False Memory

The only psychological malady that could have destroyed Susan’s career as a real-estate agent more effectively than agoraphobia was uncontrollable pyromania. She had felt reasonably safe inside any property while showing it to a client, but such paralyzing terror had overcome her while she was traveling between houses that she hadn’t been able to drive.

“I have the rent,” Susan said, referring to the monthly check from the parakeet-infatuated retirees downstairs.

“Which doesn’t quite cover the mortgage, taxes, utilities, and maintenance on the property.”

“I have a lot of equity in the house.”

Which might eventually be the only thing between you and total destitution, if you don’t beat this damn phobia, Martie thought, but she could not bring herself to speak those words, even if that dire prospect might motivate Susan to get out of the armchair.

Raising her delicate chin in an unconvincing expression of brave defiance, Susan said, “Besides, Eric sends me a check.”

“Not much. Hardly more than pocket change. And if the swine divorces you, maybe there won’t be anything more at all from him, considering you came into this marriage with more assets than he did, and there aren’t any kids.”

“Eric’s not a swine.”

“Pardon me for not being blunt enough. He’s a pig.”

“Be nice, Martie.”

“I gotta be me. He’s a skunk.”

Susan was determined to avoid self-pity and tears, which was highly admirable, but she was equally determined not to admit to her anger, which was less so. “He just was so upset seeing me… this way. He couldn’t take it anymore.”

“Oh, the poor sensitive darling,” Martie said. “And I guess he was just too distressed to remember the part of the marriage vows that goes ‘in sickness and in health.’”

Martie’s anger at Eric was genuine, although she made an effort to stoke it like a fire and keep it ever alive. He had always been quiet, self-effacing, and sweet — and in spite of his abandonment of his wife, he remained hard to hate. Martie loved Susan too much not to despise Eric, however, and she believed that Susan needed anger to motivate her in her struggle against agoraphobia.

“Eric would be here if I had cancer or something,” Susan said. “I’m not just sick, Martie. I’m crazy, is what I am.”

“You aren’t crazy,” Martie insisted. “Phobias and anxiety attacks aren’t the same as madness.”

“I feel mad. I feel stark raving.”

“He didn’t last four months after this started. He’s a swine, a skunk, a weasel, and worse.”

This grim part of each visit — which Martie thought of as the extraction phase — was stressful for Susan, but it was downright grueling for Martie. To get her resistant friend out of the house, she had to be firm and relentless; and although this was a firmness informed by much love and compassion, she felt as though she were hectoring Susan. It wasn’t within Martie’s character to be a bully, even in a good cause, and by the end of this brutal four- or five-hour ordeal, she would return home to Corona Del Mar in a state of physical and emotional exhaustion.

“Sooz, you’re beautiful, kind, special, and smart enough to whip this thing.” Martie shook the raincoat. “Now get your ass out of that chair.”

“Why can’t Dr. Ahriman come to me for these sessions?”

“Leaving this house twice a week is part of the therapy. You know the theory — immersion in the very thing you’re frightened of. A sort of inoculation.”

“It isn’t working.”

“Come on.”

“I’m getting worse.”

“Up, up.”

“It’s so cruel,” Susan protested. Letting go of the arms of the chair, she fisted her hands on her thighs. “So damn cruel.”

“Whiner.”

She glared at Martie. “Sometimes you can be such a mean bitch.”

“Yeah, that’s me. If Joan Crawford were alive, I’d challenge her to a wire coat-hanger fight, and I’d lacerate

her.”

Laughing, then shaking her head, Susan rose from the armchair. “I can’t believe I said that. I’m sorry, Martie. I don’t know what I’d do without you.”

Holding the raincoat as Susan slipped her arms into it, Martie said, “You be good, girlfriend, and on the way back from the doctor, we’ll get some great Chinese takeout. We’ll open a couple bottles of Tsingtao, and we’ll play some killer two-hand pinochle over lunch, fifty cents a point.”

“You already owe me over six hundred thousand bucks.”

“So break my legs. Gambling debts aren’t legally collectible.”

After Susan switched off all but one of the lamps, she retrieved her purse from the coffee table and led Martie through the apartment.

As she was crossing the kitchen behind Susan, Martie found her attention drawn to a wicked-looking item that lay on a cutting board near the sink. It was a mezzaluna knife, a classic Italian kitchen tool: The curved stainless-steel blade was shaped like a half-moon, with a handle at each end, so it could be rocked rapidly back and forth to dice and slice.

Like an electric current, scintillant light seemed to sizzle along the cutting edge.