“Dr. Bloom will see you now, Ana.” The nurse is cute. A bit thin, but tall and athletic. Ana idly wonders if she is fucking the doctor, isn’t that the cliche? Ana is a cynic and a skeptic, and she knows she is being unfair to this woman she’d barely met, and to the doctor.
Dr. Bloom has a great reputation among Ana’s closest friends. Lisa came home from his office, and after those first two visits she hadn’t touched a cigarette again. She was a changed woman. Lisa was positively glowing under Bloom’s care, and all she could tell Ana was “it’s really life changing, what he does.” She said it almost dreamily, like she was remembering … something.
Lisa was a bit of a flake, and Ana wouldn’t have given Dr. Bloom a second thought until Deb went to him. Deb was part of the friend group, but she was tough to be around. She took pride in “telling it like it is,” but that was just code. She was a bitch. She’d yell at anyone, and have fun doing it. She yelled at a police officer over a month ago, poking him in the chest as she argued with him. She was sentenced to therapy in addition to a hefty fine. She chose therapy with Dr. Bloom. Deb was downright lovely the last two weeks, his treatment of her bad attitude and explosive temper was eerily effective. Just like with Lisa, whenever Ana asked how he did it, the answers were vague, and in Deb’s case accompanied by an uncharacteristic dopey smile.