Night Blindness

by Susan Strecker

  My phone vibrated with a text from Hadley. What did you do to Nico? He’s a nightmare. Instead of writing back the truth—that I was staying for the summer—I studied the sage paint and crown molding. I bet Dr. Novak, whoever he was, finished everything he did. He’d never leave incomplete self-portraits lying around in the attic. He’s constipated, I typed. My father picked up a copy of Architectural Digest. And just when my phone vibrated with another text from Hadley, which said, I can take care of that, a woman in a tight black skirt and high heels I wouldn’t be able to survive two steps in came through the waiting room door. She stood in the threshold, taking us in. “You must be the famous Sterling Reilly,” she said.

  My dad’s eyebrows shot up.

  “I’m Dale Novak.” She put out her hand. Dr. Novak? She was supposed to be old and fat and a he. Instead, she was perfect in a way that was both glamorous and boring.

  My father glanced at Jamie. “Very pleased to meet you,” he said.

  Jamie quit texting and put her phone in her bag. “What a surprise. We thought you were a man.” Leave it to Jamie.

  “Why don’t you follow me,” Dale Novak said.

  She led us through a corridor with recessed lighting, and I caught up to my dad.

  “He’s a girl,” I whispered.

  “A very pretty one,” he whispered back.

  “As you may know,” she said as we walked, “I’m not accepting new patients.” She stopped in front of a closed door and faced us. I never would have been able to pull off red lipstick if I’d had her chestnut hair, but it looked good on her. “But, I couldn’t say no to Dr. Anderson.” Oh Jesus.

  Her office was all windows, and New Haven spread out below us. I knew East Rock, where Ryder and I had gone, wasn’t too far away, but I couldn’t see anything beyond the street lights on Howard Avenue. There was a computer on her desk but nothing else.

  “Please,” she said, “make yourselves comfortable.” We sat in stiff chairs that were the same as the ones in her waiting room, and I immediately felt my back start to ache like it did when I modeled. My blouse was a little see-through, and I’d spattered some paint on the new designer jeans I’d bought with Mandy yesterday after dropping my dad off at A Will to Live. I felt childish in front of Dr. Dale Novak, with her tailored black blazer and expensive pumps.

  She leaned against her desk and gave us a recap of just how overqualified she was to be treating a mere mortal. Thin in that sturdy way of never ever missing a day at the gym, she seemed scheduled, disciplined, and completely unspontaneous. “The next eight weeks, we will be working very closely together, so it’s imperative that you’re comfortable with me.” She leaned away from her desk and touched my father’s hand. “Would it be helpful to start with an overview of exactly how the radiation process works?”

  I glanced at Jamie, who had one hand in her purse and seemed to be trying to read something on her phone. “All I need to know is that Ryder thinks you’re the best radiation oncologist around,” my father was saying. “That’s good enough for me.”

  Dale Novak told him what to expect anyway. She detailed what would happen in the radiation room and how often he’d be coming and what the side effects might be. I could hear my phone vibrating and thought of the gossip Hadley was probably texting. Everybody in Santa Fe hung out at his gallery’s café. While she talked deliberately, like those computerized voices on telephones, I pulled a small notebook from my bag and made notes. I’d come prepared to ask four pages of questions to a fat, balding guy with mustard stains on his lab coat. I hadn’t been ready for her to be so pretty, and tall. And pretty. I wondered how many cases Ryder referred to her. I could see them lingering over cappuccinos, discussing treatment plans. It made me feel slightly sick to think of my old boyfriend with someone as perfect and as pretty as Dr. Dale Novak.

  “Questions?” She clasped her hands together and looked at my parents.

  “Um,” I said, feeling invisible, “when we met with Ryder last week, he encouraged us to educate ourselves as much as we can about the disease. So, I’ve been doing some research on alternative treatments.” Surgery always comes first. “What do you think about vitamin C injections, laetrile, shark cartilage, and Essiac?”

  Dr. Novak stretched her fingers across the desk. I wanted her to be wearing a ring. I wanted her to belong to someone. But her beautiful hands were bare. “Conventional medicine takes precedence, but if we find a homeopathic treatment that isn’t contraindicated, then we can proceed with caution.”

