A Study in the Art of Innocence

Dr. Grant pulled into his parking space outside his office and hopped out of the car. He slammed the door of his beat-up Toyota to shut it, but the latch of the door refused to catch. On the second try, he hip-checked the door and that did the trick. He thought he’d have to use his hip again when he opened the back passenger door to pull out his briefcase, but the back door seemed to be in a more agreeable mood and shut without any complaints.

Two flakes of paint from the body of the vehicle fluttered to the ground, but Dr. Grant didn’t care. Even his 20-year-old used car couldn’t dim his excitement this morning. He’d tracked the delivery of the painting since he rolled out of bed in his crappy apartment, all throughout breakfast—two pieces of toast with margarine and two cups of coffee—and the six red lights he had to wait through to get here. The painting was almost there, and it would save his life. Or his practice at least.

“Morning, Doc,” said Lois, his octogenarian receptionist. She waddled over from the coffee machine in the lobby area, steam curling upward from the mug in her hand. Holding out the mug to him, she stretched out her other hand for his briefcase.

“Is it here yet?” he asked, letting his briefcase and go cupping his hand around his third cup of the day. “Mm, that’s good.”

“Should be for what you paid for that damn coffeemaker,” Lois said dryly. She took his briefcase past her own desk and down the short hall to his office then reappeared a moment later. “And, no, it’s not here. Soon, though. Don’t you have that tracker thingy?”

Dr. Grant opened his mouth to respond, but a knock sounded at the door. His grin widened, and Lois let the delivery men in. The two guys, probably in their early 20s, grunted and huffed as they brought the flat package through the door and set it down.

“Where do ya want it?” the blond one asked.

Dr. Grant’s eyes went to the big empty space on the wall above the lobby’s only seating, a dull blue loveseat he’d found at Goodwill. An Ikea coffee table that was too hip, too sleek in design, and too new sat in front of the sofa with a few magazines on top. It grated on Dr. Grant’s nerves that the furniture looked so ridiculous together, but student debts and then going deeper into debt to open his private practice had driven his purchasing decisions.

Interrupt those neurons, he reminded himself, and took a deep breath to keep the negative thoughts from looping in his brain. Then he forced himself to find something positive about the furniture. There weren’t too many bald patches on the sofa yet, and no one had complained about it. Not to his face, anyway.

“Hang it right up there in the empty space, if you don’t mind,” Dr. Grant said to the delivery men.

The delivery guys exchanged a glance, and the blond one spoke again.

“Ain’t nothing in the paperwork about hangin’ it,” the man said, hitching up his jeans.

“It’s okay, Doc,” Lois said, crossing her arms. “These young men probably would have a hard time getting it up on the wall anyway. You and I can manage.”

The blond one scoffed while his partner, taller and more wiry, rolled his eyes.

“You ain’t gotta insult us, lady,” he said. “Is it goin’ up there?”

He nodded at the spot above the sofa, and Dr. Grant’s head bobbed. “Yes, please.”

The delivery guys chatted about logistics for a few minutes then pushed the sofa out of the way and maneuvered the painting behind it. The blond one unwrapped the brown paper from the front of the painting and paused. He stared at it for second then looked at Dr. Grant.

“You sure this is what you wanted?”

Dr. Grant looked at the painting but kept his face neutral. Why not go ahead and start the study on the painting right now? He didn’t have anything to take notes with right now but could head straight to his office as soon as the painting was on the wall and jot down what he observed.

He took another sip of coffee and went to the coffeemaker, making sure to angle his body so the delivery guys could see him counting the number of pods left.

“Yes, that’s what I ordered,” he said, keeping his tone as casual as his body language. “It’s a custom painting.”

“You call that a painting, Doc?” the wiry man asked, squinting at it.

“I call it something I paid for and that you said you’d hang for me,” Dr. Grant said. He turned back to the men and offered them a bland smile. “Could you hang it up, please? I’ve got patients coming soon.”

The men exchanged one more glance and then shrugged almost in unison. Within minutes the painting was hung, the paperwork signed, and Dr. Grant was in his office with a fresh legal pad writing down everything the men said with their verbal and nonverbal communication. By the time he finished his notes, the clock read 8:52 a.m. Almost time for his first patient. He came back into the lobby and stood next to Lois’s desk, staring at the painting.

Lois finished her first round of Sudoku for the morning and closed the book then followed his gaze. “Something wrong, Dr. Grant?”

“Is it tilting to the right?” he asked.

