Storm in a B Cup - A Breast Cancer Tale (2 page)

Maybe I am
being a drama queen. I probably need to suck it up and get on with it. Stop
whining about the nastiness of my day. After all, there’s a million girls in
the world who have it worse than me. “No. I’ll see you tonight.”

“You sure?”

I put on my
Brave Sophie voice. Everyone knows I’m the rock in this relationship.
 
Brendan couldn’t cope if I lost it.
“I’m sure. Look, I have to go and get this stock sorted before I pick Rory up.
I’ll see you tonight. Kisses.”

Taking a
deep breath, I put my seatbelt on and turn the ignition of the car. I try to
force the experience from my mind because I have a lot of things to accomplish
between now and 3p.m. I have no time to sit around in a car park crying like an
idiot. Anyway, there’s no point in jumping to conclusions, is there? I won’t
have the results until I go back to my G.P. in a few days’ time and most
abnormalities in breasts are not cancer. I remind myself again of Brendan’s
words. It’s probably nothing.

But I have a
shadow.
 
There’s a freakin’ shadow.

Chapter 2

As I walk
into the back room of the shop, my assistant Lani’s head pops from behind a large
pile of cardboard boxes. She puts her clipboard down on the top of one and
looks at me, pointedly. Well, as pointedly as a girl with a white blonde pixie
cut and bright purple eyeshadow can look. Lani likes her eyeshadow to contrast
with her clothing, which is why, today, she’s wearing an oversized black mesh
singlet, cut off to reveal her belly, a pair of lace leggings and an orange Ra-Ra
skirt straight from Madonna’s 1980’s wardrobe. The look is completed by an
assortment of lime green beads that swing freely round her neck. There’s not a
hope in hell anything could co-ordinate with that.

“What’s the
verdict?” she asks.

I’ve had
time to digest the incident and do some thinking on the drive back. Even though
one in eight women in Australia are diagnosed with the disease in their
lifetime, most shadows in the breast are not cancer. Still, the statistic is
not a comforting thought. Nobody I know has the disease. I could well be the
one in eight of my circle.

“I have a
suspicious looking shadow which I’m guessing is cancer. I’ll know next week.”

The key Lani
was about to slice along the tape of the box is suddenly poised in mid-air.
She’s looking at me like I’ve announced Marilyn Monroe has come back from the
dead and is out on the shop floor wanting to buy a hat.

“How can you
be so offhand about this?” she says.

“I’m not
being offhand, but there’s no point in worrying until it happens. And if I have
cancer, I have it. Getting dramatic isn’t going to help. Besides, I cried for
about half an hour in the car already. It’s time to move on.”

“You need to
take this seriously, Sophie. My friend Lisa’s mother got cancer and she died
three months later.”

“Yes, but
that was Ovarian Cancer. I might have Breast Cancer and these days, Breast Cancer
isn’t necessarily a life sentence.”

“My Uncle
John died of cancer only last year.”

“He smoked
for fifty-three years. And he was eighty-two.”

“Well, one
in eight women will contract Breast Cancer,” she adds, sounding very much like
she’s been on the internet in my absence. How else could she pull such facts
out of her head at such short notice? It never ceases to amaze me. Not when she
looks like a bubblehead.

“Did you check
out the survival rate while you were at it?”

“What?”

“Googling.”

A bashful
look creeps over her face. “Eighty-eight per cent for those caught early.”

“Great. Let’s
get back to this stock, shall we? I wouldn’t want to find out I’m one of the
twelve per cent who die and not have the stock sorted. You’d never cope.”

Lani sighs
and shakes her head. She picks up the clipboard and walks around the pile of
boxes where she puts the clipboard back down, on the desk. She gives me yet
another look, this time tinged with a hint of concern.

“I know
you’re trying to hide your worry with jokes, Soph, and if that’s what works for
you, go right ahead, but I want you to know you aren’t going to die. In fact, I
don’t even think you have it. I mean look at you.”

