Walking to his car, Yuri is approached by Anna Marie, who apparently has been waiting outside the building for him. Are you Dr. Tipton? she asks him. He asks her which Dr. Tipton she wants. Whichever one you are, she says.
We see Anna Marie sitting next to Yuri as they ride along in his silver nondescript Japanese car. Anna Marie does the talking while Yuri listens or gives the illusion of listening. Anna Marie tells him some “facts” about Carroway she thinks he ought to know. Carroway has worked for the diplomatic corps and the CIA — she calls it by a code name — has sold arms and smuggled drugs, has beaten her. She opens her blouse to show him a bruise on the side of a breast. She insists that her husband, though appearing to be gentle, is a violent and dangerous man. We notice that someone in a red sports car appears to be following them.
What has Carroway told you about me? she asks.
Not a thing, says Yuri. What has he told you about me?
He doesn’t admit to seeing a psychiatrist, she says. I found your name in his address book. I came to see you so you wouldn’t get the wrong idea about me. I’m probably what you would call an abused homemaker.
That’s not a phrase in my vocabulary, says Yuri.
As a result of Carroway’s abuse, she reports, she has developed a heart-shaped rash in the vaginal area. The presence of this rash, for which she feels no personal responsibility, embarrasses her.
Yuri declines her offer to witness the embarrassing rash with his own eyes.
We cut to Anna Marie sitting in Yuri’s class while he delivers a lecture on “The Problem of Transference in the Therapeutic Process.” Afterwards, they have a drink together at a local bar called The Class Act. What’s going on between us? Yuri asks.
I’ve come to see you about my husband’s therapy, she says, wide-eyed. Is there something wrong with that?
You know of course, he says, that Carroway’s in therapy with my wife and not with me.
Adrienne is in her office, writing something in a notebook. A knock at the door startles her and she closes the book and puts it back in a drawer. Carroway comes in and takes his seat without a word of acknowledgement. He is on this occasion even more morose than usual. Adrienne studies him. The camera focuses on Carroway’s impassive face, his expression masked by dark glasses.
What is it, Carroway? she asks.
Your husband doesn’t want you to be my therapist, he says.
I make my decisions independent of my husband, she says. And you have no way of knowing what my husband thinks.
I have my sources, he says.
Later in the hour, Carroway says that Anna Marie confided to him that Yuri is one of her lovers.
You told me another time that she makes things up, Adrienne says. Why do you believe her now?
I’ve seen them together, Carroway says.
I don’t believe you, Adrienne says.
When Carroway leaves, the camera follows him out the door to a red sports car parked in front of the building.
We cut to Adrienne going through the drawers of Yuri’s desk. In one she finds a matchbook from a restaurant she has never been to. She sits in the patient’s chair, staring into space as if consulting her other self.
We cut to Anna Marie presenting herself at the receptionist’s desk at a hospital clinic as Yuri’s wife. Yuri is annoyed when he discovers her in his office waiting for him, says the clinic is for patients who can’t afford to see him in his private practice.
I wouldn’t have come if it wasn’t important, she says in her breathless way. Carroway thinks he knows something about us. He’s been making a lot of wild threats.
I assume you told him there was nothing between us, he says.
She shakes her head. If you deny something to Carroway, she says, it has the effect of making him believe it more. The best thing to do is ignore him when he gets into his jealous rages. Besides, he may know something, if you get my drift, that we don’t know.
I have no intention of giving your husband cause to worry, Yuri says. I am a man who happens to believe in marital fidelity.
They are kissing when a black teenager, Yuri’s next patient, walks in on them.
Leaving the clinic, Yuri hears what sounds to him like a gun shot and throws himself to the ground. He is helped to his feet by two older women, both a little potted, who advise him to go home and sleep it off.
We cut to Adrienne concluding a call from the kitchen phone to a former therapist. I feel I’m in some kind of trouble, she is saying. Yuri is whistling to himself as he comes in on her. Tuesday is fine, she says and hangs up the phone.
Happy about something? she says to Yuri, her anger only thinly disguised.
As a matter of fact, I’m feeling fairly down, babe, Yuri says.
Adrienne shakes her head in ironic wonder. It’s usual to whistle, I suppose, when you feel down. Of course, when you feel happy what you do is cry, right?
It takes two to make an argument, Yuri says, walking away.
Adrienne shouts after him, Don’t you just know everything.
We see Adrienne talking to her daughter Rebecca, who is sprawled out on the living room floor, doing her homework. There’s something I feel I have to tell you, she says. Rebecca puts her hands over her ears. What is it? she asks.
Yuri and I are having some problems, she says. It’s nothing really. I just want you to understand where the tension you feel comes from. I’m not telling you anything you don’t know.
I hate it when you and daddy are having problems, Rebecca says. I hate problems. I hate the word problems. Adrienne hugs Rebecca. The camera holds them in embrace then fades to black.
Yuri and Adrienne, facing forward as if posing for separate pictures, are riding in an elevator. They stand a foot or so apart, avoid looking in the other’s direction, are almost synchronized in their isolation. They come into the large high-ceilinged apartment of their friends, Peter and Barbara Cohen. A largish party is in progress. We discover, by overhearing conversations, that all the guests are therapists or companions of therapists. Shop talk abounds.
After embracing Yuri and Adrienne, Peter says that he heard they were about to become television celebrities, that they were going to tell the world how they handle their feelings of rivalry and competition. Joking aside, Adrienne says, Yuri and I are supportive of one another. When Peter asks if they’re actually going to do the TV show, Yuri says most likely; Adrienne says absolutely not. Their audience laughs. Yuri and Adrienne stare at each other in mute anger.
Yuri is in the coat room — the master bedroom — looking at a painting on the wall when Barbara comes up from behind and asks him what he thinks. He kisses Barbara on the cheek. You’re looking very sexy tonight, he says. You look a little like what’s her name, the movie actress who’s been rediscovered. I’m thinking of…He closes his eyes. My memory is failing me. Louise Brooks.
Barbara, blushing, gives Yuri a hug. That’s very nice, she says, though I don’t really know who Louise Brooks is.
In the next room, we spot Adrienne talking with great animation to a man with prematurely white hair. I read in “The New York Review,” she is saying, that we are living in a time of post- civilization. I just figured out what that really means. It means we live in a time when a divorce lawyer makes twice as much as a therapist.
Maybe he’s providing a better therapeutic service, he says.
Only a lawyer would say that, she says.
We see Adrienne edging through the crowd, her nervous smile like a flickering light.