“Oh my God, I'm sorry. Oh, Jane . . .”
Her sympathy made me sob again.
“Look, the division manager is here today and I just can't leave right now.”
“S'okay.” I gulped. “There's nothing to do about it, anyway.”
“Hold tight and I'll call you right back.”
As I pressed the “end” button and stared at the phone a piece of silver garland snapped down from the edge of the bar. Fuck Christmas; I'd never had much luck during this season. In the fifth grade I broke my wrist ice-skating on Christmas Eve and had to wear a smelly cast until February. Then there were all those Christmases when I was in high school and Mom was going through a get-in-touch-with-your-family phase while Dad was conveniently away on digs. Ricki and I hated being corralled on the train out to New Jersey so that we could learn to love our cousins, the suburban brats who yelled at my mother because she'd bought them the wrong Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtle toy. I smiled through my tears thinking of our last Christmas with the “family,” when flu-stricken Ricki threw up all over Aunt Carol's kitchen. Thank God for Ricki and her tendency to vomit.
Tucking the collar of my coat up to hide my misery, I took a sip and tried to play worse-case scenario. That being, I die.
All that came to mind was a blank monitor, a dead television screen.
Was there an afterlife? I wasn't a fan of conventional religion, but I wanted to believe that spirits lived on in some way. “Of course spirits live on,” my mother had once consoled me. “Can't you hear your father's voice now? Don't you imagine his approval of your new job? His criticisms of the mayor's new traffic patterns? His roar over the Yankees?” In fact, I had heard his voice, heard my mother's years later, when I was trying to sort through her possessions in the apartment I'd grown up in.
“Purple is such a rich color, don't you think?” she called to me as I pulled up a shade and watched sunlight reveal the mottling of the aged gem-tone paint.
“I've acquired an aversion to paper napkins,” she whispered as I sorted through linens and napkins, lace-edged confections stacked neatly in a bejeweled chest she had bought in some exotic place like Bombay or Thailand.
The volumes on her bookshelf were yellowed and old, but it pained me to part with them, the puzzle pieces of my parents' lives: The History of Civilization, Dickens, Tolstoy, Shakespeare, Faulkner, Fitzgerald . . . along with the contemporary paperbacks my mother had sped through, the work of the “hipster-doofus generation,” she whispered.
I had heard Alice's voice when the realtor assessed the co-op. “Keep it in the family,” my mother's voice streamed like sunlight through the stained glass hangings. “If not you or your sister, then find a friend.”
In the end, Emma had wanted the co-op, much to Ricki's relief and mine that we wouldn't be obliged to live out our entire lives at one address. And these days my parents' voices were faded and they called to me less frequently. I still missed Dad and Alice, and in the end all the creaky details of their deaths, the weirdness of funerals and crematoriums had given way to that . . . missing them.
They were gone from the world, and I was on the verge of joining them, ill-prepared though I was.
The cell rang and I answered to Emma. “I'm at a computer,” she said. “What kind of cancer?”
“Thyroid.”
“I knew that, but there are four different types. Which one is it?”
I raked back my hair. “I don't know. A tumor.”
“It's not an anaplastic carcinoma, is it? Also called giant cell? Spindle cell?”
I sighed. “Doesn't ring a bell.”
“Thank God,” she said. “That's the worst kind. Giant cell has a six-month life span after diagnosis.”
I whimpered. “I can't believe this.” The bartender looked my way and I motioned for another round.
“We'll figure it out, honey. God, I wish I could cut out of here and meet you.”
“Don't worry about me. I'll hang together until you get out of there.” The bartender brought the second shot of tequila over. I handed him a twenty and waved him away. “Keep the change.”
“I just wish we had more information.” Always one to arm herself with the facts, Emma is big on veracity. “How about medullary? Follicular? Papillary?”
“That's it, like the butterfly.”
“Papillary?” Emma said quickly. “That's good. Papillary is good.”
“Really?” A good cancer?
“It's the most common, usually affects women of childbearing age. Metastasizes slowly.”
As she talked it occurred to me that this tumor was growing inside me right now, taking over the healthy cells. The bastard. Obnoxious little worm.
“Listen to this: if diagnosis is made early, most people have a normal life expectancy. Did you hear that?”
“I'm not sure if it's early for me.”
“What did the doctor say?”
“Not to let it ruin my Christmas.”
“Well, that's good, isn't it? I mean, he can't give you false optimism, right?”
