by Lesley Kagen
When the lamp pops on in Henry’s bedroom, she turns to me gap-mouthed. “Holy shit, Grace. How…how’d you do that?”
I give her a grin and point to the eastern sky. Dawn is dressed in vivid shades of peach and gold. “Lordy, how time do fly when a body is havin’ fun. We better get busy in the kitchen. The boy’ll be up soon lookin’ for his breakfast and ya know how cranky he gets when he’s hungry.”
A Greater Margin of Safety
Tess, Garbo, and I are heaped together a few hours later on the plaid den couch. Will is preparing cups of fortifying tea in the kitchen. The two rooms open into one other, so Tessie picks up the den phone and enables the speaker doohickey so he can hear the dread-filled call she’s about to make to Dr. Whaley’s office.
“Hey, Patience.” Her need for secrecy is utmost in her mind, so she considers giving the receptionist a fake name again, then she realizes that doesn’t make sense. “It’s Tess Blessing. I’m calling to get the results of the pathology report.”
“Oh, hey. Sure. Let me pull your chart.”
Kenny Rogers and The First Edition begin serenading her and Will with, “Up, up, and awaaay in my beautiful, my beautiful ballooon.”
“Got it,” Patience comes back and says, “lemme see.”
Flop sweat, the kind that Tess had experienced when she was performing her stand-up routine in front of a particularly tough crowd, has broken out on her forehead. She picks up my hand and squeezes.
“Congratulations!” the allergy-plagued receptionist trumpets. “Your lymph nodes are clean!”
Will sets their cups on the coffee table with a smile that’s just a few ticks away from a gloat. Hadn’t he told her all along that everything was going to be okay? Tessie isn’t that easy. It’s almost impossible for her to believe that she’s one of the lucky ones. Maybe Patience misheard her name because her ears are always clogged up. “That’s really great, but are you absolutely, positively sure that you’ve got the right report?”
“Yup, and…wait a sec.”
“What?” Tess asks.
“Looks like there’s another little problem.”
There…that’s better. More familiar territory. (Tess really doesn’t do all that well with joy.)
Patience says, “Looks like your margins aren’t wide enough.”
“My margins?” A fourth-grade book report comes to mind.
“Margins are the space between good tissue and bad. Yours aren’t what they should be, which means that you’re going to need to have them revised.”
“I thought Rob cut the tumor out.” Was he incompetent? Sure, everyone liked the guy. He was a great track coach with a cute behind, and a pillar of the church and the community, but she excelled at fooling people too. What did she really know about him? Should she drive over to the hospital and demand to see proof of the work he’d done? When Will repairs the Volvo, he always shows her the busted parts. “And what do you mean I have to have more tissue removed?” It registers then. “Wait a minute…are you telling me that I’m gonna have to have another surgery?” she asks. “Just like the last one?”
Patience says, “Not exactly like the last one, but yes, you’ll need another surgery.”
Tess moans. Any relief she was feeling about the rest of her body being free of cancer is being snuffed out by the thought of another operation. She can’t picture having the strength to go through that again.
“But first things first,” Patience says. “How are you doing with your drain?”
Preoccupied with the thought that she could die during this new surgery, Tess mumbles, “Just peachy.”
“Good. Then let’s schedule you on March eighth at seven in the morning for the margin surgery.” She sneezes. “And can you come by this Thursday at two to get the drain removed?”
“Ah…let me get back to you.”
Something is going on with Will. He’s gasping for air. Assuming the tea had gone down the wrong way, Tess whacks him hard on the back, but when he turns to face her, she can see that he’s not choking. He’s sobbing. She’s only seen him cry this hard a few times over the past twenty-nine years—their wedding night, the afternoon his mother departed to the other side of the veil, and following the births of their children.
“What’s wrong?” she asks.
“I’m just so relieved that you’re gonna be okay…and I feel bad that…I’m so sorry…but I’ve been going through something really hard of my own.”
