Cancer And The Playboy

by Zee Monodee

  “That must’ve gotten misconstrued,” he said after a while.

  See? He was dotting the ‘i’s. There was nothing else but friendship between them.

  Her heart clenched at this reckoning, but she pinched her lips and forced a smile onto her face. “People will read everything they want in a picture.”

  Elin and Agneta were watching them with their heads cocked, as if they didn’t really believe any part of their spiel. Tindra, thank God, had her head buried in the magazine.

  Awkward, but even weirder was her still being here. She had definitely overstayed her welcome now, waking up two days in a row in their house.

  “What time is it?” she asked as she pushed the covers away and made to get up.

  “One o’clock on Saturday afternoon,” Tindra said without looking up.

  A gasp escaped Megha. She’d overslept, again. High time she got back home. “Can you tell me where my clothes are? I should get going—”

  “Nuh-uh. No can do, sweetie. You’re having lunch, then we have the stylists coming throughout the afternoon so we can choose our gowns for the gala,” Agneta said.

  Megha reared back. Gala? What on earth was she talking about? Before she’d realized what she’d done, she found her gaze on Magnus. He looked back, and must’ve made out the confusion in her as he shrugged and gave a small smile.

  “The Trammell gala is in two weeks. Every three years, Nammy hosts it, with some pieces from our private collection of jewels put on auction for a worthy cause.” He paused. “This year, she has included the fertility clinic in the list of charities.”

  “Meaning you have to be there, being the face of the endeavour and all that,” Tindra chimed as she threw the magazine away and jumped to her feet. “Come on, I can’t wait to see what they’ve brought!”

  “And you can’t say no!” Agneta added. “Wait ’til you hear where the gala is taking place. Blenheim Palace!”

  Megha gasped. “That’s—”

  “Where they shoot The Royals! I know, right? So you can’t say no! When else would you get to visit this place? They’ll even let us use the tunnels where Jaspenor meets in the show!”

  This sealed the deal for her. In her everyday life, she would never get to set foot in a place like that. The park and general visiting rooms, yes, sure. But the state rooms where lofty-enough folks could entertain? She’d never be on those guest lists. She’d love to see where her favourite show was shot.

  Before she could blink, Megha found herself being pushed into the bathroom, a shower being run for her by Tindra. Agneta had disappeared, Elin shooing Magnus out, then the two sisters returned as she was under the spray of the hot water, too dazed to really stand her ground. These women would run over a herd of stampeding buffaloes and still emerge unscathed, it appeared to her.

  Mortification grabbed her as Tindra whipped her towel off once she’d returned to the bedroom, leaving her naked as the day she’d been born in the middle of the space. She’d always been self-conscious about her body, but now, without her breasts and with all the scars, embarrassment flamed on her cheeks and made her lower her gaze. They were Swedish, she recalled—that nationality seemed to have no problem with nakedness. Still, what would they say when they saw what she’d become?

  But strangely enough, the girls said nothing. Instead, Agneta was pushing down a halter-neck top with surprising gentleness over her head while Elin ran around her tying a wrap-around skirt onto her lower belly. Only after that did she offer underwear, a silk and lace thong that still had its tag attached to it.

  Whose clothes were these?

  “I am so never gonna get back into my pre-baby clothes again,” Agneta wailed.

  This allowed Megha to put two and two together—she’d been wearing Agneta’s garments all this time. And judging by the looks of things, the ankle-length skirt on her would probably be a mid-calf affair on the tall, leggy blonde.

  “Come on. Lunch for you, then we try on the clothes,” Tindra said as all three of them steered her out of the room. Strangely, they didn’t offer any shoes or slippers. Nobody seemed to wear shoes in this house.

  Easier to go with the flow and not put up any resistance. Goodness, she’d thought her Indian relatives pushy and over-enthusiastic. Guess she hadn’t counted on Swedish-British women being fair competition for all that madness and drama.