“I thought he was just trying to spread Christmas cheer and all that crap.”
“He can't!” Emma insisted. “He's not allowed to do that. Remember when your mother was dying? They didn't mince words. That one surgeon was so callous, he just told her to go home and get her affairs in order. This isn't so bad, Janey. Why don't you look it up online?”
“I can't.”
“There's so much information here. I think it will be helpful. But I've got to go or the division manager will sink me in my review.”
“You go,” I said. “We'll hook up later.”
As we hung up I stared at the shot glass in front of me. There were no answers there, that much I knew; only a way to delay the intensity of the pain.
As if a ghost were passing through the bar, another prong of the garland gave way, and now the string of silver dipped onto the floor like a drunken remnant of holidays long ago, of Christmases chock-full of unfulfilled expectations and stress. And now I had an even better reason, with Death knelling for me in this very merry season. Merry fucking Christmas. Had there ever been a time when I didn't hate Christmas? I sunk back in the booth and tried to remember a moment from my childhood. We'd always baked cookies and fruitcake with Mom, but then as I recall Ricki and I were little pains in the asses, stealing candied cherries and haphazardly blotting colored sugars onto butter cookies that ended up resembling edible Jackson Pollack paintings.
Philip's face knocked on my memory and I remembered that one magical Christmas when I felt genuine joy: my first Christmas out of college, when Philip had asked me to marry him. I was such a sap back then, mushy-gushy. I fell hard for Philip, opened myself to him, wrote fucking poetry for him. So totally blindsided, never suspecting that he was banging the girls he flirted with.
Later, I found out that on our wedding day he had his mitts on half the girls in our bridal party. Philip was a major horndog, but I didn't see it, couldn't see it. If love is blind, then it's a sport for morons, and back then I was the Queen of Moronica. Engaged for Christmas, married on Christmas Eve of the following year. It was a short marriage, over before the following Thanksgiving, and it certainly threw a pall over the holidays for me.
Christmas. If this was going to be my last, how did I want to spend it? What did I want to do with the rest of my life? What was the one thing I would miss the most?
Only one answer came to me: Love. To have really loved someone with all my heart and soul . . . that was the one important thing I hadn't accomplished.
I buried my face in my hands. Oh, God. I was still the Queen of Moronica.
9
P
aralysis set in quickly. My body shut down in those days after the diagnosis.
I paced the apartment in my nightgown, unable to escape the pain that welled up when I lacked the energy to tamp it down. Sleep was the only escape, but it eluded me without the help of drugs, and I felt reluctant to surrender my life, whatever was left of it, to total stupor.
So I paced, then huddled on the couch, shoulders sagging like an old woman, feet tucked to my chest like an infant. I spent hours contemplating the lines on my hands, wondering which one was the life line but not having the strength to research it. I worried about leaving my little sister alone in the world. I cursed myself for accomplishing nothing of lasting value in my lifetime. I contemplated afterlife in the smooth surface of an Entenmann's frosted cake on my kitchen counter, wondering at the peace I might find reincarnated in the soft vanilla sponge beneath that smooth fudge icing. Ridiculous, I know, but to be baked in the molecules of sweet heaven seemed a far better place than the turmoil that roiled in my body.
That Christmas, Emma Dee saved my life.
The day I got the diagnosis she dove into thyroid research like a medical student cramming for finals. She surfed the Internet, phoned all her doctors, and grilled her cousin Keith, an actual med student. When she met me for dinner one night after the bad news, she brought printed pages from the Internet and a copy of
Thyroids for Dummies
that she'd picked up at the Barnes & Noble down the street.
“A gift for you,” she said, smiling over the book.
I nodded, but had neither the strength nor the energy to take the book and open it. “Does it say anything good?” I asked.
“About your cancer?” She nodded enthusiastically. “The statistics are great! It's like a ninety-nine percent recovery rate.”
My cancer . . .
that was a creepy thought. Didn't want to own it. But I pushed it to the back of my mind as Emma and I ordered pad thai and chicken satay, crab dumplings, and mussamen curry at our favorite Thai restaurant. “Thai food is the perfect cure for a hangover,” Emma had insisted when I suggested calling off our dinner. “Besides, you can't be alone tonight. I won't let you.”
