S
he met him at a swimming-pool party in late October, in Florida a time of clear days and cool evenings, when women draped cotton sweaters over their shoulders and men remembered snow tires and dead batteries, the bitter winters of Newark or Philly or Hartford, Connecticut, the places they’d left behind. Joan Cohen, recently of New York, had never minded the snow; she still believed she would return.
The party was given by Dick and Nancy Snell, a couple Joan had known a short time. Besides Joan, they’d invited Hal and Dot Beckley, pleasant, suntanned people who shared their interest in gardening and the weather. The Snells and the Beckleys were young by local standards; they were all under fifty.
Joan sat in a chaise longue overlooking the pool; she was the only one not wearing a swimsuit. The air smelled of chlorine and citronella. Nancy Snell and Dot Beckley splashed in the water, their bodies slick in colorful nylon. Hal Beckley sat on the flagstone rim, smoking.
Dick Snell approached Joan’s chair, bringing two drinks. “Here
you go,” he said, sitting at the foot of the chair. “Any offers on that house of yours?”
“One,” said Joan. “We’re still negotiating. I’m hoping to close by the holidays.”
Dick chuckled. “Wait till you see the winter down here. You’ll change your tune. You’ll never want to leave.”
Joan smiled. She’d been in Florida five months, at first settling her father’s estate, lately just reading novels and walking on the beach. She’d known all along she couldn’t stay. There were no bookstores; the local paper she found inadequate. She was thirty-nine years old, her neighbors of retirement age. If she hadn’t met Nancy Snell at a hair salon, she’d have no friends at all.
“Have you heard from Moira?” Joan asked. Moira was the Snells’ older daughter, who’d dropped out of college to drive cross-country with a friend.
“A couple of postcards.” Dick looked down into his drink. “She’s out in California somewhere. Nancy’s worried sick about her.”
“She’s probably having the time of her life,” said Joan, then noticed Dick’s face. That’s exactly what he’s afraid of, she thought.
“You know what I think?” said Hal Beckley, butting his cigarette on the cement. “I think the girls should go topless.”
Giggles from the pool, squeals of protest.
“Why not?” said Dick. “We’re all friends here.”
Nancy Snell was the first to let go; her bikini top landed with a wet slap on the cement. She was a small blonde, cute and toothy. Her breasts were the size of cupcakes.
Dick whistled approvingly. “That’s my girl!” he called. The Snells had been high school sweethearts; their youngest child had just gone off to college.
He turned to Joan. “What about you?”
“No thanks.”
“Come on.” He placed his hand on her bare foot.
“No, really. I’ll pass.” Joan hugged her sweater around her and sipped her drink, a sweet concoction of mangoes and rum.
Dick stood and peeled off his shirt. He was still in navy shape at forty-six; except for the line of gray hair dividing his chest, he could have passed for thirty.
“Finish that drink,” he said. “You might change your mind.” He jumped into the pool with a tremendous splash.
“Watch it!” Dot Beckley yelled. She raised her arms to shield her bouffant hairdo, her flat brown nipples peeking above the surface.
“This isn’t fair,” said Nancy. “Giving them a show for nothing.” She tore through the water, breasts bobbing, and made a grab for Dick’s swim trunks. Dot clapped and squealed. They’d all been drinking for hours.
Dick disappeared underwater, surfaced, then tossed his wet trunks across the pool. “All you had to do was ask.”
Hal Beckley lunged for Nancy Snell, dunking her slick blond head. In a moment she reappeared, shrieking with mock outrage. He lunged again; she shoved him aside, cocking her head.
“What’s that noise?” she said. “It sounds like a car.”
“Nice try,” said Hal. “You won’t get away from me that easy.” Again his arm crossed her bare chest; again her head disappeared beneath the water, giggling and sputtering.
“Mom?” a voice came from inside the house. “Dad?”
For a moment everyone froze. Dot let out a little cry. Dick Snell tore across the pool for his trunks. The women fumbled with bikini tops.
At the rear of the house, the French doors opened. A girl
appeared in the doorway, lugging a knapsack. Behind her stood a tall man in ragged blue jeans.
“Mom?” she called.
Nancy Snell had ducked beneath the water. She reappeared, tugging at her bra straps.
“Moira,” said Dick. He had tucked himself into his swim trunks.
“Surprise!” said Moira.
“It certainly is.” Nancy climbed out of the pool wearing a tight smile.
