On Grace (26 page)

“She didn’t. What’s up?” he asks, taking my hand across the table.

“Well,” and suddenly I’m embarrassed sharing something so personal with my dad. “Believe it or not, he cheated on me.”

“Oh, Gracie.”

“Yeah, he was at a conference over the summer and it’s a long, drawn-out story, but the bottom line is he had been drinking a lot with his friends, and somehow the cocktail waitress ended up in his bed.”

“Ouch.”

“Exactly. It’s been really tough. He only told me a couple weeks ago.”

“And how do you feel about the whole thing?”

“Well, that’s an interesting question. I have gone through all the predictable feelings: anger, sadness, humiliation, you name it, I’ve felt it. But right now, I feel mostly like I don’t want to let it ruin my marriage. I don’t want to give that random woman who serves martinis in a hotel bar in Chicago the power to destroy what Darren and I have created together. I love him, Dad. It’s been really hard.” I decide to leave out the pivotal Jake part of the story, despite the fact that it was actually the turning point in my journey to forgiveness, because I don’t want my dad to be disappointed in me.

“I’m sure it has been,” he says, and he evades my eyes.

“What do you think?”

“Oh,” he says with a bit of a chuckle that sounds more like a grunt than a laugh, “I’m not a big fan of people cheating on their spouses, but I know it happens all the time. It’s real hard to understand when the cheater says he, or she, didn’t mean anything by it, but I think I’ve realized over the years, that it might actually be true,” he says, again looking somewhere over my right shoulder.

His lack of eye contact confuses me. Reed Roseman the cut-throat defense attorney has made a career out of eye contact, persistent, penetrating eye contact. It’s only when he’s uncomfortable that he looks away. Why is he uncomfortable? I suddenly have the nagging suspicion that he’s cheating on Amanda. Or maybe that gold-digging, botoxed bitch is cheating on him. To be honest, I secretly hope he is cheating on her, because I never liked her. I pray they had a prenup. Thankfully, my dad looks at me and continues.

“But I do hope you two can work it out because of the boys. It’s not easy being a single mother, Gracie. I know you girls would have been better off living with your mother
and
me. I’m not claiming any awards for being a good father, but I know that having two parents is always better than one.”

Now I reach over and grab
his
hand across the table. “You and Mom did the best you could. And I think Eva and I turned out pretty well,” I say, smiling.

“Exceedingly well,” he says, and we start our first courses that the waiter has just brought.

“These shrimp are huge!” I say.

“Enjoy,” he says, offering me an oyster. “Are you still volunteering at the boys’ school?” he asks.

As we eat, I tell him about my adventures in reentering the workforce.

“Well, did you fight for the job when that Nicole told you she was offering it to someone else?” he asks, eye contact in full penetration mode.

“No. I guess I just accepted that she had chosen someone else.”

“You’ve got to fight for yourself, Gracie. I know you’ll be surprised to hear this because professionally I am very aggressive, but I haven’t been too great at fighting for myself in my personal life over the years, and I see a little of that in you,” he says, gesturing with an empty oyster shell.

Again, my thoughts go straight to his and Amanda’s relationship, and I wonder what’s going on.

“What do you mean?” I ask innocently. “I do fight for myself. I honk like crazy when a car swerves in front of me on the highway, and I do a lot of exaggerated weight-shifting and loud
tsk-tsking
when someone cuts in front of me in a line.”

“That’s not what I mean,” he says, laughing. “I just don’t want you to spend your life letting people get away with not choosing you.”

And now I’m thoroughly confused. “You mean that Darren’s cheating showed he wasn’t choosing me and not getting the job showed she wasn’t choosing me?”

“Yes, both in a way. But I understand why you don’t fight for yourself. You’re kindhearted and you don’t want to be confrontational. You just need to advocate for yourself, too. You need to make sure that your needs are being met, not just those of everyone around you.”

I sit back, and take a sip of my wine and think for a moment about what my dad is saying. I’m a little confused, baffled actually, by what he means about this relating to his own life. But he does have a point about how it relates to mine. And it ties into what my mom and Eva were trying to tell me in L.A. I’ve always been concerned about how things are
supposed
to go and what I’m
supposed
to do at the expense of really figuring out what I
want
and going full-throttle in that direction. Although, in my little fling with Jake, I did the latter, and look where that got me.

