Stop Here (11 page)

“Then . . . rest a few weeks.” Annie's tone hesitant as if she's talking to someone ill. Her head does feel as if it's about to explode.

“No,” she nearly shouts, shocking herself. Lowering her voice again, says, “It all feels . . . suddenly . . . beside the point.”

“What point?” Annie sounds truly confused.

“I'm tired of meeting the needs of strangers.” It's the best she can do.

“What about the money?”

“I have enough of everything but time.” Where are these words coming from? She's not impulsive. “I've got customers waiting.”

• • •

Switching on the car radio to interrupt the static in her brain, she pulls into the driveway. Her father walks slowly toward the car, portable oxygen canister in hand.

“I phoned you last night to pick up a six-pack today,” he says, getting in.

“We'll do it on the way back from the doctor.”

“Where were you?” his tone faintly accusatory.

“Out . . . on a date.”

“Who's the boy?”

“Dad. I'm forty now.”

For a moment he takes her in as if he might actually see her. Her hands tighten on the steering wheel, her head tense enough to crack.

“The food you brought yesterday was tainted.”

“It was frozen.”

“Kept me in the bathroom.”

“Tell the doc, then.”

“You don't care, do you?”

“Dad!”

“Be better for you if I was gone.”

“You watch too many soap operas.”

“Well, what else can I do?”

“I don't know. Invite more of your old pals to visit.”

“They come when they can,” his tone testy.

He's more protective of their feelings than hers. She says nothing more.

Accompanying him up the path to the doctor's office, she holds open the door. “I'll pick you up in an hour.”

“What's the matter, got ants in your . . .” Hurrying back to the car, she drives to the beach.

With the windows rolled down, a balmy breeze, a hint of spring in it, the kind Willy can't smell anymore. Are there reasons for quitting other than the ones she told Annie, whose surprise and confusion mirrors her own. Forty's not old. Did something spook her? It's all so odd. She stares hard at the sand, water, the last shock of afternoon sun streaking purple and orange across the sky. Then she takes out her cell phone, calls the number Jack gave her.

• • •

Her hands are cold. She eyes a bottle of red wine on the side table, deciding whether to open it. A bottle of white wine chills in the fridge. She paces the living room like an anxious teen, then stops to look out the window. Jack's never been here in the weeks they've dated. She doesn't allow “dates” to come home with her. Hotel bar, restaurant, his room, then home, alone, that's been the routine with Jack, too. Now he's on his way here.

She watches his long legs precede his torso out of a town car. Watches him come up the drive, watches, too, as he takes in the landscape. Too late to change her mind, she opens the door. “Welcome to the villa.”

His lips brush hers and he hands her flowers.

“Roses of all things . . . beautiful.”

“Yes, they are.”

She tosses out the brooding tulips, arranges the roses.

“Lovely villa,” he says, looking around.

“I like it. A drink? Some music?”

“Let me.” He riffles through her collection, stacks a few CDs, pours two glasses of wine, then sits beside her on the couch. He makes himself at home with ease.

“I'm quite glad you asked me over. I wondered, is the lady hiding a man in her closet.” He grins. “By the way, my lab gets theater tickets. Let's take in a play. Also I want to explore the beaches here. People say they're more beautiful than the Riviera. Hard to believe.”

“Sure, a play sounds great. I'm not sure about the Riviera, but late afternoons, the shore is wonderful.”

“Perhaps this weekend then . . .”

“There's something I haven't told you.” Ella's velvety tones float by. “It's the strangest thing . . . I quit the job.”

“The diner?”

“No, the escort service.”

“How come?”

“I don't know.”

“When?”

“A while ago.” She won't say the day after they met.

“Well, I hope I was responsible.”

“No, at least I don't think so.”

“I'm glad you did.”

“Why?”

“You'll spend time only with me. It will be absolutely delightful.” He folds her hand in his. “I couldn't be more fortunate.” He pecks her cheek. “More wine?” He's up refilling their glasses.

