Magnetism Read online

  ‘Which one?’

  He points to my right breast. ‘Probably nothing, but we want to check further. Have you noticed anything when you self-examine?’

  ‘No.’ I don’t say that I don’t examine myself, because what would be the point in making myself look so careless when they’ll be taking a look themselves soon? ‘My breasts are lumpy,’ I add. ‘Generally, you know, just lumpy. Not like mashed potato lumpy, more like fibrous lumpy, cooked celery, or overcooked broccoli stems.’ Even as I say all this I realise I sound like a fool.

  ‘Uh huh,’ he says. ‘Well, we’ll want to do a sonogram now. Can I just get you to sign here?’ The paperwork is already done. There’s my name and date of birth at the top of the form allowing them to bill HMO for more money. ‘Won’t take long.’

  He leaves and a woman comes in. She looks Chinese, with a beautiful curtain of long black hair loose down her back. ‘Hi,’ I say.

  ‘Hi.’ She has a quiet voice. In this soft voice she tells me to lie down on the examination couch and then she starts. She lifts my right arm up and examines my breast with the flat of her hand, then she feels into the area under my arm, prodding deep. She is silent throughout. Then she pulls over a trolley with a big monitor on it, and starts the sonogram. This thing gets rolled over my flattened right breast while she watches the screen intently.

  Her face is perfectly still. No frowns, no smiles. Then I spot the first guy by the door in the corner. Perhaps he came back in, or perhaps he never left, but he must be the person who switched out the lights just before she started. He appears to also be watching the screen, but I don’t know what he could possibly see from so far away.

  ‘Well,’ she says, finally, ‘I think we’ll just want to do a tiny biopsy, while you’re here.’

  Above us, the light flickers on.

  I am still lying in position with my arm over my head. I pull it down, try to cover myself. My arm across my chest can at least cover both nipples. I don’t want to be in this horrible airless room with these strangers pawing over me any longer.

  ‘I really need to get back to work.’

  ‘It won’t take long. There’s a little bump, just here.’ She lifts my arm away and prods into the breast. I can’t feel anything but her fingers digging into me. The man in the corner jumps forward with another form for me to sign, for them to claim yet more money from HMO for the ‘extended examination’. When I read this form, I learn that a needle is involved. It’s a needle biopsy, and a five minutes later I discover that the needle is big, and it hurts.

  ‘I have to wait for the results,’ I tell Mom down the phone. ‘It’s nothing to worry about,’ I say, even though I do not believe this and I am terrified.

  Yesterday I was reassured about the pap test and was told that the STD screen was clear. I’m waiting for the results of the needle biopsy of the lump that they discovered. There was a message on my cell phone to say that they’d ring me to discuss the result this evening.

  ‘Happens all the time,’ Mom says. ‘Mistakes like this.’

  ‘It’s not a mistake. The lump was a finding and they investigated. I’m waiting for the results of the test.’

  ‘Well, it could be a mistake, still. But one of your aunts had cancer. I think it was her breasts. One or both of the breasts.’

  ‘Who?’

  ‘Not your dad’s. One of my sisters. Sheila.’

  ‘What? Did Dad have sisters?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘They asked me about family history. And I didn’t know this. What else don’t I know?’

  ‘You don’t want to worry people needlessly with stuff they can’t do anything about,’ she says, ‘Don’t worry about it now. Now that you’re in this situation, when it’s too late. So, it is cancer?’

  ‘I don’t know that yet.’

  ‘But probably?’ she says. ‘That’s terrible. It was Charleen’s primary too. Oh, dear. The treatments are awful, honey. But finally maybe you’ll lose some weight and that’s a plus even though your hair will fall out. We can get you a wig. Oh, God … Will they remove both breasts?’ Then she says, ‘Don’t worry. You’re not going to die right away.’

  ‘I’m hanging up, Mom. I’m expecting Johnny any minute.’

  ‘Aha! Is that his name?’

  I end the call.

  I’m about to fake an orgasm. I’m still waiting for the phone call. If I don’t pretend to be joining in, we could be here forever and I won’t hear the phone.

