The Department of Lost & Found (15 page)

“What makes you say that?” he finally said.

“She called earlier. Wanted to know about Saturday night. She
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pressed me for details—how you looked, what you made, how you acted.” I started scraping my thumbnail over a hard water stain on my shower door.

“I hope you told her that the company was second only to the fine food,” he said.

I ignored him. “But I’d say the real tip-off was when she said,

‘I think I want him back.’ ” I heard him sigh, and an awkward silence filled the line again. I slipped off the toilet onto the cold white tiles on the floor. “So you wouldn’t take her back?”

“No,” he said quietly.

“I don’t think that will stop her from trying.” And it was true.

His cell phone rang in the background, and he asked me to hold on. I heard him muttering into his phone but couldn’t make out the details.

“Natalie. I’m sorry. I have to take this; it’s work. Listen, have a great time at your holiday party, and a good holiday if I don’t speak with you. Go easy on yourself. Remember that next year can’t be worse than this one. And I’ll talk to you soon.”

We clicked good-bye, and I leaned back onto the porcelain tub.

This is going to be complicated,
I thought.
And maybe complicated
isn’t what I need
. Then I thought,
Maybe I won’t know what I need
until I can’t live without it
.

R o u n d F o u r

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December

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e l e v e n

obody particularly enjoyed the annual office holiday NChristmas party, but Dupris threw it each year regardless. Initially, I figured that I finally had a slam-dunk excuse not to go: my bald head and ailing condition and all of that. But after Blair’s e-mails, Dupris had called me personally and told me how much she’d like to see me there. Since my job made me a professional ass-kisser who wasn’t used to telling her boss no, I found myself agreeing to her invitation over the phone, all the while willing myself to make up a reason that I couldn’t.

That the senator’s true intentions shined through—namely, for me to hang my tail between my legs with Susanna Taylor, not bestow my fabulous personality on the crowd—was not lost on me.

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The best thing about this party was always the food. The company? Well, these were people with whom I spent eighty hours a week already; honestly, was it any surprise that we all had to be sloshed to endure the night? True, there were often various dignitaries and fairly high and mighty government officials in attendance too, but still, it was the buffet that beckoned—thus my rationale when, just before I left for the affair, I sat on my couch, with the lights dimmed and Van Morrison playing on my stereo, and smoked through nearly two joints by myself. When I felt sufficiently high, and by that I mean high enough that even the buffet at the Olive Garden would have looked five star, I opened my windows to air out my living room, grabbed my black cashmere overcoat and leather gloves, and left Manny in a plume of smoke. No need for a hat: My embroidered black scarf already kept my head warm enough.

As it always was, the party was held at the Rainbow Room, perched on the top floor of Rockefeller Center. When the elevator landed on the nearly sky-high floor, just for a second I felt a flash of vertigo—like the car was going to plummet as quickly as it rose. But then we settled to a stop, and it let me off with nothing more than a pleasant
ding.
I followed the holiday music around the corner to the ballroom.

Each year, the senator hired one of the city’s top party planners (“I pay for it myself,” she said, in case anyone worried that this was on the taxpayers’ dime), and this year, Parker Hewitt had outdone himself. The theme was White Christmas, and everywhere you turned, there were glowing white lights; blossoming, fragrant gardenias; and stark, towering candelabras. Cascades of white rose petals hung from the ceiling, so that it literally looked like it was snowing. In each corner, Parker had erected regal Christmas trees, replete with glimmering, silver ornaments and topped with perfect, radiant angels. Maybe it was the two joints or maybe it was
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simply that it really was magical, but either way, when I stepped into the room and inhaled the scent from the rose petals, spiced cider, and glorious buffet, I felt like I might faint. My eyes saw double, and my head started to spin, and when I looked down at my silver Stuart Weitzmans, they barely seemed connected to my feet. I was contemplating my ethereal, world-spinning existence when Senator Dupris came up behind me.

“Natalie, so glad you could make it,” she said, as she air-kissed both cheeks. Then she caught a look in my nearly glazed-over eyes. “Is everything okay?”

Nodding yes, I forced myself to breathe in through my nose and out through my mouth and tried desperately to focus. I grabbed a glass of sparkling water from a passing waiter and felt my pulse slow down.

