by Jennie Nash
“And neither are we,” she said. “But we’re doing a series on the most popular household items of all time. We need someone to talk to Chuck Williams. You interested?”
“You’re talking about the Williams-Sonoma Chuck Williams?”
“He’s eighty-seven. We need eight hundred words.”
“What’s the deadline?”
“First week of January.”
“Sure,” I said, because it’s what I always said to keep myself in business, “I can do it.”
I drove to the Williams-Sonoma in the mall on the hill in order to soak up the atmosphere. I somehow ignored the fact that it was a week before Christmas and the atmosphere would be chaos. Even in the parking lot I could see the fierce looks on the drivers’ faces, the tense set of their jaws. After three trips around the lot, trolling for a spot, I caught the eye of a mom with two young kids in a stroller. She nodded her head toward the next lane over, and I sped around, stopped in the middle of the lane, flipped on my turn signal and waited to claim the spot as my own. I waited ten minutes while the mom opened her minivan and buckled in first one kid, then another. She came around to the back and folded up her stroller, then hoisted it inside. Finally, she got in her seat, buckled up and backed out. I began to move toward the spot, when a man in a silver BMW zipped up from the other side, flew around the minivan and skidded into the empty spot. I pulled up directly behind him and leaned on my horn.
“What?” he asked, leaning out of his car as if he’d done nothing wrong.
“No way,” I said. “There is no way. That’s my spot.”
“Says who?”
“Don’t be a jerk,” I said. “It’s Christmas.”
He got back in his car, backed out and vacated the spot. “Merry fucking Christmas,” he yelled, as he drove away. I pulled in and turned off the car. I was shaking. A few weeks before, someone had been shot in a mall parking lot. Someone’s grandmother. She’d come back to her car, her arms full of bags from Nordstrom, and someone came right up and shot her for the money in her purse. Why had I thought I would be immune?
The front windows of Williams-Sonoma displayed KitchenAid mixers in red, yellow, pumpkin and sage, with melamine bowls of matching spatulas arranged like tulips. Even from outside, I could smell apple cider and cinnamon. I stepped in. There was a woman doing a demonstration on how to make English toffee, and people were crammed around her workstation trying to see exactly how she got such an even covering of nuts. People were also lined up at the cash register clutching fluted ceramic pie dishes, sets of copper cookie cutters, coffee cake mixes and French dish towels tied up with cotton bows. I walked along the far wall past the shelves that held vegetable graters, lemon zesters and wooden spoons in every conceivable size and shape. All of it was gorgeous, ready to be wrapped, opened and used to whip up something that would no doubt be delectable.
I selected a pumpkin-colored spatula and took my place in the line.
“Quite a scene,” I said to the woman in front of me. She was holding a bright red silicone muffin tray.
“But worth it,” she said. “I buy all my gifts here.”
“Always muffin trays?” I asked.
“Oh, no, this is for me,” she said. “I like to give vinegars and olive oils. The bottles are so pretty.”
When it was my turn to pay, I asked the cashier if it had been this hectic all week.
“It’s been very busy,” she said. “We can hardly keep most of the items stocked.” She looked roughly my age, and I guessed that she had taken this job because her kids no longer needed her and this was the place where she felt most comfortable. Her kids had, perhaps, embarked on a new life on a college campus somewhere and she had embarked on a new life at Williams-Sonoma.
“What do you think makes it so compelling?” I asked, as if the question had just popped into my head.
She answered as if she were reading from the annual report. “We sell quality kitchen products displayed like fine jewelry. I mean, every pot has its place on the shelf, with its handle turned just so. It lets women behave like kids in a candy store.”
She wrapped my spatula in tissue paper and tucked it into a green paper bag with twined handles. “Enjoy!” she said.
I took my bag and made my way to the second floor, to Borders, where I could buy a copy of This Old House. Near the top of the escalator, I passed by a shop I swore I had never seen before. It was called Soothe Your Soul. There were giant gongs in the window, and wind chimes and a banner announcing that there were great holiday gifts inside. Soothe Your Soul. It sounded, in that moment, exactly like what I needed. I walked in.
