The Girl With Nine Wigs

by Sophie van der Stap

  THURSDAY, DECEMBER 29

  AS PLATINA I SIT ON the terrace of Café Finch, writing, a blond man sits down at the table next to me. I have been discreetly studying him: Cute, no doubt about that. With plenty of hair too.

  “Young lady, is that white hair all your own?” he asks.

  I smile. “No, sir, that white hair comes right off.”

  “Oh. Is there a nasty reason for that which you’d rather not discuss?”

  “Yes,” I say.

  “Oh. Is that why you’re drinking mint tea rather than wine?”

  “Yes.”

  “Do you mind me being so bold as to come sit next to you and ask you some more of these impertinent questions?”

  “No, I quite like it.”

  “Good. Then, before we start, would you like another cup of tea?”

  “I would like that very much.”

  “Lady!” he shouts over the terrace. “Can I have two fresh mint teas, please?” He comes and sits next to me. The terrace is small and cramped, even on a sunny winter day like today, but he finds a way not to sit too close to me.

  “My name is Allard and I’m very happy to meet you. I must admit, I have seen you here before, looking slightly different.” His act makes me laugh.

  “My name is Platina and we’ll see about that.”

  “In that case, we have to converse a little longer. I mean, to be able to know. Are you sure I’m not disturbing you in your … Were you writing?”

  “Just taking some notes.”

  “Interesting. What are you taking notes of?”

  He doesn’t stop asking me questions, and I love it, all this curiosity from an attractive man who makes me laugh every other minute and who doesn’t seem to be afraid of me wearing a wig.

  “Everything.”

  “That’s quite a lot.”

  “It is.”

  FRIDAY, DECEMBER 30

  CHANTAL IS SITTING BESIDE ME while I do one of my last chemos. It’s just like in Sex and the City in the episode where they eat popsicles around Samantha while she does her chemo. Only we’re eating ladyfingers.

  Ten minutes after I got started she walked in, and now, an hour and a half later, she’s still here. I think we’ve really found each other, whether we’re sharing a bottle of wine or a bag of chemo. We can see the fun in all of it. Chantal prefers to take care of all hospital business alone, without emotions. Her family lives in France, so there’s not as much pressure. She is due to have a scan next week, she tells me. I ask her if anyone is coming along.

  “You?” she asks happily.

  “Definitely.”

  Yes, we have cancer and that sucks, but life goes on. Even for Chantal, who six months ago was given the news that her treatment would become a prolongation instead of a cure. I ask her if she has thought about her funeral yet.

  “Cremation.”

  Rotting away beneath the ground doesn’t appeal to her.

  “How about you?” she asks me.

  “Burial. I’m thinking about those you leave behind. I can imagine wanting to be burned and thrown into the wind, but my family wouldn’t know where I was. Have you picked anything out?”

  “An urn? No, not yet. Why don’t you take care of it? Then I’ll do yours, if that’s how it turns out.”

  We laugh at the thought of me orchestrating her big day and she doing mine. We want the same kind of thing, except she wants DJ Tiësto and I want the Rolling Stones.

  “It has to be a great party,” she says.

  Chantal and I discuss coffins just as easily as her latest shoe purchase or book experience. And when it comes to men, we tell each other everything. We both know how it feels to desperately want to go home with a guy—no baggage, no strings attached—after spending three days throwing up in bed or coming straight off an IV drip.

  “Cancer bitches,” Chantal calls us. A cancer bitch still ends up at random parties and wakes up in the morning with a killer hangover. “Those hangovers are so much worse now,” she says.

  I’ve left most of that behind me. Regular hangovers are not part of my lifestyle anymore. These days I meditate, go to therapy, and try anything that might help keep the cancer at bay. Because I want to. I don’t want to pretend the danger isn’t there. But if any of us were given the choice, you’d pick my prognosis over hers. And that’s why Chantal crams in all the parties she can.

  “Rest in peace,” she calls as she leaves to do her grocery shopping.

  “Have a nice funeral,” I call after her.

