Lovely, Dark, Deep: Stories Page 10

  As for birth control—maybe that wasn’t so funny. Just sad.

  These clumsy jokes, Mickey did not make in the presence of others. Certainly not Cameron.

  These were inward, brooding Mickey-jokes.

  Now at almost thirty-seven she’d outgrown Mickey; but it was too late to try to convince others that she merited being called Michelle.

  Worse, she’d grown into Mickey. She’d been shaped—misshapen—by Mickey. Like one of those stunted little Japanese bonsai trees except her stuntedness was mostly inward.

  Mickey failed to evoke gravitas. Not a name likely to be attached to one who merits respect, attention, a fellowship from the National Academy of Science, or, in time, the tears of a grief-stricken community.

  Cameron had fallen in love with Mickey—he’d never met Michelle.

  Now, not so much in love with Mickey—he’d have even less interest in Michelle.

  As Mickey she’d been the one to absorb bad news like a deep-sea sponge bred for such a purpose. She’d been the one, in the marriage, to understand, forgive, and forget. (Amazing how volitional amnesia could be. Misdeeds of Cameron’s had been whited-out as in a nova explosion.)

  Waiting for Cameron to come home she called a few friends. The combination of that morning’s chemo and the catastrophic death of Angelo Stephanos had left her shaken—she had no feelings, she was totally numb.

  Of several friends only one woman, of Mickey’s approximate age, spoke of Stephanos as if she’d suffered a personal loss. It was news to Mickey that Jacky Spires had been such an intimate of Stephanos but there was Jacky mourning the man in the most extravagant way, on the verge of crying—“What a tragedy! He was so young.” Mickey asked Jacky to explain to her why Stephanos had been so remarkable; wanting to feel something of what the grieving woman felt. If only the acid-taste in her mouth didn’t make all else seem irrelevant.

  After chemo, Mickey was supposed to avoid alcohol—of course. And cold drinks, in fact anything cold. Cold seemed to attack tissue like something alive, leaping.

  Still, a quarter-glass of white wine wouldn’t hurt. She didn’t think so. She had to open the refrigerator and remove the bottle with a woolen glove on her right hand, kept on top of the refrigerator for that practical purpose. And she sipped the cold tart liquid very, very slowly for fear that her mouth and throat muscles would spasm.

  On the other end of the line Jacky was saying, like a migraine sufferer speaking through pain, “Stephanos was just, I don’t know—a wonderful person, Mickey. So generous, and so funny. Beata is rather prim, she seems almost like his mother at times. He’s so funny, making jokes the poor woman couldn’t begin to comprehend—of course, she’s thoroughly Greek; he’s only just half-. Well, Stephanos gave off an air of something like love. It’s difficult to explain . . . But you must have met him, too . . .”

  As she listened to this lovesick elegy, emotions of adolescent yearning and loss welled up in Mickey. (Or was it a faint surge of nausea? She’d remembered to take her anti-nausea medication.) She recalled her first love—not a lover: a friend—in college. A poet who’d gone on to publish, with some success. And, not long afterward, her first lover—not a friend. (She’d lost track of him after his second marriage.) Seeing Cameron for the first time at the University of Minnesota where she’d been a new, young graduate student and Cameron had been completing his Ph.D., Mickey had felt a sense of intensity, urgency—she’d been twenty-five years old and had believed herself old. She’d been drawn to biology as natural history; but biology was now becoming computational, mathematical. In her environmental lab it had seemed that men were clearly preferred; sexism prevailed; that she was Mickey Lewenstein was a disadvantage, like a withered leg; that she tried to compensate for the withered leg by being brightly articulate, energetic and hardworking, seemed to annoy others in the lab including the principal investigator whose assessment of her stalwart effort had been probably reduced to a pithy utterance Works too hard for too little. Or Smart but not smart enough.

  If she’d been a star in the U-Minn department she might not have married Cameron, or anyone; she might now have a professorial position, with tenure, at a good university; yet by now, to be reasonable, she might also be burnt out. Molecular biology was the cutting-edge science of the new century, like neuroscience. And the colon cancer would have caught up with her, being, she guessed, genetically-predetermined to strike her approximately when it had.

