She kept reading self-help books. She’d spent one hundred fifty dollars at Barnes & Noble the day after the breakup. She’d prayed, too. Read the Bible. Listened to sad, sad music. She lit candles. Took comfort anywhere she could find it inside the safety of her own dark little space.
She threw away his pictures, his toothbrush, the Palm Pilot he kept losing in the cushions of her couch. Then she took them all out of the wastebasket and put them in a shopping bag with the two or three shirts he had left in her closet and put the bag by the door.
She didn’t expect him to come back. She had thought—no, known—that Michael would come running back. He hadn’t. Why would Duncan? They had only been together a few months. But then why did this hurt as much as losing her soulmate of more than five years?
So the days and weeks went by. She went to class. Took exams. Went for long runs in the snow, in the cold. Tried to smile as clients told her their weight-loss stories; tried to concentrate on helping them lose weight. She never heard from him. After about a month, she stopped hoping. She started to try to get used to the emptiness of her apartment, stopped telling herself that maybe he would come to get his stuff.
She went to church and hung out with Sherry and her friends. It was OK. She read, worked, studied, and ran. She took comfort where she could find it.
Chapter 22
One of the characteristics of March in New England was its deceptiveness. It wasn’t quite spring, but it knew how to put on airs to make itself seem that way. So this Sunday, it was in the high fifties, and the sun shone brightly. Some of the skeletal trees even sported a few buds. But none of that meant that the snowstorm on its way down from Canada would turn around after it hit Maine. No, just give it a day or so. Then cold reality would hit.
Weslee went through the motions. She smiled and shook hands with Sherry’s friends in the church parking lot. They all called her sister. But even with all this love from these folks, she still felt an ache deep down in her heart. They were all so happy with their saved and sanctified selves. But no one could understand what she was going through.
“I’m going to the Shattuck this afternoon, wanna come?”
“What’s the Shattuck?” Weslee asked as Sherry eased out of the crowded parking lot and onto Blue Hill Avenue.
“It’s a hospital. My mother used to work there before she passed on.”
“Why are you going there?”
Sherry glanced at her and shook her head. “To visit some sick folks. You know? Sick people who have no one to care for or visit them.”
“Oh.” Weslee felt ashamed for not knowing. She felt ashamed for the next question that she did not ask—why do you guys have to be such do-gooders?
“So, you’ll come?”
“Um. I don’t know. I should catch up on some reading.”
“Weslee.” Sherry’s voice took on its most motherly timbre. “You know, if you took just a few minutes to focus on someone else but yourself, you’d be surprised at how small your problems will seem.”
Weslee did not answer. She didn’t have an answer for a comment like that. For one thing, her problems did not seem small to her. But why argue with Sherry? She was still on fire from the sermon.
“Well, maybe for a little while.”
“Good. Excellent. Let’s go eat.” Sherry turned up the volume on her CD player and sang along with gospel singer Freda Battle.
Minutes later they entered Bob the Chef ’s soul-food restaurant. It was the only black-owned real “sit-down” restaurant in Boston that wasn’t in the hood. It was probably the only restaurant in the city that gave Boston street credibility with black folks who were visiting from other parts of the country. But then, even with its finger-licking-good menu and fierce jazz brunch, buffet-style, on Sundays, the clientele was a solid 75 percent white. Well, what was one to do? Boston is what it is, Weslee thought.
They were lucky enough to get a table close to the jazz band.
“That drummer’s kinda cute,” Sherry mouthed to Weslee over the Latin jazz music.
Weslee rolled her eyes. She hadn’t noticed. She filled her plate with greens and scrambled eggs and a couple of pancakes, and Sherry did the same.
“We’re so good, aren’t we?” Sherry wrinkled her nose at their timid choices as other patrons piled chicken wings, macaroni and cheese, and other artery-clogging, delicious fare on their plates.
“We’d better be good. The race is in a few weeks.” Weslee went from being excited to feeling dread at the upcoming marathon. She had trained so hard, fifty miles a week over the last five months, but now she just felt tired. Was it all the running, or Duncan? She wasn’t sure. All she knew was that the enthusiasm she had felt for running her first Boston Marathon was ebbing daily.