  Chantal gives me the same comfort as Marco and Oscar when I think about dying, which doesn’t go much further than blackness, or maybe an energy field here and there. The chances that I go before her are slim to none, however bubbly and healthy she appears now. It’s a very selfish thought, I know, but it feels nice to know that I’ll have a real friend up there in the blackness before one day I go.

  Damn. How lonely she must be.

  SUNDAY, JANUARY 1

  THE NEW YEAR HAS BEGUN. I think all this “new year, new you” reflection is a little over the top, but all around me people are saying how much 2005 SUCKED and how GREAT 2006 is going to be. All this with meaningful looks and hugs.

  I don’t say it out loud, but I think today SUCKS. The city is deserted. I hate New Year’s, always have. And I’m out of yogurt.

  What has changed since last year? My prognosis, obviously, which is better than GREAT. My sister living in Hong Kong with her now fiancé: SUCKS. Chantal in my life: GREAT. Her prognosis: SUCKS. NL20: GREAT. Love life? DOUBLE SUCKS.

  WEDNESDAY, JANUARY 4

  DR. N HANGS UP THE photos from my last scan and contemplates the results with a smile on his face. I think I detect some pride in his expression as well. Also on his screem my lung appears to be clean.

  He listens patiently to my lungs with his stethoscope. This man is clearly passionate about his work. I sigh and cough and he says everything sounds clear.

  “But this is fantastic!” he exclaims in a typical Professor Calculus manner. And this time he isn’t afraid to give me an optimistic prognosis—not the case with Dr. L—by telling me that, in his opinion, my tumor and its entire family are gone. You can never be completely sure, he reminds me. But it’s good enough for me.

  Now I have to wean my body off the meds. From ten milligrams to five milligrams of prednisone. I make an appointment with the local physiotherapist to get my muscles and stamina back up to scratch. Three gym sessions and only two chemos to go. One more scan and then I’m free until the summer. The summer! That means six months without Dr. N, and soon Dr. L and my nurses. The thought scares me a bit. Weird how you can get used to anything. Even cancer.

  THURSDAY, JANUARY 5

  ON MY WAY TO SEE Dr. K, caught up in the excitement, I almost forget to bring along my last CT scan images.

  My heart is beating fast. It’s pumping warm blood throughout my chest, all the way down to my stomach. Thick, healthy blood is being pumped around my body, leaving a pink trace on my cheeks. Tingling in my fingertips. A slight tremor in my legs. No shallow breaths but audible gulps of fresh air.

  Dr. K looks at me for a long time. This time he doesn’t settle for a handshake but pulls me close. He kisses me on both cheeks. Am I imagining it, or is there some old-fashioned flirting going on here? I quickly run down the list of compliments he’s given me in the past fifteen minutes.

  A few months have passed since I shared a space alone with him. There has been ample reason to keep in touch via e-mail, though, which I have fully optimized. The content of those e-mails has shifted somewhat over the months from purely medical to private matters. Up until last month we didn’t get much further than discussing pneumonitis or an endoscope; now he broaches the subject of the media attention and my fledgling writing career. And where I started with “Dr. K” and “Regards, Sophie,” I now happily type in “Dear K” and “X Sophie.”

  The telephone rings. An unexpected bellowing laugh, which makes me smile. After hanging up, he
smoothly switches back to lung content and fibrosis. And there it is again, that look. Eye contact lasting a few long seconds, enough to make the nerves beneath my skin glow. Was he seeing himself kissing me passionately on his examination bench? Or is this wishful thinking only on my side of the desk?

  I leave his office with a smile on my face. My phone is beeping. Rob thinks I’m a “fantastic chick,” loves me very much, and hopes to love me for a long time to come. Does he hope that when he’s lying on top of her? Bugger off.

  My phone beeps again. It’s Jur, asking if I’m okay. I’m great, my dear friend. I dream of a guy who thinks of me as just a friend and get flustered by a doctor I have an impossible crush on. When will love ever get simple?

