Therapist to the Stars

“You’re a fraud,” I say to my therapist as she sits there, staring at me. I wait for her to say something, but she doesn’t. The rug on her floor has a Turkish pattern, but it’s not an authentic Turkish rug. It’s a crappy JCPenney knock-off, and it’s been vacuumed a little too often.

“I want you to know that the only reason I’m here is because of the court order. If you think I’m going to keep coming to you after I complete the sessions that the judge ordered, you had better think again.”

She shifts in her seat, crossing her legs. She’s wearing a mint green pantsuit and it’s straight-up fugly. She looks like she mugged a male nurse and stole his scrubs. 

Finally, she opens her mouth: “Why do you think you are so hostile towards the idea of being in therapy?”

Why do these people always ask questions when the answers are so fucking obvious?

“I told you already. It’s a joke. You’re a joke.”

“Why are you making this personal?”

I point at the framed article from Us Weekly that’s nailed to her wall. There’s a picture of her and the headline says “Therapist to the Stars.” Somehow, she built a career out of treating Hollywood actors. 

“You think you know what it’s like to be famous? To have no privacy? Losing your anonymity is like having your skin sliced off.” A memory flashes through my mind: crouching on a dock watching my dad filet a sunfish, working his thin blade under the skin until he’d cut it cleanly away from the flesh.

“You assaulted a man.” She purses her too-white lips into a wormy trapezoid. I imagine aiming my fist right at it, her teeth flying in slow motion, followed by ribbons of blood. 

I roll my eyes and cross my arms over my chest. “I kicked a paparazzo who was trying to force his way onto my property. It was self-defense.”

The sun cuts through the louvered glass window and casts a broken shadow on the wall: sixteen horizontal black bars with gaps of light in between. 

The therapist crosses her legs and glances at the clock on the wall. “The judge didn’t see it that way.” 

My iPhone chimes in rapid succession. It’s probably my agent. I’m up for a big role and the casting director was supposed to make her decision today. During our first session, the therapist gave me a list of rules for therapy, and the first one was to silence my phone before each session. I’ve never done it and she’s never said shit about it. “Everyone in Hollywood knows that judge is trying to make a name for himself by throwing the book at celebrities. He’s you in a robe.”

“You have anger issues. I really think we should explore them together.”

“I have issues with people who make me angry.”

“I would have handled that situation with the paparazzo differently.” I watch the regret flash across her face. She meant to say something like how do you think you could have handled the paparazzo differently and knows she fucked up. 

“During our last session, you ate an entire bahn mi and half a tray of spring rolls. I spent thirty-five minutes watching you chew.”

“I was hungry,” she says. “Pressed for time --”

“You were unprofessional. And not for the first time.”

She says nothing. I say nothing. All I hear is L.A. traffic on the street below. 

Finally, she says: “Our time is up.”

“Halle-fuckin-lujah,” I say, and scramble to get out of her office.

The town car pulls around, and once I’m in the back seat I call my lawyer. 

“How many more sessions do I have to have with this charlatan?”

I can hear my lawyer sighing on the other end. His reputation took a hit after the judge’s ruling. I guess he’s unhappy I’m reminding him.

“Only six. You can make it through six more sessions, can’t you?”

As we pass another car on the freeway, I sink down so no one will see me. Even with the tinted windows, I don’t feel safe from prying eyes. “Why did you pick this therapist for me? She’s an insufferable twat.”

He coughs and I can hear him groping for his cigarettes. “Yeah, but she’s high profile. That’s what you need.”

“I didn’t even do anything wrong.”

Now I feel like crying. Lawyers get pissed when you treat them like therapists, but the thing about lawyers is that they offer real suggestions and don’t mind when you tell them to go fuck themselves. 

“I know that, Megan. Look, if it makes you feel any better, I think we stand a really good chance of sticking it to that paparazzo with the civil suit.”

“Yeah?” 

I’m fighting back tears now. I’m glad he can’t see me.

“Yeah. I’m heading into a meeting now, Megan. But we’ll meet sometime next week to talk about the civil suit.”

I thank him and hang up.

Forty-five minutes later, I’m home. I toss my bag onto a chair and ignore the script that some messenger brought while I was away. I shove back the sliding glass door and step out onto the deck of my pool. The cement floor is blazing hot from collecting sunlight, which banks hard on the surface of the pool, creating a glare that hurts my eyes. On three sides, the pool is enclosed by the pristine white cement and glass squares that make up my house. On the fourth side there’s nothing; the edge of the pool meets the sky and it’s like my own private ocean. 

“It was designed to make you feel like you’re the only person in the world,” is what the real estate agent told me when she showed me the place. That feeling is something I never thought I’d want. Before my breakout role, I lived in a little second floor apartment on Logan Street in Echo Park. In my tiny bedroom, the sounds of Sunset Boulevard lulled me to sleep every night. Sunlight would pour through my roommate’s collection of colored glass and turn the living room into a kaleidoscope. The patio looked out onto our neighbors’ yards. String lights formed a multi-colored patchwork that cut up our little section of sky into little black squares. During the day, the morning glories trembled, under assault from green-backed hummingbirds. 