“Good, dear, because as Blair might have mentioned, I’d like you to compose yourself and go speak to Susanna Taylor.” Dupris cocked her perfectly bobbed head and peered around. “Oh, there she is. By the piano in the blue dress. Please take care of this before anything else, dear. Oh, and Merry Christmas, Natalie. Good things are in store for you next year, I’m sure of it.” She leaned in to give me another air kiss, and before I could wrap my brain around her missive, she flitted off.

Fuck.
I clenched my jaw and heaved my feet forward.
What the
hel do I say to a woman whose life I torpedoed like a submarine?
I still didn’t have an opening line by the time I reached the baby grand.

So instead, I stuck out my hand.

“Susanna, I’m Natalie Miller, Senator Dupris’s senior aide.”

She offered a thin smile. “Yes, I know who you are. I’m sorry to hear about your ordeal. I certainly know how it feels to be struck with something so debilitating.” I met her eyes and took her in. Her hair was already growing back—longer than a crew cut 138

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but shorter than a pixie, the style reminded me of the hip late nineties androgynous model look. She was thin, but not emaciated like me, and underneath her silk shawl on her shoulders, I could make out the shadows of growing muscle tone. She was a veteran of war, rehabilitated, sent home from the front lines. I was the reinforce-ment.

“Yes, well . . .” I stopped, unsure of how to fill the dead air.

“Look, I just want to cut to why I came over here.” I paused, slow-ing down so that the room wouldn’t spin. “And that was to say that I’m sorry that the campaign got so nasty. Some of the things that we did, well, we shouldn’t have, and for that, I’m truly regretful.”

I looked at her as I spoke. What I didn’t see when I first took her in was that a darkness had been cast over her eyes, a weariness had washed across her face, even though her makeup was immaculate and her diamond earrings sparkling. And I realized that though I was just recognizing it for the first time, I
was
truly sorry. Not even for what I did, but for the wreckage it could have caused. I reached out for her arm. “Honestly, Susanna, I wouldn’t do it over again.”

She looked down at her feet and sighed. And then she shook her head and said, “People have certainly made worse decisions in their lives. And it’s not as if my husband didn’t give you ammunition.” She smiled.

“So you knew about it?” My eyes widened.

“You know, Natalie, if there’s one thing I’ve learned through this whole horrific mess, it’s that the world isn’t necessarily black and white. I’m a good person, and yet . . . and yet this.” She gestured down at her body. “I love my husband, and yet, he does what he does. People do the wrong things and people certainly say the wrong things—I’m sure you’ve gotten some outstandingly inappropriate comments since your diagnosis—and then you have a
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choice: to either stew in it or to move past it.” She shrugged. “I moved past my husband’s ‘problem’ because for me, right now, there is no other way.”

I nodded and pressed my lips together as if to say that I understood. “Well, anyway, I just wanted to come and say that our office regretted it. It was nice meeting you.” I smiled and turned to go.

“Natalie, listen.” She touched my shoulder. “I run a support group for women who are dealing with cancer: breast, ovarian, uterine, you name it. If you’d like to come to a meeting, I’d love to have you there.”

“Oh, well, I’m not sure if that’s really my thing,” I said, as I looked at my feet.
There’s no ‘we’ in Natalie.

“It tends not to be anyone’s thing until they discover that they have cancer.” Susanna laughed. “Look, it’s not touchy-feely, and we usually don’t even discuss our illnesses, but it’s nice to know that we can if we want. Sometimes we’ll go shopping and sometimes we’ll sit around and cry, but I think that most of the women have found it very therapeutic.” I thought of a group of sorry sobbing thirtysomethings sitting around in a circle, and my nonexis-tent hair stood on end.

Look for small gifts,
I heard Janice’s voice, and quickly pushed it away. “Yeah, I’m not sure.”

“Well, just in case you change your mind.” She reached for her purse and pulled out a card, pressing it into my palm. “Call me. It would be nice.”

