The Awesome Girl's Guide to Dating Extraordinary Men (25 page)

Sharita and Thursday sat on either side of her to comfort her and tell her that they would all fight this disease with everything they have. Reassurances flew, even though the words “acral lentiginous melanoma” and “aggressive” and “late diagnosis” sent arrows of fear down all of their spines. The truth was black people could get skin cancer. In fact, when black people got skin cancer, it often presented in such late stages that it had a high fatality rate.

Bob Marley, as it turns out, had the exact same cancer as Tammy. He went in to see the doctor about a bruise on his toe that wouldn’t heal, and he died a little over a year later.

The doctors cut off Tammy’s toe. They cut off her toe! This information sent Thursday’s eyes flying to Tammy’s orthopedic shoe. She no longer had a right big toe. Thursday found this hard to believe and could not imagine Tammy taking off her shoe to reveal only four toes where there should be five.

“It’s okay,” Tammy said, looking stricken by Thursday’s stricken look. She once again began spinning a silver lining out of nothing. “It doesn’t hurt. They gave me these pain pills and I didn’t even need them. And it’s going to be boot season soon anyway. Plus, I’m okay with flats. They have really cute flats. I see them in shops all the time.”

The tired and haggard version of Tammy was just as sweet, which served as further reassurance to Thursday and Sharita that she could beat this strange kind of cancer that none of them had ever heard of before.

Risa stood in the background of this conversation, fists clenching and unclenching, looking like she wanted to go over to Cancer’s house and kick its ass. “You should have told us sooner,” she said to Tammy.

“I didn’t want to worry you,” Tammy said. Then she offered to make tea.

Both Sharita and Thursday refused the tea, and they somehow managed to hold on until they got out of the apartment. But they were crying as soon as the door closed behind them.

“Oh, my God. I’d be so pissed,” Thursday whispered as they walked to the elevator. “How is she still so infallibly gracious? So Tammy?”

“I don’t know,” Sharita whispered back.

She took Thursday’s hand and held on to it. And that was all it took. Their last argument, as immense as it had seemed, got left inside Tammy’s condo, their anger floating away on the ocean that crashed beneath her windows.

Relationships can’t be a bed of roses one hundred percent of the time. That’s okay as long as they smell sweet
most
of the time.

—
The Awesome Girl’s Guide to Dating Extraordinary Men
by Davie Farrell

THURSDAY

T
ammy had undergone a course of chemo before telling us she had cancer, but she still had a couple more to go, and we swore we’d be by her side for those. Risa got Tammy through her first two rounds of the second course of chemo before she left town on her college tour. But before she went, it was decided that I would drive Tammy to the four chemo appointments she had left. And on those days (“Chemo Tuesdays,” we called them), Sharita would come over to make Tammy dinner and spend time with her after work.

The first week that I took over, I ended up staying with Tammy until Sharita came. But then Sharita told me that she was making pierogies and matzo ball soup, one of the few meals she could think of that was tasty enough to make Tammy ignore the chemo-induced loss of appetite, yet bland enough not to further trigger her also-chemo-induced nausea. I had never had pierogies, which were basically sauerkraut-and-potato-filled dumplings, before, and as any vegetarian will tell you, we jump at the chance to try new foods that fit within our chosen diets, so I stayed for dinner. The next week, Sharita came in with a Crock-Pot full of meatless, three-bean chili, and I had always loved her chili, so I stayed for that. And then the next week, Sharita brought along three pieces of sweet potato pie, assuming that I would once again be staying, so I did.

If not for the sight of Tammy with a Hermes scarf wrapped around her newly bald head, and if not for Tammy’s in-home nurse hovering in the guest bedroom, and if not for the fact that Tammy started nodding off if we stayed past eight, then Chemo Tuesdays would have felt like a girls’ night full of good food and lots of laughter.

