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The first day on the assignment as secretary for Dr. Harman, she had been teeming with curiosity. She read the notes left by the regular secretary instructing her to page Dr. Harman when a patient was brought up from the unit to get shocked. On Wednesday of that first week, a patient was brought into her office, a young woman--Crystal LaFarge. She was as tall as Jennifer and about the same age, with short blonde hair and angry eyes. Jennifer paged Dr. Harman and when he arrived he went into the treatment room adjacent, and Crystal was brought in. There was silence for a few minutes and then came a scream, guttural and arresting. On impulse Jennifer got up and went to the hall, where she saw Crystal coming out of the shock treatment room, being held on each arm by the nurse and orderly who had brought her up. She did not struggle against them, but stopped in her tracks. For a moment it appeared she was going to acquiesce, since she turned back to Dr. Harman, who stood at the threshold of the treatment room. She pulled one arm from the orderly and pointed at the doctor. "You think I'm going to let you fry my brain, Harry Man?" The orderly took a firmer grasp of her upper arm and began pulling her down the hallway. "The day you lay down on that table, Harry Man, the day you let somebody run 220 volts of electricity through your brain, that is the day, Harry Man, that I will follow!"
Dr. Harman retreated into the office. "So absurd," he said. "She agreed yesterday, in a meeting with her--" he cleared his throat, "--parents." He closed the door then, and she did not see him for about half an hour, when he came out and handed her Crystal's chart.
"And where do you hail from?" he asked her, his serious expression softened a touch. "Are you a student at the university?"
"My husband is," Jennifer said. "I'm a freelance writer. I'm just temping for the income."
"Oh, a writer," he said. "That's ambitious."
Later that day Jennifer opened the shock therapy room and peeked inside. She studied the padded examining table and the device that looked like headphones, with the electrical wires attached to it. When Dr. Harman came in to get his phone messages she said, "So, you run electricity through their whole body? Doesn't that hurt?" He glanced up from his messages with guarded eyes. "No it doesn't hurt," he said. "The patient is anesthetized." He enunciated the word carefully. "Shock therapy is quite a misunderstood treatment. It can be life-saving, you know."
When Jennifer paged Dr. Harman for the next patient, she thought about how this might be a good treatment, a painless way to wipe the brain slate clean. But that evening she began researching for her article idea. She read a book by one neurologist who compared the brain damage from shock therapy to the loss of brain function that boxers exhibit over time.
Witnessing shock therapy on a daily basis made the job a little scarier, a little harder to take. But she had had a series of other temping jobs before this one (the toilet paper company, the accounting firm, the abandoned warehouse where she made Christmas baskets in an assembly line)--and being a float at Alice Pemberton was an improvement over these. The place itself was fascinating, set far away from the road with its quiet, manicured grounds and Victorian architecture. Even the office she was working in now afforded her privacy and a tall window with a view of the hospital courtyard.
She had spent a comfortable first two weeks filling in for the hospital librarian, sitting in the quiet library on the fourth floor. There were photo albums of the hospital that dated back to the first days of the century, where patients, mostly women, sat in groups basket-weaving, or in wooden lounge chairs on the verandah. There was one picture of the room where "hydrotherapy" was administered, which consisted of being wrapped tightly in cold wet towels and left for hours. In a newspaper clipping from 1934 beside one picture, it said, "Dr. Bennett frequently prescribes hydrotherapy along with a healthy dose of exercise and fresh air. The procedure is said to be quite calming for the mentally deranged."
A portrait of Alice Pemberton hung in the library in a large gilded frame, a girl with brown hair and blue eyes, smiling and looking straight ahead with assurance, her hands carefully posed in her lap. A brochure about the hospital described Alice as a girl who led a happy childhood, loved horseback riding and ballet dancing, but who began "suffering from a mental disorder" in her teens. Because there were no hospitals for "girls like her," she was sent to live in a sanitarium in the Austrian Alps. She returned home and briefly attended an art school in Rhode Island, but died (the pamphlet did not say how) at the age of 23, at which time her father, a nationally-known architect, endowed the building of the hospital, the "first of its kind in New England, for the studying and curing of mental disease."
During her stint in the library, Jennifer studied the portrait and thought about Alice for hours. What was wrong with her? Why had she died at such a young age? Was it suicide? Was she depressed? Schizophrenic? Bipolar? Did those diagnoses even exist back then? She could find no other references to Alice Pemberton in books or journals or photo albums in the library, and so despite having an institution named after her, Alice Pemberton remained an enigma.
But this all had nothing to do with the hospital now, it seemed. And nothing to do with Jennifer's current post--filling in for the secretary of Psychiatric Care Group Four. Rumor at the secretaries' lunch table was that each doctor used to have his or her own secretary, but in recent years, due to managed care, doctors were doubled and tripled up on one secretary. Besides Dr. Harman there were two other doctors she was working for: Dr. Elizabeth Peck, an enormously pregnant woman and also the head of the new Women's Unit, and Dr. Flanagan, a friendly old Irishman who everyone in the hospital knew was dying of cancer.