Tess sinks deeper into the couch cushions. This has got to be about the affair. All this time he’d been keeping it under his hat because he thought she was about to meet her Maker, but now that they’ve gotten the news that her death no longer appears to be imminent, looks like her husband is about to profess his undying love for Connie.
“I’m having…,” Will takes in another shuddering breath, “a midlife crisis.”
“A…a what?” She was so sure he was about to tell her—I’m having an affair, that she doesn’t think she heard him right. “What did you say?”
“I’m having a midlife crisis. That’s why I…I haven’t been here for you the way I shoulda been.”
Tess doesn’t believe she could be struck any dumber. She needs a moment to consider what he’d gotten off his chest and put onto hers. Is he telling her the truth, or is this some elaborate ruse he’s devised to further cover up the affair? She’d very much like to buy into this, it’d be so much better than him cheating on her. If only she wasn’t having such a hard time believing that he even knows what a midlife crisis is. He doesn’t watch daytime TV. Won’t read books. He sticks to magazines, and not Psychology Today. His bathroom library is comprised of issues of Golf Digest, Hospitality Today, and Classic Cars.
On the other hand, Tess is very familiar with the condition. It’s fodder for many comediennes’ stand-up routines, and a hot-button topic on daytime television talk shows. She mentally ticks off the midlife-crisis bullet points and addresses them:
A sudden improvement in appearance.
She says, “I noticed that you’ve been working out more and….” She touches his hair. “You’re coloring it.”
Foolish purchases.
“Did you buy a little red sports car?” she asks him.
His tears turn into self-deprecating laughter. “Almost bought a ’64 Triumph a few weekends ago.”
It had been what he was driving the night they’d first met at the Arthur Murray Dance Studio. It’d been a warm spring, and instructor Tess had propped open the front door to allow a lake breeze in. The muffler on the sports car was hanging by a wire, so when her last client of the night roared up, there was no mistaking he’d arrived. Cupid’s arrows found their mark the moment they laid eyes on one another. They could barely make it through the first tango lesson, that’s how weak in the knees they went in each other’s arms. They made no-holds-barred love later that night, and were married on May 16, a month and a half after Will had tripped across the studio’s threshold into her teaching arms.
She proceeds with caution. “Are you sure about this?” The shoe’s on the other foot now. Maybe he’s made an erroneous assumption of his own.
“I had an appointment with Scottie.” If Tess started having unusual symptoms her first thought would be to show up at a psychiatrist’s office, but it makes total sense that if he sensed something was off, he’d head straight to his former classmate, and now their family doctor, Dr. Johannson. “He gave me a clean bill of health, and then he explained what a midlife crisis is all about.” Will looks down at his family jewels. “And…there’s something else I need to tell you.”
Affairs.
Tess re-tenses, sure now that everything he’s revealed up to this point was just foreplay. He’s about to confess that he’s been making love to Connie every Wednesday night after all. Was it only a few minutes ago that she was feeling grateful that her life wasn’t drawing to an end?
With a flush racing up his neck, Will murmurs, “Monsieur Pierre…he’s…out of order. That’
s why I haven’t been, ya know…eager.”
Tess stress giggles. Is the man who possesses the sex drive of a teenage boy honestly asking her to believe that he can’t get it up? That’s not only preposterous, it’s insulting. Like asking her to believe the sun won’t rise.
Trying to keep the incredulousness out of her voice, she asks, “Are you telling me that Pierre can’t…?” She slowly raises her limp index finger to a firm upright position.
Will nods sheepishly.
What a crock. The Frenchman is working fine. Connie’s just worn the poor thing out, her mother scoffs.
Tess doesn’t completely disagree with Louise, and finds herself in another difficult position. She’d love to believe that a midlife dip in testosterone is why Will’s not been going after her the fevered way he usually does. It’s not that he doesn’t want to make mad love to her anymore, or that he’s stepping out on her, he’s impotent.