• • •

In the shower, his large, firm hands slowly massage her soapy body. Two glasses of wine wait on the sink edge.

“You see,” he shouts over the sound of the water. “It has nothing to do with getting clean. We should've done this before.”

She laughs. A surprising lightness fills her.

“And also, I don't do all that many things well. This, however, I claim credit for success. Yes?”

“Yes,” she shouts.

“The other bit I should share . . . well, my dear, it has to do with your outstanding body.”

“Jack, I rarely believe the sentiments of excited men.”

“Yes, indeed, you made it clear these last weeks. What can I say to make you trust my . . .” He stops his massage abruptly. “Let's get into bed. I'll warm it up for us.”

He rinses off the soap and leaves first. She drapes herself in a large bath towel, follows his wet footsteps across the floor. The waning evening sunlight trickles through the shuttered blinds. She registers the stillness; the music has ended. She slides in beside him.

His arms go around her, his belly pressing her still-damp back, his mouth close to her ear.

“Rosalyn, dear. Something there in your breast.”

“What?”

• • •

Locked in the diner bathroom, Mila drones on about the number of women who survive, customers who years later enjoy their burgers, women who . . . But she's only half listening. How we know before we know is the competing lyric in her head. It's why her mother's been visiting her thoughts. Why, too, the eerie sense of time. Even more crazy is the strange relief of no longer waiting. The doom she's carried since her mother's death has been born, the truth of it stark, almost energizing in its clarity.

Murray pounds on the door. “Hey! What's going on?”

“Be right out,” Mila calls. “Hurry, tell me what the doctor said.”

“It doesn't look promising, though the biopsy was inconclusive, which, he says, they often are. Tomorrow I visit the surgeon, the day after I go for a bone scan. Then . . . I don't know, a bunch of tests I guess.”

“Ava and I will go with you. She, tomorrow, me the next day, Dina the day—”

“No . . .”

“Rosalyn, you'd certainly go with me.” Mila cuffs her wrist. “So just let us do it.”

“I do need help with my father. Could your daughter visit him two hours every afternoon for a while? She can put up his supper. See if he needs something at the store, whatever. I'll pay her eight an hour. I'll tell him I'm away on vacation. I don't want Murray to know either. Look at the way he's treating Bruce.”

“Darla always needs money. It's a good time of day for her, after school, before gallivanting.”

“Hey!” Murray bangs on the door.

“Coming.” Mila's hand reaches for the knob.

“Go ahead, I need a minute.”

In the silvering mirror a pale face greets her. She applies lipstick. There's distance between her and that person. Overwhelmed, is what it is . . . all the things to get done. Everything seems set out, no time for rumination, as if her body has sprung a leak. She glances at her watch and sees it's dinnertime. Not her usual shift, but Mila's in the kitchen helping Nick.

The restaurant's more crowded than usual, buzzing with impatient, hungry customers, arms beckoning, voices loud. Murray is greeting regulars as he fills water glasses and he eyes her as she steps through the door. Behind the counter, Ava serves one customer after another. About to wait on a table of four noisy people, the door chimes and Jack enters.

“God,” she says low in her throat, on her way to stop him from taking another step inside. No one knows about that part of her life. “What are you doing?” she whispers harshly.

“You didn't call me last night. I won't have that.” They stare at each other.

“We had no plan that I can remember,” her tone far from welcoming.

“We don't need a plan. We've spent enough time together. You owed me a call,” his tone controlled.

“That's a little proprietary.”

“Look, it took me hours to find this damn place. I was worried. What happened at the doctor's?”

“I don't want to talk about it with you.”

“Why not?”

“You're a married man with a life in London. You'll go back to that life.”

“Well, that gets to the core . . . because Rosalyn, I'm here, with you, now. If you don't like me, if you find me a bore, if you would rather be with somebody else . . . say so.” He's talking fast, nervously. “Otherwise, let's get out of here.”

His eyes on her are wide, his mouth unsure, prepared for a verbal blow. He's vulnerable, like her. “I'll meet you as soon as I finish my shift.”

