The Department of Lost & Found (14 page)

“Yes indeed.”

“A man his age,” said Zach. “You’d be lucky if he could
find
your anatomy without the help of bifocals.” Sally fell over again in a heap of laughter. “Okay, so geezers aside, who else is on your list.”

“Well,” I said quite seriously. “I’ve given this some thought.

Because Bob had to bump someone off, and whenever someone gets bumped off, you have to do a bit of mental math. And priori-tizing, of course.”

“Of course,” Zach said solemnly.

“So obviously, there’s Scott Speedman,” I said, holding my thumb up to count as number one.

“Obviously?” Zach asked.

“Because he reminds her of her old boyfriend, Jake,” Sally said from the floor.

“Right, there’s that. And he’s just fucking hot,” I added and took a deep breath. “Okay, so the next, in no particular order, are: well, Bob. And I’d have to go with Hugh Grant.”

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“Ooh, Hugh Grant. He’s on my list, too,” Sally agreed, still from the floor. “I almost interviewed him once, and Drew got very nervous. Knowing that he was on my list.”

I held three fingers in the air. “So two left. And here’s where it gets tricky. I’d like to throw Michael Vartan into the mix because that boy looks like he can do it up. But Kyle’s friend, Jackie, knows someone who slept with him, and I don’t know, that somehow muddles it, you know?” Zach looked at me like he didn’t know, didn’t know at all, but I just ignored him. “Eh, but we’ll say Michael Vartan because he makes me drool. And lastly?” I sighed.

“Oh, I’m not sure. Patrick Dempsey?” I felt myself blush, knowing that Zach looked like his doppelgänger.

“Ronnie Miller?” Sally said, finally sitting up. “Come on, you can land one better than that.” Zach looked even more confused.

“Can’t Buy Me Love,” Sally said in his direction. “All aboard the Ronnie Miller express!”

“Okay, if big fish is what you want, big fish it is: I’ll go with . . .”

I stared up at the tract lighting and curled my lips into an O. “I’ll go with . . .”

“Pat Sajak?” Zach offered helpfully, and I threw a pillow at him.

“No. I’ll go with Dennis Quaid.” I nodded my head conclu-sively. “And now it’s your turn.” I pointed at Zach in the way that a hunter might target a deer.

“Okay.” He laughed. “I’m game. But keep in mind that I’ve never done this before.”

“Pul-ease,” Sally said, placing a pillow underneath her ass.

“Like every guy doesn’t have a fantasy list at his mental fingertips.

Christ, if I find one more porno site on Drew’s computer, I’m going to throw it out the window.”

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“Hmmm, okay.” Zach rubbed his hands together. “Well, to start, and in homage of Bob Barker, I’ll go with Diane Keaton.

Sexy, sure of herself. And older women are great in bed.” I felt myself go slack-jawed.
And you would know that how?
I physically bit my tongue. “Angelina Jolie. Yeah, definitely. God, that body alone. And you just get the sense that she’s an animal. Oh, and Carmen Electra for the same reasons. I imagine there’s nothing that girl won’t do.” Suddenly, this was decidedly less fun than I’d pictured it. I got up to light another joint, leaving Zach weighing his options underneath his breath. I plopped back down on the couch in an effort to let him know that I was completely and entirely disinterested in whomever else he added to his list.

“You’re right,” he said, reaching for the joint. “This is much harder than you’d think.” I clamped my mouth shut. “Okay, for the last two, I’ll go with Halle Berry—again, that body, and Pamela Anderson. Just because you have to go with Pamela Anderson or else no guy will ever speak to you again.”

Sally flopped back down on the floor and groaned. “Oh God, could you be any more obvious? I mean, clearly, it’s all about the bodies on all of them.”

“No, clearly,” I interjected, “it’s all about the breasts. Zach, it seems, is a breast man.” There was more than a trace of bitterness in my voice.

“Not fair,” he protested, handing the joint to Sally, who waved him off. “I couldn’t even tell you the size of Diane Keaton’s breasts.

