keeps her fingers under my armpit. She wiggles them a bit. ‘Huh,’ she says.
‘What?’
She wiggles some more. ‘You had this checked?’
‘What?’
She takes her fingers out, and I put mine in. ‘I don’t feel anything.’ I wonder if she’s one of those people who convinces other people they’re sick—Munchausen by proxy. It makes sense that she would be attracted to a medical career.
‘Here.’ She places my fingers right in the socket and moves them over a hard—there’s no other word for it—lump. My fingers spring away from it, denial at the muscular level. I feel the other armpit. I feel and feel. You just want to be symmetrical. A pair of lumps seems far more desirable. Nothing. She feels there, too.
‘Mention it to your doctor.’
‘Could we take a few images of it right now, just to save time.’
She laughs as if this is a preposterous idea. ‘No.’
I call my primary care office about the lump and they ask me when that afternoon I can come in.
I get a different doctor. A woman. She wears gray felt clogs and a barrette on each side of her head. She makes me feel like we’re in sixth grade and pretending she’s a doctor and I’m a patient with a lump under my arm. She has no quick explanation. She asks if I’ve switched deodorants, soaps, or perfumes recently. I haven’t. She suggests I stop using all products, just in case. And come back in a week.
‘I will be very smelly by then,’ I say. She says I can wash my hair but only with shampoo I’ve used before and only leaning way back in the shower, careful not to let the suds get under my arm. And no conditioner. ‘Smelly and frizzy,’ I say.
After a week, the lump is the same size and sore from how much I’ve been fingering it. The doctor says that I should continue with the anti-hygiene program. And, she adds, as if it’s an afterthought, I should see an oncologist. She puts this on my chart, and when I check out I’m told Donna will call me within forty-eight hours with the date and time of the oncology appointment. She does. My appointment with Dr. Oncologist is seven weeks away. I call his office and beg for something sooner but the receptionist snaps and tells me I’m a lucky young lady to have gotten that date. Someone canceled. They’re booking into late spring now.
‘Because cancer can wait,’ I say. ‘Cancer doesn’t grow and spread and kill people.’
She hangs up on me. I hope she doesn’t delete my name from her calendar.
I try to write something new. It’s bad and I stop after a few sentences. Even though I didn’t feel it at the time, I got into a rhythm with the old novel. I knew those characters and how to write them. I heard their voices and I saw their gestures and anything else feels fake and stiff. I ache for them, people I also once felt were stiff and fake, but who now seem like the only people I could ever write about.
‘So,’ Oscar says. ‘I think you should come to the house for supper Sunday night.’
‘Whoa.’
‘I know.’
I’m on the kitchen line. Thomas is cranking Nirvana, and I have to plug my other ear.
‘You still there?’
‘In shock.’
‘It’s a school night, so we’ll eat at six sharp. How do you feel about chicken sticks and cucumber slices?’
‘Love them.’ My heart is whomping. Chicken sticks and cucumber slices. I didn’t realize I’d been waiting for this invitation all along.
I go back to rolling silver in the dining room with Tony and Dana and Harry. We’re at one of the round tables, and Craig has mixed up a pitcher of sangria. Angus from the kitchen has joined us, already in street clothes. Fabiana and the new waiter, James, is there, too. He’s Scottish, somber, silent as the grave. Harry is smitten.
‘That one of your lovas?’ Tony says. I made the mistake of telling him about my dilemma one slow night last week.
‘Which one?’ Harry says.
‘Oscar. He wants me to have dinner with his kids.’
‘Kids? No.’ Craig says. ‘Dump that dude.’
‘Torn between two lovers,’ Dana is singing.
‘What’re they like?’ Angus says. ‘We’ll help you decide right now.’
‘Who says I’m deciding?’ I do need to choose, though. I’ve reached the elimination round. ‘So one is my age and quirky and we talk about death a lot. The morning of our first date he left town for three weeks but he came back and