Sugar Time

by Jane Adams

  By then Alex seemed to have snapped out of his bad mood. He skied that day, and when he came back to the house he kissed me warmly and said he thought he’d lie down for a while before the night’s festivities began.

  Vail pulls out all the stops on New Year’s Eve with a big torchlight parade and fireworks; in addition, Alex and I had accepted invitations to two parties. One was being hosted by Bob and Carol Hollister, who’d reserved the Wildflower Restaurant at the Vail Lodge for a private dinner; Hedley Sturgis, who’d championed my pilot and was still taking a proprietary interest in the series even though she wasn’t directly involved anymore, was having the other one.

  She’d phoned a few days before I left, wanting to nail down a time to get together after New Year’s. She said she’d be in L.A. after the holidays, which she was spending in Vail with her current girlfriend.

  “What a coincidence, I’ll be in Vail, too,” I said.

  “Then you’ve got to come to our party. Everyone will be there. I’ll email you the address.”

  I was and wasn’t looking forward to the party. There was something in Hedley’s tone when she called that made me wonder if she had anything else on her agenda besides catching up with an old friend who happened to be producing a new series on her network. I felt a little uneasy when I hung up the phone, and in my Filofax I circled the time and date of our meeting after the holidays with a big red question mark.

  It was around seven when Paul tapped softly on our door. Alex was still asleep, and I was editing the draft of the script in the wing chair by the fireplace.

  “Are you okay?” he asked.

  “I’m fine,” I said, closing the door behind me so we wouldn’t wake Alex.

  “Are you sure?”

  “Sure I’m sure. What’s the matter?”

  “I don’t know. I thought maybe you had a migraine, it feels that way.”

  “No, I don’t…are you sure it’s me?”

  “If it’s not Jessie and it’s not you …it might be Alex, Mom. In fact, I’m pretty certain it is. Maybe Kelley ought to take a look at him, she’s a nurse—oh, hi, Alex, didn’t mean to wake you.”

  “That’s okay, I was just sleeping off a headache—don’t look so worried, Sugar, it’s nothing, I probably shouldn’t have taken that last run today. A couple of aspirin and I’ll be fine.”

  “Are you sure aspirin’s all you need, Alex?” Paul shot me a worried look.

  “It usually does the trick,” he said. “I’m going to take a shower and climb into my monkey suit now, okay?”

  “If you really want to,” I said. “We don’t have to go out if you’re not feeling well. Bob and Carol probably won’t even notice if we’re not there, and I don’t care about Hedley’s party, I’m seeing her next week anyway.”

  “What, and miss showing you off in that dress that’s hanging on the closet door? Not a chance,” he answered.

  The dress was a vintage black silk and velvet sheath with jet-trimmed lace sleeves and hardly any back at all. I found it at The Way We Wore, one of my favorite stores; it was an Edith Head original worn by Shelley Winters when she was just cushy, not fat, playing a New York madam in a truly trashy melodrama called A House is Not a Home. I’d brought a short white mink jacket from the forties that I picked up a long time ago in a thrift store in Palm Beach—they’d be perfect together

  Alex was out of the shower and dressed before I was. He kissed my neck as I fastened the emerald earrings and finished my make-up; in the mirror his face looked flushed, feverish and unwell above his pleated tuxedo shirt.

  “Are you coming down with something?” I turned around and touched my lips to his forehead the way I did with the children when they were little.

  “A little cold, maybe,” he said. “Nothing to worry about. You look beautiful.”

  I felt that way—it was New Year’s Eve, a night that has its own particular resonance for a woman, so I took him at his word, even if I didn’t quite believe it, and off we went.

  The party was in full swing when we got there—waiters were passing hors d’oeuvres and champagne flutes, and the air was perfumed with expensive scents. Alex steered me through the crowd, stopping now and then to greet old friends: “Hey, Mac, what are you doing here?” he said to a portly man in his seventies who was carrying two glasses and looking around like he’d misplaced someone. “Last I heard, you and Jeannie were halfway around the world on your boat.”

