Balancing Acts

by Zoe Fishman

  “Noah, I. . .I don’t feel so hot,” she answered. Saying it out loud made it real again. She couldn’t ignore the numbness, it was too much of a dangerous warning sign. Of what, she had no idea. Noah looked at her quizzically.

  “Is it your head again?” he asked.

  “No, not my head. My body feels a little strange. I think I may have to go to the doctor.”

  “Are you okay?”

  “I think so, baby. I just want to be sure.” She got up, swinging her legs over the side of the bed. Noah watched her carefully. Okay, everything works. She gingerly put her feet on the hardwood floor and stood up. Still working. “We’ll have breakfast in a minute, okay? I need to call my doctor.” Noah stood beside her.

  “Okay, Mom. Can I watch TV?”

  “Yes, go ahead.” He scampered off and Naomi walked carefully into the living room. She retrieved her bag and dug through it for the neurologist’s number. Her appointment had originally been scheduled for Wednesday, but this was an emergency. Hopefully he could fit her in.

  “Hello, Dr. Dipietro’s office.”

  “Um, hi, this is Naomi Shepard. I have an appointment scheduled with Dr. Dipietro for Wednesday. I. . .I think I’m in trouble though, and I was wondering if I could see him today.”

  “What’s wrong?”

  “I woke up and am. . .well, I’m numb. My torso, my groin, my legs. . .like a mannequin. Numb.” Tears began to fall down Naomi’s face as her anxiety washed over her in waves.

  “Okay, I’m going to put you on hold for a moment while I check his schedule.”

  “Oka—” She cut her off and Naomi was suddenly immersed in smooth jazz. Did the receptionist sound panicked? She thought back on it. No. There was nothing in her voice to suggest that Naomi’s explanation was anything unusual. Was that a good sign or a bad one? She wondered if she had heard the mannequin explanation before.

  “Okay, Ms. Shepard?” She clicked back in. “He can see you at two o’clock today.”

  “Oh good. Great. I’ll be there. Thank you.” Naomi hung up, her gratefulness mixed with sheer terror. This is real and it’s happening to me. This doctor is going to tell me something that might scare the shit out of me. She touched her stomach. No change. Wait, what am I going to do with Noah? Cee? Cee worked on Mondays, and besides—she had screwed up royally with her and had yet to apologize for it. Gene? No, he’s in Paris. My parents? The doctor’s office was on the Upper East Side. She could drop Noah off and then just take the crosstown bus. She looked at her phone for the time. Eight thirty. No problem. She wished she didn’t have to alarm them with the specifics of her bumped-up appointment, but she really had no other choice. She was in a bind.

  “Hello?”

  “Mom?” Naomi’s voice quivered.

  “Nay! What’s wrong?”

  “Um, something really strange is going on with me. I. . .uh. . .I woke up numb today.”

  “What?! Numb? Numb how?”

  “My torso and my legs feel like mannequin skin.” The tears fell from Naomi’s eyes as she explained. “I don’t know what’s happening to me, but I changed my appointment with the neurologist for this afternoon.”

  “Oh, honey.” Her mother paused, careful not to further worry Naomi. “Okay, good. What time?”

  “Two. Do you think you could watch Noah while I’m there? He’s home sick today, because of his arm.”

  “His arm? What happened?”

  “He broke it on Saturday at the playground.” Naomi suddenly felt completely overwhelmed. Her son was functioning on one arm and she was the Amazing Mannequin Woman.

  “Nay, get up here as soon as you can. We’ll have some lunch and then you can leave Noah here while you go to the doctor.”

  “Okay, Mama.” She couldn’t remember the last time she had called her that, but she felt so small and vulnerable suddenly. “Thank you. I love you.”

  “I love you, too, baby. Listen, take a cab. I’ll pay for it. I don’t want you on the subway right now.”

  “Okay,” agreed Naomi, thankful for the treat. Navigating an underground journey in this state would be a nightmare.

