His payoff: I arranged a night out for us, which involved dinner at my favorite neighborhood Italian restaurant and a movie. Despite our table in the restaurant’s basement (albeit a very nice basement), which led us to joking about being near enough to the laundry room to do the linens, and seeing a movie made from the book of an author friend that wasn’t exactly date-appropriate, we had a great time. As at the hockey game, we talked pretty much nonstop (except during the movie). When he took me home, I let him kiss me, and it was a very good kiss. I also blurted out as he was departing, “You’re a really nice guy, Ed Spitznagel.”
He gave me a funny look, and the next day, I got an e-mail that read: “If you ever call me ‘nice’ again, I’ll have to spank you.”
Ha! I thought that was hilarious! And I let him know that being nice was a good thing in my book. I wasn’t one of those women who lusted after bad boys. Boy Scouts were more my style. Finding a guy who said what he meant and kept his promises felt a little like winning the lottery. That chemistry I had wondered about earlier? Oh, it was there in spades. Being with Ed made me giddy in a way I hadn’t been since college.
To top it off, he composed the most wonderful e-mails, warm and clever and always grammatical. His spelling was impeccable, which I found refreshing after receiving too many notes from guys who clearly didn’t use dictionaries or comprehend how punctuation worked. So when I happily told my mom, “Ed even knows how to use a semicolon!” she was ready to book the church.
Since Ed frequently got carded when we ate out—like, nine out of ten times—occasionally the question about our age difference would rear its ugly head. Did it look to the world like I was his mother? That was my main concern! Otherwise, I didn’t care, and I hoped it didn’t bother him either. Still, he did look awfully young for his age, and no matter how fabulous I felt at forty-one, I clearly was the older one of the pair.
One truly uncomfortable moment came while we were out at an Italian restaurant chain, and our waitress said I reminded her of someone she knew, and was I, perhaps, the mother of her eighteen-year-old friend Sasha. “No,” I told her, although I realized I could have been. “I don’t have kids.” What I really wanted to say was Aw, too bad, sweetie. There went your tip.
“It doesn’t matter,” Ed would assure me, and I would agree. But that didn’t mean we didn’t get ribbed about it fairly often.
My real cougar sister was the first to start calling me a cougar, a term I was only familiar with because of tabloid magazine fodder relating to Hollywood actresses like Cher and Demi Moore. “I’m not a cougar,” I insisted. “I’m just an accidental cougar!” Ed had done the chasing, not me. I’d never been fond of animal prints, had never crashed a frat party to pick up a college boy, and I had no desire to laser or Botox my face (or any other part of my anatomy).
Although being called a cougar did have its merits. My editor would soon ask me to consider writing a novel about forty-something women who date younger men (“so long as it isn’t cheesy,” I insisted, and ended up penning The Cougar Club, released in late January of 2010).
As I’d later learn, Ed’s mother was concerned about my cougar-dom, too. I couldn’t hide my age from her as it was there in black and white in the November 2005 issue of St. Louis Magazine. But I hoped that when she had the chance to meet me, she’d see I was hardly a modern-day Mrs. Robinson.
Despite telling myself to take it slow, Ed and I began spending lots of time together. He showed up at my book signings, including one at Big Sleep Books in early December of 2005, where we flirted and held hands, causing the owner of the store, Helen Simpson, to whisper in my mother’s ear, “They’d make such beautiful babies!” I think Helen was as anxious as my mom that I find a good man.
After more dates, book events, and lots of e-mails, I invited Ed to my folks’ house for Christmas Eve dinner. By then, I knew something special was going on. I could hardly write my next mystery for thinking about him. And when I wasn’t thinking about him, he was over at my place or we were out doing something fun, like freezing our butts off at the St. Louis Zoo to see the Wild Lights display that ran throughout the winter holidays.
