Fifteen Shades of Gay (For Pay) (12 page)

Hugh ignored that. “In other news, Jake finally stopped pretending he was ever going to fix the second bathroom and hired a plumber. Now we have a fully equipped guest room, including a flushing toilet. So when you’ve ready for a visit, sweetheart,” he looked at Marie, “you won’t be subjected to Third World conditions.”

“It’ll be a few months. Have to finish the chemo and get the all-clear first,” Marie said. “Then figure out my finances. By the way, I’m really grateful to you both for the loan.”

“If Andrew lived with you, he’d be footing half the bills and you wouldn’t need so much,” Jake said.

“Dad. Even if I never speak a word onstage, understudy to the lead is a huge deal. I’m making good money now.” Perversely, Andrew wished he could tell his father exactly what business he was really in. “So I’ll be able to help Marie more. Probably pay you back myself.”

“Listen to Diamond Jim,” Jake scoffed. “If you’re making a nice salary, you ought to be saving as much as possible. Don’t throw it around to try and prove what a big man you are. Marie knows Hugh and I don’t expect a penny back.”

“But I want—” Marie began.

“It’s true.” Hugh took her hand. “You know Jake can’t resist explaining how things should be. That aside, think of the money as a gift. One of the best things I ever learned when I was your age was, if someone wants to help you, let them do it. Never refuse anything offered out of genuine affection.”

“So what’s the cancer game plan?” Jake leaned close to Marie. “What do the doctors say you need to do to beat this thing?”

“Well, it’s mostly about following the treatment, waiting and hoping,” Marie said. “Lord knows they keep me busy. Chemo, blood work, vital signs, shrink, chemo, blood work, vital signs….”

“Shrink?” Jake frowned.

“Yeah. Shrink.” Marie, usually a fount of endless patience when it came to their father, sounded tart. “I’m depressed. When both breasts are removed, chemotherapy killed your ovaries, and you can’t even recognize yourself in the mirror, you get depressed. The shrink gives me meds and monitors my progress. Oh, for God’s sake, Dad! Even Hugh takes them.”

“Over my objections. I don’t think shortcuts are a substitute for dealing with reality.”

“And I don’t care what you think.” Hugh sounded amused. This banter was typical for them. How two such different men had fallen in love, much less stayed together for more than ten years, Andrew had no idea. “If Marie’s doctors say antidepressants are part of the game plan, I’m sure they have their reasons. It’s important for her to keep her spirits up, don’t you agree?” Hugh poked Jake’s upper arm.

Jake cleared his throat. “I don’t understand why people take everything so personally. I don’t believe in pharmaceuticals to deal with the slings and arrows of ordinary life, but if Marie’s doctors imagine they’re beneficial….”

Andrew shot Marie a glance. His inner temperature was rising, but she only winked.

“Marie isn’t drinking,” Andrew announced, “which is good, because that means more booze for the rest of us. What’s your poison, Hugh?”

“A beer would be great.”

“Dad?”

“Let me look things over. I like to assure myself my daughter’s eating well.” Jake followed Andrew into the kitchen. Waving Andrew aside, he opened the ancient refrigerator and peered inside.

“Budweiser,” he sighed, eyes falling on the six-pack. “In cans, no less. Why drink piss in tin?”

Andrew smiled in spite of himself. Not because he appreciated his father’s opinion—he’d heard the same refrain for years—but because it reminded him of Cormac. It had been four days since their date. Andrew wondered how the conference had gone and if Cormac had been forced to subsist on granola bars the whole time.

“Oh, for heaven’s sake.” Jake pulled out a Chinese take-out box. “Marie, you know better than this.”

“She likes fried rice. It’s one of the few things she still wants,” Andrew said. “I’ll bring it to her three times a day if she’ll eat it.”

“Andrew tells me he’s enabling your bad habits. You do realize there’s a link between MSG and cancer, don’t you?” Jake called over his shoulder. “Bad enough you used to smoke cigarettes and drink all those diet sodas. How can you get better when you’re eating this crap?” He held up a Jell-O pudding cup. “You need fresh food, preferably raw food. Additives and preservatives cause disease. This is probably what made you sick in the first place.”

“Dad.” Andrew snatched the pudding cup from Jake’s hand. His voice was low, barely above a whisper, but every word felt enormous, outlined in red. “If you don’t lay off Marie, I’ll drag you outside and kick your ass. She’ll forgive me. You’re a dick twenty-four/seven. I only lose it twice a year.”

“Jake. Andrew….” Hugh sounded strained.