“Come meet your future son-in-law.” Moira clutched the man’s arm, beaming. “Mom, Dad, this is Ken Kimble.”
T
HE
S
NELLS
and the Beckleys showered and changed; they sat around the pool in Bermuda shorts, drinking colas. Dick Snell fired up the barbecue grill. The mood on the patio was polite and restrained.
Joan stood behind Dick at the grill. “Where’s the happy couple?” she asked.
Dick grunted. “Inside getting cleaned up. Could take a while, from the looks of them.” He turned the steaks with a long fork; juices dropped, hissing, onto the coals.
“What’s he like?” Joan asked. “Moira’s fiancé.”
“No idea. I never laid eyes on the guy until today.” He stared morosely at the meat.
Joan glanced across the patio. Moira appeared through the French doors in a patchwork sundress.
“Joan!” she cried, running across the patio.
“Hi, honey,” said Joan, embracing her. They’d met the previous spring, when Moira was home on college break. Nancy Snell had
asked Joan to take the girl to lunch, to advise her on a career in journalism. They’d eaten at a seaside restaurant and spent the afternoon chatting and laughing. Joan had found Moira lively and articulate, brighter and better informed than either of her parents. She was unhappy at her small Virginia college; she found her classmates narrow-minded and politically apathetic. She planned to suffer through another two years and join the Peace Corps after graduation—though her father, she told Joan, would have a fit. That summer Joan was stunned to hear that Moira had dropped out of school.
“I want to hear all about your travels,” said Joan.
“It was fantastic,” said Moira. “We drove all the way up the coast, from Los Angeles to Vancouver. We picked grapes in Monterey, with these beautiful Mexican families who are here illegally because the government won’t give them papers. Ken actually speaks Spanish. You’re going to love him. Ken!” She was sunburned, a little breathless; her wet hair smelled of strawberries.
The boyfriend came through the French doors with Nancy Snell, who paused to point out shrubs and trees and exotic ferns. He was tall and slender; his lank dark hair hung to his shoulders. He wore faded jeans and a colorful cotton blouse.
Moira rolled her eyes. “Mother,” she called. “He doesn’t need the whole garden tour.”
Nancy and the boyfriend approached the grill. Moira hooked a finger through one of his belt loops.
“Baby, this is Joan. I told you about her. The writer for
Newsweek
.”
The boyfriend offered his hand, his grip cool and firm. He’d looked younger from a distance. Up close, Joan could see that his hairline was receding; deep grooves curved from his nostrils to the corners of his mouth. His eyes were a startling blue.
“Glad to meet you,” he said. “I’m Ken Kimble.”
Moira fingered the fabric at his wrist. “Isn’t his shirt fabulous? All the Mexican ladies fell in love with him. One of them embroidered it herself.”
“Coming through,” Dick Snell barked. He stepped between Moira and Kimble, carrying a plate of steaks. Behind him trailed the rich smell of beef.
“Oh, Daddy,” said Moira. “We don’t eat meat. We’re vegetarians.”
Dick Snell didn’t answer. He carried the platter to the table.
“It’s okay,” Kimble said softly. “We’ll adapt.”
They sat at wrought-iron tables overlooking the pool: Joan and the Beckleys at one table; the Snells, Moira, and Kimble at the other. The Beckleys had a Lhasa apso; they bemoaned the dearth of competent dog groomers in Palm Beach County. At the other table Dick Snell hunched over his plate, sawing at his steak; Moira picked at her potato salad. Her mother explained the gardening challenges presented by August rainstorms, sandy Florida soil. Kimble nodded attentively.
“What kind of grass is that?” he asked, pointing. “All your neighbors have it too. It seems to be everywhere down here.”
“Bermuda grass,” said Nancy. “It’s perfect for this climate. It has deeper roots, so it holds the water better.”
Kimble gave a low whistle. “Amazing,” he said. “You’re a walking encyclopedia.”
Nancy beamed. “It’s so nice to have a man around who’s interested in gardening. Dick couldn’t care less.”
“It’s fascinating stuff,” said Kimble. “You could go into business giving gardening advice. Really. You’d make a fortune around here.”
True enough, Joan thought. She paid plenty to have her garden maintained; she wouldn’t know where to begin taking care of it herself.
“I have a question,” she said. She pointed to the tall flowering shrub that bordered the patio. “What’s that plant over there? With the red flowers?”
Nancy laughed. “Why, they’re oleanders. You’ve got them yourself, in your backyard.”