  Strange, she rarely thought of it. Of this mysterious voracious it residing in her very guts.

  That she wasn’t afraid of the cancer, much—this was more surprising to her. She trusted her (excellent, Asian-American, woman) oncologist and believed that the chemo would prevent the spread of the cancer elsewhere; the tiny tumor had been surgically removed, very deftly done, and had left a small precise puckered-looking incision almost immediately above her belly button, like a tattoo.

  If he’d loved her, Cameron would have kissed that sweet little puckered tattoo. Since he hadn’t, so he didn’t.

  She tried to see it that clearly. Such clarity was a Mickey-thing.

  SO RISKY, to love another person!

  Like flaying your own, outermost skin. Exposed to the crude air and every kind of infection.

  Some months ago she’d seen him. She was sure. Walking with a stranger.

  By chance she’d seen. Returning from a late-afternoon run at the university arboretum and crossing the engineering quad which was contiguous with the consortium of buildings that housed the Grant Clark Institute of International Affairs where Cameron had an office and so seeing, though at first not knowing what it was she was seeing, her husband in the close company of—was it a young woman? A girl?

  So long had Mickey been one of these herself, that legion of voracious girls, she’d failed to realize that girl isn’t a noun but an adjective, applied to a condition. A phase of being and not a being.

  No longer would you call Mickey a girl unless (for instance) you’d seen her at a little distance, walking/jogging in the hilly arboretum, in denim shorts, pullover, university jacket, leg warmers and well-worn running shoes; sometimes, still, her streaked-blond hair pulled back in a ponytail to whip behind her.

  Closer, you’d see that Mickey had become, inescapably, a woman.

  Since the chemo, there were new, faint lines in her forehead and the skin was both flushed and alarmingly papery. In the interior of her mouth, in the days following treatment, small canker sores that burnt like tiny peppers.

  Sometimes after chemo she had a delayed physical reaction—shivering, shuddering, quaking and so cold, her teeth began to chatter. It was her temperature, as they said spiking—the intense cold actually a symptom of imminent fever.

  So long as her temperature didn’t inch beyond 100.1 degrees F., she was not in immediate danger.

  Such quaking episodes were—oh, she wanted to think this!—like the aura preceding an epileptic fit. The mystic-transcendental aura of Dostoyevsky, for instance. An elite sort of pathology and not just—pathology.

  At such times she was compelled to think that her mistake wasn’t Mickey. Not just the name. She was thinking that her true mistake, if it had been a mistake, had been to blindly persevere in a field in which so very few women excelled that each had to be unique. And she hadn’t been unique.

  In certain fields of scientific research, as in politics, finance, and law, the female and the intellectual ran along parallel lines that did not converge, as the male and the intellectual did. You could be thoroughly an intellectual while not surrendering maleness; you could not be so totally intellectual and not surrender some degree of femaleness. It seemed to be a law of nature, or of culture so deeply ingrained in the species that it felt like nature. This was true of Mickey’s academic women friends as it was true of her. Married, unmarried—it made no difference.

  Her friend Jacky Spires had become a highly prolific, productive researcher in the volatile field of social psychology. Jacky attended conferences, s
he published papers, articles, books. It helped that she was unmarried—it helped that she had few distractions. She’d become a star in her department yet never felt confident, always harried, pursued—“At least there’s the compensation of a new book next year. I try to think of it that way. If there was only next year, and no new book, or new work . . .” Jacky made a gesture of eloquent dismay.

  Mickey had lost the momentum of research, conference papers, publication. She’d lost the impetus to start a family. But she was still alive.

  Except: she’d seen Cameron walking with one of them.

  Might’ve been a first-year graduate student. So young!

  On a side street near the political science building. A couple walking together, talking intensely, Cameron’s arm brushing against the girl’s arm, and the girl glancing up at him, one of those smiles-inviting-a-kiss. And Mickey who’d been about to cross the street in their direction froze, and turned away, and fled like a kicked dog.

  A sensation like a hook in the heart. And she’d thought This is not new. This is not lethal. The marriage will survive.

  “Cameron? I saw.”

  “‘Saw’?”