  I don’t want to tell Johnny that I’ve been thinking about cancer all day. He’s not the most observant person. He doesn’t even know that I’ve had the biopsy done. I’ve kept my bra on and he hasn’t noticed the bandage.

  Cancer. That’s a conversation I’d rather we never have. It will change things. It would change everything.

  He’s picking up the pace, slightly.

  When we finish, he’s not going to want me to say, ‘A for effort, but it’s just not doing it for me today because I’m scared that I’m going to die.’ But, if I don’t come, what will he think? That I’ve suddenly become frigid? What can I do now? It’s too late to tell him to get out of me and explain why while he wilts. It would put him off sex with me forever, and he is just so darn good at it.

  I arch upwards and start moaning. I could be an actress.

  There will be fallout, though – if my faking is too good. He might hurry things along every time, and often I want us to take things a bit slower.

  I continue with the repetition. ‘Ah! Oh! Ah.’ (I don’t know how to be more original, but it doesn’t seem to matter). Let me be clear: I invariably have an orgasm when we make love. I am very attracted to him, and, though intellectually it might not be the most satisfying relationship, our sex life is extremely satisfying. It has been from the beginning. He knows how to excite me and I have never been bored or disgusted.

  I should have told him I had my period.

  Suddenly his pace leaps ahead. His eyes take on a particularly vacant expression. I try, ‘Oh, baby,’ for variation. Then, ‘Yes! Yes! Yes!’ I am a cheerleader.

  It works.

  Eventually there is the unravelling of our arms and legs and we are reinstated as individuals again. I roll on my side and out of the bed and into the bathroom. When I come back into the room he’s looking very pleased with himself. I must have been convincing.

  I tighten the bathrobe about me. He says he’ll shower, do I want to join him?

  ‘No, that’s fine,’ I say. ‘Go ahead.’

  He has left his wallet on my bedside table. It’s an old brown leather wallet – rather old-fashioned and fat. The underside has a butt groove, where it’s shaped to his body.

  The shower starts up.

  His billfold is thick, but not heavy. There’s a whole lot of cash in there. Couple of hundred dollars in small bills. It doesn’t look as if there’s anything larger than a twenty. The card flap is full. There is also a passport-size picture taken in a photo booth somewhere. Guys crammed in and goofing off. I remove this to see if there’s a date on the back, which there isn’t but I discover, beneath it, a similar picture of a group of girls. College kids maybe. None of them is Jo-Jo but maybe one is the hooker.

  Then, finally, the phone rings. I half expect it to be Mom wanting to continue our conversation, but it’s not her.

  1991

  Fireworks

  Pastor David always said that understanding and subscribing to a concept intellectually is totally different from translating an idea into action. ‘Faith is where the rubber hits the road,’ were his words. And now, though I still probably agree with Dad’s view that ninety-nine per cent of the things the pastor said were total crap, in my present situation I have to agree with his insight.

  After the break-up of a relationship, grown-ups are supposed to move on. I know that this is the truth, but I have not moved on, and seeing how much Chip has moved on is unbearable. He was actually moving at the time. I was two cars behind him and there were packing crates
crowding his back seat and the trunk wasn’t properly shut. It was held closed with rope.

  ‘Was he in the driving seat?’

  ‘In more ways than one,’ I report to Mom on the phone that night. ‘And she was there with him. They must be moving in together.’

  ‘Oh,’ Mom says. ‘I guess you have to expect that. It shouldn’t surprise you.’

  ‘A person can hope.’

  ‘A man like him would always run to another woman. Straight into another relationship. You knew this was going to happen. And you’re over him. It’s in the past. Water under the bridge. Spilt milk. His loss. You’ve got to make the best of this. Learn and progress.’ Then, to add weight to her position as an expert, she slips into phrases I remember hearing her old hairdresser Maurice throwing around in his salon. ‘C’est la vie. Ne fatigue pas,’ she says, ‘Je ne regrette rien.’

  ‘What do you mean, “a man like him”?’