  Lunch turned out to be hot soup in a cosy dining room adjacent to the big kitchen. Then, across the maze of staircases she discovered inside the house, they all ended up in a gigantic room in which the windows opened onto the street outside. They’d be able to fit the restaurant, its kitchen, and her father’s flat inside this space without problem. Once again, the thick rug, stuffed furniture, and gilt-etched walls and mouldings echoed the rest of the house’s décor.

  Megha hadn’t known what to expect, but she sure hadn’t been expecting this. A procession of clothes racks was wheeled into the room—it appeared there were two racks for each girl and their mother, and that was just the dresses. Accessories and shoes came from other ginormous display cases.

  Surprisingly, there were two racks of clothes waiting for her, as well. Bafflement more than joy filled her, and this all went up in smoke when a tiny old woman stomped into the room.

  “You started without me,” she railed.

  Tindra leapt up to wrap her arms around the diminutive creature. “Nammy!”

  Agneta reached for her on the other side. “Nammy, you’re the one who’s late.”

  Amelia Trammell huffed. “You couldn’t wait for an old woman.”

  “You’re not old, Nammy,” Elin said as she joined the hug.

  “Okay, off with you lot. Let her breathe,” said their mother.

  Everyone in Daimsbury revered and feared the matriarch of the Trammell clan in equal measure. Megha was no stranger to this awe filled with apprehension. A bit like getting to meet royalty—you really didn’t wish to bungle this up, should the opportunity ever arise.

  And hers had arisen. She just wished it never had. Elsa Trammell had been a darling, but she was Swedish. Swedes appeared to have no problems with social or class divide, or at least, if they had them, they didn’t make a big deal of it. But the British, that was something else. Megha was brown, and she perfectly knew her place in the world. Not the bottom of the ladder, maybe, but not far up, either.

  So when Amelia Trammell turned her piercing grey gaze onto her, she squirmed and quickly pushed to the edge of the sofa so she could stand up, almost at attention, like in a military inspection. She topped the old woman by a scant few inches, which enabled the dragon to look her in the eye without having to tilt her head back too much. Silence stretched for long seconds between them even as the noise of the stylists setting up continued in the background.

  Then, Amelia Trammell smiled. “You must be this Megha I hear so much about. How are you faring, my dear?”

  The urge to dip into a curtsy and bow her head hit her hard, but she resisted and instead smiled. “I am well, thank you.”

  “Ha! Don’t take her word for it,” Agneta said. “She had chemo less than forty-eight hours ago. Though she isn’t at death’s door as per what Magnus says, well, we’re trying to keep her busy so she won’t have time to think of being sick.”

  Megha blinked as she turned to the blonde. Agneta came across as brash and somewhat aggressive, a diva who got her way by running over everyone, but despite the harsh matter-of-factness of her, she cared. In that instant, she knew she had made a friend, someone who understood her and was giving her support in the only way she knew how. Truth be told, she wasn’t one for hugs and coddling, and so the normalcy of this bond with Agneta, and even her sisters, struck her as exactly what she needed right then.

  Too bad it wouldn’t last. Yes, they could stay in touch, become friends on Facebook, follow each other on Snapchat and Instagram, but their worlds didn’t really converge towards one another. She was maybe one step above the help, but still not one of them.

 
But all this rattled to sudden stillness inside her as Amelia Trammell reached out and cupped Megha’s cheek.

  “You dear, dear child,” she said softly.

  Accustomed to her Indian ways, Megha almost expected the old woman to add a ‘blessed be’ to her words, in the way elders traditionally bestowed their blessings on younger kin.

  ‘Nammy!” Magnus exclaimed as he made it into the room. In seconds, he had engulfed his grandmother in his big arms and lifted her off the floor.

  “Put me down, you boor,” she said, laughing as he twirled her around.

  He finally dropped her gently back onto her feet, placing a soft kiss to the crown of her head in the process. The old lady clapped her hands and went to the sofa.

  “Chop chop. We haven’t got all afternoon,” she stated.

