Silent Partner (17 page)

"Not really," I said.

"Went through the moves but didn't really dig it?"

I was startled. "What makes you say that?"

"Talking about the loop made me realize who she reminded me of: the porn actresses Kruse used to have in his movies. I met them when I worked for him. Those girls all oozed sex appeal, came on as if they could suck blood out of a rock. But you got the feeling it was just a veneer, something that came off with their makeup. Sensuality wasn't integrated in their personalities—they knew how to split their feelings from their behavior."

"Split," I said. "As in borderline?"

"Exactly. But don't get me wrong. I'm not saying Sharon was a borderline, or even that all the actresses were. But she and they all had some of that borderline quality to them. Am I on target at all?"

"Bull's-eye," I said. "She had typical borderline qualities. All these years I never put it together."

"Don't shit on yourself, D. You were sleeping with her— afflicted with severe pussy-blindness. I especially wouldn't expect you to be diagnosing her. But I'm not surprised she made a fuck film."

Borderline personality disorder. If Sharon had deserved that diagnosis, I'd flirted with disaster.

The borderline patient is a therapist's nightmare. During my training years, before I decided to specialize in children, I treated more than my share of them and learned that the hard way.

Page 103

Or, rather, I tried to treat them. Because borderlines never really get better. The best you can do is help them coast, without getting sucked into their pathology. At first glance they look normal, sometimes even supernormal, holding down high-pressure jobs and excelling. But they walk a constant tightrope between madness and sanity, unable to form relationships, incapable of achieving insight, never free from a deep, corroding sense of worth-lessness and rage that spills over, inevitably, into self-destruction.

They're the chronically depressed, the determinedly addictive, the compulsively divorced, living from one emotional disaster to the next. Bed hoppers, stomach pumpers, freeway jumpers, and sad-eyed bench sitters with arms stitched up like footballs and psychic wounds that can never be sutured. Their egos are as fragile as spun sugar, their psyches irretrievably fragmented, like a jigsaw puzzle with crucial pieces missing. They play roles with alacrity, excel at being anyone but themselves, crave intimacy but repel it when they find it. Some of them gravitate toward stage or screen; others do their acting in more subtle ways.

No one knows how or why a borderline becomes a borderline. The Freudians claim it's due to emotional deprivation during the first two years of life; the biochemical engineers blame faulty wiring. Neither school claims to be able to help them much.

Borderlines go from therapist to therapist, hoping to find a magic bullet for the crushing feelings of emptiness. They turn to chemical bullets, gobble tranquilizers and antidepressants, alcohol and cocaine. Embrace gurus and heaven-hucksters, any charismatic creep promising a quick fix of the pain. And they end up taking temporary vacations in psychiatric wards and prison cells, emerge looking good, raising everyone's hopes. Until the next letdown, real or imagined, the next excursion into self-damage.

What they don't do is change.

Ada Small had once talked to me about it—the only time I can remember hearing anger in her voice:

Slay away from them, Alex, if you want to feel competent. They'll make you look stupid every time. You'll work on getting rapport for months, even years, finally think you 've got it and are ready to do some insight work, maybe gel some real change going, and they'll walk out on you in a minute. You'll find yourself wondering what you did wrong, questioning if you went into the right profession. It won't be you—it's them. They can look terrific one moment, be out on the ledge the next.

Out on the ledge.

More than any other psychiatric patient, borderlines could be counted on to attempt suicide.

And to succeed.

"I used to sit around bullshitting with the actresses," Larry was saying. "Got to know some of them a little and began to understand them—their promiscuity, how they did what they did.

From a borderline's point of view, promiscuity can be a halfway decent adaptation, the perfect split—one man for friendship, another for intellectual stimulation, another for sex. Split, split, split, neat and clean. If you can't achieve intimacy, it sure beats being lonely. Splitting's also a
Page 104

great way to cut yourself off from fucking on film and letting guys come all over your face. Just anotherjob. I mean, how else could you do it, then go home and make macaroni and cheese and do the crossword puzzle? The girls admitted it, said when they were on camera it was like watching someone else."

