used up; Amy substantial to a fault.
Under the table I rested my hands on my own flattened belly, murmuring to Denise, 'I think I'd kill myself if I looked like that.' Denise looked at me as if this were a bizarre thing to say.
When Kit and Amy approached the table, Denise sprang to her feet, smiling and over-enthusiastically exclaiming, 'Hi! Amy! Kit! It's so good to see you! You look great!' She hugged Kit first, very gently, and pulled out a chair for her. After Amy settled her into it, she and Denise embraced; from the stiff angle of Amy's upper body I guessed she was taking pains not to compromise her hair or make-up or clothes just for the sake of human contact, and my estimation of her rose a few notches. Denise, on the other hand, hugged her fiercely, and spent the rest of the lunch with one side of her hair sticking out. How any woman could care so little about her appearance is beyond me.
I smiled at Kit and touched her skeletal wrist. I really did care about her. 'Hi,' I said softly to her, under the din Denise was making. 'How are you doing, sweetie?'
The others had taken their seats before Kit had gathered herself to answer, 'I'm tired, Madyson. I don't have much left. I'm almost done.'
Without brows or lashes, her facial expressions were all but impossible to interpret, but I thought she looked at me then as if she suspected something, unlikely as that seemed. Guilt broke through and set my stomach roiling, followed by the terror that is never far away. Mortality, which is to say death, took its place with us at the table, and I hurriedly excused myself. As I passed behind Kit, I touched the chill back of her neck, in a gesture of love and apology, gratitude and farewell.
Charon's has a truly remarkable ladies' room. In the spacious anteroom are three-way floor-length mirrors, a long vanity with tissues and cotton balls and individual mirrors, dispensers for lotions and astringent cleansers, little squirt bottles of antistatic and hairspray, nail buffers, a vending machine dispensing individual vials of various scents at a cost per ounce as exorbitant as if it were Parisian perfume. The lines for Charon's ladies' room often stretch out the door.
That day only two or three other women were ahead of me, and while I waited I took stock. I'd checked myself at home, of course, as part of my morning regimen, and again at the gym, but you couldn't be too sure. Under cover of smoothing my clothes, I assured myself that the work on stomach, breasts and buttocks was holding. Thighs below the leather mini-skirt were firm and free of varicosity. There was no loose flesh on the backs of upper arms, no crow's feet at the corners of my eyes or mouth. All exposed skin, of which there was a considerable amount, was taut and moist. My hair swung nicely in the simple, youthful shoulder-length bob my hairdresser had recommended, his expert highlights creating exactly the right aura of light and lightness around my face. Although I was still not entirely satisfied with my lips and nose, my brows arched perfectly and my breasts finally were the size and shape I wanted.
But as I regarded myself in every possible mirror and combination of mirrors, I saw death encroaching. Saw my organs ageing, my hair greying and thinning, the skin of my elbows wrinkling like dried fruit. Saw the crabwalk of deterioration advancing.
The effort it took to keep all this at bay — one day, one procedure, one friend at a time — was staggering. I could scarcely do anything else.
When on the way back to my friends I caught sight of Kit, faintly nodding at something Amy was saying, I realized I'd had the fantasy that in the time I was absent she'd have slipped away; at the same time, I'd been hoping she'd still be available to me for a little while. Love for her brought tears to my eyes; careful not to smudge my mascara, I dabbed them away. It was plain to see that Kit was now quite beyond my reach. So, regretfully but without hesitation, I turned my attention elsewhere.
Denise had a hefty lunch, including dessert. Amy and I had salads. We chatted stiffly; it was hard to come up with safe conversation with Kit among us. Talking about the future, even next week, seemed ghoulish. Talking about the present made Kit's illness the elephant at the table nobody could forget but nobody mentioned. Talking about our shared past reminded us of what was gone. Kit didn't take part in the conversation much and, although she ordered something, she didn't eat, just took a sip of water now and then, slowly and with great care.
Denise was into a somewhat manic recounting of her recent expedition climbing Colorado's fourteeners. 'Not bad for a fifty-one-year-old grandmother, huh?' she crowed more than once. Amy was looking increasingly pained. I guessed that Denise was desperate to fill silence, to talk about anything other than the elephant, but I allowed myself to half believe that her insensitivity justified what I was about to do.
I stopped behind her and laid my hands on her shoulders. She took it as a warning, which in part it was, and hesitated, then brought her story to a clumsy conclusion and stopped talking. Energy was racing through her body like white water. I pushed myself into the stream. She winced. I massaged her shoulders tenderly, employing techniques I'd learned from Vonda to loosen tight muscles and release tension, but my purpose was not to heal.
'Oh,' she moaned, wriggling her shoulders sensuously. 'That hurts.'
'Should I stop?' But I didn't stop. I increased the pressure along her trapezius, then found a knot under her left shoulder blade and dug my knuckle in. She gasped and arched her back. I held steady. After a long moment she relaxed under my hands. I felt the underlying defences of her body open to me, and we had the first of our exchanges. For me it was like a blood transfusion. For her, it was slow poison.
I released the pressure, swept my hands lightly over her back, and left her with a little pat of affection and regret. She said, 'Wow, Madyson, you have really strong hands,' and just sat there for a while.
Kit asked Amy, in a voice strong enough to make me wonder if she might have something more to offer me after all, but, tellingly, with no energy to waste on segue, 'When do you get your baby?'
Amy hesitated and looked at me, not sure she ought to go there. I shrugged. 'I leave Thursday,' she finally said, almost apologetically.
Denise, who'd been staring off into space, roused herself. 'Baby?'
'I'm adopting a baby girl from China.' Amy kept glancing at Kit and spoke with some reluctance, but the excitement that broke through was contagious. 'She was a foundling so they aren't certain of her birth date, but she's about eight months old.'
'A baby? At your age? At our age?' Denise shook her head in amazement and, I thought, disapproval. I disapproved, too, but not on the basis of age; while I doubted her weight was a serious health hazard, it seemed to me that one of the criteria for adoption ought to be appearance. After all, who would want a fat mother?
Amy started to defend herself, but I spoke first. 'If you can climb fourteeners, at our age , why shouldn't Amy be able to adopt a baby?'