She moves
closer and wraps her arms around me. I feel like Henry the Octopus has been let
loose from
The Wiggles
show and is
squeezing me to death.

“And you
know this, how?”

“I have a
feeling. You know my intuition is strong. My mum thinks I’m a bit psychic.
Plus, when I went to have my monthly reading with Madame Zara yesterday she
didn’t mention a thing about it.”

I shrug her
away. “Oh. Well there’s nothing to worry about then. If Madame Zara didn’t see
it, I must be fine. For heaven’s sake, Lani, do you not see how ridiculous that
sounds?”

“But she’s
so accurate.”

“Not that
accurate. Brendan hasn’t proposed yet. It’s been six months.”

“But he did
announce he’d won that corporate client with the huge commission involved.
Madame Zara said an announcement. She’s never missed a beat yet. It’s all to do
with interpretation.”

“I have a
strange feeling she might need a new drum. Now, come on, we’ve got work to do.”

I flip open
the first carton. Bubble wrap and tissue fly into the air as I pull them away.
Then I stare. I stare into the open box because my mouth is incapable of
forming words. These are not the
Spencer
and Rutherford
handbags I ordered. Nor are they the felt supplies I need
for the berets I want to make for winter.

Then it
dawns on me.

“Lani?”

Lani has
mysteriously disappeared into the toilet. Given that the shop is so small, it’s
the only spot one can be guaranteed a hiding place. Though, she did try to hide
under the counter once.

I knock on
the toilet door. “Would you like to explain what I just found?”

“Are you
going to yell?”

“Only if I
look through the rest of the box and find those bags are as hideous as the two
on the top. Geez, Lan. I thought we were past this.”

The lock on
the door clicks and Lani pokes her head around. “They’re not hideous. They’re
retro.”

“So’s big
hair but that doesn’t mean I want it.”

Lani appears
from behind the door and we go back to the stack of boxes. I pull out the first
example. It’s a Rubic’s Cube handbag, straight from the 80’s. It would have
been a very quirky selling item had it not been entirely made of wool. Knitted squares
of wool sewn into a cube pattern. I hold it up in front of her. “Well?”

“It looked
nicer in the picture.”

I roll my eyes
and take out a particularly dreadful purple vinyl clutch. Even Madonna wouldn’t
have been seen dead with this baby. “And this?”

“They said
it was leather.”

If it had
been leather we might have been able to swing it, but the vinyl is peeling off
the bag and the clasp is so tarnished it makes plated jewellery look expensive.
“Please tell me we can return these,” I say, pulling a few more pieces from the
box. “Because you know very well, I can’t put them on the shop floor. People
will laugh at us. We can’t even pass them off as ‘bad taste’ accessories.”

Lani bites
her lip. She looks so upset and I feel horrible for being mean but this is my
hard earned money. Decisions like this could mean neither of us get paid for a
very long time.

“I’ll ring
the guy I bought them off,” she says, sadly. “I’m so sorry, Soph. Really I am.
I assumed that Rubic’s bag was genuine. It would have sold itself if it was.”

I know she’s
right but this isn’t the first time she’s done something zany with our stock
order. A couple of months back we got stuck with a whole batch of peacock
feathers, she wanted to fashion into necklaces. I mean, really.

“Can you
promise me you won’t buy any more stock without my approval? As in I want to
see certificates of authenticity and talk to the distributor myself?” I ask.

“Promise.”
She takes up the Rubic’s bag and hangs it over the crook her arm, admiring the
look. “I might keep this one, though. If that’s okay with you. I, sort of, like
it.”

Oh God.

At least
she’s taking my mind off the cancer thing.

****

Later that
evening, I sit on the couch swirling a glass of wine between my fingers. Should
I be drinking if I have cancer? I wonder. Shit, maybe I’ve caught cancer
because I drink too much. Not that I really do anymore. A glass with dinner is hardly
an alcoholic. I haven’t been a binge drinker since before Rory was born. That
was part of how he got born, I think. A drunken night and a one-night stand
with a guy I’d been crushing on for years. The sex hadn’t lived up to my
fantasies but the result has been worth every minute.

