All the Good Parts (24 page)

We walked down a long corridor and entered a spacious conference room bisected by a buffet cart holding donut holes and coffee. On one side of it, a group of older folks sat around a small cluster of circular tables, playing cards. On the other, a conflux of women gabbed away, their kids penned into a play area bordered by low bookshelves and scattered with toys.

“This is Leona,” Sara yelled over the noise. “She’s one of the students.”

A red-haired woman approached and introduced herself as Eileen, the group’s founder, and then led me to a small podium set in front of a few rows of chairs. “Weren’t there supposed to be two of you?” she murmured.

“Maybe traffic was bad,” I said, my stomach sinking. It was 6:05.

“We need to get started,” she said apologetically. “We’re very respectful of time in this group.”

“I understand.” I set my laptop on a small table next to the podium as the women took their seats. “Thank you for having me,” I began, my voice squeaking. “This project is part of a community-health course I’m taking so I can become a nurse.” I could
hear
my body shaking. I paused, and some of the women in the front row smiled, encouraging me to go on. “I have some questions, and as you answer, I’m going to take notes on your responses. Is that okay?”

They all mumbled assent.

“Thank you. Okay. Let’s begin with state support of single mothers. Which programs have you—”

I didn’t even get the question fully out before one woman began talking about the lack of quality subsidized education before she was interrupted by another who discussed how difficult it was to find a good allergist on the state insurance list, and yet another who’d discovered a government-sponsored program that helped provide single parents with children’s athletic equipment. Other women jumped in, and the spirited discussion careened off topic and back on again. I took copious notes as we segued to time-management skills, all the while realizing that, as time ticked away, Darryl was standing me up.

Maybe he was in a car accident,
I thought, but somehow I knew that wasn’t true. There were very few suitable excuses for not showing up. And there definitely wasn’t one for disrespecting these women. My anger made me bold, and as the discussion wound down, I asked a question that wasn’t on my list. “What’s the one thing about single motherhood you’d like people to know, but they wouldn’t necessarily like to hear?”

“That it’s hard,” said a grandmotherly woman who’d adopted two teenagers. “That it’s
fucking
hard.”

No one disagreed. They snickered, some laughing as they belatedly covered the ears of the children on their laps.

Then the laughter abruptly stopped, all eyes shifting to the coffee cart in the middle of the room.

An older woman was shuffling toward it. She resembled the corn right outside the window—faded, brittle, barely holding on. Dressed in pink running shoes, a hot-pink hoodie, and a pink bandanna stretched tightly over her bald head, she could have been a spokesperson for the Susan G. Komen foundation.

The women stared at her, fear in their eyes. Getting sick was their worst nightmare as single parents. They said they worried about it every day.
What if . . . ,
they said.
What if . . .

The woman waved at someone on the bridge side of the room and poured herself some coffee. She leaned against the buffet, facing us, hands curled around the warmth of the mug.

“Are we done?” asked a woman in the back row, glancing uneasily at the cancer patient. “I have to pick up my kid from dance class.”

The crowd rumbled with to-do lists.

It was five to seven. I didn’t want to be done. I didn’t want to pack up my bag and drive away without giving Darryl every chance. I didn’t want to leave these women yet. I’d collected a lot of information for the project, but I never asked what I really wanted to know. And suddenly, I
had
to know.

“I just have a few more questions . . .”

“One question,” Eileen said. “We have time for one more.”

The women settled down. One of the kids dropped his toy and let loose an earsplitting shriek, piercing the silence. Instinctively—protectively—I turned to the fragile woman in pink. Her tired eyes bored directly into mine. Then one side of her mouth quirked up, and she looked at me expectantly, like whatever I was going to say had better be good. For some reason, the thought of disappointing this stranger jangled my nerves, and I froze.

Eileen cleared her throat. “Your question?”

These women were waiting. They had places to go, kids to drop off and pick up, late dinners to make, wine to drink, and I couldn’t squeeze a single word from my throat. I swallowed. “Do you ever . . .” I swallowed again.

“Do we what?” Eileen urged gently.

“Do you ever . . .” My voice, my brain, my heart—everything failed me.

“Go ahead and ask, Leona,” said the woman in pink, her voice surprisingly clear and strong. “Don’t be afraid of the answer.”

