Therapy Files (eBook)

Thank You for Shoplifting with Us

In my entire therapy career, I’ve gotten exactly one referral from the criminal justice system. Mallory Kincaid topped out at five foot zero and looked like a refugee from the sixth grade, although I was told she was sixteen. She smoked, she drank and she took whatever drugs she could get her hands on. She also took whatever objects she could get her hands on. They called her a shoplifter because she happened to be in a shop when she lifted whatever she could get her hands on one day.

In the juvenile delinquency movies of my youth, they would have called her a kleptomaniac. I don’t know if they even use that term anymore, but it’s more accurate than shoplifter because Mallory’s proclivity for borrowing anything not nailed down wasn’t confined to commercial establishments. I would know, because in the course of her therapy I caught her liberating a stapler, two pens, a box of paper clips and a small vase from my office. And those are just the ones I was able to spot as they left the premises.

The referral came from a man I’ll call Patrick Kelly, a cop I had treated for alcoholism back in my days as a substance abuse counselor. He was called by security at a major Oakland department store one day when Mallory had been a little too free with her hands. It seems that a delicate bottle of very expensive perfume and two rings had been seen making their way into Mallory’s brassiere by a store security officer. Though Mallory protested loudly and violently, a quick search by a female employee turned up the items, and that’s where Pat Kelly came in. Saying “I felt sorry for the kid,” and seeing as all the items were returned undamaged, he convinced the security people to drop the charges by promising them that Mallory Kincaid would see me for “intensive psychotherapy.”

So I had already been signed, sealed and virtually delivered before I’d even heard of the situation. Patrick Kelly always was impulsive—and righteous. Our first conversation about Mallory was short and to the point:

Patrick Kelly: So, you gonna see her or not?

Me: “Gee Gregg, thanks for even considering bailing me out of the mess I’ve created for myself at headquarters, with my intemperate and ill-considered promises.”

PK: Okay, okay, you win; I’m sorry to hit you up like this, but I’m out on a limb here.

Me: Of your own making.

PK: C’mon man, be a mensch.

Me: Appealing to my half-Judaism will get you nowhere, Paddy.

PK: Okay then, all I’ve got left is “please.”

Me: All right then, as a favor I’ll see her. (Pause) Oh Jesus, you didn’t tell them this would be pro bono, did you?

PK: No, no, of course not. I contacted her mother, and the guys are willing to, uh, throw some money into the kitty.

Me: Some money? The kitty?

PK: Well, the mother says she can afford twenty bucks a session, and the guys in the squad room said they’d kick in, you know, a little something, too.

Me: And just how much is this “little something”?

PK: Oh, maybe another twenty per.

Me: Meaning it’s going to cost me a bundle to qualify as an Irish mensch?

PK: Aw, don’t look at it that way—think of it as a mitzvah.

Me: I already told you to lay off the ethnic appeals; now you’re just making me mad.

PK: All right then, we’ll skip the BS; will you do it?

Me: Oh hell, tell her to come in next Monday at four. (Pause) Hey, what about her schooling?

PK: That’s up to the proper authorities.

Me: Wow, you mean you didn’t commit me to home-school her, too? I’m impressed.

PK: Hey, I owe you, man.

That forty dollars a session is all I knew until I saw Mallory in my waiting room the following Monday at four. The first time you meet someone, all you really have to go on is how they look, and in that department, Mallory Kincaid was a jigsaw puzzle come to life.

She had on a pair of faded jeans with more holes than denim, shiny red stiletto heels with white socks, a yellow David Bowie t-shirt under a purple hoodie, and a big floppy hat last seen on a countess at Epsom Downs. Well, you can’t say she didn’t have a sense of style—in fact I’d say she had three or four of them going on at the same time. But then I guess when you shoplift your clothes, you can’t be real choosy about coordinating your ensemble.

“Please, follow me back to my office.”

“I’ll walk behind you, but I don’t follow anyone.”

“As long as we end up in my office, I’m good.”

