Matrimony (29 page)

“My unflappable wife,” Julian said. “From now on, I dub you Mellow Mia.” He walked about the house imitating her, though he looked less like someone mellow than someone asleep, for his neck lolled and his knees buckled and he seemed to have lost all muscle tone.

But after a few weeks had passed, it became difficult to recapture the dread, or the relief. Things went back to how they’d been before. She submerged herself in work. She went out to dinner with Julian. They played racquetball. They saw friends. But there remained a pall: that she might have the breast cancer gene. Late at night, after Julian had gone to sleep, she would surf the Web, trying to find out whether she had anything to worry about.

She learned that nearly a million Americans carried one of the mutations, which meant that in the population at large the odds were about one in four hundred. But among Ashkenazi Jews the odds were one in forty. What was more, in one study, out of 104 women who had been found to have the mutation, half had no known family history of breast cancer. In almost all those cases, the gene had been passed down silently by the woman’s father.

On the phone with her father, Mia said, “Did anyone besides your aunt have breast cancer, Dad?”

“A cousin of mine had it in her thirties,” he said. “But they caught it early and she was cured.”

“But no one else?”

“I don’t think so.”

“You aren’t sure?”

“How can I be? I’ve never stayed in touch with extended family.”

He was right, Mia thought. She had friends who were close with a large family tree, second cousins, first cousins once removed, everyone descending for an annual family reunion. But her family had never been that way, and her father, at least, looked at extended family with near distaste, as if the very category of “cousin” had been foisted on him. He found blood ties, except for those of immediate family, abstract, a curiosity, and he saw no reason to fraternize with people he had little in common with simply because they shared a great-grandfather. His extended family was the family of physicists; those were the people he wished to spend time with.

“What about Mom? Was her cancer pre- or post-menopausal?”

Her father didn’t respond.

“Dad, did Mom reach menopause before she got sick?”

“I don’t know.”

“Wouldn’t you remember if she had?”

“It’s been ages now, Mia, and we had much more pressing things on our minds than whether Mom had reached menopause.”

“I understand.”

“Is everything all right?”

“Yes.” For years now, her father had resisted going to doctors. He had a superstitious regard for the medical profession; he believed if you paid attention to doctors they’d pay attention to you. He’d been proven right, he believed. Mia’s mother had held doctors in high esteem and it hadn’t done her any good; he, on the other hand, had remained healthy. Since her mother had died, it had fallen on Mia to watch over her father’s health, and it was all she could do, miles away, to get him to go for his annual physical. She hadn’t told him about the breast lump. In fact, the only people she had told were Julian and Dr. Kaplan. She was a private person, and she didn’t want anyone to worry about her, especially not her father, alone in Montreal.

She had a couple of hours off from work, so she stopped by Olivia’s apartment in Alphabet City. Olivia’s place was small, but it was so uncluttered and sleek that it always looked as if she’d just moved in. “You’re amazing,” Mia said. “How do you keep the walls so white?”

Olivia shrugged. “I guess I make things sparkle.”

She did, Mia thought. Olivia and her feng shui. At the center of the living room, across from the couch, sat a brass Chinese trunk, and on the wall beside the window was an ebony side table on which stood a slender glass vase holding a rose. Aside from that, there was little furniture in the room and the walls were bare. Everything was understated, which made sense, Mia thought, for when Olivia had been mentioned in
The New York Times,
in a review of her dance troupe’s performance, the reviewer had written, “Olivia Mendelsohn glides across the stage with such economy of motion she appears not to be moving at all.”

“Anyway,” Olivia said, “Kincaid likes how I keep things here.”

“Immaculate?”

“No dirty dishes in the sink, no kids’ underwear to pick up, no Parcheesi pieces lodged between the sofa cushions.” She subsided onto the sofa, frowning. “You must think I’m crazy.”

“For keeping house for someone you don’t even live with?”

Olivia shook her head. “I keep house for myself. Still, I can’t help thinking I’m a feminist’s nightmare.”

“Oh, Ol, that’s not true. You’re living alone and supporting yourself. You’re doing what you love.”

“Mia, I’m going out with a married man.”

“But you love him, don’t you?”

