I tell her I like it. “There’s something comforting about it. Soothing.”
Marcie nods. “I had it built out after my recurrence, when I found out the surgeons would have to carve me up like a turkey. I knew I would need a space where I could take care of myself. A healing space. Something very different than the rest of this Gothic rock pile.” Marcie looks around the room, a faint smile touching her lips. “There was a time when I holed up here for a full month. There’s a small bedroom with its own bath behind that door,” she says, nodding to a door on the far wall. “I actually took my chemotherapy in this room. My oncologist came himself, sat with me through the IV. You can get pretty good service if you donate enough money to the right hospitals.”
I glance at the floor-to-ceiling windows making up most of the back wall. “I imagine during the day this room is awash in sunlight.”
“Yes,” Marcie says. “And through the windows, I can take in most of the grounds.” Then she frowns and stands up. “Though at night, the windows tend to darken the room.” With that, she moves to the rear wall, presses a button, and blinds descend over the windows. Marcie motions for me to sit, and I lower myself onto the couch. She sits next to me, close enough that our knees are almost touching.
Before us sits a glass cocktail table on chrome legs. A silver serving tray is positioned in the middle. An open bottle of red wine and two stemmed glasses stand on the tray. Marcie leans forward and pours herself a glass, and then a second one for me. “You like pinot noir?”
I decline, and we sit in silence until Marcie starts up again. “My hair had fallen out, my breasts were gone, my skin was sallow. I became severely depressed, had no appetite. I lost so much weight I looked like a concentration-camp survivor.” Marcie takes a sip, gives me a chance to let it all sink in.
“Eventually, my hair began to grow back, though I had to wear a wig for more than a year. There’s a guy in New Jersey who does brilliant work, actually specializes in wigs for chemo patients. I started to eat again, gained some weight. When I was strong enough, I flew the boys to my sister’s house in California to get away. That’s where I was when David was arrested, when I got his call. A most unwelcome surprise.”
Marcie shares all this with no trace of bitterness or sorrow in her voice. Her tone is frank, matter-of-fact, as though she were teaching a tennis lesson. I admire her for it. I also admire how she has turned herself around physically. Three weeks ago, when Susan and I came by, I saw how healthy Marcie looked. What I notice now is how fit she really is. Her sleeveless red-silk blouse and thin black skirt reveal her arms and long legs to be firm, even sculpted. And her chest, as I’d noticed before, is full.
“You’ve been through a lot,” I say. “And it’s probably of small consolation, but you look great.”
Marcie smiles. “Thank you for saying so. I’m always open to a compliment. It makes all the hard work—the weight training, the running, the yoga, the reconstruction—worthwhile.” She reaches out, touches my hand, her own very warm. Then she does something that completely stuns me. She reaches toward the cocktail table, picks up a gold case, opens it, and withdraws a cigarette. She lights it with a sleek ceramic lighter lying next to it.
You’re kidding me. That’s what I want to say to Marcie. You just survived breast cancer, and now you’re smoking?
Marcie leans back and laughs. “Oh, Mick! The look on your face!” She takes a deep drag of the cigarette. “I was never a smoker,” she says. “Not really. Oh, I would bum a cigarette or two when I was drinking, at a party, before my boys came along. But I never craved nicotine. Now, though, I smoke exactly one cigarette a day. It’s my way of looking cancer in the eye and saying, ‘Fuck you. You owned me for a while. You stole my body; you took my health. But now I’m back. I’m in control. And if you show up again, I’ll set fire to your sorry ass just like I’m burning your little pet here.’” With that, Marcie takes another drag and forcefully expels the smoke. Then she leans forward, toward me, and crosses her lean, tan legs. She says, “And one thing you have to admit about smoking: if it’s done right, it’s sexy as hell.”
Instead of agreeing, I steer the conversation in another direction. “How is David holding up?”
Marcie waits a beat, licks her lips, studies me. “He’s worried,” she says. “We both are. Of course. Our little ploy with the house in New York buoyed us for a while, but this whole videotape thing has us shaken.” I nod my head several times, unsure what to say. Then Marcie asks me the same question David had asked. “What guarantee do we have that the blackmailer won’t take our money and disclose the video anyway?”
“Guarantee? There is none. But it wouldn’t make any sense to do so, because then David would have no reason not to tell the authorities that he’d been blackmailed, which would cause the police to hunt down the blackmailer. The smarter play for him,” I say, pretending the blackmailer is a male, “is to take the money and run. And that is exactly what the blackmailer’s told me he’s going to do. Take the money and leave the country.”
“And when he blows through the money in a year or two?”
“I don’t think that’s going to happen,” I say. “My read on the blackmailer is that he’s not the type to squander it. And even if he did and came back for more, David will already have been acquitted. And with double jeopardy—”
“Or convicted,” Marcie says, interrupting me. “In which case, disclosure of the video would destroy any chance of a successful appeal. And even if David’s acquitted, we’ll face an uphill battle convincing everyone that he really is innocent. If the tape came out then, it’d be a disaster. So, no matter what happens, the blackmailer would be in a position to come back for more—and expect it.”
I have to nod. Marcie’s right.
“I don’t suppose you want to share the identity of the blackmailer?” she asks.
“I can’t. Along with the money, that’s part of the deal.”
Marcie looks away for a quick second, then looks back at me and changes the subject. “How is Piper? How are things between the two of you?”
The question stops me. I blink before answering. “Piper is good.”
“And things are good?” Marcie leans into me as she asks, puts her hand on my thigh. Again, I feel her warmth. Now I’m really taken aback. Marcie is making a play, and she’s not trying to disguise it.
“Marcie . . .” I close my leg, slide away from her.