The Department of Lost & Found (12 page)

But this pattern replayed itself each passing year. Each fall
or each return after Christmas break, I’ d pretend that Brandon
hadn’t returned home to Darcy and he’ d pretend that he didn’t
love her. Until my senior year. I was sick of it, so I told him to
choose. And because he was there in the moment with me, I won.

He chose me. But what he really did was tel me that he chose me
while he kept on talking to her. And because these things do
eventually find their way to the surface, I ended it. But only after I felt humiliated.

Of course, this didn’t stop me from sleeping with him again
for the last few weeks of our senior spring. We hadn’t spoken
since.

So a decade later, when I asked him why he’ d cheated on me,
I honestly didn’t think that he’ d come clean, be straight with me.

Being straight wasn’t exactly his thing, which I probably don’t
need to point out at this moment but feel compelled to do so anyway. When I asked him, he cleared his throat and said he’ d call
me back. Said he’ d never really thought about it, but that he
wanted to do the right thing and give me a real answer. He said
that he thought he owed me that, but he needed a lit le time to
sort it through. I passed him my number and figured it was a
dead end. Manny and I were twenty-five minutes deep into a
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Press Your Luck
rerun on the Game Show Network when the
phone rang.

“It’s because you let me,” he said.

Before I could launch a series of protests, all of which would
suggest that his misogynistic reasoning pointed the finger firmly
at me when he was the one who refused to be pinned down, he
elaborated. “You didn’t give me permission, that’s not what I
mean. But I never got the sense that you’ d fight for me, that you
loved me enough to go to the mats. Darcy did, so I was too
scared to let her go and risk that I’ d gambled it all for someone
who was in it to win it.” When I pointed out that I had, actually, laid down the ultimatum, he made an excel ent point.

“That was just because you didn’t want me to be with her, not
because you necessarily wanted me to be with you.”

When I replay his words, Diary, they sound shallower than
they were. Because the truth of the matter is, he was probably
right. I only raised the stakes because someone else threatened to
steal the pot.

Before Brandon and I said good-bye and swapped e-mail
addresses he said, “You know, Natalie, I read about you in the
papers, I’ve followed your career. And if you’ d fought for me the
way that you do for so much else in your life, I think I would
have married you.” I smiled and told him that, despite the cancer, it’s blessings like these that make me believe in God.

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n i n e

he next weekend, Sally, Lila, and I set off for bridesmaid Tdress fittings. I was feeling moderately decent, so when Sally asked if I felt strong enough to join them, I managed a glass of milk and an apple, and slowly made my way to the subway.

The 1/3 train cruised us down to the meatpacking district, and we were buzzed up to the too-chic boutique where Sally had com-missioned our dresses. I’d ordered mine in August, back in my halcyon days before the current pulled me out like a tidal wave.

The boutique’s size charts were beyond skewed to begin with. As anyone who has ever been a bridesmaid surely knows (and that includes just about every unfortunate woman on the planet), bridesmaid dresses fall into the Twilight Zone of sizing. If you order a four, the dress will actually fit someone who is the equivalent 108

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of a size ten, except perhaps in the breast area, where it will actually fit someone who is concave or prepubescent. Should you actually be a size ten, you will most definitely be handed a dress that will have the specifications to fit a five-year-old. It’s as if there is a conspiracy against bridesmaids—maybe the tailors are in on it, too, because by the time you’re done, you’ve shelled out the equivalent of the price of the damn dress just to get it to somewhat ad-here to your proportions, much less not humiliate you as you saunter down the aisle with a groomsman whom you may or may not be making out with at some point in the future.

Tess, the perfectly blond, perfectly perfect designer who ran the salon, offered us tea and did a double take at the beaded navy scarf wrapped around my head. I saw her trying not to look, her smile freezing one second too long as we locked eyes, and she attempted to determine whether I was or was not bald, and if so, why that might be.

“It’s okay,” I said to her. “Breast cancer.”

Her face flushed. “Oh. I’m sorry.”