“I thought so.” Joan helped herself to more fruit salad. “There’s something wrong with mine. The leaves are all curled up, and there’s some kind of black stuff on them.”
“Aphids,” said Nancy. “Sounds to me like aphids.”
“Oh, no,” said Dot. “Not
aphids!
”
A cool breeze blew across the swimming pool. The citronella candles flickered.
“You’ve got to take action,” said Dot. “This is serious, Joan. They’re insidious little creatures. If you give them an inch, you’ll never get rid of them.”
Kimble and Moira stood and excused themselves. Hand in hand they disappeared into the house.
J
oan awoke with a racing heart. It was late morning, the bedroom filled with sunshine. She’d been up half the night worrying; she always slept poorly the night before a doctor’s appointment. In the distance she heard the mechanical grind of a lawn mower; in her dream it had been the hum of aphids, a thousand tiny mandibles sucking at her oleanders. She put on a robe and went barefoot down the spiral staircase, across the cold marble foyer, through the cavernous kitchen and out the back door.
She passed the swimming pool and hot tub, the patio damp beneath her feet; beyond, a flagstone path bisected the grassy lawn. The path was lined with fig and mango trees, plus a host of flowering shrubs Joan couldn’t identify. Her father had taken no interest in the yard; a lawn service had looked after the trees and flowers. Since his death she continued to pay the monthly bill. Every Friday a uniformed gardener came to mow and water.
The oleanders grew thickly around the perimeter of the yard; they’d been blooming since summer, a fragrant explosion of red
blossoms. Joan stared at the top branches, their narrow leaves shiny in the morning sun. The hedge was ten feet tall; its dense leaves screened the yard completely from the neighbors’ view. She examined a leaf. It was gnarled and discolored, coated with a sooty substance. On the lower branches the growth seemed to be thinning; soon the neighbors would be able to see her through the shrubs, at least from the knees down.
She went back inside and dialed the gardening service. A shrill woman answered the phone.
“I need some advice,” said Joan. “Something is killing my oleanders.”
The woman asked Joan’s name and address. “We’ll send someone over to spray this afternoon.”
“Thank you,” said Joan. Then she went upstairs to dress for the doctor’s.
S
HE PARKED
in the lot behind the hospital and went in through the back entrance. Her appointment was in the rear wing—the Ava Cohen Cancer Center, built with her father’s money after her mother’s death. The wing held a hundred beds, a laboratory, and four operating rooms. Recently they’d added radiology facilities; a week ago Joan had stood there bare-chested for the X ray of her breast.
She passed the chapel, the nurses’ station, the portrait of her mother hanging in the hallway. She was twenty feet from the radiology area when she recognized Dot Beckley coming toward her in the corridor.
“Joan?” said Dot. The question in her voice:
What are you doing
at the cancer center?
Then her brow cleared. “I didn’t realize your family was still involved with the hospital.”
“Oh, yes,” said Joan.
“I had an appointment, myself.” Dot pointed to a small Band-Aid at her hairline, several shades lighter than the brown skin underneath. “I had a little spot removed.”
“Goodness,” said Joan. “Nothing serious, I hope.”
Dot waved airily. “Oh, no. I get them all the time. The sun, they say.” She fumbled in her purse for cigarettes and shook one out of the pack. Her hands were brown and creased, studded with gold rings.
“I’m glad I ran into you,” she said. “I’ve been meaning to call. Hal’s brother George is visiting for the week. We want you to join us one night for dinner.” Dot lowered her voice. “He’s recently divorced. We’ve told him all about you.”
“How nice.” Joan glanced at her watch. “Dot, I’ve got to run, but why don’t you give me a ring at home? That way I can check my calendar.”
“Sure. I’ll call you this afternoon.”
“Wonderful,” said Joan. By then she’d have thought up an excuse.
T
HE NURSE
poked her head into the examining room. “Miss Cohen,” she said. “Dr. Sugarman will be right with you.”
“Thanks,” said Joan. She sat on the examining table in a flimsy hospital gown, her clothes neatly folded on a chair. She glanced at her watch; she’d waited half an hour already. Come on, Zuckerman, she thought. This made her smile. Her father had deplored
Jews who Americanized their names; for a second she’d sounded just like him.
The door opened.