###
Her morning began quietly, and for this Jennifer tried to be grateful. It was a silly self-help exercise, listing the things for which you are grateful, but at the moment it was all she had. A quiet office with a window, she wrote, and then, Coffee with friends. But writing this made her throat ache, recalling the night before.
They had planned to meet at a coffee shop near school, she and Jake, and then go to a movie. She had gotten there before him and so sat at a table by herself, looking through the local freebie paper. After reading for a moment she overheard familiar voices, two women who were classmates of Jake's, in the same program at the University, sitting at the table right next to hers. She had met them at a party at the beginning of the year and again at Christmas. They were talking to each other and did not seem to notice her. Finally she leaned over to their table, "Hi, it's Jennifer," she said. They looked at her with no trace of recognition. "Jake's wife," she added. "Oh, right," one said. There were awkward pleasantries, but she was offended and told Jake about it before the movie. "You take every little thing as a personal insult," he had said, and she knew he was right, but still it hurt.
Seems like years since something positive has happened, she wrote. But maybe Jake is right. I'm moping. What did he call it? My "mordant solipsism." One of the perks of being married to an academic: such lofty ways to describe feeling like shit.
She closed her journal and slid it into her book bag beneath the desk, since it was almost eight, when Dr. Flanagan usually arrived, and she didn't want to be seen writing in her journal. She had heard the patients on the Women's Unit ridiculed by Dr. Harman for walking around the hospital with a teddy bear in one arm and their writing journal in the other.
When Dr. Flanagan arrived, he was carrying a small pot of red tulips. He slowly approached her desk, wearing his trademark blue bolo tie. "For you," he said, holding out the tulips.
"For me?"
"I didn't want you to feel left out," he said, smiling cleverly.
Jennifer looked at the flowers, then back at the doctor, confused.
"It's secretary's day," he said.
"Oh," she said. She felt her face blush. "Thank you."
"Yes, well I can't take much of the credit. Every year my wife buys tulips for the gardener to put in and saves one for Ann, the usual--" he stopped short of saying "secretary" and grinned at Jennifer, who grinned back. She felt keenly aware of her own warmth and of an unfamiliar decompressing sensation in her chest. As they grinned at each other Dr. Peck came in, her huge midriff pressing against the front of her beige maternity dress. Jennifer was surprised to see her, since the day before she had declared herself "pregnant to the gills" and unable to see patients any longer. "It's end of pregnancy mania," she said. "If I see any more patients I'll become homicidal."
"Hullo Liz," said Dr. Flanagan, turning to regard Dr. Peck. Jennifer noticed how hunched over and shrunken he appeared in profile. "How's tricks?"
"Fine, if this baby will ever make up his mind and be born." She made a growling noise, a playful sound. "I'm telling you, Irvin, I was sure this boy was coming last night, the contractions started getting closer and closer, and then about 10 p.m., it was like he just said, nah, not tonight, and the whole thing ended. It was all a big fake."
"Ah yes, false labor," said Dr. Flanagan.
"Yes," she answered.
Dr. Harman came in then, and nodded politely to Dr. Flanagan and Dr. Peck. The three of them stood around Jennifer's desk, and Dr. Flanagan helpfully handed the mail over to the other two. They each in turn took their messages from the carousel message-holder on Jennifer's desk.
"Who gave you the flowers?" asked Dr. Peck.
"Dr. Flanagan," said Jennifer.
Both Dr. Peck and Dr. Harman made comments on how kind this was, what a thoughtful gesture. They all seemed to grow more comfortable, as if Dr. Flanagan's good nature had inspired them.
Dr. Flanagan said, "So you know for sure it's a boy then."
"Yes, we had an ultrasound so I could start looking for names. He's going to be called Shelby. My husband hates the name, but I told him, look, you're not the one laboring your brains out."
Dr. Peck was smiling, as were the other two, although their smiles now seemed unnatural. "He can't have any say in the name?" asked Dr. Harman.
"No, none at all!" said Dr. Peck, and then she laughed in a hearty way that shook her protruding belly.
Jennifer did not at first hear her phone ring. Then it rang again, and she picked up. "Psychiatric Care Group Four."
"Yes, I want to talk to Dr. Peck," said a voice. "This is Walter Mason."
"One moment please," said Jennifer. She put the call on hold. "It's for you, Dr. Peck. Walter Mason."
All three doctors looked down at her from their merry conversation. Dr. Peck seemed to go white. Jennifer held eyes with her, noticing how bloodshot Dr. Peck's were. "I can't talk to him," she said. "I had a terrible run-in with him yesterday. He's trying to have his wife removed from the hospital." She held her forehead, as if trying to formulate her thoughts. "No, there's no point in talking to him. Tell him to call social work."
"To call social work?" asked Jennifer.