Besides, isn’t that the whole point of this list: to fantasize about your ideal?”

“Aha!” I clapped triumphantly. “So they
are
your ideal.”

“I’m not dignifying this discussion any longer.” Zach laughed.

“Who wants dessert?” He stood up and headed to the kitchen.

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“Men,” Sally grunted, before she pulled a pillow over her face.

“Tits, tits, tits, tits, tits, tits, tits. God, you’d think they were the eighth wonder of the world.”

I didn’t answer her. Instead, I looked down at my stricken chest and wondered who would want me at all when this fucking cancer had taken them from me.

◆

◆

t e n

D
ear Diary,

I know, I know, I’ve been slacking. Dylan is next
on my list to call, but I haven’t had the time yet to
hunt him down. And Janice has been urging me to keep up the
writing, so I’m logging in an entry that has nothing to do with
Dylan, but it sort of does have to do with men, so I figured that
you wouldn’t mind.

I’m happy to report, wel , happy might not be the right word
but I’m using it regardless, that I have officially smoked my first
joint. I know, like, fifteen years too late, right? Wel , better late
than never because I was finally able to eat a full meal afterward.

But I’ve already gotten ahead of myself.

Sally and I went to Zach’s for dinner, as well as for some
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pot-smoking lessons. Weird, right? But it gets weirder: I woke
up there the next morning. Now Diary, don’t go jumping to conclusions! Though trust me, it’s easy to because I did the same
thing—I practically broke out in a sweat from my panic when
I jumped to conclusions.

So what happened was this. Zach, Sally, and I got very,
very stoned. At some point late in the evening, right when we
were winding up a heated game of Trivial Pursuit, Sally looked
at the time and realized that Drew would be livid if she didn’t
bolt pronto, so she grabbed her coat, gave us both kisses, and left
us with our pies half ful of tiny wedges. Despite my impaired
judgment, I do recal whipping Zach’s ass in the end. And as we
know, I like to win, so I got up and did some little hoochie dance
or something, but then I suddenly felt very, very dizz y. Like I do
when the chemo is still running rampant through my system.

So Zach walked me over to his couch, and I put my head on
a cashmere pil ow, and Diary, that’s all I remember until I woke
up at
7:17
alone in his bed. I wasn’t even sure where I was at
first. I looked out of the twenty-second-floor window and ran my
hands over the maroon sheets and tried to jumble together the
preceding twelve hours. I was fully dressed, so at least that was a
relief.

In the living room, Zach had left me a note next to the bag of
remaining joints. “Got paged and had to run. Take the rest of
this. Will call you soon.”

See, Diary? This? Is why I didn’t smoke pot in col ege. Bad
things happen when I let myself slip just a tiny bit out of control.

Sigh. Note to self: From now on, get high alone. (Don’t worry,
Diary, since it’s for medicinal purposes, I’m pret y sure that
Narcotics Anonymous wouldn’t consider this a warning sign.)
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So, Diary, this is the pickle I now find myself in. Did I or
did I not engage in some sort of entirely inappropriate behavior
with my gynecologist who seems to have a strong D-cup fetish,
and for whom one of my best friends still may harbor a bit of
love and, oh, this part matters, who I would most definitely
have jumped like a monkey by now if it weren’t for this fucking
disease.

You can’t hear me, Diary, but I’m sighing right now. There’s
really nothing much else to do.

◆

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◆

From: Foley, Blair

To: Miller,

Natalie

Re:

The holiday party

Hi Natalie!!

I hope that you’re doing great! We all just got back from our little vacations after the election madness! I went to Florida with my boyfriend. It felt sooooooooo good to take a few days off and recover. I can’t believe that the time has gone so quickly, and we’re already gearing up for next year’s congressional session. Weird! Right?

Anyway, I’m writing because the senator is so glad that you can make it to the Christmas party!! We all are: It feels like forever ago since we’ve seen you!

