Storm in a B Cup - A Breast Cancer Tale (29 page)

I glance over
at Brendan who hasn’t entered into the conversation. I don’t think he can. I
think that illusion he has, the one where he’s so perfect I’d never be able to
find anyone better, has been shattered.

“Oh, Brendan?”
I say.

“Yes?”

“I never had a
chance to ask if you got that package I sent you a while back? You know, the
one with the Hugo Boss shirts in it? You left them at the house.”

I see Brendan’s
mind ticking over. A frown kinks the space between his brows. Then I note the
tell-tale bulging of his eyes, the sign that his blood is about to boil. “Are
you talking about that pile of blue rags?”

“The same.” I
smile a syrupy sweet smile.

“That was my
shirts?”

“Yes. I thought
you’d want them back. But they wouldn’t fit in the bag… so
 
I trimmed them down a bit.” I glance
down at the damp shirt he’s wearing. “Pity I didn’t keep them in the car. You
could do with a fresh shirt.”

Brendan opens
his mouth to reply and I know I’ve hit a nerve. Aside from his gadgets and his
pristinely-ironed shirt collection, Brendan’s appearance is the most important
thing in the world to him.

Fortunately, though,
the master of ceremonies chooses this very moment to announce the beginning of
Round Two.

Chapter 29

“You should’ve
seen Melinda. Her face looked like it was going to fall off her head.” Angela
and I are sitting with Lani over morning tea the following Monday when Angela
begins a cackle that turns into a full-blown laugh-fest between the three of
us. So much so, that I have to brace my stomach for fear it’s going to pop the
internal stitches. I’ve already been getting this odd bulging sensation near my
new navel, which I think is a hernia. I can’t cope with a hernia. I’m tired of
constant trips to the hospital.

“The best part
was when Jared suggested we go on a couples night, though,” I add. “Brendan
almost fell over. He went this weird shade of greenish grey and muttered
something about lack of babysitters and being very busy in the run up to
Christmas.”

“Which
confirmed our suspicions that they’re living together. Why else would he need
to get a babysitter?” Angela says.

“And I’ve no
intention of going anywhere with either of them, ever again. I’d rather run
down Hay Street naked with my one boob swinging like the bells in the cathedral.”

Lani is biting
on the edge of her mug and looking confused at this turn of events. “Jared,
he’s the cute one, right? The surgeon who gave you the flat tummy?”

I nod my
agreement.

“So why are you
going out with him?
 
That’s against
the Hippocratic oath. I’m sure it is.”

“I’m not. It
was a joke, of sorts.”

Lani still
appears bemused.

“I ran into him
in the hallway at the quiz night. He saw I was upset; we talked about what
happened. I had no idea he was going to pretend we were an item. It was as much
of a shock to me as it was to everyone. He does have very smooth hands though.
I wouldn’t mind those hands touching me some more.”

“He touched
you?”

“Only to hold
my hand.”

“And he kissed
her cheek.” Angela butts in.

Lani’s eyes
bulge dangerously.

“As part of the
joke,” I explain. “But it was so nice to have someone hold my hand again.” Even
if I cast my mind back to the good times, I can’t recall the last time Brendan
did.
 
He was never much of a hand
holder.

“So you’re not
together.”

“Of course not.”

“That’s a pity.
He seems like a nice man.”

Angela gets up
and moves to the sink, where she washes her mug and turns it up on the draining
board. “My thoughts exactly, Lani. I couldn’t think of a better match for our
Sophie than Jared. He’s kind, intelligent and handsome. He loves kids and she
wouldn’t have to worry about him freaking out when he sees her naked. He’s
already seen her naked on an operating table.”

I roll my eyes.
“Seriously. Can we get on to the topic at hand and stop talking about Jared
Hanson? He has no more interest in me than I do in him.”

Lani and Angela
look at me, eyebrows raised.

“Of course.”

“Sure.”

I pull a pad
and pen from the shelf and turn to a new page. “Okay. So, we both know Ange is
a wiz with event planning…”

For the next
hour we put our heads together to organise the best launch party on ever
imagined in the world of small business.
 
Angela, who’s always looking to keep her skills as a party-slash-event
planner current, has a tonne of ideas and by the time she kisses me goodbye,
the date for the re-branded opening of
Vintage
is set for six weeks hence. I can’t wait. It’s nice to have something to look
forward to that doesn’t involve a scalpel.

*****

Later that
afternoon, I reach the playground to collect Rory from school. I find a spot
under the huge oak where I normally wait, and pull out my phone to check my
emails. On the other side of the broad trunk of the tree, a group of mothers
are talking.
 
I don’t recognise
their voices and I’m not overly impressed with the topic of conversation.

“Sophie
Molloy?” The first one questions. “That’s Rory’s mother, yah? The little boy in
One Blue?”

“That’s the
one. Well, my friend said she’s going out with Jared Hanson.”

“Ohhh, you mean
Dr. Handsome? The girls at the hospital adore him. He’s gorgeous.”

“He’s also her
plastic surgeon. She’s had Breast Cancer, you know. Reconstruction was a
terrible failure. She’s going to be deformed for life.”

A collective
gasp echoes from behind the tree and I cock my ear to see what they’re going to
say next.

“According to
my girlfriend, Sophie’s been hitting the sack with him for quite a while now.
That’s why her and that Brendan fellow split up. He couldn’t take any more of
her cheating. Then they had to rub it in his face by flaunting themselves around
the quiz night. You should have seen her. It was disgusting the way they were
pawing each other.”

Wait a second.
There wasn’t any pawing going on. Well, only Melinda and Brendan. And I’ve
never had an affair in my life. The absolute cheek. I stick my head around the
side of the trunk.