  “I know about her.”

  “‘Her’? Who?”

  Patiently Mickey said, as if Cameron were a precocious young child, and this was a game they were playing, “I don’t know her name—how would I know her name? But I know about her.”

  Cameron frowned. Cameron glanced down at his feet, frowning.

  “Not sure what you mean, Mick.”

  “Don’t ‘Mick’ me! I saw you with her, and it was evident—you are a couple.”

  “When was this? Today?”

  Mickey’s face was burning. This was so ridiculous—her husband interrogating her.

  “Yes. Today. This afternoon. About four o’clock. On McCormack Street near—what’s it?—Elm.”

  “Really? Today?”

  “Yes! Today. It was an accident, I just happened to see you—and her. At first I didn’t realize that it was you, and then—I saw.”

  Cameron shook his head, baffled. He was a tall solid-built man of forty-one whose alternative life, he liked to say, would have been skiing—Ski Patrol Olympics, snow-mountain rescue, working for the National Park Service in, for instance, Yellowstone. His wrists and ankles were twice the size of Mickey’s wrists and ankles and she never saw him without feeling an involuntary sensation not unlike melting, or decomposition. Ohhhh. Yes.

  She knew, he’d been unfaithful to her. Probably.

  In twelve years of marriage, inescapably.

  It was a male thing. For some, a female thing as well, but not for Mickey.

  And now, she wanted to think she’d been mistaken. Certainly, she was mistaken. The look of hurt, surprise, indignation in her husband’s face—she had to be mistaken.

  “I can see you’re upset, Mickey. It’s the stress of these weeks”—(Cameron wouldn’t say chemo, as he would not ever say cancer)—“and you’re not sleeping, I can tell. But at four o’clock today I was at a poli-sci faculty meeting, that lasted until almost five-thirty. Would you like witnesses’ statements, notarized?” Cameron’s sarcasm was masked as humor so it wouldn’t sting quite as much.

  “All right, then.”

  “‘All right, then’—what?”

  Mickey laughed. Another little peppery canker sore had emerged, in the soft moist flesh of her cheek. But Cameron knew nothing of these sores, no reason for Cameron to know.

  “Just—‘all right.’ I didn’t see what I saw. I believe you.”

  LATER SHE’D WONDERED: the young person, the stranger, slender-bodied, so eagerly accommodating to the elder who was Mickey’s husband—could it have been, not a girl but a boy?

  IF HER EYES had seen boy her brain would’ve registered girl.

  SHE TRAVELED to the city by train to select a wig. In secret.

  It was advised to select a wig before actual hair loss.

  In the literature it was said Hair loss can be more traumatic for cancer patients than the threat of cancer itself.

  She should have her hair buzz-cut, she was told. Oh but not just yet, she protested.

  “Next time you come to see us.”

  In the unsparing mirror a shadow-eyed woman regarded her with a brave smile. Same brave smile she’d seen since the myriad public-lavatory mirrors of adolescence. Well! Here we are.

  She was shown a beautiful human-hair wig, priced at three thousand six hundred dollars. This was classy/glossy wavy hair just slightly lighter in color than her own and about the length of her own, now slightly ragged hair.

  She was shown a synthetic wig of approximately the same color, curlier, just perceptibly more festive. Eight hundred ninety dollars.

  She was shown a synthetic wig, not so showy, but attractive, adequate. Six hundred fifty dollars.

  “But I want a wig like my own hair. I don’t want a wig that looks better than my own hair. I’m not trying to look glamorous. Can’t you approximate that?”

  Pink-smocked Mimi whose own hair was glamorous, blow-dried and gaily-streaked-blond, said, with a little frown, “Yes. We could. But it would mean taking one of these great wigs and thinning it so much, there would be almost nothing left to hide the netting.”

  Thinning it so much. Almost nothing left. For the first time Mickey had some sense of her condition.

  IMPULSIVELY SHE DECIDED: SHE WOULD PAY A CALL TO THE widow.

  She would offer condolences.

  This morning a new spurt of energy. The old buoyancy, she’d almost forgotten.