I waved her off. “Don’t worry. Everyone wonders.” She nodded as she disappeared into the back, and Sally moved over to hug me.

“Here we are,” Tess said, as she emerged toting our light-blue, tea-length dresses. I held mine up: I didn’t even need to try it on to see that what I had guesstimated would fit me three months back would now drape over me like a curtain after a dip in the ocean.

I shuffled into the dressing room and slowly unzipped my wool cardigan, folding it neatly on the velvet bench that sat beside the full-length mirror. I tugged my turtleneck over my head and dropped my jeans to the floor in one smooth motion: All I had to do was unbuckle my chunky brown belt and they fell to the ground.

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There was nothing there to hold them up—no hips, no waist, no thighs, which just last summer I’d willed to be two inches smaller in circumference.

The light in the dressing room was designed to make you look good from any angle. No fluorescent bulbs to illuminate under-eye circles that turn you into an eerie incarnation of a character from
Dawn of the Dead
or to spotlight the backs of your legs in such a way that they resemble your grandmother’s Jell-O mold.

So because I was given an early advantage, you’d have thought that I would have looked better.

I’d stopped examining myself in the mirror about two months back, just after my second chemo treatment. I found it too depressing to stare at my dollhouse-size waist and make bargains with God to do something, anything to get my old body—really, my old life—back. So I stopped looking. When I stepped out of the shower, I’d avert my eyes. When I’d disrobe for bed, I’d simply drop my clothes by my nightstand and crawl under the covers.

“Can we peek?” Sally asked and pulled the curtain back. Before I had time to stop her, she and Lila stepped into the room. I watched them try to hold their faces steady, but Sally’s eyes popped unintentionally and the corners of Lila’s mouth twitched the way that they always did whenever she was upset.

“Oh sweetie,” Sally said and moved toward me, resting her hands on my shoulders, then running them down my arms until she interlocked her fingers in mine.

“It’s okay.” I shrugged, before my eyes filled with tears.

I stood there, nearly naked, and exposed the skeleton of my former self. I turned toward the mirror and ran my fingers over my ribs and moved my hands lower where they rounded over my protruding hip bones. My legs looked like kindling, like the twigs 110

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you’d toss into a fire to stoke the ambers that weren’t hearty enough to get the fire started in the first place. I turned to the side and felt paper thin. From the rear view, I craned my neck and could see that my back dove into my upper thighs; it no longer bothered to stop at the curve of my butt.

“Stop,” Lila said, waving her hand in front of her. “Enough.

Enough of examining yourself and of us gaping and making this much more horrible than it has to be.” I turned to look at her. “I’m serious,” she said. “This is all too heavy. Too melodramatic. There have to be some positives here.” She pleadingly looked at Sally for help.

“True,” Sally agreed, picking up on her lead. “Let’s see. You are as thin as the tiniest of supermodels. Heidi Klum best watch her back.” I tried to force a smile, but my face refused.

“Oh, okay,” Lila continued. “And you never have to worry about going to the gym anymore!”

“Good one,” Sally said, raising her finger in the air. “And if you so choose, you can live on bonbons and éclairs for the rest of your chemo and not gain a dime.”

“Lucky bitch,” Lila grunted with a smile, at which I had to laugh.

“Fair enough,” I said. “Now get out so I can finish getting dressed. I thought we were pressed for time.” Lila had to be back uptown in order to make a 6:00 train to Delaware for her father’s sixtieth birthday party.

They shuffled out into the showroom, and I felt my smile falter. I turned again and faced forward, staring myself down, willing myself to look away yet remaining paralyzed in the horror of it all. I was a ghost of my old self. A ghost with a fabulous bridesmaid dress but a ghost, nevertheless.

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“ i n e e d s o m e pot,” I announced to Sally on the subway ride home.

She did a double take at Lila and practically spit out her Diet Coke.

“You need some what? Did I hear you correctly?”

“I need some pot,” I repeated. At my last appointment, Dr.

