, and threw the rabbit against the wall. Camille was insane, and they hadn’t cared. They just hadn’t cared.

And then lawyers told Milicia it was her responsibility to protect Camille and defend her, to manage the money so Camille would be secure in a dangerous world. That was how her parents had set it up. Even from the grave they were against her. Milicia had to bear the humiliation of Camille’s eccentricities, her promiscuity with off-the-wall lunatics like Nathan Bouck, men who had enough money to dazzle her and to prevent Camille from getting the help she needed in a therapeutic hospital environment. Now maybe even get away with murder. It wasn’t fair.

And Jason Frank didn’t care either. How could so many people not care about dealing with the insane? Milicia turned her head, would not look at him again.

Jason knew all about clothes, the things they projected and said about a person. He noted the jaunty pleated skirt, less aggressively sexual, demurely covering Milicia’s knees. He could see that she was correcting all the time. Now she was correcting her mistake in asking him to have dinner with her two days before. She wanted him to feel special even though he had rejected her. Underneath her supreme confidence he felt her urgency and desperation. With Milicia, Jason always had the feeling they were on a boat ride and she was at the helm. But where was she leading? And now the tears. He waited for her to speak.

Before she had come into his office, Jason had been euphoric, jotting down the flight times of his trip to California, making notes of the things he had to do. He had lost his feeling of exhaustion even though he had been in Baltimore for a morning seminar the day before, and had three patients late into the evening. His talk had gone very well in spite of the fact that his preparation had not been quite as thorough as usual. His mind was on Emma. Emma needed him. He couldn’t stop hope from lifting the corners of his mouth. Emma needed him.

On Wednesday she had called for his advice about the laser treatment she was thinking about trying to get rid of the tattoo on her stomach. She said it was his thoughts as a doctor she wanted, but he sensed a lot more in the call. He offered to check it out, then after a pause offered to come out to be with her. For the first time since she had left him in May, she said she wanted to see him.

Jason watched Milicia squeeze in her fist the tissue containing her tears. “I feel so confused about all this. You give me the feeling that there’s nothing we can do if a person is crazy, self-destructive, dangerous.” She sniffed. “Is it true family members can’t do anything about it, can’t intervene and put them away where they can’t hurt anybody. Is that why this society is such a mess?”

She didn’t wait for an answer. “I thought you were a doctor. You could help in situations like this. I’m all alone. I have no one to help me.”

Jason shook his head. “You’re not alone. I’m here with you. Tell me more about Camille.”

“I want to know about the laws. Aren’t there laws to protect people from the insane?”

“Let’s just go back. Tell me what’s happening with her.”

“Well, I saw her. Her dress was unbuttoned. She was wearing stockings and garters—” Milicia’s face twisted with disgust. “That man was lurking around upstairs. I knew they were into something. She’d taken some kind of pill, or maybe she was drunk. I told you she’ll do anything. And the furniture in the room was all jumbled together. You couldn’t even get in. I knocked on the door for twenty minutes before she let me in. I think she was standing there right at the door.” She paused, her face contorted, then continued.

“I told her about you. I said there was someone who could help her, and she got furious, told me to get lost. Started throwing things. I had to leave. And then the next day I saw her in a boutique. I saw her in the window. She was being abusive to the salesgirl. She does that all the time. Waiters, salesgirls. I saw her in the window.” Now Milicia’s face was white, as if bleached by distress because he wasn’t getting it. He wasn’t understanding the story.

“Isn’t that terrible? She just has this uncontrollable temper. She’s done other things, too. I’m telling you, she’s crazy.” She gave him a hard look. “I’m telling you she can kill. Maybe she already has killed somebody.”

Jason’s face didn’t change. He understood that Milicia felt her sister was killing her. He kept waiting for a description of seriously crazy and dangerous, and Milicia simply wasn’t giving him one. He tried again, asking one way and then another. How was Camille crazy? Did she see things that weren’t there, hear things? How about her speech patterns? Could she organize her thoughts? No matter what he asked, Milicia stayed on her own track, painting an abstract picture with no shape or form that made psychiatric sense.

“Should we call the police? What do you think?” she said finally, her urgency cracking her voice.

The corners of Jason’s mouth twitched into a smile at this suggestion. He thought of April Woo, his friend in the police, and what April would do with a case like this. He shook his head. April was a professional, like him. He would never get her involved in a psychiatric case unless there was a very, very good reason.

“Your sister sounds like she has a short fuse, and she may well have a lot of other problems. But I haven’t heard anything about her behavior that would justify—”

“But she’s already out of control,” Milicia interrupted, almost out of control herself, “and then she takes drugs. And then, then she’s capable of doing anything. Why won’t you believe me? You don’t know her as well as I do.”

“Well, of course you know her better, and I can see how upsetting it is for you, but if she doesn’t want to see anyone, there’s nothing more I can do at this point.”

Milicia took a deep breath, her eyes darting around the room, looking for help. Searching for the way in. “There’s more,” she said.

Jason nodded. Of course there was more. There was Milicia. “Why don’t you tell me a little more about the underlying issues?”

Milicia opened her eyes wide, truly surprised. “What issues?”

“That’s what I was wondering about.” He glanced at the clock. “We have only a few minutes.”

“Oh, God.” Another tear formed in Milicia’s eye. “I don’t know if I can tell this kind of thing in a few minutes.…”

“This is the problem with my profession,” Jason said gently. “I have to go by clock time. People don’t live by clock time.”

“I need to see you again. Can I come on Monday?” Milicia leaned forward for a tiny instant, as if to show her cleavage, then sat back.

Jason shook his head. Monday was Labor Day. He’d still be in California. “Next week is bad for me. How about the week after?”

“What? You don’t have an hour in the whole week for me?” She looked appalled at the insult, crushed. How could this be?

“I’ll be out of town.” He opened his book. “I can see you Tuesday of the following week. Three o’clock.”

Her face crumpled, then reddened with fury. “I hope for your sake it won’t be too late.”

She rose in a single motion and strode out of the office, her new skirt swinging back and forth across the tops of her knees. Jason didn’t want the session to end this way, but she gave him no other option. He had been trained not to apologize or explain, especially with manipulative and controlling people who had problems accepting limits. He knew Milicia was deeply angry at him, but there was nothing appropriate he could do about it. His patients were either in love with him or in hate with him all the time. It was an occupational hazard. Their love and their fury had mostly to do with them. He was never the principal actor, only the stand-in for others who weren’t there.

He heard the door slam, and took a moment to write up his notes on the session. His diagnosis of the situation and the subject was still deferred.