Lady Parts (18 page)

I
’m on the train now, in the quiet car, travelling from Penn Station, New York City, to Wilmington, Delaware, where I will be performing my one-woman show for the next week.

The gentle motion of the train, the gentle passing by of the trees and houses and tracks and streams and backyards and discarded cars, makes me think of death in Venice. Not my death, although it would be romantic to die in Venice in the arms of a gondolier. No, I’m thinking of someone else’s death in Venice. I guess I’m thinking of the movie and the last sad image of the boy sitting alone in the café. Or maybe there was no boy, and no café. My memory is shaky. But the passing images feel cinematic. Flashing back in time to another era. Even though the seat I am in is plastic, and the passengers are dressed in shorts, T-shirts, and sandals, even though there are empty bags of potato chips and chyrons of train info above every doorway, even
though the porter is surly and his uniform is dirty and too small for him, even though the café car serves cold pizza and packaged fast food, I still think the train is romantic and I wish I were on my way to Venice. Not to die. But to locate the hotel I might die in, when the time is right.

I
t’s so fitting. It’s rainy and dark outside. There was a thunderstorm at 6 a.m. It woke me up from my sleep at the Portland Harbor Hotel. I had spent the last night in Portland, Maine, where I had dinner with my brother and his wife. I stayed at the hotel in order to get an early train to Boston this morning. The train from Portland to Boston has been operating for only ten years. As the taxi drove up to the station, I thought back on my childhood growing up in Portland and realized I had never seen a train station here before. I think there must have been one years ago. All cities were accessible by trains at one time, weren’t they? There’s so much about my childhood that I don’t remember.

While I was waiting for the taxi, I sat in the lobby of the hotel and picked up a book on the history of Portland. It was lying invitingly on the table next to my wingback chair.

And there it was, on the first page, the beautiful poem by the New England poet Henry Wadsworth Longfellow:

I am on the train now, on my way to visit my childhood best friend, Tina. She lives in Needham, Massachusetts. I am making the two-and-a-half-hour trip from Portland to
Boston, and have arranged for a car to pick me up at South Station to drive me another thirty minutes to Tina’s home.

Tina was diagnosed eighteen months ago with glioblastoma, the most aggressive form of brain cancer. Her daughter, Jessa, wrote me a week ago that the tumour had spread and that Tina has been given six months or less to live. I have planned to spend the day with Tina and her daughter and son and four grandkids. The tumour has affected Tina’s short-term memory and speech. I’m not sure how we will carry on a conversation. I’m not sure what Tina will remember about our past. But I am sure that when I see her, she will be smiling and giggling, and her arms will be outstretched, waiting to hug me, and she will say, as she always does when she sees me, “Oh, honey, honey. How are you, honey? I am so happy to see you.”

This is an impossible journey for me. And yet, as I write this, I see how selfish that statement is—or maybe it’s just human. What is the script I am going to follow when I visit with Tina for the next seven hours? What am I expecting to accomplish? Do we reminisce? Do I try to make her laugh and forget? Do I pretend that I will see her again? Another friend, having just lost a cousin who was diagnosed with pancreatic cancer, gave me this advice when I asked him how I should be, what I should or shouldn’t say to Tina: “Be honest. Miracles do occur. You can tell her that you are going to cherish the present time together, while waiting for a miracle.”

I’m not as brave as he thinks I am. I am scared. I am scared that I will fall apart and will not be able to be strong for Tina. I am scared that I will make the present worse for her, and that she will end up taking care of me.

Forty minutes before we reach Boston, I become nervous. Stage fright. That’s what it feels like. Not sure of the role I’m playing. Not confident that I will remember my lines. Not even sure how I will inhabit my character. She’ll see through it. I won’t be convincing. I will be superficial and unable to stay present and in the moment. What am I so afraid of? That I won’t be enough. That I will let my friend down. That I will be a fake. Tina, so authentic and genuine, someone so comfortable being who she is, deserves the same back from me.

Tina Stevens and I were best friends growing up together in Portland. “Tina” wasn’t the name she was born with, but the only name I remember anyone ever calling her. Her real name was Mertina. Have you ever heard a name like that? I haven’t. It’s so original, like Tina herself.

