Driving Lessons

by Zoe Fishman

  “My pleasure.” And strangely, it was my pleasure. Brainstorming off the cuff like this was fun for me. What if the fulfilling career that eluded me was the one I’d had all along, minus the bureaucratic constraints? Finally, some sort of clarity. It was about time.

  9

  What do you think about these? I just think they’re darlin’.” Mitzi pulled a pair of bedazzled red devil horns out of a box. “For Halloween!”

  “Cute!” I replied as effusively as I could. I didn’t know who she expected to buy these headbands, as the youngest clientele I had seen could not have been a day younger than sixty-eight.

  “What are y’all gonna do for Halloween?” she asked.

  “Oh gosh, I don’t know. We don’t really get into holidays all that much.”

  “You’re kiddin’! Me and Clyde go all out for every last one. Our neighbors hate us.”

  “Who are you dressing up as?” I asked, steeling myself for an answer that would make me uncomfortable.

  “Danny Zuko and Sandy Olsen. You know, from Grease? The movie?”

  “Of course!” I forced a smile as I tried to shake the vision of Mitzi in a poodle skirt. “Cute.”

  “Thanks, doll.” My phone rang in my pocket. “Go ahead, you can answer it. I’m gonna go unpack some more boxes in the back.”

  “Thanks, Mitzi.” I pulled the phone out. “Mona!” My heart surged with happiness just anticipating the sound of her voice.

  “Hey, Sarah. Sorry it’s taken so long to call you back.” She sounded hoarse. “Work has been a bear.”

  “I’m sure.” I decided not to give her shit. Not now, at least. “I mean, I remember, sort of.”

  “How’s life out of the rat race? You must be loving it. No subway, no commute. No midtown. Oh my God, what I would do for a life free of midtown.”

  “Yeah, I guess.” Without warning, tears welled in my eyes. I blinked them away. “Anyway, tell me everything. What’s been happening?”

  She paused. “Well, some unexpected stuff, actually.”

  “You’re in love!”

  “No.”

  “You got a promotion?”

  “Nope.”

  “You’re moving to Virginia?”

  “Not quite. Listen, uh—it’s sort of serious.”

  “Mona? What is it? Wait.” I lowered my voice to a whisper. “Are you pregnant?”

  “No.”

  “What is it then? You’re killing me.”

  “Man, this is harder than I thought it would be.” Her sigh echoed in my ear like the crash of an ocean wave. “I have cancer.”

  “What? How? What are you talking about?” I fiddled nervously with a pair of hoop earrings.

  She cleared her throat. “Remember a couple of months ago, when I had that weird spotting?”

  “Yeah.”

  We had talked about it over sushi and a bottle of wine at our favorite spot, outside on the back patio. She had mentioned it as casually as she would a sample sale she was excited about, and I had responded in kind before refilling her glass. It’s nothing, we had agreed. But maybe get it checked out, just in case.

  “Well, I kept thinking it was going to go away, but it never did. I went to see my gyno about it and she was concerned, you know?”

  “Okay.”

  “So they did a transvaginal ultrasound and found a pretty sizable cluster of benign fibroid tumors.”

  “Oh my God.” I squeezed my eyes tight.

  “Yeah. Then they did a colposcopy and found the cancer cells in my cervix. I’ve been diagnosed as early stage two.” I could hear sirens in the background.

  “Are you smoking on your fire escape?”

  “Maybe.”

  “Jesus, Mona! What the hell? You’re smoking?”

  “This is my last pack. I only have four left.”

  “Fuck. I can’t believe you’re smoking with this!” I sat up quickly and shook my head at the phone.

  “Yeah, well. This is it. I always said I would quit when I got pregnant, so now, I’ll quit when my chances of ever getting pregnant are nonexistent.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “I’m going to have a hysterectomy.”

  “No. Oh, Mona, they’re taking everything?”

  “No, not everything. I’ll get to keep my ovaries as souvenirs.”

  “Do you have to do this? Have you gotten a second opinion?”

