Then she recalled Joyce’s “This sucks” and smiled grimly.
“Mrs. Levine?”
The voice caught her by surprise, and she sprang to her feet. A pretty Asian woman wearing a red dress introduced herself as Marcy Myers and extended her hand, holding on to Kathleen’s until the meaning of her grasp was abundantly clear. Oh, for heaven’s sake, Kathleen silently scolded herself. She’s just being nice.
In the office, Kathleen forced herself to listen while Marcy explained what would happen next. After Dr. Singh met with them, they would take a tour of the center and see the radiation machine and the simulator, which was used for taking measurements. Measuring would take up most of the morning. Marcy recited the radiation litany, which Kathleen already knew by heart: no deodorant before treatments, cornstarch instead of powder, no perfume, and no lotion apart from the ones they would give her.
Why was Buddy writing this down again?
Then Marcy started talking about the “application of permanent landmarks.”
“You mean the tattoos, right?” Kathleen asked, unable to keep the edge out of her voice.
“Do you have a religious objection to tattooing?” Marcy asked.
“I don’t understand.”
“Are you Jewish?”
“Yes,” Kathleen said, instantly defensive. Kathleen Levine was never an easy name to explain.
“Some of our Jewish patients refuse the permanent markings on religious grounds.”
“I never heard of that.”
“Well, according to Orthodox law, tattooing is forbidden.”
“We’re not Orthodox,” said Kathleen.
“All right, then,” Marcy said gently. “Our patients say the tattoos don’t hurt. You can barely even see them, and oncologists prefer the permanence.”
Kathleen said, “I know. They do it so that if they have to treat the other breast, they’ll know which is which. I thought I already signed a paper agreeing to this.”
Buddy winced when she said “the other breast.”
Marcy looked at the bottom of her checklist, put down her pencil, and lowered her voice meaningfully. “Mrs. Levine,” she said, and then urgently, “Kathleen. I would like to emphasize the importance of support for women undergoing breast cancer treatment.” It was the first time Marcy had used the words breast cancer. She cited statistics about the benefits of mentors and support groups.
Kathleen had seen the pamphlets about support groups, but she couldn’t imagine complaining about her paltry symptoms to women who were throwing up and losing their hair. Besides, she didn’t want to devote any more time to this thing than she had to. She wanted to preserve the summer. She wanted to plant lilies, visit Jack in New York, spend more time with Joyce.
Or maybe she would die, and what good would a support group do then?
Kathleen could sense Buddy’s concern, but she wasn’t even looking at Marcy anymore. Her eyes wandered around the wall behind the desk, at a vaguely cubist rendering of Rockport’s famous red fishing shack, the college diploma issued to Marcy Yamaguchi, a nursing degree for Marcy Y. Myers, and a framed photograph.
The picture had been taken at a rocky seaside overlook. Marcy and a burly, bearded man wearing a blue T-shirt and a yarmulke smiled into the camera, their arms around two little girls. The older one looked to be about ten; the younger one had Down’s syndrome.
Kathleen focused on Marcy with new interest, but just then Dr. Singh arrived and everything stopped.
He was the most breathtakingly handsome man Kathleen had ever seen. He shook Buddy’s hand and resumed a conversation the two of them had begun in the hospital.
He had seen them after her surgery, he said, and Kathleen realized she must have been out cold. There was no way she would have forgotten these black eyes, the full arch of these red lips. He was so good-looking that Kathleen blushed.
“Would it be all right if we stay in here, Mrs. Myers?” he asked Marcy with a wave of his long fingers. His accent was British and formal.
“Have you found a house yet?” Buddy asked, picking up the thread of a conversation that was new to Kathleen.
“In Marblehead,” said the doctor. “We moved in last week. My wife and I feel fortunate to be living in such a beautiful place. But if we don’t find the television remote control very soon, we may end up in divorce court.”
Kathleen felt her cheeks color again, in anger now. This wasn’t a cocktail party. This was her funeral, thank you very much, and the corpse would like to remain the center of attention. She coughed into her fist.