I had breakfast on that patio every morning and over the years I got to know everyone who lived in our little patch of Los Angeles: there was Mary, the 45-year-old divorcee and her series of boyfriends who didn’t speak English; Sarah and Skye, old-school California hippies who sold ceramic pigs at the farmer’s market; Jose and Graciela, longtime Echo Park residents who stayed put even after gentrification had chased out most of their family and friends. 

Mary loved to give unsolicited dating advice, and Skye always wanted to cleanse my aura. Sarah made a flower pot that my roommate, Angela, used for her Christmas cactus. Jose and Graciela sometimes invited us over for la cena, when Graciela would serve sugary conchas with coffee and we’d watch the sunsets fade into violent, brilliantly radioactive dusk. 

It all changed when American Streets came out. I mean, it was a subtle change at first. There’s this weird shimmer that people get in their eyes when everything you say fascinates them in a way it never did before. Their tone of voice changes too, becomes brighter, more sing-song. It’s so hard to describe, and honestly, you can’t understand it until it happens to you. 

I tried to just ignore it. Nothing had changed, really. But then I suddenly had dozens of roles to choose from, and Vogue put me on the cover of the September issue. Magazines like Us Weekly and In Touch became very interested in what I wore and where I went and who went with me when I went where I went. 

Mary snapped a photo of me and sold it to a tabloid for five grand. Sarah and Skye decided they wanted to cash in too, and my sunrise al fresco breakfasts turned into scarfing down oatmeal while leaning over the sink with the shades pulled down. I turned down Graciela’s invites to la cena because I had begun to fear an ambush. 

The final straw: I was at a table read when my phone rang. During a break, I checked my messages and found that I had a voicemail from Angela: “Things are getting crazy here,” she roared, “Just…totally fucking crazy. Because of you. You have to get the fuck out!”

It wasn’t until I got home that night that I learned Angela had come home to discover a paparazzo crouched on our patio. 

I moved out the next day.

Ever hear those stories of rock stars who fall in love with women who claim not to know who they are? They always say it’s because if she doesn’t know you’re famous, she must love you for you, but that’s a lie. What happens is this: when you meet someone who doesn’t know who you are, you remember what it was like to not be famous. You fall in love with your past.

I stare out at my private ocean and let my memories of Echo Park fade from my mind. I strip out of my clothes and dive into the pool. The water is hot from the sun.

After my swim, I search for the ‘Therapist to the Stars’ article on Google. It comes up right away, and I recognize the writer’s name. He was the first journalist to interview me after American Streets made me famous. I remember that we had traded numbers so we’d be able to keep the appointment in the event one (or both) of us got stuck in traffic. I find his number in my contacts and dial. 

“Jake,” I say, “it’s Megan Fry.”

“Hi,” he says, and I can hear the wind going out of him. “This is…a real pleasure. I’m sorry I’m a little surprised to hear from you. What…what can I do for you?”

I hear a clicking sound on the floor and glance over my shoulder just as my dog, Marilyn, trots down the hall. I scoop her up into my lap as she sniffs my earlobe. She’s a five-year-old King Charles spaniel. I bought her from a breeder in Sonoma County before rescue dogs became all the rage. 

“Jake, I’m prepared to offer you an exclusive interview. Upcoming projects, off-screen gossip, sex life, whatever you want. No questions off limits. Ask me anything.”

I hear a strange clatter, and then he’s breathless and says, “Sorry I dropped the phone. I would love to an exclusive. When?”

“Name the date and the place, Jake. But first promise me you’ll do me one favor.” I lean back in my chair. Marilyn nuzzles my chin. 

“Of course. Anything.”

“I need you to dig up some information. You wrote the article about the ‘Therapist to the Stars.’ I want to know what her real deal is.”

I can hear him typing. Is he taking notes or furiously collecting questions to ask me?

“Her real deal?”

“Yeah. I want to know what makes her qualified to give advice to people like me.”

“Oh, right. You’re doing court-ordered therapy. How’s that going?”

“Sucks ass. And that’s on the record.”

He laughs. We make plans to meet at a burger joint on Sunset Boulevard, near where I lived in Echo Park. As soon as I hang up the phone, I regret agreeing to meet in Echo Park. I should’ve chosen someplace more exclusive, more celebrity-friendly. The kind of place where tourists never get past the doorman. But sometimes, I just want to do something normal. 

With my hair shoved under a baseball cap and cheap sunglasses on my face, I stroll onto the restaurant’s patio and take a seat across from Jake. I really want a big slab of beef, but I obey my trainer and order some bullshit quinoa patty. Jake opts for the chorizo burger. It comes topped with a fried egg, and he gets yolk all over his face when he bites into it. This makes me smile a little. People are usually afraid to eat like that in front of me. 

