The Instant When Everything is Perfect

by Jessica Barksdale Inclan

  But now, Sally almost feels civilized. She crosses her legs and leans forward.

  “My daughter, who is a doctor,” she begins, feeling guilty about how she cut off Katherine before she could really get going on this subject, “seems to think that Tamoxifin alone would be, well, enough.”

  Dr. Gupta nods and then pushes his glasses back against the bridge of his nose. “Yes, this is often the case with a Stage One or Stage Two diagnosis. But you see, Mrs. Tillier, when Dr. Jacobs shot the dye into your system to find suspect nodes, rather a lot of blue nodes turned up. This does not mean they area cancerous, of course, but sometimes—well, to hedge our bets, a course of chemo can reduce the chance of anything sneaking through. Preventative, more or less. And because your cancer is receptive to hormones, the tamoxifin will repress any further stimulation.”

  “So you say it won’t come back if I do all of this?”

  Dr. Gupta rubs the smooth brown skin under his nose with a long finger. “With no treatment, the percentage of reoccurrence in ten years is 19%. With Tamoxifin alone, it’s 15%. With Tamoxifin and chemotherapy treatment, your odds are 13%. You are not an old woman, Mrs. Tillier. That two percent can mean seeing more of those grandchildren you have told me about.”

  Sally watches him, sees how even if he is wrong, he means well. He believes what he says. She knows he would never put anyone through chemo unless he thought it was the right choice. Dr. Gupta, she knows, would prescribe it for his mother. His wife. His sister. His own daughter if he had to.

  “But, of course, it is your choice. And you are free to talk with any of my colleagues about this type of treatment.”

  Sally sits back. This is not what she wanted. Now she will go bald and throw up and lose weight. Her rear will be as flat as her chest. She’ll travel to Scotland like a bag of bones. A bagpipe of bones.

  “How long will this chemo go on? When will it be over?”

  Dr. Gupta looks at the calendar on his desk, flipping though the months into summer. “Let us see . . . We won’t start for a week or more. And then you will have six treatments, three weeks apart. So let’s say by the end of July, give or take a week or two.”

  “Fine,” Sally says and then blurts, “and then I’m going to Scotland.”

  “Scotland,” he says.

  “I’m going no matter what, I am going.”

  “Aye, lassie,” Dr. Gupta says, smiling. “I dinna said you couldn’t.”

  

  Nydia Nuñez drives like a teenager, swerving in and out of traffic. Thankfully, they are now stopped at the intersection of South Main and Mt. Diablo Boulevard, which is a very long light. Sally clutches what Katherine always calls “the Jesus handle” over the window.

  “I think that’s what Barb down the street did. You know, the chemo and the tamoxi stuff. And look at her? Seven years later!”

  Sally nods, watching the corner full of pedestrians. If she were with Mia, she would ask her daughter to stop off at Nordstrom so Sally could look for loose blouses with pockets over the breasts. Or where the breasts were. Camp shirts, her mother used to call them. But she wants something nice for her walks with Dick. And Sally knows she will need hats. And scarves. But no wig. There’s something about a wig that is always wrong, the color too even, the style a little too big or too straight or too perfect. She’s always thought men (most not as lucky as Dick with a full head of hair) look better bald than with a comb over or a toupee, both looking ridiculous and somehow tragic. So she will not pretend. She will only cover.

  “And her kids have had six kids since then. So she’s been a grandmother all those times over. Look what the drugs gave her!” Nydia beats a little rhythm on the steering wheel with her palm. “It’s really very good news.”

  “Yes,” Sally says, and then she starts, leans toward the window, blinking. There’s Mia, walking down from the parking garage. For a second, Sally wonders if she’s conjuring up her daughter as a cure to Nydia’s constant ramble, but no. Sally would know her daughter anywhere, the roll of her large hips, her confident gait, the way her arms swing away from her body as she walks.

  Sally almost says something but then presses her lips together. If she says one word, Nydia will honk, blast through the intersection at the first sign of green. Then she will pull over and ask Mia a hundred questions while traffic backs up behind them.

  So Mia rounds the block, heading down toward a row of restaurants. Sally rubs her forehead.

  “Tired?” Nydia asks.

  “Very,” Sally lies.

  “Well, just close your eyes for a bit. Take a little snooze. I’ll have you home in no time.”

  The light changes, and Nydia accelerates. Sally turns her head slightly to look for any sign of Mia, but her daughter is gone, having disappeared into one building or another. Nydia turns on the radio and begins to hum along to a song so loud and annoying that Sally thinks that probably Harper and Lucien know it.

  “I love this song,” Nydia says as she picks up more speed. “It’s my new favorite.”