“Hi, Joan,” said Sugarman, manila folder under his arm, the tails of his white coat flapping behind him. He was young and handsome, always a little disheveled: tie loosely knotted, cuffs rolled back to show his tanned forearms. Had she met him on the street she would have found him attractive; but as a doctor he was all wrong. She preferred the dour demeanor of her surgeon at Sloan-Kettering, whose sonorous voice seemed to acknowledge the gravity of what had happened to her.
He pulled a stool up to the examining table. “I had a look at your chest film. Everything looks great, Joan.”
Thanks, Larry, she thought. She and Sugarman were the same age; it irked her that she was “Joan” and he was “Doctor.” She’d despised doctors her whole life, in direct proportion to her parents’ admiration of them. Her father had wished his son to become one and his daughter to marry one. Her mother had revered her surgeons until the end, even when it was clear they’d failed to save her life.
Joan untied her hospital gown and turned her head. Though she avoiding looking at it herself, she didn’t mind showing Sugarman her scar, a puckered trail that led from her breastbone to her right armpit. It was the other part she dreaded: him looking at her remaining breast, round and as innocent as a baby. Him seeing her the way she used to be.
“The tissue looks very healthy,” he said, feeling along the incision with his fingertips. “You’ve healed nicely.” He let the gown close over the scar. “Now let’s have a look at the other one.”
Joan’s face warmed. He was like an arrogant fraternity brother,
the Harvard boys who’d descended on Radcliffe for dances and mixers. She remembered a particular one who hadn’t even kissed her, just asked her to take off her blouse, too sure of his own attractiveness to bother seducing her.
He pushed aside the gown; her eyes darted around the room. There were two photos on Sugarman’s desk. In one, towheaded boys posed in front of a sailboat; in the other, the doctor embraced a buxom blonde in a strapless evening dress. Jewish boys and their blondes: her brother was obsessed with them, a different one each time Joan saw him. She closed her eyes and imagined Sugarman in bed with his wife, palming those enormous breasts. She wondered if his hands moved in the same circular path, unconsciously feeling for lumps.
“Are those your kids?” she asked.
“Yep,” he said. “The little Sugarmen.” The motion of his hand changed; he felt her breast in straight lines radiating outward from the nipple. You won’t find a thing, she thought. She’d examined her breast herself that morning. Every morning. She felt for lumps six or seven times a day.
She looked down at his curly dark head. She’d gone gray in her mid-twenties; she wondered if Sugarman dyed his hair too. Finally he closed the gown and tied it at her throat, like a mother bundling her child against the cold.
“Okeydokey,” he said. “Let’s have a look at that arm. Lift them both as high as you can.”
Joan imagined lecturing Sugarman like an angry schoolmarm: Grown men do not say “okeydokey.” She stretched her left arm overhead, her right arm to eye level.
He whistled through his teeth, a startling sound. “Pretty good,” he said. “How does it feel?”
“Pins and needles.”
He scribbled something on her chart.
“You’ve made remarkable progress. There’s almost no swelling, and your range of motion is excellent.” He closed the folder. “Any questions I can answer?”
Joan eyed her clothes piled on the chair, her silicone breast hidden among them.
“Can I go now?” she asked.
S
HE WAS
thirty-nine years old, the age in a woman’s life when questions begin to answer themselves. By chance or choice she hadn’t married; she wasn’t sure which. If pressed she’d answer vaguely:
I was doing other things.
She was often pressed, at cocktail parties, in job interviews, by the aging uncles who’d sat shiva for her father the previous winter. In those days the question struck nobody as rude:
Why aren’t you married?
Other things. She’d graduated second in her class (Radcliffe, 1952; the first-ranked girl was also Jewish, as Joan’s father liked to point out.) Jobs at newspapers—copy girl, assistant to the women’s-page editor of a suburban daily on Long Island. (It hadn’t yet occurred to anyone that women might read the entire paper.) Then she went to work at the
Times
. She was the only female reporter in her bureau, which suited her. She enjoyed men; men trusted her. Joan laughed easily; she was hardworking and direct; she was not a prude. She had a good figure and a handsome face—her father’s dark eyes, his strong nose. A certain type of man found her attractive: dynamic, aggressive men, as devoted to their careers as she was to hers. By happy coincidence, this was the sort of man she liked.
From age twenty to thirty-eight she had twelve lovers, more than she would ever admit. A few had lasted a year or two; they remained her dearest friends. They called her each year on her birthday, men who’d married someone else.