"Dissociation," I said.

"Par excellence."

I thought of all the fragmentation in Sharon's life. The routinized, ultimately passionless way she made love. The refusal to live with me, with anyone. The detachment with which she'd spoken about her dead parents. Going into a helping profession and seducing her patients. Graduating but never getting her license. That horrible night I'd found her with the twin photo.

I'm their only little girl.

The lies.

The loop.

Hooking up with a sleaze like Kruse.

"Did Kruse ever film his students, Larry?"

"You think he made her do the film?"

"It's logical. He was her supervisor. He was into porn."

"I suppose so. Except his weren't loops—they were half-hour features, color, full sound.

Supposed to be

marital aids for couples with sexual dysfunction, pseudo-documentaries with a disclaimer at the beginning and some guy who sounds like Orson Welles doing a voice-over narration while the camera zooms in on insertion. Besides, Kruse used actors and actresses. Pros. I never saw a student in any of his stuff."

"There may have been stuff you didn't see."

"I'm sure there was. But do you have any indication he filmed her?"

"No. Just a gut feeling."

"What do you know about the loop besides the fact that she was in it?"

"Supposed to be a doctor-patient seduction thing. The person who described it to me never saw it himself, and it's since disappeared."

"So basically you're talking thirdhand information— the old telephone game. You know how that kind of thing improves with the telling. Maybe it wasn't even her."

"Maybe."

Page 105

Pause. "Wanna try to find out?"

"How?"

"I might be able to get hold of a copy. Old contacts from the research project."

"1 don't know," I said.

"Yeah," he said. "It would be kind of morbid—forget I mentioned it. Oops, my light just went on. Got a patient in the waiting room. Anything else on your mind?"

I wrestled with my feelings. Curiosity—no, tell it like it is, Delaware: voyeurism—locked in combat with fear of learning yet more repugnant truths.

But I said, "See if you can get hold of the movie."

"You're sure?"

I wasn't, but I heard myself say yes.

"Okay," he said. "I'll get back to you as soon as I know."

Yesterday's conversation with Robin—my irritability, the way things had fizzled—still preyed on my mind. At four I

phoned her. The last person I wanted to talk to answered.

"Yes?"

"It's me, Rosalie."

"She's not here."

"When are you expecting her back?"

"She didn't say."

"All right. Would you please tell her—"

"I'm not telling her anything. Why don't you just quit? She doesn't want to be with you. Isn't that plain to see?"

"It'll be plain when I hear it from her, Rosalie."

"Listen, I know you're supposed to be smart and all that but you're not as smart as you think.

You and her think you're all grown up, got everything figured out, don't need to hear advice from no one. But she's still my kid and I don't like people pushing her around."

"You think I push her around?"

Page 106

"If the shoe fits, mister. Yesterday, after she talked to you, she was all mopey for the rest of the day, the way she used to be when she was a kid and couldn't get her way. Thank God some friends called, so maybe she can finally have a good time. She's a good kid, doesn't need that kind of misery. So why don't you just forget it."

"I'm not about to forget anything. I love her."

"Bullpuckey. Words."

I gritted my teeth. "Just give her the message, Rosalie."

"Do your own dirty work."

Slam.

I sat there, tight with rage, feeling cut off and helpless. Grew angry at Robin for allowing herself to be protected like a child.

Then I cooled and realized Robin had no idea she was being protected, had no reason to expect her mother would protect her. The two of them had never had a close relationship. Daddy had seen to that. Now Rosalie was trying to reassert her maternal rights.

1 felt sorry for Rosalie, but it only partially quelled my anger. And I still wanted to talk to Robin, to work things out. Why the hell was that turning out to be so difficult?

The phone was the wrong way to do it. We needed

time alone, the right setting.

I called two airlines for (light schedules to San Luis. At both of them recorded messages put me on hold. When the doorbell rang, I hung up.

