The Owl & Moon Cafe: A Novel (No Series) (17 page)

Six years ago, Mariah had started the secret trip fund. At seven, Lindsay had adored the James Herriot books. Because Mariah hadn’t time, Allegra had read them to her. Mariah thought, I could save enough to take her to his fictional stomping grounds. By the end of next quarter, she would’ve had the price of two coach tickets. The plan was to sublet the condo and fly to England for the summer. Rent a tiny cottage with a thatch roof. Bluebells in bloom. By the fireplace she’d write her first book. Not a textbook, a novel. Everyone had one novel in them, didn’t they? The love story they wished for that hadn’t happened? She and Lindsay would take day trips to the standing stones, shoot rolls of film, and collect rocks. It would be their first real vacation.

All her life Mariah had worked. She wasn’t much older than Lindsay was now when she’d begun waitressing at the café. At first she raced home from school, excited about earning tips. Even before losing her job there were days Mariah thought about quitting teaching. Should the student’s paper that lay on the cusp of an A, get the A? She knew firsthand that it was possible to break a student’s spirit with a B. C’s were no longer acceptable.

Lying there in the dark, Mariah thought of Fergus’s dog. She was as tall as your average fence. People made fun of Chihuahuas, but no matter how many jokes they told about hairy little rats and froufrou purse puppies, Mariah knew a big dog would chase a squirrel right out into traffic and get creamed while a small dog would deliver you an expression that said, “Surely you don’t expect me to prove my worth by chasing a rodent?”

There was no point to any of this. She had to get up in four hours. Turning onto her side, she heard her mother cough in the other room. Dr. Goodnough had called to say he’d stopped Allegra’s chemo because her blood counts were dangerously low. Keep her away from anyone with a cold or the flu, he said. Mariah knew Gammy was listening with the same peeled ear on her side of the wall. Then another cough came, and the sound of Allegra hurrying to the bathroom, getting sick.

Mariah waited to hear the toilet flush, and her mother head back to bed. When that didn’t happen, she got up and put on her robe, opening her bedroom door nearly into Gammy, who apparently had the same idea. They looked at each other in the narrow hall, listening to Allegra retching. Gammy said, “Surely it’ll stop soon.”

But it didn’t stop. After a while, it seemed like Allegra couldn’t stop. “I’m calling the doctor,” Mariah said, handing Gammy the nausea first-aid kit: a Seven-Up, ginger candy, and clean towels from the closet. “You go sit with her while I’ll find out what he wants us to do.”

“Okay, honey,” Gammy said. “You tell him I said to step on it.”

L
INDSAY STOOD AT THE
end of her grandmother’s hospital bed unable to say a word. This person connected to tubes and monitors didn’t look like the Allegra who baked cookies and told dirty jokes and watched really old
Star Trek
reruns. She looked as if a secret killer was slowly poisoning her with arsenic. Lindsay’s stomach clenched. She felt a hand on her shoulder and looked up to see Dr. Goodnough looking down at her. “Don’t be frightened,” he said. “She’s responding nicely to the antibiotics. When she eats three meals a day, I’ll let her go home.”

If that was the catch, Allegra could be in the hospital forever.

Even though it was Sunday, Lindsay’s mother was at the café, baking. She’d dropped Lindsay and Gammy off at the hospital, and then gone back to work because if she didn’t make cookies today there wouldn’t be enough to sell tomorrow. Gammy sat next to the bed like she had every day since Allegra was admitted for pneumonia and anemia. She held Allegra’s hand and prayed out loud, which would have made Lindsay’s mom crabby anyway, religion being a topic they didn’t agree on, so it was better she was at the café.

“Allegra doesn’t look better to me,” Lindsay said to the doctor who had asked her to call him “Dr. G.” “How can you be sure?”

“See that I.V.?” he said. “When a person feels too ill to drink water, they dehydrate. Without water, the body can spike a fever. That creates a playing field for lots of stuff to go wrong. She needs to drink more fluids, eat more, too.”