  Set into motion by the confirmation of the day’s plans, she switched to all-business mode, fixing Noah some cereal—No pancakes today, buddy, sorry—and taking a shower. Shaving her legs, she couldn’t feel the razor against her skin. She held back her tears, and finished the job. Once out, she gulped down some coffee and zipped herself into her jeans. Getting Noah dressed with his arm in a cast proved to be a feat in and of itself. After trying to wrestle him into his sweatshirt with no success, she grabbed an old sweater of her own and put it on over his head. Perfect.

  “But Mom, it’s a girl sweaterrr,” Noah whined.

  “You can’t tell,” snapped Naomi. Damn. How are we going to get his jacket on him? She eyed it, hanging from its hook by the front door. Am I going to have to cut the arm off? She thought of her own jackets. She had an old North Face from her college days that might work. Ten minutes later, Noah stood before her—his bottom half that of a little boy and his top half that of a female college sophomore from the late nineties. He looked at her angrily.

  “Don’t give me that face, Noah. What else can we do?”

  One cab ride, a peanut butter and jelly sandwich with her mother, and a crosstown bus later, Naomi sat nervously in the doctor’s office, her hands in fists as she nervously relayed the symptoms of the past month. He nodded and took notes as she spoke. Naomi wished she could see what he was writing.

  “And yeah, so that’s where I am today. I have this weird, numbness thing going on.” She looked at him expectantly.

  “I want to run a few tests on you,” he said, matter-of-factly. He crossed over to her and touched her torso, confirming the mannequin sensation. He checked her fingers and her toes, her reflexes, and her eyes. He took a small metal instrument and hit it, checking for her sense of vibration. He tapped her feet, her arms, and then her back, traveling down her vertebrae methodically. Fine, fine, and then—nothing.

  “You don’t feel that?” he asked. Was it just Naomi’s hypersensitivity or could she sense some nervousness in his voice?

  “No, no I don’t,” she answered. There were the tears again. He cleared his throat. “Am I okay?”

  “I don’t know yet, that’s what I’m trying to figure out. Could you come out into the hallway with me, please?” She dutifully followed him.

  “I want you to walk down the hall, and then stop.”

  “Like a supermodel?”

  He cracked a smile. Finally, a human response. “Exactly.”

  “I can do that.” Naomi strutted down the length of the hallway, hoping that her gait was normal. It certainly felt normal.

  “Okay, good. Come back.”

  She returned and Dr. Dipietro put his hand at the small of her back, steering her into his office again. “Come on in.”

  He took a seat. “Well, we can’t be sure what is going on here,” he explained. Naomi chewed her lip as though it were bubble gum. “It could be a viral infection. It could also be an autoimmune disease, like Lyme.”

  “Could I just have a slipped disk in my back?” asked Naomi. “From yoga maybe?”

  “That’s a slight possibility, but not likely. Your headaches suggest otherwise. I want to schedule you for a brain and two spinal cord MRIs, so we can get a look inside. I also want you to have a couple of blood tests today.”

  “What else could it be?” she asked. She didn’t want to say it out loud. The thing she had been avoiding since typing in her symptoms at their outset. She hadn’t even said those letters out loud, for fear that that alone would make it so.

  “It could be MS,” he answered. Tears spilled out of her eyes. “Listen, MS is not the horrible nightmare that you think it is.” He looked at her earnestly. “It’s a manageable disease, and the medication available now has changed its trajectory entirely.” He paused, allowing Naomi to interject, but she couldn’t speak.

  “I am not saying y
ou have it. The blood tests today will tell us if it’s anything else. I just want you to know that it’s a possibility. Your symptoms are not textbook, but that’s the thing about MS, there is nothing textbook about it. Everyone’s experience is different.”

  “It is?” asked Naomi. She had finally pulled herself together enough to talk. “I thought that MS. . .I mean, isn’t everyone with it in a wheelchair?” It was hard to breathe suddenly.

  “No, no, no. For some, yes, but only a small percentage of the MS population. Some people may have only a few flare-ups in their lifetime. Some people begin with an exacerbation like yours and then progressively get worse. Some experience minor numbness at certain points in their lives that either goes away on its own or is fixable with a simple steroid injection. And the medication available today is really only a recent thing. It has changed the lives of people with MS in amazing ways, and is absolutely making a cure more than likely in our lifetime.”

  “MS is an incurable disease, huh?”

