All You Could Ask For: A Novel (36 page)

So, sometimes I think to myself:
How dare she try to tell me how to live my life?

Cancer, I mean.

Not Samantha. I love
her
for trying to tell me how to live my life. She’s young enough not to have learned that there are different ways of thinking, and she’s sweet enough to care. I appreciate her for both of those. I don’t get angry with her when she pesters me about my decisions, which she does less and less frequently anyway. That’s nice. Now we can just be friends. Perhaps someday she’ll meet Scott and my kids. I think she’d like that, and I would too. Perhaps we could double-date, if things progress with Dr. Marks, which I have a funny feeling they are going to.

Actually, it’s more than a funny feeling, more like a premonition. Or a matter of faith. Something good has to come from what I’ve been through. Perhaps this is what it is meant to be. Perhaps Dr. Marks and Samantha will marry and they’ll have a son or a daughter who becomes a brilliant scientist who discovers the cure for cancer, and it would never have happened if I hadn’t become sick and met Samantha and fixed her up with Andrew.

So, it’s not Samantha who infuriates me. It is cancer. How dare this disease, this creeping, crawling creature I can neither see nor feel, show up unannounced and uninvited and start dictating all this change. Cancer has a whole list of ways in which my life is going to be different, a list of things I need to do, a list of things I will never do again. Even now, when it is no longer inside me, it wants to tell me how to behave so it will never return.

Well, guess what: I’m not listening. I have my own plans and my own schedule and I will deal with cancer on my own terms, no one else’s. If I choose to drive car pools and chaperone class trips and get my hair blown out every Saturday night and talk dirty to my husband on the phone when he is away, then that is exactly what I’m going to do, with apologies to no one and absolutely no second thoughts.

And to anyone who judges me, I simply say: Mind your own business.

And to cancer, I simply say: FUCK YOU.

KATHERINE

I LOOK BEAUTIFUL.

There really aren’t three better words in the English language than those, are there?

Even
I love you
isn’t always better. Hell, I’ve probably had more pain and suffering as a result of
I love you
than I have any three other words, with the exception of
You have cancer,
and even that may be a toss-up.

Right now, I’ll take
I look beautiful,
because it’s been so long since I’ve said them, or thought them, or even thought about them.

It starts with the wig, which is fabulous. I can’t decide now why I resisted it. It is long and blond and wavy—it’s like having Charlize Theron’s hair in the blink of an eye. And I love it.

But it isn’t only the wig that looks fabulous tonight.

As I stand before the full-length mirror in my dressing area, I am thrilled beyond words at what I see. For the first time I am not looking for the flaws. Usually when I observe myself in the mirror I am trying to find the faults, the blemishes, the crow’s-feet, the faint stain on the blazer where the salad dressing never fully came out. Tonight is the opposite. I am looking for the places where I look fabulous, and there are many. Not just the hair, or the wig, but plenty more. My eyes are alive and glowing. My coloring has come back—most of it, anyway—so I don’t look pale or gaunt. I am still thin, and there is a pride in my posture I have never seen before, something in the arch of my back, the rise of my chin, the heat of my stare. It says I am here. It says if I was ever gone I am back, and wherever I am going can wait. Tonight I am here, and I am wonderful to behold. And if it took cancer to make me feel this way, to allow me to see myself like this, then so be it. At least something good came of it.

When the intercom sounds, I am ready. I give myself a final glance in the mirror, and a wink, and as I smooth a tiny piece of hair above my eyes I think to myself that I really am filled with loving-kindness, and I am peaceful and at ease, and I am happy. Maybe for the first time since I was a little girl, I am truly happy.

It is Marie who is downstairs. Maurice picked her up and now they are here for me. She is stunningly beautiful in her gown, long and flowing, white in all the right places. By her standards, the dress is conservative; you can hardly see her breasts, which I have become so accustomed to seeing on full display that now I miss them.

“Well, well,” I say proudly, as I step off the elevator. “Here comes the bride.”

Marie is shivering with excitement. “You look so beautiful, Katherine, I could honestly cry.”

“Remember,” I tell her, “it is your night. This is not Katherine’s Going Away Party, this is your wedding and if you aren’t going to act like it I’m going back upstairs.”

Marie smiles. I can see tears in her eyes. “I’m perfect, boss,” she says. “You told me in Aspen that I needed to figure out what makes life worth living. Well, I figured it out, and that’s what tonight is about.”

She reaches out her hand and I take it in mine and squeeze it. She is such a sweet girl, and sometimes so much more insightful than I ever gave her credit for. I love her tonight, with all of my heart.

“It makes me very proud . . .” I start to say, but to my own surprise the words stick in my throat. If I finish the sentence I will start to cry, and I don’t want to cry, not in the lobby, not on Marie’s night.

“I love you, boss,” she says, and I squeeze her hand again, and we go out through the revolving door.