When he came to pick me up for the meet-the-folks dinner, he was wearing a neon-green and black striped shirt. In the past I’d been rather picky about how my dates dressed. Which is how my mom knew it was true love even before I did. “His shirt was awful, and you didn’t care,” she said to me the next day. I think my mom and dad fell a little in love with Ed that night as well. They could see he was good for me and sharp enough that I’d never get bored. And it inspired visions of grandkids dancing in my mother’s head. “If he knocks you up and leaves you,” she said, “I’ll help take care of the baby.”
I’m not kidding.
Sometime after the New Year, I had the privilege of meeting Ed’s family to celebrate his thirty-second birthday. I remember sitting across from his dad in a booth at the Cheesecake Factory, and I liked Big Ed right away as he laughed at my jokes.
Of course, I worried what Ed’s mom was thinking, though we did a girls’ bathroom break and I got to chitchat with her for a bit. She seemed so down-to-earth and sweet, and I just hoped I was making a good impression. I really wanted her to see how much I cared for her son and not assume I was some older chick taking advantage of him. (Later, she would confess that Ed had told her he was bringing his “better half” to his birthday dinner, to which she’d replied, “Do you know what you’re saying?”)
In early February, I gave Ed a key to condo-sit when I had to leave for a mystery conference in Birmingham. Even after I returned, he never really left, mostly living at my place with me and my cats, Max and Munch. Within a few more weeks, I knew without a doubt that this was the real deal. We had both said, “I love you” already, and I believed it to be true. I even changed my mind about needing a duplex. I didn’t want to separate myself from him. I loved being with Ed, and he gave me the space I needed without having to lock him out. He allowed me to be me, and I let him be him, although I did slowly but surely encourage him to get rid of that neon-green and black striped shirt (among a few other things).
Being an honest-to-a-fault woman who didn’t want to play fast and loose with her heart, I gave him an ultimatum . . . on Valentine’s Day. (Yep, you read that right.) I needed to hear that I was “the one” for him and that he was in this relationship for the long haul. I couldn’t keep falling deeper in love with him if he didn’t feel the same. He left for work that morning with me on the verge of tears (yeah, Happy V-Day, suckers!). I called my mom once he’d headed out and told her what I’d done.
“That’s it. He’s not coming back,” she said point-blank.
Thanks for the vote of confidence, Ma.
But she was wrong. After work that night, he came home to the condo with an armful of roses. And more importantly, he said, “You’re the one.”
“You have no doubts?”
“None.” He shook his head.
And I could finally breathe.
Every day we were together was the best day of my life. There were times in the past when I’d imagined I was in love; but until Ed, I’d never experienced unconditional love, the kind that deepens and makes you appreciate all the things in your partner that you are not. I couldn’t imagine my world without him in it.
By June of 2006, we were house hunting. We bought a place—actually, the first house we saw, though we did look at others—and moved in together that July. I got caught up in putting our new digs together, supervising painters and electricians, all the while working on a deadline for two books, my fifth series mystery for Avon called Too Pretty to Die and a nonmystery young adult series book for Random House called The Debs. Every day felt exhausting, and I neglected myself in the process, including doing my monthly breast self-exams because “I didn’t have time.”
I know. Horrible excuse.
So when I went to my doctor for
an annual physical, and she told me I had a cyst in my left breast, I wasn’t surprised. I’d had cysts before. Only this one wasn’t like any of the others. It ended up being something else entirely, something that would yank the rug right out from under my feet and put my relationship with Ed to the test.
Boobs . . .
Chapter Three
•
It’s (not) just a cyst.
•
MY GRANDMOTHER HAD breast cancer when I was in grade school. I distinctly remember my mom crying and telling us she had to go to St. Louis to take care of her mom. But, of course, I didn’t understand what was going on, just that my grandma was sick.
When I saw Grandma that summer, she talked about having a mastectomy and sticking a prosthesis in her bra; but I had no idea what any of that meant. I was just happy she seemed well again, clearly having recovered from whatever had ailed her. She was as feisty (and bossy) as ever. I didn’t notice any difference.
