The Owl & Moon Cafe: A Novel (No Series) (7 page)

They had just gotten in a shipment of Maui Gold. “Take a hit,” they urged her. “This stuff is incredible.” Never one to turn down primo bud, Allegra had done just that, said good-bye to her friends, and then carefully cut the brownies into squares.

She loaded the brownies into her VW bus, stood up, and the world spun. Oh, no! She was lit up like a Christmas tree. They called it stoned for a good reason, because all she wanted to do was lie down on her bed and listen to “Sugar Magnolia” over and over again. She drove ten miles under the speed limit, arrived late, and nearly dropped the brownies as she stumbled through the cafeteria doors. “Whoa!” she cried out, maybe louder than she should have, but a clumsy move like that deserved an “oh, shit,” and for Mariah’s sake she’d held her tongue. “Who’s got the munchies?” she called out, and Mariah, her little girl in knee socks, blazer, and a wrap-around skirt, looked at her, ashamed. Allegra was twenty-nine then, surrounded by parents who’d waited ten years longer than she had to give birth. She’d never cared what people thought of her, but she wanted her own flesh and blood to like her a little. By the end of the night, even the store-bought Chips Ahoy sold out, but no one had bought a single brownie. When the parents and kids started packing up, Mariah dropped both trays into the garbage can.

“What are you doing?” Allegra sputtered. “Those are perfectly good brownies. We can sell them in the café tomorrow.”

Mariah turned to her. “Do you even
get
why nobody bought the brownies? Are you so stoned you can’t see yourself in the mirror? Everyone in this room thought you put marijuana in the brownies. You reek of it. God, Mom! I might as well drop out of school.”

“Honey, I swear I didn’t put anything in them except chocolate and sugar—” Allegra had said, trying to put her arm around her daughter’s shoulders. But Mariah shook her off, pulled on her jacket, and started walking home. Some free bud! Allegra’s buzz was a distant memory, and now her daughter despised her. After a few blocks, Allegra convinced her to get in the car. “Mariah,” she said, “what can I do to make this up to you?”

“Gee, I don’t know. How about stop smoking pot? How about wearing normal clothes once in a while? How about wearing a bra?” And then she burst into sobs and rolled down the window as if breathing the same air as her mother was too awful.

Allegra thought of nothing else that night while Mariah cried herself to sleep. Gammy asked what was the matter. Cramps, Allegra said. Never again had she smoked pot. Allegra would have done anything to make up for it, but Mariah had turned away from her for good. Allegra concentrated on Lindsay. She’d sell her signed Janis Joplin poster on eBay to maintain that little girl’s happiness. Allegra blinked back the tears that threatened to spill onto her cheeks.

The door opened, and the doctor, notebook computer in hand, said, “Good afternoon there, Alice Moo—”

And that was as far as he got before his face froze in surprise.

Allegra stared at the six-foot-tall bear of a man in a white coat that was one size too small for him. She’d know the curve of his jaw anywhere from all the times her fingers had traced it. He had the same toothy grin. He was simply an older version of the man she’d known thirty-four years ago. “Oh my God. Doc? Is that you?”

He looked at the computer screen and back at her. “Allegra? But it says here your name is Alice.”

“Alice and Alvin. Remember? We sounded like the Bobbsey Twins so we made up nicknames that summer. I liked mine so much I kept it.”

He took hold of her hands. “My God, Allegra. How long has it been? Come here and give me a hug.”

Her paper gown rattled as she stood up. Doc embraced her. He smelled of sandalwood and cedar. It was warm inside his arms. They provided a perfect pocket of calm, something Allegra hadn’t felt in a long time. “This is just incredible,” she said.

Doc nodded. “What a coincidence.”

“Coincidence?” Allegra said, pulling back to look at him. “I prefer to think of it as two people hiking a very long trail to arrive at this moment.”

He chuckled. “You were New Age-y before the term was coined.”

“Well, I wish to hell I’d copyrighted it.” She gave him a frank appraisal. “At least I didn’t sell out and cut my hair.”

“Had to,” he said. “It was starting to fall out. I looked like a demented monk.”

She laughed. They stood there for a while, taking stock of each other. Then Alvin Goodnough, M.D., got down to business. He scrolled down the screen on the computer, examined a page of numbers, and Allegra nervously began to jabber. “Remember when we camped at Jedediah Smith?”