  “Okay.” I sat back in my seat and tried to hide my nails. Luke was right: I needed a manicure. “But there have been clinical trials with these so—”

  “Clinical trial is a loose term.” Her smile was patronizing. “B-seventeen is harmless, and while it has popped up in a few underground journals, there’s nothing to support its claim that it retards the growth of cancer cells.” I put an asterisk next to it on my list. “C injections, from what I’ve read, are most beneficial when given immediately before surgery. Shark cartilage, however, is showing real promise as an alternative complement.” I put a big star in my book, but she nixed my enthusiasm with a quick wave of her hand. “But its taste, from what I’m told, is horrific.”

  I’d read the same thing online. “Can’t he just take the capsules?”

  “I’ve done quite a bit of research myself on these kinds of treatments.” Her voice was low. “First, I don’t like to toy with things that aren’t regulated, and none of this has been FDA-approved yet.” She went on to tell us about the importance of placebos and double blind studies. All this talk of research reminded me of high school, and how Ryder and I had spent hours on the fourth floor of the Colston Library, where the town history books were kept. No one went up there, ever, and he would come up behind me, kissing my neck, lightly at first, then harder, almost biting, while I protested because I had to study. He got good grades without trying; he could afford to screw off. I studied hard, reading about the American Revolution or Jung’s theory of the collective unconscious while he seduced me to the point where I couldn’t say no.

  The ache to be with him back then was constant, and I remembered not knowing how much longer I could hide what we were doing. The stacks were the perfect place to be alone together, to let him take off my clothes without being discovered. In a way, I’d wanted to be found out. He and Will were my best friends, and I hated hiding something from my brother that made me so happy.

  Once at Andover and twice at UCB, I’d fucked boys in the library, though I rarely dated anyone. “Ice queen,” they called me in boarding school. To my surprise, that made boys crazy for me. Sometimes I couldn’t get those days with Ryder out of my mind, so I’d draw a guy into those lonely research stacks. Closing my eyes, I’d smell the dust and old leather and think of Ryder. But they weren’t Ryder. He and I had that thing that was hard to put into words, that wild, hot spark.

  Dr. Dale Novak was still talking. “You’re a big, strong man,” she was saying to my dad. “I bet you could still play with the best of them.” She made like she was throwing a football, and he pantomimed catching it. I couldn’t figure out if they were flirting or getting ready to scrimmage. “Anyway, based on his stature and size, he’d have to take about sixty of those shark pills a day,” she said to me, and I realized they’d been talking about his weight in relation to the shark cartilage. I felt myself slide down in my seat. “Essiac,” she said, “doesn’t sound familiar. But I’d be happy to check into it if you’d like.” Her voice was perky, in a fake way.

  I checked it on my list. “Well, I’ve read that radiation can be more taxing on the body than surgery. It just seems like if we’re going to go this route, which is pretty unconventional from what I can tell”—I could feel my mother staring at me—“it might be a good idea to support him with alternatives. I have a list of supplements he’s on if you want it.”

  “You must forgive Jensen.” Jamie leaned forward in her seat. “She gets something in her head, and well”—s
he laughed nervously—“there’s no stopping her. She’s the genius in the family and very precocious.”

  “Oh”—Dale turned to me—“are you in medicine, too?”

  Jamie cut in before I could answer. “She could have been a doctor. She could have been anything. But now, Jensen is a”—she stumbled a little—“a painter and she models for artists. She’s married to Nico Ledakis? The sculptor? He has shows all over the world, Berlin, Paris, Cairo, Crete.” It occurred to me that Jamie must have been feeling ashamed of me, her daughter, who had accomplished nothing and had no framed diplomas. “She was a prodigy.” She perched on the end of her seat. “At the piano?” She was talking quickly, to no one really. “She’s a very good artist now and, well, who knows…” Her voice trailed off. “But she’s definitely not a small-town girl.” I hadn’t bothered to tell Jamie that I did more waitressing than modeling.

  No one said anything. My father was staring at the ground.