“Absolutely.”

Olivia had been with Kincaid for four years now, and long ago Mia had resolved to stop judging her for it. Who was Mia to judge, in any case, when she had slept with her husband’s best friend and nearly lost him over it, when for a time she
had
lost him? Kincaid had promised to leave his wife, and the fact that he hadn’t made Mia doubt he ever would, but then she didn’t know Kincaid—not well, at least: his relationship with Olivia was, of necessity, secretive—and if Olivia believed Kincaid would leave his wife, Mia was determined to believe it, too.

It was noon, and Mia had called to see whether Olivia wanted to get lunch, but Olivia was still in her sweatpants—she’d been waitressing late last night—so they agreed to have lunch at her apartment.

In the kitchen, Olivia slathered cream cheese on a couple of bagels and placed blueberries in a bowl. A long mirror hung in the hallway, and she stopped in front of it to examine herself. “I hate this,” she said. “I’m losing my looks.”

“You were saying that when you were twelve, Ol.”

“But this time it’s true.”

Olivia claimed she had a bump on her nose and that her chin was misaligned, but Mia could see none of this. Neither, apparently, could men, who had been drawn to Olivia when she was younger and who were still drawn to her; Kincaid wasn’t the only one who had pursued her.

“Remember that
Newsweek
article that said that a single woman over thirty-five is less likely to get married than be killed by a terrorist? And that was in the days before there were terrorists.”

“You aren’t thirty-five yet,” Mia said. “And they disproved that study,” Mia said.

“Okay,” Olivia said, “so I’m being retrograde.” She sat down at the table. “Sometimes I think Kincaid is with me because I’m the path not taken.”

“Because you’re a dancer?”

Olivia nodded. “Frustrated artists are attracted to me.” Apparently, Kincaid had been a painter once, but there had been pressure on him not to pursue his art, first from his parents and then from his wife, who believed that painting was ultimately an indulgence. He’d considered architecture and graphic design, but he had ended up in investment banking. Then there were kids and bills, the usual things, and he was locked into something he found soulless. “He says I followed my dream,” Olivia said.

“Well, you did.”

“I just wish he wouldn’t romanticize me.”

“Think of it as a compliment.”

“Kincaid wishes he’d done what I’ve done, and what do I want? Domesticity. Jesus, Mia, I want to cook for him.”

“There are worse things than that.”

“I love to cook, but it’s lame to cook for yourself, and when Kincaid and I are together, he wants to go out.”

“And you don’t want to?”

“Sometimes I do. But more often, I just want to stay home and watch TV with him.”

Olivia retreated to her bedroom, and when she came back she was holding a picture of her and Kincaid. It was a strip of three photos, the kind taken in a drugstore booth, and it made Mia think of her sister from years ago, Olivia with her arm draped over some boy’s shoulder, lipstick smeared across her mouth. “And when we do go out,” Olivia said, “we have to go someplace where Kincaid won’t run into anyone. A few weeks ago, we had reservations at this Italian restaurant I love, but he needed to cancel a couple of hours before because he forgot it was his wife’s birthday. I was torn between being furious at him for blowing me off and thinking,
What kind of jerk forgets his wife’s birthday?
”

Olivia was standing by the window, looking out at the traffic. Her hair, which had always been lighter than Mia’s, was even lighter now, for she’d begun to highlight it, but aside from that, she looked as she always had. When they were girls, Olivia used to ask Mia to pinch her stomach, but there had been nothing to pinch—that was the point—and there still wasn’t. Even through her sister’s sweatpants, Mia could make out the muscles in her calves. Olivia had been born a month early, had pounded her way out, their mother used to say, and Mia recalled leg-wrestling with her, lying on her back on the floor opposite Olivia and grabbing on. She could hardly remember a time when she’d been stronger than Olivia. Already when she was seventeen and Olivia was twelve she’d landed feet-over-head when she leg-wrestled her. “Have you thought of breaking up with him?”

“Of course I have.”

“But?”

“I love him, Mia. I really do. And…” She looked up. “Oh, God, I can’t believe I’m about to say this.”

“What?”

“He treats me well.”

“What’s wrong with that?”

