Married to a Stranger

S
PECIAL THANKS
to Dr. Jacqueline Moyerman for insights, information, and ever-interesting discussions. And thanks, as always, to the team who kept me on the blacktop through this detour-filled trip: Art Bourgeau, Sara Bourgeau, Meg Ruley, Jane Berkey, and Maggie Crawford.

Thanks also to Louise Burke, for the beautiful paperbacks, to Peggy Gordjin for taking me to many foreign ports, and to all at Albin Michel in Paris, especially Tony Cartano, Francis Esminard, Joelle Faure, Danielle Boespflug, Sandrine Labrevois, and Florence Godfernaux for innumerable kindnesses.

T
HE WIZENED GIRL
turned her head and stared at Emma Hollis with large, blank eyes. “Leave me alone. I’m too tired to talk anymore.”

Emma gazed worriedly at the frail teenager sitting opposite her. Tasha Clayman had been admitted to the Wrightsman Youth Crisis Center the day before. Emma could see every one of the sixteen-year-old’s bony ribs beneath her thin sweater. Her cheeks were hollow, her blond ponytail dry and lank. An image of Ivy Devlin rose into Emma’s thoughts, and Emma had to force down a feeling of panic. You did everything you could for Ivy, she reminded herself. It was too late for her. It wasn’t your fault. But it was hard to convince herself. Nightmares about Ivy, her large, sunken eyes full of rueful accusation, still woke Emma in the middle of the night.

“Tasha?” Emma asked gently. “Let me ask you this. Can you tell me what would it take to make you want to live?”

“I didn’t say I didn’t want to live,” the girl protested in a monotone voice so weak it was hard to hear. “I just have to watch my food intake because I’m too fat.”

Emma hesitated, choosing her response carefully. At twenty-six she had a Ph.D. in psychology, but this position at the crisis center was her first full-time job as a clinical psychologist. Working with patients was much more daunting than doing research in the university library and treating clients under the constant supervision of an experienced professional. Sometimes she felt as if she hadn’t recovered her equilibrium after Ivy succumbed to her anorexia six months ago. Burke Heisler, the psychiatrist who ran the center, had supported the decisions she’d made about Ivy’s treatment. Even after Ivy Devlin’s death, he had refused to allow Emma to second-guess herself. You are not to blame, he had assured her. You did all you could to help her.

He’s right, she thought. This girl needs you, and you are capable of helping her.

“Tasha, we both know that starvation can lead to death. And death is a way to escape from whatever it is that’s hurting you. Something is hurting you, putting you in so much pain.”

A tear rolled down the girl’s sunken cheek. She did not bother to wipe it away.

“Talking about it is a way of escaping too,” Emma persisted. “A better way. Once you can say it out loud, we can look for solutions.”

The girl looked at Emma with haunted eyes. “I hate myself. How do I escape from myself?” she asked. “I’m fat. I’m a failure. I have no boyfriend because no one can ever love me. My grades aren’t good enough. I’m not pretty. I’m a complete disappointment to my parents….”

Emma thought about Tasha’s parents. They were educated, attractive, and well-to-do. And Tasha was their only child. In her brief conversation with them yesterday, Wade Clayman had told her that he and his wife were people with means, who had given their daughter everything. They did not see themselves as part of Tasha’s problem.

Their opinion was simply that, Emma reminded herself. Your job is to save this girl’s life. “Okay,” said Emma, taking a deep breath, “tell me about your parents.”

A
FTER THE SESSION
, Emma headed down the cheerfully painted hallway leading to the office of Dr. Heisler. She had a few minutes before she had to see her next client. Emma entered the open door to the director’s reception area. His secretary, Geraldine Clemens, looked up at her over her half-glasses.

“Is he in? Can I see him for a minute?” Emma asked.

“I’ll check,” she said. Geraldine picked up the phone and buzzed her boss.

“Hello, Dr. Hollis,” said a voice behind her.

Emma turned and saw Kieran Foster, one of the members of her Thursday morning therapy group for drug abusers. She had started the group almost a year ago, shortly after she’d arrived at the Wrightsman Youth Center. There had been three teens in the group when she began, but now there were usually eight, sometimes more, which she counted as a success. Kieran was sitting in the reception area. It was nearly impossible to look at Kieran without flinching. The troubled seventeen-year-old, dressed all in black, had a tuft of magenta hair at the top of his head, and a tattoo of an eye in the middle of his forehead. Emma thought that the tattoo artist responsible for that atrocity ought to be arrested.

