“Still, I would have done something . . .”
What would she have done? Walked a 5K? Worn a ribbon? Brought chicken soup for Embeth to throw up? Posted a sympathetic tweet? “Why are you wearing cat ears?” Embeth asked. “Am I imagining them, or are you actually wearing cat ears?”
“Oh!” Allegra laughed coyly, a bit embarrassed, and patted down the hair beneath the black cat ear headband. “It’s my costume. Yesterday was Halloween.”
“I forgot,” Embeth said.
“But the party at Emory’s school is this morning. Something to do with testing. I’m in charge of punch. One of the moms sent me a text last night, Don’t put nuts in the punch! Who puts nuts in punch? I’m the oldest mom there, and they think I’m a flake.”
“Mrs. Levin!” the receptionist repeated.
“The ears suit you,” Embeth said as she went through the doors into the doctor’s office.
“How’s Embeth today?” the doctor asked. English was not his first language, and he seemed frightened of pronouns.
“Embeth has found a new lump,” she said brightly.
ON THE WAY out of the doctor’s office, Embeth felt stupidly cheerful. The promise of future tests! The promise of another round of chemo! The promise of death! These were not reasons to be cheered, and yet, cheered she was.
It was certainly not the promise of the evening’s festivities.
Perhaps it was the relief of revelation. When she’d found the knot in the shower, she had felt like a failure, though she knew that was a trick of her brain, pure foolishness. It was not her fault that her body had continued to grow anomalous clusters of cells. Embeth had been raised to believe that everything was her fault. She was enormously powerful and couldn’t do anything right. Embeth, Creator of Anomalous Clusters. Embeth, Destroyer of Worlds.
Perhaps her cheerfulness was a result of the day itself. It was a dry, cool morning after what had been a dry, cool October. The late-season hurricanes did not arrive. Her hair, what there was of it, obeyed more than it usually did.
Perhaps it was seeing Allegra.
If It wasn’t back, if Embeth had but time, she would have that lunch with Allegra, and then she would have another lunch with Allegra, and at that second lunch, when everyone was more relaxed, they would order two desserts and split them and let their fork tines intertwine and lightly clang against each other and they’d eat those desserts down to the last crumb, and then Embeth would say to the waiter, Yes, actually, I will have an espresso, and Allegra would suggest they take a yoga class together (“It’s hatha, Em; anyone can do it”), and at yoga, one of them would suggest starting a book club, and Embeth would somehow organize her life so that she might see Allegra every, every day until one or both of them were dead.
Why had Allegra been at Dr. Hui’s office? She should have asked. How self-centered she was. She sometimes forgot that she was not the only person in the world with cancer. Conversely, she often forgot that everyone in the world did not have cancer.
She had convinced El Meté to wait near the car—one couldn’t bring fowl to the doctor’s. El Meté perched on the hood of her Tesla. His nails clicked happily against the car’s paint job. He flew up and landed on Embeth’s shoulder. “The blouse is silk,” she said. “Be gentle.”
“Gentle! Gentle!” he said. “Good night! Good night!”
Embeth got into her car, and her cell phone rang, and she was careful to use the speaker, because the last thing you wanted was cancer of the brain on top of all the other cancers you already had.
It was Tasha, one of Aaron’s assistants in Miami. Tasha was new. She said they had an emergency at the office. Aaron’s assistants were always given to dramatics, though. The new ones especially. They didn’t have the experience to separate a situation from an emergency, a crisis from a tragedy. A week before an election, what wasn’t an emergency? “Can’t Jorge deal with it?” Embeth said. “I’m pretty booked with the party tonight. Why in God’s name we are having this ridiculous party . . .” Embeth performed an apologetic laugh.
Tasha said, “Maybe emergency is the wrong word. I’d call it a situation.”
“Fine,” said Embeth impatiently. “I trust Jorge to deal with all situations.”
“Fine! Very fine!” said El Meté.
“Shh!” said Embeth.
“Oh, I’m sorry,” Tasha said.
“No, not you. I was talking to someone else,” Embeth said. “Call Jorge.”
“Okay. The thing is . . .” Tasha lowered her voice, and Embeth could not hear what she said. She asked her to say it louder. “It’s a girl.”
“What?”
“There’s a girl here,” Tasha said. “She says she’s Aaron’s daughter,” she whispered.
“Daughter! Daughter!” said El Meté.
“That’s not possible,” Embeth said. “We only have sons.”
“I’m looking at her. She’s about four feet eleven inches tall and she has braces and curly hair. I’d guess she’s about eleven or twelve—”
“No, Tasha, I do not need you to describe a girl for me. I know perfectly well what a girl looks like, having been one myself, though you probably find that hard to believe, and I do not dispute that you are looking at a girl! The point is, you are not looking at Aaron’s daughter because my husband and I only have sons,” Embeth said.
“Sons! Sons!” said El Meté.
“Would you kindly shut up?” said Embeth.
“I wasn’t talking,” said Tasha.
“Not you. Someone else. Call Jorge and tell him that there’s some crazy kid at the office, and he’ll tell you what to do. I don’t have time for crazy people today.”
“Okay,” said Tasha. “I can do that. But one other thing—”
“What?”
“She says her last name is Grossman.”
How Embeth loathed that name! “Gross,” she said.
“No, Grossman,” said Tasha.
“I heard you the first time.” She would have loved to go the whole rest of her life without ever having to hear that name again.
“The election’s next week,” Tasha continued.
“Yes, Tasha, I am aware,” Embeth said.
“I know you’re aware,” Tasha said. “I meant, there are a lot of people in the office and a lot of people coming to the office today. Campaign staff. Media. It might be a good idea to move her to a different location while things sort themselves out. Jorge’s in D.C. with the congressman. I can’t get either of them on the phone. I didn’t want to text it, in case someone saw. There might not be time for me to reach him. I don’t want to cause any trouble.”