by Ann Bauer
“For you, dear?” George asked and she shook her head.
“I’ll just get some water.” She backed out of the room and headed down the hall toward the kitchen. It was better not to watch.
“Is he here?” Olive asked, her back to Carmen as she slid a pan into the top oven. “Can you keep an eye on the Brussels sprouts while I go say hello?” She slipped her head out of the loop of her apron. “Just shout if anything starts to smoke.”
Carmen drew her glass of water and walked the perimeter of the cavernous kitchen. There was a boxed cake on the counter, Olive’s one concession: she was a great cook, she often said, but no baker. Carmen circled again and this time she lifted the lid of the white bakery box. Inside, the cake was ice white and decorated with a combination of frosting roses and real ones in matching crimson. The calligraphy in the center said, CONGRATULATIONS CARMEN AND JOBE.
“I’m telling Mom,” said a voice behind her and she turned to see Nate. He grinned—a softer, shorter, more graceful version of his brother—and swung up on the counter. “You don’t want to snitch dessert before dinner. I did that one time when the ’rents were having these NASA guys over for dinner. Whoa! Talk about a bad decision. I was six years old and I still remember …”
“So what do you think this means?” Carmen interrupted. “Come here and look.”
Nate slid down and came up behind Carmen to peer over her shoulder. “I think it means they’re congratulating you.”
“Yeah, I got that. But for what?” She turned and he was still so close she found herself inside his spread arms. The boy blushed, just as Jobe often did. Carmen had seen the way Nate watched her, his expression full of curiosity and pain every time she wore something tight or—especially—the one time he’d come home from baseball practice and found her coming out of Jobe’s room. In fact, they hadn’t been messing around that day; she’d gone in to look for a book she thought she’d left there. But Nate acted as if he’d caught the two of them humping on the dining room table.
“I dunno, you’re graduating, I guess. Isn’t that what this whole dinner is about?”
“Yeesss.” Carmen wanted to believe this, but something was bothering her.
“How are those vegetables doing?” Olive asked, rushing in.
Carmen and Nate both jumped back from the box. “Oh, sorry, I forgot to check,” Carmen said. “I hope they’re not burned.”
Olive scowled and opened the oven. “Nope, just perfect.” Her face softened as she came toward Carmen and touched her cheek. “Your father is a lovely man but I think he’s a little nervous. Who can blame him? He feels like a stranger in his own daughter’s home. Why don’t you go out and see if you can make him more comfortable? Nate will help me finish up in here.”
When Carmen stepped back into the living room she saw immediately that her father was not uncomfortable, he was drunk. Sprawled on the couch, coat open, belt buckle jutting out, he was listing for George and Jobe—who had materialized when she wasn’t looking—all his complaints about the manufacturing culture in Detroit.
“It’s the goddamn unions,” he said in a voice too loud for the room. “They mean well, but the rules have gotten so complicated you need a book just to know what’s going on. Real people get lost in a system like that.”
George was nodding in a fuddled way, Jobe staring down at his folded hands. When Antonio looked up and saw Carmen in the doorway he winked. “There’s my beautiful girl. Come sit next to me. I was just getting to know your boyfriend here.”
He gestured toward Jobe, who shot Carmen a guilty look, his sunken eyes large. She couldn’t help feeling sympathy.
It was a painful few minutes until Nate called them to the dining room. Olive was already standing near her place at the foot of the table. Though she insisted on cooking company meals herself, she hired a woman to serve so she could eat with guests. Carmen had grown used to this but wished now that she’d thought to tell her father; he’d assume—she knew immediately—that there was a staff of ten working behind the scenes.
There was a bottle of wine already open on the table with the cork resting alongside. George picked it up and began pouring, his long arm allowing him to reach all the way to Olive though he remained sitting. He gave Carmen and Jobe each a glass, skipped Nate, then served Antonio and himself, emptying the bottle, going back to Antonio twice to add a little more. Carmen pressed her hands to her thighs with frustration. She could envision her father flopped in his seat and snoring by the end of the meal.
