All You Could Ask For: A Novel (28 page)

SAMANTHA

I CAN’T BELIEVE SHE worked for him all these years.

I can’t imagine going into an office every Monday and asking Robert how his weekend was. I don’t care how much money was involved, there isn’t any amount that would make that worth it.

What I admire most about Katherine is how aware of herself she is. She has an excellent understanding of herself, and she is acutely aware of how unhealthy her life has been since Phillip and even more aware of the crisis she is facing now. She understands what she is up against, and she is strong. I could feel her strength that afternoon and I grew to admire it more and more in the weeks that followed.

Perhaps the hardest thing for a strong person to do is admit to needing help, and what I think Katherine learned during our time together was that it was not a sign of weakness but rather of great courage to accept me, to lean on me, to allow me to be her health advocate, which is exactly what I became, right there over a second bottle of Burgundy.

Three days later, we were perfectly sober as we approached the entrance to the massive complex of Memorial Sloan-Kettering, where Katherine would spend two days on the nineteenth floor to have special biopsies performed, receive second and third opinions on all her diagnoses, and then begin her chemotherapy treatment program. Katherine had told me about the nineteenth floor at our first lunch. Apparently, it is an open secret among the rich and famous, like the island David Copperfield owns. It is a special floor for the world’s premier cancer patients. There isn’t anything different or superior about the treatment, the difference is in the way you are treated. Katherine told me to expect the Four Seasons, but when we arrived it felt more like a motel you’d find on a deserted stretch of road off a highway in a bad neighborhood. Even having money and knowing we would be going to nineteen didn’t save us from being caught waiting in the general area on the first floor, which was overrun with people trying to be admitted.

I had a meltdown.

Katherine was anxious enough without having to wait three hours because of a paperwork snafu and a nurses’ shift change. She kept trying to quiet me down, and then I thought to myself:
If
she
is comforting
me
then what exactly am I accomplishing? Why am I even here?
And so I took matters into my own hands. I ducked into a supply area when no one was looking and stole a gurney. I beckoned Katherine and before she could balk I said: “Lie down.”

Then I was wheeling Katherine past the nurses’ station and past security directly to the only bank of elevators I could see from where we’d been waiting. I pressed the button and held my breath. And, to my great relief, the first thing I saw upon entering the elevator was a placard on the rear wall.

SERVICING FLOORS 10 THRU 19

“We’re in business,” I whispered to Katherine, who seemed to be quite comfortable, stretched out on the gurney, her head resting on two pillowcases I had rolled together. “Going up!”

But then the button didn’t light up. Not when I touched it with my thumb, my forefinger, tapped it with a nail, or stuffed my entire palm inside the circle. Nothing. The doors just shut and then we sat there. It’s actually quite amazing how jarring it is to feel an elevator not move. It’s another of those things, like a refrigerator humming, that you don’t notice until it stops.

“I don’t think we’re moving,” Katherine said.

I looked down. Her eyes were shut. Her voice was muted, relaxed.

“I know,” I said.

“Why aren’t we moving?” she asked.

“All part of the plan,” I said, with a confidence I didn’t quite feel.

She didn’t open her eyes but she broke into a wide smile. “You’re funny, you know that,” she said. “Wake me up if we ever get to nineteen.”

We stayed in the elevator long enough for me to arrive at an idea. I unzipped my purse and dumped the entire contents on the floor. Then I kneeled down and waited, and as soon as I heard the bell chime and the doors open, I shouted, “Oh, shit!”

Two women in lab coats entered the elevator. “Everything all right?” one of them asked.

“Oh, I just dropped everything on the floor,” I said, frantically gathering my things. “Would you mind hitting nineteen for me?”

From where I was kneeling, my head was right by Katherine’s. And as I heard someone slide a card through a slot and felt the elevator begin to move, I could hear her laugh.

When we got off the elevator, a security guard had to buzz us in, which he did with only a mildly suspicious glare, and then the nurse spent ten minutes scolding me because we hadn’t followed protocol. I just kept apologizing and played dumb, happy because Katherine seemed to have fallen asleep, and also because no matter how browbeaten I was I was relieved no one asked anything about the gurney.

Ultimately, we were led into a suite that, in my wildest dreams, I would never have imagined could be found in a hospital. It was every bit as fancy as my honeymoon suite in Hawaii, with marble in the bathroom and two flat-screen televisions, comfortable leather chairs, lush carpeting, and a menu that read as though it was taken from a Fifth Avenue bistro.
Cornish game hen, rosemary potatoes, sautéed broccoli, apple tart with crème anglaise, raspberry sorbet.

“Pretty swanky,” I said, as the door shut behind the attendant who’d led us in.

Katherine popped up off the gurney and strode confidently to the window. “Thanks for getting me here.”

“I thought you were asleep,” I said.

“Meditating.”

She was in a small wooden chair, looking out over the skyline. The day was cloudy and dramatically gray above the sea of skyscrapers.

