Live a Little (13 page)

“Do you have some—”

“— wine?” I finish for her, prompting a laugh. I pull a chilled bottle of buttery Chardonnay out of the mini-fridge and pour two ample glasses. I’ve always worked better with a drink or two in me, and work is what I need to do if I’m to make Saskia Waxman’s July deadline for my show.

“This is kind of embarrassing, but would you mind if we turn on the TV?” my subject asks. “There’s this show I always watch at ten
A.M.
”

I gesture toward the remote and busy myself cleaning up my tools. I need to get out of here by eleven o’clock if I am to get home in time to pick up the food for tonight’s party.

A few seconds later, my sister’s dulcet tones fill the room. I feel my eyes pull toward the television. During Laurie’s tenure as the queen of local talk shows, I have learned that you cannot
not
watch someone you know on the box: It’s not humanly possible.

Laurie has on a screamingly expensive creamy pantsuit with strappy medium-heeled pumps. Her lapel is pierced by an apple-green ribbon. I try to recall what cause that color signifies but am distracted by a flash from one of my sister’s ears. Diamond studs. Big ones. I wonder if they are a gift from Ren. As the years have gone by without any children, and Laurie’s otherwise flawless smile has gotten incrementally tighter—though no less dazzling—the baubles have gotten bigger.

“I’m addicted to it,” the Pacifica woman says apologetically. “Have you ever watched? She’s so great. So inspiring. She always finds a way to talk about people’s problems without making them feel bad about themselves.”

True,
I think but don’t say as I slide spatulas under water,
she left that part to Ma.

“. . . happy birthday to YOU!” we shout. I raise my voice so as not to be accused of being one of those birthday-song stragglers. Ma sits stoically throughout, peering at us from behind her reading glasses, which she habitually keeps on to read food nutrition labels.

“Yeah, yeah, all right,” she says, waving her hand at us. “Thanks, kids. Now you”—she tugs Micah’s ear, which pokes out from under his tumble of shaggy light brown Phil hair— “tell me about that soccer tournament in Pleasanton. Your mom said you scored on a corner.”

After a quick survey to make sure the food and drink platters are fully stocked, I escape to the kitchen. Sue follows me.

“So, tell me about this surfer,” my best friend says after she grabs a deviled egg and pops it in her mouth. She says it several (dozen) notches too loudly.

I shush her and slide a tray of homemade—by Draeggers’s pastry chefs, but so what?—brownies in the oven to warm. The punch needs to be refreshed, so I start slicing oranges and lemons on the cutting board.

“Didn’t I tell you about Duke already?” All the lying I am doing has my internal information-tracking software in a dither.

Sue widens her gray eyes toward the heavens. “Duke? Oh my God. She slept with an underage dog’s name.”

“I didn’t sleep with him!” I recall the smooth feel of young hand against my own increasingly withered flesh and unsuccessfully suppress a smile. “We just made out. Not even that, really. It was more like, you know, an innocent kiss.”

“Oh my God,” Sue moans. “Innocent, my ass! Tell me everything. I want details!”

In a hushed torrent, I relay the minutiae of our last night in Mexico: how, at the bar, Duke’s hand migrated leisurely across mostly visible parts of my body while we discussed the whimsical logic of Malcolm Gladwell; the terror of being spotted that did wonderful things to my already panicky state of lust; the drunken high-school-girl moment when I swayed against the boy on his salt-cured doorstep, refusing his unspoken physical entreaty to join him in bed; the cool relief of starched sheets rising up with each of Taylor’s inhalations as I slipped, too awake for sleep, into our shared bed. Sue took it all in with bright, enthusiastic, scandalized eyes. The intimacy and lava-flow urgency of the conversation make me feel even younger than Duke’s good-night kiss, which, as kisses go, was relatively chaste.

“So you didn’t do
anything
with him? What a waste.” Sue sighs.

“For God’s sake, Sue, give me some credit.” I open the oven and press a toothpick into the brownies. It sticks. Fuck. Overdone.

“I know. I know. I just wanted to wallow in something fabulous and lurid. It’s been so goddamn long. I’m between books,” she explains. Sue’s literary taste runs toward the pornographic and bodice-ripping.