“But what if it hurts to eat and drink? Allegra has mouth sores.”

“That’s why we have her drinking out of a straw. Simple things like that can help. As soon as she’s had enough fluids, she’ll get hungry. The human body is simple that way.”

Lindsay frowned. “It seems like the medicine you’ve given her is what’s making her sick. I think she might die.”

Dr. G squatted down so they were face-to-face. “Fighting cancer is hard work. Sometimes we have to make patients sicker before they get well. Allegra’s tough. She managed almost six weeks of chemo. And she is getting better.”

“Then why couldn’t she stop throwing up?” Lindsay asked.

“The side effects of her medication—”

“I’m tired of hearing about that!” Lindsay said. “Why don’t you just prescribe Marinol?”

Dr. G looked at her, surprised. “Where did you learn about that?”

Lindsay squared her shoulders and looked directly into his eyes the way Sally did when she stood up to Taylor and the clones. “Researching my science project. It’s on palliative care with controversial medicine. Marinol has side effects, like headaches, but it helps some people want to eat again. Why don’t you give her that? Or medical marijuana?”

“I’ll bet you get straight A’s in science. Early on, I offered. She didn’t want any part of anything remotely connected with marijuana.”

“But ProCon.org says there are no adverse effects of marijuana components in the use of chemotherapy patients with unremitting nausea. And Marinol is
synthetic,
not marijuana like dope dealers sell. Everyone has the endocannibinoid system pathway in them. Marinol might even help boost the immune system. One-third of patients experienced significant improvement in chemo-induced weight loss. You have to talk her into it, Dr. G.”

He pushed his glasses up his nose and stood there, quiet. Lindsay worried he’d go straight to her mother and say she had better look into this so-called science project. Maybe he’d call the cops. Sally was going to kill her. Why had she opened her mouth in the first place?

“Don’t believe everything you read on the internet,” Dr. G said. “How about we go to my office, where I can give you some substantiated information on the subject?”

Lindsay looked away. “I don’t get in cars with people I don’t know. Besides, I don’t want to leave my nana.”

“You’re misunderstanding me, Lindsay. As chief of hematology and oncology, I have a small office here at the hospital, too. Go tell Bess and then we’ll go see it.”

Lindsay weighed her options. Allegra’s hospital room made her stomach hurt. She could only glance at the tubes, and she might throw up. Gammy was busy praying, and prayer was like watching the same humans who had invented space travel revert to crawling. “Only if I can see your literature on palliative care, specifically regarding medical marijuana.”

“Deal.”

“My science project has several aspects,” Lindsay added quickly. “Maybe I could also interview you?”

“Sure,” he said. Dr. Goodnough interrupted Gammy’s Hail Mary’s to let them know where they were going. “We’ll be back before you reach the Apostles’ Creed,” he said.

“Some churchgoer you are,” Gammy said, waving him away. “That’s the prayer that begins the rosary.” She went back to her beads. Allegra smiled faintly, but she didn’t open her eyes.

They rode the elevator. CHOMP was pretty nice as far as hospitals went. There were plants near the elevators, paintings on the walls, sculptures up on pedestals, and an aromatic coffee cart somewhere near, because Lindsay could smell it.

At the office door Lindsay studied the shiny brass sign: Chief of Staff: Hematology/Oncology: Alvin P. Goodnough, M.D. “What does the P stand for?” she asked.

“Percival,” he said. “Name-wise, you can see I was doomed at birth.”

Lindsay smiled. Some words were scary. Oncology, for instance, sounded as awful as cancer. According to the internet, oncology was a relatively new field, only about thirty years old. Before then, people with cancer either had surgery or got radiation therapy. Dr. G slid his key into the lock.

“This is a really small office,” Lindsay said when he opened the door. “Why did you come to our house when my mom called and why are you here on a Sunday?”

