The Break-Up Retreat(6)

I keep my face still, hoping my sudden bolt of anxiety isn’t showing.

What if they search my bags?

But she must see what I’m thinking, because that sweet serenity cracks, and Belinda lets out a laugh. It’s lower and harsher than her speaking voice, and I find I like it significantly better.

“Oh, don’t you worry,” she says, eyes crinkling at the corners, and, in a conspiratorial whisper continues, “We’re sex positive here. No matter what toys you brought, I guarantee you we won’t judge. My Satisfyer got me through my last two break-ups.”

I laugh, too, partly out of surprise, mostly out of relief.

It’s not a vibrator I’m concerned they would find.

“Thank God,” I exhale.

Belinda, still laughing a bit, raises her hand and knocks on the door before opening it.

“Doctor Martina?” she says. “Isobel Anderssen here to see you.”





Chapter 4


Doctor Martina Hastings, author of the internationally bestselling self-help book Freud’s Ex-Girlfriend and founder of the Himlafall Clinic, is shorter in person than she looks on TV.

She’s got the kind of polish I associate with the famous and the very dedicated; a white linen button-down that falls just so, tucked into straight-legged jeans so artfully worn in that I assume they cost more than my rent.

Shamefully, I feel a little frisson when I recognize the necklace resting in the hollow beneath her throat. It’s a golden Aum, inherited from her British Indian mother. She wrote about it in Freud’s Ex-Girlfriend ; I’ve seen it hanging around her neck in the countless TV interviews I’ve watched on YouTube.

“Hi, Isobel,” she says, smiling, like we’re old friends. Like I’ve only been gone for a few minutes, nipped out for coffee.

It’s oddly disconcerting.

“Hello,” I squeak out, just as I hear the door shutting behind me. I look back, reflexively, and see that Belinda has left.

When I turn back, Martina has come out from behind her desk.

“Please, sit,” she says, gesturing to the beautiful chairs standing in front of her desk. They look old, the seat and backrest clad in bottle-green leather, the dark wood polished to a high shine.

“Would you like something to drink? Tea, maybe? I would offer you coffee, but I generally recommend that patients stay away from stimulants for the first few days here. It’s up to you, of course, but your nervous system is already in flux. I have a lovely rose tea here. I brought it back from London last time I went to visit my mother. Would you like to try it?”

The steady stream of words makes it feel impossible to argue with her.

I sit down in a chair, which is, not surprisingly, extremely comfortable, and just manage to eke out a:

“Sure. That sounds nice. Thank you.”

Martina’s office is small but beautiful; there is a matching deep green couch and armchair by the tall window, separated by a low coffee table, and a bookshelf on the opposite wall right next to the little counter where she is busying herself with a kettle and two stoneware mugs.

I see all three of her books on the top shelf—the first two, How to Be an Adult: A Survival Guide to Your 20s and I’m Thriving , Thanks: A Good Girl’s Guide to Avoiding Burnout , launched her into the public consciousness some eight or nine years ago. But it was the third one, the one staring at me both from the bookshelf and from the framed, shockingly pink book cover blown up on the wall, that turned her into a superstar.

The kettle beeps, and Martina pours two cups of tea, swiftly places one in front of me on the desk, and then sits back down, cupping her mug with both hands and smiling at me.

“You know, I still think that tea was what got me through my divorce,” she says. It sounds conversational, off the cuff, but I’d be willing to bet money on her having said the same thing in the exact same way to every single woman who’s come through this clinic.

The true mark of a skilled manipulator is the ability to make scripts sound spontaneous, to turn the canned and commonplace into something intimate and special.

I should know.

“Well, Isobel,” she continues, tilting her head just so, making her expertly highlighted hair slide gently off her shoulder. Holding my gaze.

“Tell me about you.”

I open my mouth, to get my well-practiced story out, and find that it sticks in my chest.

Jesus. How embarrassing. I think I’m actually a little bit starstruck.

It’s just strange, finally sitting face-to-face with the woman whose pictures have been staring back at me from the computer screen for months on end. I know her public biography forward and backward. I’ve read both raving testimonials and hushed, anonymous condemnations of her work.

I know as much about her as her most fervent fans.

And now, here she is, in the flesh.

She doesn’t look dangerous.

But that doesn’t mean anything.

Predators are so often pretty to look at.

I can feel a blush creeping up my neck, and, reflexively, I put my hand to it.

“I’m sorry,” I say. “I don’t know what’s wrong with me.”

I’ve decided that Isobel Anderssen, my wounded alter ego, is insecure; wilting, rather than shy.

“Don’t worry,” Martina says, smiling in a way that seems designed to be disarming. “You can take your time. You must be exhausted.”