“You wanna go ten rounds with your old man?” Jake put his face so close to Andrew’s, their noses threatened to touch. “Wanna find out what you’re made of?”

“
Andrew
!” Hugh cried. “It’s Marie—I don’t know what’s happening—”

Pushing past Jake, Andrew went headlong to the sofa. When he saw Marie—eyes rolled up, mouth snapping and limbs jerking—he threw aside the pudding cup and dropped to his knees beside her. “Call 911!” he ordered Hugh.

“What is—why is she—”

“It’s a seizure, it’s happened before, just call 911.” Andrew fought to maintain control. “Then go down to the lobby and wait for the EMTs. Show them the way up.”

Hugh did as instructed. Even as Andrew searched for something to force between Marie’s teeth to prevent her from biting her tongue, the violent jerking stopped. Though her eyes were half open, she made no response no matter how many times Andrew said her name. Her chest rose and fell, the pulse beat in her throat, yet she was as limp and faded as a plastic doll left to bake in the sun. Seeing her wig aslant and a thin line of drool issuing from her mouth, the thought came to Andrew:

Is this how she’ll look when she’s dead?

He caught his breath, shocked at himself.

“Andy?” Jake hovered over his shoulder, shifting from foot to foot. “What… what should we do?”

“Go downstairs and wait with Hugh. Better yet, go outside and flag down the ambulance. Last time, they passed the building and had to turn around. Took forever.”

“Are you sure I should leave?” Jake sounded uncertain, which was alien enough. Worse, for the first time ever, Andrew thought Jake looked old. Old and frightened and short of glib answers for once in his life.

“Go find Hugh. Marie will be fine with me.”

* * *

Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Hospital had become very familiar to Andrew in the last eight weeks. The emergency department doctor gave Marie, who’d regained consciousness during the ambulance ride, a brief once-over before deciding to admit her. Unsurprised, Andrew kept his mouth shut while Marie and Jake argued the point.

“I probably just let myself get dehydrated. I’ll force myself to drink Gatorade, I promise,” Marie said as the physician typed an electronic message to the RN coordinating her care. “My father’s come all this way for a visit. I’d really like to be home for it.”

“At the very least I’d like to know what you propose to do for my daughter while she’s here.” As usual, Jake was talking too loud and too fast. “Because it sounds like you’ll be wasting hospital resources on a lot of unnecessary CYA tests. Probably designed to keep your malpractice insurance costs low….”

“Why are they so determined to keep her overnight?” Hugh whispered to Andrew.

“They want to image her brain. She’s stage three. This sort of thing makes them nervous. Afraid she’s converting to stage four,” Andrew said softly.

Hugh took a deep breath. He opened his mouth, then closed it again.

“Odds are, it’s just a seizure,” Andrew continued. “But the docs have to rule out a mass on the brain. Marie knows that. I don’t know why she’s arguing.”

“Guess she has a little of her father in her, after all.”

Andrew rolled his eyes. “I don’t know what you see in him.”

“Well, if it were anyone else asking, I’d give my standard answer.”

“Which is?”

“He’s good in the sack.”

Andrew laughed. Not because the answer struck him as particularly funny, but because for a decade he’d fantasied about confronting Hugh Branson. In the daydream, Hugh brought up his sex life with Jake, only to be mocked by Andrew in the most viciously personal terms imaginable. Now the opening had come at last, under the harsh fluorescent lights of Sloan-Kettering’s emergency department, and Andrew had no idea why the fantasy had ever meant so much to him.

“Let’s tag-team this,” he told Hugh. “You tell Dad to stop arguing. I’ll make Marie see reason. She’ll be done with the MRI and settled in a room by midnight.”

* * *

Around ten o’clock, Andrew’s mobile rang. It was Paresh. Excusing himself from Jake and Hugh, Andrew went to the far end of the waiting room to answer.

“Still sore?” Paresh’s tone was teasing.

“Um, no. Back to normal.” Andrew’s face started to get hot. “Listen. This isn’t a good time.”

“I won’t keep you. I’m calling to let you know I’m throwing another party tomorrow night. Mr. Wasserman will give you the details. He’s providing the usual—pool boys and party favors—but you’ll be a guest of honor. Rent a tux if you have to, I’m presenting you to some special friends.”

“I—” Andrew, about to ask what “guest of honor” meant and what he was expected to do for Paresh’s special friends, was interrupted by an overhead page summoning a family to a consulting room. Andrew watched them rise. Their closed faces and hunched shoulders told him good news wasn’t expected.