Eighteen months ago, I received a phone call from Jessa, Tina’s daughter. She said she and her mom were coming to New York for the day to consult with a neuro-oncologist because Tina’s memory and speech were noticeably altered—something that had happened gradually over the past few weeks. It had been several years since I had seen
Tina. The last time we saw each other was when she came to see me on Broadway in
Young Frankenstein the Musical.
Whenever I appeared on Broadway, Tina would call to say she was bringing the family to New York. And then they would arrive, and I’d see how her granddaughters had grown, and we’d go out to dinner and reminisce, and then she’d load the whole family back in the car, and they’d make the trek back to Needham. Tina loved her grandchildren so much. Never said a judgmental word about anyone in her family. Just pure unconditional love. Tina had two children: Jessa, a physical therapist, and Josh, a paramedic and a registered nurse at a hospital in Needham. Although Jessa told me that both she and Josh suspected a brain tumour, they held out hope that it was benign. Tina had asked to see me. Jessa was calling because Tina’s speech was difficult to understand, especially over the phone. But she wanted very much for us to get together. Of course, I said. We’ll go out to dinner or we can order in, and then you’ll spend the night with me. Whatever you need, please come. I would love to see you both. Secretly, I was scared at what I would see, and I could already feel the wheels of
How am I going to entertain her?
spin out of control.

If there was anyone I thought could fight this cruel disease, it was Tina. I have since learned she is losing the battle. I just received this email from her beautiful, loving children:

At this point, the doctor said that she has about two to six months left to live. And you may not be surprised to learn Tina is prepared to die. She is at peace with this, as Mom told Josh, Alecia, Greg, Hailey, Mackenzie, and Jessa when we all gathered together on Saturday night to share our love for each other and hear Mom tell us that she loves us all and is okay with what is happening.

It doesn’t surprise me that Tina is at peace. She has always had deep faith. I envied her profound connection with the Church, and her life of service. That and her fierce independence. Never a victim, our Tina.

I don’t know what to do with this devastating news other than write and keep writing until every memory between us has been reignited and I can believe, in some way, that I am prolonging her life.

I can hear Tina now.
Oh, honey, don’t be silly. Please don’t do that. Don’t write about me. Write about yourself. Your life is so interesting. I am so proud of you. I am so proud of all you have accomplished.
And she would be laughing and giggling and asking me all about myself, and I would feel so damn important because that was just one of her gifts—making the other person feel so grand.

When we were growing up, I wanted so much to be like Tina. Petite and athletic, cute and confident. She was the head cheerleader at Deering High. I can see her so vividly in her purple-and-white uniform. Her short blonde hair cut in a bob. Her golden tanned face always smiling. Her hands
clutching the pompoms that sat resting on her hips, her legs spread apart in a
V
as she stared directly into the bleachers, ready to shout out the next command.

“Sway to the left, sway to the right. Stand up, sit down, fight fight fight.” So fitting a cheer for Tina. A fighter in the sweetest little package.

Tina and I were inseparable in high school. I tried so hard to be different and rebellious when I was growing up, in order to stand apart from everyone so I would be noticed, when all I really wanted was to belong. Tina, on the other hand, was a true free spirit. She didn’t need to work hard at being someone she wasn’t. She knew who she was. She was proud of who she was. She didn’t make excuses for who she was. She didn’t have to try to be anything.

One night—I was probably fourteen at the time—I was awoken by rocks being thrown at my bedroom window. I looked outside and there was Tina. It was 3 a.m. She had climbed up the tree next to the house and was now knocking on my second-story bedroom window. I opened it.

“Let’s go to Dunkin’ Donuts,” she whispered.

Wow, what an adventure. How daring. How exciting. And Tina was going to lead the way. I just had to follow. I got dressed, snuck out the window, and both of us, in the middle of the night, walked the neighbourhood streets of Portland until we reached Dunkin’ Donuts. We sat and ate
doughnuts like big girls, and drank chocolate milk. We were not there long before we were approached by two policemen who had noticed two young, unaccompanied girls sitting in a doughnut shop in the middle of the night. This was Portland, Maine, in the early ’60s. Believe me, we stood out. They put us in their patrol cars and drove us back home. I don’t remember Tina being the least bit concerned. Why shouldn’t we be able to get doughnuts at 3 a.m.? We weren’t hurting anyone.