He smiled. His teeth, she noticed, were very straight and white, and they looked real. “For comprehensive care, I see patients in my private office. Your grandmother’s an old friend. For friends you make exceptions.”

Lindsay wondered if they had been more than friends. If Allegra hadn’t been a hippie, free-spirited and all that, maybe they might have gotten married. She pictured Dr. G standing at the bathroom sink, whistling as he patted on spicy after-shave instead of how he looked when he’d carried Allegra down to his car. Lindsay would hand him the newspaper first, so he could read the sports page before he went to work.

His office had cushy chenille chairs. Built into one wall was an aquarium filled with neon tetras. “Characins!” Lindsay said. “Dr. G, did you know their Latin name is
Paracheirodon innesi
?”

He tapped the glass and they all swarmed to that spot, their blue backs and white pectorals shimmering like mica. “I did, but I didn’t expect anyone else to.”

“It’s good you have the sides and bottom of the tank backed with dark paper,” she said. “They think they’re back in the Amazon jungle.”

“That’s why I have the floating plants,” he said. “The canopy makes a good place for them to hide. Your Latin’s impressive, kiddo. How come you know so much about tropical fish?”

Lindsay tracked the shimmering fish. “Except for Khan, I don’t get to have pets, so I research the ones I like until I know everything about them. That way, if I had a pet, I could take the best care of it possible.”

“I see. What other pets have you imagined?”

She held up her hand and counted off her fingers. “A hedgehog, a llama, an angora rabbit, and a cat. Just a regular cat, not Siamese or anything. An orange cat would be the best.”

“Want to feed my fish?”

“Sure,” she said, taking the container of fish flakes from him. “How much?”

“About the size of a quarter.”

“Why does everyone use coins as comparison?”

“Probably because they’re so universally recognizable.”

Lindsay sprinkled the flakes and together they watched the fish dive-bomb through the water, chasing one another and gobbling until all the food disappeared, which happened practically instantly. Most of the fish remained at the surface, still looking for food. “They’ll try to fake you out every time,” he said. “A bunch of good-for-nothing greedy guts, I call them.”

Dr. G tried to look tough, but Lindsay could tell he secretly loved his fish. “Why did you choose neon tetras? Why not cardinals or goldfish or saltwater fish?”

He capped the food and returned it to the shelf. “Saltwater tanks are difficult to maintain. One chemical out of balance and I come to work to find my seventy-dollar beauty belly-up. Goldfish belong in a pond. Also they poop a hell of a lot. Cardinal tetras are pricey. I like neons. They’re flashy, like Corvettes.”

Lindsay imagined cars driving around the pirate chest bubble feature. “They remind me of commuters in San Francisco, getting off BART, heading to work or shopping.”

Dr. G laughed. “We think alike, Lindsay, don’t we?”

“Because we’re scientists?”

“That must be it.”

“Is this where you perform bone marrow biopsies?”

“Nope. Only paperwork here. Procedures I do in my private practice.”

“Do they hurt?”

“Bone marrow biopsies sound a lot scarier than they are. The needle looks huge, but I anesthetize the area beforehand.” He opened another door. “Here’s my desk.”

Lindsay walked around the glass-topped desk that swooped in a semicircle. His bookcase was filled with medical texts. She ran a finger down the spine of the
Merck Manual.
“These must have cost a lot.”

“True. But when you keep them over a lifetime, it’s a good investment.”

She picked up a loose stack of photographs sitting on his desk. The top one showed a bearded guy wearing beads and a headband and flashing the peace sign. “Was this a Halloween party costume?” she asked.

He laughed. “God, no. That’s back in the days when I knew your grandmother. Actually, Allegra took the picture. We were camping. I found them while unpacking and thought Allegra might get a kick out of seeing them. There’s a picture of George Harrison in there somewhere. You know, the Beatle.”

Lindsay looked at him blankly. “Were lots of people camping with you? Did you sleep on cots? Did you have one big tent or lots of pup tents?”