  “I do, and yes, I have. Three opinions, actually. Because it’s relatively early, and the cancer hasn’t spread beyond my pelvic wall, this will hopefully”—she paused, and although I couldn’t hear it, I knew that she was knocking on the brick façade of her brownstone—“get rid of it once and for all. And I won’t have to undergo any chemo or radiation.”

  “But what about—”

  “Babies?”

  “Yeah.”

  “Oh well.”

  “How are you feeling? What’s going through your mind right now?”

  “Nothing, really. It’s horrible. I’m depressed as hell. I’m just glad that they caught it early enough to hopefully get rid of it forever, you know? If I had to find the silver lining, I suppose that would be it.”

  “I’m coming up there.”

  “Oh my God, get a grip. For what?”

  “To take care of you!”

  “Sarah, I have plenty of help.” Her window creaked open as she climbed back into her apartment.

  “Does Roxanne know?” Roxanne was Mona’s mom. She lived in Hawaii and was about as maternal as a wolf spider.

  “She’s next on the list to call. Although, I can’t imagine how she would be of any real help.”

  “So what do you mean, you have help?”

  “Sarah, believe it or not, I have other friends besides you.”

  “I know, I know. I just—I want to be there for you. I’m coming. When is your surgery?”

  “Sar—”

  “Mona, listen to me. I want to be there for you.” I lowered my voice to a whisper. “To be honest, I’m not really doing much of anything here. I’m coming.”

  “The thing is, Sarah, I’m not sure that I need any help. Apparently it’s a pretty simple procedure. They call it a laparoscopic hysterectomy, and it’s actually performed by a robot in less than an hour. And you’re out of the hospital in twenty-four hours, or less, even.”

  “Fine, but who is going to take you to and from the hospital? Who is going to take care of you while you heal? Cut the Superwoman act, already.”

  “Listen, can I call you later? I’m feeling really tired all of a sudden.”

  “Yes, of course, call me later. But listen, Mona, I want you to know—”

  “Sarah. We’ll talk later. I need a nap.”

  “Okay. I love you.”

  “Me too.”

  What would Ben and Kate say if they knew we were eating here?” Josh lowered the Chili’s menu so that his eyes peeked over its glossy manila expanse.

  “We can never tell anyone about this,” he added quickly. “We take it to the grave. Deal?”

  “Deal,” I replied blandly, staring at the page but not reading anything.

  “Want to split some fries?” he asked hopefully, too excited about the prospect to notice my puffy eyes.

  He had picked me up from work and suggested stopping for dinner, and I, still shell-shocked and grateful not to have to pretend to want to cook, had complied. I hadn’t told him yet about Mona. Mostly because once I said it out loud, then it would be irrefutably true.

  “Sure, why not.”

  “Hey, are you okay?” he asked, closing the menu and laying it on the edge of our table. “We don’t have to eat here, you know. I just thought it’d be fun, in a kitschy way.”

  “No, no, this place is fine. I mean, I can’t believe we’re here, but it’s fine.” I put my own menu down as well and stared at my empty plate.

  “Mona has cancer,” I declared.

  “What?” Josh leaned forward, his mouth agape.

  “Mona has cancer,�
� I repeated.

  “Oh my God.” Josh got up and came over to my side of the fake-mahogany-paneled booth. “Scoot over.” I did and he sat down, facing me. “Is she sure? What kind of cancer?”

  “She’s sure. Cervical cancer.”

  “Oh no.” He pulled me into a hug and I limply reciprocated. “What’s the treatment?”

  “Hysterectomy,” I numbly replied.

  “Everything out?”

  “Not everything. She gets to keep her ovaries.”

  “Wow.” He sighed deeply. “No babies?”

  “No babies.”

  “But will the cancer be gone, afterward?”

  “That’s the hope. I mean, I think so. I didn’t really think it was the time to ask her technical questions, you know?”

  “No, of course. Sorry. I’m just so shocked is all.”

  “I know. Me too. My poor Mona.”

  “Is she all alone?”

  “She says she’s not, but I don’t believe her.”

  “This is unbelievable. She’s what, thirty-six?”

  “Yep. Just like me.”

