Hope Idiotic | Part 28
Hope Idiotic is a serialized novel. Catch each new part every week on Monday and Thursday.
FOR A MOMENT THERE, RIGHT AFTER HE GOT BACK TO CHICAGO FROM LAS VEGAS, things were the spitting image of the idea of perfect between Lou and Michelle. With her apology and self-realization, and Lou’s play, The Greatest Recession Ever! coming to life, Lou was ripe with confidence. Paid work still eluded him, but the creative process was rewarding enough to lessen the sting of being broke. Where he was poor in his pockets, he was becoming richer in spirit. He wasn’t moody or depressed or drinking as much, and Michelle was as understanding and sweet as she had ever been. He even stopped seeing Dr. Milner and Dr. Khorashi and quit taking the Remeron. Yes, things were good, but only for a moment.
A lot of time was spent at rehearsals, and with Mark to tighten up the script and fine-tune the play. Lou was making fast friends with the cast, and for the first time since he’d moved to Chicago, he was surrounded by fun, interesting people that he felt a real kinship with. He could be himself around these people, which is to say that he could be a little loud, irreverent and silly without being told to stop putting on a show or to grow up—phrases said by Michelle all too often when with her friends. Lou was at long last becoming productive and happy, which precluded the necessity of much time being spent with his show and his friends. Consequently, this meant that Michelle wasn’t getting the majority of his attention. Lou not being home when she came home from work at night became a problem.
She told him that she felt as if it were she who was walking on eggshells. Ever since the phone-call apology, she had had to adjust to his new schedule since he seemed to feel he didn’t have to pay any attention to the relationship, which was still bruised.
“I’m not avoiding the relationship,” Lou told her. “I just have other things going on—for the first time.”
“I still need to be a priority, Lou. We need to be a priority. And you can’t take me being wrong and hold it over my head forever.”
“I’m not holding it over your head. I’m past it. We’re moving on.”
But he wasn’t past it. He was reveling in it. He loved the idea of knowing that Michelle getting a taste of humility and that she had begged him to take her back. There was a power switch in the relationship. It was Michelle who wanted to make things work again, while now there was still a part of Lou that wasn’t fully invested in it.
“I like that therapist. He seems to be on my side.”
“Well, we can’t move on if you’re never home with me to watch TV like we like to do. And we can’t move on if the only thing you ever talk about is Mark and your play. I’m excited for you, and I’m looking forward to seeing it, but you really need to find other conversation points. And you’ve completely given up looking for work.”
“I most certainly have not,” he fired back. “This is my work for now, and I’m happy with it. There’s still no place hiring. I reach out to at least two hiring managers every day.”
“Maybe you should reach out to three then.”
It was slowly becoming like old times—just like Michelle seemed to want. And then she pulled the trigger on the idea of couples’ counseling, though she refused to use her insurance. It was left to Lou, who was still paying COBRA from his layoff to make the claim.
Each week they walked a few blocks to the therapist’s office. His name was Adam, and he specialized in couples. Adam was part of a practice of three other couples’ therapists who saw patients out of that location, and the waiting room was a revolving door of jilted lovers. The awkward efforts of the couples to not make eye contact with each other were exhausting ocular acrobatics. Lou missed the intimacy of Dr. Milner. The sessions were hour-long free-for-alls during which Michelle purged her frustrations with Lou’s faults. Among the faults: “Sometimes he’s too driven toward things that I just don’t understand.”
“Don’t you think being driven is a good thing?” Adam asked her.
“Of course I do. But not with things I don’t understand.”
“Perhaps you could try to understand why he’s driven toward those things.”
“I would, but he doesn’t tell me anything.”
Adam looked at Lou as if he owed them something.
“Every time I try to explain things, like the play, you get combative and tell me I’m wasting my time and should be looking for work.”
“You should be looking for work,” she said.
“You completely negate what I’m doing,” Lou said.
“Lou, maybe you could try to explain things a little better. A little differently. In a way that Michelle could understand.” Adam seemed pleased with himself.
“I would love to. But I’m out of ways. I’ve tried all of the ways.”
“That’s a negative approach to growth, Lou. That’s not going to help us in here,” Adam said.
Michelle seemed pleased with Adam. On the walk home Michelle turned to Lou. “I like that therapist,” she said. “He seems to be on my side.”
“Therapy shouldn’t be about sides, Michelle. That you even say that gives me serious concern.”
She laughed.
He poured a drink when they got home. Couples’ therapy only lasted six sessions before they both grew tired of it. It was clear they weren’t going to make any real progress, and Adam didn’t seem too interested in results either.