Cures for Heartbreak (10 page)

We found her in her office, drinking a cup of coffee and reading the newspaper.

“Excuse me,” my father said. “We're sorry to interrupt. My daughter found a strange mole, and we'd like to see a dermatologist, if that's possible.” He sounded so calm; I was almost in tears.

She gave me an empathetic glance. She knew the details of my mother's melanoma and quick death from our Family Meetings, and she'd proved to be a much more understanding member of the counseling field than Gina Petrollo. “I'll see what I can do,” she said.

I tried not to think about it.
It's nothing,
I told myself. Then:
This is it. It's over.
Would it be twelve days, like my mother? Or years, like the cancer guy? I'd known this would
happen. That's what life was—you'd be going along fine, and poof! It was all gone. There was absolutely nothing that could ensure that you'd be okay, that you'd be lucky. That's what it all boiled down to: luck, or lack thereof.

I'm not ready to die,
I thought.
I can't do it.
But who was I to expect to be spared? I wasn't safe or protected, and that tiny, tiny bit of control didn't exist—it was just another scrap of delusion. I spaced out during Family Meeting, at the Cooking with Seitan demonstration my hands were shaking, and in aerobics class I kept stopping and messing up all the moves. I'd grow hot, sweaty, and shivery, start to panic about dying, then convince myself I'd be okay. Then I'd panic again.

At lunchtime Dr. Fishbaum came over to our table and said I had an appointment with Dr. Morris at 3 p.m. at the Green Springs Health Annex, and later that afternoon my father drove me to Dr. Morris's office. “You should get back,” I said. “You're missing the soybean lecture.”

“No, I'll wait.”

I hugged him. I braced myself as the nurse led me into the examining room and I put on the huge blue paper gown. A few minutes later Dr. Morris appeared and introduced himself. “Nice to meet you, Miss Pearlman.”

I nodded and tried to breathe.

He read the questionnaire I'd filled out. “You have a growth that's causing you concern?”

I nodded again, and showed him the mole under my arm. “What is it?” I rasped.

Dr. Morris took one glance at it and smiled. “It's benign.”

I squinted at him. “Are you sure?”

He inspected it again. “Have you had it for a long time?”

“Yeah, but it's changed. It never looked like that before.”

“Did you shave under your arms recently?”

“I—I guess so. Maybe.”

“You most likely nicked the mole with the razor and didn't realize it. Don't worry—I'm positive it's benign.” He put a cream on it and placed a Band-Aid over the spot.

I felt limp and almost relieved, but I didn't entirely believe him. “What about my fatigue?”

“Have you been sleeping well?”

It had been hard to fall asleep at night with my father snoring. “It's just—I worry that I have it undetected, like my mother. One of her doctors said it could've been growing undetected for twenty years. And I've read about people getting melanoma really young. A girl who was sixteen died from it—and a guy who was nineteen.”

“It happens,” he said.

“It happens”? Is that it?

“You're fair-skinned and have a high number of atypical nevi, but just because your mother died of melanoma doesn't mean you will.”

“What can I do to prevent it? Beyond staying out of the sun?”

He shrugged. “Eat broccoli?” His frown unfurled like an umbrella. “There are some things beyond our control,
unfortunately. You're doing a good job keeping away from the sun,” he said, surveying my so-pale-it-was-almost-see-through skin. “The link between melanoma and sunlight isn't even definitively proven, but it's a good idea to keep doing what you're doing, to prevent squamous and basal cell carcinomas as well.”

Great. More cancers to worry about. He closed my folder, and I thanked him and returned to the waiting room. “It's fine,” I told my father. “I—um—I cut it shaving, I guess.”

He grinned and hugged me, then paid the bill without even a peep about the expense. Dr. Morris popped back out to hand me a catalog of sun-protective clothing. The clothes resembled astronaut suits.

My father said, “Do they make that in a miniskirt?”

I was thankful that everything was all right, but as we drove back to the spa I cringed, feeling humiliated. I'd become a hypochondriac. A big ball of fear and worry and stupidness. I used to read my sister's
National Geographic
magazines and dream of doing exciting things like climbing mountains and traveling to Madagascar and Australia and petting koalas—and now my dream was just not to die young. What kind of a dream was that? How would that look on my college applications? An essay about hoping not to kick the bucket from cancer or meningitis or flesh-eating bacteria, about the benefits of omega-3's and polyphenols?

Back in our room, alone, before dinner, I tried Gigi's number once more.

“Hello?”

I wasn't expecting her to pick up. “Um, hi . . . this is . . . I'm not sure if you remember me . . . this is Mia Pearlman. My dad—Simon Pearlman—”

“Oh! Of course I remember you! How are you? Oh, no. Oh, God. Did your—your dad—?”

“No—no, he's great, he's totally fine. I'm just calling because—I was thinking of Sasha and—” I paused. How could I say it? I hated the phrase
I'm sorry. So sorry about your son.
It was such a stupid expression. Why had no one ever come up with a better one? Such as:
What a fucking load of crap you've been dealt. Really.
Then I remembered.