“Andrew? Have I rendered you speechless?”

“Oh, no, sorry. Look, I’m flattered, and I’ll be there if I can. But something’s come up in my personal life and I might not be able to get away.”

Paresh was silent for so long, Andrew thought the connection was lost. When Paresh finally spoke, his voice was cool. “I rather hoped we’d moved beyond discussing money each and every time, but fair enough. In addition to Mr. Wasserman’s usual compensation, I’m prepared to offer you a bonus. Assuming, of course, my friends find you charming and worthy of their attention.”

“Paresh. It’s not about money. I’m not going to explain my whole personal life to you, but I do have one. And something’s come up.” Andrew said the last between his teeth. “I hope I can be there. Now goodbye.”

He’d barely returned to his seat beside Jake and Hugh when his mobile chimed again. This time Jake wasn’t the only one in the waiting room to shoot Andrew a dirty look. Almost everyone looked ready to snap; a stranger taking call after call was the perfect target. Scowling at his phone, Andrew was tempted to unload all his fear and frustration on Paresh. But the number onscreen began with an unfamiliar area code.

“Hello?”

“Hey. It’s Cormac.” The other man sounded uncertain. “Got a minute?”

“Um, yeah, of course.” Pretending not to notice the disapproving glances around him, Andrew hurried back to the far corner where he’d taken Paresh’s call. “Did the conference go okay?”

“Sure. Almost starved to death. Not sure we really accomplished much, but the fight must go on.” Cormac paused, then added in a lower voice, “I couldn’t stop thinking about you. When you let me go down on you… I really liked it. I want to see you again. How does tomorrow night sound?”

Andrew made a noise halfway between a groan and a sigh.

“I’m sorry,” Cormac said hastily. “I’m just scheduled to be in DC over the weekend, so coming to New York would be easy. I don’t mean to stalk you or—”

“It’s not that. I’d like to meet up,” Andrew said. “I really would. But I’m at Sloan-Kettering with Marie. She had a seizure. It’s probably nothing, but she’s been admitted for testing. I don’t see them releasing her until tomorrow afternoon at the earliest, and then she’ll need my help getting settled at home again.”

“Oh. Of course. A seizure? That must have been scary.”

“It’s happened before. The chemo’s made her so weak, there’s a little crisis every other week.” Andrew sighed again, louder and longer. “Sorry. Don’t mean to pull you into cancer world.”

“Yeah, but remember, I was in heart failure world all last year,” Cormac said. “It’s exhausting being a cheerleader. You’re the custodian of the phone list and the medication bag and the appointment calendar. Worse, you’re the only person not allowed to be afraid.”

“I don’t mind,” Andrew muttered automatically.

“But it would be easier if you did, wouldn’t it? You could punch a wall or something,” Cormac said.

“I threatened to kick my dad’s ass earlier tonight, if that counts,” Andrew said. “He’s here for a visit. And in total denial about how sick Marie is. Acts like if she swallows some antioxidants and thinks happy thoughts, she’ll be fine.”

“It’s like he doesn’t appreciate how hard she’s fighting, isn’t it?”

“Yeah. Yeah,” Andrew repeated. For the first time in hours, the tightness across his shoulders relaxed. “Exactly.”

“Well. I won’t keep you. Sloan-Kettering has a tremendous reputation,” Cormac said. “I’m sure Marie is getting the very best care. Call me if you need to.”

“I will. I—” Andrew began, but Cormac had already disconnected.

* * *

As Andrew predicted, Marie was settled in a room by midnight. Her own oncologist would not be on duty until the next morning, but the emergency department doctor popped in to tell her the MRI looked good.

“Your own doctor may choose to read it herself, rather than go by the radiologist’s report. But according to radiology, the scan is clear,” the doctor said. “We’ll have the results of your other labs in a few hours.”

“I’m so relieved,” Marie said to Andrew, Jake, and Hugh as soon as the doctor left. “The weirdest thing happened in MRI. I was lying there, earbuds in, listening to music and trying to peace out. Suddenly, I had the worst feeling. An awful, end-of-the-world feeling.”

“That’s because you didn’t eat dinner.” Taking her hand, Andrew held it tight. “Low blood sugar turns everything to doom and gloom.”

“Studies have shown people with negative attitudes have low survival rates,” Jake said. At Hugh’s sharp glance, he added, “But that doesn’t apply to my girl. She’s always been can-do, from the day she was born. Walked a month early. Spoke in whole sentences when other children were still stuck on ‘momma.’ Has a whole case of softball ribbons and trophies.”