  “Yes, it is. But it is manageable. It is not fatal.” Incurable. Disease. How could I maybe have an incurable disease? My whole life, my body has bounced back from the brink with relative ease. Now this? Am I being punished?

  “Now, Naomi, listen to me. We don’t know what is wrong with you, but we are going to do our best to find out. I don’t want you to focus on MS when we’re not sure at all at this point what is happening.”

  “Will I be numb forever?” asked Naomi, her voice coming out in a squeak.

  The doctor smiled. “No. This will go away on its own, but it could take several weeks. I would like you to keep a journal about your symptoms. Do you think you could do that? That will be helpful for us later on.”

  Naomi nodded. “If it is MS, can I have more babies?”

  “Yes, you can. Actually, pregnancy is great for MS symptoms. Who knows why? Naomi, I am sorry but I have another appointment. I do wish that I could spend more time with you today, but since I squeezed you in, our time has to be short. Take my card and e-mail me if you have any questions. Or call.” Wait, what is happening? How can he just leave me after this? He grabbed his prescription pad. “I am going to write you up for three MRIs. Call this number and set them up. They’ll say they don’t have appointments open, but tell them Dr. Dipietro wants you in the tube as soon as possible.” The tube? She had heard horror stories about those.

  “And here, come with me. I am going to set you up with Lauren across the hall. She is going to take some blood from you so that we can run some tests here.” Naomi stood up, now numb emotionally as well as physically. Minutes later, she watched the technician insert a needle into her vein. She felt like she was watching this—all of this—from a distance. It’s not me that this is happening to. But it is.

  After she had been sufficiently poked and prodded, she left the office and walked into the cold afternoon air. The bus rumbled toward her. I don’t want to take the bus. I want to walk. She ambled toward the park, pausing every other step to wipe the tears that continued to stream down her face. She had never felt more alone in her life.

  Walking now, she mumbled a prayer to the universe for this simple pleasure. Movement—true, easy movement—was something that she had always taken for granted. Will I be able to practice yoga anymore? Shit, will I be in a wheelchair? What will Noah do? Her tears came faster now and she had to pause to catch her breath. I can’t believe that two weeks ago I was whining about Gene taking a dumb paper version of Noah to Paris, and now, he might have the real thing for life because I won’t be able to take care of Noah myself.

  Wiping her eyes with her gloves, Naomi continued her trek across the park with her head down, oblivious to the green buds on the trees and the flowers just beginning to poke their heads out of the thawing ground.

  Chapter Thirty

  Sabine

  Jesus, slow it down! Sabine realized that she had been running to meet Zach. She wasn’t late by any stretch of the imagination, so even a quickened pace was irrational. She simply couldn’t wait to see him. She dug in her bag for a mint. She was about three minutes away from the bar. She looked at her watch. She would be exactly on time. Such was the curse of her anal retentive tendencies. She couldn’t be late, even when she was trying her hardest to do so. She also could never leave a dish in the sink when she left the house. Once, she had given it everything she had not to wash her breakfast dishes. She had forced herself to leave the house, only to make it one block before turning back around. If a dish cleaning compulsion is the worst of my flaws, then I’m doing all right. She looked up. She was at the bar just in time to chew the last scrap of mint and swallow.

  She walked in. There he was, sipping a beer on a stool near the door. He was so. . .perfect. Dark, mussed hair, a slight scruff, a gray sweater with a white T-shirt underneath that conveyed the coveted “I’m not trying too hard, I just happen to have decent taste” message, slightly scuffed jeans, and the pièce de résistance, chocolate brown Rod Lavers. Sabine had a very strange, unparalleled affinity for brown sneakers. She had tried to figure out why after a particularly steamy encounter with a brown Adidas Gazelle on a very unattractive man at Whole Foods. The man himself did zero for her, but the shoes. The shoes! She had managed to track her obsession back to Tyler Sellers in the seventh grade. He had been Sabine’s first, full-blown, “doodle his name on her notebook paper and then immediately throw it out” crush, and he had worn brown Nike Air Force Ones. Sabine wasn’t sure which came first, the crush or the shoe, but now they were inseparable entities. Hence the flush that crept up her cheeks the moment she had seen Zach wearing his Lavers on the subway. And now, here she was, on her second date with him. Will those shoes end up on my floor tonight? She imagined them littering her living room floor. Or maybe he’ll leave them outside my door, like my neighbor’s boyfriend does.

