This afternoon, I put it to Dr. Wendy: “I have every right to protect my marriage from my best friend!”
Dr. Wendy leaned back in her chair, clasping her hands in her lap. I could see her biceps peeping out of her polo shirt.
“Say more,” she urged.
“Allie would be hurt if she knew this but lately I trust Trisha more than I trust her. I could introduce Trish to anyone in Matt’s circle. Even my nosy sister-in-law.”
While I’ve met Allison’s parents—a trusting gesture on her part—I keep her as far from my husband as possible.
“I can’t trust Allison to keep our story straight. I feel close to her—because of what we’ve been through—but that’s not the same thing as trust.”
Trish is just a girl I work with but there is so much I don’t have to explain to her. Our priorities are the same: preserving a husband’s innocence without losing too many clients.
“Matt and Elspeth are asking me all these questions. They can’t figure Allison out. And I don’t want them to,” I said. “Straight people always want to know how you spend your time. They have no idea how nosy they are! Nobody would ask me what Trish ‘does.’ Trish doesn’t have to explain herself because she’s a mom. I feel safe around her. I hardly know her but I know we belong to the same tribe.”
“And yet, this tribe is a faction of a much larger tribe,” Wendy said.
“Marital Nation,” I suggested.
“Do you and Trish belong to a special branch of the marital tribe? Or do you feel like the married branch of the sex worker tribe?”
“Nobody I work with—except for Allie—calls herself a sex worker,” I said.
Wendy looked thoughtful.
“Is there a preferred term?”
“Oh, it all depends. Allison likes this word Trollop, actually. She’s got a new e-mail sig: ‘Trollop-at-Large!’ She’s putting together a benefit for the…Council of Trollops. And she’s dating this guy who’s making a documentary about hookers! She went and spoke to his class at the New School because he wanted to make sure there would be an actual working prostitute to answer all his students’ questions! And now they’re going out together!”
“What does he teach?”
“Something to do with American Studies. He wants her to be in his documentary—and she hasn’t said no, which worries me sometimes. I don’t dare look at my e-mail when Matt’s around. What if he sees Trollop-at-Large swimming around in my in box? Allie’s turning into a liability.”
But my shrink was looking impressed rather than horrified.
“Your friend sounds rather brave.”
“Brave! Allie’s not—I was hustling in hotel bars when I was fifteen! That was brave!”
“Yes,” Wendy said “Perhaps—”
“But if I continued to do the things I did when I was a teenager, I wouldn’t be brave, I’d be out of my mind!”
“But what do you think Allison was doing? When she was a teenager.”
“I know exactly what. She was a cheerleader! At some high school in Ridgefield, Connecticut! Allison didn’t have to clean her own room until she went to college! I had to clean my room, do the dishes every night, AND rake the leaves. Her mother picked up after her.”
I had to nip my shrink’s budding admiration in the bud ASAP.
“You have different parents and you’ve led different lives,” she said in a more neutral tone. “But you’re very close to her. Or you have been. Is friendship always about sharing the same values and experiences? Sometimes—”
“It’s not about her!” I blurted out. “It’s me! I found out the other day that everybody thinks I’m some kind of overweight paranoid housewife who hates single women!”
“Everybody? How did you find this out?”
“My sister-in-law! She’s—she’s conspiring with my husband—”
Wendy was staring at me intently.
“—to invite Allison to a dinner party. There’s only one way to deflect Elspeth from hunting down Allison. I have to let her think I’m one of these, you know, hardcore wives who just wants to hang with other couples. I know how to keep Matt and Elspeth off the scent—but I hate myself!”
“For betraying Allison?”
“For being the victim of my own frumpy game! I guess I should feel like I’m winning. They have no idea what I’m really hiding. But my sister-in-law thinks I’m a clingy wife, shunning my single friends. And my husband is starting to compare me with his mother! I’m turning into…”
I couldn’t say it.
“What are you afraid you might become? Marriage can play havoc with a woman’s particular sense of her own identity,” said Dr. Wendy. “In your case, there are multiple identity issues—”
“I don’t have multiple personality disorder!”
“I didn’t say that.” Dr. Wendy was gentle but firm. “It’s clear that you’ve chosen your various identities. But what are you trying to say or not say about being a wife?”
“Could I have become, in less than a year of marriage, the total embodiment of everything that causes men to see hookers in the first place? That’s so not fair!”
I was getting shrill and looking around for the box of tissues.
“That’s probably not how I would describe it,” she said. “But that’s how it feels to you. Today.”
“Not just today—all weekend! But if I seem to be that and I’m not really, then I guess I’m doing a good job at being a wife?” I grabbed a few tissues. “In fact, I’d be doing a great job.”
“Because you’re still in control of your identity.”
“But if I’m really becoming what I was pretending…” I was fighting back tears of anger. “I don’t know how to do this—this married thing. And all these questions she was asking—my sister-in-law started pestering me about my French lessons. It was awful. Remember the plan I came up with, to become a translator?”
“Yes. I remember that.”
“It’s a lot more stressful than I thought it would be.”
“Career transitions are emotionally demanding,” said Wendy. “I went through one myself when I decided to be a psychotherapist—after six years of teaching phys ed.”
That explains the biceps! I’ve
