Sputterpub's Blog

Isabelle was looking straight ahead as they walked but she caught some movement in her peripheral vision and turned to the right. “Is that Rusty-the-slut?”

Rosie peered where Isabelle faced. A tall figure was moving away from a parked silver SUV, toward the beach. “Shit. I think it is. I do not want to see her.”

“Come this way. She’s too lazy to climb.” And Isabelle strode ahead, onto a boulder pile that surrounded the bottom of the eroded headland at the edge of the cove. She was used to the climb, but she had to put a hand behind her three times to help Rosie up the steep parts of the vine-bordered track. Spot scampered around them. They emerged onto a cypress-shaded path that ran along the top of the headlands; their view was rock-formed tide pools and crashing surf. They giggled conspiratorially, like giddy 12-year-olds who had just ditched a despised third girl.

“I warned you about Rusty-the-slut,” Isabelle grinned.

Rosie returned the smile, edged with dismay. “Fuck you,” she said fondly. “I had a weak moment.”

Rosie had been celibate for three years, and broke too. Her last relationship took her heart and her savings. Belinda had been a compulsive gambler and Rosie was too naive or too smitten to understand until it was too late. Rosie made next to nothing anyway, and she refused to give up her volunteer work to earn more, so she was accustomed to living a few paychecks away from destitution, but Belinda sent her deep into negative territory. She’d been paying off creditors since Belinda disappeared, and when Rusty-the-slut came along, flirting and admiring and picking up tabs, Rosie decided to disregard what Isabelle said about Rusty’s exploits. She allowed herself to think it would be different with her. She went home with someone who was notorious for graphically describing all of her trysts, and after a night of mediocre sex, Rosie now got to hear pornographic little tidbits with herself in a starring role.

“It wasn’t even good sex,” she mumbled.

“That’s not how Rusty-the-slut tells it,” and Isabelle acted ready to run, as if Rosie were about to tackle her. But Rosie looked serious. Suddenly it wasn’t about Rusty.

“Belle,” Rosie breathed, and her mouth twisted searching for words. Her eyes watered. Her face swelled.

Isabelle spoke instead. “Listen, kiddo. It might just be okay. I mean, maybe I’ll beat it myself. I’m going to take better care of my immune system, and maybe that will fight off the chaotic invader. Hell, I’ve even stopped smoking pot. Or maybe I will weaken (that’s the way I see it now), and turn this mortal coil over to the machinations of the medicos. But let’s look at the worst option. Let’s say I die. I have lots of arguments in favor of that… as someone in a Kingsolver novel once said ‘I’ve already been there.’ And I’m pleased with what I’ve accomplished here: I’ve noticed and appreciated and loved and understood; I’ve figured out the answers to a lot of my questions; my kids are okay without me; there’s not much more I had in mind to do.”

Rosie admitted she didn’t have a response to that … yet. She might have said it was weird how people with low self esteem seemed to cling more to life than folks like Belle, but that wasn’t news. She and Isabelle had agreed long ago that life is kind of like a party; one doesn’t want to leave until one’s had a good time.

Rosie seemed preoccupied with her shoe. She was bent over and busy with the lace, so Isabelle looked at the back of her head. “Belle,” Rosie began, aiming her words at the sand, “I don’t want to beat a dead horse but we need to talk some more about the doctors.”

Isabelle watched her twist her shoe lace as she formed the final loop. “You’re making a granny bow.”

“You’re changing the subject.”

“But your lace will come undone again. I can show you …”

“It won’t come undone,” Rosie enunciated as she doubled the knot. Her tone was tight and parental.

Isabelle led them to the firm sand near the water and turned north. “Okay. Talk to me about the doctors.”

Half a minute passed. Rosie spoke: “Look. I know you hate it when I order you around, but that’s not where I’m coming from. I love you. You’re my best friend. I want you here, alive, for me as much as for you. I’m probably being selfish: I want you to do whatever is necessary to prolong your life. Right now, I guess I care more about quantity,” she paused and smiled up at Isabelle, “than quality.”

“Hmmm.”

“Hmmm?” Rosie managed to load her murmur with sarcasm. She also stopped walking. Isabelle felt compelled to respond.

“Rosie, they don’t have a surefire protocol. They admit their chemo/radiation/surgery mix has only succeeded, so far, with a third of the cases and, so far, we’re talking less than three years of remission. That’s how new it is.

“And it’s nasty. The patient is sick or debilitated throughout. For what? A couple of years, ill and ill-tempered? I’d rather be remembered now.”

They plodded on side by side. Their heels cut scallops in the cinnamon sand while Spot zigzagged ahead. Isabelle continued:

“I’m sorry, Sweetie, but I just don’t have confidence in the MDs. They’ve never been right for me. Shit: their pregnancy tests didn’t even work!

“I can’t bear it. It may not make sense, but I just can’t smell the hospital smells again, or lie there again in miserable discomfort, waiting for some strangers to treat my body and ignore my self. I did it at 36, with the ruptured cyst and hysterectomy. I did it a lot at 49, with what should have been a simple case of food poisoning. I just can’t go there again. Death is better.”

Rosie was silent. She couldn’t summon a good argument. She’d known Isabelle since they were 17, and it was true that her friend had never had a meaningful medical diagnosis. Isabelle mostly didn’t need doctors. She rarely felt ill and when she did, she always seemed to understand what she had and what she needed, but it was a different matter, entirely, to convince the doctor. Then tests were necessary and time had to pass, with the result that healing took longer. “I don’t know what to say,” Rosie admitted. “You know I love you and respect you. I hope you’ll change your mind.”