The small store was filled with the sound of falling water. There were fountains plugged in against three walls. Stones were laid on the ground near the fountains, carved with words like BREATHE, ABUNDANCE and TRUST. There was a musty smell, and as I walked through the store I could discern lavender, sage and something sweet, like ginger. I scanned the bookshelves, wanting to buy each title for its breezy promise of peace, and when I got to the end, I was near the cash register.
“Can I help you?” the woman behind the counter asked. She had long gray hair pulled back in a ponytail and not a lick of makeup on her face. Was she at peace? Did she feel the harmony of the universe? Was the God of her childhood something she still believed in? She didn’t look like a woman whose body was patched together, constantly on the verge of flying apart.
I turned toward her to answer—“I’m just looking”— and saw a gathering of small, carved Buddhas. They were jade, only about a half inch tall. Some of them seemed to hold things in their hands or over their heads. I picked one up. He was holding a kind of cup or platter overhead. I could see veins running through the stone. His round belly made him look jolly. I realized that I had no idea who Buddha really was or what he represented. I knew the story of Jesus inside out: Jesus’s conception, Jesus’s birth, Jesus’s parables, Jesus’s miracles, Jesus’s death. I knew Jesus’s story better than I knew my own.
“What does this one mean?” I asked the woman.
“That’s the Buddha of long life,” she said.
“I’ll take it.”
“Is it a gift?” she asked. It was testimony to my state of mind that I thought—What business is it of yours?— before realizing that she was probably seeking simple information on a box, a bag, a bow, and then realizing, further, that the only Christmas gift I’d purchased was a digital camera for my mother.
“No,” I said, trying hard to make sure I sounded pleasant. “It’s for me.”
"Would you like a book on Buddhism?” she asked. “We have some excellent introductory guides. Some people also like these cards.” She pointed to a sturdy little box with a flip-open top and handed it to me, but I didn’t want to do anything that smacked of effort. I wanted my prayers to be essential, easy and organic. Long life. That was all I felt I could pray for right now—the simple act of breathing in and out over time.
“Just the Buddha is fine,” I said.
I paid for the little statue, then slipped it into the pocket of my purse. While I walked through Borders, I reached in three separate times to make sure it was still there. I found the magazine right away, then went to stand in line. It was a long line. Stacked on tables next to us were the books being touted as perfect gifts that holiday season. There was Mitch Albom’s new book, The Five People You’ll Meet in Heaven; a novel called The Lovely Bones that I’d been told by three separate people I had to read; Atkins for Life; a little red book of advice by Fred Rogers, who had recently died; and Michael Moore’s diatribe, Dude, Where’s My Country? I picked up a copy of the novel, and stepped forward in line. Now I was next to the sale books—a Crock-Pot cookbook, a book of crossword puzzles, a coffee-table book on neon road signs. I picked up a book called Feng Shui: Harmonizing Your Inner and Outer Space.
I opened it and flipped to the introduction. “For the ancient Chinese,” it said, “luck was not synonymous with chance. Luck was opportunity. Of cour
se, even if presented with opportunity, many of us do not act and grasp it with both hands.”
“Next!” the cashier called. I slammed shut the book on feng shui, tossed it back onto the sale table, and made my way past the Mary Engelbreit display to the counter.
The cashier was a young woman with hair that seemed as if it had been dipped in ink. I imagined that she was a seasonal employee. A college student, perhaps, earning money for a trip home. “Busy today, isn’t it?” I asked.
“I guess,” she said. She swiped my novel across her scanner, shoved it in a bag.
“That’s supposed to be an amazing book,” I said.
She thrust my receipt toward me to sign. “No returns without a receipt,” she said, “and all returns have to be within thirty days.”
“OK,” I said. “Thanks.”
“Next!” she called out.
“Happy Holidays,” I said as I walked away, but I knew she hadn’t heard me.