It took me a moment to align what I saw and what I heard, but then, in one awful, hot-pink flash, I understood.
No. Oh, God, please no.

Blinking back tears, I turned back to the confused single mothers and asked the question I’d been too afraid to put on my list. “Do you ever wish your life was different?”

The women shifted in their seats. Some looked at the floor, others at the ceiling, some turned to the kids playing boisterously in the corner of the room.

“No,” came an emphatic voice from the edge of the group. It was Sara. She stood up so she could be heard more clearly. “Sometimes I’m tired as hell,” she continued, glancing at the little one glued to her hip. “And sometimes I wish I could have one of those Calgon moments and get swooped away to Tahiti, but at the end of the day, when I look at this sweet baby of mine, I think, how did someone like me ever get to be so lucky?”

CHAPTER 28

“Why didn’t you say anything?”

Darryl sat across from me in a booth at the Renegade Tavern, a joint that qualified as a hole-in-the-wall but wasn’t a dump, just old. A pool table covered the rear of the small bar, where a group of youngish guys lazily hit balls, not bothering to play by any rules, more concentrated on flagging down the waitress for another round of beers. A stuffed deer head hung above the shelves of liquor, along with photos of the softball teams going back to the ’70s, when some of the guys held a mitt in one hand and a cigarette in the other.

“Sorry I was late for the meeting, but I’m sure you got what we needed,” Darryl said, avoiding my question. She raised a hand at the bartender, two fingers up. “Do you want a beer? I want one.”

“Yeah. Thanks.” I didn’t know what else to say. I’d been baring my soul to this woman for weeks, but she was a stranger.

“I’m sixty-four,” she said, her eyes flicking up to meet mine. “In case you were wondering.”

“I wasn’t—”

“Yes, you were.”

“Can you answer my other question? Why didn’t you tell me about being sick?” I ran a hand over my face, my skin tight from dried tears. “My father had cancer. I know how tough a fight it is. Maybe I could have helped in some way.”

She toyed with the bandanna knot at the base of her neck. Odd that the breast cancer movement chose pink as its representative color, the shade of little girls’ bedrooms and cotton candy daydreams. I would have chosen steel gray or a tranquil blue, something exuding quiet strength and serenity. On Darryl, the girly color was completely incongruous with the ferocity in her eyes, the sharp lines bracketing her mouth and nose. I wanted to reach over and smooth them away, but I did nothing. We hadn’t even hugged yet. “Why didn’t you trust me?” I asked instead.

“If you knew I was an old lady with breast cancer,” she finally said, “would you have opened up to me like that? Don’t lie.”

“No,” I admitted. “Probably not, but my problems suddenly seem pretty trivial now. I can’t believe I bothered you with them.”

“Everyone’s problems are trivial,” she responded as the bartender approached our table. “That’s beside the point. And you were never bothering me.”

The bartender, a weathered, rangy cowboy type, wore a faded T-shirt declaring he had been, at some point in his life, the world’s greatest lover. After wiping the table, he set down a Lite for me and a nonalcoholic brand for Darryl. “This is pisswater, D,” he scoffed, though he gently placed his hand on her shoulder. “When can you have the real stuff again?”

She shrugged. “Going for a scan on Tuesday, Willie. If you see me in here next weekend, I’ll let you buy me a shot.”

“I’ll make you a wheatgrass chaser,” he said, and then addressed me. “This lady is one of my favorites. You’re gonna be nice to her, right?”

“Why wouldn’t I be?”

They both laughed, sharing a smile that spoke of history and fondness. “Just remember she’s got a good heart,” Willie said before leaving us.

“Why would I need the reminder?”

Darryl took a sip of her beer and made a face. “I can be a little abrasive.”

“Among other things.”

“I never lied.”

“No, I guess you didn’t. But you didn’t share many truths either.”

She smiled faintly. “I thought I offered some. I was trying to help you, Leona.”

“Do I seem like the kind of person who needs help?”

“You seem like exactly the kind of person who needs help.”

“And what kind of person are you?” I said, bristling.

“Lonely,” she answered without hesitation. “Sick. Smart. Curious. I like to try my hand at fixing things.”

“Fixing people.”

“Sometimes.”

“Is that why you want to be a nurse?”