But she did want me to alert you to the fact that Councilman Taylor and his wife are attending. The senator felt like inviting them was the nice thing to do—I’m sure you understand!! But the bad news of this is that she told me, well, there’s really no easy way to say this, but the senator told 128

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me to tell you that when you show up, she’d like you to issue a formal apology to Mrs. Taylor. You know, for the hooker thing and all.

Sorry. L But I’m sure that it will go great!

Best,

Blair

From: Miller, Natalie

To: Foley,

Blair

Re: Apology

Dear Blair,

Please inform the senator that if I apologize to Susanna Taylor, it will be a direct admission of our role in the dirty press game that we played. I can’t see how this benefits anyone.

Please further inform her that with all due respect, I really don’t feel like looking like an a-hole.

Thanks for the well wishes. I’m glad to hear that Florida was fun.

—Natalie

From: Foley, Blair

To: Miller,

Natalie

Re:

Spoke with the Senator

Natalie,

I mentioned your feelings to Dupris, and well, unfortunately, she feels VERY strongly about this. I don’t want to get into the ultimatums that she might have mentioned, but if it were me, I’d apologize. My mom used to tell me that saying
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you’re sorry couldn’t undo your actions, but it could make you look like a decent person in spite of them.

Sorry again. But see you at the party!!!! Should be fun!!!!

Best,

Blair

I rolled my eyes at the computer screen. So now I was taking moral advice from a girl whose favorite thing in life appeared to be the use of the SHIFT + 1 button. I sank my face into my hands and considered calling Dupris directly, telling her all the things that were running through my head, things like,
I am not your scape-goat, you slippery little politician.
Or
I distinctly recall you giving me
tacit permission to sink Taylor with whatever means necessary.
Instead, I pushed my chair away from my desk until I rolled back and hit the couch.
Shit,
I thought next.
How long have I been someone else’s
lackey?

z a c h c a l l e d l at e on Monday while I was in a mid cleaning binge. Now that Manny was in the mix, it seemed virtually impossible to keep my apartment clean: The minute I got done vacuuming, he seemed to shed an entire coat all over again. I was just about to start scrubbing the toilet when the phone rang.

“Uh, hey, hold on, I’m on top of my toilet,” I blurted out, then realized exactly how that sounded when he didn’t respond. “Um, no, I mean, I’m cleaning my toilet and was leaning on it to reach in the back and get the nasty grime.”
Holy Christ. Shut up!
My bum-bling mind was too busy frantically trying to recapture what, if anything, had transpired over the weekend to pull out a coherent sentence. So after he asked how I was feeling, and after I thanked him for the home-cooked meal, I just put it out there and asked.

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“Did anything happen between us on Saturday night?” I paused, trying to possibly maintain even a shred of dignity while admitting to a blackout. Then I realized this was an oxymoron, and I felt my pulse quicken and continued. “Um, because I woke up in your bed, and I really don’t remember much.” I stuck the phone between my ear and my neck and peeled off my rubber gloves.

“High-class marijuana can do that to you.” He laughed. “Re-lax, Natalie, no. Nothing happened. I figured that you could use a good night’s sleep, so when you passed out on the couch, I took you into my room and left you there. No peeking, no nothing. I slept in the living room.”

“Oh. Okay. I wasn’t sure,” I said, as I washed my hands in my bathroom sink.

“Would it have been so awful if something had?”

I saw my cheeks flame in the mirror and worried that he could see them through the telephone line.

“I have cancer.”

“I know.”

“I’m not available. I have cancer.”

“I don’t see what one has to do with the other.”

“Cancer makes me unavailable, Zach. I’m not sure what you don’t get.” I plunked the lid closed on the toilet and sat down.

“Okay,” he said slowly. “Well, if that’s your reasoning.”

“And I think Lila wants you back.”

My stomach plunged with both relief and regret: relief because it changed the subject, regret because it wasn’t a subject that I wanted to illuminate. Zach went silent, and I heard Manny whim-pering from a bad dream in my bedroom.