Chapter 7
The office of Dr. Sheldon Katz, the show’s psychiatrist, had fairly modern, perhaps even space-age decor, seeming to have more glass, steel, and aluminum on the floors and walls than the Space Shuttle Atlantis. Still, it all somehow felt safe for Jody, maybe even a little cozy.
The chairs in the waiting room were made of leather, and were overstuffed and comfortable. The rush and excitement of preparing for the show were taking their toll on her, and so while Jody waited to be called into the doctor’s office, she felt herself getting more and more comfortable in her chair… drifting off into a light sleep.
The leather chair and the drone of the radio coming from the receptionist’s desk reminded her of the time when her father took her into Cedar Rapids on her birthday to see a rerelease of The Wizard of Oz. It was a long drive into the city, but the excitement of the trip had kept her awake and talkative. On the way back, with Oz and all of its marvels dancing around inside her head, she curled up into a ball and fell asleep in the backseat of her father’s Chrysler. When they arrived back at the farm, her father tried to carry her up to her bed, but she’d been too big for him to lift out of the car.
So he’d had to wake her up.
“Jody,” he said, poking her arm with his finger.
“Jody…”
She opened up one eye, then the other. There was a woman kneeling before her, smiling.
“What?” she said.
“You must have dozed off,” the woman said. “I’m sorry for keeping you waiting so long, but the doctor’s last patient needed a bit more time.”
Jody blinked several times to clear her head and eyes. “Oh, that’s okay.”
“The doctor will see you now.”
Jody got up from the chair, feeling a slight chill down her back, and followed the woman into the doctor’s consultation room. There was a large art deco desk at one end of the room and a full-length overstuffed couch on the other side, complete with a small chair next to it for the doctor.
“Make yourself comfortable, the doctor will be right—”
Before she could finish, a diminutive man with a balding pate and a slight comb-over entered the room. “Jody?” he said.
“Yes.”
He introduced himself, then proceeded to explain why she was there. “I’ve been hired by the Gowan brothers to ask you a few questions in order to help them figure out the kinds of things that really scare you.”
“Well, I don’t like spiders,” she said.
“Yes, of course,” he answered. “Most people don’t, but that’s not the sort of thing I’m after… Do you mind if I ask you a few questions?”
“No, not at all.”
“Has anything really horrific happened to you in your life?”
“Not really, I’m only in my twenties, so I haven’t been around all that long…”
“Of course, but you don’t have to live a lifetime in order for something bad to happen. Bad things can happen in an instant.”
Jody knew that. She’d been around when things had gone wrong, but she didn’t feel like going over it all with a man she looked upon as more of a total stranger than a doctor. “I guess I’ve been lucky, then,” she said.
“Indeed… Let me tell you what I’m getting at. I once treated a young man who, when he was eight years old, was roughhousing with his father… you know, the way kids will do. Well, after about ten minutes of this, his father suddenly let go of him and sprawled out on the floor. He’d had a heart attack right then and there, and for the rest of this young man’s life, he felt as if he’d killed his father.”
Jody smiled. “I never killed my father.”
“No, of course not,” Dr. Katz said. He paused a moment, as if selecting his next anecdote. “Another patient of mine, an older man, was out hunting with his fourteen-year-old son. It was the boy’s birthday and he’d given him a brand-new shotgun to celebrate the occasion. So they were walking through the woods on their way to the hunt, with the father explaining to the boy the basic rules of gun safety and care. The boy was an excellent student and did everything his father told him. But as they headed down a slight hill, the father stumbled on a rock. He took several steps to try and right himself, his arms flailing in all directions. Amid the chaos, the father’s gun went off. The shot blasted the boy’s head clean off his shoulders.”
Jody felt hot and uncomfortable. Why on earth was this man telling her these awful, awful stories?
“Has anything like that ever happened to you, Jody?”
She took a breath and thought about it. Yes, things like that had happened to her, or at least while she was around. If that’s the sort of stuff he wants to hear, then maybe it would be better just to give him what he wants and be done with it. “Well, something like that did happen to me, or at least to my cousin. He lost his arm in a farm accident.”
“And you were there when it happened?”
“Yes.”
“You saw him being dismembered? You saw the blood spurt from his arm?”
“Yes, I did.”
“Then what happened?”
“My father sent me to call for help while he stayed with my cousin to try and keep him from bleeding to death.”
“I bet that was a phone call you didn’t enjoy making.”
“I don’t mind making calls,” she said. “It’s answering the phone I don’t like.”
The moment the words were gone from her lips, she wondered why on earth she had told him. Maybe he was a better psychiatrist than she gave him credit for.
“Why don’t you like answering the phone?”
She shrugged. “You never know who’s going to be on the other end. Might be someone with bad news.”
“Persistent wrong numbers?”
Jody smiled. That was silly. “No.”
“News about the death of a loved one?”
She had heard about her grandmother’s death that way, but it hadn’t been traumatic or anything like that. “No, not really.”
“Bill collectors, then.”
“Sometimes, but only since I moved to Los Angeles.”
The doctor nodded as if he understood, then scratched a few notes onto his pad. “Have you ever been stalked?”
Jody hesitated. She hadn’t really been stalked, but if she answered with anything other than a no she’d be opening a door for the doctor she really didn’t want explored. “No.”
“Someone harass you over the phone, then?”
Again, she felt herself hesitate. Did he think he was on to something? “No!” she said again, this time with a little more emphasis.
The doctor spent several long moments writing in his notepad. Jody couldn’t see what he was writing, but it looked to be fairly in-depth, whatever it was.
After a while, the door opened and the doctor’s secretary came into the room.
“I’m afraid that’s all the time we have,” the doctor said, smiling politely.
“That’s it?” Jody said, surprised they were done, but happy for it to be over before he’d dug any deeper into her past.
“The Gowan brothers only paid for a couple of hours of my time and I’m afraid most of it was taken up by the previous contestants. I didn’t really have enough time to interview you all properly, but…” He raised his hands as if the amount of work he did was totally out of his control.
Jody rose to her feet. “If they don’t give you enough time to do the job right, then why do you do it?”
He flashed her a smile, this one appearing more genuine than the previous one. “Having the Gowan brothers as a client, well, any studio for that matter, is good for business. It brings a lot of their actors in for therapy.”
Jody was a little confused. Weren’t psychiatrists supposed to be like doctors, choosing their profession because of a strong desire to help people? This man was running his practice like a business, and a very successful one at that. She wondered, though, if he’d ever helped anyone with their problems.
“Well, break a leg on the show,” the doctor said.
Jody had been wondering if people still said that anymore. Apparently, some did. “Thanks,” she said.
She left the office feeling good about herself and about her chances on the show.
Thank God the doctor only had the time to scratch the surface. If he’d gotten to the heart of the matter, there was no telling what the Gowan brothers would have done with the information.