This Old House is a fantastic magazine. It’s printed on beautiful, thick paper, for one thing, and on every page you get the feeling that all things are possible. It is possible to clean your gutters, to re-plane a sticky door frame, to scrape off four layers of paint to reveal the original hardwood under the floor of a farmhouse kitchen. For their holiday issue, the magazine had a gift-giving guide featuring laser levels, push-button measuring tapes, and circular saws. The photographs made the tools look as enticing as fine chocolates or cashmere sweaters the color of sorbet. I turned down a page featuring a laser measuring tape that I thought Rick would love, and thought I could probably get one for my brother, as well. I read the column on how to caulk around the windows and lay in extra insulation during the chill of January and pored over a feature story on a hacienda in Arizona that was being restored for a family who had inherited the original property from the wife’s great-grandfather, who had been a ranch hand during the Depression.
I was reading about old houses and the people who loved them, but I couldn’t get Vanessa’s comment out of my head. You don’t have a cynical bone in your body. That was the way I used to be and it amazed me that the world could see me as unchanged. When the plastic surgeon removed my breast and replaced it with a fake one made from the fat and skin from my tummy, I was only focused on what I’d gained: a breast, a body that was balanced and free of disease. I never concerned myself with what I had lost—my innocence, my faith, the frivolous lightness of being. I had been cancer-free for five years now. That was a joyous landmark, devoutly to be wished, and while I could revel in a good story or in the blessing of being able to witness my daughter growing into such a fine young woman, the fact of the matter was that cancer had made me feel mortal, and it’s hard to be optimistic when you feel so damn mortal. It’s hard to believe in God, it’s hard to feel excited about a new house, it’s hard to let your husband love you.
In the beginning, I was grateful and smug, because most of the women in my support group said their husbands were too repulsed to touch them and they were convinced that no one ever would again, except out of pity. Rick, however, never flinched in the face of the wounds I sustained when I lost a breast. He cleaned those wounds, cared for them, then kissed them in a seamless progression of love and desire. But as the years passed and the mammograms came back clean, it began to be more difficult—the whole messy business of love and life.
It’s hard to say why this is so, but the further away we got from the event itself, the more tenuous my grip on survival became. I felt more and more mortal as time went by. I felt more and more the risk there was in loving other mortals, in making alliances, in staking a place on this fragile earth. At these times I couldn’t stand my husband’s touch. My right breast was completely numb because it was completely fake. I appeared balanced and whole and I mostly felt balanced and whole—except when he touched me. He’d put his lips on my left, live, nipple, and all I could feel was the nonresponse of the one on the right. He’d move to the right one and all I could feel was his sense of duty, like a soldier following the protocol he knew to be right. I wanted to yell, “It doesn’t work!” but I never did. Was it possible he actually enjoyed it?
As our fourteenth anniversary approached—which was a year and a half ago—guilt overwhelmed me. Rick didn’t deserve a wife who had been sick, and he didn’t deserve a wife who had grown so cold. I wanted to do something to show him how grateful I was for his compassion and constancy, and what I did was this: I had my fake breast tattooed. The idea came to me when I overheard a conversation where a mother was expressing her outrage that her daughter had gone to a place called Art & Soul. The girl had just waltzed in and gotten a shamrock tattooed on her ankle because her boyfriend was an Irishman. I was taken with that concept—of outrageous spontaneity, of permanent adornment for an audience of just one. I was certain Rick would be taken with it, too.
Not long after the thought first came to me, I was in line at the grocery store behind a small, fit woman with an elaborate dragon tattooed on her shoulder blade. The tail snaked down her arm and the body covered most of the rounded knob of her shoulder. She was wearing a white spaghetti-strap tank, and I could clearly see the whole beast—its tail, its wings, its scales.
“That’s beautiful,” I ventured, pointing.
She turned her head, and registered no surprise that a slightly heavy, apricot-haired mother wearing plain black flip-flops, a denim skirt that hit below her knees, and an expression of extreme exhaustion, was interested in her tattoo.