“It’s the world’s most revolting statement, don’t you think? It’s what every woman says about her boyfriend, as if they can’t hope for more. It’s mercenary, too, because what a woman usually means when she says a man treats her well is that he takes her out to nice restaurants and buys her expensive gifts.”

“Is that what
you
mean?”

Olivia tapped her knife against the plate, and the
ping
reverberated through the apartment. “It gets hard after a while not having money. It isn’t romantic anymore.”

“I understand.”

“Do you?” Mia had married rich, Olivia liked to say, and when Mia claimed that that hadn’t been her intention, Olivia said that was precisely her point; it was another example of Mia’s good luck.

Olivia poked at the blueberries on her plate. “I was surprised when you called today,” she said. “I wondered what the reason was.”

“Does there have to be a reason?” Mia lived only a few miles from Olivia, yet she could go for weeks without seeing her. “You can stop by whenever you want to,” Olivia always said, and Mia said the same thing. But Olivia never stopped by. When they saw each other, Mia initiated, and whenever Mia called, Olivia assumed it was with a purpose.

“Olivia, do you know about the Ashkenazi Jewish breast cancer gene?”

“It sounds vaguely familiar.”

“There are two genes, actually, and if you have one of them you have a better than eighty percent chance of developing breast cancer and a fifty percent chance of developing ovarian cancer.”

Olivia nodded noncommittally.

“I thought you might mention it to your gynecologist.” Through the front door, Mia could hear a cat meowing, the sound of paws moving down stairs.

“I don’t have a gynecologist,” Olivia said.

“You don’t?”

“I was seeing someone for a while, but he retired, and I haven’t gotten around to finding someone new.”

“You really should.”

“Mia…”

Long before their mother had died, Mia had acted like a second mother to Olivia; now that their mother was gone, she was even more that way. Mia thought of her mother’s words in the hospital. “Swear to me you’ll take care of Olivia.” Olivia didn’t like it when she acted this way, and neither did Mia, but she couldn’t help herself. “I’m thinking of testing for the gene.”

“Why? You don’t know Mom had it.”

“But she might have. Or Dad might have it. A father can pass it down, too.”

Slowly the information seemed to settle on Olivia, and she appeared agitated. She turned on the TV and flipped through the channels.

“Please, Ol, listen to me.”

Olivia turned off the TV. Sitting on the couch next to Mia, she looked like a child again, retreating into herself. “You’re saying you want me to test, too?”

And it occurred to Mia that she did want Olivia to test, that if they tested together it would be less frightening.

In the kitchen, Olivia opened the cabinets, and Mia could see their mother’s old china, each plate protected by a piece of green felt. The artichoke plates were there, too. They looked like an experiment in topography, with a trough at the center in which the artichoke sat, and surrounding it additional troughs for the sauce and leaves. It had been a wedding gift from a graduate school classmate, and it had symbolized to Mia her mother’s squandered career, how she’d sacrificed her ambitions on the altar of the dinner party. As a teenager, out of protest, Mia had refused to eat artichokes, and Olivia, who wasn’t protesting, had never developed a taste for them. Yet the plates were front and center in Olivia’s kitchen, and Mia wanted to ask her for one, though she had no idea what she’d do with a single artichoke plate—probably what Olivia had done with the rest of them, which was leave them in the cabinet unused. There they were, Mia thought, the dishes Olivia mooned over, hoping to serve dinner to Kincaid.

“What if you test positive?” Olivia said.

“Then I’ll have a tough decision. There are drugs I can take that might lower my risk. Or I could get a double mastectomy.”

“Just chop your breasts off?”

“I wouldn’t put it so violently.”

“Well, it
is
violent, don’t you think? Mia,” Olivia said, her voice softening, “would you really do that to yourself?”

Mia was quiet. She had no idea what she would do.

Outside, on the fire escape, two pigeons had landed. They stood side by side, looking out at Avenue B.

Olivia got up to water the plants. She bent over each pot, then moved on to the next one, and from where Mia sat, it looked as if she were bowing to them.

Olivia put down the watering can. “I just don’t think I can take that test.” She looked up at Mia. “It would be useless information, anyway, because I can’t see myself getting a mastectomy.”