by Kim Green
I glance at my watch. “I’ve got to go. Picking up Taylor.” I lay my hand quickly on Wendy’s pale olive arm, which, I realize with another kind of horror, is itself weirdly yet predictably hairless, unlike her head, on which, I recognize now, she must be wearing a wig, so thick and silky-black is her hair, even after chemo.
“You look great,” I nearly yell at her as I leave, knocking over a pyramid of anti-aging creams that shower the aisle like chunks of Sheetrock upset by earthquake.
This has to stop.
The words visit me in the studio, silently deafening, uncomfortably vibrato against the inside of my skull. My hands, which I like to think are gentle, soothing, on my subjects’ tortured flesh, halt midwrap, sticky with mâché. The subject, a heavyset black woman in her fifties—an attorney at a nonprofit before she had to quit her job to get on Medicaid— glances at me quizzically.
“Need a break?” she says to me. The lawyer’s kiwi-green eyes are less a surprise than a bonus, knowing and clear and pitiless in the way only the most striking eyes can be.
“I’m supposed to be asking you that.”
She laughs, a chortle rich as ground coffee. “And I’m supposed to be litigating Hough v. Grossman before the California Supremes. And if we had national fucking health care, I would be.” The large woman slides off the neat podium, an unheralded gift from Arlo that had brought tears to my eyes. “Not that I’m complaining, mind you. Not that I’m complaining,” she repeats, shrugging unself-consciously into a hibiscus-covered silk robe. Her hefty remaining breast flows toward the rolls of flesh at her stomach like a chunk of lava, puckered from surgery. With one breast, I’ve learned, there is no cleavage—just a soft, lone outcropping, jutting or drooping into space.
I excuse myself, quickly rinse my hands at the work tub, go to the toilet, then sip cold unsweetened green tea from the jug Sue leaves for me each morning before she heads for the restaurant. My hands are shaking slightly.
The lie is getting to me. Lies, I should say. That’s something I suppose I should have predicted, how lies multiply. Like cancer itself—how can I not make the tired metaphor?—the original deception clones itself madly until one’s life is littered with potholes, mines, no-go zones, potential missteps.
Lies.
“Jean, what’s your day looking like tomorrow?” I ask.
“Just not feeling it today, huh? Well, tell me about it. I haven’t felt it since Goddess knows when”—she clicks rapidly through her BlackBerry— “let’s see. Radiation at ten A.M. Survivors’ group at noon. Lunch with my partner’s daughter at one-fifteen. And I have to buy shoes.” A smile. “I can deal with the cancer and the surgery and the insurance bullshit and the rest, but damned if I’m going to wear nurse shoes.”
I think I might love this woman. “Can you fit in another casting?”
She snorts. “Are you kidding? This is the highlight of my week. Maybe my month. Who else is brave enough to put these girls in bronze for posterity? Girl, I should say,” she finishes, hefting her monoboob in a way that is more tender than lewd.
“Thanks, Jean. We’ll finish you up tomorrow.”
“No problem.” She turns around before heading for the dressing area. “You in a survivors’ support group yet?”
“Uh—”
“No? Honey, you’re going to need people to talk to about this. People who know what the hell they’re talking about. This is not something you do alone. Why don’t you come with me? We could use some new blood, bunch of old battle-axes with anger-management problems and bad brassieres.” She laughs at her own joke.
“Oh. Well, tomorrow. . .”
Jean holds up her palm. “Doesn’t have to be tomorrow. No pressure. You’ll come. Whenever you want in, you just let me know. But I’ll be after you, girl, make no mistake.” She wags her finger at me in what I want to believe is a fond way. I hear her muttering to herself behind the modesty screen. When she leaves, she hugs me.
Phil and I are tucked into his car, heading toward Taylor’s volleyball game to offer parental support, money for post-match pizza, and a lap in which to deposit unwanted clothing.
Phil covers my hand with his—but not by much. My dad used to call them “Rachel’s mitts.”
“You look nice,” he says.
“Thanks. You don’t think this shirt is too boobyish for school?” I push my chest out. Phil thinks I am having surgery next week. Perhaps he will have a wake. For the Twins, I mean.
The car slides off course, straddling the divider bumps. “No, no. It’s fine.”
Okay, that was cruel.