My stepfather pops his head in. “Rachel? What are you doing in here?” He frowns at the picked-over spread of brownie crumbs and shakes his head. “Those carbs’ll kill you. I hope you used whole-grain flour.
Oy,
they think they’re going to live forever! Ren’s looking for you. He’s out back.” Eliot darts out again.

I make a horrible face at his departing back, as much to seal my gossip session with Sue as to make a deposit to my High-Yield Eliot Irritation Account. My elderly stepfather is fond of wearing the sort of tight, stretchy T-shirts favored by gays and Jack LaLanne. I guess he wants the world to enjoy the fruits of his daily weight-lifting sessions and Dean Ornish–approved, prostate-cancer-delaying diet.

Then I mainline about a liter of Chardonnay and go in search of my brother-in-law. I cannot imagine what Ren wants to talk to me about. In the two-plus decades since he dumped me for Laurie, our conversations have focused mainly on the weather, his clients’ liposuction addictions, and my children’s athletic prowess.

I find Ren in the backyard, cornered by three members of Ma’s Humanitarian Judaism/bridge/birding/whining group.

“So, tell me something. I always wondered, what do you do with the fat you suck out?” Estelle Gilden is saying as I walk up.

“They save it for boobs. Right, Loren?” Coco Stein slides a toothpick into her bridge.

“Maybe we can donate some to Raquel for when she has the mastectomy.” Edith del Toro shakes her neat, birdlike head in sympathy, the crisp black waves bisected by zebra-like gray streaks. I feel a flush of heat shriek through my neck and chest at her words. It is so embarrassing, this blithe focus on your body parts. It’s as if cancer annexes what used to be private and makes it public:
RAQUEL’S BREASTS: OPEN 10 A.M. –5 P.M. MONDAY–SATURDAY, CLOSED SUNDAYS FOR MAINTENANCE. PLEASE PICK UP YOUR DOG FECES
.

“Actually,” Ren begins. He looks pained. While his generosity extends to melding the palates of the less fortunate, coping with the fervor of Jewish mothers is not his strong suit.

“Hi!” I say, glad for the opportunity to save him. Ren’s face brightens. Sad sack that I am, I take a millisecond to enjoy the sweet kiss of happiness his approval has always spawned in me.

Estelle Gilden grasps my arm. “Raquel, dear, how
are
you?

How. Are.
You.
Your mother told us all about it. It’s
fakakta,

is what it is.”

“Too young!” Coco Stein.

“Too healthy! Look at this girl. Strapping!” Edith del Toro.

“It’s the hormones in milk. Ask Eliot about it.” Estelle.

“So, honey, listen: My sister-in-law’s sister survived it
twice.
Imelda, that’s her name. Like the dictator.” Coco is already digging in her bag for her address book. “I think you two would get on like a house on fire. You know what she did after the cancer? Dropped fifty pounds and became a life coach, that’s what! You’re going to call her.”

This is part of the Great Fraud I never anticipated: Whereas in the past, I was at pains to deflect Jewish-mother-initiated offers of dates and potential husbands, now I have to deal with an army of well-intentioned yentas who want to set me up with my breast-cancer soul mate.

“She sounds wonderful,” I lie.
Like hell. She sounds like an anorexic tyrant with a closet full of Manolos.

“I must have left it in my other purse. It’s okay, I’ll call you,” Coco promises, nodding. I can see the onslaught now; in a matter of days, I will have to change my number or take a turn for the worse.

I force a smile. “I’m sorry, ladies, but I’ve got to borrow this guy for a minute.” Taking Ren by the elbow, I steer him toward the gazebo, a contrivance whose only contribution to the family history is having served as a whelping box for our basset Stella’s second litter.

Ren tilts his head toward the knot of ladies. “They scare me.”

“They scare everyone.”

We laugh. It feels too good, so I think of my credit-card bill. There. Balance restored.

“Eliot told me you wanted to ask me something.” I try not to study his hazel eyes too deeply, instead scanning the crowd for disgruntled guests the way a properly indifferent sister-in-law might. On the far side of the pool, I see Taylor chatting with Ronnie Greenblatt. Her head, with its spaniel-like sheaves of highlighted chestnut hair, is tilted in a coquettish way that does not say talking-to-boring-oldbig-brother’s-friend. I make a mental note to send her to military school forthwith if the look graduates to outright flirtation.