  ‘Well, just that: a man who can’t do without a woman to take care of him. I read somewhere that eighty-four per cent of the time when men leave relationships it’s because they’ve got another woman lined up to go to, whereas women frequently leave relationships just because they’ve had enough. For men, enough is just not enough.’ She pauses for breath. ‘So, was he leaving Tulsa?’

  ‘So, that doesn’t make Chip a type, does it? It makes him typical.’

  ‘For example, your father, who was by no means your typical man — ’

  ‘Don’t talk about Dad,’ I interrupt. I hate it when she talks about Dad.

  ‘Look, it was in the Reader’s Digest. And I’ve just seen a book in the drugstore, The Ugly Things Women Do to Make Men Leave. You could really do with taking a look at that.’

  ‘I don’t know where he was going. I didn’t follow him. I turned off, and parked, and cried my eyes out in some strange neighbourhood. I feel real bad, Mom, and I need a date. For Donna’s party. I can’t be date-less Saturday.’

  ‘So, go and get yourself a date,’ she says. ‘And lock your doors when you’re driving. You never know what’s around the corner. You might see him again. If you do, you might want to follow him, find out exactly what’s going on. Catch them in the act. Now that would be taking action. Try that.’

  ‘What would be the point?’ I say, for the millionth time wishing that Mom would be on my side. Not exactly that she isn’t on my side, it’s just that she never sees it the same way. She doesn’t keep up with what I’m saying about my life. Now she’s cheering from the sidelines without understanding how much this whole thing hurts. It’s not a matter of just moving on. I’m lagging behind. I’ve fallen out of the race. I’m standing on the kerb. I’m in the gutter looking up at the world that I’ve lost. ‘The divorce is over, and we split up not because of me, but because of him. That’s what he said.’

  ‘They all say that. It means nothing. Nada.’

  We said so much stuff, all that bickering then shouting, that there’s a mountain of words. I can’t even remember now where exactly my marriage started to go from healthy to coming apart. ‘Oh, hell,’ I say, ‘Did I tell you why we first began to argue? I can’t remember.’

  Mom says she doesn’t know, that I never tell her anything, ever.

  ‘I give up. What issue of Reader’s Digest? And what was the name of that book?’

  She says just read the article. It’s in March’s, last month’s, edition of the magazine, then she asks again if I want to move back home to live with her, I say no and goodbye; we’ll speak tomorrow.

  Afterwards I go to bed considering my options and wake in the morning feeling strangely more optimistic, until I realise that it’s not all that easy finding someone to date and I’ve got to get on with it – the party is Saturday.

  Over my cereal, I decide to settle for Louis in Accounting. The guy’s been pestering for months, if not years. Not that I’ve got a lot of choices lined up.

  ‘You look adorable,’ he says when we meet in the bar before Donna’s party.

  Adorable? Isn’t ‘adorable’ the same as ‘cute’? I was aiming for adult in this get-up. Why do men think describing a woman as a child would be flattering? However, it’s clear Louis has also made an effort with his appearance. He looks clean and pressed and, even though there is a small dark inkstain on the shirt, for once he doesn’t have six identical pens winking at me from his pocket.

  ‘You look good too,’ I say.

  ‘So, how well do you know Donna?’ he asks in that sleazy way which makes me wonder how well he knows Donna. Louis speaks like that when asking directions for using the copier, down the phone to clients, to his boss Lenny when asking if he wants a coffee. He can’t say anything without it sounding smutty.

  ‘I knew her from when she was in our department. She started there, taking bookings and working on the brochures. She’s moved over to where you are now, but a couple of years ago she used to be at the next desk from me.’

  ‘So, she’s leaving?’

  ‘You know she’s leaving. I was there when you signed the card.’

  ‘I’m just making conversation,’ he says. ‘Small talk. You know. Preliminaries.’

  I just know he wanted to say foreplay and I want to be sick. ‘Can you get me a drink?’

  ‘Sure, let me fulfil your desires.’

  ‘A Coke, please.’

  ‘I don’t know, he’s sort of Italian,’ I am talking to Mom on the phone the following morning.

  ‘Oh. Nice-looking? They can be.’

  ‘He’s a creep.’

  ‘So, how far did you go?’ She asks as if she’s been taking lessons from Louis.