Lately—since what I’ve come to think of as the Fight About Money and Infrequent Lukewarm Sex and Everything Else That Is Fucked Up in Our Lives—Phil and I have tiptoed around each other. Our calls are subdued, dinners mechanically respectful. We leave notes for each other, terse, bloodless communiqués that exude a faint whiff of unhappy shame at our marital performance. During his last conjugal visit, Phil went down on me, not realizing such atypical enthusiasm would be interpreted as ominous—the sexual equivalent of an overzealous friend who wants only to hang out with you so she can sleep with your husband.
“Do you think she’ll get to play?” Taylor has been bumped up to varsity from JV this season, one year early.
Phil snorts. “With that serve? McLeod would have to be crazy to keep her on the bench. With Savannah injured and that Spelling girl suspended, for pot, I think Tay’s going to start.” He slots the Accord neatly between a couple of Subarus. We can hear people shouting encouragement from inside the gym. Phil doesn’t leap out, and neither do I. His hands grip the steering wheel.
“We’re going to get through this,” he says. It sounds like a question.
I study the creases around his eyes. For the first time in a long while, I sense something frightened and fervent behind his words. I can’t help it; it feels good.
What have I done?
“You’re my wife.” This time Phil looks directly at me.
Tenure in someone’s heart—isn’t that what I’ve always wanted?
“You’re my wife,” he says again.
The game is five minutes under way as we climb the bleachers toward an empty spot. I spot Rochelle Schitzfelder and Robin Golden three rows away. Robin is wearing a cheerleader outfit. I shit you not. It is white and gold and cropped in all sorts of ill-advised places for anyone over, say, fifteen. Robin’s stomach is the hard, unrelenting brown of parched earth, so maybe she thinks that makes it okay. Rochelle is knitting, with a big pile of white and gold yarn on her lap. She has been working on Tater-pride sweaters as long as I can remember, spinning them out, machinelike, for any man, woman, child, or dog who will wear one. They are ugly, but Rochelle’s intimidation tactics are uglier; I notice a few of her masterpieces in the crowd.
I waggle my fingers at Rochelle and Robin and a couple of other parents and plant myself on one of our foam butt protectors. Phil orders these sorts of things from weird places— SkyMall catalogs or Sharper Image or God knows where. Once in a long while, he buys something that actually comes in handy.
We watch and doze and cheer and fantasize our way through the first quarter. Taylor comes off the bench to score three points in a row. We bask. Then Phil—aka Mr. Attentive—goes to get me a drink and nachos with extra jalapeños.
Robin sits down next to me. Her skinny thighs under the cheerleader mini look like tongue depressors slathered in yams. She grabs my arm. “Taylor’s doing great. You must be so proud of her. We’re all so proud of her.” She narrows her eyes at Coach McLeod, who has committed the unpardonable sin of letting jumpy little Ginnifer Golden languish on the sidelines for longer than three seconds. Then Robin turns to me and slides her elbow through mine. “So, Raquel, I hear you’re famous!”
Yes, I plan on taking an entire Denny’s with me when I finally end it all, Robin. It should make the eleven o’clock news.
“Oh, you mean the show?” I say with just the right amount of timorous modesty.
Robin slaps my hand playfully, then recoils. This is something I’ve noticed: People of otherwise average intelligence think it’s contagious.
“Yes, I mean the show! Rochelle told me she ran into Lauren at Whole Foods, and she said you went on TV to talk about, you know”—Robin interrupts herself to get up and scream, “Golden!” as Ginnifer trots onto the court, wincing at her mother— “anyway, what was I . . . Oh yeah. Lauren said you raised a bunch of money for, uh, breast cancer?” Robin forces out the words behind a bright smile.
“Yes.” I tell her the six-digit number, drawing it out. I can tell Robin is surprised. I am pleased. I may be a big fat liar, but I am also a beacon of hope. No shit. That’s what Laurie’s producer called me: a beacon of hope for other women battling the cruel forces of nature.
“Well, I think it’s great. I think it’s very brave. I couldn’t get up there and tell my story, that’s for sure. I’d be so nervous.”
Hmm. Since Robin’s story goes something like: Graduate Pepperdine, marry rich guy, quit flight-attendant job, pop out kid, get plastic surgery, I’d think she might have risen to the occasion.