  “Didn’t make it past the Marquesas,” he said. “Jeannie got sick, we came home. Ah, there you are, honey, come meet my old friend Alex Carroll, used to play ball for me.” A pretty woman half his age flashed us a beauty-queen smile. “Pleased to make your acquaintance,” she twinkled.

  “My wife, Jennifer,” he said. “Read about your company in the Journal, “he told Alex.” Deal must be just about done, huh?”

  “Close of business yesterday,” Alex replied.

  “Guess you’re a free man then. Or maybe not,” he added, looking me over like he was judging a brood mare at a horse auction.

  ““This is my friend Sugar Kane,” Alex said. “Sugar, Mac McKinnon. He had a piece of the team, back in the day.”

  “Still do,” he said pleasantly. “Sugar, huh? Used to know a Sugar, she was a TriDelt at SMU. You a Texas gal, Sugar?”

  I was saved from declaring my Yankee roots by Carol Hollister, who swooped down on us like a bird of prey. “I’m so glad you made it—we were beginning to wonder if you’d show up, weren’t we, Bob? That dress is fabulous, Sugar, wherever did you find it? I’m so glad the boys could come—I’ve put you all at the same table.”

  “It was nice of you to invite them,” said Alex politely.

  “Well, we’re all practically family, aren’t we? We used to have such good times back in the old days, the Hollisters and the Carrolls, the fearless foursome, didn’t we?” she said, kissing him a little too enthusiastically if you ask me, which no one did.

  When the arrival of other guests claimed her attention we made our way through the crowd to the napery-draped tables that were set with gleaming silver and crystal, vases of bluebonnets and miniature white roses, and calligraphed place cards affixed to small ceramic replicas of the Texas state flag. Evan and Chris were already there with their girls, who bloomed with the beauty of youth and the promise of new life.

  More Texas friends stopped at our table to say hello—Alex stood up and introduced me, but the fourth or fifth time he remained in his chair. Eventually everyone found their tables and took their seats, and the waiters served the first course, fragrant oyster bisque.

  Alex barely touched his, and he only took a few bites of his Cornish game hen before he pushed his plate away.

  “Are you okay?” I asked quietly. Despite the crowd in the room, the air was well conditioned, but there were beads of sweat on his forehead. “I’m fine,” he said. “Stomach’s a little queasy, that’s all. I’ll be right back.”

  “Is something the matter with Dad?” Evan asked after Alex left the table.

  “I think the soup was too rich for his blood,” I said, and Chris and Angela exchanged one of those looks only married people give each other, the kind that say things they don’t want other people to hear.

  It seemed like a long time before Alex returned; dessert had already been served. When he lifted his water glass, I noticed the tremor in his hand.

  We didn’t linger long after dinner, and when we got back into the car, I asked Alex again if he was all right.

  “I’m fine,” he said.

  “Really? Because frankly, sweetheart, you don’t look it.”

  “I’m okay,” he said. “It was a little close in there. I just needed some fresh air.”

  “Maybe, but I think one party’s enough for tonight. I hate all that auld lang syne business, those little twisty noisemakers that go off in your face and all the drunks who slobber all over you at midnight. I’d rather be with you. Let’s just go home.”

  “What? And miss my chance to
meet the guys from Queer Eye?”

  His tone was light, but I didn’t believe him. There were only pinpricks of light in his eyes—they were as dilated as those of the anorexic English supermodel I’d just seen doing a line of coke in the ladies’ room at the Lodge. And he was panting for air, the way I did that night in New York when I went to the hospital. Whatever this was, it was more than a little cold. “Take us back to the house,” I told the driver, and when Alex didn’t protest, I was sure it was something serious. “No, wait,” I said, “is there a hospital near here? Take us there. And hurry, please!”