What I think my family is trying to tell me is that I should stop being so careful and just go for it, whatever “it” may be at that particular moment. I should “go” for my marriage and make Darren realize that we need to be together. I should “go” for a job and wholeheartedly find something that’s going to fulfill me intellectually. I should “go” for making sure that my life is filled mostly with want to’s and get to’s instead of have to’s and must do’s.

We spend the rest of the dinner talking about NPR and L.A. restaurants and other neutral subjects. My main takeaway from our dinner is that I’m pleasantly surprised by how much easier our relationship is becoming now that I’m an adult. I think my dad is uneasy with people needing him. I’m assuming, although I’ve never learned the exact reasons for their disconnect, that’s the reason that he and my mom broke up. Maybe she was too intense emotionally. And I think, as a kid, I must have been, too.

Now that I’m an adult and my needs are being met by my own nuclear family, I think it makes my dad feel like he’s a bit off the hook. Still doesn’t explain how he deals with Amanda and what’s going on there. But I guess most of her self-esteem needs are dealt with by a certain plastics doctor in L.A. On the train ride home, I think about Darren and whether he’ll be waiting up for me in our bed or asleep in the guest room.

He’s waiting by the door, anxious to get back to the city. Anxious to get as far away from me as possible.

“I’d like to make a toast,” Cameron says, lifting her glass of Prosecco.

I smile and lift my glass.

“I’d like to make a toast to two pretty big things: friendship and life. To friendship,” she says, smiling and looking me straight in the eye. “For the past three weeks, you have been the most magnificent friend. You have been there for me every step of the way, and I am so grateful to you for that. To life. My life is about to change in a big way on Wednesday. Well, I guess it already has changed. But starting with my surgery, I am going to embark on a journey that I know will impact me forever. So I’d like to toast to a successful surgery, an easy recovery, a manageable treatment regimen, and good times around the corner.”

“Cheers,” I say, clinking her glass and savoring the delicious sparkling wine.

“I really can’t believe the surgery is finally here. I just want this cancer out of me already,” Cameron says assuredly.

“I can only imagine,” I say as the waiter sets down roasted beet salad for Cameron and deviled eggs for me.

We’re at BG Restaurant on the seventh floor of Bergdorf Goodman. This is our favorite place to have lunch in the city, mostly because of its breathtaking views of Central Park, but also because of the ridiculously chic design by Kelly Wearstler. We were lucky enough to land one of the tables with the pale-blue leather egg chairs. In the past we’ve come here to celebrate birthdays, job promotions, and other milestones in our lives. Today, we’re here to celebrate, maybe commemorate is a more appropriate word, Cameron’s double mastectomy that will take place in exactly two days.

“I realize it’s strange that I wanted to come here for a sort of celebration lunch,” Cameron says, shrugging her shoulders and looking around at the hustle and bustle of waiters, society ladies, and overcompensating tourists.

“I actually think it’s perfect,” I say, trying to gracefully eat one of my delicious deviled eggs. I order them every time I come here. I know I should branch out and try something new, but I dream of these. Really.

“I just feel like I should elevate this occasion in my life. Now, I know
that
sounds strange. But I almost feel like I should respect it, give it some reverence. It’s huge, and if I just go into this huge life event and pretend that it’s not huge then I somehow let it win. I’m not trying to make light of the seriousness of this whole thing, because I
am
nervous as hell. I just need to not make it all so heavy.”

“I get it,” I say. “You feel like you need to acknowledge the prominence it has taken in your life, and what better way to tell cancer to, pardon me, fuck off, than to give it a going-away party at Bergdorf Goodman?” I ask giddily.

“Well, I’ll drink to that!” Cameron says, and we toast.

I smile at Cameron and reflect on all we’ve been through over the past few weeks. If everything happens for a reason (and someday maybe we’ll learn the reason that Cameron got breast cancer), I know why I didn’t get the job from Nicole. If I had, I would have been working instead of being there for my best friend during one of the most, maybe
the
most, unstable periods in her life.