As promised, I answer every one of Jake’s questions: Yes, I snorted coke at the Oscars that time. No, I didn’t give a handjob to the Dodgers’ third baseman, but I did show my boobs to their star closer. There’s no truth to the rumor about me starring in a Hilary Clinton biopic (who would watch it?) but I have had a few meetings with Quentin Tarantino for a movie about a vigilante cowgirl who terrorizes a town full of Republicans.

“Now,” I say as I push away the quinoa burger, “What do you have for me?”

Jakes wipes the egg yolk off his mouth and swallows most of his soda in one gulp. “You were right,” he says. “She’s a fraud.”

I sit back and wait for him to continue.

“Her doctorate is in theology, not psychology. And her social work credential isn’t valid in California.”

I reach for a sweet potato fry and bite into it even though it’s cold. What Jake is saying seems too good to be true. Then I remember that the therapist tried to sell me a “supplement” that was really just Topamax from a Mexican pharmacy. Did she really think I didn’t know what Topamax looks like? Half the actresses in Hollywood use it, especially if they aren’t working. They’re the ones who have time for trips to Tijuana and they can’t afford cocaine. 

“So how did she become a big-deal Hollywood therapist?” I ask. Someone holds up their phone to snap a photo but I pretend it’s not happening. 

Jake shrugs. “Handjobs?”

I glance over at the quinoa burger. It looks like a frisbee made of crushed bugs. I want a real burger. I catch the waiter’s eye and he rushes over. He hurries away with my order for a bacon cheeseburger with mushrooms. 

“There’s more,” Jake says. “She’s got a much younger boyfriend.”

“How much younger?”

“The rental company’s still waiting for him to return his prom tux.”

I laugh, forcing sparkling water through my nose. “Jake, this is great. Really great. I can use this.”

“Use it…to do what?” 

I ignore his question. The waiter returns with my burger. I watch the fat drip off of it before I sink my teeth into the meat. 

My therapist is wearing a brand-new Movado watch. She keeps twisting her wrist, as if the watch is weighing her down.

“I know your secret,” I say.

She tilts her head. “What secret?”

“I don’t know who you jerked off to get that article written,” I say, pointing to the framed article on the wall, “but they published it before running it by a fact-checker. You are a fraud. No psychology degree. No credential valid in this state. No nothing.”

I lean forward and whisper into her ear: “And you’re banging a kid who’s still in high school.” I slowly move backward and watch her skin lose its color like a worn-out beach towel. 

“Now, I have five more court-ordered sessions left. If I rat you out, you’ll get fined, and I’ll have to start this pointless bullshit over with another therapist who is probably every bit as stupid as you. So I propose this: sign my paperwork saying that my sessions are complete, and I’ll keep my mouth shut.” 

She blinks. Then gives me a sort of nod. I fish out the paper and hand it to her, and she scribbles her signature on it. It’s hard to tell, but I think she’s trembling. 

“Nice doing business with you,” I say, and I leave her office. Once the door is shut, she starts to cry. 

I take the signed sheet of paper to my lawyer’s office. He doesn’t even ask how I finished my sessions so quickly. He simply shrugs and says he’ll submit it to the court ASAP.

A few days later, Jake drops by with a proof of his article. 

“Best title ever,” he says. I laugh when I read it: “Megan Fry Dodges Handjob Rumors.”

“That’s clever,” I say. 

Jake bends down to pet Marilyn. 

“I don’t write the headlines,” he says. 

Marilyn licks the dark hair on Jake’s knee. 

“Once I get the all-clear from the court, I’ll report her for the credentials and the…you know…the thing with the kid.” I blurt out, not sure why I suddenly feel the need to tell Jake all this. None of it occurred to me until just now. 

“You mean, you haven’t heard?” he asks. He scratches Marilyn’s ears as she puts both her paws on his thigh. “That therapist is gone. Her office is stripped bare. I told my editor about our conversation and he sent me over there, but she headed for the hills, apparently. So, I checked out her house in Santa Monica. Neighbors said she packed up a U-haul and took off in the middle of the night. No one knows where she went.”

“Back to wherever her pathetic credential is valid?”

Jake shrugs. “Fuck if I know. But it will make a great headline: Star Therapist Vanishes in Supernova.”

“I thought you didn’t write the headlines,” I tease. 

After Jake leaves, I strip off my clothes and walk out onto my deck. Overhead, a hawk traces slow circles, eyeing his desert prey. Marilyn stretches out on the deck, her white underbelly pearlescent in the sun. 

Years ago, when I was a kid, I helped my dad filet fish on the dock while my cousins water skied and splashed each other and floated in inner tubes. At lunch time, we gathered on the beach for corn on the cob and bratwurst stuffed with wild rice. Mandarin oranges suspended in jello and marshmallow for dessert.

I stopped letting my cousins visit me in L.A. after they posed for a photographer from the National Enquirer.

Marilyn groans and curls into a ball. I float alone in my pool with my toes pointed up at the sky while the sun burns away all the shadows in the dry canyon.