“Uh, hi girls.
I couldn’t help but overhear your conversation. You were talking so loudly.”

One of the
women looks me up and down. “And you are?”

It’s a
reasonable question, I suppose. There are nearly four hundred children in the junior
section of the school. It’s impossible to know every parent.

“Sophie Molloy.
You know, the deformed, cheating, Breast Cancer sufferer?”

I hear one of
them mumble to the others that I don’t look deformed.

“That’s because
I’m not. Like your other information, the bit about me being deformed is a
total fallacy. Which one of you is friends with Melinda Benson?” I know this has
come from her. It’s the kind of thing she’d do to get back at me because my
perceived ‘boyfriend’ is better than hers.

“We all are,”
says the mumbler.

“Well, perhaps
you’d like to know that it was Melinda having the affair with my partner,
Brendan. For the entire time I was being treated for cancer, in fact. And Jared
Hanson is not my boyfriend, he’s my doctor.”

I continue to
give them a piece of my mind for another couple of minutes until I notice Rory
bounding across the oval towards me.

"Oh and by
the way, you can let Melinda know that if I hear any more malicious gossip
about me, I’ll sue her and her liposuction-toned bottom for everything she
has.”

Another gasp,
this time of horror, reverberates through the canopy of leaves above us.

“She’s had
lipo?” the first woman whispers, as if even saying the word out loud is a
crime.

“On a regular
basis. You don’t think giving up carbs gave her that look do you?”

With that, I
turn, gather Rory’s hand, and together we walk to the car. I feel strangely
satisfied that I’ve backhandedly given Melinda and Brendan a taste of their own
medicine. I hope this means that they’ll leave me alone now. I have better
things to do with my time.

Chapter 30

It’s been eight
months since my diagnosis. Today, I’m visiting Dr. Downer for a check up, after
I’ve done the obligatory tests first, that is. I’m not looking forward to it.
Even though I’ve been assured the cancer is gone, I have this recurring
niggling feeling. It happens every time I contemplate the idea of an ultrasound
or mammogram. These two devices, that are meant to save lives, are now the
source of absolute fear for me. It’s silly, I know. But they are.

I arrive at the
pathology centre and after my name’s called, I go into the cubicle to change
into a gown, leaving my clothes and underwear in a neat pile on the bench seat.
I pull back the curtain and stand, looking for an empty chair amongst the row
of women, each of whom have two breasts. Suddenly, I understand why this place
is segregated from the rest of the pathology centre. This is possibly the most
self-conscious I've ever felt. I feel as though every woman present is peering
at me over the top of her magazine and hoping it never turns out to be her. If
only I had a bigger handbag. At least, then, I'd be able to hide my
lopsidedness with leather. I sit down and try to be thankful for one small
mercy. This humiliation would be ten times more of a nightmare if I had to sit
in the general waiting room looking like this.

As the
weather’s been getting warmer, I’ve found that I’ve become increasingly
self-conscious about my one breast. I try not to be, but it’s a hard thing to
fight. Where I used to wear singlet tops in summer, I now wear t-shirts. I
never get dressed without the bra, even around the house, because I worry that
someone will knock on the door and I’ll be forced into an entire conversation
with my arms crossed over my chest. I‘ve stopped going swimming with Rory, too,
because I can’t bring myself to pay the hugely inflated prices they’re asking
for bathers that have a built in pocket for the fake boob and I’m certainly not
going without one because that would be even worse.

So I sit there,
looking at those women with their two boobs and I think to myself, they have no
idea how lucky they are.

It takes a
while but finally a nurse appears and leads me down the hall to the mammogram
room. As she’s squashing my remaining breast into the machine and I’m trying
not to picture it as a pancake with lemon and honey, she’s making small talk. I
can’t remember if it hurt this much last time, which worries me because it
could be a sign that something’s dreadfully wrong. While she’s clicking away, I
begin to strategise about what I’ll do when she gives me that look, the ‘you’ve
got it again but I can’t say anything’ look. I won’t cry, I know I won’t
because I’ll most likely be passed out, dangling with my boob clamped in the
mammogram machine. The trauma caused by such a look will send me over the edge.

At last the
mammogram is over and as I pull the gown back over my shoulder, I know I can’t
take this torture every six months. The humiliation of only having one breast,
the waiting for results, the muttering of healthcare professionals. Instead of Jared
giving me an implant
 
that will
never match no matter how much he tells me it will, I’d rather he take my other
breast, too. I’ll have two, new, no-possibility-of-cancer breasts. Thank you
very much. Then only reason women will look at me is because of envy. They’ll
totally want my perky boobs.

 
The nurse takes me to sit on a chair at
the door to the ultrasound room. People are rushing around me oblivious to the
worry racing through my head and I can feel myself becoming agitated, worried.
What if they find something? What if I have cancer in the other breast? I can’t
do this again. I won’t do this again. I’ve had my turn. Let some other woman
have hers.

*****

A couple of
hours later, x-rays in hand, I sit myself down in the chair at Dr. Downer’s
desk.

“How’s
everything been going, Sophie?” she asks, peering over her glasses that are
perched precariously on the end of her nose. “I hear you’re doing a bit of a
new thing at your shop.”

News travels
fast in Perth.

“Yes. Vintage
handbag rental among other things. We’re reinventing ourselves. The launch is
in a week or so. Would you like an invitation? I’d love for you to come.”

“Thank you.
Yes. There’s nothing I like more than a pretty handbag.”

It’s funny,
isn’t it? I’d never have pictured Dr. Downer as a pretty handbag type of woman.
She looks too… solid?