Maurice is standing by the car with the door open, smiling broadly, his hat tucked beneath his arm. It is a beautiful, crisp night, the first of the season that has truly felt like fall. That first night when you feel as though it has been a year since last you were cold. I’ve been cold plenty this year, but not like this. The air is invigorating, and I pause a long moment before I get into the car, just taking it in, looking about at all the twinkling lights of an early New York evening.

“Maurice,” I say, “there is so much beauty in this world, so much in this life that is so beautiful. I don’t know why I haven’t seen it before.”

“You’ve always seen it, boss,” he says. “You’ve just been too busy to pay attention.” If I’m not mistaken, it sounds as though there is a lump in his throat as well. “It’s wonderful to see you looking like this,” he continues. “I’ve never seen you look better than you do right now.”

I smile wickedly. “Well, maybe I’ll get lucky tonight.”

And with one final glance around, I duck my head and slide into the car beside Marie.

We sit in silence for most of the drive, which doesn’t take very long. It’s only a few blocks, and traffic is light. As we cross through Central Park, a taxi pulls alongside at a red light, just outside Marie’s window, an old-fashioned checker cab, the sort I haven’t seen in years. I remember that when I was a girl my parents took me into the city to see the Christmas show once at Radio City Music Hall. We took the train from Connecticut and we had lunch near Grand Central station, egg salad sandwiches and chocolate malts, and then my father hailed a taxi and I was so excited to pull up the reclining bench seat from the floor. That was our last Christmas together, I think.

Then the light changes to green and the taxi pulls away behind Marie’s head and I lean over and put my face to her ear. “How do you feel?” I ask.

She doesn’t even blink. “I just can’t wait to get there.”

I smile. That seems right. I think if I were her I wouldn’t be able to wait either.

We emerge from the park just as the last natural light of the afternoon fades away, and the street lamps begin to flicker, coming to life for the evening. Before I know it, we pull into a circular driveway and over toward the expansive entrance of an elegant Central Park West skyscraper.

“There’s a private elevator for us,” Marie says to Maurice, pointing to a secondary entrance near the corner. “Pull up, please.”

Then we park and Maurice gets out of the car, holding open the door. The air has turned slightly colder, and I can see his breath wafting from beneath his hat, drifting into the darkening sky as he waits.

“The elevator is directly inside,” Marie says to me. “Take it to the penthouse.”

“You’re not coming in?”

“I’d just like a minute to myself,” she says, “I’ll meet you upstairs.”

I put my hand on her leg and squeeze it, then slide outside and smooth my dress as I stretch my legs. I pat Maurice on the shoulder and motion into the car toward Marie. “If she needs anything please run and get it.”

“Of course I will,” Maurice says. “Now you go ahead up, it’s chilly out here.”

We still have an hour before the ceremony is to begin. There isn’t any rush.

The electric doors part before me and I feel a rush of warm air, a stark contrast to the crispness of the night. When the elevator arrives I select the top floor and lean back against the handrail in the rear wall. There is a tiny, circular mirror in the upper corner of the elevator, above the buttons and the glass cases displaying the certificates of inspection. I try to see myself in it but it is too far away and distorted, as those mirrors always are, like a funhouse. I hold the rail behind me, tapping my foot, listening to the speedy hum of the floors whooshing past. Then I feel a gentle slowing and a melodious
ding
, and the letters PH illuminate in red.

The music begins just as the doors open directly into the apartment, as they do in mine. There is a band on a stage facing the door, seven or eight pieces, in formal dress, and as I step out of the elevator, they begin to play the song “Isn’t It Romantic.” I love that song.

The room is glowing, awash in pink and green, with a chandelier sparkling like cut diamonds, casting jagged streaks of silver and gold. The music is rich and loud and fills my ears completely, fills my head, makes me dizzy, enough that I do not notice anything unusual at first. It does not register that there is merely a dance floor and a single table where there should be rows of chairs separated by an aisle for the bridal march. But none of that enters my mind as I walk slowly toward the table, where a man sits facing away, his tuxedo-clad back broad and distantly familiar. And the band continues to play and the lights continue to sparkle and the room continues to glow and my heels make just the faintest tapping sounds on the dance floor as I approach. And I take a moment to look around, and I see there is no one else there. It is just the band and the man at the table and me.

And then, in case there is any question, I hear a clattering off to my right and a door pushes open and out of the darkness appears the golden retriever. She bounds toward me and then veers away, making an acrobatic leap, then stopping and stretching and curling at the foot of the table, just steps away. And the band continues to play, and my heart beats so fast I can feel it in my temples and hear it in my ears. And I open my mouth but no sound comes out, so I simply place my hand on his shoulder, and he looks up and smiles at me, and I realize I have seen his face a thousand times in the past three months. I have seen it every time I closed my eyes to transport myself from where I was to where I wished I could be, and now here it is and it is even better than it had been in my head. And he takes my hand and he stands, and kisses me gently on the cheek, and then he wraps his arms around my waist and we begin to dance as the band plays on and the golden retriever nods approvingly at our feet.

BROOKE