“I don’t want to be one,” she said. “I’m just taking this class. I take a lot of classes.”

I let that settle for a moment, trying to make sense of her. Asking someone with cancer what her end goal was seemed cruel. But not asking seemed bigoted. “Why?” was all I said.

“The reason isn’t all that interesting,” she responded. “I’ll give you the abridged version. I was in the advertising department of a regional newspaper since I graduated from high school, and it got downsized right before my fifty-eighth birthday. I married and divorced young, saved my money, and was better off than most when I got the heave-ho. Still, I tried to get another job, tried for a year. No one wanted to hire me, so I decided to go back to school as a student-at-large. That way, I could take as many classes as I wanted, in all kinds of disciplines, without worrying about degree requirements. What would I do with a degree? At my age, the slip of paper is merely something to hang on the wall.

“I took courses on campus for a few years before moving online because the students and teachers avoided me, especially after chemo turned me into Kojak. Online, no one thought twice about some caustic dude named Darryl speaking his mind. I could say what I really thought, and I wasn’t ignored.”

“You like to provoke people.”

“Someone has to! It’s one of those vanishing careers, like travel agents or journalists.”

“Is that what you were doing with me? Toying with me because you’re bored and lonely?”

She blanched. “That comment is beneath you, Leona.”

“You don’t really know me,” I said, a blip of anger pulsing up. “Maybe it isn’t. Maybe it’s actually above me, something I aspire to.”

Her gaze turned sharp, assessing. “Are you upset because you flirted with me? Because you were hoping Darryl was single and looking to mingle?”

“You had to know the thought crossed my mind,” I said, feeling my face grow hot. “Why didn’t you tell me you’re a woman and save me the embarrassment?”

“I’m sorry,” she said, but she was grinning. “I liked that you were completely honest with me. It was fun. That one night when you went out, did you really get that drunk?”

“Uh-huh,” I said, but didn’t offer more. I felt oddly protective of my personal life with
this
Darryl.

“Ah,” she said knowingly. “Things have already changed between us. You don’t want to tell me the dirty details. I wouldn’t trust me either.” She placed her hand over mine. It felt lighter than it should. “I am sorry I led you on, and I hope you believe me when I say I meant every bit of advice I gave you.”

I nodded, accepting the apology. Darryl might have deceived me, but she’d given me some good advice as well. I had to admit that. “Okay, I was a mess that night. Actually, I’ve been kind of a mess lately, and it’s been spilling over onto other people, making their messes messier.” I hesitated, wondering how much to share.

“You know”—Darryl took another sip of her beer—“we can do this. We can talk about all kinds of things, and I promise I’ll try to help.”

A thought struck, quick and painful, like the jab of a needle. “You want to fix me because you think I’m broken.”

Darryl rolled her eyes. “Your generation thinks being broken is such a tragedy because you’re used to throwing things away. My people are more frugal. We fix things. Sometimes they end up not quite good as new, but sometimes they’re better.”

I liked the idea of it. If something could be fixed, it meant the basic parts were still good.

“I don’t have anywhere to go tonight,” she said softly. “And the last thing I want to do is think about what’s going on in my life. Pretend we’re online. Pretend you still have that freedom.”

“One question.”

“Shoot.”

“Is your name really Darryl?”

She screwed up her face. “It is. I was named for my uncle. I’ve always hated it.”

For some reason, that small bit of honesty melted my reservations, and I turned on my verbal faucet and let it flow. I told her about Carly and Donal, Garrett, Maura, Jerry and Paul—everything. When I finished, Darryl sat back, stunned, and glanced around the bar, which had cleared out during the course of my unending monologue. She brought her hands to the side of her head, then froze. “Is it going to bother you if I . . . ?” she said, gesturing toward the bandanna.

“Go right ahead.”

Sighing, she plucked it off her head, and began rubbing the skin. “It gets so itchy.”

“Try coconut oil.”

“Yeah?” She tossed the bandanna on the table. “Too bad I’m not a guy, huh? I’m a sexy bald beast.”

I laughed. “You are.”

“But you’re ballsy, too. Did you really plan on asking me to father your child?” The wispy hairs at the crown of her head and shocked expression on her small face made her look like a newborn chick.