The doctor seemed to take the hint and began describing the treatment for what seemed like the sixth time. He described the possible side effects: fatigue, aches and pains, swelling or shrinking of the breast, a kind of “sunburn” caused by the rays. Buddy scribbled furiously as Kathleen looked deeply into the doctor’s eyes and wondered if his wife was from India.
Good heavens, he was a masterpiece.
The doctor stood up and took Kathleen’s right hand between his. “Setting the machines properly will take a week or so,” he told her, “and then we will meet again for the first treatment. I shall see you every week, and Mrs. Myers will watch out for you as well. You may call upon us anytime, with questions.
“Mrs. Levine,” he said, drawing an inch closer and lowering his voice, “try to rest easy. We will take very good care of you here, and your husband will take excellent care of you at home, I’m certain. For your part, you must eat well, rest, and keep up your spirits.
“I also prescribe long walks by the ocean,” he said, letting go of her hand and holding up both index fingers, like an orchestra conductor. “I am quite serious about this. The exercise alone is beneficial, of course. But the gifts of the sea are precious. Surely you know what I mean.”
“Oh, yes,” she said, transfixed by the attention and his touch. “I love to walk on the beach,” she said, almost stammering.
“Of course you do.”
As Dr. Singh left, Kathleen and Marcy caught one another’s eye. Marcy put a hand over her heart and fluttered her fingers. Kathleen laughed out loud. Buddy looked at them, clueless.
“I’m going to show you the treatment room first,” Marcy said, leading them down a hallway. She opened the door to a room as big as Kathleen’s library at school. The radiation machine loomed in the center, like an oversize prop from a 1950s science-fiction movie.
Marcy introduced Terry and Rachel, who would be her regular radiation techs. Terry showed them how the treatment table moved up to meet the movable “head,” which delivered the ray. Rachel pointed to the mobile hanging from the ceiling: four angels made out of clothespins and glitter. “A patient’s daughter made it,” she said.
When Terry turned the lights down for a moment and a red beam bisected the room, Kathleen gasped. “The laser is used only for alignment,” Terry explained quickly. “I think they should change it to blue or green, don’t you? The red is so, I don’t know — red.”
“Alarming,” said Kathleen.
“Scary, yeah,” said Terry, a pretty blonde with high cheekbones and four gold hoops in each ear.
In the simulator room down another hall, Kathleen put on a hospital johnny. The room was dim and cold, and she was mortified as her nipples hardened and stayed erect during the endless measurements by John Marino, a young man who used to work construction and knew Buddy from the store. John was muscular and quick, running in and out to control-booth monitors and computers. “Sorry this is taking so long, Mrs. Levine,” he said. “But we’ve got to get it perfect.” Kathleen admired the professional way he arranged her arm and measured the contour of her breast without even seeming to touch her.
Then she caught sight of her reflection in a mirrored panel on the door. “Oh, God,” she whispered. Staring at the frightened, haggard, old woman, she thought, how else would he touch me? Her breast looked mutilated, the scar still red and angry-looking.
The disease of old age. Where had she read that? I’m an
old lady with cancer. She squeezed her eyes tight. Marcy walked in just then and said, “Hang on, Kathleen. We’re nearly done.”
But they weren’t. Rachel, a short, round brunette who wore her hair in braids, brought in a tray with a small bottle of india ink and a box of individually wrapped needles. She noticed Kathleen’s eyes widen and pointed to two small blue freckles on her thumb. “This is what it looks like. I did it to myself so I’d know what it felt like, too. It only pinches for a sec. Not even as much as a bee sting.”
Rachel and John took great care in locating the exact spots for the tattoo marks, but Kathleen felt herself getting more and more agitated.
“Here we go,” said Rachel, swabbing the cold antiseptic on Kathleen’s breast. The needle felt hot.
“Only three more,” Rachel said.
“Okay,” said Kathleen, her voice tight and high. Marcy held her left hand. They were right. It didn’t hurt much at all, but the tears came anyway, down her cheeks, into her ears. She held very still.
On the way home, Buddy tried to ask how she was feeling. Kathleen shook her head and closed her eyes.