“I can adjust it if you’d like.”

She went to the wall, pushed up the lower right-hand corner of the painting, and stepped back. “Better?”

Dr. Grant narrowed his eyes in thought, examining the painting again, trying to ignore the water stain in the far corner of the wall. After a moment, he nodded.

“Looks good. I’m looking forward to seeing what everyone thinks of it. Who’s first today?”

Lois went back to her desk and found the patient list on the computer. Dr. Grant waited patiently. He didn’t want Lois to know he was watching her too, although he’d have plenty of footage from the hidden cameras to analyze later for Lois’s reaction to the painting. If she had one, that is.

“Alecia Barnes is your 9 a.m.”

“Sounds good,” he said, smiling broadly. “I’ll head on back then.”

“Have a good morning,” Lois said.

Dr. Grant went into his private office, checked the camera feed on his computer one more time, and waited. He’d prepped all of his charts, read all his notes on current patients, and, really, didn’t have any pressing matters at the moment. To get ready for this first day of the study, Dr. Grant took care of all the administrative tasks of his solo practice. No need to worry about the light bill this morning or how he was going to stretch funds again to pay Lois’s salary. For the time being, Dr. Grant could just enjoy the anticipation of starting his day.

The phone in the lobby rang—the office space was small enough that he could hear it from down the hall—but he chose to watch on his computer screen as Lois answered it. Not sixty seconds later, Alecia Barnes walked in. Lois gave her a quick wave, and Alecia waved back and moved toward the old sofa.

She did a double-take at the painting, but a glance at Lois showed the receptionist still on the phone. Dr. Grant watched as Alecia went to the sofa and sat. She crossed one leg over the other, then switched them back. After another minute or two, she reached for a magazine on the coffee table but flipped pages without stopping to read anything.

Dr. Grant could sense her agitation, and his instinct told him she couldn’t resist another look at the painting…Now. This time her gaze stayed on it for a few beats before she turned around again.

Lois ended her phone call, and Dr. Grant took that as his cue to go into the patient consult room down the hall from his office. He heard murmurs from the lobby area, settled into his chair, and waited for Alecia Barnes. When she came into the room, her brow was furrowed but she didn’t say anything about the painting.

Dr. Grant took a moment to note of her expression on the file in his lap and then turned to her.

“Good morning, Alecia,” he said. “How are you this morning?”

*****

Lois watched Alecia Barnes go down the hall then turned to her computer. Dr. Grant had asked her to record her impressions of the reactions of patients to the painting, so she opened Alecia’s chart and made a few notes. Alecia had looked worried but also thoughtful. Clearly the painting had struck a nerve, but in the moment before the door to the hallway shut behind her Lois saw something else on the woman’s face: resolve.

Jim Harper arrived next, and he trundled through the door as Lois stood to greet him.

“Morning, Lois,” he said, holding up his breakfast sandwich in greeting, the large paper bag of a fast food restaurant crinkling in his other hand.

“Morning, Jim,” she said with a kind smile.

Jim took an enormous bite out of the sandwich and turned toward the sofa but did a doubletake just like Alecia had. Within moments his face got red—for a split second, Lois honestly thought he’d started choking on his sandwich—then he went to the sofa and turned his back on the painting with such resolution that Lois dropped into her seat and began typing in Jim’s chart as fast as she could. She raised her eyes slowly, carefully, trying to catch a sight of Jim when he wasn’t looking at her, but he caught her.

“What’s the meaning of this garbage?” Jim said, hooking a thumb over his shoulder in the direction of the painting. Crumbs spilled from his mouth.

Lois shrugged. “Dr. Grant thought it would be a conversation starter for when you go in to see him.”

“I’ll give him conversation starter,” Jim muttered, more crumbs tumbling down his faded t-shirt.

Alecia Barnes came out of the hallway, hurrying to leave. For once she didn’t stop to chat with Lois, even though she’d told Lois when she first started seeing Dr. Grant that Lois reminded her of her dear departed grandmother. Lois opened Alecia’s chart on the computer and made a note of the abrupt exit. She also double-checked that Alecia’s autopay option on her account was on so she wouldn’t have to chase Alecia down for payment later that day. Satisfied, she saw an alert on the top right corner of her screen.

“He’s ready for you, Jim,” Lois said.

Jim, still muttering, stuffed the rest of his sandwich in his mouth and stood. He marched toward the door to the hallway, but at the last moment he left his fast food bag on the sofa and scrubbed his hands on his jeans. After brushing his shirt clean, he went to see Dr. Grant.