Then, with impatience, "Yes, just tell him to call social work. He has a family therapist he can talk to."
Suddenly Dr. Harman cleared his throat. "One moment," he said. "I wouldn't do that, Liz. Pass along a call like that to the social worker."
Dr. Peck shot him a defensive glare. "I don't do this usually, Martin. But this man is really scary. He's threatened her life, my patient, many times."
Jennifer watched the severe exchange of glances between Dr. Harman and Dr. Peck, waiting for another directive.
"Just transfer him to social work," said Dr. Peck.
Jennifer clicked on the line. "Mr. Mason. I'm going to transfer you to social work."
"I don't want to talk to social work," he said. "Who is this? Who am I talking to?"
Prickling with dread, Jennifer said her name.
"Jennifer, you give Peck a message, see if this will get her attention. I'll stay on the line. You tell her I've got a lawyer who knows all about what she's doing, implanting false memories in my wife. You tell her if she doesn't talk to me, I'm going to have my lawyer call her today."
Dr. Peck had come around to Jennifer's side of the desk and bent close to the receiver. She pointed to the hold button on the phone. "Hold on," Jennifer said.
"That's ridiculous," said Dr. Peck. "He thinks he's going to scare me with the threat of a lawsuit? I don't think so."
Dr. Harman moved toward the door but then back, as if wanting to leave but not able to. "I'd talk to him, Liz," he said with a voice Jennifer had not heard before, a flat, cautioning baritone. He came back into the office, moving closer to Dr. Peck, and said in a low voice, "If he's serious about having a lawyer, you should probably call risk management--"
"I'll take care of this, Martin, really," said Dr. Peck, raising her hand in a halting gesture.
Dr. Flanagan still stood by the mailboxes. "Someone ought to speak to this man, and it oughtn't be this poor girl here. She's only a temp, and if this man is an abuser as you say--"
"Simply tell him to call social work!" shouted Dr. Peck, in such a commanding voice that the room fell silent and still, the only movement being the tiny red flashing of the hold button on the phone.
Her finger shaking, Jennifer hit the hold button and said in a strained, hollow voice, "I'm going to transfer you to social work now."
"Look, I don't know what Peck thinks she's doing, Jennifer, but I can tell you one thing. She is not going to screw with my wife's head and make her think all sorts of things happened--"
"Mr. Mason, Mr. Mason, please, I am going to transfer you now."
"The fuck you are, you fucking bitch," he said, and then the line went dead.
"He hung up," said Jennifer, slowly placing down the receiver.
"Great," said Peck. "Next thing you know he'll be showing up with a loaded revolver."
"Really, Liz," said Dr. Flanagan. "It's an awful lot to put on the poor girl here. I mean, if you knew he was so abusive, honestly. You've probably made her all upset inside."
"I'm all right," said Jennifer, and forced a smile.
Dr. Peck made a harrumph, like a scolded child sulking. "If you would have just transferred him to social work--" she said, but then trailed off, seeming vaguely repentant. She pulled out a swivel chair from the table beside Jennifer's desk and plunked herself down on it.
"I can't understand not talking to him, Liz," said Dr. Harman.
"Well, you're not my supervisor anymore, Martin, and I'm not your first year resident. I happen to know a thing or two. And I happen to know you avoid families like the plague, unless, of course, it's a nice little chat with Crystal's parents before you blast her brains to smithereens."
There was silence, a long spate of it. Jennifer saw the glare of contempt that Dr. Peck was giving Dr. Harman, and then she looked down at her desk calendar, afraid to see any more.
"How did you hear about that?" asked Dr. Harman, in a seethingly angry tone.
"Oh come on Martin, this hospital is worse than Peyton Place! People talk. Everyone knows how you brought in Crystal's parents. Honest to God, Martin, after what we know about them, that you would try to use them to force her into shock. She was my patient, Martin. How could you even think of doing that?"
Jennifer looked over her shoulder at Dr. Peck, seated on the swivel chair, one leg somehow folded beneath her immense abdomen. Suddenly Jennifer realized what was happening: Peck was challenging Harman, she was openly criticizing his treatment of Crystal and his use of shock therapy. She felt giddy with the audacity of it, like a nerve pulsing with energy. "They say it's the same as blunt force head trauma, the effects of shock on the brain," she heard herself saying. "They gave Hemingway shock treatments before he killed himself. It took away his memory. He couldn't write anymore."
She turned to see Dr. Harman with one foot out the door, but he was taking in her words, as if this was something he wanted to respond to. "Please," he said dismissively, "I'm not treating Hemingway."
"How do you know?" asked Jennifer.
And with that Dr. Peck gave a loud laugh, as if Jennifer had played a trump card on her behalf. Then she seemed to lose her balance on the swiveling chair and was suddenly grabbing Jennifer's shoulder to steady herself. "Oh God, there goes my water--" she said, and the carpet beneath her turned a darker shade of gray.
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