“Oh, I’m nervous,” I echo. We watch as Phil negotiates the stairs with his suitcase-sized box of food.
Robin watches enviously as Phil hands me my nachos. “Chemo must burn so many calories,” she says (she really says this).
“With most treatments, but not breast cancer. Sometimes your face swells up and you gain weight between your shoulder blades.” This juicy tidbit courtesy of a pamphlet from Dr. Ruiz-Milligan’s office.
“Like . . . back fat?” Hushed horror.
“Yep. Back fat.” I scoop out a gigantic, dripping chipful of cheese and swallow it whole. “I don’t know what’s worse, that bulge over my bra or the diarrhea. But the acupuncture’s really helping.”
Robin stands up. “Oh. Yes, well, I’d better get back. I don’t think Ginnifer can hear me up here. So good to see you looking so well, Raquel. We’ll definitely tune in to see you on the show next time.” She flees toward the relative safety of Rochelle Schitzfelder and her knitting needles.
I can feel Phil’s attention pulsing against my neck. “What?” I ask.
“I was just going to see if you wanted the other hot dog,” he says.
Taylor scores again. We stand up and scream. We sit down.
“Gimme that,” I say.
Phil hands me the dog. It has about three inches of sauerkraut on it. I munch it hungrily, relishing every dripping bite. A wad of the stuff sticks to my chin. The beautiful raw comfort of it is like a mother’s kiss.
I nod at Robin and Rochelle. “You’d think they never saw a woman eat before.”
Phil rewards me with a laugh.
CHAPTER 11
You Make It Up, It Might Come True
Ma always says woe will befall anyone who buys her own bullshit. Frankly, if this is the flavor of woe, I’ll have another scoop, thank you very much.
My arms rise into the climate-controlled studio air of their own accord, fists punching upward in the universal sign of “personal triumph of the human spirit just waiting to be optioned by Hallmark Presents.” Laurie, great as she may be, is still Laurie, but I am Tom Cruise, leaping over social constraints in a single bound, declaring my love before Oprah and the world. For women. For my sisters in suffering. For myself.
The studio audience cheers.
God help me, I do it again.
Laurie hides her ambivalence at my awe-inspiring performance under a ghost of a smile. “My sister, everybody! My sister the survivor!” she announces.
Up close, Laurie’s television makeup looks like a mask, its adobe thickness obscuring her natural sunny glow. It really does not look normal. Is it possible that dour, foundation-wielding Cleo dislikes my sister? Is it possible that I, Raquel Rose, am on television being interviewed by Living with Lauren!, talking with great sensitivity and depth about surviving breast cancer while the eerie glow of the pledge tracker lights up the stage and, somewhere in Sayulita, Mexico, a surf god named Duke recalls me fondly as the one who got away?
Something is seriously wrong here, folks.
Laurie gives me a nudge and I am standing, gazing blindly into the sea of faces. A woman in the front row, thick-ankled and abject in a matronly linen skirt suit, wipes tears from her cheeks. Her friends, a study in frosted wedge haircuts and sweats masquerading as pants, applaud my courage. Offstage, beyond the cameras, I spot Cleo and Jonesie in the kind of sodden embrace normally reserved for young mothers’ funerals and special-ed graduations.
“I just want you to know. . .” I begin. The cacophony continues. Someone in the audience actually yells at the crowd to shut up.
“I just want you to know,” I say again, “that if you’re facing cancer, facing struggles—and who isn’t, right?— if you’re up against something too big, too scary, too much for you to handle. . .” Against all probability, my eyes land on a golden head in the back row. Instantly, I lose my train of thought. Ren? Can it really be Ren White watching my Susan Lucci– esque performance with hazel eyes bright with unshed tears? Ripping my eyes away from the shadowed figure, I try to focus on what I was saying. Something about big struggles and scary . . . um, love handles?
