World Gone Missing

by Doyle, Laurie Ann;

  Not this time. “I don’t want to involve Webber,” Lyn said with determination. “Not now.”

  “Okay,” Sofa said. “All right. Webber’s not an expert in Stage 3, anyway. That’s what we need right now. There’s this new guy in Onc. I’ll shoot him an email.”

  “No.”

  Sofia came and stood close to Lyn. “What are you saying?”

  She wanted to—just go. The two words had floated to the top of Lyn’s brain as she was driving down Parnassus after the visit this morning. She didn’t know what they meant, not really, not yet. A part of her was still catching up. She just knew she wasn’t going back again to the gray–faced man at UCSF, or even the baseball-loving Webber.

  “You know,” Sofia said. “Stanford just started a new clinical trial—”

  “You’re not listening to me.” Lyn felt she couldn’t breathe. Not because of the cancer. The doctor said she’d probably feel fine for a while yet. Her markers sucked, her scan was a mess, but she felt fine. She just couldn’t breathe at the moment. Lyn inhaled forcefully. “No doctors.”

  “You can’t mean that.”

  “I can,” Lyn said. “I do.”

  In the silence that followed, Sofia walked to the other side of the kitchen and opened a cabinet filled not with cereal or pasta but bobbleheads. All the bobbleheads they’d collected together. There was Cain, Romo, a couple of Lou Seals, and Eckersley. Eck wasn’t a Giant, of course. But still, an amazing pitcher. Sofia had given Eck to Lyn after her first NED—No Evidence of Disease—result.

  “Lyn,” Sofia said. “Listen. A forty-five percent survival five years out isn’t bad. In fact, all things considered, it’s good. Really good. Almost fifty-fifty.”

  Lyn stared at her. “What the hell are you talking about? The doctor didn’t give me any percentages.” All the oncologist said this morning was Given recent advances, it’s likely you’ll still be with us in two years. Still with us. Shit.

  “It’s in your chart.”

  “You’ve been through my chart?”

  “Yes, I—” Sofia’s voice dropped. “Wanted to check.”

  “I don’t believe it.” Lyn made herself breathe. The last thing she wanted was Sofia taking over again.

  “You didn’t mind before.”

  “I gave you permission before.”

  “And you’re not now?”

  “No. No!”

  “Please don’t shout,” Sofia said with deliberate calm. “Lyn, honey. What you have is absolutely treatable. Every note in the chart says that.”

  “Stop!” Now she was shouting. “Don’t you see? What I have may be treatable. But it’s not curable. The doctor made that perfectly clear. Tell me, Sofia, how long did I get between treatments? A year maybe? And after this? Six months? Four? What is the point? I don’t see the point.”

  Damn if she’d let them poison every cell in her body, watch her body turn the color of dead grass again. Walk around feeling as if she had the world’s worst hangover without the pleasure of a night’s drinking before. Not this time.

  “Sweetie. You just got the news. You’re in shock. It will go away.”

  “Do not fucking tell me it will go away.” When Lyn fixed Sofia with a hard stare, she felt something shift inside her. Distinctly move from here to there. Whatever she’d been circling all day—some decision, plan—became clear.

  “I’m going to do nothing.”

  There, she’d said it.

  Lyn walked to the stove and turned over a strip of bacon in the pan using her fingers. She couldn’t remember the last time she ate bacon. On chemo, food turned to sawdust. Food brought nausea. Lyn turned over another strip, not feeling it burn at first. She rushed to the sink and ran the cold water until her hand felt numb. The skin turned bright red.

  “I don’t understand,” Sofia said.

  “What’s to understand?” Lyn shook the water off. “I’m going to let things take their course. Nobody lives forever. Nobody.” She felt certain about something else, too. This time she sure as hell wouldn’t be good.

  “Why don’t we talk in the morning,” Sofia said. “After we’ve both had more sleep.”

  “No, I take that back,” Lyn said, as if she hadn’t heard. “I am going to do something. Eat.” She passed Sofia the cutting board with carrots waiting to be cut.