  The flurry of activity picked up once more, one of the girls pulling Megha onto the sofa. Her mind whirled as it tried to process what had just happened. Amelia Trammell wasn’t a dragon, and she’d just extended hospitality and, dare she say it, even a blessing to her back there.

  She snuck a glance towards the matriarch. Magnus lay slumped on the sofa next to her, the two deep in conversation, appearing thick as thieves. He seemed to adore his grandmother. No wonder she was giving him all this money for his birthday and relinquishing her treasured ‘cottage’ to him.

  At one point, it struck her that both of them were looking in her direction. When she glanced up, it was indeed to find their gazes upon her. Amelia said something while looking at her, and Magnus replied with a very solemn face. It gnawed her inside to know what they could be talking about, what they could be saying about her. But she blinked it all away, letting the proceedings dull her mind as a haze of tiredness registered in her senses. She prayed she wouldn’t end up nodding off sometime on those too-comfortable cushions.

  One by one, the stylist had her assistant produce dresses first for Amelia and Elsa, then for each of the Trammell girls. It was all a blur to her as the other exclaimed and laughed and dissed outfits with a simple wave of the hand, trying on a few options in the adjoining room before coming to prance like models on a catwalk in front of the others.

  Even bridal wear buying looked nothing like this in scope—when she’d been to India to her cousin’s wedding, they’d each been shown two gowns at the shop and told to choose one, even the bride. To say this was novel would be an understatement. Once again, she’d seen these kinds of happenings in TV shows and movies, something royalty would be accustomed to. Guess the Trammells were nothing short of royalty, too, if this were to be believed.

  The hours passed, surprisingly fast and with her not dozing off at any point. And then, it was her turn. All eyes veered to her, making her self-conscious as she sat there being the centre of attention.

  The stylist pulled out dresses from the racks dedicated to Megha. It appeared she’d been given a pretty good description of her looks and physique because all the colours were on the spectrum that suited her dusky skin tone and dark looks as well as her shorter stature. Not a hint of salmon pink or peach in there, as she’d dreaded. The gowns were all in rich hues like burgundy, sapphire, and velvety black.

  But as she kept going, Megha’s heart sank. She wouldn’t be able to wear half these dresses. Her dismay must’ve been clearly visible, because the stylist asked for the two of them to be excused so she could try on the dresses.

  In the drawing room next door, Megha let her frustration out and turned to the woman. “I don’t know if you’ve been told, but I’ve just had a double mastectomy. Almost all the clothes you showed me need a solid rack to even look their shape.” She sighed. “I’m sorry to have made you waste your time.”

  The woman smiled. “Don’t be sorry, love. I know about your situation, and look.” She went to a small case that had been laid out on an armchair. “See? Every kind of foundation wear you can think of. All of them will hold a silicon or soft foam prosthesis. You can even get away with knitted knockers in some of those bra pockets.”

  This stunned her—she hadn’t expected this kind of consideration and preparation. Truth be told, Megha hadn’t worn a bra since her surgery. She’d kinda grown used to not having that constricting feeling upon her chest and shoulders. When the time for radiation therapy came, soon after her chemo cycles had ended, she would be even more relieved to not have to wear any such undergarments as they’d told her the skin and flesh would get burnt and become very sensitive. Honestly, she didn’t look forward to the prospect of wearing a bra ever again, and she’d been thinking about it for a while now.

  Under the expectant eyes of the stylist, she shrugged her thoughts off and smiled.

  “And …” the woman started.

  Megha furrowed her brows and paid attention. “Yes?”

  “The burgundy dress. You could even wear it without anything up top.”

  Go completely flat, in other words. Something sacrilegious, if one were to believe most medical teams. Since Day One of her diagnosis, the possibilities of reconstruction had been pushed down her throat relentlessly. But she’d been thinking about it, researching the process, and so far, it didn’t appeal to her. It hadn’t convinced her at all that she needed ‘new’ boobs to replace the old ones. Still, it was something she’d been debating and had never said out loud to anyone else.

  The stylist, however, had rekindled that notion in her mind, and like a splinter that had burrowed under the skin, it refused to stop niggling at her now.