  Zach looked up from his beer. A huge smile emerged as he noticed Sabine in the doorway. Her heart sloshed around in her chest at the sight. “Hey!” he exclaimed.

  She made her way toward him. “Hello,” she replied, hoping her voice sounded level. He moved to hug her.

  “How are you?” she asked, as she unzipped her jacket and hung it over the bar stool.

  “Great, now. You look pretty.”

  “Thanks, Zach. You don’t look so bad yourself. Whatcha drinkin’?”

  “Blue Moon. It’s delicious. Can I get you one?”

  “I’ll have a glass of wine, I think. Maybe a Shiraz?” Zach ordered it for her as she made herself comfortable. “Thanks,” she said when she had settled in. She lifted her glass to toast and he did the same. “To—”

  “To the longest week and a half ever,” he finished. “I’m really happy to see you again.”

  Sabine took a sip and nodded. “Me, too. And to your case being over. Or is it?”

  “It is. Our client won, too, which is a huge relief.”

  “Congrats!”

  They smiled at each other goofily.

  “How’s yoga treating you?” asked Zach. Sabine had tried to mask her soreness on their first date, but eventually she had had to cop to her aching abs. Every time she laughed, her core had screamed in pain.

  “You know what, I’m actually getting the hang of it! This week’s class wasn’t nearly as difficult.”

  “That’s great. I’ve always wanted to get into yoga, but I’m afraid my flexibility level is pretty bad. I run and stuff at the gym, but I can barely touch my toes.”

  “No, no, I was the same way! You couldn’t have convinced me that I would be able to actually enjoy it. But my teacher is awesome and I really feel like I’ve gotten comfortable, you know? As soon as I quit worrying about whether I was good at it or not, I started to enjoy it.”

  “Oh, you hadn’t done yoga before?” asked Zach. “I thought you were a regular.”

  “No way! Why?”

  “You have really nice posture,” he explained. “You stand up straight when you walk. It’s almost. . .regal.” In the dim light of the
bar, Sabine could see him blushing.

  She laughed. “Really? Thanks. I never thought about my posture before.” She eyed her glass of wine nervously. Zach brushed her hair back from her face. She looked up to see him staring at her tenderly.

  “I’m not a ‘make out at the bar’ kind of guy. But I want to kiss you right now.”

  “Okay,” agreed Sabine, her insides turning to jelly. And he did. Soft but authoritative, aggressive but not overbearing, wet but not slobbery. Perfect. Sabine put her hand on his thigh. She pulled away and they rested their foreheads against each other. She was looking directly into his raisin jewels. “I like your eyelashes,” she whispered.

  He laughed softly. “Thanks. I like yours, too.” They stayed like that, foreheads together, for a minute more, before Zach sat up straight and smiled. “Want to get something to eat?”

  No, I want to take you home and rip your clothes off. “Okay,” agreed Sabine. She was further from being hungry than she had ever been in her life, except maybe once, when she had promptly spiraled into stomach flu after ingesting a salad swimming in Ranch dressing. She had never been able to look at that condiment the same way since.

  Zach settled the tab and they walked hand in hand to a little Italian joint down the street. A bottle of wine and a few shared nibbles later, Sabine was tipsy and irrefutably horny. Every time his knee brushed hers under the table, she felt jolted by an invisible electric current.

  “You want dessert?” he asked, as the waiter cleared their plates.

  “No,” Sabine replied. “I want to take you home.” She was surprised by her forwardness, but she couldn’t help it. She wanted him. Now.

  “Check, please!” Zach yelled to the waiter. He stroked her jaw and smiled. Sabine thought about what his chest would feel like against hers. Warm.

  Upstairs, in her apartment, Lassie lurked in the kitchen, peering out from behind the counter with curiosity. His little cat eyes didn’t often see Sabine in such a compromised position. She and Zach were shirtless, pawing each other like wild tigers.