She stalked over to the chair and sat down, folding her legs up under her. She was clearly used to the fact that if she sat in the normal manner, her legs dangling in the air would make her look—and maybe feel—like a child.

She threw her hat down on the couch, and I got my first good look at her. With her fine, regular features, narrow face and slightly pointed chin, she looked a bit like the actress Kristen Stewart—kind of tough-pretty, with something withheld behind those wary blue eyes that was worth fighting for.

She cast her eyes around the office (Okay, I admit it, I immediately thought, “Casing the joint”) and said, “So, now what?”

I nodded as I picked up my notebook. “Hope you don’t mind if I write some things down. I don’t usually take notes, but the first time I like to at least put down a few basics.”

Her eyebrows went up. “What kind of basics?”

“Oh, just some background stuff, the sort of things you need to know in order to know someone.”

She shook her head defiantly. “That stuff has nothing to do with knowing someone.”

I nodded. “I know, but it’s a start. And I’m hoping that by the time we get to the stuff that is important, you might be willing to tell me some of it.”

She scoffed, “Don’t make book on it.”

What sixteen-year-old girl in the Nineties said, “Don’t make book on it”? Was she a reader? A watcher of old movies? A Mafia daughter? I tucked that datum away for later.

Now her eyes really were doing a job on my office; it’s unusual for a first-session patient to bother taking such a detailed inventory of my things. It told me she was a noticer, a sharpie, a filer-away of data. Of course, it could just mean she was a shoplifter and a kleptomaniac, but I hoped that it meant she thought it all might matter sometime later—and that encouraged me.

Her next statement did not.

She tossed her head. “I’m not even sure why I’m here; usually I just fuck the security guard, and I’m on my way.”

Whoa. I scrambled to find something—anything—to say to that. “Uh, I’m so sorry that that happened to you . . .”

“What are you so sorry about? They get their jollies, and I get to walk.”

Silence was the best I could do for a full minute. Mallory continued to look around the office, then pointed to the bookshelf. “Hey, I see you got Serpico over there; I saw that with my mother on TV once.” She paused, then continued in a barely audible voice, “When I had a mom, and when we had a TV.”

Okay, I understood now: she would be in control of the “background check,” and she would dole out information as she saw fit. That suited me fine, especially since I was still in shock about the security guard revelation (if it was true, that is; either way, it was intended to shock). The Serpico comment was an olive branch, but also a test, and I couldn’t afford to fumble it now.

“What did you think of it?”

Her head swung around from the office to me. “What? The movie, or having a mom?”

“We’ll start with the movie.”

She nodded. “Good—it was good. He was a cool guy.” She eyed me and gave a small snort before adding, “Not an institutional stooge.”

I got the message. But I also got that her obvious intelligence was going to be an asset I could draw on later.

If there was a later.

I tried to get things back on track. “And your mom?”

“Oh, that’s a whole other story.”

I took a chance. “You mean she gets mixed reviews?”

Mallory twisted around in her chair, clearly uncomfortable for the first time. “I don’t know; I never thought of it that way.” She looked away from me, blinking fast, then went on in a flat voice. “I mean, your mother’s your mother, right? Everyone has to have one.” She lowered her head, but her eyes flashed up at me for an instant, then back down again. “I had one, and I assume you did, too.” She threw me a lip-curl.

I nodded, not taking the bait. “Go on.”

“I mean, how do you evaluate a mother? ‘B’ in housekeeping, ‘C-minus’ in love . . .” She paused, and the sneer was back. “‘F’ in men?”

I shuddered inside—of course the obvious word association for a therapist was ‘men>stepfather>molestation,’ but it was too early to jump. It was her story to tell, in her own good time. My assumptions and I could wait.

And I did, for a good long time. Finally, I said, “Why the ‘C-minus’ in love?” I wasn’t going to touch “men” until she did.

Mallory didn’t change expression, but I could feel the tension leave the room as she snorted, “You’re not as smart as I thought you were.”