Actually, sitting here in our favorite corner behind the coral-tasseled drapes and the giant gold Buddha, I almost felt normal again. I almost felt like any other New Yorker who would wake up early for work in the morning, drop a third of her salary on a morning latte, and bitch about the surplus population of holiday tourists. That afternoon, as I'd stood sobbing in the shower, I'd made a deal with myself to keep this cancer thing at arm's length. I wasn't going to think about it or research it or face it until I absolutely had to (which for me would mean the morning of my surgery). The truth? How long can you stare into the jowls of death without totally losing your mind?
“So did you call the doctor back, like we agreed?” Emma held a shrimp aloft in her chopsticks. “Are you doing a consult?”
“Thursday afternoon. He wants me to give him dates for the surgery. He needs to book the O.R.”
“And you're just going to do that?” Emma gaped. “You're going to let the first doctor that comes along perform surgery, without a second opinion? What about his record? You don't even like this guy!”
I shrugged. “I just want it over.”
“I can't believe you, Jane.” Appalled, Emma lowered her chopsticks. “I've seen you shop for shoes. You have to wear half the size sevens in the shop before you make up your mind. Don't you think you owe it to yourself to shop around for the guy who's going to cut open your neck?”
I batted a crab dumpling around in brown sauce. “It's not like shopping for a pair of Jimmy Choos. God, I wish it were that easy.” My jaw caved in, giving way to that dangerous quiver.
“Oh, honey, I know it's hard.”
I shook my head. “I don't want to shop for surgeons. I don't want any of this.”
“I'll go with you,” Emma said. “I'm going with you to the consult with Dr. No Personality, and I'll find an ENT to give you a second opinion.” She stabbed my forlorn dumpling with a fork and handed it to me across the table.
I took the fork, but I was losing my appetite. “I don't want to go. I can't even think about this without falling apart.”
“So let me do the thinking,” she said. “I'll be your business manager. Don't worry about a thing.”
I nodded and popped the dumpling in my mouth. Thank God for Emma.
Â
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The next day at work I was pleasantly surprised by the smooth tenor of the morning. Ed handed me an article he had downloaded and printed called “The Trials and Tribulations of a Restaurant Critic.” Marty welcomed me backâI'd told him I'd gone home yesterday with the sinus thing againâand complimented me on my draft of Yoshiko Abe's profile. Oren asked me for some advice on his profile of Maude Kramer, the oldest known resident of New York City who was approaching 109. Her advice for a good long life? Wake up every morning with a smile, work hard, be kind to people, and don't harm anyone. “I think she's onto something,” I told Oren, “except for the morning deal.” I was not a morning person.
Late that afternoon as I headed out for my interview with Antoinette Lucas, I realized that the office would be a great source of escape for me this week. No one there knew about my cancer, and Genevieve would be on vacation all week. Aside from the consult with Dr. Parson on Thursday, I could pretend to be a normal person all week:
Jane, Uninterrupted.
As I plodded up the stone stairs to the Brooklyn brownstone that housed Antoinette's new office I was a little annoyed that she had declined my invitation to lunch, telling me she was consolidating her time lately to get her new production company going. I had hoped to take her someplace really swell then write up the meal and present the review to Marty as a sample of my skills and insights into the culinary world. Although Marty didn't want to move me now, this opening was something I could focus on to the exclusion of everything else, something I could dig my teeth into and put a jaw-lock on until the rest of the editorial board gave up and let me run with it.
The doorway was strung with real pine garland strewn with tiny white lights and red cranberries, and the trim glowed in the gathering dusk, accented by new flakes of snowâone to three inches, if the forecast was correct. I rang the doorbell, feeling as if I had stepped into a Dickensian Christmas tale.
I was surprised to see Antoinette herself open the old walnut door. “Snow?” She peeked out and blinked. “Isn't that glorious! It makes the city look like a Christmas card.”
“Until your favorite Manolo Blahniks go ankle deep into an ice puddle,” I said, holding out my gloved hand. “Jane Conner.”
“I remember you, Jane.” Antoinette wiped her hands on a dark green Wagner College sweatshirt, then shook. The last time I'd seen her she'd worn a turban to cover the effects of chemotherapy, but now her brown hair was back, styled in a short pixie cut. In jeans and the oversized sweatshirt she resembled a young Audrey Hepburn playing a carpenter's apprentice. “Sorry, but I've been putting up wallpaper, trying to make our new space habitable. Come on in.”