“Oooh,” Sherry groaned. “I’d love some of that macaroni and cheese and some of those wings.”
“Go ahead. I’m not stopping you.”
They walked back to their table with their food.
“You’re going to really enjoy talking with those people. I know it sounds depressing, but you’d be surprised. Some of them have some really interesting stories to tell.”
Weslee nodded absently as Sherry went on about Shattuck Hospital and its unfortunate patients who had no one to visit them. Sure, Sherry went there out of her Christian guilt. But Weslee knew the reporter in Sherry would be also looking out for a heart-rending story that could get her byline on the front page of her newspaper. But you couldn’t hate her for that.
The entrance to the restaurant was crowded, but out of the corner of her eye Weslee noticed William and Megan walk in. She focused on her plate. She hoped that he wouldn’t see her. She hadn’t talked to him since that day he had warned her about Duncan. She wasn’t ready to face him yet. Especially not with perfect Megan at his side. “Let’s hurry so we can go. I can’t wait.”
“Really?” Sherry’s face lit up. “OK, I don’t really have to finish all of this.”
As they exited the restaurant, she could feel William’s eyes on her. She never looked his way. That jerk, she thought. Her instinct told her to go back there and give him a piece of her mind for ruining her relationship with Duncan. But she decided that it wouldn’t do any good. She didn’t trust herself to not break down in tears and make a scene. But she definitely would not say hello. As far as she was concerned, he didn’t exist. At least that’s what she wanted him to think. She walked out quickly and didn’t look back.
Lemuel Shattuck Hospital felt and smelled old. It wasn’t like the spit-shined, disinfected Northwestern Medical Center where Weslee’s own mother had worked for twenty years. Patients sat near the entrance in wheelchairs, looking out onto the glorious oaks that held court over Franklin Park, site of the revitalized city zoo and one of the best public golf courses in the country.
It was such a huge and wonderful contrast: the old, gloomy state hospital—with its drug addicts and terminally ill and abandoned—looking out onto the sunny, open, pristine park with its happy tennis players, joggers, and families playing on an idyllic almost-spring Sunday afternoon.
“Where are we going?” Weslee asked. The smell of sickness tugged at her barely digested brunch.
“Ten. The last floor.” Sherry looked at her and narrowed her eyes. “Are you OK?”
“I’m fine.”
“You’ll get used to the smell.”
Weslee didn’t want to say that she didn’t plan to come back.
Surprisingly, the ward didn’t smell as bad as the lobby. It wasn’t the smell; it was the sounds: several TVs blared different stations. Some patients were watching baseball spring training, others whatever the networks were showing.
“Hi, Sherry,” a heavyset Caribbean woman dressed in nurses’ whites called out from the nurses’ station.
“Hi, Miriam,” Sherry answered.
“How you doing, child? You looking nice today, eh. You comin’ from church?”
Weslee recognized the Bajan accent.
“This is
Weslee.” Sherry gestured, and Weslee held out her hand.
Miriam crushed her in a bear hug. “It’s nice to meet you, Weslee. Where you from? I can tell you from the Islands from that face.”
“Yeah. My dad is from Barbados,” Weslee said, shy at Miriam’s too-too familiarity.
“Barbados! Ah! Me, too. What part?”
“Um. Nice to see you, Miriam,” Sherry said, taking Weslee’s elbow. “We’re going in to see Holly.”
“Oh, good. She’s feeling a little down today. She’ll be glad to have the company.”
Weslee followed Sherry into a tiny single room. The walls were bare, but there were four vases of flowers, plastic ones, near the door, two on the table on the right of the bed and one on the left.
“Hi, Holly,” Sherry said softly and beckoned Weslee closer to the bedside of the skinniest woman Weslee had ever seen that wasn’t on a runway.
“Sherry, nice to see you.” The woman’s voice was strong and dignified; she sounded very educated and as if she had been very beautiful once and knew it. “Who’s this?” She looked at Weslee and smiled. But to Weslee it was just skin sliding over bones to reveal yellowing, rotting teeth receding into prominent gums. Her thinning hair was pulled off her face in what Weslee guessed was a ponytail in the back. Weslee held out her hand, but Holly didn’t try to shake it.