  Later than night, Lyn dozed on and off in front of the TV as Lincecum battled it out with Sabathia at Yankee Stadium, both pitchers subpar this season. The next time Lyn’s eyes opened, the screen was filled with a gold cat dancing on tall thin legs, then big glossy lips, then a wrinkled man cheerfully holding up a green pill, until suddenly—she wasn’t sure how—there stood Lincecum in the middle of the screen, a still, pale expression on his face. Runner after runner crossed home plate. That’s it, Lyn thought. The season’s over. Sofia would be optimistic, she knew, open to any possibility. But as far as Lyn was concerned, the Giants were finished.

  She stumbled down the hall to the bedroom where Sofia lay asleep, still curled around an open book, her body a soft, breathing shape in the dark.

  Lyn lay on the far side of the bed. At midnight she was still awake, staring into the shadows hanging over her head. She rolled from her back to her side, turned on her stomach. She coughed and worried they had missed a spot on her lungs—she pictured it as a splotch of pink dirt. She saw her body changing from its fleshy self to bones barely able to draw air. In spite of how easy it’d been this afternoon to think about—going—now her mind veered away.

  “Sofia.” Lyn touched her fingers.

  Once that was all it took, a touch, and they were kissing, deep calm kisses that soon took over. Sofia’s skin felt impossibly good against hers—slick and warm and surprisingly strong—bringing her pleasure after pleasure. But since Lyn’s diagnosis, they rarely reached for each other. Even then Sofia avoided Lyn’s chest.

  Other times, too, not when they were making this cautious kind of love, but when Lyn was getting dressed for work, or naked a moment before bed, she felt Sofia look at her, staring at what was now just scar over rib. Instead of taking Lyn in as she once had—eyes filled with desire—now Sofia turned away, with guilt or shame, maybe; it was hard to tell. Then she covered her own two small breasts.

  “Sofia,” Lynn repeated softly.

  “Be right there,” Sofia said in a doctor-like voice and rolled over, already back asleep.

  Lynn lay in the dark a while longer. Finally she stood up and put on her Levi’s and a cowboy shirt trimmed with turquoise. The streetlight hung in the window like a half-moon.

  

  Lipstick was so crowded, she had to fight her way in. The parking on Harrison Street had been nonexistent and the lot next door filled as usual with broken down Muni buses. When Lyn finally made it through the door, the bartender was all the way down the bar pouring out three margaritas at once. “Whole Lotta Love” blasted out of the jukebox.

  Lyn pushed impatiently through the crowd, smelling lavender and sweat. A calf brushed against hers, then someone’s shoulder. All these women, she thought, the twenty-something tatted wonders, the seventy-year-olds with spiky silver hair, not one of them knew. Not one of them would look at her with serious eyes and ask how she was feeling. Or worse, say how fantastic she looked with voices full of forced cheer, smiling anywhere but at her chest. She was passing, not for straight now, but for healthy.

  Lyn reached the bar and waved, trying to get the bartender’s attention. A hand touched her arm.

  “Hey didn’t I see you in here the other day?”

  At first, she didn’t recognize the woman wearing green flannel shirt and a silver nose ring, grinning at her. Then—of course, the old gal. Except tonight she didn’t look so old. Her hair wasn’t tucked up in a ball cap, but spilling over her shoulders in blonde and silver. And her work boots looked great, dirty from a long day’s work. Lyn
remembered the affair she’d had before she moved in with Sofia, a brief fling with a contractor she met on the job, a woman Sofia either hadn’t noticed or deliberately didn’t mention.

  “A week or so ago?” the not-so-old gal said. “The Giants were on?”

  Lyn smiled. “That’s right.”

  “Boy, do they suck. I mean, after winning the whole damn thing last year, what the hell are they doing now?”

  Lyn nodded emphatically.

  “My name’s B.A.,” the woman said, as if they were just picking up the conversation. “How’ve you been?”

  “Fine,” said Lyn, looking away. “Good.” When she looked back, the bartender was standing in front of them with one eyebrow raised like, All right, ladies. I don’t have all night.

  “Can you make me a chocolate martini?” Lyn asked.

  “You bet.” The bartender turned to the woman.

  “Same.”