I was punished, of course. My mom, in her nightgown, answered the door and saw a policeman with her fourteen-year-old daughter, who she thought was upstairs asleep, and was speechless. Rebellious Andrea must have been the culprit who organized this dangerous outing. Sweet Tina got off without much reprimanding. I lost my privileges for a month.

Feisty. That is a perfect way to describe my friend. After high school, Tina went to nursing college. There she met her future husband, Jim, who was studying to be a doctor. After Tina’s graduation, they moved to Manhattan, where Jim began his residency. I had just moved to New York, after graduating from college and touring with my first professional show,
You’re a Good Man, Charlie Brown.
As I didn’t yet have an apartment, Tina and Jim invited me to stay with them. Tina had recently given birth to a baby girl, Jessa. They lived on the Upper West Side in a high-rise apartment with the baby and a parrot she had found walking on Madison Avenue. Tina rescued the bird and brought him home. What was the parrot’s name? Oh, I wish I could
ask Tina right now. I wish I could pick up the phone and ask her. We have loved telling that story over the years. I fear she could not find the words now to tell me. Her speech is limited and her memory going.

I stayed with Jim and Tina on and off from 1969 to 1970. During that time, Jim was sent a draft notification. They had a new baby. He was in medical school. Tina didn’t want Jim to be drafted. She did not want to lose her husband to the war. She took just enough pills to make it look like a suicide attempt so that Jim would be kept from going overseas. She was a nurse, after all, and she knew what she was doing. I thought it was the most brave and selfless act anyone could perform. She was singular in her devotion to the people she loved.

It is still grey and rainy and overcast and gloomy. The train’s rocking motion is comforting, like the rocking of a baby in its mother’s arms. It feels safe and nurturing and calming. And the past seems present and clear. All the many different memories are one. Our youth. Our lost youth. Tina’s and my youth. Our lives. Our experiences. Our love for each other, one memory.

Thirty minutes to go to Boston. I have spent a good portion of my life running away. I can’t today. I don’t want to.
Tina, who kept me real during my youth, deserves me to be real today.

God give me the strength to be there for my friend so that our youth will endure. And Tina will remain alive forever.

Tina and I and her family spent the day together at her home in Needham. She knew who I was but never said my name. She told me over and over again that she loved me. We laughed and looked at old high school yearbooks, but I think that for most of the time she did not recall the people in the photos. A couple of times she recognized a face and I told her the name as she nodded in delight. Maybe it is a good thing that her memory is going rapidly. Maybe she does not realize that her death is imminent. She smiled from the time I arrived at 10 a.m. until I left at five that evening. She is nurturing and loving and will be a caring mother until her last breath. I did not say I would see her again. I cried, though I’m not sure she understood why. I told her I loved her over and over. When we went on a walk around her neighbourhood, away from her children, I asked her how she felt. She kept saying that her kids were happy. Nothing about herself. Just her kids. I sensed her increased frustration at her inability to communicate. I hugged her and said I was so grateful that we were together, that we should enjoy every moment in the
present while we waited for a miracle. I think that she understood. She stopped and looked at me, and I felt, for that one moment that day, an unspoken acknowledgement between us of the truth.

That was the last time I saw Tina. The final image I have of her is her standing at the front door of her little house in Needham, with Josh and Jessa and the grandkids by her side. She was waving and smiling as I got in the taxi that would take me back to the train station. I kept looking at her as the taxi drove away. Tina never stopped waving and smiling until the car pulled out of sight.

Tina died a few weeks later, on September 14, 2012. Her daughter-in-law, Alecia, sent me this text:

Tina passed around 9 p.m., very peacefully and waiting until all four of her grandbabies were tucked into bed. We are happy she is whole again, but miss her already. Lots of love to you, her dear friend.

On December 2, 2012, Tina would have turned sixty-six years old. On that date I was performing in Boston, at the American Repertory Theater in the pre-Broadway tryout of
Pippin.
Tina’s kids and grandkids were in the audience. The character I played in
Pippin
was Berthe, Pippin’s grandmother. There is a lyric in the song “No Time at All” that Berthe sings: