turner, but she’s attractive. She’s standing next to a tubby, balding guy in a brown Christmas tree sweater. He has his hand wrapped around her waist. They’re talking to another couple, smiling. She looks sidelong at Tubby, making sure his attention is on the other couple, then throws a half-smile across the room to my father. I’m not exactly sure how I know, but I’m sure this is Janine.
“Your ten o’clock,” I say to Tana. “I think it’s the trollop Dad’s leaving my mom for.”
Tana whips around to face me. “Excuse me?!” I quickly bring her up to speed on the morning’s conversation.
“What a fucking prick!” she says, jumping off the couch.
“Where are you going?”
“To find out who she is.” And then she’s parting the crowd, making her way toward the two couples. I watch her introduce herself. So does my father, who looks at me with an expression teetering between anger and confusion. I toast him with my glass, which I discover is empty. Rising from the couch, I return to the bar and order a scotch. Dottie, who is talking to my mother, calls me over.
“I’ve just been hearing all about your job,” fawns Dottie. “And living in the city. Maybe you can help my Tana find a job when she finally finishes college.”
“She’s got your looks, Dottie. She doesn’t need my help.”
“Oh you,” Dottie says, patting my arm like a frisky cat. My mother, in contrast, looks glassy-eyed.
“You all right, Ma?” I ask.
She doesn’t respond. Dottie zooms in. “Judy?”
Mom jerks awake. “I’m fine,” she says. “I just need some water.”
“Come on,” says Bonnie, taking her by the arm. “I’ve got some of that Evian in the kitchen.”
I look for Tana. She’s been cornered by the medium-famous rapper, but isn’t complaining. “
“Now you’re just making shit up,” I say, turning to find the sexy elf.
She smiles. “Kwanzaa food. I believe it’s made out of peas.”
“I’ll stick to scotch,” I say, raising my glass. “I guess we’re going to have to find some other way to celebrate Kwanzaa.”
“Like what?” she asks.
Tana darts over before I can reply, grabbing one of the appetizers off the tray. “I’ll try some of that.” The sexy elf smiles and moves along.
“That, little girl, was a
“Her?” Tana snorts. “Please.”
“Whatever. So what do you know?”
“I know that J-Bigg plays all his own instruments.” Tana looks across the room at the rapper. J-Bigg catches her looking and smiles. Several of his teeth are capped with gold.
“I’ll bet,” I reply. “Did he ask you to play his skin flute?”
Tana shoves me. “What is wrong with you?!”
“Maybe I’m jealous.”
“You should be. He said we could ‘
“Look at you,” I say. “Already part of his crew. One of his hos. Now what did you find out about Frosty the Snowlady?”
“You were right. Her name’s Janine Canterbury or some-thing like that. Married to Ted Canterwhatever, he of the hideous sweater. I mean, a brown Christmas tree? That’s wack.”
“Did my dad invite her here?”
“Doubt it. She seemed to know Larry,” Tana says, adding when I raise an eyebrow: “In a professional way.”
“My mom seems really out of it,” I say, looking around the room for her. She hasn’t returned from the kitchen.
“Do you think she knows?” asks Tana.
I shrug. “Hey… didn’t you have something important to talk to me about tonight?”
“Later,” she says. “When did you switch to scotch? I feel like I’m falling behind.”
We’re on our way to the bar when Dottie stops us. Mascara running down her face. Two minutes later I’m upstairs, yelling for my father, ripping open doors. I finally find Dad in Dottie’s cedar closet, where he and Janine are making out like a couple of teenagers. He raises his hands in frustration. Janine brushes down the front of her hiked-up dress.
“Well,” Dad says, “this isn’t the way I wanted you two to meet.” Janine, following his cue, extends a hand. I ignore it.
“It’s Mom,” I say. “She just collapsed in the kitchen. There’s an ambulance on the way.”
12
MY FATHER AND I HAVE TAKEN UP semipermanent residence in the waiting room at the Nassau University Medical Center. We try to keep our conversations limited to the declining fortunes of the New York Islanders and order-taking as we alternate trips to the hospital cafeteria and replenish cigarettes. A blurry parade of doctors keeps us apprised of my mother’s condition. The television in the visitors’ room tells us when Christmas Day has come and gone.
At the outset, my mother’s condition confounds the staff. Her lead physician, Dr. Winfield Edgars—“Call me Dr. Win, everyone else does”—pulls no punches in his initial diagnosis: “What troubles me is that her symptoms strongly suggest a brain tumor.” I soon learn that the troubling part for Dr. Win isn’t my mother’s worsening condition, but the lack of any evidence to support his diagnosis. Despite a battery of tests and scans, the tumor stubbornly refuses to present itself.
On the fourth day Dr. Win enters the room with a smile. “She doesn’t have a tumor,” he says. His voice can barely contain his excitement as he explains how her symptoms had fooled him. “Paraneoplastic syndrome. A few years ago, we wouldn’t have been able to diagnose this thing. We’re still not exactly sure how it works. Her brain —actually, her nervous system—is being attacked by an immune response to some-thing else. What we’re seeing in her brain are the symptoms, not the underlying cause. We had to go back and figure out what was triggering the immune response.”
“And?” my father asks.
Dr. Win beams. “Lung cancer,” he says.
“She doesn’t even smoke,” I say.
“Does she live with a smoker?” he asks, seemingly oblivious to Dad’s nicotinestained teeth and fingers. “Could also be asbestos. How old’s your house?”
Dr. Win’s work is done. We’re turned over to Dr. Best in Oncology, who’s as warm as Dr. Win, only without the sense of humor. “Ninety percent of these cases don’t make it past five years,” he begins, before launching into a vivid description of the aggressive radiation therapy she’s about to endure.
I want to cry. I suspect my father does as well. Out of respect for unspoken family tradition, we won’t do it in front of each other.
My mother’s emotional state varies with her treatment schedule. But the feeling I get from her more than any other feels an awful lot like relief. She insists that I return to work. “Get back to your life. It’s not healthy for you to be here.”
So I do. Despite the crappy winter weather, the city feels crowded and alive. It’s almost New Year’s Eve, so the preppies and college kids are home from school. Business is brisk, for which I’m grateful. The constant motion helps to keep me numb.
The week I took off from work to be at the hospital and Danny Carr’s current three-week vacation to Florida have conspired to wreck my personal finances, forcing me back on my subsistence diet of hot dogs and pizza. I’m definitely going to be late on my January rent, so I avoid Herman by using the fire escape to get to and from my