“Having a bad day, huh?” Sherry asked.
Holly coughed hollowly. “Not as bad as last night. Just a little weak today.” She closed her eyes.
“Listen, Holly. I’m going to let you and Weslee get to know one another. I’m gonna go say hi to Cecil.”
Weslee’s mouth opened to say no, and she grabbed Sherry’s arm in protest. Sherry glared at Weslee, shook her arm off, and walked out of the room.
Weslee wanted to flee. Holly’s eyes were still closed. Was she asleep? She was just a sack of skin and bones under the white Massachusetts Department of Health blanket. Her TV was on CNN. There were pictures on her table. A daughter, maybe, smiled broadly from one of the pictures. The daughter was petite and pretty; she had short hair dyed chestnut brown and cut close to her head. It illuminated her caramel skin and huge cocoa-colored eyes. She had big, white, beautiful teeth.
“Like that?” Holly’s eyes were open again.
“She’s pretty. Is that your daughter?”
Holly laughed and then began to cough.
“Do you want me to get someone?” Weslee looked at her worriedly.
But Holly waved off Weslee’s concern. “I’m fine.” She cleared her throat. “That’s me.”
“Who?” Weslee asked blankly.
“In the picture.” Holly’s face looked victorious at the look on Weslee’s face. “Five years ago.”
“I’m sorry.” Weslee shook her head.
“Don’t be sorry. I’m not sorry I looked that good.”
They both laughed. Holly coughed only twice this time.
Weslee wanted to ask what had happened. She had an idea, but she didn’t want to assume. She certainly didn’t want to offend Holly.
“I don’t have any kids, girl. I’m only thirty-two.”
Against her will, Weslee’s face betrayed her shock.
“Please don’t say you’re sorry,” Holly said. She closed her eyes, and Weslee didn’t say anything.
“Are you OK?” Weslee grew more worried after a minute went by and Holly still hadn’t opened her eyes.
The woman nodded.
Weslee was about to call the nurse when Holly opened her eyes again.
“I get this pain sometimes,” she said. “It’s not too bad today, but last night, girl, you could hear me hollering all the way down the hall.”
“Holly. How . . . What?”
“I have AIDS.”
Weslee consciously did not say that she was sorry. She certainly felt sorry. She wanted to hug Holly. She wanted to cry. And she wanted to leave this place now.
“I’m basically dying. Don’t look like that, hon. I’m all taken care of. I got things settled with God.” Holly smiled confidently, showing off what had been her killer smile.
“I don’t know what to say,” Weslee whispered.
“That’s OK. Most people don’t. I’m glad you came with Sherry, though. I don’t really have any family to speak of. Before I came here I was homeless.”
“What happened? You looked so happy in the picture.” Weslee realized too late how accusing and naïve her question sounded.
Holly closed her eyes and went out for another minute or so. Weslee watched the news, waiting for her to come back.
“My husband. He was the perfect man, girl. He gave me everything—a big house in Milton, nice cars, vacations, diamonds, a few dozen mistresses on the side, and AIDS.”
Weslee put her hand over her mouth. Her heart broke as she heard Holly tell the story of her knight in shining armor who turned out to be her angel of death.
Holly Nieves had been working her way through Northeastern University’s law school when she met her husband-to-be, a fellow law student. They had fallen in love immediately and married after just a few months. The marriage was perfect for all of four months, then the cheating began. Consumed by her new job as an associate at a small law firm, Holly ignored her husband’s philandering and focused on her career.
They put up quite a front for his family and their friends. They both were smart and successful and bought the toys to show for all their hard work.
“He would always tell everyone that nothing was too good for his Holly.” She smiled bitterly. “And I guess I put up with his cheating because he kept buying me things. I even stopped asking questions when he would stay out all night, when girls would call my house asking for him, cursing me out.”
It went on for four years before he began to get really sick and couldn’t hide it from Holly anymore. He lived one year before she herself began to suffer from sudden shingles attacks. His family paid for his burial and quickly forgot about her.