  He took my hand in his.

  “I just—I just can’t even imagine what she’s going through right now. I need to be there for her,” I said.

  The waitress approached and took our orders. At the last minute, I added a glass of their house chardonnay to mine, despite the fact that I was pretty sure it would taste like perfume. As she left, I faced Josh, who, despite the waitress’s raised eyebrow and my own slight discomfort, was still snuggled in beside me.

  “I want to go to New York to take care of her,” I confessed. His eyes widened. “I feel like it’s the right thing to do.”

  “What about her mom?”

  “You know her mom is relatively useless. She hadn’t even told her yet when we spoke.”

  “Honey, I don’t mean to be an asshole, but she has other friends, you know. Friends who live in New York and don’t have to uproot their entire lives to help her out.”

  “But see, that’s the thing. If her friends live in New York already, chances are good that their lives are jam-packed. They’re not going to have time to help her the way I’ll have time to help her.” Josh nodded reluctantly. “And I would only be gone for a week or two.”

  “That’s a long time.”

  “Oh, come on, it’s not that long. You’re so busy with school that you won’t even notice I’m gone.”

  He frowned at me, hurt. “That’s not true, Sarah. Anyway, does Mona even want you to come up?”

  “Yes! Very much so,” I lied.

  “You sure about that? She’s so independent. I would think she’d want to handle this herself, or at least appear to handle it herself.”

  “Josh, she’s having her insides scooped out like a goddamn butternut squash. Independent is one thing, but insane is another. How’s she going to get around? And why should she have to pay a nurse? She’s my best friend and she’s all alone. I can’t just sit here doing nothing.”

  “I get it, Sar. I really do. I just—what about you starting your life here? What about your job? There’s no way Mitzi is going to let you take off for two weeks.”

  “Oh, so what? Let’s get real: losing my position at Bauble Head is not exactly a career setback.”

  “Well, yes, but it’s more the principle of it that I’m talking about.”

  The waitress arrived with a beer mug the size of Josh’s head and my goblet of golden liquid. As he got up and returned to his side of the table, I took a sip, wincing at the unfortunate accuracy of my prediction regarding its taste.

  “Just the other day you were encouraging me to quit Bauble Head if it was making me so unhappy, and now you’re talking about principles? What about the principle of letting my best friend suffer through the most physically and emotionally debilitating experience of her life all by herself? I think that principle trumps any bad blood over at Bauble Head, Josh.”

  “Okay, I’m just going to go ahead and say something that may make you think I’m an asshole.”

  “Fine. By all means, go ahead.”

  “I think that there may be a little bit more to this than you’re acknowledging.”

  “How so?”

  “I think that yes, you of course want to be there for Mona, but you also want to get the hell out of Farmwood.”

  “So you’re saying that I’m using Mona’s cancer as an excuse to get out of here?”

  “Basically, yes. Which is not to say that she wouldn’t be grateful for your help once you were there—I definitely think it would bolster her spirits tremendously—but I am saying that your decision to return to New York to nurse her was made at lightning speed.” He took another sip. “The kind of speed that implies distinct dissatisfaction with your own life here. With me.”

  “Josh, are you really making Mona’s cancer about you?” I hissed.

  “No, actually, I’m saying that, indirectly at least, you’re making it about yourself.”

  “You are talking nonsense.” I unrolled my burgundy cloth napkin roughly, and its enclosed silverware clattered loudly on the table. “That’s not what this is about. I am happy here. Sort of.” I paused as the waitress deposited a mountain of French fries that rose up impressively between us.

  I continued. “I’ve been trying my best to make Farmwood work for me. I’m conquering my driving fear, I got a job. I even had coffee with Iris, for chrissake. And I had an idea about the next phase of my career the other day.”

  “You did? That’s terrific! What was it?”

  “It’s just a small granule of an idea. Tiny, really.”

  “A granule is something. Tell me.”

  “I was talking to Ray about how to better promote his business, and it occurred to me that, stripped bare, I really do like marketing, or the idea of it anyway. Brainstorming for him made me happy. I felt like me for the first time in a long time.”