“Cheers,” George said, raising his glass. And the rest of them followed suit. Even Carmen could taste how good this was: a dusty, rich red wine with an odor she could swear she remembered from France.
The server came out from the kitchen with plates. At least she wore jeans and a Maryland T-shirt, rather than a maid’s uniform. Carmen hoped her father noticed. Then she glanced at the shapely woman whose nipples were visible, erect inside her bra, and hoped he didn’t. She’d never seen him drunk in public; she had no idea how he would behave.
“We’re keeping it simple tonight,” Olive said as Miss Maryland set down the dishes. “Just roasted duck and vegetables, then the salad course, then dessert.”
“Just the way I like it. I’m a meat and potatoes man,” said Antonio, nodding.
Everyone ate in silence for a few beats. Then Olive cleared her throat and said, “Before our wine is gone, I think we should all toast Carmen and Jobe.” She lifted her glass. “To their life together after graduation,” she said.
But for once, Antonio did not rush to pick up his drink. Instead, he stared at Carmen with an abruptly sober question in his eyes. She wanted to answer it but could not imagine how. Even if they’d been alone, she didn’t know what she would have said. She had acquiesced to something the other night, at the ice cream store, on the swing. Her deal was made. So she raised her own glass and turned from her father to smile brightly at Jobe.
JULY 2007
It seemed now that Carmen spent most of her time on the phone, talking to people who sounded either extremely urgent or bored by the whole breast cancer routine.
First, there was Dr. Woo’s scheduling nurse who insisted chemotherapy should begin immediately. “You don’t want to give anything a chance to grow,” the woman said, as if there were a possibility that rhododendrons might sprout inside Carmen were she to waste too much time. “Doctor wants you to get in for treatment as soon as possible.” Then she gave Carmen a number to call where she ended up on hold so long that she gave up twice—hanging up in frustration—before finally getting through.
Once she did, the voice on the other end of the phone was monotone, checking off details the way a weary carnival ride operator might announce, Keep your hands inside the car at all times. “We’ve got two slots for our three-hour people: seven to ten or one to four. Which one do you want?”
Carmen stopped to consider. Did she want to get up before dawn and have her body poisoned before lunch so she could spend the rest of the day swimming in chemical muck? Or would she prefer that flat, hottest part of afternoon—three hours of sitting idle in the middle of the day—then stepping out into rush hour with her organs freshly scalded and trying to fight her way home?
“Seven to ten,” she said.
“Alright. We’re going to need you here about thirty minutes early the first time, no less, so we can do a baseline blood draw,” the voice droned on. “You probably don’t want to eat breakfast that morning, but it’s up to you. You’ll get antinausea drugs in the cocktail, along with whatever your doctor ordered. Wear comfortable clothes and something to read or work on: knitting, crossword. No small children or pets.”
Pets? Carmen imagined a clinic full of exotic animals, iguanas on leashes and brightly colored birds swooping through the room.
“Any questions?”
“My hair. When will I lose it?”
“Second treatment. Somewhere in the neighborhood of twenty-four to forty-eight hours after.”
&n
bsp; Carmen caught her breath. There’d been no wavering, no slim chance held out that she might respond differently than other women. “You’re that certain?” she asked.
“It could take up to three days for everything to fall out,” the voice revised. “But that’s pretty much the limit. Most women shave it off before, to keep the drain at home from clogging up.”
Carmen’s third call was to a shop that had come highly recommended by the Breast Recovery Foundation for natural-looking human hair wigs. If she got in tomorrow to be photographed and measured, the woman on the phone told her, they might possibly be able to turn something around for her in four months. Six at the outside.
“But I’m going in for chemo next week,” Carmen said.
“I sympathize,” said the wigmaker automatically. “But we’re very proud of our products and I assure you, they’re worth the wait.”