Boobs were not something much discussed in those days, except when some of the wild boys in fifth grade used to chase us girls around, yelling, “Titty twisters!” and grabbing at our chests, even if there wasn’t anything to grab.
My family was rather conservative. We didn’t talk about emotions, much less about body parts, which didn’t seem important until I was in junior high and sprouted breasts. My sister and I were on a gymnastics team then, clad in leotards for hours after school each day. Molly was slow to develop. I was not. Even though my budding boobs barely required a training bra, I was still the “biggest” on the team for a long while (until we had three eighteen-year-olds join up). I was very self-conscious and often wore big T-shirts over my leotards at practice. For years after, I felt like I was overly endowed, until other girls began growing breasts far larger.
I don’t recall anyone ever expressing concern that I was at a higher risk for breast cancer than the average female. Indeed, when I was a young adult and the issue came up with my gynecologist, I was told that my maternal grandmother’s diagnosis did not put me in any extra danger. My mother and her sister, my aunt Mary, were fine. No one on my father’s side had ever had breast cancer that I was aware of.
However, I did have a baseline mammogram at thirty-five and began to have them yearly at age forty, mostly because I had dense breast tissue and tended toward cysts. Every now and then I’d call my doctor, concerned about feeling a lump. She would examine me, assure me that what I felt was benign, and it would eventually go away. After years of this pattern, I may have even gotten a little blasé about feeling the occasional bump on self-exam.
In fact, in August of 2006 when I went in for a routine exam and my doctor pointed out that I had another “cyst,” I was truly unconcerned. “Here,” she told me, “feel this. Did you know it was there?”
“No,” I told her, because I hadn’t noticed. I was so busy with movers and painters and electricians—and the inevitable book deadline—that I hadn’t taken the time to do a recent self-exam.
Because of my past history, she was convinced it was nothing to worry about, and I was doubly reassured by the fact that my annual mammogram was forthcoming on September 11. (Cue ominous music! Definitely a date I will forever after avoid when scheduling mammograms!).
When I went in for the test, I told the technician about the lump. She seemed perplexed that my doctor had ordered a screening mammogram and not a diagnostic scan. “You can call her,” I said, “and get the order changed if you’re concerned.”
Honestly, I just wanted to do the test and get out of there.
The tech did not phone my doctor and the order was not changed, so I had the screening mammogram without any kind of spot check. A week or so after, I got the all-clear letter telling me, “You’re fine. See you next year.”
I breathed a sigh of relief; but I couldn’t completely let it go. Something didn’t feel right. Every time I showered, I rubbed the area over the “cyst.” It did not seem to be going away and felt awfully hard besides, like a small marble.
“Feel this,” I would say to Ed on occasion, and he’d get the funniest look on his face. “Does it seem bigger?” I’d badger, and he’d reply, “I don’t know.”
Clearly, he was terrified of saying the wrong thing. Men, I decided, do not make good boobometers. They’re not wired to say, “Yes, this lump feels weird,” any more than they’re apt to tell us, “Yes, you do look fat.”
So I pretended everything was okay and tried to put the lump out of my mind. My life was so busy that I convinced myself “the mammogram was negative, the doctor thinks you’re fine,” and I put any fear out of my head, at least for a while.
On December 11, three months after my mammogram, I was at brunch to celebrate my sister’s birthday when I felt twinges of pain in my left breast, right in the area of the “cyst.” I honestly believe that my body was trying to tell me something and, this time, I listened.
I called my doctor’s office the next day, a Monday, and I requested an ultrasound. She agreed to set it up, although she wanted me to come see her again first for an exam. When I saw her and she palpated the area, she again assured me, “It’s a cyst. It’s just a cyst.”
My mother accompanied me to the ultrasound, sitting in the waiting room while I underwent the scan. I tried to keep things light, talking and joking as the ultrasound tech touched the paddle to my left breast after prepping me with gooey gel. I couldn’t help but watch the monitor along with her, and I saw the grainy jellybean-shaped blob as soon as she did. Though she maintained a calm demeanor, I sensed a change in her expression—or maybe I was projecting my alarm onto her, I’m not sure which.