It rang again. I went to the door, looked through the peephole, and saw a familiar face: big and broad and lumpy, almost boyish except for the acne pits that blanketed the cheeks. Coarse black hair, slightly graying, cut unfashionably close around the ears and neck and left long up on top, with a Kennedyesque shock falling across a low, square brow and sideburns that reached to the bottom of fleshy earlobes. A big high-bridged nose, a pair of startling green eyes under shaggy black brows. Pallid skin now lacquered with a hot pink coat of sunburn, the nose, red and peeling. The entire ugly assemblage, scowling.

I opened the door.

"Four days early, Milo? Crave civilization?"

"Fish," he said, ignoring the question and holding out a metal ice chest. He stared at me. "You look terrible."

"Gee, thanks. You look like strawberry yogurt yourself. Stirred from the bottom."

He grimaced. "Itching all over. Here, take it. I have to scratch."

Page 107

He shoved the chest at me. The weight made me step backwards. I carried it into the house and placed it on the kitchen counter. He followed me in and flopped down on' a chair, stretching out long legs and running his hands over his face, as if washing without water.

"So," he said, spreading his arms. "What do you think? Pretty goddamned Abercrombie and itch, huh?"

He had on a red-and-black plaid shirt, baggy khakis, rubber-soled lace-up boots, and a khaki fisherman's vest with about a dozen zippered compartments. Trout lures hung from one of the pockets. A fishing knife in a scabbard dangled from his belt. He'd put on some weight— had to be pushing 230—and the shirt was tight, the buttons straining.

"Stunning," I said.

He growled and loosened the laces on the boots. "Rick," he said. "He forced me to go shopping, insisted we had to outmacho everyone."

"Did you succeed?"

"Oh, yeah. We were so goddamned tough it scared the shit out of the fish. Little suckers jumped right out of the river, landing in our skillets, lemon slices in their mouths."

I laughed.

"Hey," he said, "man still remembers how. What's the matter, guy? Who died?"

Before I could answer he was up and prying open the chest, removing two big trout wrapped in plastic.

"Give me a fry pan, butter, garlic, and onions—no, excuse me, this is an upscale household—shallots. Give me shallots. Got any beer?"

I got a Grolsch from the refrigerator, opened it, and gave it to him.

"Going temperate on me?" he asked, tilting his head back and drinking from the bottle.

"Not right now." I gave him the pan and a knife and went back to rummage in the refrigerator, which was near empty. "Here's the butter. No shallots. No garlic either, just this."

He looked at the wilted half Bermuda onion in my hand. Took it and said, "Tsk, tsk, slipping, Dr. Suave. I'm reporting you to the Foodie Patrol."

He took the onion, sliced it down the middle, and immediately his eyes teared. Moving away and rubbing them, he said, "Better yet, we play hunters and gatherers. Me catch, you cook."

He sat down and worked on the beer. I lifted a trout and inspected it. It had been gutted and cleaned, expertly.

"Nice, huh?" he said. "Pays to take a surgeon along."

"Where is Rick?"

Page 108

"Getting some shut-eye while he can. He's got a twenty-four hour coming up at the E.R., then twenty-four off and back on again for the Saturday night shift— gunshots and malicious foolishness. After that he's started heading over to the Free Clinic, to counsel AIDS patients.

What a guy, huh? AH of a sudden I'm living with Schweitzer."

He was smiling but his voice was heavy with irritation, and I wondered if he and Rick were going through another tough period. I hoped not. I had neither the energy nor the will to deal with it.

"How was the great outdoors?" I asked.

"What can I say? We did the whole boy scout camping bit—my daddy would have been heapum proud. Found a gorgeous place near the river, downstream from white water. Last day we were there a canoe full of executive types came coasting by: bankers, computer jockeys—you know the type. Play it so straight all year 'round, the moment they're away from home they freak and turn into blithering idiots? Anyway, these yahoos come barreling downstream, stinking drunk and louder than a sonic boom, spot us, lower their pants, and flash us the moon."

He gave an evil grin. "If they'd only known who they were shoving their asses at, huh? Panic time at the GOP convention."

I laughed and began frying the onions. Milo went to the refrigerator, got another beer, and came back looking serious.

"Nothing in here," he said. "What's going on?"