  FRIDAY, JANUARY 13

  THIS MORNING I WAS walking down the street softly singing along to James Blunt’s voice in my ear. A boy carrying a skateboard in one hand and an enormous bag with something orange sticking out of it—a pumpkin?—in the other was walking beside me. He asked me about the time and started talking to me about his parties at Club 11, where he works. So that’s where I’m going tonight for NL20, for my next column. I’m a party journalist now; I better keep my ears open.

  I take the elevator in the old post office building on the wharf all the way up to the eleventh floor. Pumpkin Boy is standing next to me, but he doesn’t recognize me. After all, I was Pam yesterday, and today I’m Uma. I thought Uma would fit in better at the party. I look him straight in the eye but say nothing. I take my time, thoroughly checking him out. I decide to leave it at that.

  Upstairs I go in search of good people to photograph for the article. I’m here to work, after all, and have five hundred words to fill. Usually it’s a challenge to find enough interesting people, and I’m happy if I come across one remotely funky guy with an earring, maybe even a leather jacket, but tonight my camera’s memory card can hardly handle the load.

  “Love the lashes, I have the same ones,” a transsexual blonde tells me. Wow, that’s a new one. I should come here more often.

  “Thanks,” I reply as I move on through the crowd.

  I get a kiss from a boy in a mask; his T-shirt says STICKER SLUT. Two piercing-covered lesbians wearing black makeup and fiery-red lipstick shimmy by. They’re perfect candidates for a picture and I skip after them.

  Suddenly I spot Tie Boy, grooving away in his All Stars. I tap him on the shoulder. “Tie Boy!”

  He turns around and recognizes me immediately. Now that I’ve written about him in NL20, he knows all about my wigs. He grabs me around the waist and plants a long kiss on my cheek. “And who is gracing me with her presence this evening?”

  “Uma.”

  “Uma suits you. Drink?”

  At the bar he orders vodka for himself and a mineral water for me.

  “Can I feel?” he asks as he points at my hair.

  “Sure, go ahead.”

  “Fake, all right. So, would you like to go out sometime?”

  I smile and nod.

  After taking endless photos of beautiful, interesting people, I put away my camera and go in search of the manager, whom I’m supposed to meet. I’m shown to a room at the back of the club. I find him surrounded by pretty women, standing behind a table, cigarette in hand, with a bottle of rum. It’s a short conversation; he’s far more interested in the rum and the women.

  On my way out I run into Allard on the dance floor. He gives me a big kiss—it seems as though everyone is in the same building tonight. I love nights out where you keep running into familiar faces. Allard and I run down the eleven flights of stairs together because the elevator has broken down. He thinks I’m pretty and exciting but is too afraid to flirt with me, worried he’ll scare me off. I know he means well, but it also annoys the hell out of me. As if getting sick means I can’t handle a little harmless flirting. On top of that: flirting is the best there is!

  “Allard?”

  “Yes?”

  “Remember that day on the terrace at Finch, when we first met? Were you drunk then?”

  “Drunk? Tipsy at most, why?”

  “When you told me you thought I was beautiful?”

  “Yes.”

  “Is that still the case or was it the white wig you fancied?”

  He laughs. “As far as hair goes, I think you’ve only improved.”

  “So you like me even more?”

  “What are you getting at?”

  “How come I’ve only seen you twice since then?”

  “I assumed you had a boyfriend.”

  “What if I told you I was single?”

  “Then what?” He looks like he’s starting to catch on.

  “Then would you take me out to dinner?”

  “Would you like that?”

  I give him a seductive look. “Purely hypothetical.”

  “Perhaps.”

  “Does it have anything to do with the reason why I’m wearing a wig?”

  “Sophie?”

  “Just answer the question.”

  “Okay.… I would be lying if I said that didn’t scare me. But it has nothing to do with the fact that I haven’t asked you out. I just want to be careful with you. Something about you makes me careful, that’s all.”

  “Okay.”

  “What is it you want?”

  “I want you to kiss me as if I’m just a girl.”

  And he does.

  When I get back home my phone beeps; it’s Pumpkin Boy asking why he didn’t see me at the party.