  Alex shook his head weakly. “No, no. Don’t listen to her, Joe, the house will be fine.” He leaned back against the seat and closed his eyes, mumbling something I couldn’t quite hear.

  “What did you say?” I asked.

  “I said, forget the hospital,” he repeated. “They can’t fix what’s wrong with me.”

  By the time we arrived at the house he seemed better—at least his breathing was steadier and his color more normal, although he leaned heavily on Joe and me until we got him inside. We led him to a couch and helped him down onto it—“Thanks, Joe, I’m okay, probably had a little too much to drink, you can go now,” he said.

  He pulled off his black tie and mopped his face with it. “Damn thing was strangling me,” he said. “Would you mind getting me a glass of water, darlin’?”

  I stood over him while he drained it. “More?” I asked, and he shook his head. He patted the sofa cushion. “Come sit by me,” he said.

  “What did you mean, nothing wrong they can fix?” I asked. “Alex, something’s the matter with you—are you going to tell me what it is or do I have to drag it out of you?”

  He stroked my face and let out a deep sigh. Then he said, “I have an aneurysm in my brain.”

  I was stunned. “How long has it been there?”

  “There’s no way to know that.”

  “Has this happened to you before?”

  He nodded. “A few times. That day I met you, at the hospital? UCLA Medical Center has one of the best neuroimaging departments in the country. I’d had a couple of scans in Seattle before that but they didn’t show anything, and when I started having symptoms again, I was referred there.”

  “What did they tell you?”

  “They looked at the tests I’d had done and then they did some more. They thought there was something there, but they still weren’t sure—they said if there was a bubble in my brain it was a small one, and it was pretty stable. And by the time I saw them, I wasn’t having any more symptoms. Then when I came down in November—well, you saw how I was then. So I went back to UCLA before I went home. They did some more tests and scans. By then, it was big enough to see.”

  “Can they operate?”

  “It’s not in an easy place to reach. Surgically, there’s substantial risk involved.”

  “How much risk?”

  “Too much,” he said flatly, which really disturbed me—Alex was a man who took risks even when he didn’t have to.

  “What if it ruptures?”

  “The odds are about the same as if they operate, pretty bad…sweetheart, don’t cry. It’s possible it’s been there for years—when I was playing ball, I used to get headaches sometimes, the way I do now, and that was over thirty years ago. It’s entirely possible it won’t get any bigger than it already is.”

  “And if it does?”

  He shrugged. “It could rupture. And if it ruptures I could die. Or I could have the surgery and still die. Or worse.”

  I didn’t have to ask what could be worse than dying. “Why didn’t you tell me?”

  “Probably for the same reasons you didn’t tell me,” he said.

  “But that’s not the same thing,” I began, and he shook his head.

  “Close enough,” he said. “Maybe not medically, but for, you know, the other reasons.”

  Just then, the grandfather clock in the foyer began to toll. “Everyone lives on borrowed time, Sugar,” Alex said. “You, me, our kids—everybody.”

  “Yes, but—“He put a finger to my lips, keeping it there until the last second of the old year tolled away. Then he kissed me gently. “Let’s not waste any of it.”

  We went to sleep in each other’s arms—I lay awake for a long time with my head on Alex’s chest, listening to him breathe, feeling the reassuringly steady beat of his heart. When I woke up he was standing over me with a tray, looking so vital, so full of energy that I thought I’d dreamed the whole thing, the way you do the morning after something terrible happens just before reality rolls over you like a giant wave.

  “Breakfast in bed? What’s the occasion?”

  “Maybe your mother was right. Just don’t expect me to make a habit of this—it’ll probably be next New Year’s Day before I do it again.”

  “I hope so—you burnt the toast.”

  “Exactly,” he said with a grin, and I couldn’t help laughing. If that was the way he wanted to play it, I’d go along. I don’t tell you how to live your life, don’t tell me how to live mine.

