Rocking the Pink (27 page)

“I know,” I admitted. “But it feels so good to say that today. Just humor me, Doc.
Sayonara!”

Brad and I drove to an artsy area of town for a celebratory lunch at an outdoor Italian café. We basked in the San Diego sunshine and smiled at each other until our cheeks hurt.
It's over.

“Babe, I want to get a tattoo,” I announced over my seafood pasta.

Brad paused for just a moment, smirking at me in his usual “oh, Lucy” sort of way. “Of what?”

I told him.

“Honey,” Brad began, the voice of reason, “a tattoo may seem like a great idea
now.
But one day you'll be old and saggy and you'll totally regret it.”

I considered what he had said for a moment. It was a relief to note that he had reverted to assuming I'd live to old age—a welcome change from his despair of only a few months before.

“The way I see it, I can't lose. Either I get a tattoo and love it for the rest of my life, however long or short that is, or I live long enough to regret it one day. I'd love to live long enough to regret a tattoo.”

Brad laughed. “You make a great point.” He shook his head as if shaking off a bad dream. “I can't argue with that logic.”

Brad paid the bill and we ran, holding hands, to the tattoo parlor
across the street, where I told the tattoo artist the phrase I wanted him to “ink” on my body. (I'm sure I didn't actually use the word “ink” at the time, but in the retelling, it makes me seem edgier, doesn't it?)

“What font do you want for the letters?” the tattoo artist asked me.

I hadn't thought about that. “I have no idea.”

He referred me to a computer with hundreds of fonts, each identified by name.

“Just take a look through all of these and let me know which one you want,” he said, and turned to walk away, apparently assuming this was going to take a while.

I squinted down at the list of fonts. How on earth was I going to pick from so many options? I started scanning.

Bingo.
Third one down from the top. I didn't need to look any further.

“Okay!” I called to the tattoo artist, summoning him back. He hadn't even made it out of the room yet. “I found it.” I pointed. “
That one.”

“Sounds good. Lie down here,” he said, motioning to an adjacent table.

I complied.

The tattoo guy prepared his instruments and explained the process to me.

I pulled up my shirt, unhooked the clasp of my bra, and positioned my body on its right side, beaming at Brad the whole time.

Brad watched in total fascination as the tattoo artist carefully inscribed—in Jane Austen font, of course!—the phrase “I'm still here” next to my scarred and embattled breast, just under my left armpit.

I'm still here!

Not too long ago, when I'd inhaled pot for the first time, I'd hung up my goody-two-shoes for good. And now, with each plunge of the tattoo needle into my skin, I was donating those damned shoes to the Salvation Army.

Oh yeah, sucka? How ya like me now? I'm still here!

When we returned home from our eventful afternoon, I showered the girls with confetti. And though Sophie was appalled by my new tattoo (“How
could
you?”), all was forgiven in her relief to have her mommy back.

“Oooh, I love your tattoo, Mommy,” Chloe purred, in direct contrast with Sophie's horrified reaction. I could see her eyes light up, even at age seven, with what she perceived to be my implicit approval of her future, teenage tattoo.

“You know,” I told Chloe, “I waited to get a tattoo until I was thirty-eight and had kicked cancer's booty.”

Yeah, yeah,
Chloe's mischievous eyes said to me.
Blah blah blah.

A few days later, I picked up the girls from school for the first time in many months. Because I had been in treatment for so long, their classmates had not seen me with any regularity during the school year, and they didn't know me. As I waited outside Sophie's third-grade classroom, one of her classmates, Josephine, emerged first.

“Whose mommy are you?” Josephine asked me.

“I'm Sophie's mommy.”

“Oh, yeah, I know you. I didn't know you cut your hair.” She sounded so mature.

“Well, actually, I didn't cut my hair. It came out because of some medicine I took, but now it's growing back.”

The look on her face told me she'd already heard about what had been happening to Sophie's mommy. “I'm glad you didn't die,” she said matter-of-factly.

“Me too.”

The first six months following my cancer treatments were a whirlwind of activity, despite Brad's constant admonishments to me to “take it easy.” I was making up for lost time—trying to prove to myself, and everyone else, that I was “back.”

The first item on my agenda? My “Laura Kicked Cancer's Ass” comeback concert at a renowned local venue called the Belly Up. That night was like attending my own funeral, without the death part. The place was packed to the rafters with family, friends, fans of the
Jeff & Jer
show, fellow cancer survivors, and, much to my delight, the doctors and nurses who'd saved my life.

Before the Laura Roppé Band hit the stage, we smashed our bodies into a group hug backstage, energized by the expectant hum of the waiting crowd.

“I love you guys!” I shouted into the huddle, above the din.

“We love you, too, Laura!” came the energetic reply.

Out in the club, the hum was becoming a roar.

“Let's do it!” I whooped to my band.

“Hell yeah!” is what came back.

As my band made its way onto the stage, joined by my cousin Matthew as our guest guitarist for the night, I remained backstage momentarily. I could feel a tidal wave of anticipation fill the club.
Is she there? Where is she?

Grinning from ear to ear, I climbed the back steps of the stage and walked down to front and center. A tsunami of love crashed onto the stage and flooded all the way up to the rafters of the joint. The roar in that crowded club was deafening.

