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  “Let me stop you for a second,” Dr. Richards said. “Sam?”

  “He always contradicts me,” Nancy said.

  “You were bullshitting the guy, and he knew it,” Sam said. “There are plenty of times when stuff doesn’t come easily for Gus. Besides, who wants to hear us brag about our kid? I hate that.”

  “In the case of a school interview, it seems acceptable,” Dr. Richards said. “So, Nancy, you were saying that Gus is smart. Sam contradicted you. And then what happened?”

  Sam and Nancy looked at each other, thinking.

  “Well,” Nancy said, “then I tried again to say something about how Gus likes learning.”

  “And I said no kid likes learning,” Sam said.

  “And when Sam said that stupid, gratuitous remark I tried to spin it into something positive, so I made the point that Gus knows to ask for help when he needs it. That’s a good attribute, isn’t it?”

  “Certainly,” said Dr. Richards.

  “I said that we’re always there for him if he needs something.”

  “ ‘As long as we’re around,’ ” Sam added. “You said ‘as long as we’re around.’ That was a jab at me, of course.”

  “I just meant if he needs anything—”

  “You just had to bring up that I travel,” Sam said.

  “And then you went off,” Nancy continued, “talking about how Gus sucked at tying his shoes, like that’s a way to impress an admissions director.”

  “Hold on a sec,” Dr. Richards said, not wanting to miss out on the details that just kept getting better and better. “So, in an interview for sixth grade, you brought up shoe tying as an example of something Gus couldn’t learn to do?”

  “I was reinforcing her point,” Sam explained, “because even though it took him forever, he finally learned how to do it.”

  “Sam kept saying things like, ‘Gus just couldn’t for the life of him figure it out, like, what kind of kid can’t tie his shoes?’ And ‘How many times do you have to show a kid how to do something?’ So I explained to Mr. Bixby that of course I taught Gus how to do it because that’s what mothers do: they show their kids how to do things over and over until they want to scream. And then Sam said, ‘Well, thank God for Velcro or the kid would have spent his first decade barefoot.’ ”

  “What?” Sam asked. “It was funny.”

  “It really wasn’t,” Nancy said. “I tried to laugh it off like he was joking, and I said, ‘Of course Gus did eventually learn how to tie his shoes because I taught him how.’ But then Sam suddenly asked me—totally seriously—right in front of the guy, ‘When was that?’ ”

  “Well, I’m sorry,” Sam said, “I just don’t remember you teaching him anything.”

  “Questioning me, questioning my parenting, right in front of the man, basically accusing me of lying . . .”

  “It’s just that I don’t recall—”

  “Hours I spent,” Nancy said. “Hours and hours when Gus was sitting in that high chair thing. My God, I tied shoes until I thought I’d strangle the boy with his laces.”

  “I’m sorry, but I have no memory of that whatsoever. I guess I’m going senile already.”

  “I guess you are.”

  “Because I don’t ever remember you sitting with him anywhere. That babysitter Olga—”

  “She’s a nanny.”

  “But you?” Sam asked. “Really?”

  “Well, you’re gone all the time, so of course you wouldn’t remember.”

  “Yeah,” Sam said to Dr. Richards, “and she keeps saying that, right in front of Mr. Bilbo, that I’m an ‘absentee’ father.”

  “I was trying to explain away the fact that you were calling me a liar . . .”

  “What made you decide to emphasize Sam’s travel?” Dr. Richards asked her. “Doesn’t that go against the image you were trying to create of a cohesive family unit?”

  Sam began imitating Nancy’s voice: “ ‘He’s never home, ever. Basically, I’m a single parent.’ ”

  “Well, I am,” Nancy said. She turned to Dr. Richards. “He travels constantly. So I just explained to Mr. What’s-his-name the fact of the matter, which is that Sam is sometimes gone for over a month at a time.”

  “I’ve never been gone for a month.”

  “About a month. Two weeks at time. Whatever. And then to defend himself Sam starts talking about how he’s such a devoted father.”

  “I am. I provide. I email home.”