  Lyn leaned her elbows back on the bar and B.A. stood facing her, legs wide apart. They talked about nothing, just the way Lyn wanted to. How it was the extra splash of vodka that made a chocolate delicious, how work was picking up for women in the trades. A little. They ordered another round. And another. When Lipstick’s band, the Clicks, started to play, the music got so loud they moved closer to be heard. Tonight the dance floor wasn’t shadowy, but crowded with women, their hair—frizzy, blue, blonde, dark—lit in the spinning lights. Lyn watched an arm shoot up, somebody jump.

  B.A. whispered in her ear, “Dance?”

  Lyn followed her to the dance floor. The beat picked up and B.A. moved closer. Lyn felt the pulse of her shoulders. And hips. B.A. did this slidey thing with her knees. Lyn did it, too, adding arms overhead. They traded moves back and forth. Just danced. She hadn’’t felt this good—this drunk—in forever. Lyn kicked off her boots. The wood floor had just the right slip on bare feet.

  She and B.A.—Did they really? Yes, they did—danced the hustle, funky chicken, a deep Elvis twist, all toes and hips. Her mother had taught her that. The mother whose grave she always got lost trying to find in Oakland’s Mountain View Cemetery. Lyn closed her eyes and pushed that thought—all thought—out of her brain. She swayed her hips, bent her knees, pumped her elbows, feeling the music work its way deep inside. Sweat filled her back. When the band stopped and the lights came up, Lyn felt stunned for a moment by the brightness. Then she looked around, but B.A. was nowhere to be seen. Lyn headed out the door, still barefoot.

  “Hey you.” B.A. stood in a group of smokers around a pine tree twinkling with lights. “That was fun,” she said, holding out her drink.

  “Really fun,” Lyn said, taking it. She lit her own cigarette off B.A’s.

  Through the blur of smoke and clouds—blurrier still for the vodka now warming her chest—stars appeared. The clouds separated for a moment and between their silver edges, more glittered.

  “Wow,” Lyn said. “You never see stars like this in San Francisco.”

  “Nice, isn’t it?” someone said.

  “Yeah,” B.A. smiled. “September can get like this. Clear. Look, even some of the Milky Way tonight.” A faint band of white twisted across the sky.

  “May, occasionally, too,” the voice came again. Then Lyn knew. Sofia. Instead of looking at her, Lyn dragged hard on the cigarette. When she finally did meet her lover’s eyes, Sofia’s brow tightened.

  Lyn shrugged. The last thing she wanted tonight was to feel guilty.

  The woman stuck out her hand cheerfully. “Hi there. I’m B.A.”

  Sofia frowned. For a second, Lyn thought Sofia might do something. Yell, carry on. Maybe Lyn wanted her to. Stop being so goddamned nice.

  “Hello.” Sofia smiled.

  “B.A.’s for Betty Ann. But nobody calls me that. ” She gestured to Lyn. “And this is—”

  “Lyn,” Sofia said. “I know.”

  “You two know each other?”

  “You could say that,” Sofia said.

  At first the silence that followed seemed simply a lull in the conversation, but as Lyn kept her eyes focused anywhere than on Sofia, and as Sofia’s frown deepened, her hands fidgeting with the keys in her pocket, the buttons on her shirt, anything, the tension grew until the night air felt thick with it. Lyn ran her finger around the rim of the martini glass and licked off chocolate.

  Inside, the band started up, an especially soulful version of “Valerie” vibrating the air.

  “Let’s dance out here,” B.A. said. “It’s too hot inside.” She began to move her hips, slowly, then faster. She reached up and waved her arms. To Lyn’s surprise, Sofia joined her.

  Though Sofia loved to dance, she wasn’t all that good at it. Tonight she looked especially klutzy. Doing a horrible freestyle funk, she began flailing one hand as if her fingernails had caught fire, then bobbling her head. B.A. grinned. This only seemed to encourage Sofia more, who smiled, too, turning her foot on the sidewalk as if she were grinding out a stubborn cigarette. B.A. danced closer.

  Lyn watched with resentment, her eyes moving from woman to woman. B.A. caught Lyn staring and stopped.

  “Is everything all right?” The song was winding down.

  Lyn exhaled a long stream of smoke. “Fine.”

  Sofia stopped dancing, too.