“Kieran,” she said. “Hi. We missed you at group yesterday.”

“I was busy,” Kieran muttered. Abandoned by his alcoholic mother, Kieran was an outpatient who lived with a half sister and her extremely wealthy husband. His guardians provided him with all the cars, electronics, and spending money he could ever want, and then went about their lives as if he weren’t there. Kieran had a long history of drug abuse and had dropped out of high school. His only real interest was in playing his electric guitar and writing atonal songs with lyrics focused on death and decay. He had been a member of Emma’s group for about nine months, although he rarely contributed to the discussion.

“Is something wrong?” Emma asked.

“No,” he said, looking down at the floor. He rarely made eye contact with her or with anyone else. “Dr. Heisler asked my sister to come in.”

Uh-oh, Emma thought. What now? She knew that Burke must have had to threaten the woman to get her in here to talk about Kieran. She showed absolutely no interest in her troubled, younger brother. “Well, I hope you’ll join us next Thursday,” said Emma, smiling at him. “I always like to see you there.”

“Dr. Heisler says he’ll squeeze you in,” said Geraldine, setting down the receiver and looking up at Emma. “Go on in.”

Emma opened the door and looked in. “Hey,” she said.

Burke Heisler looked up at her and smiled. He was young to hold such a responsible position—only in his mid-thirties. His blond hair was cut short and combed back, and he had a broad, rugged-looking face that would have looked more appropriate on a boxer. His gray-eyed gaze was keen. Emma had first met Burke Heisler when she was a college freshman and he was a graduate teaching assistant who taught her freshman psych course.

She had had a mad crush on him at the time, although he never paid her any more attention than he did the other hundred students in the class. She told herself it was because he wanted to avoid any teacher-student impropriety, but then he ended up courting, and ultimately marrying, Emma’s beautiful roommate, Natalie White. A year ago, when Natalie invited Emma to visit them at their home in Clarenceville, New Jersey, Burke seemed pleased to learn that she had pursued her doctorate in psychology and that they shared the same speciality. Before the weekend was over, he had offered Emma a job at the Wrightsman Youth Center, part of the huge complex that was Lambert University.

Burke gestured for her to come in and sit down. “Finding it a little hard to concentrate today?” he asked.

Emma blushed, wondering if it showed on her face. She was trying to remain as professional as possible, but it was difficult. Tomorrow was her wedding day. “That’s an understatement,” she admitted.

“Well, it’s only natural. Hey, now that you’re here, what do you want for a wedding gift? I was thinking of something practical, like a food processor.”

“If you’ll come over and show me how to use it,” Emma said with a smile. Burke was known for his culinary skills. His wealthy father had owned a casino in Atlantic City, and Burke had spent several summers working in the kitchens.

“Done,” he said, pretending to make a note. “Buy Cuisinart and demonstrate.” He set down his pen and gazed at her. “So, what’s up?”

“Well, I’m a little worried,” said Emma, “about being away all weekend.”

Heisler frowned. “Why?”

“There’s a new patient…Tasha Clayman.”

“The anorectic,” he said.

“I can’t help it…after what happened,” she said.

Burke nodded. “I understand. Ivy Devlin. Look, I don’t want you to worry about this. I’ll have Sarita keep close tabs on Tasha.” Sarita Ruiz was a youth counselor who tended to her teenaged charges with skill and kindness. “If Tasha shows any signs of dehydration or kidney failure, Sarita will recognize it, and we’ll get her into the hospital right away. You just enjoy your big day, you hear me?” he said, smiling. “Although I don’t understand why you two are only taking a weekend for the honeymoon. You could have had the week off if you wanted it.”

“This is fine for right now,” Emma said. “My mother is giving us a trip to Europe as a wedding present, but that will take time to plan. And this has all…come together rather quickly, so right now we can only spare a weekend. Besides, David has an important interview in New York next week with some big-shot producer who is coming in from L.A. So we’re just going down to the Pine Barrens for a couple of days.” Emma was referring to the million-plus acres of sandy, boggy, pine-covered wilderness called the Pineland National Reserve, which was located right in the center of New Jersey. It was a nature lover’s paradise, crisscrossed by rivers and sparsely populated by a reclusive, xenophobic group of people widely known as Pineys, ever since the publication of John McPhee’s 1968 book
The Pine Barrens.
“We’re going canoeing and hiking—David and I both love that sort of thing.”

“You staying in that fishing cabin his aunt and uncle own?”

“That’s the place,” she said.

