Fiction
Beach Doctor Anne

By Anna Collins

Anne Gardner, M.D., sat in her Miami Beach office and looked out her window at Collins Avenue and the ocean. The office was modest, but the rent sure wasn’t. You pay for trendy, she rationalized, and of course being on South Beach was, well, being on South Beach.

It had been a year since Anne had moved her psychiatric practice from Manhattan to Miami. Building a clientele had been slow but steady. Luckily for her, most of the people in the area needed psychiatric counseling – substance abusers were rampant; most of the artists and performers in the area suffered from some sort of neurotic malady and whoever wasn’t on antidepressants wanted to be. Plus, with all the models or wannabe models, eating disorders were a steady stream of income.

Anne’s previous practice on the Upper East Side of Manhattan had been quite successful. Maybe she wasn’t Dr. Phil, but then again, at least she wasn’t a bald media whore with a moustache.

Anne had turned forty-one this year, but because of her obsession for exercise, a healthy diet, and the biweekly B-vitamin shots in the butt, she looked much younger. Her shoulder length strawberry blonde hair had not a trace of gray –no, she wasn’t genetically blessed, just strict about touch-ups.

Anne had left New York for two reasons: one, because she was sick of catering to a mostly female clientele whose biggest worries were whether or not to buy the latest Louis Vuitton or Prada bag or to get yet another lip job so eventually they could just purchase a helium tank with a needle and float off over Park Avenue. The second reason was because she had fallen in love with a patient.

Stupid, stupid, stupid.

The patient, Richard, came to her as a referral from a colleague.  He was a forty-eight-year-old workaholic CPA with control and guilt issues. He was separated, but not divorced, from his third wife. Unavailable, neurotic, and guilt ridden. Sounds like a catch.

Richard found it impossible to relax and enjoy life. He defined himself by his frenetic work schedule and his status as the principal of one of the most elite accounting firms in the city.  Every time Anne referred to him as an accountant, he’d become visibly upset and shout, “CPA! I’m a CPA! There’s a difference!”  What’s the big deal? Anne thought. Although it wasn’t very professional, sometimes she just felt like slapping him.

During their sessions, Anne would ask Richard why he felt so guilty when he thought about enjoying his life and having fun. He never really answered her, he just kept telling her she had beautiful eyes. Anne felt herself blushing. He really was handsome, like a combination of Alec Baldwin and Andy Garcia before their fat, bloated alcoholic-looking years.  And Richard always wore black. At first, Anne thought he was in mourning – but apparently dressing like you just stepped out of The Matrix was a hip New York thing. Anne was beginning to have some distinct feelings for Mr. Richard.

Of course you like him you idiot, she told herself. He’s absolutely no good for you. You’re an M.D. for crying out loud – he’s your patient – hello! Yes, he is unbelievably cute but so is your medical license. You’re acting like a teenager at the Hormone Prom.  Find a nice single doctor  – or how about that dentist Mom tried to set you up with? All right not him – he did look like Uncle Fester in a lab coat. Not Richard, please! He’s got more x’s than a Jenna Jameson video. And stop blushing and acting like a geek! You are so pathetic! You’re right! What was I thinking? He’s a patient! I have ethics. No way I’m gonna sleep with him!

Richard’s performance in the bedroom was exceptional.

Not sexually – he just happened to have his piano in there and played Billy Joel songs for Anne after they made love. His rendition of “Uptown Girl” made her swoon, which was odd because she never liked that song – she thought it was goofy and sophomoric. But now, so was she.

Richard stopped being her patient after their first time together, although she did bill him for the missed sessions he signed up for. For a while, they were inseparable.

When they were together, Richard made Anne feel like she was the only woman in the world. And he was really funny and well read. He was a huge psychology fan and the only man Anne ever knew who actually read Freud’s Wit and Its Relation to the Unconscious. On the back of his black  BMW 650i convertible was a bumper sticker that read: WWSD (What Would Sigmund Do?). He had a running joke with Anne. “What would Sigmund do?” The answer was always the same, “Have sex!” Then he’d throw her on the bed or a reasonable facsimile, and she’d be off to la la land.

Then things began to fall apart. Finally, after nearly a year of his last minute broken dates for whatever convoluted reasons, coupled with his whiny indecisiveness about getting a divorce, Richard wasn’t fun anymore.  WWSD? Tell him to eff off.

So one night over a dish of Linguine with Lame Excuses at their favorite Italian restaurant, Anne told Richard she had had enough.

“Did you have a nice day honey?” she asked, “And by the way, you’re a self-centered, egotistical bastard and I’m breaking up with you.”

“Pass the grated cheese,” he answered.

“I’m serious, Richard,” she said. “I’ve had enough of your double-talk, your excuses and your whatever blah de blah B.S.  I’m so over this – and you. I need and deserve more.”

“Uptown girl, she ‘s been living in her Uptown world. My Uptown girrrrl,” Richard sang back.

“Shut up.” said Anne.

So she decided to pack up and move to the place where everybody goes when they’re sick of where they’re living and what they’re doing, they want to enjoy beautiful beaches and warm weather or they’re running from the law: South Florida.

But just before she left New York there was one other thing that happened that Anne couldn’t shake. 

As a last ditch effort, to make sure she was doing the right thing, Anne had gone to see a clairvoyant. She had showed the clairvoyant Richard’s picture and the old woman, after crinkling her nose and rolling her eyes, said his aura was paisley. Paisley, Anne thought.  Who has a paisley aura? What is he – a pair of pants from the ‘60s? It couldn’t be good.