“I will not willingly surrender myself to the medical industry.”

That had always been one of Isabelle’s assertions, and Rosie accepted it as much as she could. Everyone else said “Oh, you’ll sing a different tune if you’re ever diagnosed with cancer” and secretly Rosie agreed, but she and Isabelle cherished their friendship for its mutual respect, so she tried to believe that Isabelle would rather die than deliver her days up to medical procedures and protocols.

Isabelle was always bright and not dysfunctional; her friends and family thought it was just a matter of time before she would mature into mainstream thinking. Her mother forecast that she’d learn to like money and love shopping. Her father predicted she’d develop a desire to drive. Her friends insisted that she was bound to get lonely enough to look for a third spouse, even as they watched her live 15 happy years single, after the last breakup.

So far Isabelle was proving them wrong. She was 53 and hadn’t yet learned to love money or cars. She liked to live simply, alone with her dog. But the need for change loomed. Her just-diagnosed cancer was active and fast-moving. Six out of seven oncologists thought she wouldn’t have more than a year unless she underwent obnoxious procedures.

“Let’s take a walk,” she suggested. She set her empty coffee mug on the low table and stretched as she stood. She pushed her right hand through her short hair and massaged the back of her neck. Rosie was never opposed to a walk, but she considered her friend’s stamina and hesitated. “Do you think you should?”

“Sure. You’re confusing me with other ‘patients.’ (Actually I’m not a patient. I looked it up. ‘Patient’ means to suffer without complaint. I’m not into that.) If I let them do their chemo I wouldn’t be able to walk. But my energy’s fine. Let’s go listen to the water. See Spot run.” Her old beagle began to dance as Isabelle lifted the leash from its hook by the door.

“Fine. But grab a jacket. It’s nasty out.”

“It is not. It’s just overcast. Come on.”

Isabelle’s little house was a block and a half from the beach. She lived in a funky cottage which she thought would be perfect if it were just a little closer to the ocean. As it was she heard the surf at night. She smelled the tides. She breathed salt air. Her curly hair bent in the constant humidity. But the house lacked an ocean view. So she walked every day to the shoreline. It never failed to awe her.

“I know I’ve said this before, but isn’t it a trip that the beach is also the border of the country? The rim of the continent? I mean: straight out there? Hawaii if you manage to hit it, but otherwise Japan or most likely some part of China. I think we may even be at the edge of the actual plate.” She disconnected the leash from the eager dog. As usual, Spot dashed at the water.

After a few hours everyone had been rebooked and bused to nearby motels. Each passenger was dispensed a small blue pack with a tiny tube of toothpaste, a pull-apart travel toothbrush and rudimentary shaving gear, and a coupon worth a steam-table dinner that wouldn’t have tasted good under the best circumstances and was worsened by her father’s depression and her mother’s busy anxiety. She tried to be understanding and warm with them. She even returned to their room and watched an episode of “Law & Order” with them. Then she went almost grateful to her poor room.

There was no problem with the plane the next day. There were even empty seats. They boarded and spread out and mostly felt better, although her father was still inconsolable about their lost day.

The flight attendant added an announcement to the usual greetings. He told the passengers how sorry United was for the delay, and offered limitless free drinks as partial compensation. It was 11 a.m. but Lilah decided to take them up on it.

She asked for cognac and soda. He brought her two individual bottles of Courvoisier, a can of sparkling water, and a glass with ice. She drank the first, found it fine, and then had the second.

Fortuitously, that’s about when the pilot turned off the seat belt sign, because it’s also when Lilah felt an urgent need to visit the bathroom. She got out of her seat, walked rather calmly up the aisle past her parents bickering about something, and went into the head. She latched the door, turned, bent over the toilet, and sent a smooth stream of vomit from her belly to the bowl. She must have managed to get exact esophageal alignment; there was no burn and not even a remnant. Suddenly she felt better than she had in days.

She returned to her seat almost ready for that trip.

In general, from fifth grade to 59, Lilah just didn’t go there. The few times she vomited involved alcohol, unconciousness, and the kindness of some fellow partiers.

Except for the London trip. Lilah’s parents determined that they would celebrate their 50^th wedding anniversary by taking their offspring to their favorite city. They planned the vacation the way they did most things, with Lilah’s father enjoying the sentiment and asserting his persnickety requirements and her mother early, energetically and repeatedly racing through every preparatory task. Her mom always made such a big deal about plans that Lilah grew up thinking travel was just too much trouble to take.

As arrangements gelled it was settled that she would fly with the parents. Sam and his wife were going to stop in New York on the way and would meet them in London.

Sam didn’t have any travel complications. Unfortunately, the plane that was to fly Lilah and her parents developed a mechanical problem. By the time the plane was fixed the crew had been on too many hours. The airline cancelled the flight.

Of course no travelers were happy about it. A DC-10 load of passengers had to rebook for the next day. They all lined up.

Lilah’s father was devastated. He had diminished with retirement, sunk from a satisfied professional to a degenerating shopping aide, and he valued this family trip like a last pilgrimage. He just couldn’t accept the delay. Sam and Carol would be in London for a full day before them, and that glitch acted on him as if it were wrecking everything. Lilah’s mother was never patient, but her husband’s grief spurred her to be even more aggressive than usual. She elbowed her way to the front of the line. One waiting passenger, annoyed to fearlessness, made a comment about how “some people think lines only apply to others.” Lilah’s mother heard, was slowed enough to pause, and looked to Lilah for support. “Can you believe what that woman said to me?” she whisper-blurted. By then Lilah was so exasperated that she couldn’t cover her own disgust.

(to be concluded next Monday)