  “Would you like to try it?”

  Would she?

  She didn’t have to answer when the woman went to the door and asked one of her assistants to bring the dress in. With the deep brownish-red garment over her arm, she returned and handed it to Megha.

  Her heart started beating hard in her chest as she gazed at the gown. Could she …?

  Taking the plunge, she undressed and then slipped the dress on. A thick silver chain roped through the back piece and went over the shoulders like straps to then enter the bodice from the two sides and tie up at the middle, right above where her cleavage would’ve started. The underarms dipped just low enough to allow movement but keep her scars covered on the sides of her body, and the fabric flowed from the chain all the way down to the floor in an unhindered A-line cut.

  When she found herself in front of the standing mirror, Megha lost her breath. No one would even know she no longer had breasts under that dress. Yes, she looked flat, but not like an ironing board and more like she could have the tiny and unnoticed A-cup boobs known as mosquito bites on her chest.

  In short, she didn’t look like she’d even gone under the knife.

  Someone knocked on the door. The stylist turned to her, as if asking if she could go open. Megha gave her a nod, too stunned to do much more.

  “What are you up to—Oh, my!” Agneta exclaimed. “You look like a vision.”

  “I know, right?” the stylist replied. She came behind Megha and started to lift her hair. “With an up-do, imagine what she will look like.”

  Right then, she didn’t have the heart to tell her that her hair might not still be there in two weeks’ time, and just for today, she wanted to bask in this feeling of being beautiful, of looking ‘normal’ and not like a freak.

  The woman pinned her locks up with a few bobby pins she carried on a bracelet on her arm, and as she moved away, Agneta stepped in and took Megha’s hand, pulling her towards the sitting room.

  “Everyone, doesn’t she look like a dream?” she exclaimed as she tugged Megha to the centre of the room and left her there.

  About a dozen pairs of eyes zoomed in on her. Self-conscious didn’t even start to cover it, but one set of eyes in particular, she yearned to see. Just this once. It would continue the fantasy that had started in the other room, but she could live with just a memory.

  Just one time …

  Megha’s eyes lifted, and her gaze trailed over to Magnus.

  He stood stock-still, a stricken expression on his face.

/>   Was it wishful thinking on her part to imagine that he was drinking her in?

  You’re friends, dumbarse. Nothing more.

  Tell that to her galloping heart. To the sudden dryness in her mouth. To the weak feeling turning her legs to jelly. If she’d been wearing heels, she would surely have tipped over and fallen. Thank goodness she was still solidly anchored on her own two soles.

  Time seemed to stand still, the two of them ensconced in a bubble where none of the surrounding frenzy and rapid talks could reach them.

  Until a tall and big, bearded blond man she didn’t know stepped into the room and caught her eye, his deep voice shattering the link.

  “Damn, Magnus. Stellan did say your Megha was a looker, but he hadn’t even gotten close to the truth, had he?”

  Chapter Seven

  Megha frowned as her gaze settled fully on the newcomer. Whoever this guy was, he needed to have his eyes checked. Her skin could best be described as ashen right now, as in dabbed with grey ash instead of translucent powder, and the dark circles under her eyes must look like veritable, abysmal moats. Not to mention the network of blackish veins on her forearm—even heroin chic wouldn’t come close.

  “The tropical sun fried your brain or something? Shut up, man!” Magnus said as he approached the guy.

  There—he was crossing the ‘t’s now. They were just friends, so she wasn’t ‘his’ Megha by any shot, long or short. A pang registered in her heart at this reckoning, but she swallowed the pain down and forced her spine upright. First impressions must still count for something, right?

  “I smell a rat here,” the man said, before he smiled and then pulled Magnus into a hug.

  “Piss off,” Magnus told him as they broke away. “Don’t you have more important things to do? Like introduce us to your fiancée? Where is she?”

  “Yes, Lars,” Elsa Trammell said as she approached him and offered her cheek for a dutiful kiss. “Didn’t you bring Simmi along?”