“His uncle used to take us there when we were boys,” said Burke. Burke and Emma’s husband-to-be, David Webster, had been best friends since boyhood. “We were always afraid the Jersey Devil would get us,” Burke remembered, referring to the reputedly immortal demon-child said to have been born to a colonial housewife named Leeds, who, many claimed, still haunted the Pinelands.

“I’m not into folklore and monsters,” said Emma. “As far as I can tell, most monsters are human.”

“I couldn’t agree more,” said Burke. “I’ve put away those childish things myself, except on dark and stormy nights, of course.”

“Anyway, it’ll be great just to get away together.”

“Those days when you’re first married, it hardly matters where you are,” said Burke with a sigh. “Being together is all that counts.” For a moment, his gaze fell on the framed photo of a beautiful, pale-skinned woman with silky red hair, looking pensively out over a Venetian canal. Three months ago, Burke came home from a business trip to find Natalie missing. The police found her car parked on a bridge over the Smoking River, her purse and keys still on the front seat. Her body did not surface for a month, but the note she’d left behind had clearly stated her intentions.

Emma’s brilliant, accomplished former roommate, a published poet, had been bipolar and often had refused to take her medication, claiming that it dulled her perceptions and her ability to write. Emma remembered many bouts of Natalie’s manic highs and depressive lows from when they were college roommates. When Emma arrived in Clarenceville, Natalie had been exuberant. She had just published her latest book of poems to great critical acclaim. Six months later the book won the prestigious Solomon Medal, which seemed to increase both her joy and her reknown. She was interviewed for local and national publications, and because she was both articulate and beautiful, she became a popular TV guest on public television and book-oriented talk shows. Inexplicably, despite her success, Natalie’s spirits began to plummet. She grew disconsolate but refused to take her medication. Emma feared that Natalie was tumbling into a severe, depressive cycle. But when Emma tried to talk to her about it, and urged her to seek counseling, Natalie reacted angrily, insisting she was fine. Emma knew better. Still, despite the warning signs, Natalie’s suicide came as a terrible shock to her husband and to Emma as well.

“I hope being in this wedding won’t be too painful for you,” said Emma. “I know you’re still recovering.”

Burke sighed. “She’s going to be very much on my mind tomorrow.”

“Mine too,” said Emma.

Burke shook his head, but there was pain in his eyes. “But I’ll be proud to stand up for David. I’m happy for you. For both of you. I feel like Natalie and I were the matchmakers for you two.”

“You were,” she said. “You introduced us.” Burke had invited Emma to a dinner party at their house to celebrate Natalie’s receipt of the Solomon Medal. Burke’s friend, David Webster, a freelance writer from New York City, was invited also. The gathering was festive, and Natalie was witty and luminous. Emma would always remember that night because it was the last happy evening Emma could remember spending with her old friend. But Emma would never forget that evening for other reasons also. The sparks between her and David flew instantaneously.

Emma’s memory of that fateful night was interrupted by the sound of her pager beeping. She checked it. “Speak of the devil,” she said.

“The groom?” Burke asked.

Emma nodded and glanced at her watch. She only had a few minutes till her group was due to start. But the thought of seeing David Webster, waiting for her in the lobby, filled her with the same giddy excitement that she’d felt the first time she’d set eyes on him six months ago. “Thanks, Burke,” she said, standing up.

“Don’t worry about a thing,” he said. “See you tomorrow.”

As she passed through the reception area, Emma heard Geraldine saying to Kieran, “That was your sister. She has to cancel. I’m sorry, Kieran.”

Emma sighed and shook her head. Sometimes it seemed hopeless to try to help kids like Kieran, when they faced such massive indifference at home. But sometimes, in spite of the odds, she actually could help, and that made her job feel very worthwhile. Emma pushed the doors open and scanned the lobby. David was leaning against the front desk, making conversation with the new receptionist. Emma drew in a breath at the sight of him, as she often did. He was, to her eyes, the most attractive man she had ever known. One of the handsomest she had ever seen, in fact.

“David,” she said.

When he heard her voice, he turned to look at her, his eyes widening. “Hey, baby.” He was Burke’s age, thirty-three, but despite the gray that flecked his long, dark brown hair and the lines around his fine, hazel eyes, he looked much younger than his old friend. He had a strong jaw and perfect, white teeth, which he flashed in a dimpled, boyish smile that made Emma’s heart turn over. Today he was dressed, as usual, in jeans and a leather jacket—an urban cowboy style that suited his maverick image. He admitted to having a stubborn resistance to all authority and told her that he had become a freelance writer because he could never stand the constraints of a regular job with a boss.