“If you don’t mind, what does this cost?” I asked.

“Three grand a day,” she replied, her back to me, staring out the window. “Insurance doesn’t cover it.”

“It’s worth it.”

“I wouldn’t have gotten here without you,” she said, still not looking back at me.

I went over and rested a hand on her shoulder. “Pretty comfortable place to spend a couple nights,” I said.

“Aside from
that,
” Katherine said, and motioned behind me.

I turned and immediately saw it, the one thing in the room you wouldn’t find in a luxury hotel. The bed. It looked like one you might find in any hospital room. I felt a lump in my throat.

“I’m going to Barneys,” I said, “and buying out the bedding department.”

“No,” she said, and put her hand on mine, held me there. “Just stay with me.”

KATHERINE

SAMANTHA SLEPT IN THE room with me that night. They made up a sofa for her with fluffy pillows and a down comforter. It looked more comfortable than the bed by the time they were through. That made me feel good. I didn’t want her to be uncomfortable.

The following morning, Dr. Z was in my room early. I asked Samantha to stay and hear what he would say, partly because my head hasn’t been right since this all began, and also because I just didn’t want to be alone.

Dr. Z reiterated the program we would begin that day, told me I would only be in the hospital a few days, and explained that I would then begin my treatments at the chemotherapy center near my apartment. Samantha, bless her, took notes the whole time. I listened with my eyes closed.

Then Dr. Z asked something that stirred me. “Katherine, is there anything you are excited to do?”

I opened my eyes. “What do you mean?”

“I mean
excited
to do.”

“What kind of thing?”

“Well, some people want to go on a safari, others want to learn to play the piano. It could be either of those or anything in between.”

A bit of panic spread through me. “Are you telling me if there is something I haven’t done I’d better hurry up and do it?”

“Not at all,” he said, and placed his hand on my foot gently, reassuringly. “I’m sorry if I gave you that impression. I mean I like to work with a goal in mind. The next few weeks aren’t going to be a lot of fun, so if we can say, ‘Nine more days until I see a giraffe in the wild,’ it usually makes it a little easier.”

I lay back again and looked over at Samantha. She was staring at the doctor, her hair matted down where she’d slept on it, a pencil between her fingers.

“Can I think about it?” I asked.

“Of course. It isn’t mandatory,” Dr. Z said. “Sometimes it just helps.”

He really did have a lovely smile.

When he was gone, Samantha came and flopped down beside me on the bed. At that moment I felt as though I had known her all my life.

“Did that scare the shit out of you?” I asked. “Because it scared the shit out of me.”

“Yes, that scared the shit out of me,” she said. “But when he explained it I felt a lot better, and I believe he was telling the truth.”

“I do too,” I said.

“It makes sense,” Samantha said, “at least it does to me.”

She went into the bathroom and brushed her teeth and her hair. It took her all of two minutes to get herself together. When she emerged she looked terrific, healthy and pretty and radiant.

“You are very naturally beautiful,” I told her, as the sun shining into the windows illuminated her from behind. “I am
very
envious.”

Samantha laughed. “Are you kidding? You’re twelve years older than I am and I bet people think we’re twins. You’re the one who looks fabulous.”

“Sweetheart, it takes me an hour to look like your sister. You were in and out of that bathroom in a minute. If you only gave me that much time, people would think I was your grandmother.”

“That’s not true and you know it,” she said, and rubbed her chin as though she was thinking it over. “Or maybe you don’t know it. That’s why I’m here, to make sure you do.”

“That’s why you’re my BFF.”

“That’s right,” Samantha said. “That’s why I’m your BFF.”

I BEGGED HER TO go out and do something that morning but she wouldn’t budge. She kept saying she wasn’t going anywhere until we were going together, and after a bit of arguing she admonished me to quit talking about it.

“
This
is what I’m doing,” she said. “I don’t have anything more important to do.”

So, like the girls we are, we started talking about boys.

“Aside from the asshole you married,” I asked, “you ever get involved with any good ones?”

“One or two. The most romantic encounter of my life happened when I was fourteen, with a boy who never even kissed me. I still think about it all the time; I was just telling someone about it recently. Is that sad?”

“Seriously?” I asked. “You’re asking
me
if that’s sad? I’ve wasted my entire life pining for a jerk who left me for a chick who makes Kim Kardashian look like a Nobel laureate. I hardly think I’m qualified to call you sad.”

“What the hell is wrong with us, anyway?” Samantha said. “We’re two sensational women. How did we pick such losers?”

“It’s an interesting question.” I sighed, and gave it a moment’s thought. “I think I’m a good rationalizer. I rationalize around almost any deal-breaker if a guy is cute or funny or shows interest in me at all.”

“Give me an example,” Samantha said.

I sat up in bed. “Let’s make it a game,” I said. “I’ll tell you something about a man and you tell me if it should have been an absolute deal-breaker.”