“Tired, huh?”
She nodded and leaned back into the headrest. An old word floated into her head: Stigmata.
As they approached their driveway, Kathleen told Buddy to drop her off and go back to the store, but he got out of the car, made her a cup of tea, and tucked her in for a nap.
Kathleen got in bed to humor him, but as soon as he left, she dressed and went out into the yard. Pulling a few weeds, she inhaled deeply and savored the smell of warm soil layered on ocean air. Joyce had said something about how Tomaso’s smelled like heaven, but this was pretty darned divine.
She went inside and picked up the phone. “None of us Tabachniks can answer you at the moment,” said the machine. “Please wait for the beep and leave a message.”
“Hi, Joyce. It’s Kathleen. Let’s go for a walk at Good Harbor. Call me.”
JOYCE LISTENED TO Kathleen’s message a few days later as Frank carried the cooler into the kitchen and Nina stood in front of the open refrigerator. “There’s nothing to eat in this house,” she said. “Who’s Kathleen?”
“Shut that door will you?” said Frank. “I’m going shopping in a minute. Mom and I met her at the temple.”
“Where was I?”
“Sleeping over at Sylvie’s house,” he said.
Joyce picked up the receiver.
“You’re going to use the phone now?” Nina said, sounding incredulous. “I have to make a call.”
“It’ll have to wait,” Joyce said, carrying the receiver into the living room. Nina poked her head through the door and wordlessly registered her impatience, but Joyce pretended not to understand.
“Sorry I couldn’t call sooner,” Joyce said. “When do you want to walk?”
“I could be there in fifteen minutes.”
Joyce grabbed the car keys and announced, “I’m meeting Kathleen for a little while.”
“You can’t go now,” Frank sputtered.
“Drop me off on your way to the store,” Joyce snapped. “Kathleen will drive me home and Nina will be fine on her own for half an hour.”
In the car Frank asked, “Is Kathleen okay?”
“What kind of question is that? She’s got breast cancer, for God’s sake.”
“Well, yes, I know,” he said, embarrassed into a silence that lasted until they pulled over beside the footbridge that led from the shore road, over the tidal river, and onto Good Harbor beach. Joyce had the door open before the car came to a stop.
There was no sign of Kathleen yet, so Joyce leaned over the weathered wooden railing. The river below was barely a trickle, making it hard to tell if the tide was coming in or going out. I should have said good-bye to Frank, she thought. I should be nicer to Frank. And Frank should be nicer to me. She hoped the long hours he was putting into this company paid off in a big way.
Joyce reached her arms over her head to stretch, glad that Nina wasn’t nearby to tell her to stop acting like a weirdo in public. Not that there was much of a crowd this late in the afternoon. Most people were leaving, lugging chairs and coolers, going home.
Four lifeguards went by, looking like a commercial for Baywatch, despite their ugly regulation-orange bathing suits. A handsome black kid with a washboard stomach was wearing a pair of silver hoop earrings exactly like Joyce’s. I can see them, she thought, but to them I might as well be one of those gulls. The birds were busy cleaning up a mess of corn chips, screaming and flapping at each other. “Oh, dry up,” Joyce said softly.
She raised her eyes to the horizon and took a breath. She loved this slice of the coast, from Salt Island to the granite fortress of the Bass Rocks. Something about the way the beach held the sky unlocked her. It inspired her to ponder the direction of her life and set her to wondering whether she believed in God — or Something. She often thought about her father at Good Harbor — he had loved the ocean, especially when there was a strong wind and a loud surf.
A late sun worshiper wearing a bikini and two-inch platform sandals clopped past on the bridge’s weathered wooden boards. Joyce glanced over her shoulder. She smiled at herself and how easily she could be distracted from cosmic ruminations. That lady was sixty-five if she was a day, but at least she looked okay in a skimpy bathing suit. The same could not be said of the truly elephantine women Joyce had seen out here, parading around in next to nothing. Were they oblivious or intentionally outrageous? She didn’t know whether to avert her eyes or applaud.