There was no trying to parse this logic. Carmen had more important things on her mind: She had to decide when and how to tell her children what was happening, and what to do about work.
She didn’t need the money. Her paycheck was laughable compared to the money that came from other sources: Jobe’s insurance, and the trusts that George and Olive had set up for the kids. But she did need the insurance coverage; Jobe’s had lapsed the day he died and Carmen had gladly let it go. Luca was covered under a Maryland program for the disabled, but she and the other two children were on her policy from the agency. And now Carmen was worried about the myriad of other gruesome, unexpected illnesses that might come up. What was it that long-ago ob-gyn had called it when Luca was born? A mistimed collision. There seemed to be a lot of those going around.
Carmen called the HR director—who was also the agency’s controller; it was a small shop—to explain the situation. But when he answered, this man she knew mostly as the guy who manned the grill at their company picnics, she seized up. How did one go about telling a relative stranger that so many calamities had been visited upon her house? Surely he would judge her, understanding that she was guilty of something even if he didn’t know what.
“Do you have some time free tomorrow?” she asked casually. “I’ll be in around nine and could meet with you any time.”
But once she was seated in his office, around two o’clock the next afternoon, she realized she’d made yet another mistake. This would have been so much easier over the phone rather than wedged into his schedule, between the messy firing of a web site architect who was downloading porn on his computer—the rumors had been flying around all morning—and a meeting with the quarterly tax guy.
“You look wonderful, Carmen,” said the HR man, picking up his gold pen and holding it poised over a legal pad. The last time she’d spoken to him he’d sounded distrustful, but he was all warmth and Easter bunny goodness now. “Once again, my sincere condolences. So”—he coughed, a kind of segue—“what’s on your mind?”
“I have, um, cancer.” She winced. It was a disgusting word, all slippery and attractive on the surface, but rotted horror underneath. “I’m going to have to start chemotherapy soon and I’m worried about how this will affect my job performance. However …” The only way to do this was to be honest; she’d come to this conclusion in the middle of the night. “I need to maintain my insurance, for obvious reasons. I let go of the university policy when my husband died and this …” She held out her hands. “Is all I have.”
“Oh, Carmen, I’m so sorry.” The man was rising from his chair and circling the desk, coming toward her with his hands outstretched to grasp hers. “I don’t know how you bear up under all this! Your poor husband and now this. You are a saint, I think. One of God’s chosen.”
“I thought those were the Jews,” Carmen said, tugging her hands away discreetly.
“What I meant was …” He’d let go of her left hand but continued to hold her right. “God knows who can handle tragedy and who can’t. He must feel that you’re very strong.”
Carmen blinked. It was as if she’d never met this man before! Rather than the cheerful, red-faced man who forked over a bratwurst from inside a cloud of charcoal smoke, he was a lunatic. Some sort of hit-and-run preacher. Fury rose in Carmen’s chest—feeding her cancer no doubt. Everything would be better if she could gore this guy with his pen.
Instead Carmen pretended to cough and yanked her hand away, supposedly to cover her mouth. “Thanks,” she said after she’d given a few convincing hacks. “But really, what I’m looking for is your professional advice. I wanted to come forward at the outset so this doesn’t catch anyone off guard. But I’m going to have to plan my work schedule around,” she plowed on as fast as she could, because it was the only way to say it, “chemotherapy. And I need to make sure that reducing my hours for a while won’t affect coverage for me and the, uh, kids.”
“Hmm. I need to …” The HR man perched on the edge of his desk. “I’m thinking, Carmen, that we should bring Fred in on this.”
He left her to track down the agency owner and she was glad. As boring as it was sitting in this office, staring out through the enviable windows at the building next door, it was better than having to listen to him and confront someone else’s suspicions that God had had a hand in her cancer. She already had enough suspicions of her own along those lines.