  In University Heights it was known, Stephanos’s widow was having a kind of open house 5:00 P.M. to 7:00 P.M. and all were invited. A memorial service would be scheduled for later in the term.

  In the late afternoon then she dressed in glamorous black: a taffeta dress with a stylish little jacket which she hadn’t worn in (at least) a decade; high-heeled black shoes and black net stockings. So unlike Mickey’s usual attire even when “dressy” she hoped people wouldn’t think she was in costume.

  Amazing how the black taffeta dress fit her. She’d lost at least fifteen pounds.

  Sexy-chic. Mickey hadn’t looked so glamorous since her high school senior prom.

  Combing her hair cautiously with a wide-toothed comb as she’d been instructed. Still, hairs began to be “released.” After the first two chemotherapy treatments her hair had not seemed affected but now, after the third, she saw a subtle yet unmistakable difference and her scalp was feeling singed.

  In a near-panic noticing strands of hair backlit by sunlight from a window, drifting, falling. A sort of halo framing her face.

  Wanting to protest I’m still a young woman. My life is before me.

  Stephanos took her hand, and brushed his lips against the knuckles.

  Of course your life is before you. But you must reach out and take it.

  She drove to Stephanos’s house on Arden Avenue which was less than a half-mile from her own house. She was feeling such sorrow for the widow whom she scarcely knew.

  For Stephanos, she felt only a kind of numbness. A vague sense of loss but also resentment at this loss. For the man hadn’t been her friend—not hers and Cameron’s.

  But for the widow she felt something like pain. A pain that left her breathless. A shared—(but how could it be shared? Beata Stephanos knew nothing of her)—terror at the abrupt loss of the husband which must feel like an amputation. She thought I hope she will let me be her friend. I hope I can help her.

  This was naïve, probably. Ridiculous. The Stephanos family had relatives, countless close friends. A phalanx of people who’d loved Stephanos and would protect the widow.

  So many vehicles were parked in front of Stephanos’s house, and on side streets near the house, Mickey had to walk a considerable distance in the sexy high-heeled shoes and in her arms bearing a lavish bouquet of flowers—calla lilies, roses, gardenias, mums. Impulsively she’d stopped at a florist in town and bought up the store saying a frien
d had just died and the high school girl behind the counter said Ohhh. Is this the professor? Lots of people been in here all day.

  Stephanos had lived in a stately, just slightly shabby old English Tudor built in the early years of the twentieth century, like numerous others at this end of the older campus. At one time the residential neighborhood was considered the most prestigious in the area: the university president lived close by. Now, younger faculty preferred to live in the hilly, expansive suburbs.

  Mickey drifted inside the house, in the company of several others who were carrying flowers, or casseroles, or baskets of fruit. Their greetings were murmured as if embarrassed.

  So many people! Half of University Heights had to be crowded into the downstairs rooms of the Stephanos house. Mickey had to restrain herself from looking quickly about—as if Stephanos might appear. Almost, in a part of her brain, she expected to see him.

  Mickey! So kind of you to come. My sweet girl.

  She’d become chilled on the walk from the car. Shivering, mildly quaking. The sexy black taffeta dress fitting her hips seductively and the stylish little jacket, button-less, fell open to show the tops of her creamy-pale breasts. (The puckers at the sides of the breasts, a result of Mickey’s weight loss, and a curious brittle discoloration of the nipples, were hidden from view.)

  She felt clumsy, bearing her armful of flowers like some sort of Greek peasant girl. She did see familiar faces, she exchanged smiles. The atmosphere was somber, heightened. Music was playing—sounding like Greek Orthodox chorale music. Everyone was excessively courteous. Except there were small children, darting about. On a long dining room table vases of flowers, floral displays, fruit-baskets, casserole dishes. Bottles of dark red wine. Stuffed olives, stuffed vine leaves, crusty white bread. A smell of something baking in the kitchen—quiche?

  There were tear-streaked faces, there were muffled sobs. Mickey guessed that some of the mourners were relatives. A frightened-looking dull-eyed boy of about fifteen, a disabled child in a wheelchair who resembled Stephanos about the eyes. Mickey handed her armful of flowers to a high-school-aged girl who took them from her muttering Thanks, ma’am!