  “Well,” Dr. Novak finally said, ignoring Jamie’s soliloquy. “A list of supplements is fine. You can bring it to the first appointment.” She checked her watch. “If there aren’t any more questions, my secretary, Alison, will give you a call in the morning to set a schedule. And,” she said to me, “please feel free to e-mail me any other questions. Even the silly ones.”

  Even the silly ones? Bitch. She touched my shoulder as we were leaving her office. “I think this is wonderful.” She motioned to my notebook. “Your dad is lucky you’re here.”

  I mumbled “Thank you” and hurried down the hall because I thought I might cry. I was sure no one had felt lucky to have me around in years.

  We rode the elevator in silence. “Well, she seems capable,” my dad said when the doors opened on the ground floor.

  Jamie was checking her phone again. “And about as warm as an Alaskan salmon,” she said, surprising me.

  My dad laughed.

  “I’m starving,” I said miserably. Dr. Dale Novak was so skinny, she made me hungry.

  “Me, too,” Jamie said, which shocked me even more. Whomever she’d been texting all the time seemed to be keeping her in a good mood.

  We stepped out of the hospital into the evening air, and suddenly Ryder popped around the corner, holding a brown paper bag. I had the sudden, foolish thought that he’d brought me a present. The three of us stared at him. The way he looked back at me, as if I were the only one there, made me catch my breath. He was dressed in a white T-shirt and worn jeans, just like the old days. Beneath the short cotton sleeve, I saw the end of the number 18 on his upper arm. So the homage to my dad’s jersey number was still there.

  “Ryder.” My dad clapped him on the back. “What a wonderful surprise.”

  “Who’s hungry?” He glanced at me nervously. We still hadn’t talked about that night at East Rock. “I’m in the mood for fried clams and corn on the cob. Anyone up for the Seafood Shack?”

  “Atta boy,” my father said. “That’s my kind of food.”

  “That would be lovely.” Jamie took Ryder’s elbow.

  “I figured you’d have some questions after meeting Dale,” he said.

  My father and I fell in step behind them. “I have one,” I called out. “How come you didn’t tell us she was a woman?”

  “Aw shit,” my dad said, stuffing his hands in his pockets. “Is there an escape hatch anywhere?”

  I smacked his stomach.

  “She’s very bright,” Jamie said.

  “Even if she does have a boy’s name,” I yelled above the noise of a passing truck.

  “Dale can be a girl’s name,” Ryder called back.

  I pulled on my dad’s arm, until we were walking four across on the sidewalk. “Name one girl Dale.”

  “Dale Beaverman.” Ryder stuck out his tongue at me.

  “She’s not a real person,” I shot back.

  Jamie whispered in Ryder’s ear. “Dale Evans.” He pumped his fist in the air.

  “Traitor,” I called to Jamie.

  My father started laughing, and then we were all laughing, walking along York Street in the hot spring air, daffodils all around us, about to eat seafood fresh from the Atlantic Ocean. With my father alive and seemingly well, it was hard to give a shit about Dale Novak.

  The Seafood Shack was full, and it smelled like melting butter and oysters. Everyone was sitting around picnic tables, drinking beer out of coolers, while a band set up on an old stage. TABULA RASA, the sign said, AMERICAN SOUL AND ROCK AND ROLL. I took a pretzel from the bowl on the table and licked off the salt.

  A pretty teenager whose hair was the same dark red as her nails read us the specials. Ryder brought out a bottle of Chardonnay and a few Stella lagers from the paper bag he’d been carrying. He set a Dixie cup in front of Jamie and filled it with wine.

  Condensation ran in tiny rivulets down my bottle. But I didn’t drink. After that night at Liv’s, I wanted to be clear-headed around him.

  “Really,” Ryder said. “What did you think of Dale?”

  I waited for someone else to answer. Jamie was putting on a good act, like my dad was the only guy in the world. With her arm draped on his leg and her head resting on his shoulder, she actually appeared content and could have passed for someone who really loved her husband and had never done him wrong.

  My dad leaned across the table. “You recommended her. That’s good enough for me.” That salty smell the warm breeze blew off the marsh made me feel drunk, and I kept my mouth shut.