  Nine

  Robert

  It takes hours before Robert realizes what is wrong with him. All morning as he saw patients, he felt pressure under his throat. For a minute, he imagined his carotids were suddenly clogged, stroke imminent. Then his mind began to float up and out of the exam room, hovering somewhere in downtown Walnut Creek. As he nodded and listened to Mrs. Morales and Ms. Hoffman and Ms. Liu, he realized he was looking for a parking place near Kenitos; he was walking down the sidewalk toward the restaurant; he was sitting across from Mia, smiling; he was saying brilliant, funny things; he was holding her hand; he was in the parking garage, kissing her.

  He’s not sure any of this will even happen. It’s possible this first lunch will be the last, but he can’t stop imagining, his heart beating wild as he does.

  But it wasn’t until he noticed his real, non-imaginary hands that he knew he was so nervous. Beyond nervous. Intensely scared. Almost frozen with fear.

  But now it’s too late. He’s sitting in Kenitos, facing the front window. He’s arrived fifteen minutes early, and now it’s one minute to one. He’s already finished his water and a piece of bread. He wants to throw up; he wants to leave. He wants to cancel all his appointments, quit his job, and leave the country. He wants to call Jack and arrange to meet him at the Golden Lion for an ill-advised afternoon drink and perhaps syringe of morphine.

  Yet as he thinks to push his chair back, he sees Mia enter the space framed by the window, her arms swinging as she walks, her short hair ruffling in the wind. She squints into the glare of the window but doesn’t slow. And then, she pulls open the thick wooden door, walks into the restaurant, stands in front of the maitre d’, who turns to Robert. Mia sees Robert, moves forward. There is nothing Robert can do now to stop anything.

  They smile at each other as the maitre d’ takes over the conversation, seating Mia, handing her a menu, telling her that their waiter will be with them shortly. Mia takes some time scooting her chair in, arranging her sweater, and setting her purse on the floor. Robert wants to grab her arms and pull her to him, but instead he sips at his water, which is now simply a few melting ice cubes. When she is settled, he puts down the glass.

  “You’re here,” he says, feeling instantly stupid. “I mean, you made it.”

  Mia sits back and then leans forward. She folds her arms and rests her elbows on the table. “I made it.”

  Robert wants to laugh, feeling ridiculous. What he really wants to say is that he needs to hold her and sleep with her and then get to know her and sleep with her some more. He wants to ask her questions about her life and he wants to tell her things that he doesn’t even understand how to say yet.

  “Do you eat here often?” Mia asks, her face pale.

  “Never. I always liked the name, though.” Robert looks at the menu. “The maitre d’ said the roasted chicken special is wonderful.”

  “This is weird, isn’t it?” Mia says. She puts the menu on one of the e
mpty chairs. “I mean, we don’t really want to talk about chicken, do we?”

  Robert relaxes, his shoulders loosening, his hands unclenching. “No. But I was thinking there’s not really a set dialogue for this kind of lunch, is there?”

  “Not really. I’ve never seen a book on it. You know, Rules for Dating Those You Shouldn’t. Maybe it could be my next one. I’ll end up on Dr. Phil or Oprah, my career finally made.”

  The waiter comes over and tells them about the chicken, which they both order. Along with glasses of wine. They hand him the menus, and then look at each other. Robert clears his throat.

  “Okay, let’s just say what we need to say. Get it over with. Forget all the small stuff about the weather and work and whatnot.”

  Mia laughs. “How long is your lunch? We might be here for days.”

  Robert doesn’t say anything, wanting her to begin. To start it. To start everything.

  She cocks her head, bites her lower lip. “Okay. Here’s this. I’ve always thought that people who cheat are weak. I think, go ahead and be unhappy, but leave first. Be brave. Talk about it with your spouse. Be honest. Be real. Do the hard work. And then find someone else.”

  Robert sits back, stares at Mia, wondering what to say. She’s right, he knows that. He agrees with her, but he wants to argue, to change her mind and his own.

  “But,” he starts, but then the waiter is at their table with the wine and a couple of comments. The bus boy fills their water glasses. Mia looks down at her hands.

  “But,” Robert begins once they are alone, “what if you meet that person while you are in the relationship? What if you haven’t had the presence of mind to figure out what’s wrong and then you find something that’s, well, right?”

  Mia nods. “True, but—But in my enlightened and unforgiving scenario, I should have talked to my husband before I even emailed you. Before going out to lunch. Before anything.”

  “We haven’t done anything, Mia. We’re having lunch.”

  “You’re smarter than that, Robert. We’ve done more than that.” Mia sips her wine, her pale face now flushed.

  “I know. But not technically. It depends on how you define adultery.” He picks up his glass and holds it up, looking at Mia through the pale yellow of the Rambauer Chardonnay. “Is it words or thoughts or deeds?”

  “You sound like Clinton.”

  “I’m starting to understand him now.”

  “You didn’t before? You’re not a Republican, are you?”

  Robert laughs and puts down his wine glass. “Never. East Coast Jew. Democrat to the core.”