I assured her that I would, though I had no intention of ever, ever engaging in public displays of grief with various other cancer victims, but I lost track of that thought because suddenly I was rav-enous. Rabid, fervently hungry. I pushed past a swarm of VIPs to the buffet table. A mountain of hors d’oeuvres awaited. A virtual 140

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volcano of dips, vegetables, fruits, cheeses, crackers, quiches, crab cakes, skewers, samosas, spanakopita, and sushi. And this didn’t even include dessert. I reached for a plate just before a congressman and squeezed past him. I had tunnel vision and no one—not a congressman, not his wife, not even the senator herself—was getting in my way. I was eating before things even touched my plate. I’d put one quiche in my mouth, then grab two more and move on. I’d stuff fried shrimp in with the quiche and barely wait to swallow before inhaling another. By the time I made my way down the buffet and stacked my plate so full that not even a speck of white showed through, I’d practically eaten an entire meal already. But, you see, when you’re a novice toker and still gauging the impact of marijuana on your system, and when you’ve recently smoked two joints by yourself, that was neither here nor there.

I was standing near a small, round cocktail table, halfway through my second serving, and licking my fingers when suddenly, just as I had when I entered the ballroom, I felt a rush of blood to my head. I twirled around, hands outstretched, looking for a chair, a windowsill, anything to sink into until the floor stopped moving like I was on a cruise ship. And in the absence of these stabilizers and with the ever-increasing spinning of my brain, coupled with an extreme drowsiness that almost instantly wal-loped my system, I half-leaned, half-sat on the cocktail table, pushing aside the partly drunk plastic cups and balled-up, dirty napkins. Feeling perhaps overconfident by the relief this half-lean brought, I scooted my butt nearly completely on top of the table, and for a second, heaved a sigh: The twinkling white world high atop Manhattan had stopped rotating. I nodded my head.
This,
ladies and gentlemen, was good living
.

I heard the crunch before I felt it. Rented cocktail tables—and let me be the first to tell you this, in case you are unaware and
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should find yourself in similar such circumstances—are not made to support the weight of a grown woman, even if said grown woman has recently lost a healthy portion of her body fat. Because as soon as I heard the metal legs collapsing, I felt them, too: I was sucked to the floor as the table folded nearly on top of me.

The impact of my crash landing was so loud that the band stopped playing, and the guests literally spun around and jumped, as if a bomb had exploded. I might have died of embarrassment underneath the mound of broken plates, half-eaten appetizers, and splashes of white wine and vodka if I hadn’t found it so damn funny. By the time Kyle made his way over and managed to un-wrap me from the previously lustrous white tablecloth and pull me to my feet, I’d nearly cried off all of my makeup, I was laughing so hard.

“Are you okay?” he asked, with a sympathy not normally heard in his voice. “Let’s get you home.”

“That would probably be best,” I responded, mocking his solemnity and brushing off tiny bites of pigs-in-a-blanket from my black A-line dress.

“I suspect you may hate yourself in the morning,” he said, as he handed the coat checker my ticket.

“That probably won’t be hard,” I replied, as we got in the elevator and I pressed the button to take me down.

o n a b l u s t e ry day in mid-December, my mom cashed in some personal time from work, took the train up from Philly, and em-barked on an adventure that most mothers would consider themselves lucky not to endure. Wig shopping.

“This should be fun,” my mom said in a halfhearted tone that I recognized from high school, back when, in an effort to add some 142

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extracurricular activities to my resume, I’d signed up to be in charge of the costumes for the drama department’s production of
Fiddler on the Roof
. My mother, who left the house at exactly 8:15

every morning, silver coffee cup in hand, Ferragamo pumps click-ing on our marble foyer floor, had been taught to sew by my grandmother. You wouldn’t think it, not with her couture-filled closet that was steadfastly organized by color, but when my parents first married, long before she became the first woman partner at her law firm, long before my father became a preeminent engineer who helped construct Philadelphia’s largest buildings, she whipped up her own outfits and living room drapes. So I figured, when I announced my new costumer position just as she arrived home at 7:15 sharp—this was every night for as long as I could remember—that she would be thrilled. Instead, she pressed her lips together and said, “This should be fun.” Thus, for the next few weeks, after some initial instruction, she left me on my own, and I spent the bulk of my free hours huddled over an old sewing machine in the garage, shoulder blades aching, neck in knots, kept company by nothing more than the smell of oil cans, Y100 radio, and our golden retriever, Curly.