Trust, but verify? How could she prove it? When Will was dead to the world tonight, she and Pierre could have a little tête à tête. But even if he did rise to the occasion that would only prove that he was capable of doing so when her husband was an unconscious and unwilling participant.
She realizes that she should just stop all this torturous wondering. Ask him straight out if the high-school sweethearts have fallen back in love again, but enduring another surgery knowing for sure that her husband is cheating on her? That would take away all her hope. And he could be telling her the truth.
If wishes were horses you woulda been trampled to death years ago, Theresa.
Tess knows that she needs to take some time to carefully sort through what Will has told her. If she doesn’t, her mind will automatically take the low road. She’ll begin thinking crazy thoughts. Something like, he’s not having a midlife crisis, and now that it looks like she’s going to live, Will is just stalling for time until he can come up with a way to fulfill his promise to marry Connie. He can’t get a divorce because he’s Catholic, so the only way he can get out of their marriage is by murdering her. He’ll expertly carve up her body the way he does a side of beef at the diner, after which he’ll tell everyone, including the police chief of Ruby Falls, Stu Whitehall, that he had absolutely no idea what had happened to her and everyone would believe him because he’s a Blessing and apparently, so good at lying now.
She places her hand on Will’s cheek and says, “I want to talk more about this, but I need a few minutes to organize my thoughts, and I gotta empty my drain. I forgot to do it earlier. Stay put. I’ll be right back.”
She hurries to the upstairs bathroom to consider Will’s confession, lifts her shirt to perform the emptying routine, but something…it looks like there’s a hunk of tissue blocking the flow and the backed-up fluid is about to pop the top. She’s about to blow.
“Will!” she hollers. “Help!”
After he pounds up the stairs and arrives at her side, he says, “What’s…? Oh, geeze, that doesn’t look right.” He’s gone green around the gills, but the backup gives his manly self something to focus on. He sinks to his knees and begins tinkering with the apparatus the same way he would if something stopped working at the diner. “Let me pull this out of the top and—” he tugs too hard and the bulb separates from the tube and the insides of Tess—the blood, tissue, and fluid—spew all over the both of them.
She is mortified, but Will doesn’t pull away from her with a look of revulsion the way she anticipated he would. He tilts forward, presses his lips against the side of her bandaged breast, and says, “I know my problem can’t compare to what you’ve been going through, but…I hope you know that it’s been hard for me too, believe it or not.”
When in doubt—joke.
She places her bare foot gently on his Pierre region and says tentatively, “Not.”
When his laugh resonates in her chest, Tess bows her head and is grateful to receive the best medicine there is.
What a Trooper
My friend had been able to forget about tomorrow’s margin surgery for twenty seconds at a time, but for the other twenty-three hours, fifty-nine minutes, and forty seconds of the day, the fear took over. And it brought company. Depression.
Heartened by their recent bathroom exchange, she had asked Will during his break from the diner yesterday, “After work tonight, how about we bundle up and take a walk? Like the old days.”
He pulled a face and said, “Sorry, I can’t. It’s Wednesday. I’ve gotta stay late to…ah…review our food costs.”
Tess was crushed, until her rage kicked in. Hell hath no fury and all that. She swore to herself that if and when she did feel stronger she’d quit pussyfooting around and discover what her husband was up to once and for all and it better not be Connie. She’s already devised a rudimentary plan. She’ll follow him. Like one of those dicks in True Detective she used to read about at Dalinsky’s Drugstore when she was a kid. She might even take it one step further and get some helpful hints from the best stalker she knows—Otto the dishwasher.
She’s listening to the soundtrack of To Kill a Mockingbird as we head south on I-43 this morning. She usually plays the West Side Story soundtrack when she goes on errands longer than two miles because it’s her favorite musical, but singing along this morning to I Feel Pretty is out of the question. She’s gained nine pounds in the last month, her hair has gone even wilder, and her right breast appears to have been involved in a fender bender. Her nipple—a smashed taillight.