“I remember that we didn’t get much sleep.”

“When did you pop up here? I know everyone in this town and half the next.”

“I only moved here a month ago.”

“You live here now? Why all these years later…” She had no idea how to finish that sentence. She sat back down in the leather chair, wishing she’d brought a sweater. “Doc? Is it bad news? Please tell me it isn’t.”

He blinked his eyes several times, something Gammy always said was the mark of a person hiding the truth. “I understand that you’re scared.”

“I’m not scared. I’m just so glad to see you that I’d rather have a cup of coffee and talk over old times than blood tests. Let’s give the exam the big mañana.”

“Allegra,” he said, and she could hear it in the tone of his voice—bad news.

She crossed her arms over her breasts and the paper crackled. “No. I mean it. I can’t take it right now.”

He looked at his watch. “Okay, we’ll talk about me for a while. I bought a house, one of those enormous places on the golf course. Big enough to house Microsoft corporate headquarters, but inside it’s cozy.”

“You actually
play
golf?”

“Allegra, please. Golf’s a game, not a political affiliation. I bought the house because it has a great view of the water.”

“But golf? I can’t believe it. So you’re planning on staying?”

“Yes. Now it’s time to talk about the blood tests.”

That soon? It was the worst kind of news. “I’m thirsty. I need a drink.” She tried to pace in the small room. “I have a café to run and a grandchild and my mother’s getting old and she needs me. Please,” she said. “Keep talking about yourself. Please? Just a little while longer.”

He set the computer on the counter, and she saw him hesitate. “I’m planning on staying. The job is challenging, and it’s a beautiful place to live—like you don’t know that already. The house has beach access. You’ll have to come by and enjoy the sunset with me sometime. We can catch up on everything else then. Now we need to talk about your condition, and how we can proceed to drive your leukemia into a nice, long remission.”

“Leukemia?” Allegra said. “Are you sure?”

“I am.”

How could her body betray her this way? Admittedly, she could have taken a little better care of it, not drank so much, or stayed up so late, but hard work deserved hard fun. As Gammy would say when she came into work hungover, “Apparently you’re planning on sleeping when you’re dead, but that isn’t going to make the day pass any easier.” Leukemia. It wasn’t possible. Ali McGraw’s character in
Love Story
had died of leukemia. That was dopey movie-star romance,
Romeo and Juliet
updated, not the same thing as real-life dying. Just because she and Doc had a past did not mean there would be a future. Of course not. After he dumped the bad news on her he’d walk back out to his perfect life in the ritzy part of town with his no doubt beautiful, young wife and the brilliant children who adored him.

He took hold of her hands. “Allegra? I know how to deal with this disease. Let me explain it to you.”

“Why didn’t you ever call me, Doc? Just one call all these years?”

He smiled gently. “We didn’t tell each other our last names. I got married, had kids—”

“Of course,” she said, pulling away. She could even see them, a son and a daughter, smart, successful, driving SUVs, graduated from Ivy League colleges their father could afford.

“—as I’m sure you did. But the kids are grown and gone, and I’m single now.”

“Some stupid woman actually let you go?”

“My wife ran away with her gynecologist.” He held up his hand. “Please, I’ve heard all the jokes. When I finished my residency, I worked overseas as part of a program to reduce my student loans, and for the chance to see how medicine is practiced in other countries.”

She recalled him saying his family was wealthy. “Student loans?”

“Yes, Allegra. You probably don’t remember what you said to me under the stars that night when we were baring our souls, but it sunk in. I paid for my schooling so I didn’t have to do what Dad had planned. Worked out fine. I taught at U.C. Davis for a while. Great school and town. I was awarded a grant to do some research, but when the money ran out they cut the funding. It was disheartening, and I decided to make a life change. I thought about what would make me the happiest, and I realized I missed the day-to-day patient contact, so when this post opened up, I took it.”

“Your kids?”

“My son Doug’s an attorney in the San Francisco DA’s office. My daughter Kaylie was born with cerebral palsy. Most of her life was spent in hospitals. She passed away fifteen years ago. I miss her, but it was a mercy all the way around.”

“I’m so sorry.”

“Thanks. Yours?”