“Look inside yourself,” I whisper conspiratorially, the sweet-ass tiny mike throwing my words against the walls of the studio and back again. “All I want to say is, look inside yourselves, my friends, because whatever you need in order to deliver yourself from the fear—and make no mistake, it’s fear you face, not the problem itself but the fear— you’ve got it. Oh, you’ve got it. I didn’t think I had it in me, either, but when life takes a turn you never anticipated, when life betrays your trust”—I’m not talking about my fictitious cancer anymore but remembering the crude terror of those early weeks, before my fate was reversed—“and you think, Well, okay, I give up, I’m just going to crumple up and disappear, bye, bye! Well, here’s the thing: When you think you can’t take it anymore, something happens. Maybe you meet someone. Someone who has that little spark that lights up your own little spark. And you feel. . . hopeful again. You feel like this whole life thing might be worth sticking around for. You feel right. Or maybe you come across the most perfect pair of shoes”—Jean, my monoboobed model, resplendent in a dashiki and uppity stilettos that would have crippled a lesser woman, acknowledges me with glowing eyes and a deep nod—“and you stop feeling sorry for yourself for half a second. And that half a second is all it takes. To. Change. The World.”
I finish strong. So strong that applause rings out, crescendos over me in delicious waves. For a second I’m actually glad Phil harassed me into getting TiVo. Next time Ma accuses me of being a quitter, I’ll hand her the DVD of my second appearance on Living with Lauren!
Rational voice: But it’s all a lie, Quel.
Self-aggrandizing voice: So what? I’m really helping people.
Rational voice: On the basis of lies.
Self-aggrandizing voice: You think that gal with one leg who married Paul McCartney really stepped on a land mine?
Rational voice: I think it was a motorcycle accident. Besides, they’re getting divorced.
Self-aggrandizing voice: Whatever.
Rational voice: If you’re doing this to impress your mother, it’s not worth it.
Self-aggrandizing voice: Can you say $245,325?
I open my eyes, heart pounding, seeking the answer of Ren’s golden face in the shadows. But when I scour the back row, there’s nothing there but an abandoned seat, not even quivering, as jarring as a missing tooth.
Something miraculous happens after my second appearance on Living with Lauren! Something, I realize with the smallest flutter of shame, that I have secretly wanted, fantasized about, for years.
I am famous.
Not the sort of famous that makes paparazzi camp out at your back door, hoping to catch you in sweats and no bra, emptying the trash, with a forlorn cigarette hanging out of your lipstickless
mouth.
No, it’s more like a low-grade flu. A continuous stream of minor attention that makes me run a little bit hotter than I would otherwise. People I haven’t spoken to in years call me out of the blue, follow me in shopping carts at the market to say they’ve heard about my work, seen my guest spot on Laurie’s TV show, read my column in the Peninsula Weekly, you know, the one about coping with cancer while managing a career as a successful artist and raising two great kids with a loving husband. They tell me they support my cause. They always use that word: “cause.”
Without meaning to—in fact, with constant worry nipping at my heels—I nonetheless begin to bask in the glory of it. I get up fifteen minutes earlier, mindful of needing time to apply lipstick and the occasional herbal peel (wouldn’t want to disappoint my fans by looking washed out or sun-damaged). I buy new clothes, trendy ones that prompt me to ask Sue if they’re too young for me (great good friend that she is, she always says no). The clothes are the type of trendy that, in the past, would have earned me a flurry of rolled eyes from Taylor if I so much as fingered them on the rack. Now my daughter shops with me almost willingly, or at least without visible sullenness. One bright Saturday afternoon, Taylor actually seeks me out in the backyard— where I am ostensibly planting goldenrod but am in actuality devouring a copy of In Touch that the cleaning lady abandoned—and asks me (this is a quote) “to help her find a dress for the dance.” Nothing “too Britney” (that’s a quote, too).
That day I stop doubting my burgeoning cool factor and start shopping for flowy, glittery Indian-inspired tanks and designer jeans that promise to cover my buttcrack while simultaneously whittling my thighs.
What else? I spend so much time shuttling back and forth to Sue’s house, to my San Francisco studio, and working, that I forget to eat. Literally forget. In a matter of months, my pants bag out, fall gracefully down my hips in the manner I have always envied in the young and boy-bodied. And the ass! Still full but not—okay, I’ll admit it now—fat. Now I am merely padded, womanly. Stepping on the scale in late June, I am shocked to discover that I have, for the first time in my life and without effort, lost twelve pounds. Like the movie stars, it seems, I have entered an alternate orbit, one where everybody has a hummingbird metabolism and Pilates actually counts as real exercise.