Only one had met her parents. A year out of Radcliffe, Joan met a young law student named Howard Resnick. He was the first Jewish boy she’d ever dated; she brought him home one night to dinner. Her father wore a vest to the table; her mother, already ill, roused herself from bed, put on lipstick, and looked, for one evening at least, herself. After dessert they listened to records in the parlor, all six Brandenburg Concertos. Her father and Howard Resnick sat across from each other in overstuffed chairs, their long legs crossed at the ankle; the resemblance was almost familial. A month later Howard proposed marriage. Joan saw clearly the life ahead of her—babies and keeping house, a life like her mother’s—and said no. Her father was heartbroken. She wasn’t used to disappointing him; the sole aim of her childhood had been to make him proud. In school she’d excelled in all subjects; she had played the violin. She was more son than daughter, the dutiful son her brother, Ben, refused to be. (Four years younger, he wouldn’t go to Hebrew school. He befriended the neighborhood boys, Irish and Italian, and repeated the eighth grade.) Her father’s disappointment was too much to bear. She never brought home a man again.
Of all her lovers, only two had mattered. The first: Morris Brown, a married editor at the
Times;
they still spoke on the phone each month, wrote notes at the holidays. The second: Claude Tirat, a philosophy student she’d met in Paris when she was covering the student protests. Not for any particular qualities he possessed, but because it was he who, in bed, had found the lump in her breast.
She had the surgery on a snowy day in December. The roads were glazed, the cabs barely running; she took the bus across town to Sloan-Kettering. She told no one. Her mother was dead; she had no close girlfriends. All the important people in her life—co-workers and boyfriends, her brother and father—were men. If the cancer had been located elsewhere—her liver or intestine, blood or bone—she might have told. But she remembered her father’s discomfort during her mother’s illness: two mastectomies, long years of doctors and hospitals, and still he couldn’t bring himself to say the word
breast
.
In a week she was back at work, shaky but relieved. Her life proceeded much as it had, strung along by interviews and deadlines and weekly phone calls to her father, who’d retired to Florida. But she was exhausted. She began missing deadlines, handing in copy that didn’t come close to her former standards. Many nights she couldn’t sleep; when she did she dreamed of her mother, gray and motionless on the bed where she’d died.
Months passed before her editor noticed. When he did, he assumed she was hooked on drugs, which was fine with Joan: the magazine world ran on gossip, and she’d rather be known as a pill junkie than a cancer victim. That spring she took a leave of absence from the magazine. Then her father died of a sudden heart attack, and Joan was on a plane to Florida.
A
T HOME
she undressed and slipped into her bathing suit. She’d found it in New York, at a tiny shop on Third Avenue that catered to exotic women: the maimed, the very fat, the pathologically modest. The friendly Hungarian owner could order you a
turtleneck bikini, a suit with a built-in girdle, or, if you preferred, a bathing dress from the 1920s with a skirt that hung to your ankles. Joan’s suit, a plain black one-piece, was cut high under the arms; on the right side of the chest, a hidden inner pocket held an inflatable breast. (The silicone one she usually wore was too dense; it refused to bob to the surface the way a real breast would.) Every afternoon she inflated the fake breast with a plastic straw, each time marveling at the absurdity of wearing a balloon against her chest.
Outside she slipped off her caftan, grateful for the sun on her back, the looming protection of the oleanders. Easing into the water, she exhaled slowly. It was her favorite moment of the day.
She swam every afternoon, sixty laps of sidestroke: thirty fast laps on her strong left side, thirty slow ones on the weaker right. The previous winter, after the surgery, her right arm had been weak and mostly numb, swollen to twice its normal size. The physical therapist in New York had given her exercises to do. Twice a day she walked her right hand down a wall from eye level to waist height, an excruciating process. She wore long sleeves to her father’s funeral, a voluminous black overblouse to accommodate her swollen arm. Now, eight months later, the swelling was nearly gone.
She breathed deeply. She’d quit smoking just before the surgery; she could cross the pool underwater on a single breath. As she swam her mind wandered, freed by the languid rhythm of the stroke. She thought of summer camp in the Catskills, tearing across the lake amid the splashing of a dozen other girls, the sound fading as she left them all behind. Solitary swimming had bored her; she needed someone to race. When the other girls refused, she raced the boys. She liked those races even better.
She shifted to her right side, exhaling slowly, sinking into the pain. At the
Times
she had raced with boys every day; she had fought for everything she got: every raise, every byline, every column inch of precious space. At
Newsweek
the egos were even bigger, the competition more fierce; but there too she had won.