At the time of the reading, the clairvoyant was recovering from knee surgery and could barely walk. But after the reading, when Anne was almost out the door, the clairvoyant suddenly leapt to her feet and ran after Anne shouting, “Find somebody else! A paisley aura is not a good sign! Find someone with at least a nice Tartan plaid aura or even a small herringbone pattern. Maybe in a pinch - gingham.  Ow, my knee!” And then she collapsed on her couch.

Anne figured if a clairvoyant with a bum knee runs after you to give you advice – maybe you’d better listen. So, here she was on South Beach. 

Besides being a shrink during the day, Anne was a sometimes nightclub singer by night. She had tremendous stage fright but an outstanding voice. Singing was a great emotional release and once she got past the nearly paralyzing panic attacks and had the mike in her hand, she was golden. The three vodkas didn’t hurt either.

Tonight she would be singing at a small blues club on Lincoln Road. It was open mic night and she figured what the hell. The club was called Bad & Blue and had opened just two weeks before. It turned out Anne had been the only singer who had signed up, so the manager had given her a full fifteen minutes to perform. Anne chose her standard favorites. Because of her propensity towards the lighter side of things, her trademark was to change the words of songs to whimsically fit her psychiatric background. Her reworked songs were always crowd pleasers.  Tonight’s first number would be, “As Our Time Ticks By”, sung to the tune of “As Time Goes By”.

”Listen up and take notes,” Anne would say to the audience before launching into the song:

“A kiss is just a kiss
A sigh is just a sigh
It’s not some committed affirmation
That he loves you, until you die
He may not even call
No matter how much you bawl
He’s just a man – it’s just a kiss
So don’t project your bliss
Of hearts, flowers and babies in strollers
And you won’t be disappointed
And pulling out your molars
After you’ve pulled out all your hair
In desperate despair
The fundamental things apply
As our time ticks by…

“Oops! Time’s up! See you next week!” she’d say.

That usually garnered relatable and loud applause from the audience.  It was amazing how the words never went out of date. Go figure. Now, the really important question – what to wear? 

Anne went to the small closet in her office. She always kept a few cocktail dresses in there so if she had an event to attend right after her last patient, she wouldn’t have to drive home to change. Although recently her only events were making sure she got to Publix before the two-for-one chicken sale ended.  She preferred shopping at Whole Foods or Whole Paycheck as she called it– but she was still a conscientious food shopper and the money she saved, if she found bargains outside of WF, was usually enough to pay her electric bill.  And that was just for a bag of carrots.

As she rummaged through the dresses, she heard the high-pitched shouts of some children playing outside her window. Anne stopped for a minute and sighed. She had once daydreamed about having a son with Richard, a black-haired sarcastic little man who would probably book numbers with the other kids. Still, it would be nice to have someone other than the sweaty Spanish guys on the street calling her mommy.

Snap out of it! Anne thought. Are you kidding? One play date with all those screaming brats and you’d be slurping down a Xanax smoothie faster than you can say, “So what are your qualifications as a full-time, live-in Nanny?” 

Anne wound up with a sleeveless little black number with a low cut back, clingy but not stripper-ish. Anne remembered buying the dress from a boutique in Greenwich Village that featured mannequins with huge iguana heads in their window. 

Anne stripped out of her work clothes and into the dress. She assessed herself in the small mirror on the wall. Because of its size, the mirror only showed parts of her body so she had to jump up at various angles to piece together the whole picture. After a few minutes of aerobics, she decided the dress was a keeper.

Shoes? Ah! At the bottom of the closet were a pair of black leather kitten pumps, a gift from her cousin Ida after Ida declared herself a lesbian and anointed Birkenstock as her official and unwavering footwear. The shoes literally came out of the closet.

Makeup? A little blush and lipstick would be good. Grabbing her purse, Anne removed her cosmetic bag and considered the three lipsticks inside. The choices were Divine Port Wine, Fabulous Fig and Wicked Watermelon. Who comes up with these names? she thought.  Whatever happened to pink and red? How about some lipsticks for the psychiatric world, like OCD Orange, Bipolar Berry, or Frosted Dark Dementia, Anne thought as she applied Divine Port Wine.  She laughed. Sometimes the jokes were just for her. She twirled the lipstick tube shut.

Done. She looked at her watch: 7:45 p.m. She had to be at Bad & Blue by nine. Plenty of time.

It was a nice night; she’d walk over to Lincoln Road and enjoy the sights along the way. There was sure to be the familiar barrage of transvestites, artists, hookers, female impersonators, macho Latin guys, models, tourists, musicians, gorgeous gay men, paunchy straight men, club kids, the occasional celebrity – Gloria Estefan didn’t count –  and of course the old guy with the knit hat and tattered shopping bag who walked down Washington Avenue every night screaming about Castro.

Anne thought about the evening ahead. It would be fun to sing again. Nobody here really knew her, and for the first time in ages, she didn’t feel so damn jittery about getting up on stage. She was moving on with her life.

She suddenly felt full of hope and enthusiasm – like she was headed to a shoe sale where they gave out free chocolate.

Anne turned off the lights and just as she was getting ready to lock her office door, the phone on her desk rang. Hesitating for minute, wondering whether or not she should answer it, Anne decided she had at least better see who it was – one of her patients might be in trouble. Could be her new binge patient, perhaps lying on the kitchen floor in an altered state with half an Entenmanns’s coffee cake and a few meatballs crammed in her mouth.