Excerpt of Blinded by Stephen White

CHAPTER ONE

ALAN

Nine-fifteen on Monday morning. My second patient of the
day.

Gibbs Storey hadn't changed much in the ten years since
I'd last seen her. If anything, she appeared to be even
more of a model of physical perfection than she'd been in
the mid-nineties. I guessed yoga, maybe Pilates. Her
impeccable complexion hadn't suddenly become pocked with
acne or ravaged by psoriasis, nor had her high cheekbones
dropped to mortal levels. Her blond hair was shorter but
no less radiant, and her eyes were the same sky blue I
remembered. The absence of any wrinkles radiating around
them caused me to wonder about a recent Botox poke, but I
quickly surmised that Gibbs's fair skin would probably
never be susceptible to the tracks of age. She'd be in
possession of some magic gene, and she'd be immune.

She'd always had beauty karma. Along with popularity
karma. And the ever-elusive charm karma.

She didn't have marriage karma, though.

I'd first met Gibbs and her husband, Sterling, when they
came to see my clinical psychology partner, Diane Estevez,
and me for therapy for their troubled relationship. Diane
and I saw them conjointly—a quaint, almost anachronistic
therapeutic modality that involved pairing a couple of
patients with a couple of therapists in the same room at
the same time—for only three sessions. Ironically, with
therapy fees being what they are and managed care being
what it is, Diane and I hadn't done a conjoint case
together since that final session with Gibbs and Sterling
Storey.

After they'd abruptly canceled their fourth session and
departed Boulder—"Dr. Gregory, Sterling got that job he
wanted in L.A.! Isn't thatwonderful!" Gibbs informed me
breathlessly in the voicemail she'd left along with her
profound thanks for how helpful we'd been—neither Diane
nor I had heard a word from either of them. That was true,
at least, until Gibbs called, said she was back in town,
and asked me for an individual appointment.

Gibbs's call requesting the individual appointment had
come ten days before, on a Friday. My few free slots the
following week didn't meet any of her needs, so we'd
settled on the Monday morning time. At the time she had
accepted the week-and-a-half delay graciously.

In the interim between her call and her first appointment,
I'd pulled her thin file from a box in the storage area
that was stuffed with the records of old, inactive cases
and examined my sparse notes. The few lines of intake and
progress reports that I'd scrawled after the conjoint
sessions told me less than did my memory, but I didn't
need copious notes to remind me that Diane and I hadn't
been all that helpful to Gibbs and Sterling.

Couples therapy is not individual therapy with two people.
It is a whole different animal, more closely akin to group
therapy with a radioactive dyad. Issues within couples
aren't subjected to the simple arithmetic of doubling;
problems seem to be susceptible to the more severe forces
of logarithmic multiplication. Therapeutic resistance in
couples work, especially conjoint couples work, isn't just
the familiar dance between therapist and patient. Instead,
a well-choreographed rou- tine between husband and wife
takes place alongside every interaction between either
client and either therapist. Each marital partner knows
his or her steps like an experienced member of a ballroom
dancing pair. She retreats as he aggresses. He surely
demurs as she swoons.

A couples therapist needs to learn everyone's moves before
he or she can be maximally effective.

My memory of the Storeys' conjoint treatment was that
Diane and I had only just begun to recognize their
peculiar tango when they terminated the therapy and moved
to California.

The first conjoint session had been a typical "what brings
you in for help" introductory. "Communication" was the
buzzword of the day in the care and feeding of
relationships, and that's the culprit the Storeys
identified as the reason they had entered into our care.
Each maintained that they desired
assistance "communicating" more effectively with the
other. He was, perhaps, a little less certain than she of
his motivation.

Neither Diane nor I had believed either of them. No, we
didn't entertain the possibility that they were out-and-
out lying to us—at least I didn't; I could never be a
hundred percent certain about Diane—but rather we were
waiting for them to approach the revelation that they
might be lying to themselves, or to each other, about
their reason for being in our offices. "Communication
problems" was a socially acceptable entree to treatment—an
acceptable thing to tell their friends.

But Diane and I weren't at all convinced at the time that
it was the reason we were seeing the Storeys.

"Hi, Dr. Gregory," Gibbs said as she settled on the chair
in my office for her first individual appointment. Her
greeting wasn't coy exactly, but it wasn't not-coy exactly
either. "Long time," she added.

Her fine hair was pulled back into a petite ponytail. She
smiled in a way that almost dared me not to notice how
together she looked.

I nodded noncommittally. My practiced chin dip could have
been measured in millimeters.

"I'm sure you're wondering why I'm here," she said.

Another microscopic nod on my part. Most days while doing
my work as a psychologist, if I were paid by the word I'd
go home a pauper. But Gibbs was right, I was wondering why
she'd come back to see me after so many years. I had a
guess—I was wagering that she'd divorced Sterling and had
moved back to Boulder to start a new life. It was a scary
journey for most people. Me? I was going to be the tour
guide.

That was my guess.

"You remember Sterling? My husband?"

Husband? Okay, I was wrong. The Storeys were separated
then, not divorced.

I spoke, but since it was Monday morning I failed to
assemble a complete sentence. "Yes, of course" was all I
said.

Gibbs raised her fingertips to her lips and leaned forward
as though she were whispering a profanity and was afraid
her grandmother would overhear. She said, "I think he
murdered a friend of ours in Laguna Beach."

Okay, I was wrong twice.