The parade of patients continued throughout the day with the most interesting reaction coming from Stacey Collins. Always dressed to the nines in muted designer wear, Stacey teetered in on four-inch stilettos just before lunch. When she saw the painting, her mouth actually fell open and stayed that way for a few moments. She went to the sofa and lowered herself into it, one slow inch at a time. Shame skated across her face. Once again, Lois made sure to record the reaction in Stacey’s chart.

Appointments continued and so did the reactions. A couple of patients drew sharp breaths at seeing the painting—one actually gasped—no one else asked Lois about it. One young man did laugh, although the laugh seemed a little bitter. Lois’s heart went soft when she read his file and all he’d been through.

It’s a wonder he’s able to laugh at all, Lois thought as the man went down the hall to see Dr. Grant.

She made a note of his behavior then checked the patient list for the day. They’d reached the end, and she had about two hours before Dr. Grant would be ready to lock up for the evening. With a glance over her shoulder—even though the hallway door was shut—Lois switched tabs on her computer and went to the latest episode of the trashy reality TV show she started that morning.

If anyone at church ever found out Lois liked the show, her reputation would be mud for sure. It was one of a string of many Lois had watched since Harold died three years earlier, and the shows were more or less the same: young people forced into emotionally compromising situations that led to bad choices. Really bad choices.

Lois always got a dig of satisfaction when she saw these 15-minute stars fight for the fame, or infamy rather, that would make them household names for a month or two. She and Harold had never behaved in such an unseemly manner. It seemed like kids today had no idea of what it meant to make a relationship work. Or maybe the attention meant more than the relationship did.

She wasn’t stupid. Lois may have grown up in a time when hopscotch was the hot game of the day and when kids gathered at soda shops to mingle, but she knew most of the reality shows were manufactured. Still she watched, at the very least to remind herself that her relationship was better than any of the ones she saw online. Even if Harold had never had the rock-hard abs that that one young man on the latest desert show had.

Lois’s face got warm, and she fanned herself with her hand. Her gaze went to the painting on the wall to her right, and she lowered her hand. After a moment, she pursed her lips at the painting and went back to her show.

*****

Two years later Simon Grant, MD, practicing psychiatrist, published his paper on the power of passive suggestion. In it he discussed his anecdotal study of hanging a provocative painting in the lobby of his practice and the dozens of patients who had reacted. Without fail, every single one mentioned it in one of their sessions with him at some point.

A month after publishing, Dr. Grant started getting calls from other psychiatry practices in the area to discuss his findings in person. Then came the three paid speaker invitations at regional conferences. When a major YouTube mental health channel emailed to request his appearance on a special episode, Dr. Grant quoted his speaker’s fee there too. The YouTube host didn’t even bat an eye at the amount, and Dr. Grant knew his momentum had finally started rolling.

“It’s time to take the painting down,” he said to Lois on a Friday afternoon after the last patient left.  

“Will you be replacing it with anything?” Lois asked.

Dr. Grant stared at the spot, trying to imagine it with another wall hanging. After a minute or so, a smile crept across his face. He crossed his arms in satisfaction and turned to his receptionist.

“What if we put up a canvas that has the opposite? That might be just as interesting. You know, a follow-up to the last two years.”

Doctor and receptionist shared a long last look at the large canvas. The 3’x5’ plain white board had a single word on it. Who knew one word could elicit responses powerful enough to fill a paper in a major medical journal?

“By the way, Lois,” Dr. Grant said, “I never asked. Did the painting have an effect on you?”

She glanced at her computer then smiled. “Not really, but it’s been interesting to watch other people.”

He nodded as if he agreed with her but then hid a smile of his own. Should he tell Lois that he knew about the reality TV she watched? The last one had been about blind dates with a prospective partner’s family before meeting the partner, and there had been plenty of drama on the show. Once or twice, Dr. Grant heard the shouting of family members through Lois’s computer screen before she could turn the volume down.

I’ll let her have her fun, he said, going to the upgraded coffee maker. The YouTube money let him get that, and a new sofa that would arrive the following week.

Besides, if he was honest with himself, he’d felt a twinge in his own chest almost every single day when he walked into the office. He wondered if his patients felt manipulated. Cheated. If so, what did that say about him? Did the painting apply to him as well?

After all, who wouldn’t feel an implied accusation when faced with the word “Guilty” every day?