Ten minutes later when Fred Lang came in and took her hand, she reflexively presented her cheek. The last time she’d seen Fred was after Jobe’s funeral when he had kissed her on his way out the door, his breath laced with garlic and hot mustard. Now he leaned down to press his cheek against hers—a more appropriate office greeting, Carmen understood—smelling of nothing but the faint midday sweat of someone who’d taken a walk at lunch.
“Carmen, I’m so, so sorry to hear this,” Fred said. And like the HR director before him, Fred stood leaning on the edge of the desk. But this felt entirely different. Fatherly, almost. Carmen wondered why she and Fred had never been closer. She wondered, too, if he knew that she’d slept with an account executive a few weeks after starting her job. “We are 100 percent behind you. Whatever you need, we’ll make it happen. All you need to worry about is getting well.”
“Meaning … ?” The question drifted in from far away; Carmen turned. She’d nearly forgotten about the preacher. But he was inserting himself back into this conversation, questioning—Carmen was sure—whether she merited such wholehearted support.
“Meaning.” Fred was smooth. Everyone knew this was why his firm succeeded in a field crowded with writers and designers who were no better than average (including, Carmen would have admitted ruefully, her). The owner alone was extraordinary: well dressed and charming. Also ruthless, though when he was negotiating, this trait never came out until the end. “If Carmen needs to work from home for a while, we’ll set her up with a networked computer from there. And if not, we can adjust her schedule. How does that sound?”
Fred turned back to her and she paused, wanting more than anything for the man to sit down so she could crawl up on his lap. It was confusing, this feeling. She didn’t know if she wanted him to continue being fatherly or rip off her clothes and take her on the desk. Whatever happened, she imagined that afterward they could plan in whispers how to vanquish the zealot forever so their cozy familial relationship could remain intact.
“That’s very nice of you, Fred,” she said, and cleared her throat. “I don’t know yet what I’ll need. I have my first treatment next week so I’ll know more then about how it affects me.” She took a shaky breath, picturing herself as that stork-thin, white, bald woman with a kerchief, sitting in her cube at work. There was no way this man, or any other, would want her then. “Can we put off planning until I know?”
“Of course, of course.” Fred seemed lost in thought and entirely unhurried, which was part of his charm.
“There is another potential solution.” The HR man moved forward, breaking into the bubble Carmen and Fred had created. They both swiveled in his direction. “I’ve been thinking …. You told me, Carmen
, that you were concerned mostly about your insurance, that you’d let your husband’s lapse. But according to federal law, you have ninety days to invoke COBRA after a spouse’s death, and if I’m counting correctly, you’re still within that window by a few days. If you’re not able to work and you’d rather just focus on your health right now, you probably could go back to Jobe’s department and fill out the paperwork. It’s just a thought.”
Carmen tensed and looked at the faces of both men. Had they talked about this, planned it as they walked through the halls to meet her? Fred appeared as surprised as she was, but he was a great actor. Everyone said that. It was another of the reasons for his success: He had the ability to appear riveted even by a client he loathed.
“Why … why would I do that?” she finally asked.
“Well.” The man slid back behind his desk and started tapping on his computer, suddenly businesslike. “We’re a small company, so we have certain limits on our policy. For instance, I believe there’s a, yes, here it is, a one-million-dollar lifetime limit for you. Cancer treatment can easily run into the many millions. Especially if it”—at least he had the decency to avert his eyes when he said this—“recurs. But the university has thousands of employees and their pool is large, so they can afford a much larger cap. As I think you found out with Jobe.”
“But wouldn’t there be a deadline?” Poor choice of words. Carmen revised. “A time limit?”
The man nodded. “Eighteen months. Still, you might want to check into it. If the treatment is much better through their plan, it still might be worth it. Getting the very best medicine right up front is known to save lives in cases like this. And I’m not saying our insurer would scrimp. But there are certain economic realities. We’re a small operation and, unfortunately, we can’t afford to support a critically sick individual for very long.”