She quit her job when the shame and the sickness became too much. The house was foreclosed on, the cars repossessed; she had sold what she could to survive for the three years that she couldn’t work.
Now there was no health insurance left, and her law firm colleagues had long ago forgotten about her. Her in-laws pretended she didn’t exist. So here she was alone, fighting the cancer that AIDS had spliced through her body, and dying.
“Why didn’t you go back to your family?” Weslee asked.
“My grandmother raised me. She died when I was twenty-three, a year before I got married. I don’t know where my mother is.” Holly reached for the remote and switched the channel to E!.
“True Hollywood Story’s coming on next. That’s my show,” she said.
“Really? Mine, too,” Weslee said.
“You remind me of me a bit,” Holly said, clearing her throat again.
“Yeah? How?”
“You’re just so sweet and naïve.”
“Naïve?” Weslee laughed, but she wasn’t sure if she liked being called naïve by a total stranger.
“No offense.”
“I’m not offended,” Weslee lied. “But why would you say that?”
“Just from looking at you. I just get you.” She smiled again, maybe to show Weslee that she was not trying to be mean. “That’s a dangerous way to live. Living for love. You meet the wrong kind of man, then he’ll take full advantage of that, sweetie. Love is not anything like you think it is. I had the fireworks and the knight in shining armor, and this is where it got me.” Holly looked squarely at Weslee.
Weslee nodded. “I know what you mean. I just went through this breakup, and I . . .”
Holly closed her eyes. Weslee let her drift off in her painful world. The nurse came in a few minutes later. “Let her sleep,” she told Weslee.
As Sherry pulled onto Columbia Road, she looked at Weslee. “You’re quiet. How did it go?”
“I just can’t stop thinking about Holly. She’s so smart, so young, so . . .�
��
“Yeah. It’s sad, but that’s how life is sometimes. She’s a strong woman, though.”
Weslee felt tears pricking at her eyes. “I just feel so bad knowing that she’s going to die. I mean, she could be a friend of mine, or a co-worker.”
“Weslee, don’t get like that.” Sherry patted her on the thigh. “Holly is fine. I know it doesn’t seem that way to you, but she is. She’s in pain now, but when she dies, all of her pain will be over. She’s going to heaven. What happened to her, no one will ever understand why. It’s just God and his way of working things. He has a plan for everybody’s life, and that includes pain and suffering as well as happiness and success. She was happy once; she’ll be happy again forever when she crosses over to the other side.”
“I just don’t . . .”
“Don’t try to understand,” Sherry said firmly. “It’s not for us to understand.”
For Weslee, Holly’s illness wasn’t the same as just reading the statistics and feeling mild concern yet detachment from them. This was a person in the flesh who had AIDS, and it was too visible, too real. How can Sherry be so matter-of-fact about this, she wondered.
“Is this the first time you’ve seen a . . . a sick person?” Sherry asked as if reading her mind.
“In real life. Yes. I can’t believe it . . . AIDS . . . really does that to people.”
Sherry sighed. “Yes, that’s what it does to people.”
Weslee caught the mild exasperation in Sherry’s voice.
“Sometimes I feel like the most naïve person in the world, Sherry. Know what I mean? And Holly said it, too. She said I was naïve.”
“Mmm-hmmm.” Sherry raised one eyebrow. “I wouldn’t call it being naïve. I’d say you choose to see what you want to see. Not that it’s a totally bad thing. It’s probably your built-in defense mechanism.”
Weslee thought about this for a moment. “It’s just that up till recently I haven’t had any reason to meet people like Holly. My world was just work, family, and Michael, and then Duncan. . . .”
“You chose it that way, girl. Same way I chose one day to walk into that hospital to volunteer. That’s how I ended up knowing people like Holly. I didn’t meet her on the street or in a club. She’s just another sister like you and me.” Sherry paused. “You don’t have to see the ugliness in this world if you don’t want to, Weslee. You can just close your eyes to it and pretend your little world is perfect. But me, I want to see the good, the bad, and the ugly. It’s a big world out there, much bigger than you and me. And Duncan.” Sherry glanced at Weslee. “And I want a front-row seat to all of it.”
She Who Shops Page 17