The Map of True Places. Brunonia Barry
kicking off running shoes and pulling on her suit jacket. She walked five miles along the Charles River every afternoon, weather notwithstanding. When she was overbooked, which was a good deal of the time, she had been known to conduct her sessions while strolling along the river, calling it a walking meditation, telling patients it would be easier to open up if they didn’t feel her prying eyes on them. A week after she started conducting sessions that way, every shrink in Boston was out walking with patients.
“God, not that agoraphobic again.” It was another of Mattei’s jokes. Fifty percent of their patients had some degree of agoraphobia, a phenomenon that made attendance poor at best and had lately prompted Mattei to start charging time and a half for missed appointments, though Zee seldom required her patients to comply with this new rule.
Mattei was trying harder than usual to make her laugh today, meaning that Zee must be frowning again. Zee’s natural expression seemed to be the type of frown that inspired joke telling, often from total strangers, who always felt compelled to make her feel better somehow. Just this morning an older gentleman who had neglected to pick up his dog’s poop in Louisburg Square had walked over to her and ordered her to smile.
She stared at him.
“Things can’t be all that bad,” he said.
If he hadn’t been older than her father, Zee would have told him to get lost, that this was her natural expression, and that a man who didn’t pick up his dog’s excrement shouldn’t be allowed to roam free. But instead she managed a vague smirk.
“So seriously, which patient?” Mattei was waiting for an answer.
“Lilly Braedon.”
“Mrs. Perfect,” she said. “Oh, no, I forgot, that’s you.”
“Not yet,” Zee said a little too quickly.
“Aha!” Mattei said. “Simple, simple. Case closed. That will be three hundred and fifty dollars.”
“Funny,” Zee said as Mattei gathered up her running shoes and left the room.
It was Lilly Braedon’s husband who had originally sought help at Dr. Mattei’s clinic. People came from all over the world to be treated by her. Harvard trained, with a stint at Johns Hopkins, Mattei was a psychiatrist who had great credentials. She’d written the definitive article on bipolar disorder with panic for the American Journal of Psychiatry. She had also worked closely with a team of genetic researchers who had uncovered a correlation between the disease and the eighteenth chromosome, a substantial and groundbreaking discovery.
But then Mattei’s career took a turn. She became fascinated by a more popular approach to psychiatry. The book she wrote during her tenth year in practice, a folksy self-help book entitled Safe at Home, lifted her to celebrity status. The book was inspired by a Red Sox second-stringer she had successfully treated for panic. Her practical solutions to his terror were based on biofeedback, desensitization, and sense memory.
“The world is a terrifying place,” Mattei explained first to a local newscaster and later to Oprah. “And here is what you can do to stop being afraid.” The book was filled with sensory tricks, tips almost too simple to inspire much credibility: carry a worry stone, smell lavender, breathe deeply. The companion CD featured guided meditations, some with music, some including nature sounds or poetry. It even quoted the old Irish prayer (the one that basically tells you not to worry about a damned thing because the worst thing that can happen is that you’ll go to hell, but that’s where all your friends will be anyway, so it’s pointless to fret). Though Mattei herself was a loose fusion of French, Italian, and Japanese ancestry, with not a bit of Irish blood, for some reason she loved everything about the Irish. It might have been a Boston thing. She loved James Joyce and even swore she had read and understood Finnegans Wake, which Zee seriously doubted. That Mattei loved Guinness and U2, Zee did not doubt. Zee and her fiancé, Michael, had spent last St. Paddy’s Day at a bar in Southie with Mattei and her partner, Rhonda, and Mattei had held her own, drinking with the best of Boston’s Irish. And just a month ago, Mattei had come back from one of her therapy walks sporting a pair of pink Armani sunglasses that looked very similar to a pair Zee had once seen Bono wear.
Mattei had done the usual book-tour circuit. But it was when she landed on Oprah that things went wild. There was a growing sense of panic in this country, Mattei explained to Oprah. It was everywhere. Since 9/11, certainly. And the economy? Terrifying. “Do you know the number one fear of women?” she had asked. “Becoming homeless,” she said. She went on to explain that the number one fear of the general population is public speaking. Many people say they’d rather die than get up in front of a group to give a presentation. After she reeled off such statistics, Mattei turned and spoke directly to the camera. “What are you really afraid of?” she asked America. It became a challenge that echoed through the popular culture. She closed the show with a paraphrased quote from Albert Einstein. The only real question you have to ask yourself is whether or not the universe is a friendly place, she explained, then went on to translate into terms anyone could understand. Once you’ve decided that, Mattei said, you can pretty much determine what your future will hold.
Her book hit the top of the New York Times Best Seller list and stayed there for sixty-two weeks. As Mattei’s fame grew, her patient list expanded exponentially, and she brought in interns to mentor, though her real work was still with bipolars.
“Did you know that eighty percent of poets are bipolar?” Mattei asked Zee one morning.
“My mother wasn’t a poet. She wrote children’s books,” Zee said.
“Nevertheless . . .” Mattei replied.
“Nevertheless” was probably the best thing Zee had ever learned from Mattei. It was a word, certainly, but much more than a word, it was a concept. “Nevertheless” was what you said when you were not going to budge, whether expressing an opinion or an intention. It was a statement, not a question, and the only word in the English language to which it was pointless to respond. If you wanted to end a conversation or an argument, “nevertheless” was your word.
Zee often thought that what had happened with her mother was another reason Mattei had hired her. Maureen’s case history might well be considered good material for a new book. But Mattei had never approached her about it. When Zee mentioned her theory one day, Mattei told her that she was mistaken, that she had actually hired Zee because of her red hair.
Theory and research were still Mattei’s passion, and though she had a thriving practice, she also had that elusive second book to write and her new mother-daughter theory to document. So most of Zee’s patients were Mattei’s overflow. Her “sloppy seconds” is what Michael called them, though he was clearly unaware of the perverse meaning of his slang. He’d meant it to be amusing rather than pornographic. The truth was, anything Mattei did was okay with Michael. They had been friends since med school. When Mattei suggested that Michael meet Zee, telling him she thought she’d found the perfect girl for him, he was only too happy to oblige.
Soon after that, Zee had found herself out on a blind date with Michael.
Upon Mattei’s recommendation, he had taken her to Radius. He had ordered for both of them, some Kurobuta pork and a two-hundred-dollar Barolo. By the time they finished the bottle, Zee found herself saying yes to a weekend with him on the Vineyard. They had moved in together shortly afterward. Not unlike the job Mattei had given her, the relationship just sort of happened.
What followed still seemed to Zee more like posthypnotic suggestion than real life. Not only had Michael easily agreed that Zee was the perfect girl for him, he’d never even seemed to question it. And exactly one year after their first date, a period of time most probably deemed respectable by Mattei, Michael had proposed.
Zee had been grateful when Mattei chose to hire her. She had just received her master’s and was working on her Ph.D. when Mattei invited her to join her practice, giving her some group sessions to moderate and mentoring her as she went. By the time she’d earned the title of doctor, Zee had ended up in a corner office with a view of the Charles and a patient list that would have taken her years to develop on her own.