  “Oh, really?” Nancy asked. “Sending an occasional email makes you a devoted parent? And besides, you never email Gus. Ever. That’s just a complete crock of shit.”

  “Which is exactly what she said to the interviewer,” Sam told Dr. Richards. “She turned right to him and said, ‘What a crock of shit.’ ”

  “Is that true, Nancy?” Dr. Richards asked. “Did you say ‘crock of shit’ during the interview?”

  “Yes, I may have felt a need to correct the record. Sam gave me no choice.”

  “Mind you, none of this was even relevant,” Sam said. “Yeah, maybe I travel for work. So sue me. It’s not like you or Gus even care. I mean, when I am around, I never see either one of you. Gus spends all of his time either stuffing his face in the kitchen or reading. He never wants to do normal stuff with me, like play the video games I bought.”

  “Did you say that in the interview?” Dr. Richards asked.

  “Yes!” Nancy said. “He called Gus fat, while simultaneously complaining that he won’t spend time sitting on his ass playing video games all day long. I’m sure that went over really well, so I jumped in, cut him off, and I explained that even if Gus did play video games, which he doesn’t, I would limit the hours. I would be very strict about what kinds of games—and Sam just wouldn’t drop it.” She put on her Sam voice: “ ‘There’s this zone you get into, ya know? When you’re blowing things up, killing people.’ Then he started making explosion sounds and machine gun noises and saying stuff like, ‘Ya know, it’s fricking awesome shooting hookers and cops,’ and I’m jumping in, trying to undo the damage, saying, ‘No! But we would never allow those kinds of games.’ But Sam just kept making it worse: ‘Well, we own a stack of really violent shit, and it’s fun as hell, and I wish Gus would get in there and play with me!’ You think that made a good impression?”

  “Did he actually say ‘shooting hookers’?” Dr. Richards asked.

  “I was explaining,” Sam said, “that Gus doesn’t play violent video games. And now that’s bad? How is that bad?”

  “Ever since you bought that Xbox,” Nancy said, “you’ve been obsessed.”

  “It’s an escape for me, what can I say. It helps me cope with my feeling that I’m utterly alone in my own house.”

  “And what happened next?” Dr. Richards asked.

  Sam scoffed. “She goes into this bullshit perfect mother act.” And he started using a falsetto voice: “ ‘Well, I always remind Gus while Sam is on the couch virtually shooting people—and he listens to me, Gus is such a good listener—that killing people is bad. That’s what I say.’ And all I asked her was, ‘Really? You think he listens?’ And I really wanted to know because I never get the feeling Gus listens to me. I can stand there yelling at the top of my lungs—”

  “Yeah,” Nancy cut in, “that was a great selling point: Sam said Gus must have ADHD since he doesn’t pay attention when he’s being shouted at.”

  “You, meanwhile,” Sam said, “were actually trying to make the point that you’re a good mother for teaching Gus that, in real life, murdering someone in cold blood would not be ‘acceptable behavior.’ And I’m like, ‘Well, let’s hope he knows that.’ ”

  Nancy threw her hands up. “I didn’t mean that he doesn’t know it. All I was trying to do was fix the mess you were making, criticizing your fat, stupid kid.”

  “Gus spends a hell of a lot of time in the kitchen,” Sam said. “That’s all I was saying.”

  “And then—oh, and this was the real gem of the d
ay, Dr. Richards—you know what Sam said? You’ll love this: Sam leans forward, and says to the head of admissions: ‘To be honest, Gus can be a complete pain in my ass.’ ”

  “Really, Sam?” Dr. Richards asked. “Pain in the ass?”

  Sam looked confused. “No. I don’t think I said that exactly.”

  “Yes you did,” Nancy said. “And when I gasped, you turned to me and said, ‘Ah, come on. This man works with kids. He knows what little fuckers they are. Am I right?’ ”

  “It was a joke,” Sam said.

  “It was totally inappropriate. And I was shrieking, ‘Gus is not a little fucker. He’s weird, sure, but when his behavior is challenging for us, as people who have no clue how to relate to him, we make sure he knows he’s from a sound and stable family.’ I was working my ass off to salvage the situation after all the shit you said.”