  The previous night’s snow had turned to freezing rain—whether by chance or intention, we all spent the last day and evening together. The men watched football while we packed up and picked up: As Jessie said, wiping the gummy remnants of a teething biscuit off the back of an upholstered chair, “Even I wouldn’t rent my house to ten people, a baby, and an incontinent dog for a week.” The staff would come in after we left and do the thorough cleaning, but they’d left us well-provisioned with cold-cuts and sandwiches; Zach put a pot of chili on to simmer the day away, and we ate it that night with hot crusty garlic bread salad, and chocolate brownies.

  I kept an eye on Alex as unobtrusively as I could. I didn’t want him to think I was hovering over him. For now, anyway, I would take my cue from him. I wouldn’t say I was in total denial about what he’d told me, but for most of the day I was fine, except when I took a load of Rosie’s freshly laundered clothes out of the dryer; I buried my face in her clean, soft undershirts, remembering the day she was born, when I met Alex—“all the beginnings, the possibilities.” That was when it hit me all over again.

  Paul found me there in the laundry room. “I’ve been talking to Alex,” he said. “Rough deal.”

  “It’s not fair!” I sobbed, burying my head in his chest for comforting.

  “No, it’s not,” he agreed, continuing to hold me until I stopped crying. Wiping my face with one of Rosie’s little wash clothes, he said, “Are you going to be okay?”

  “Is he?”

  “For now. Nobody knows how long. But remember what you told us? You could fall and break your neck, that’s no reason to stop walking. You and Alex are a lot alike that way.”

  One other thing of note happened that day. When I was taking my clothes from the closet to pack them, I accidentally knocked Alex’s tuxedo jacket off its hanger. When I picked it up off the floor, something fell out of the pocket. I bent to retrieve it; it was a small blue Tiffany box, smaller than the one my emerald earrings came in. I fingered the box for a few minutes, turning it over and over in my hands without opening it. Then I replaced it in his pocket, finished my packing, and went downstairs for supper.

  The next morning after breakfast I said, “Alex, we need to talk.”

  “Four of my least favorite words in the English language,” he said. “What’s on your mind, darlin’?”

  “You know what’s on my mind.”

  “No, as a matter of fact, I don’t. But I’m sure you’ll tell me,” he replied, not unkindly.

  “It’s about your…condition.”

  “Now I’m the one with a condition, huh?”

  “Why won’t you have the surgery?”

  “I told you why. They could cut a big chunk of what makes me a person instead of a vegetable away—at least some of it. I could lose the ability to see, to talk, to think. I could forget who I am, and not know who anybody else is, either. You, for instance.”

 
“But maybe that wouldn’t happen. Maybe you’d be okay.”

  “But what if I wasn’t?” He sighed. “Remember what you said about Tory? That as long as she wasn’t suffering, you couldn’t put her down? Well, if I’m suffering—if they do the surgery and I’m not only not any better, I’m a whole lot worse—who’s going to put me down?”

  I didn’t have an answer for that, so I didn’t say anything. After a minute or two he took my hands, one at a time, and kissed my fingertips the way he did before we made love for the first time. “You said something else, too—you said, until then, every day is a gift. Well, every day I wake up in the morning and I’ve still got all my marbles is a gift.” He let go of my hand then. “You’d better get the kids…it’s almost time to leave for the airport.”

  I sank into the empty silence of my house with a groan of relief. When you’ve lived by yourself for a long time, you don’t appreciate how exhausting other people can be. Being alone again felt like it does when you take your hair out of the ponytail it’s been in all day and realize you’ve had a headache for hours.

  I didn’t appreciate the joys of solitude after the kids were grown and gone and so was the last major man in my life. For a long time after that it was indistinguishable from loneliness. Finally accepting the fact that I’d probably live out the rest of my days and nights as a single woman, after a string of other losses and disappointments, was the tipping point—I fell into a dark, deep pit, worse than the one that followed after Ted left. Then I went into therapy; the second time I went on Prozac, which was cheaper and faster.