Spin Doctor by Leslie Carroll Page B

Rights Amendment alongside my mom in matching tie-dyed tee-shirts that we’d made ourselves in the kitchen sink, spattering Rit and Tintex all over the avocado-colored kitchen appliances; carrying black balloons to my college graduation as a protest against apartheid in South Africa…and I wondered how all the ideals I was raised with had manifested themselves in the adult Susan Lederer. Here I am, middle-class, and technically middle-aged, since all my ancestors never lived beyond their eighties (although, as they used to say, “Life begins at forty,” and I’m still waiting for something new and different to happen any day now). I’ve recently realized that I’m more politically middle of the road than I ever expected to be. Well into adulthood I’ve discovered that pragmatism is the thick dark border now drawn around the image that during my youth used to be boldly, colorfully, and deliberately scribbled outside the lines.
    It’s sort of like the kid who’s a hellion hearing her frustrated mother’s constant refrain “Just wait till you’re a mother!” and then finding out years later, to considerable dismay, that she was right.
    As I listened to Claude and Naomi argue, it occurred to me that I’d been making an incorrect assumption about identity. Naomi, who has an Italian-American background, saw herself as a lesbian first. Claude’s primary cultural identity was different: she was a Chinese-American first and foremost. The adoption issue had brought the question of cultural identity into high relief, and with each of the partners having a different primary cultural identity, accomplishing a smooth resolution was going to be a tricky goal.
    â€œYou are in fact getting to make a political statement by adopting a Chinese girl,” I reminded Naomi. “Even though it’s currently at odds with the other one you wish to make. But one thing we really need to talk about is what kind of a home you’d be bringing this little girl into if you and Claude don’t work this issue out.”
    â€œBaby, you know I love you,” Claude said, reaching for Naomi’s hand. “You’re my girl.”
    Naomi pulled away. “I know. It’s not about that. And you know it. It’s a whole lot bigger than that. When the agency sends the fresh paperwork, Claude…? Don’t ask for my help. I don’t want to even watch you fill it out.”
    I believed I’d said the right thing, at least I’d expressed as a compassionate friend what needed to be put on the table, but as a shrink—even though confrontation can be an effective therapeutic tool in certain circumstances—I felt like shit as I watched Naomi scowl. My unorthodox sessions occasionally drift into uncharted waters. In a totally conventional situation, couples therapists aren’t supposed to appear to be taking sides.
    AND THEN THERE’S MALA SONIA…
WHO ISN’T A CLIENT
    Mala Sonia is the super’s wife: proud, poorly educated, a genuine Gypsy. She resents my early morning therapy sessions because she likes to come into the laundry room and use all the machines before anyone else can get to them. I have never seen a woman with so much laundry. The no-hogging rule doesn’t apply to her since her husband Stevo will blacklist the tongue-wagging tenant. God help them—because Stevo won’t—the next time they have a leak or require the exterminator. Mala Sonia, like her husband, calls herself a born-again Christian and does things like cross herself whenever she runs into “blasphemers” like Claude and Naomi (only she gets the second half of the gesture backward), and mutters in Romany—a language I am learning in dribs and drabs thanks to Eli, who is drawing a graphic novel called Gia the Gypsy Girl. Last Sunday morning I asked him if “Gypsy” was un-PC, since he’s always so hypersensitive about that kind of