  “Let me stop you for a minute,” Dr. Richards said. So close to splitting up. They were so close. Time to drive it home. “I’d like to hear the rest. But what I want you to do is, Sam, you be Nancy. And Nancy, you be Sam. Let’s hear exactly how you sounded to each other. Can you do that?”

  Sam stood up and, in a high, whiny voice, did his version of Nancy: “Ooooh, I’m the best mother ever in the whole wide world. I’m with my son every second of every minute of the day. Except for all the hours I’m getting felt up by my hot personal trainer.”

  Nancy followed by getting to her feet to do her best impersonation of Sam, lowering her voice as far as she could manage: “Gus is a shithead, and my family life totally sucks, know what I mean? But I don’t even care because I’m too busy playing with myself and fucking my secretary every single night of the week.”

  Sam balked before he went on again in his falsetto voice: “I slam down my daily calorie allotment in Chardonnay and Xanax, but whether I’m bombed or not, I can’t even pretend to give a fuck about my husband, because I don’t.”

  Nancy dropped character for a second, as if she were ready to quit. But then in a final effort she clenched her fists and made her voice go even deeper: “I go out of town as much as I possibly can just so I don’t have to spend a single minute with my old, boring, unsexy wife who I wish I’d never married.”

  They stopped and glared at each other.

  “Well,” Dr. Richards said, “are we done here or what?”

  “You’re not unsexy,” Sam said quietly. “You’re not old.”

  Nancy looked confused. “Well, you think I am,” she said. “And I guess you found someone younger.”

  Sam shook his head at her. “That’s just not true,” he said. “I’m not fucking anyone. You’re the one who avoids me. I come home from work, and you make me feel like I’m invading your space and irritating you just by breathing. You act like you can’t stand me.”

  “That’s because I know you sleep around, and I know you’d rather be somewhere else with anyone else. You come home from work, grab your ‘gym bag,’ and leave as fast as you can.”

  “I go to the gym at night,” Sam said, “because I thought that if I got into shape, you might look at me and not get that disgusted expression on your face. But you never look at me.”

  “I don’t want to look at you because I know you hate me.”

  He put up his right hand. “I swear to God on my life, on our town house, on my Porsche convertible, on everything I care about, which admittedly isn’t very much: I’m not having an affair. I don’t hate you.”

  Sam’s BlackBerry buzzed in his pocket. He took it out, dropped it on the floor, and stomped on it.

  What the fuck is happening? Dr. Richards looked at this seemingly incompatible pair and saw that splitting up suddenly didn’t seem so imminent after all. Son of a bitch, they’ll probably want to double up on sessions. “Well, then,” she said, taking a breath and inviting them to sit down again. “How many interviews do you have left? Five or six? I suggest we put this one behind us and move ahead. If the two of you teamed up, you could be quite a force. Are you willing to try? To see what you can do together?”

  Dr. Richards watched while Nancy and Sam talked to each other, sitting cautiously side by side, pink-cheeked and turned on, and felt a pang of guilt for having rooted for their failure. She grabbed the notepad next to her and wrote a quick reminder on her to-do list (Make appt w/ Dr. M); even therapists need therapists from time to time.

  Interview: Gus Smith, and parents Sam and Nancy

  Date: January 12

  Interviewed by Henry B. (Kate—conflict of interest)

  This interview was beyond surprising. Gus is a most endearing child; smart, thoughtful, engaging and engaged. I give him two enthusiastic thumbs-up. He has many interests and was able to talk about them with passion and expertise. He reads a wide array of literature, as his nanny, Olga, has been taking him to the public library twice a week since he was four.

  Gus is apparently a very good cook. His housekeeper initially taught him the basics, and since then he and Olga have been trying out recipes from all over the world, and in the process Gus has become somewhat of a master chef, making everything from crêpes suzette to baklava to Peking duck. And what a wonderful raconteur he is. When he described his pursuits in the kitchen, I quite felt like I was right there with him, smelling and tasting all that he created. He has read Julia Child’s autobiography, and he’s working his way through Peter Mayle “just for fun.” Also he has started a club at school that raises money for a community garden.