People-watching at the beach was one of Joyce’s great pleasures. Endless questions and stories occurred to her. How did sixty-something couples, holding hands and bumping shoulders, manage to keep the spark alive? Or were they newlyweds who had found each other after burying longtime spouses they had come to loathe? Were the lesbian couples in matching khaki shorts local girls or tourists from the Midwest? Was the man in black socks and sandals a recent immigrant from a landlocked country, or a clumsy spy?
Joyce also considered herself a connoisseur of T-shirts. Like a bird-watcher, she kept a list of oddball favorites: “When the going gets tough, the tough get duct tape.” “What are you looking at?” “She Who Must Be Obeyed.”
And tattoos. Once the sole property of veterans, they’d been taken up by macho boys and nubile girls, and an unpredictable assortment of middle-aged men and women. But from now on, they would all make her think of Kathleen’s tattoos. The brand of One-in-Eight.
Joyce hugged her own shoulders until she felt her joints grumble pleasantly. She was free. Yesterday she had shipped the last of her magazine assignments. Mario had left a message asking about the Magnolia sequel, but she hadn’t returned his call. She wanted to try a serious novel. She wanted to give it the summer, at least.
Frank would be at the supermarket by now, buying food for the weekend and staples for the rest of the summer. It was their first time in the house, all three of them, the first spring weekend without a soccer tournament. On the way up, Frank had cleared his throat and announced in a brave voice that he was going to be an assistant coach for Nina’s team next season.
“Don’t worry, sweetie,” he had said over his shoulder to Nina, trying to head off her inevitable snit, “I won’t be telling you what to do. I think my main job is going to be putting together the schedule. Tom says that it’s so complicated, they need a spreadsheet. That’s where I come in.”
Nina scowled, put on her Walkman, and started singing along to the unheard lament of a woman in love. The summer before, she had sung their silly family car song. “We all went to the barber, to look sharp for Good Harbor. We don’t turn to the starboard till we get to Good Harbor.” She went on and on until Joyce, worn-out, had snapped, “That’s enough!”
This year they had had to bribe Nina with a promise of new CDs to get her to come at all.
“What are you thinking about?” asked Kathleen, suddenly at Joyce’s side.
“I was thinking about Ni
na. I’m so glad you called.”
“And I’m glad you could get away today. Want to walk? It’s doctor’s orders.”
“Smart doctor.”
“I don’t want to talk about my treatment,” Kathleen said, trying to sound casual rather than brittle. “It hasn’t started yet anyway. I just went to get measured and marked.”
“The tattoos, right? Did it suck?”
“Yes. But I don’t want to talk about that either. Tell me what’s going on with you.”
They left their shoes next to the green trash barrels at the end of the bridge and headed over the tidal plain to the water’s edge. The last tide had sculpted the beach into a wavy pattern made of tiny crenellated dunes; each one held a scrap of blue sky reflected in warm water.
A pair of gulls swooped overhead and skimmed the shoreline until they found a spot to their liking and started strutting, on the lookout, as always, for food.
“Is the tide coming in or going out?” asked Joyce.
“Going out,” Kathleen said.
“It’s such an undramatic difference at this point. You have to be really tuned in to know it.”
Kathleen laughed and said the only reason she knew was because Buddy had told her. She turned the talk to Joyce. What was new? How was the house? Was she writing? What was for supper?
“I have no idea what we’re eating,” Joyce said. “I’m going to paint the kitchen a very strange color. I’m not writing at all. But I do have tidings of strange goings-on with my Virgin Mary.”
“Your what?”
“I didn’t tell you about her yet?’’
Joyce described the statue: her surprising height, the detailed pleats in the veil, the way her hands stretched out as if she were inviting the flowers to grow. Frank had been too busy to come up and get rid of it. This was his first time in Gloucester since the weekend they’d met at temple.
In the meantime, her Virgin had spawned a mystery. “A few weeks ago, she sprouted a crown of plastic flowers on her head. Then someone left a pot of marigolds at her feet. So I figured I’d better try to move her myself. I rooted around a little, but the cement goes way down, much further than I could dig with a trowel. We’re going to have to hire someone to take her out.