After Cameron met with several breast surgeons, she selected a brilliant young female doctor at Sloan-Kettering. Based upon their discussions, Cameron opted for a double mastectomy. There technically isn’t any cancer in her right breast now; however, the diagnosis of “lobular carcinoma in situ” means that she is at increased risk of new cancer developing there in the future. Cameron decided she didn’t want to take any chances or have to go through this all again, so she is going with the double.

Once Cameron had made her surgery date, we came up with a list of everything she needed to do to prepare: meet with the plastic surgeon about reconstruction, figure out what to do with her pediatric practice in her absence, meet with a fertility doctor about freezing her eggs, buy zip-up sweatshirts and pajamas because she won’t be able to lift her arms after the surgery, etc.

“I don’t know why I feel so light,” Cameron says. “This is very strange. But one thing I’ve learned from all this is you can’t predict how you’re going to react or feel or behave when trauma is presented in your life. So I’ll embrace feeling light. It’s certainly better than feeling depressed. Thank God I’m not depressed.”

“I think you’re right. We all fear the worst. Okay, I’ll rephrase that.
I
fear the worst. But quite possibly, when the worst comes it brings with it a little bit of relief because the worst has finally come. Does that make any sense?” I ask.

“Only because I know you,” Cameron laughs.

“Okay, whatever, you know what I mean. I am so proud of you, though, Cam. You have taken this whole thing in stride, you’ve done what you’ve had to do, and you’re confronting this breast cancer like you’ve confronted everything else in your life: you are looking it straight in the eye, and you’re confident you’re going to kick its ass.”

“Thanks, Grace,” Cameron says. “That being said, I’m ready to get this surgery over with. I feel like the anticipation of it has been consuming my life. And then I’ll be able to deal with what comes next. But the good part is that I’ve given myself the opportunity over the past few weeks to feel as well as I can so that I have the capacity to be this confident. I’m so happy I went back to work, even if my schedule was a bit sporadic. And I’m so happy that I’ve been eating so well and doing so much yoga. I think it has all just given me a really good foundation.”

“I think you’re absolutely right,” I say. “You’re a true model for what to do in a situation like this.”

“How are you doing with the whole Darren thing?” Cameron asks me carefully. I can tell she’s relieved to change the subject.

I exhale dramatically. “It’s so bad, Cam. It’s been exactly three weeks since I came back from L.A., and it boggles my mind to think he’s been staying at one of those apartments his firm has in the city this whole time. Thankfully, he comes home several times a week to see the boys and put them to bed; but then he drives back to the city. They have no idea he doesn’t sleep at home. They just think he’s been traveling a lot for work.”

“Jeez,” Cameron says.

“Sometimes I feel really confident that he just needs to go through this phase and punish me for what I did, or what he believes I did, and then he’ll come back and we’ll be okay. And other times, I completely give up hope and convince myself that I ruined everything, and that he’s going to serve me with divorce papers any day.”

“Oh, Grace. I really can’t believe how crazy it has all gotten between the two of you. And I’m sorry I haven’t been keeping up on it all. I’ve been a little distracted,” she says softly.

“Of course, Cameron. And you know I haven’t wanted to bother you with any of it anyway. I’ve mostly been just trying to not focus on it, which is a big joke, to try to stay positive. But I’ve never been very good at that. I feel like I’ve tried everything in my quest to get him back and to convince him that I didn’t do anything wrong. And I’m growing impatient at trying to be understanding of why he’s angry, when, in all honesty, I think his anger is unfair and a big barrel of crap. I should be the one pissed at him for trying to equate what we did. In the meantime, he doesn’t answer my emails or return my calls. He’s completely shut me out.”

“I’m so sorry you guys are going through all this. I really hope it comes out well on the other side,” Cameron says.

“Thanks. Me, too.” I try to move Darren to the back of my mind so I can focus on Cameron.

The waiter brings us each a Gotham Salad, which is basically a Cobb, and we talk about what needs to happen before the surgery on Wednesday morning.

Over tea and raspberry sorbet, I get serious with Cameron.