“How are you feeling?” Ren says.

“Pretty good, considering.” This is basically true.

He nods, pleased. “You look great. Better than I could have hoped. So how long does Meissner want you on chemo?”

“Four rounds.” I’ve done my research: I’ve talked to my sculpture subjects. I’ve interrogated strange women in doctors’ waiting rooms. For the most part, I’ve tried to maintain an aura of mystery and obliqueness around my (not-)cancer treatment, deflecting probing inquiries with vague mentions of catheters and stool softeners. Obviously, this is much more challenging with an actual doctor. Among my other paranoias, I live in fear that Ren will stumble upon Meissner in the hospital cafeteria or on the golf course and find me out. I pray regularly that Wendy Yen is hot enough in the sack that Doctor Boy Meissner has no energy left for anything but surgical pursuits.

“How are you handling the Taxol?”

“Pretty well. They administered the first dose in the ICU, but I was okay.” So many people have allergic reactions to the highly toxic drug that they first give it under the watchful plink of cardiac monitors and trauma physicians. Just reading about it made my stomach ache in sympathy and guilty terror, so I did what I always do now when regret overrules steadfastness—think of the number $245,325.

Ren clears his throat. “I know the timing is somewhat off, but I need to ask you a favor. I wouldn’t ask unless it was important.”

Well, I hate to say “I told you so”
. . .
I’m sure Phil won’t mind a little swappy-swap now and again
. . .

“ Uh-huh.” I try to look grave instead of hopeful.

“You know that Laurie and I have been trying for a family for many years now. It’s been really hard on her, primarily because they were never able to identify the cause, or causes, of our infertility.” Ren glances away, toying with his keys. His plastic surgeon’s hands are long and lean and ageless. I wonder if he applies chemical peels to them between patient appointments. For research purposes, naturally.

“One of the things that’s been a sticking point for us is whether to keep trying IVF or start thinking about other options. Laurie was—
is
— very invested in the idea of us having our own biological child. Me, less so, though I empathize with her position.” Ren looks straight at me for the first time. His pure hazel eyes are warm and steady. I have the horrifying sense he is going to violate the twenty-three-year covenant and suggest we repeat the act of our sixth date, twelve days before the Thanksgiving visit that changed all our lives.

He veers in an unexpected direction. “We made a decision to start the adoption process. It’s quite rigorous. One of the components is character references. Laurie and I—that is, we’d like to ask you if you’d write one for us.”

Relief engulfs me. Among the favors he could have asked for, this one rates high on the comfort scale. My mind flits through complimentary things I could say about my sister to make them give her a baby:
Thin genes. Cleans grout on a regular basis. Speaks Mandarin like a native. Never actually asked if I screwed her husband.

“Oh, Ren, of course I’d be glad to do it. You didn’t have to worry about that. I want to do anything I can to help,” I say instead.

“I knew you’d be okay with it. I know you and Laurie don’t always see eye to eye on things, Quel, but I didn’t think that would matter when push came to shove.” Ren takes a sip of his gin and tonic, easygoing now. He shifts his fine body closer to my less fine one, near enough that I can see the individual hairs comprising his thick brush of eyelashes.

“If you hadn’t gotten the cancer, things might have been different, you know,” he says, his tone thoughtfully conspiratorial. “If you weren’t undergoing chemo right now, I’m pretty sure Laurie would have asked you for some eggs.”

This warms me.
Raquel Rose: fertility goddess, maker of eggs, breeder extraordinaire.

I am about to offer Ren my eggs any way he wants them when Phil ambles over and plants a sloppy kiss on my head. “Stop hitting on my wife,” he says to Ren with easy bonhomie. He could be talking about his love of beets.

Phil and Ren do one of those manly handshakes where one grasps the other by the forearm and squeezes at the same time. Everything is right in the land of brothers-in-law! This is precisely the problem. What is it about me that gives my husband complete confidence that I would never flirt with an attractive man who used to be my boyfriend? Or is it complete confidence one would never flirt with me?