“Just us two. No tent. It was summer. We slept in sleeping bags under the stars.” For a moment, he got that faraway look in his eyes like she’d seen Allegra do when she talked about “the good old days.” “Lindsay, you have no idea what a brave girl she was. She’d march on the City Hall steps and hand out flowers to policemen. Not one thing scared her. I’m not surprised she decided to have a child all by herself. She had an independent streak in her a mile wide.”

“When was this picture taken?”

“Nineteen sixty-seven. You can see the redwoods there behind me, though they’re a little out of focus. Not long after that I went to med school.”

“Can I look at it a while longer?”

“No problem.” He opened a cabinet and took out some files.

Lindsay sat down in one of the chairs facing his desk, the picture in her hand. If you took the year 1967 and added thirty-three years to that, the sum was this very year. In February, her mom would turn thirty-four.

“Sit in my chair,” Dr. G said. “Imagine how it feels to be a doctor facing his patient.”

Lindsay took the swivel chair. She imagined Allegra and Gammy sitting in the two chairs facing the desk. I have very good news, she’d tell them. Under the Compassionate Investigational New Drug treaty, you are allowed to keep six mature cannabis plants, and/or a half-pound of marijuana. However, if you move to Sonoma, you can keep ninety-nine plants.

But that drug’s addictive! Gammy would gasp. It’s one step from pot to mainlining heroin! Lindsay would interrupt her. Don’t be afraid, ma’am. That’s why we have Marinol. It will help Allegra feel better. Not only does it ease nausea, but also you will look forward to meals. Allegra, you will feel so good you’ll even want to dance again. I am a doctor. I can make this promise.

Then they would cry from relief, and Gammy would call her a godsend. Allegra would start out on Simon’s kreplach soup, and in no time be eating pasta and apples and bread dipped in olive oil, everything she used to love. They would make cookies. Tell jokes. Throw a Halloween party and dress up like witches.

Dr. G set papers on the desk blotter. “Here’s a fact you should make certain gets into your project. Before the 1937 ban, marijuana was used to treat over a hundred different medical conditions.”

“I’m starting our interview now,” Lindsay said. “Dr. G, which of your patients use medical marijuana, and how does it work for them?”

“I’m afraid the Hippocratic oath means I can’t talk about my patients personally,” he said. “But I can tell you that on the average, I’d say about ten to fifteen percent of them use Marinol or medical marijuana.”

“Why do they use it?”

“It’s unfortunate, but for some of them we just don’t have comparable antinausea meds.”

“So Marinol works on everyone?”

“It can be quite effective, but not for everyone.”

“Why not?”

“Every drug has side effects. Some patients find a combination of the drug and the herb do the best to combat nausea, but less is more when it comes to marijuana. The issue is to treat it like a prescription drug, not an excuse to smoke yourself stupid. There’s a page in there on Proposition Two-fifteen you might find interesting. A lot of doctors were involved in getting that on the ballot.”

Lindsay leafed through the pages, scanning for new material. She and Sally were swimming in Internet downloads. They’d interviewed Gregorio’s dad, who mostly spoke Spanish, so Gregorio had to translate. They didn’t get much because he was one part embarrassed about it and one part worried he was corrupting them and the last part sure they were cops. “Can I keep these?”

“Sure. You want a sheet on hospice care? Morphine pump use? I have a lot more.”

Lindsay set the pictures down. For a moment, she felt blinded, as if someone was shining a flashlight into her eyes from really close. She couldn’t answer Dr. G because in order for her mother to be born in 1968, Allegra had to be pregnant in June 1967. People who camped together, even if it was in separate sleeping bags, could still get out of those sleeping bags and have sex. She wanted to ask Dr. G right out, but what if he didn’t know? If Carl Sagan were in this predicament, he wouldn’t blurt out a conclusion without examining all the evidence. What he’d do was ask a question. “Dr. G,” Lindsay said. “If Allegra gets worse and she’s going to die, promise me you’ll tell me ahead of time.”