  ‘To the party and back.’

  ‘Did he kiss you? Is he a good kisser? Dry or wet?’

  I am not answering those questions.

  ‘Well, it’s a start,’ she finally says. ‘At least you went.’

  ‘I had a life and it didn’t work out. I can’t believe Chip is with her.’

  ‘He’s the father of her child. Even if apart, a man and a woman will always have a special tie if they have a child.’

  ‘Thanks, Mom.’

  Then she tells me that the daughter of her old friend Charleen has got a new job. When Pan Am went bust last December she managed to get another job straight away with American Airlines – how lucky, but she deserves it – and then she says that Louelle’s daughter has moved to Manhattan permanently, and in return I ask what do I care where Louelle’s daughter is living?

  ‘Just, that’s a place to live. Who wants to live in a state known for its panhandle? You don’t have to stay, you know?’

  ‘I hope Susie knows she’s joined a second-rate airline.’ This is a very mean thing to say and I hate myself for saying it as soon as the words leave my mouth.

  ‘I’m hanging up now,’ Mom says. ‘I’ve got plans.’

  The party wasn’t much of a party. Louis and I left at eleven and he drove us back to the bar, where I picked up my car. I’d told myself that if I was driving it would prevent me from drinking, which would prevent me getting into something I might regret with Louis, but not drinking just kept me from enjoying anything and I had a twenty-minute drive from the bar home feeling like a spoilsport and then feeling sorry for myself.

  My pity party continued right up the stairs, through the door and into my empty apartment. I suddenly missed not only Chip, but Dad too, all over again. It’s impossible to think of life going forward when all I can feel is that I’ve lost all my past and the future that I should have had.

  At least I should replace all the artwork that Chip took. The walls are bare. The bookshelves are half-empty. It’s been cold since Mrs Waterman downstairs went to live with her daughter midtown. Everything echoes. Every single thing is impossible.

  The truth is, Louis didn’t even try to kiss me. I didn’t really want him to, but I thought he’d try. Am I so disgusting to men that I’m not worth trying to kiss?

  On Monday morning I decide that I should do something – a diet and makeover woul
d be a help, and might offset the bloating that accompanies the PMS now beginning to kick in. Lunchtime I call into Woodlands Hill drugstore to pick up some Slim-Fast as well as Kotex, and some new make-up.

  When I get to the counter to pay, Nathan is standing behind the cashiers. ‘Hey, clumsy!’ he greets me.

  Nathan is a sweet guy. I’m surprised to see him here at twelve-thirty because he’s the night manager, but he tells me that he’s been promoted to day manager now. He takes over from the woman at the till and packs my bag and then carries it to my car. He says that, now he’s not working nights, he’s in a position to ask me out on a proper date. ‘What do you think? Maybe Friday?’

  I first met Nathan when I’d stopped off at this mall late one night on my way home. We’d done a late function at the convention centre and, as I entered, this young guy, Nathan, warned me, ‘Only weirdos come out to shop this time of night. Watch your stuff.’ I didn’t expect to buy much so I tucked my purse tight under my left armpit and put a hand basket over my other arm and proceeded around the nearly empty store.

  I collected some mascara and eyeliner and a couple of lipsticks in the basket and balanced them on top of a National Enquirer magazine to prevent them from sliding out through the mesh. I’d put in shower cream and deodorant by the time I got to aisle eight, and just added some cleaning stuff when a glass quart jar of Gatorade crashed to the ground next to me. I must have brushed it with the wayward basket. The juice splashed everything and the glass was everywhere. Nathan came to the rescue.

  He nicknamed me Clumsy that night and we’ve been friendly ever since. He’s got puppy appeal but he’s years younger than me – he’s only maybe twenty-five – and I’ve never even remotely considered him as date material.

  I’m thinking all these things as I realise that Nathan is still standing next to my car waiting for a reply. He’s harmless and I like him. What’s the problem? So, I say yes but I can’t do the weekend at all as we’ve got an event on, what about Wednesday? We agree that he’ll meet me at my apartment, and we’ll go to a movie. He enters his number on my cell phone, and makes a note of mine on his.