“It’s Cold Drake Dragon from Lord of the Rings,” she said. “Erika Stanley did it at Art and Soul. I had to wait six months to get an appointment with her.”
“Art and Soul,” I repeated. “I’ve heard of it.”
The next day, I drove half an hour on the freeway to the studio on Robertson Boulevard. I was stunned to find that it was more like an art gallery than a sleazy bar. The walls were white and the space was open. There were large, colorful posters on the wall of various tattoos, framed award certificates and row upon row of black binders filled with tattoo designs.
“Can I help you?” a man behind the counter asked. He had heavily gelled hair and a small goatee. I couldn’t detect a tattoo anywhere on him.
“I’d like a tattoo,” I said. “On my breast. I only have three hours. I want to do it before I lose my nerve.”
“Tattoos are permanent art,” he said, as if I were a sixteen-year-old rebel. “Are you sure you wouldn’t like to take some time to browse through our designs, and then come back when you’re certain you’re ready? We don’t normally recommend tattooing on impulse.”
“I’m certain,” I said, surprised and reassured by his conservative kindness. “Just nervous.”
“Do you know what design you want?”
“A butterfly. Just a small one.”
He got up, reached for a binder, flipped it open and revealed a dozen butterfly designs. “That’s only the start of what we have, and we can do custom work, too, though that’s more expensive and takes longer.” The colors of the butterflies were rich and earthy. There were creatures that looked like specimens from a science book and ones that looked as if they’d flown right off the page of a fantasy novel. I didn’t want to turn the page and get lost in consideration. I pointed to a blue butterfly about as big as my thumbnail, with radiant flecks of green. You could see the shadow of the wings, which made it look like it was flying, like it could be captured in the mouth of the man who might go to kiss it, and then be swallowed whole.
“That one,” I said.
I signed all the waivers and legal agreements, then sat down and read Details magazine while I waited for one of the artists to be free. I kept glancing over the top of the pages at a man whose forearm was completely covered in tattoos. There were words and various animals included among the designs, but I couldn’t make any of them out. There were so many tattoos that the whole effect was just one of ink. After about fifteen minutes, my name was called.
The man with the goatee led m
e back to a small room and handed me a black cotton gown.
“Shirt off, bra off,” he said. “Leave the opening of the gown to the front. Jerry will be with you in a minute.”
He closed the door and I quickly took off my clothes and put on the gown. I thought about how many times I’d been in a small room in a gown waiting for an expert to come in an do something to my breast—poke it with a needle, squeeze it for an X-ray, cut it, sew it, clean it, measure it, burn it. I was an expert at having things done to my breast. I could whip my clothes off in an instant. I could carry on a conversation as serious as the possibility of life and death or as frivolous as the desirability of having a deep décolletage without giving a thought to the indignity of wearing a thin cotton gown tied loosely across my body. People could poke and prod at any part of my anatomy they were trained to treat and I wouldn’t flinch. I wouldn’t even blink.
I looked around the little room and noticed a diploma on the wall. Jerry Steiner, it seemed, was a graduate of the Chicago School of Art. While I was still marveling at this fact, Jerry himself walked in and introduced himself. He was a thin man with a tattoo like a braided rope around his left wrist.
“I’m going to numb you up,” he said, then stopped because I was shaking my head.
“It’s already numb. I had a mastectomy. It’s completely fake.”
“Ahh,” he replied, and the way he said it made me wonder if he knew what a mastectomy even was. Perhaps he thought I had just told him that I’d had breast enhancement surgery. Maybe this was why he acted as if it were nothing. “Well, I’m going to numb you up anyway, ” he said.
Even after the shots, I could feel the vibration of the machine that punched the needle and a kind of concentrated electric energy on that part of my body. It was uncomfortable. I lay on the table and tried not to move, or even breathe, so as not to disturb Jerry while he worked. When he was done, he instructed me in how to care for the scab that would form over the tattoo, and gave me some paperwork that answered any questions I might have.