Turn Up the Heat by Jessica Conant-Park & Susan Conant

Author:Jessica Conant-Park & Susan Conant [Conant-Park, Jessica & Conant, Susan]
Format: epub, pdf
Publisher: Penguin
Published: 2009-11-22T00:42:05+00:00

ELEVEN

BACK at home, I devoted the rest of Friday, including the evening, to conquering the DSM. I made piles of flash cards with symptoms and descriptions on one side, and diagnoses on the other. I did my best to follow Doug’s suggestion to associate the diagnoses with people I knew. So, had Kevin succumbed to kleptomania? Or to something more sinister? What about Snacker? For the purposes of the exam, I categorized him as suffering from hyperactive sexual desire disorder, a diagnosis I based on his need to flirt shamelessly with every woman in sight. I then decided that Gavin was having a major depressive episode consequent to Leandra’s death. Josh’s diagnosis was acute stress disorder—in response to pressure at the restaurant—and Belita’s was obsessive-compulsive disorder. Her need to clean? Yeah, I was stretching the categories more than was acceptable, but I was determined to do well on the test, no matter who got stuck with which diagnosis. My only regret was that I didn’t know people with the interesting or peculiar symptoms required to help me remember agoraphobia (with or without history of panic disorder) and dissociative amnesia. At this rate, I’d succumb to trichotillomania: the irresistible urge to yank all my hair out.

I called Doug to see whether he had any brilliant advice for a struggling social work student.

“He’s not telling you what’s on the test,” Terry said as soon as he picked up the phone. Stupid caller ID.

“I wasn’t calling for that,” I lied. Doug must have warned his boyfriend to screen my calls. “Beware of students seeking classified information!”

“I’m sure you weren’t.” He laughed. “Doug isn’t here, anyway. Do you want to leave a message?”

“No. No message. Just called to check in.” Another lie.

“I heard about our waitress from dinner the other night. Doug told me. What a traumatic experience you’ve been through! How are you handling it?” Doug’s attitude had evidently rubbed off. Or maybe Terry was good at interpersonal relations on his own.

We talked for a few minutes about Leandra. Then I told Terry about my dinner with the chefs and about the archaic attitude toward women prevalent in the professional culinary world. “Listening to Digger made me want to scream!”

“So what are you going to do about it?” he asked calmly.

“What can I do about it? Change an entire profession? Yes. Find a job that consists solely of yelling at idiots about stupid behavior and forcing them to behave properly! That’s what I’m going to do about it.” There. Problem solved.

“Chloe, let’s back up and rethink matters. After all, you’re basing your view on the words of a few chefs. Their stories and experiences are not the final word on what it’s like for a woman in that profession. Some of what they said may be valid, but some of it may not. Don’t get carried away before you have a lot more information.”

I was silent for a moment. “Okay, that’s true,” I finally admitted.

“And what about everything you’ve learned in this internship

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