  Gus is indubitably a stellar student. If his grades aren’t good, I’ll eat my shoes because he struck me as reflective, industrious, and genuine, a child with a true yearning to know.

  I asked him about his artwork, since his parents discussed his abilities at length in their parent statement, but he was baffled. Apparently he did some drawings in an art class a few years ago, but this is not a passion for him and never has been. Instead Gus enjoys reading (especially poetry), collecting pictures from the New York Times (in a scrapbook Olga got him), and playing with his beloved hamsters Gnome and Chompsky.

  He told me the story about the fight he had with the girl at school, and I am willing to put the whole matter to rest. That girl who picked on him must indeed be “dim-witted,” and good for Gus for using his words.

  As for Gus’s parents: I would be remiss if I did not mention that they are absolutely off their rockers. (I won’t even attempt to describe their behavior because no one would believe me.) They are decidedly not hands-on, didn’t even know Gus has hamsters; rather they were confused by his apparent “weird” interest in politics and anarchy. The good side of this is that I doubt the school would hear much from them, unless they’re writing checks, so they can go off to Qatar and Equinox and leave Gus here with us.

  While I am sure that he would be a quirky, delightful addition to our student body, my gut tells me he won’t enroll at Hudson. This boy will likely have many excellent choices that will suit him well, schools like Graylon or Trevor, and my guess is that he’ll want a school that allows for more creativity and individual expression while still challenging him at the high level that his sharp mind demands. If I’m right, it will be our loss.

  In terms of rights and wrongs, given the details of this particular situation and the cast of characters involved, she was perhaps in the wrong. But whatever, she was already sleeping with him, and it’s not like she could make that magically unhappen, and the truth was, she couldn’t wait for it to happen again. Her behavior was possibly reproachable, but she felt entitled to feel what she felt and to do what she wanted to do, and she resented feeling that there were barriers to getting what she wanted.

  So hard to concentrate on work. Designing the image of a new, handcrafted bourbon brand in her present wound-up state wasn’t easy. She was . . . she was . . . What was she? Attracted? Obviously. Smitten? Too childish. Obsessed? Unhealthy, and moreover, it implied some kind of imbalance in affection, and she knew that wasn’t the case.

  Victoria was in love. Yes. That’s what s
he was. In love. She was restless and peppy. Her face flushed out of nowhere, and her mind would wander off, remembering some moment between them, something that he’d said. Sometimes he called her “darling,” and she thought she’d die. Darling! She thought about him all throughout the day and smiled accidentally. And to feel like someone cared about her, thought of her, to feel not lonely for once, it was unimaginably exciting.

  Chloe was apoplectic. How she’d found out about Robert, Vicki had no idea, but a few weeks after the cookie party fiasco, Chloe had called to say she was coming over. Not thinking that it was anything other than a friendly visit, Victoria had quickly wrapped Chloe’s birthday present and tied a card onto it with a ribbon: I’ll be waiting for you at the finish line, girl! Know you can do it! It was a GPS running watch, a little token of encouragement for her friend’s new hobby.

  She handed Chloe the box as she came in, but she could see immediately that something was wrong; Chloe stood there in the doorway, refusing wine or a seat on the couch, refusing even to take off her coat.

  “Please tell me you’re not seeing him,” she said. “Please.”

  “No,” Vicki answered.

  “No? No, you’re not seeing him?”

  “I mean yes. I am seeing him. I’m not ashamed to admit it.”

  Victoria was stunned by her adamant speech, none of which sounded like Chloe at all. Victoria had always counted on her for validation, so “I’m happy for you” seemed like a reasonable sentiment to expect from her. She was the kind of friend who would say “you can’t help how you feel” and “it’s not your fault” and “as long as you meant well” and anything that made you feel better, that let you off the hook, but that day she was different.

  “End it!” Chloe demanded. “You have to stop seeing him right now. You’re violating a code, and you can’t do this to her.”

  “I’m not doing anything to her. I can’t help it if I like him.”

  “Why him? Why does everybody have to fall for my cousin? He isn’t even nice. How can you not see that?”