Secret Celebrity Clients!

FA

As an employee of a medical practice (technically, that's what my learning center is), I am prohibited by HIPPA from divulging identifying information about our patients. Which is really too bad, because if I could I'd tell you such a story about my recent brush with fame. I've seen plenty of celebrities in New York, but I've never shaken hands with any of them, had them introduce themselves using their first names, or spent two cumulative hours in intimate conversation with them.

I can relate this much: A Famous Actor (FA) who lives here in New York has a Kid (K) whose teacher has been complaining about K's behavior in class. FA and his ex-wife, Well-Known Actress (WA), were referred to us and came in last week for a consultation, which impressed them enough to book a full-blown assessment on Monday and Tuesday of this week.

WA

I never know what to expect from celebrities off the screen--someone who plays a charming, tender-hearted character may actually be a conceited jerk--and so interacting with FA and WA was a pleasant experience in that sense. FA, whose work I've seen more of, was soft-spoken. WA was friendly, charming, and funny. Both of them were head-over-heels devoted to K, and it was fantastic to see them so united in the task of raising their child. I've read about countless ugly Hollywood divorces, but if there was drama between these two dedicated parents, they did a brilliant job of hiding it. K was polite, articulate, and poised, and did a great job. Like everyone on the planet, a few parts of K's brain don't function as well as others, but they're subtle and there's no reason that K shouldn't be a very successful adult. We can teach kids to improve minor pitfalls, but it would be tough to teach the higher thinking skills, charisma, and humor K has in spades. In our practice, the parents typically watch the assessment through a closed-circuit camera. It was very strange to know that FA and WA were watching me on a screen instead of the other way around, though of course I know that they were really watching K and not me. I'm often terribly star-struck when I run into someone famous, but I was relieved to find that I could handle myself with some degree of grace today, even while on camera.

If I'd lived in a cave before today, I'd almost have thought that FA and WA were normal work-a-day parents. Almost. Little things gave them away, however. Their clothes, for example, seemed to fit them just so, as if they'd had everything tailored. Maybe they had. FA wore his sunglasses all the way down the hall and into my boss's office on that first day, perhaps due to his habit of trying to remain incognito. (Consensus among my coworkers is that he's even better-looking in person than he is on camera, which is not often the conclusion one comes to when one sees a celebrity up close.) WA talked longingly of Pinkberry, a frozen yogurt chain, towards the end of the day so that K had to remind her, "Mom, you're vegan!" And when my boss showed them one of our favorite books about creativity by Sir Ken Robinson, FA said, "Oh yeah! We met this guy at Meg Ryan's house!"

So much for living like the other half lives.