As she led me up two flights of stairs, past makeshift tables, drop cloths, and half-painted rooms, sound bytes of Antoinette through the years flashed through my head. Antoinette Lucas, one of the youngest women to snag the news anchor position at a major network, asking an interviewer why her gender should be an issue in her job; Antoinette and her famous silences as she sits back and lets subjects confess and spill and break down; Antoinette in maternity clothes, refusing to name the father of her child; Antoinette brushing away tears as she tells of her greatest fear, that death would take her from her children.
I followed her to a back room on the third floor where the lemony-orange walls, soft lighting, and brightly colored woven carpets combined to a cheery, warm effect. “What a cozy space,” I said, dropping my bag to sink into a buttery leather chair.
“This shade of paint is called âNacho Cheese,' ” she said. “When I heard that, I just had to have it. I finished this floor a few months ago so the kids and I could move in. We're sort of holed up here and working our way out, room by room.”
I inquired about her children, about her recent career move away from network television, and about her plans. She responded thoughtfully, providing a few anecdotes that I knew would read well. Despite the energy that seemed to spiral around her as she spoke, her eyes bright, her head bobbing, she was much more relaxed than she'd been in our last interview, less frenetic.
“So you're stepping behind the camera in an attempt to ease the demands on your time?” I said.
“I know, I should get out of television if I want a minute to myself, but the media has been good to me, and I love it. I appreciate the power of television to reach a wide audience, and as a producer I'll have more control over my schedule.”
“Will you continue to produce pieces related to breast cancer?”
“If there's something in that area to be reported, but I won't be tied to that.” She smiled. “I'm proud of my mission to build public awareness of the disease. At least, it used to be my mission. But the whole cancer scare made me realize that life can go by like that.” She snapped her fingers and I felt a little sick, thinking my life was going to be snapped away, too. “Lately, I've been yearning to do something else, explore new topics, maybe even produce a comedy.”
“And what synthesized your career shift?”
“Actually, it was a total strangerâand my daughter. We were out having brunch here in Park Slope, and two women across the restaurant recognized me and started waving. âThat's the breast cancer reporter,' one woman explained to the waitress. My daughter turned around and asked me what that meant, and honestly, it launched a period of self-examination. Is that who I am? A disease spokesperson? I don't want to be defined by a disease. I mean, breast cancer? I want to kick cancer's ugly butt.”
Listen to this woman, Jane!
I told myself.
She's fighting her disease, fighting instead of hiding!
I hadn't cracked open the thyroid book that Emma gave me, hadn't done any online research, and I'd been fantasizing ways to avoid the consult with Dr. Parson. I was a big, fat, lily-livered chicken. See Jane run. Run, Jane, run!
“I'm glad we had this opportunity to talk,” I told Antoinette. “You've changed since our last interview.”
“So have you.” She leaned forward, her dark eyes full of light. “What's different about you, Jane?”
Tears stung my eyes as the answer struck like a blow to the chest. Cancer.
Oh, no! This was not the place! But I was already succumbing to Antoinette's famous silence. I was already crying, lower lip quivering, face scrunched up in that froggy look I despised.
I swiped at my eyes with the back of one hand and Antoinette was holding tissues out to me, whispering: “It's okay.”
Pressing the tissues to my hot tears, I didn't see any way out of this beyond confession. “I was just diagnosed with cancer. Thyroid cancer.”
She nodded. “I'm not well-versed on that.”
“Neither am I,” I sobbed.
“But you're scared. I understand that. It's frightening to realize there's an end to this voyage.”
I nodded, trying to breathe more evenly.
Antoinette leaned back in her chair. “That was one of my biggest revelations. None of us gets out alive.”
I sobbed again, then laughed as her words hit me. She was right. We were all here on a limited warranty. “I never thought of it that way. We're all going to die. I just never thought it would happen to me.”
“Mortality can really suck,” she said. “But when you know that life is limited, you realize how much more valuable it is. It really helped me live for the moment. Awareness of death is the ultimate wake-up call.”
“A wake-up call . . .” With a deep breath, I began to see it, and my recent mantra of “Why me?” morphed to “Why now?” and “Why this way?” I pressed the tissues against my eyes. “God knows, I needed a major kick in the butt.”
“Consider yourself kicked.” Antoinette leaned back in her chair, still keeping eye contact, still maintaining the connection. “And let me know how it goes, Jane. Maybe now you'll start to enjoy the ride.”