  “Sar, that’s great. You know, you could start up your own consulting business here.”

  “Yeah, maybe. Like I said, I’ve only just begun to consider it.”

  “Okay, you don’t want to make a big deal about it yet. Got it. And I know you’re trying here. I didn’t mean to imply that you weren’t. It’s just, I know you. I know you’re unhappy. I can hear it in the way you sigh when it’s time to get up in the morning and I can see it in the way you pour yourself an extra gulp of wine when you think I’m not looking.”

  “I poured myself plenty of extra gulps in New York, thank you very much.”

  “You know what I mean.”

  “I do miss it, it’s true. But I know in my heart that I don’t really miss the true New York. I miss my idealized version of it.”

  “And what’s happening with the baby thing?”

  “What baby thing?” Heat rose to my face.

  “Our baby,” he said softly. “I thought that we were all-systems-go here.”

  “We are,” I replied, avoiding his gaze.

  “Are we? Are you? Because every time I mention it, you change the subject or get shifty, like you’re doing right now.”

  “I’m not shifty!”

  “Look at me, then. Are we still on the same page?” His puppy-dog eyes broke my heart.

  “Of course we are,” I lied. “Why are you bringing that up now?”

  “Because everything else is on the table, I guess. I’ve been scared to ask you about all of this. You’ve got your invisible force field thing going on.”

  “I do?”

  “Yeah.”

  I scooted over and patted the empty space beside me. “Come back here.” When he did, I took his hand. “Sorry about the force field. I’ve been dealing with a lot of transitional stuff, I guess. Stuff I don’t want to burden you with because I’m not sure if they’re legitimate worries or just growing pains.” There, that was the most honest I had been with Josh since we’d moved. God, it felt good.

  “Sarah, your ‘stuff,’ as you call it, is never a burden to me. Is my stuff a b
urden to you?”

  “No. But your stuff is neater. Less complicated.”

  “Is that an insult?”

  “Not at all.”

  He raised his eyebrow as he plucked a French fry from the plate.

  “Honestly, it’s not. There are moments when the idea of a baby freaks me out, but I’m pretty sure that those are just moments.”

  “Pretty sure?”

  “I mean, I’m off birth control. What more do you want?”

  “What more do I want? Shouldn’t it be ‘we’? Shouldn’t we both be rooting for it?”

  “I am. I promise. Can we just keep winging it for a while and quietly hope that I get pregnant? Making a big fuss over the whys and wherefores of ovulation at this point seems unnecessary. It’s only been, what, a month of trying?”

  “Okay, fair enough. I just wanted to clear the air.”

  “And what does going to New York for a week or two have to do with our baby making? I’ll have my period anyway.”

  “Maybe you won’t.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “The other day. In the kitchen? Who knows?” He smiled, and I summoned all of my strength to give him a convincing one in return.

  “You’re doing it.”

  “Doing what?”

  “Surmising about the state of my uterus and shooting my blood pressure up in the process. Please, let’s just play dumb for a little while longer?”

  “Okay, you’re right. Sorry.” He squeezed my thigh.

  “Josh, I know in my heart that Mona needs me now. I don’t think I could ever forgive myself if I didn’t use this time that I have to help her. I really don’t. Even if she lived in Utah, I would want to go to her now.”

  “Utah? Really?”

  “Well, maybe it would take me a bit longer to deliberate about it, but yes.”

  “Look, Sarah, I love you. Of course you have my blessing if you really want to go. Just come back, please.”

  “Of course I’m coming back.” I hugged him. “I love you,” I said, whispering into his ear.

  10

  U-turn: turning your vehicle around in the street to go back the way you came.

  The straps of my backpack created sweat shadows down the front of my T-shirt as I marched determinedly down the main road to town. The ladybug infestation at home had driven me out. There were only so many tiny red-and-yellow bugs that I could pick off of blind slats before going certifiably insane. My mission was to make it to the coffee shop, drink a thousand gallons of water and ingest a sandwich, call Mona to tell her that I was coming whether she liked it or not, and then walk over to Bauble Head and promptly resign.