  When the waitress came back, we ordered baskets of clams, onion rings, shrimp, scallops, everything fried. The band started playing a bluegrass version of “Twist and Shout,” with banjos and fiddles. “What I wonder,” my father said, “is what Dr. Novak thinks of us. Susie Notetaker over here interviewed her like an FBI agent.”

  I held up my hands. “If she’s going to shoot laser beams at your head, I’d like to ask a few questions first.”

  People started filling the grassy space in front of the band.

  “It was more like the Spanish Inquisition,” Jamie said.

  Before I could defend myself again, the waitress came back with our lobster-tip appetizers and then our entreés.

  We tied plastic bibs around our necks and dug in.

  “Well, what did you think?” Ryder watched me, and I realized it was really important to him, what I thought of Dale. When we were kids, even before we started dating, he’d wanted my opinion. On the afternoon of his and Will’s eighth-grade dance, he brought over three ties and asked me to choose. I picked the ugly one with bright green stripes because even then I hadn’t wanted any other girls to like him the way I did.

  I pictured her framed diplomas from Northwestern and UPenn on the wall. “I think she’s probably a really good doctor,” I finally said.

  My father started telling a story about driving from Philly to the Jersey shore with his brothers to get seafood when he was growing up. He’d been the second-youngest of nine boys in an Irish-Italian neighborhood in north Philly, where they never had enough of anything. “I got really lucky,” he liked telling people when they saw his wall of trophies. “The old man in the sky gave me the gift of playing ball, and it brought me every goddamn thing I ever wanted.” And then he’d beam like an eight-year-old. “Otherwise, I’d be pumping gas in Fishtown.” He was always tipping toll collectors and handing car wash attendants an extra ten. Whenever we ate out, he acted like he’d won the lottery, buying drinks for everyone, tipping the chef, leaving an extra hundred on the table.

  The clams were divine, and the shrimp popped in my mouth. Seafood in Santa Fe was terrible, frozen and stale. Hadley always pretended he had food poisoning the next day and stayed in bed. While I ate, I watched the skinny piano player sitting on that old wooden bench, banging on the keyboard. He was hunched over and had awful hand position, but somehow he played beautifully.

  Before we were halfway through our meals, my father ordered more food and reminded us that the first time I’d ever had lobster, I ate so much,
I threw up. He and Ryder talked about the Colts and the Cowboys, and Jamie named the players she thought were handsome. I ate everything on my plate and stabbed at bits of Ryder’s clams. I couldn’t remember the last time I’d eaten that much, and had felt so happy and relaxed.

  “Come on.” Jamie tugged at my dad’s hand. “I can’t stand it when a good band plays a great song and I’m not dancing.” I watched them join other couples in front of the stage. In her Italian heels, Jamie was almost mouth-to-mouth with my father. An inch apart, gazing at each other like nothing else existed and the whole world was theirs, they started to dance. Jamie’s fresh white skirt twirled. She was never tottery in heels, and my dad was still sure on his feet, smooth. I felt myself sinking into that feeling I used to have when I was little, that everything would be all right.

  Ryder leaned into me. “Did any of that dancing rub off on you?”

  “I can hold my own.” I was a sophomore when we went to his junior prom, convincing everyone we were just friends. Will had made it clear that I was off-limits to Ryder, that our dating would ruin the trio. But in that tight black sheath, with his hands on my hips, I hadn’t cared if anyone knew.

  “Prove it.”

  I followed him to the edge of the grass, where a few teenagers were slow-dancing to fast music. We stood for a second facing each other. So what if I had paint stains on my jeans and my shirt was a little see-through? Now that we were away from Dale Novak, I felt prettier, smarter. I pushed my palms against his, and he spun me away, then tightened his grip and pulled me back. I had no idea what steps we were doing, but somehow I followed. Those early dance lessons Jamie had made me take had paid off. We jigged and spun as if we’d been dancing together for years. The song ended with our backs pressed together, our hands clasped, and we were both breathing hard. I could feel sweat running between my breasts, and I was sure my shirt was now completely see-through.