When my drummer counted off “one . . . two . . . three . . . four!” the band launched into a rousing version of “Girl Like This,” and the crowd exploded. We were off to the races! And though I had not originally considered myself the girl in that song, in that moment, there was no doubt that, at least for that night, I was the rare girl with “magic in her fingertips.”

After several high-energy songs to get the crowd going, the lights dimmed and Matthew joined me at the front of the stage on a stool, his acoustic guitar at the ready. I smiled at him, and then I turned back to the crowd.

“When I was little, I needed a ‘woobie' to keep me safe from nightmares.” I shielded my eyes from the bright stage lights and, after a brief moment of searching the crowd, found Brad's handsome face, a head taller than most people around him, in the audience. “During the nightmare of this past year, my husband, Brad, was my woobie.”
You could hear a pin drop in the crowd. I continued, looking into Brad's blue eyes, “This song is for you, babe.”

Matt began playing his guitar and I started to sing “Woobie,” the song inspired by Brad's heartbreaking cries in his sleep, for which Matt had composed a heartfelt guitar accompaniment:

Brad had journeyed every step of the way with me through the fires of hell. He had shielded me as best he could as I'd walked through the flames, and then he'd lovingly wrapped bandages around my burns and battle scars. And Matt, my beloved cousin, now playing his guitar so beautifully, had willingly jumped onto my tour bus to Hades, right into the seat next to mine, and had strummed his guitar as a means of distracting me from the horrific view out the window. It was a magical moment for the three of us.

It was the official end of my tour of duty as a cancer patient.

 

 

After the girls and I, like summer campers on uppers, had methodically ticked off every entry on our When Mommy Gets
Better To-Do List—Sea World! The beach! The pool! Duck feeding! A picnic!—I giddily boarded a London-bound airplane in August 2009. My mission? Cross off two items on my bucket list: (1) filming the much-anticipated music video for “Float Away”—the carrot that had been dangling in front of my face since the moment I'd been diagnosed—and (2) drinking a “pint” with My Dearest Jane, the honorary sister who had held my hand, from across the pond, throughout my whole ordeal.

When I exited customs at Heathrow Airport, a gentleman was standing in the waiting crowd with a sign that read MS. ROPPÉ. I'd always wanted to be one of those passengers whose name was written on a sign at the airport. He'd even gotten the accent on the
é
right!

The gentleman was a very proper British man with a fancy car (whose steering wheel had been placed on the wrong side of the car; someone had neglected to tell him). John from London had sent this gentleman to “collect me” at the airport. It was all so very “posh.”

On the drive to the hotel, the gentleman asked me what I was doing in the UK.

“I'm here to shoot a music video,” I replied. Ha! I sounded like I was making that up.
Yes, I'm here to shoot a music video. And to take tea and crumpets with the Queen.
Both statements sounded equivalently preposterous to me. But the former was true!

“Oh, so you're a singer, are you?” the gentleman asked.

“Yes, I am.”
And I'm in London! To shoot a music video!

At my hotel in the heart of Kensington, a swanky area of London, I asked the front desk if Jane had checked in yet. She would be coming
in on the train, Jane had said, and would meet me at the hotel around the time of my arrival from the airport.

The front-desk clerk checked the computer. “Not yet, madam.”

“Well, please, the moment she checks in, will you give her my room number and ask her to call me there?” I rushed through my words like an excited three-year-old.

My room turned out to be an airy suite overlooking the city. There was a fruit basket on the coffee table. I had always wished for a fruit basket in a hotel room. I looked out the window and marveled at the view. I unpacked my clothes. I sat on the bed, staring at the phone. I ate some of the fruit. I jumped in the shower.

Just as I turned on the water, the phone rang.

I jumped out of the shower and dashed to the phone.

“Jane!” I answered loudly.

“Laura!” came the effusive reply. There were hysterical giggles on both sides. It was the first time we pen pals had heard each other's flesh-and-blood voices.

“Where are you?” I shouted, unable to speak at normal levels.

“Fourth floor!”

“Stay put! I'm coming, Jane!” I threw my clothes back on as if I'd been jolted by a fire alarm, and then I sprinted out my hotel room and down the common hallway to the elevator at the end of the hall. I pressed the call button for the elevator, rocking back and forth in nervous anticipation. When the doors opened, I jumped inside and repeatedly punched the button to the fourth floor as the doors closed.

Was this the slowest elevator in the world?

Ding!
The elevator doors opened, and I wanted to dart out at full throttle! But there were two hallways extending out from opposite sides of the elevator. I wasn't sure which way to go.

“Jane!” I hollered, peeking my head outside the elevator doors.

“Laura!” came a voice to my left. I ran, following the voice.

And then there she was at the end of the hallway, a beaming smile on her face: My Dearest Jane.

I barreled toward Jane and she hurtled toward me until we collided in the middle, hugging each other and laughing uncontrollably. We hugged and hugged, tears streaming down our cheeks. After we had pulled away to look at each other's beautiful, glowing faces, we hugged again.

I pulled back to get a good look at My Dearest Jane. She was about five inches shorter than I am, with light hair and crystal blue eyes. She was my physical opposite in every way, except for one thing: We shared identical fuzzy crew cuts.

I ran my hand across her baby-soft hair, and she returned the favor.

“Oh, Jane!” I laughed. “We're twins!”