Chin had casually mentioned, in a I’m-not-recommending-this-because-it’s-illegal-but-should-you-choose-to-do-this-it-might-be-a-wise-thing sort of way, that many cancer patients find that smoking marijuana helps both their pain and their appetite.

You should know that in college, pot was not my thing. In college, everyone has their “thing.” For me, that was white wine. Brandon preferred rum and Coke. Lila was a fan of vodka shots. Sally?

She knew where to score a bong hit without having to actually pay for the pot itself. Sally wasn’t the only one. In fact, an entire posse of our friends would disappear to the “flight deck” (where, ahem, one might take flight) of Brandon’s fraternity house and emerge forty minutes later enshrouded by a plume of smoke and with a somewhat glassier look in their eyes. I didn’t judge. It just wasn’t for me. I worried it would put me too far out of my control. Chardonnay I could monitor—I knew exactly how much I could handle before the blurry line between tipsy and so-drunk-the-paper-gossip-column-might-write-you-up crept its way into my impaired cerebrum.

So understandably, today on the subway, Sally was caught off guard.

“Nat, I stopped smoking after college, you know that,” she said, and I raised my eyebrows. “Okay, but really, I totally quit when Drew and I started dating. You know he can’t stand it. Besides, 112

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don’t you get tested for work? Couldn’t this go on your permanent record or whatever you politicians have?”

“Work’s sort of a nonissue right now.” I sighed. “The senator bailed on the birth control bill I was pushing, so now she has me researching some stem cell stuff from home. Other than that, I’m just treading water.” I shrugged. I didn’t want to admit that the senator had demoted me due to the hooker debacle. “It’s a slow time until the start of the term and all. Anyway, back to the issue at hand,” I continued. “I’m quite certain that you have to still know someone,” I said, as the subway operator overshot our station, sending our balances out of whack and propelling us into one another. Lila grabbed my arm and steadied me. “I’m okay,” I said, as the car finally lumbered to a stop.

“Let me make some calls,” Sally said. “I might know someone who might know someone.”

“That’s what I thought.” I reached for the handrail on the stair-way and forced myself up toward daylight.

i n a s t r a n g e turn of fate, we ran into Dr. Zach on the walk home. In the largest city in the world, chock-full of, oh, I don’t know, a gazillion nameless faces, it figured, given the strange karma that had blown my way in recent months, that while standing in front of Gristides, mulling over whether to stop for a cup of tea, Zach would walk out of the revolving door and practically trip on our huddle.

“Ladies!” he said, and he leaned over to kiss me hello on the cheek. “Lila.” He nodded in her direction and forced a dimpled smile. They hadn’t seen each other since she split from him, though I’m pretty sure that he called her twice in the weeks right after, but she didn’t bother phoning back.

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“Just doing my Saturday grocery shopping. I have quite the whirlwind life! Big-time doctor plus milk and cereal purchases equals Hollywood movie.” He laughed, trying to shed the tension.

He looked at me. “How are you feeling? I planned to call today.”

Lila cast her eyes toward me, and I felt my ears redden beneath my scarf. “I’m hanging in there.”

“She’s toying with the dark side,” Sally interjected with a laugh.

“Looking to score some pot. Did you ever think? I mean, our Natalie, part of the stand-up citizens’ brigade for Senator Dupris.

Ready to get stoned out of her mind.”

I shook my head and looked at my feet, mortified that my gynecologist might catch wind of my new toking habit.

“Still nauseated?” he asked. “I’ll tell you what. Let’s just say that, hypothetically, I know how to get you some of what you need.” He dropped his bags and put his fingers into air quotes, emphasizing “you need.” “How would you girls like to join me for a home-cooked meal tonight? Natalie, I promise, we’ll get you high enough to scarf down an entire cow.”

I looked at Lila to take my cue. Zach picked up on it, so he nodded in her direction and said, “Lila, you’re more than welcome to come. All four of us. Helping Natalie put some meat on her bones.”