The day after Dr. Whaley removed the bandages and pulled the drain out with a breathtaking swoosh, she’d begun doing the exercises he’d given her to stretch the muscles near where he’d removed the lymph nodes. If she didn’t, he warned, her arm wouldn’t gain back its full mobility. The stretches would also help guard against lymphedema. Because the flow of lymphatic fluid had been changed after he removed some nodes, she had to take certain precautions to keep it from draining into her arm, which would cause it to painfully swell. When her blood pressure needed to be checked from here on out, the doc told her to insist that the phlebotomist place the cuff on her left arm. And no shaving her right underarm with a razor that could nick and lead to an infection.
To Tess’s questions about the need for the margin surgery, he shrugged and said, “I don’t necessarily agree with the pathology report, but it’s important to cover all the bases.”
Patience stopped in the exam room after Tess and Whaley had finished up. “Where’d you decide to go for your radiation treatments?” she asked.
“St. Joe’s.”
Tess had done some field research at the diner. Knowing now that one in eight women got breast cancer, she’d eavesdropped on tables of four or more lunching ladies. A Dr. David Sherman, a radiation oncologist located at the cancer center at St. Joseph’s, came up more than once in conversations. She was supposed to meet with him next week at the hospital in her old neighborhood—she and Birdie had been born there—but now, on account of the margin surgery, she’d had to push the appointment back.
Patience told her, “Dr. Sherman is highly respected. I’m sure he mentioned that you won’t be able to wear your regular bras during radiation.” He had. “You’ll need soothing fabric against your skin.” She dabbed at her nose. “The Pink Ladies would be the first to tell you that it’s better to stock up on sports bras now rather than in the midst of treatment when shopping will be too exhausting.”
That’s why we’re turning into Bayshore Mall this morning.
Sun’s not out, and there’s a twenty-mile-an-hour wind coming off Lake Michigan that’s sending the temperature below zero. Tess would love to park the Volvo out of the elements, but in the Lifetime movies Haddie and she watch, a vulnerable woman is often attacked in a parking structure, and she’d also heard that it’s the last place a person wants to be during an earthquake. (A very minor one was reported on May 6, 1947. She figures they’re due.)
Since it’s not the type of day many venture from their homes, she easily finds a slot, flips up her fu
rry parka hood, and the two of us trudge through the lot toward the mall doors.
The children are always foremost on her mind, so after she picks up a Rounders poster that was screaming Henry’s name from the front window of a novelty store, she moseys over to Boston Store’s perfume counter for a bottle of Happy. She sprays a sample of Haddie’s favorite on her wrists so she can more easily pretend that she and her girl are shopping together the way they had before trying on a pair of jeans became torturous. At Williams-Sonoma, she purchases a copper sauté pan that she knows Will would put to good use, and at the Barkery—she picks up a bag of chewy cookies for Garbo.
Trying to buy your children’s love? Charm your husband with cookware? Bribe your poor dog with a bone?
Demons are waiting for Tess in Macy’s third-floor lingerie department. When we step off the escalator, we are met by mannequins dressed in frothy, creamy underthings. She stops to finger the flimsy lace fabric like a child forever denied dessert. She wells up when she thinks that she’ll never be able to wear anything frou frou again without feeling like she’s trying to make a silk purse out of a sow’s ear. She ends up snatching four of the simple cotton sports bras that Patience had suggested off a nearby rack.
I set my arm around her shoulders as we drag toward the down escalator with her purchases. “Remember the words of Dr. Drake,” I say. “Humor is the best way to transcend the pain. Whatcha got?”
She’s nonresponsive, almost limp, so I take the initiative and tell her the joke about the Polack who got stuck on an escalator as we step on. It’s one of her favorites because her daddy told it to her, but even that doesn’t help stave off the black feelings.