“Rory tucked
up?” I ask, watching as Brendan hangs the tea towel over the oven rail and smooths
it so that it hangs exactly in the middle.

He picks up
his glass of wine from the counter and walks around the back of the sofa to sit
beside me. He puts a hand on my shoulder and snakes it around, drawing me to
him so I’m leaning against his chest. “Out like a light. He was so tired after
swimming today, I was lucky to get him out of the bath without him falling
asleep. He wouldn’t go to bed without reading his reader first, though.”

“Thanks for
doing it. After what happened earlier, I don’t think I could have held it
together in front of him.”

“It’s fine.
You’ll be fine.”

“If I die,
you will take care of him, won’t you?”

Rory, my six-year-old
son, is my world. I love him with all my heart and while his father has gone on
to discover he preferred men to women and moved to Los Angeles with his new
partner, I still send him photos of his son and he often rings to inquire after
him. There are no hard feelings. And it makes me feel better to know I wasn’t
that crap in bed. It was just because he was gay.

“Of course I
will. Rory’s like my own kid. But you’re not going to die, Soph. This’ll blow
over.”

I wish I
could be that certain.

“So what exactly
happened at the doctor’s today?”

“I told you.
When they did the ultrasound they detected a shadow. Then they gave me a core
biopsy. The doctor said it was pointless doing the fine needle aspiration because
the G.P. would only send me back for a biopsy after they saw the results anyway.”

Brendan’s
body stills. “And they think it’s cancer?”

“Well,
obviously they can’t say that without the test results, but it seemed that way
to me. They don’t go around poking needles into you without reason.” The hot
sting of tears prick my eyes again at the memory of what that man did to me.

“Shhh, Soph.
It’ll be okay. You’ll see.” He leans over and kisses the tears from my cheeks.
He cuddles me to him and soothes me.

“But it
hurt.
 
It hurt so much. You should
see the massive bruise on my boob.” I pull my top aside so he can look.

Eyes like
saucers, Brendan sits up, pulling his arms away. He reaches for the drink he’s
left on the coffee table and takes a very large swig. He even wipes his mouth
with the back of his hand, which is unheard of. He’s a bit of a germ-a-phobe.
So much so, that when he washes his hands, he uses the paper to open the toilet
door.

“Jesus.”

“Do you
believe me now, when I said it hurt?”

He wraps his
long arm around my shoulder. His hand is warm as he rubs gently on my upper
arm. He drops a contrite kiss upon the top of my head. I feel comforted, at
last.

“When do you
get the results?”

“Wednesday.
I have to ring the doctor.”

“Okay. So
until then we sit tight and assume a positive attitude.” He gives me a tight
sort of smile. “The odds of this being cancer are low, you know that. Let’s not
worry about it until we have to.”

I try to take
comfort in this but, hey, it isn’t him who potentially has a life threatening disease.

Chapter 3

Saturday.
For some, a day of rest and relaxation. I, however, am standing on the sideline
at Rory’s weekly Auskick fixture, rugged up and drinking an extra large latte
from the coffee van at the ground to wake me up. I’m daydreaming about other
things I could be doing — like sitting in bed eating crumpets and reading
the weekend papers. Don’t get me wrong; I’d do anything for my child. I support
him. I merely wish he’d chosen a sport where the children are not miniature
bogans with rat’s tail haircuts. I also wish they began these sports at a time
more suited to when real people, who work for a living, want to get out of bed.

In a flurry
of screaming and clapping — from the woman next to me — I watch as
Rory zooms along the wing, bouncing the ball towards two witches hats that mark
the goal. I see the excitement on his face as he kicks and scores. His teammates
rush to jump on him; like they’ve seen their idols do on TV. It’s very cute. Then
my heart melts as he turns and gives me the thumbs up and blows me a kiss as
he’s running back to his spot. Where in the world would I ever find such
unadulterated devotion? How am I ever going to tell him? How do you tell your
child you have a disease that could take you away from them at any time?