  “Oh,” B.A said, as if the word held a special significance. She turned toward the bar door. “Why don’t I just—”

  Before Lyn could stop her, B.A. left.

  The two of them stood on the sidewalk in silence.

  “I want you to know,” Sofia said finally. “You are a complete shit.”

  Lyn flicked the extinguished cigarette at the blue disabled sign, but missed. “I just wanted to dance, that’s all. Have a couple drinks, without you there judging me.”

  Sofia continued. “At first I was sure you were in bed next to me, fast asleep. Then I thought, the bathroom. Or the couch. I even searched the coats in the front closet. Why, I have no idea. I opened the front door and stood out on the porch. An orange car drove by. Then it dawned on me. Of course. Here.”

  “I couldn’t sleep.”

  The shadows under Sofia’s eyes looked darker than usual. “Me neither.”

  Lyn felt the liquor burn under her ribs. She stared down at her feet. They looked bigger and uglier than she remembered. A bump on her toe stood out grotesquely.

  “It’s been a long day,” Sofia said. “Let’s go home.”

  “No,” Lyn said.

  Sofia’s fingers brushed hers and Lyn pulled away, lurching at first in no direction at all, then heading toward the cemetery of old buses. She started to run, spurred on by the alcohol.

  She swerved through the narrow fence opening, then between the buses, their windows splintered and dark, the doors jammed open, or missing completely. Metal sides were bashed in. Her heart crashing in her ears, Lyn remembered a different set of walls, the hard plastic so close she couldn’t move. How many MRIs had she had, her arms frozen over her head, her body buried inside the machine? She ran down another row of buses, turned, headed in the opposite direction. Sofia was somewhere close behind, she could hear but not see her. Lyn jumped over a crushed beer bottle, severed wires. She realized she blamed Sofia—the conscientious physician—blamed her more than any other doctor, for all those tests, the agony of chemo, and its failure. Blamed Sofia, too, for loss of years that Lyn, in spite of this afternoon, felt now owed her. Thirty-nine was young, wasn’t it? Much too young to just go.

  “Lyn,” Sofia called. “Wait!”

  Lyn flew between the gray buses, her breath coming in sharp bursts. Another memory surfaced, this one of long after the surgery, long after radiation, too, her burn marks nearly faded. She and Sofia sitting on opposite sides of the couch, full from the dinner Lyn had just cooked, the sweet flan dessert. Suddenly she’d wanted to talk about—what? The nothingness, her fear of nothing
ness, the erasure of everything she knew and was. Who would remember her after sixty years? Who? They’d be dead, too. She hadn’t been able to find the words that night, words useless anyway in the dark face of it.

  Lyn continued running, the buckled pavement sharp against her bare feet. She slipped in another row of metal buses, running, slowing down only to speed up again. Sofia was darting somewhere behind. The night floated around her, stars rising and falling, the moon blurring in and out of view. She smelled the oil-stained concrete, the bay’s salty air. She stopped, but her body kept swaying.

  The sounds of Sofia could no longer be heard.

  Because she was right here, stepping out of the darkness, so close Lyn could hear her breathing. Sweat-soaked curls haloed Sofia’s head. Her hair had been like that the first night they’d spent together. Loose, impossible, beautiful.

  Lyn turned away. “The last thing you need is a complete shit twenty-four-seven.”

  Sofia pulled Lyn close so that every part of their bodies pressed together, hips, ribs, breasts, heart, so they could feel their lungs lifting for breath.

  “No,” Sofia said. “The last thing I need is no one there at all.”

  For a long moment, Lyn wanted to let go. Then, she didn’t.

  Voices

  Don’t you remember that afternoon, April maybe, the afternoon that at first didn’t seem so different, you and I in the art room painting on the big black sheet a huge yellow eye streaming spikes, an eclipsing sun, a bird rising, a full moon? We mixed spit and eyelashes in the paint; I insisted that a fortune-telling booth needed a few human ingredients. I felt a little silly, nervous really. We had out your mother’s big book on palm reading, but who were we to tell the future? You, you had something else on your mind, something I sensed when I looked up, saw you staring at the sky beyond the school windows, the Chappaqua sky shredding clouds.