  I look at the photos I took. They are a flurry of polka-dot scarves, striped sweaters, and tiger-print pantyhose. Allard, the fierce lesbians, Pumpkin Boy with Uma, and more all flash by me with the club in the background.

  Before I fall asleep I check my e-mail. Chantal has written again. She says she’s been extremely tired, sleeping more than twelve hours a night. She ends the e-mail saying that she will pop by my chemo next week. We made a point of knowing each other’s schedules.

  FRIDAY, JANUARY 20

  “SO,” ESTHER SAYS, pricking into my synthetic boob for the last time. “Who is this Dr. K, anyway?”

  I spill my secret crush to her with a grin on my face.

  “I thought so!” she exclaims. “When you were on TV you got to kiss my two favorite men in life, you know. What’s that actor like in real life? He seems like he’d be such a genuine guy. And then the host, Matthijs, of course—what a hunk.”

  For a moment I feel bad for my nurse—here I am, fishing in her pond—but I don’t feel bad for long: that’s just my gray cloud’s silver lining.

  FRIDAY, JANUARY 27

  I’M TAGGING ALONG WITH Chan to her chemo for the first time. The morgue is on the same floor as the parking garage at Chantal’s hospital. There’s no way to avoid it after parking the car. How morbid.

  “Scary, huh? That I’ll be down here someday?”

  It sure is. With that in mind we walk down the hall toward radiology. My mood is sour. Imagine what Chantal must be feeling.

  “Chan are you scared of dying?”

  “Very. Try not to think about it.”

  “Yeah.”

  “It’s more a feeling. A constant feeling of panic.”

  Still, she’s amazingly relaxed. As if she’s made peace with her terminal verdict. As long as I haven’t been given that verdict, every new scan and test turns me into a bundle of nerves. Maybe that’s because she has been given the final verdict already.

  But we’re not playing deaf. For all the securities that have been taken away from us, we have been given the greatest security of all in return, a second chance at really living our lives. On the Internet, there are so many people proclaiming how they feel happier and more complete as a cancer patient. Big words. I recognize some of that in myself and in Chantal, too, but it doesn’t make the island we’re stuck on much more fun.

  * * *

  Back home I change wigs and inspect my eyes in the mirror. My eyelashes have grown a few millimeters this week. I stick on my longest fake
lashes with gold glitter and opt for Daisy. Her look is so fearless that I can’t help but feel as confident as she looks. That should make an impression.

  Sitting at Finch, I bat my lashes to get the attention of my favorite bartender. He joins me at the end of the bar and puts his arms around my shoulders.

  “Mint tea?” he asks.

  “Yes, please.” As Bartender moves his arm he accidentally takes Daisy along with him. My wig is hanging halfway down my back, revealing my baby hairs and bald spots. I blush. Bartender helps me to quickly get my wig back in place. We both move on with our drinks. I go back to my seat. I feel as if I’ve just been caught while putting something in my handbag that isn’t mine. (This sometimes happens, I have a weak spot for espresso cups with a personalized restaurant logo on it). When I walk out the café thirty minutes later I’m still blushing.

  FRIDAY, FEBRUARY 10

  TODAY I CROSSED OUT THE fifty-fourth week in my agenda. After this I am officially done. It takes me forty minutes to get to the hospital. I’m alone. No Mom, no Oma, no Sis, no Chantal. I’ve brought some chocolate to give to Dr. L. The shops are full of hearts; it’s almost Valentine’s Day. I immediately thought about buying something heart-shaped for Dr. K, but I think I’ve annoyed his wife enough. And Dr. L wouldn’t get the joke. No hearts this year, to give or receive.

  Nurse Pauke hooks me up. Today I’m her assistant. I get to hold the needle and unscrew the pink casing. I mess it up immediately; I’ve already squirted the contents all over myself before she can get it into my port-a-cath. Not as easy as it looks, being a nurse.

  Later on I take a walk downstairs with my IV. I don’t like it here: people look at me. Whether it’s my IV pole, my synthetic boob, or my wig, I attract their attention and it’s not wanted.