“I was feeling things out. It didn’t work out so well with Garrett, so I don’t know if I would have.”

She rubbed at her scalp, pondering my revelation, and smiled. “You had no problem asking a total stranger. I love it.”

“There was some angst involved with gearing up to ask Garrett. With us, though, I didn’t feel like we were strangers.”

“Do you feel like it now?” she asked solemnly.

“No,” I said, and meant it. “I don’t at all.”

“Good. Because I like you even more now that we’ve met in person. It took guts to show up tonight with that request in your side pocket.”

“I don’t think I would have asked. The whole idea seems like this ridiculous thing I’ve talked myself into believing was a rational, well-thought-out decision. But that’s desperation, isn’t it? When you decide to let go of reality in the hope that it leaves room for some fantasy in your life.”

“I see it differently,” Darryl said quietly. “Desperation is what happens when you’re fighting a battle and the obstacles are so overwhelming you stop thinking about anything except what’s in your heart.”

As I thought about that, Darryl got up and sat beside me, scooting my butt over with her slim hip. She took my hand, gripping it with her cold, bony one.

“Why do you want a baby, Leona?”

My thoughts scattered like cockroaches under a bright light. “I’ve always wanted a child,” I said lamely.

“And I’ve always wanted a Harley. Is that really your answer?”

“Fine. I guess I don’t want to be lonely. We can choose to not be, can’t we? That’s what we’re looking for when we start any relationship. What’s wrong with that? Isn’t it how we’re all wired, to seek out ways to make our lives complete?”

“Why would you want your life to be complete? You can do better than that.”

“Why are people always saying that? Wanting me to be better than I am? Maybe this is as good as it’s going to get. Shouldn’t I be happy with myself?”

“Do you feel like you’re good enough?”

I pulled my hand away. “What kind of question is that?”

“One you should be able to answer honestly. I don’t feel like I’m good enough yet. It’s what keeps me going in what’s becoming a fairly shitty life. Saying it doesn’t mean you lack self-esteem or anything, regardless of what the psychobabble brainwashers want you to think. Saying it means you’re alive. Completeness as a goal is self-defeating.”

“The next thing you’re going to tell me is I don’t need a man or a baby to fulfill myself.”

“You’re still thinking in clichés. Don’t politicize everything. If you want a man, you should find a man. If you want a baby, get yourself knocked up. But don’t rely on the value others will put on your choices. They are yours. Only yours. Trust that you are a decent enough person to make them with consideration. You’re giving them real meaning by taking action, and this is what will lead you toward bettering yourself.”

I was having a hard time following her. Her voice had a hypnotic quality, the sound lulling me more than the words. She was right, but then she wasn’t. Was her view selfish or smart? Narcissistic or freeing? She nudged me, and I realized I’d been quiet for some time.

“Now, tell me again,” she said. “Why do you want a baby?”

“Because I just know in the marrow of my bones that I want to have one, and that I’d be a loving mother,” I said, emotion rising. “That’s the only answer I have.” Darryl handed me a napkin, and I held it under each eye, collecting tears and streaming mascara.

“You’re crying because you’re relieved.”

“Is that it?”

“Isn’t it?” Darryl laughed. “You’re finally accepting that your answer is good enough. I’m genuinely sorry I can’t help you out, but if I was biologically capable, I would have done it in a heartbeat.”

“That doesn’t make me feel bad. I almost still want to ask you. You gave me hope, I guess.”

“Hope is not an end goal, it’s a means to an end.”

“That sounds like something my sister would say.”

“Then I’d probably like your sister,” she said, and put her arm around my shoulders. “Look, what you’ve done tonight is clarified things for yourself. So the question is, what’s next?”

“Hell if I know.”

“Think of the next practical step, Leona. It doesn’t have to be earth-shattering, but it should move you forward.”

I thought a moment. “I’m going to go to the sperm bank. It’s an option, and I need some more of those.”

Darryl pulled me into an awkward hug. “Right on,” she said, and I felt her dry lips ghost my cheek. “Right fucking on.”

I got home late that night, but Carly was still up, sitting at the kitchen table, drinking wine. Exhaustion had scraped the glow from her face. She looked raw, like an open wound. “So how was the mysterious Darryl?” she asked when I slipped into the chair next to her. “You were gone awhile.”