“Only Mariah. She teaches college, or did until recently. My granddaughter, Lindsay, is so smart she corrects me all the time.” Doc, she said in her head, is Alvin Goodnough. His only daughter died. How did he live with the loss? “What kind of last name is Goodnough?”

He shrugged. “The kind you get teased for all your life no matter how you pronounce it. My ancestors came through Ellis Island. It probably got abbreviated or misspelled or something along the way.” He took a pen and a pad from his pocket. “You look fabulous. How’d you stay so young, Allegra? Did you find the fountain of youth? Did you marry rich and go to the spa every week?”

“Never got around to the marriage thing. I thought we’d decided that the fountain of youth was swimming naked in the Big Sur River.”

His cheeks flushed, and she noticed how easily he slid back into his professional persona. “Okay, that’s enough chat. I’ve got to examine you. If anything feels awkward, I can call the nurse in.” He unwound his stethoscope and snaked it under her gown to listen to her heart and Allegra blanched at the touch of cold metal. “Alvin—”

“Just be quiet a minute so I can listen, will you? Remember the time we camped and saw that deer leap across the fire road.”

How could she forget hiking Damnation Creek Trail all morning, making love all afternoon, sleeping under the stars, talking over dreams, eyes on the sky, watching for that rogue comet or falling star or UFO? Camped under a redwood tree, they had been heating water for cocoa following a lovely meal of pan-fried Spam. It seemed like magic, both of them looking up at the same time. Just the smallest sound of a leaf crushed under the stag’s hoof. They saw his silhouette in the moonlight, the breath steaming from his nostrils. He leapt across the road so high it seemed like a trick. Why couldn’t that be her last memory of Doc instead of this?

Alvin pulled the stethoscope out of his ears and hung it around his neck. “Your ticker is as strong as a horse’s. Open your mouth and stick out your tongue.”

“No,” she said. “That feels too weird.”

“It’s nothing I haven’t seen before. Open.” Alvin peeked, typed some notes into her file, and then looked over at her. “Allegra, you can close your mouth now.”

Allegra breathed a sigh of relief. “Won’t it be fun to talk and open a bottle of good wine instead of the rotgut we used to drink?” She winked. “Play your cards right, you never know. You might get a free breakfast out of it.”

He took her left hand, rubbed it between his, which were warm and big and made her feel like a child. Then he looked into her eyes. “Allegra, you’re not going to be drinking alcohol for a while. In the early stages of leukemia like yours…”

She heard nothing beyond four syllables that hung in the air the way the Spanish moss drifted in the fog and wind from the cypress trees on Seventeen Mile Drive in wealthy Carmel-by-the-Sea. Some people loved Spanish moss, but Allegra thought the moss looked like the hair of a dead man. “It’s a mistake,” she said. “I am the healthiest person I know. I eat right, I examine my breasts monthly, and I have my yearly tests at the Women’s Clinic—”

“That’s why we repeated them.”

“Run them a third time.”

He took hold of her shoulders. “Allegra, listen to me. Leukemia’s not the death sentence it used to be. There are treatments—”

“What? Chemotherapy? Poison myself so I can live long enough to feel horrible before I die? No way.” She was trembling.

Alvin rolled his stool closer to her. He tore a page from the prescription pad he’d taken from his pocket, flipped it over, clicked his pen, and as if he was explaining to a child some troubling mathematical problem, began to draw Allegra a picture of her illness.

The words swam right over her. Chronic, acute. Chronic was the good kind. With the right management, potentially a normal lifespan. Acute was when the cells didn’t mature. Untreated, worst-case scenario, it could mean she had as little as twelve weeks from this very moment to the funeral parlor. It was September. That meant she could last until Thanksgiving, but she’d miss Christmas. Last Christmas could have been her final holiday and she hadn’t appreciated it enough. Oh, God. She’d miss Lindsay’s thirteenth birthday party.

Acute myelogenous—very bad. Chronic lymphocytic—good survival rates. Treatment would begin at once. This was the induction phase. They’d attempt to drive the disease into “a durable remission.” There would be chemotherapy. Way, way, way down the line, there was a minute possibility of a bone marrow transplant. Designer drugs. White blood cell count high, red blood cell count low. Alvin spin-doctored the horror of the whole thing by telling her how lucky she was to faint and end up in an E.R. that took a thorough look at its patients.

“I’ve talked for far too long,” he said. “Surely you have questions.”