But Tammy’s hair was gone, and even though she napped for a couple of hours before Sharita came over, we still ended up having to carry her over to the couch, which she now preferred to her bed, at the end of each Chemo Tuesday. Sharita had given Tammy the first five seasons of the revamped English sci-fi show
Dr. Who
on DVD, and Tammy spent the days leading up to Chemo Tuesdays watching
Dr. Who
and, to my surprise, nothing but
Dr. Who
.

“I like that people die for no reason whatsoever all the time on this show,” Tammy said with a pretty shrug when I asked her about this new-found obsession. “Innocent people. Bad people. It doesn’t matter. They all die. Even the main character dies occasionally.”

I had thought myself morbid with the constant imaginings of my suicide, but somehow Tammy’s insistence on seeing a silver lining in everything that was happening to her began to strike me as even more morbid.

“Chemotherapy is awesome. I had kind of wanted to live before starting it, and it’s totally making me see the upside of dying,” she said with a self-deprecating smile after an hour of dry heaving into her pink toilet.

And another time over dinner, she said, “Remember when Twinkie got diagnosed with cancer and it was too late for kitty chemo and I was all upset because he died three weeks later and there was nothing I could do about it? I don’t so feel guilty about that anymore. Twinkie got out good.” Then her thin trickle of a laugh, followed by an awkward changing of the subject by Sharita—usually into yet another discussion about
Dr. Who
.

So yeah, I pretty much broke down in tears every time I left Tammy’s condo on Chemo Tuesdays.

Every week, I thought about not going. Tammy, I insisted to myself, was the very embodiment of empathy. She would understand if I begged off, told her I couldn’t handle it. Plus, she’d hired a live-out nurse, who could transport her to and from appointments. And it took forever to get from downtown to the Westside in morning rush-hour traffic, and a whole day
was a long time to spend with someone who mostly threw up, slept, and watched TV. Also, I hated freaking
Dr. Who
.

Yet I ended up watching it every Tuesday in September, because I never made that call. Just dragged myself out of bed every time for what I knew would be the worst twelve hours of the week. Also, considering my current situation—that I was a well-educated, thirty-year-old feminist, but the only thing standing between me and total destitution was a man—this seemed like the best use of my copious amount of free time. Being called in to take care of someone else, after years of depending on others, made me feel better. Like I wasn’t completely useless.

In fact, I was buying ice packs, Tums, and other chemotherapy necessities for Tammy at Target when I ran into my old roommate, Abigail, coming out of the pharmacy aisle.

We hugged, and it surprised me how good it felt to see her again. Before Benny and Caleb had come along, we had been the best of roommates, grabbing drinks after work or talking late into the night about our dreams and aspirations over Two-Buck Chuck.

“I’ve missed you so much,” I said, realizing it was true.

“We missed you, too. How come you haven’t given us a ring since you left?”

When my ex-roommate said “we” and “us,” she actually meant “I” and “me.” Saying “we” and “us” to refer to oneself was an English thing. I thought it might have something to do with how the Queen spoke, but had never been sure.

“How come you haven’t given
us
a call,” I countered, letting her out of the hug.

“Sadly, I’ve been out of sorts as of late. Benny and I … well, we broke up, didn’t we?”

This came as zero surprise to me. Benny had been on the couch, like every night toward the end of my tenure in our North Hollywood
apartment. But I pasted a look of suitable surprise on my face and said the requisite, “Oh no …”

“No ‘oh nos’ required. I’m well shot of him. I mean, he was a right cheap bastard, wasn’t he? Refused to see my side of things, and I don’t know how we would have managed in a marriage, much less introduced children into it.”

It was usually my policy to take the woman’s side in an argument, but later that night I said to Caleb, “I don’t think he was that cheap. I mean, they’re both basically freelancers. He had a point about them maybe not needing to spend a ton of money on an apartment in Silver Lake.”

The news about the breakup had been a bit of a boon. Caleb didn’t really watch the same TV programs I did, and he didn’t do anything much with his free time these days except listen to new music and go to yoga classes. So dinners with him had been a little … well, quiet. At least this was something we could talk about over our Indian takeout that night.