“No. I'll find a table. I'm staying.”

• • •

After the exam, the surgeon sits on the edge of an elegant leather-topped desk. His degrees descend the wall. He's tall, thin, with a head of curly blond hair, a smile to light the way. Is his demeanor part of the healing process? Does he offer it to each patient? No matter, he's too young, his life still beginning. She needs a doctor in his seventies who's seen it all.

He tells her about the statistics, studies, new treatments. How many of his patients have died of breast cancer? she wants to know. Not one of his statistics. He says, do this and the survival rate could be . . . Do that and . . . He says nothing will be known for sure until they stage the tumor. She's having trouble absorbing words—the door in her head is locked. It's too much information, she tells him. Mila, though, scribbles his words on index cards.

The afternoon sun does little to warm her body chilled by the A/C. Mila hands her the index cards, which she stuffs in her bag. The car isn't far, but they walk slowly, Mila's arm linking hers.

“What're you going to do? Breast off, chemo first, or . . . ?” Mila asks hesitantly.

“I don't know.”

“It's an awful decision. Are you terrified?”

“I can't talk about it yet,” she admits.

“Did you and Darla work out a deal?” Mila doesn't miss a beat.

“We did. She looks more like you every day except for the dark hair. Was her father dark?”

“He was dark all right. Who was the fine-looking man at the diner waiting for you?”

“I dated him for a few weeks. He's married.”

“Now isn't the time to break up. You need as many with you as will stay. Sickness, divorce, birth, they take it out of you. Someone has to be there to empty the bucket. Should I drop you off or come in for a while?”

• • •

She kicks off her shoes, drops on the couch. The still-blank journal Jack bought her is on the table. Her feelings are muddled, alien, racing, her thoughts filled with the minutiae of things to do, stupid, unimportant bits and pieces taking up space in her head.

Every day, Jack asks how she's doing. Every day she says fine, her tone refusing talk about the possibility of malignant cells spreading like melting butter. He suggested a support group. She told him about Doris, one of her regulars, who attended a group to help grieve her son killed in Iraq. Doris quit after one meeting. She didn't want to hear how she'd feel a year from then. She wanted to make her own discoveries. To each her own journey, it's what she believes as well, and said as much to Jack.

Whatever her mother's journey, she didn't share it with Rosalyn, didn't talk about the disease, didn't reveal what was happening to her body. She never mentioned pain, disfigurement, or death. Then again, at seventeen, Rosalyn didn't want to hear, didn't want to take in the flat chest while her own breasts were flourishing. Her hands cup their fullness. She remembers Carl's head burrowing contentedly in the cleavage, his delight in their milk-laden heaviness. He was with her when the nun brought in the infant. She closed her eyes, lest the baby's face remain to haunt her. Now she wishes she had seen her, someone to hold on to.

The phone rings.

“It's me,” Mila announces.

“You're home already?”

“Darla said your dad's cute and funny.”

“You're kidding!”

“Swear to whatever. Ava and I hatched a plot to take you to dinner a few nights from now.”

“I've had enough diner food.”

“Funny, funny. The real stuff. Romano's, remember their salads? Even better, the wine they never tell you the name of . . . heaven. So warn your guy, he can't come. It's just us.”

“Sounds great.” She clicks off.

Cute and funny? Darla's gone to the wrong house.

• • •

It's a different exam room, small, cold, without windows. Lying on a narrow, padded table, a thin pillow beneath her head, wires attached to chest and legs, an EKG clicks faintly, recording her heartbeats. Yesterday, a whirring plate of light took three-dimensional pictures of her bones. Heart, bones, breasts, her body dissected for study; the tests, their definitions, the possible outcomes, layers of information have all taken their toll on her brain as well. Her voice has begun to echo in her head like a bad telephone connection; she senses herself watching herself, even when applying makeup. It's as if she's two people, one just a hair ahead or behind the other. Is this a heightened state or terror?