  They look at each other. Mia’s eyes are dark in the restaurant’s hushed light. He tries not to, but he lets his eyes slide along her neck. For a second, he wonders if she’s thinking about his body. He sighs.

  “What else?”

  “Really?”

  “Yes.”

  Mia brings a hand to her cheek and breathes in, her breasts rising as she does. “Okay. Why me? Does this happen a lot? Do you find yourself attracted to many patients or daughters or sisters or mothers of patients?”

  For a second, Robert is angry and wishes he’d never asked her to say what she needed to. What does she think he is? A Casanova? A total grease ball, smarmy doctor, waiting in his office for someone with the perfect body? But as his anger and his thoughts die down, he knows he wants to ask her the same thing, only backwards.

  He sips his wine, licks his lips. Sits back again. “No, this hasn’t happened before. I’ve never dated a patient or a family member of a patient. You were . . . .” He tries to find the words, but there aren’t words because what Mia was that day when he walked into the room was a feeling. “I felt—this sounds so sophomoric—like we were talking with our skins. I had a reaction to you.”

  “Like the hives?” Mia laughs at her own words. “Nausea? Gastro-intestinal upset? Eczema?”

  Robert almost asks her about her own skin, wondering where it bothers her, where she has an itch. But he knows that she wouldn’t appreciate his spying on her records. Not now, maybe not ever.

  “It affected my brain,” he says. “I could barely concentrate on your mother.”

  The restaurant is filling and emptying in waves, the maitre’d passing by their table as he leads people to their tables. A wave of smells--cooked onions, garlic, and olive oil--flows into the dining area. Robert looks up and sees that Mia is watching him.

  “Well, that’s what happened to me, too,” she says. “But I blushed. I think I blushed everywhere, all over. I couldn’t stop it. I couldn’t even look at you for a while because I was scared that you’d notice and think I was ridiculous.”

  “I noticed that you weren’t looking at me. I thought I was boring you.”

  “It’s kind of hard to be bored when your mother has cancer.” She looks down at her bread plate.

  “You seemed to handle her illness all right,” he says.

  “Clearly. And now here I am at a restaurant with you,” she says, looking at him, smiling. “Maybe that’s an indication. I’m flipped out by death and now I’m embarking on a wild adventure.” Mia stops talking for a moment, tilts her head and looks at him. “But no. I wasn’t bored. I was trying to act the way I should have been acting. Concerned for my mother. Normal.”

  “I know I wasn’t thinking straight.” Robert takes a piece of bread from the basket and then drops it on his bread plate. He knows he can’t eat but he wants to be doing something.

  “Once I could look at you, I thought you were handsome,” Mia says. She doesn’t turn from him when he catches her gaze. “I liked your ponytail. Your cowboy boots. I thought you were sexy. I wondered what it would be like to be next to your body. And then I thought how stupid I was for thinking that way, when I’m, well, me.”

  “What does that mean?”

  “Please,” she begins, but then the waiter comes over with their meals, placing the plates carefully in front of them. Robert and Mia turn down the offer of freshly ground pepper, and then look at each other again.

  “What do you mean?” he asks again.

  “I’m not exactly perfect,” she says, shrugging. “You make people perfect. That’s your job. All those breasts and butts you see every day. Unlined faces.”

  Robert bites down on his back teeth, his jaw hard. This is what he always hears. He thought better of Mia. Thought she knew more. He picks up his fork and knife, slices a piece of his chicken.

  “That’s not my job.”

  “What?”

  “It’s not my job to make people perfect. Sometimes I’m just trying to help them feel okay.”

  And when he says this, Mia gets it. He can tell by the way her face stills, her eyes focus. Jack always told him there were two kinds of people on the planet. “It’s like this, Robert. There’s those who get it and those who don’t. For everything.”

  Mia is one who gets it, quickly, just like that.

  She takes a bite of her chicken and then puts down her fork. “I’m sorry. What you were going to do for my mom. That was to make her feel normal. The rest, well, that’s just my inherent low self-esteem talking. Comes from being raised amongst thin women.”

  “I think,” Robert says, hoping he can manage these words without sounding like an ass. “I think you are beautiful.”

  Mia laughs, the sound deep and throaty and real. She shakes her head. “I will go as far as attractive. But I’ll balk at pretty. I can’t even go to beautiful.”

  “But it doesn’t matter what you think about yourself. I’m looking at you,” Robert says. “I’m the one seeing you.”

  “Fine,” she says, pushing a green bean with her fork. “What else? What other big stuff is there?”

  At first, Robert thinks his pager is buzzing against his waist, but then he realizes the vibrations in his body are nerves. He pushes his hair back, looking at Mia. “Your marriage?”

  She looks up and then back at her plate, the green beans arranged in a geometrical design. The busboy refills
Robert’s glass and walks away. Mia breathes in through her nose, her whole chest lifting at the inhale. She seems to swallow the air before she speaks.