“I wouldn’t want to live in North Hollywood for the rest of my life, though, just because he didn’t want to spend any money,” Caleb said. “And they’re both working pretty steadily.”

“First of all, what’s wrong with North Hollywood? I loved living in North Hollywood. Second of all, everybody’s a strike or recession away from not being able to pay the rent. I think I’m with Benny on this one.”

Caleb frowned. “That’s not very nice of you. Abigail’s the one that set us up.”

“Yeah,” I said, spooning more vegetable biryani onto my plate. “But that doesn’t mean I have to agree with her in this case.”

“You know what,” he said. “You don’t know anything about what was going on in their relationship. What business is it of yours anyway? Why are we talking about this?”

“I just thought it was a little strange, that’s all. They were such a strong couple before she left for Prague but ended up splitting over an apartment.”

Caleb pushed his plate away with unexpected violence. “Maybe instead of gossiping about her, you should just be grateful Abigail introduced us in the first place.”

I didn’t answer, afraid that whatever I said next would just make him even angrier. After what had to be at least five excruciating minutes of thunderous silence, he said, “I’m sorry.”

“It’s okay,” I said.

“The director on this latest project has been driving me up a wall,” he said. “I wish I could dump this project.”

We both knew that the reason he didn’t quit his problem job was because he was supporting the both of us now. Guilt overtook me.
I should have cooked tonight
, I thought, looking down at my half-eaten biryani. And I shouldn’t be spending so much time hanging out with my friends, even if I was tired of being cooped up in our apartment all the time. Caleb had been working twice as hard lately, and that was my fault.

“I’ve got to find a new job,” I said to Tammy the next day. “Not being able to support myself was fine when I was in college and grad school and when I first moved out here, but I’m thirty years old now.”

Usually, I wouldn’t have dumped my domestic problems on someone I was driving to chemo, but she’d asked me what was wrong, and it seemed easier to tell her the truth than lie.

In the passenger seat Tammy thought about my problem with a knuckle pressed to her bow mouth. “I know. I’ll call my brother and ask him if they have any openings at Farrell Cosmetics. I’m sure there’s something you’d be qualified for. You’re so talented.”

“Really? Thank you so much, Tammy,” I said, touched to my very core that she would take time to ask her brother about giving me a job, even though she was fighting for her life. I seriously wondered if there was anyone else as kind as Tammy on the planet.

The mention of her brother, though, sparked another question. “By the way, how is your family taking all of this?” I asked.

“Fine.” She answered so fast that it made me a little suspicious.

“Really?” I said. “Because not that I mind, but I’m surprised that your sister didn’t want to take you to these chemotherapy sessions herself. You two are so close.”

“Well, she has a five-month-old baby, so she really doesn’t have time.”

I wrinkled my forehead. “Really? Because Veronica kinda screams ‘I have a nanny’ to me. I’m surprised she and James wouldn’t want to be here with you—”

“Okay, they don’t know.” Tammy slumped back in her seat, seemingly defeated. Apparently cancer hadn’t made our Disney princess any better of a liar.

“You haven’t told them?” I said, nearly swerving out of my lane, I was so surprised.

“No, I told them that I had to quit the exercise DVD because I got a better offer. They think I’m in Toronto right now, playing a small role in an indie movie. I just … I just don’t want them to be unhappy.”

“Yeah, but they’re going to be pretty unhappy if—” I stopped myself. I had been about to say, “you die,” but couldn’t bring myself to say the words. “They’re going to be pretty unhappy if something happens and they find out you that kept this from them.”

“I’ll tell them soon, okay? I don’t want to be mean, but please don’t press me about this. I really can’t handle it right now.” Tammy sounded annoyed, like my pointing out the obvious, that she should tell her family that she had stage IV cancer, was at the very height of rudeness.