“What is it?” I asked, feeling a rising sense of panic.
“It’s probably nothing,” she said. “But let me get the chief radiologist to take a look.” She made sure I was covered and comfortable while I waited for the doctor to appear.
I had a feeling that the lump was something bad even before the radiologist came in, introduced himself, and checked out the area for himself. “We need to do a biopsy,” he told me, and I nodded, fighting the urge to bawl. One thing was for sure: I wanted that biopsy done as soon as possible. The ultrasound technician was very kind, relating in a calm voice the high probability that this abnormality was benign.
But as soon as I dressed and found my way back to the front desk—and saw my mom in the waiting room—I burst into tears. “It’s bad, I know it,” I said, struggling to hold myself together long enough to set up my appointment for a biopsy later that week.
I went home wondering what would happen if I was in that small percentage of women whose results were not benign. How would Ed take it? What would it do to our lives? What about the books I had to write? So many questions raced through my mind that I felt sick to my stomach.
Ed and I were always upfront with each other, so I didn’t hide anything from him. I told him what was going on and how scared I was. He’s a good listener and a pro at keeping his cool. “It’s going to be okay,” he said, and squeezed my hand. But I’m not sure any amount of coddling could have made me relax.
The core biopsy itself was a blur. I went back to the same ultrasound room where I’d been the week before. I recall getting numbed so the radiologist could insert needles and withdraw bits of the lesion for pathology. I may have babbled endlessly during the procedure (my typical MO), or I may have said nothing at all. I think I blocked out much of what transpired that day because I was so afraid; and so convinced of rotten news well before my doctor phoned with the results of the biopsy report.
Chapter Four
•
Am I going to die?
•
THE CORE BIOPSY results returned just days before Christmas in 2006.
When the phone rang, I answered in our bedroom and heard my doctor’s voice. I couldn’t sit down. I could hardly stand still. When she said, “You have cancer,” the world stopp
ed spinning for an instant. It took a minute to catch my breath. Then I asked the first thing that crossed my mind: “Am I going to die?”
I was only forty-two. I had been with Ed for a year. We had picked out an antique engagement ring and he intended to officially propose over the holidays. I had two book deadlines looming; in fact, I was in the midst of writing Too Pretty to Die, the fifth and last of my mystery series. All I could think about was my future, and suddenly I questioned whether I’d have much of a future at all.
“No, you’re not going to die,” my doctor said quite firmly. “You have something called pure mucinous carcinoma. The prognosis is excellent. But you need to call a breast surgeon and schedule an appointment to discuss surgery and treatment.”
Oh boy.
I hated needles, couldn’t imagine being cut into, and I wondered if I’d have to do chemotherapy, putting poison in my body to kill the bad with the good.
I was scared out of my mind.
She gave me names, and as soon as I hung up with her, I tearfully phoned the surgical practice. It was close to dinnertime on a Thursday and Christmas was that Monday. I was frantic when I was told the first available appointment I could get with the surgeon to whom my doctor had referred me was weeks and weeks away. I ended up asking, “Is there another surgeon there who could see me before the holiday weekend?”
“Dr. O is available,” I was told, and I immediately scheduled an appointment for the next day.
I’m not patient. I’m horrible at waiting. I didn’t need more time to ponder what had to be done. I wanted this thing out of my breast ASAP. I felt like an alien had invaded my body, and I envisioned it growing, taking over my organs, and making me weaker and weaker. That was the worst thing about the diagnosis: all of a sudden being told I was ill when I didn’t feel ill at all. I felt great, as a matter of fact, the opposite of sick. I couldn’t understand how something so small could wreak such havoc. But that’s what cancer does: it’s subversive and stealthy, sneaking up like a thief in the night, hiding in the shadows, hoping no one will see.
In the Pink Page 2