“Bashert,”
I said. “About Sasha.”

“Huh?”

“It's this Yiddish word for fate. My mom used to say it.”

“I know! How did you hear? Did Dr. Kornovoy tell you? Did you run into him? I couldn't believe it myself. It's crazy. I know. Your father must think I'm off my rocker for letting him go. But Dr. Kornovoy gave his permission. I even paid for the Eurail pass. I know, I'm crazy to do it. I tried to convince him not to. But you only get one life, right? That's what they say, right? I'm making an album from his postcards, and I'm going to add the pictures when he gets back. Paris, Venice, I got so far. Amsterdam. He's in Amsterdam right now.
I wish I was there with him, but he's nineteen, he can't have his mom by his side all the time, you know, right? Anyway, so you ran into Dr. Kornovoy at NYU?”

“I—” I didn't know what to say. I paused, speechless. “Yeah.”

“I'm so happy you called. I wondered how your dad was doing. Not that long ago I said to Sasha, ‘Remember that nice Simon and his daughters?' Sasha liked your dad so much. You spend time in that hospital, so intense, right? And then just disappear and not know what's doing. Anyway, give me your number, we'll keep in touch. Please give my love to your dad. It was so nice of you to call.”

“I will.” I gave her our number and address.

Three days later, when my father and I were back home, I looked up
bashert
in one of my parents' Yiddish dictionaries. It meant “predestined” and “fate,” but it had another meaning as well: “the person with whom you were meant to be.” A soul mate, as in “I have found my
bashert,
” the dictionary said. And it seemed right that the same word could be used in instances of both love and death.

She is a friend of my mind. . . . The pieces I am, she gather them and give them back to me in all the right order.

—Toni Morrison

Beloved
            

H
ow do you fall in love?

This was what I awoke wondering the morning I turned sixteen. It was early September, during one of New York's record heat waves; even my bedroom windows seemed to sweat. When I opened my eyes all I could think was that it wouldn't be so bad to wake up sweating if you awoke beside somebody else.

But there wasn't anyone else. In our quiet, empty house, my single bed was filled only with pancake-flat, fur-mangled stuffed animals. Lately my father had been trying to get me to throw them out; he'd finally given up the night before, when I stood before my bears, rabbits, gorillas, and kangaroos and, with all the passion of Scarlett O'Hara, vowed in a fierce, husky voice,
“Never.”

But now all I could think was that I was a sixteen-year-old girl still sleeping with gorillas. Not like
Sixteen Candles,
or any of those kinds of movies; there were no boyfriends or hopes of boyfriends waiting outside my door. I felt my skin grow hot as I thought of my recent crushes: Jay Kasper, Richard
Bridgewald, and the healthy person formerly known as the cancer guy. Sometimes I wanted to edit my life, run it all on a film monitor and instruct, “Cut this, cut that,” and it would all piece together so much more smoothly.

Sweet sixteen.

Birthdays had been a big deal when I was little: parties with tons of kids pinning the tail on the donkey, batting piñatas, gorging on Betty Crocker SuperMoist cake with fudge frosting. My mother always bought the gifts—a three-tiered set of Ultima II makeup last year, silver-plated hair clips the year before.

This year I knew what my father had gotten me, because he'd left it in a bag in the hall closet—Teen Lady shampoo, body wash, and scented powder from the supermarket. He must've asked the store clerk what to get for a
girl,
and been told this. I'd begun to wish there was some guidebook I could give him,
How to Raise a Daughter
or something; he still seemed near cardiac arrest when I asked for money for tampons, had yet to show a glimmer of comprehension of the magic word
shopping,
and thought reupholstering the couch made for a fun Saturday night. In fact, the couch was now his whole existence; he'd decided to retire on my mother's life insurance money, and put the shop up for sale. He now spent each day on the couch reading the complete
New York Times.
He was like a clipping service without the paying clients.

Every afternoon when I came home from school he'd narrate his day: “This morning I had myself a bagel with the
no-fat cream cheese, lunch a Wendy's grilled chicken. In Topeka they had a scandal with the honey mustard sauce, people got sick—I read it on page six of the Living section, I saved the article for you,” and I'd gaze longingly at the television, as if I could jump into a family on the set. At Green Springs he'd bought a
Yoga for Relaxation
videotape, and before bed each night he'd lie on the living room rug, palms upward, as New Age music floated through the room.

Aside from the Wendy's cashiers, I was often the only person he talked to during the day. “Why don't you bring your friends over? I'll bake a chicken,” he'd ask me on the weekends. Or “Invite Sarah, we'll play Scrabble,” “Mimi can help us fix the bird feeder,” or “I bet Rebecca would like this Sherlock Holmes movie too.” It didn't matter that I hadn't seen Sarah, Mimi, or Rebecca since fifth grade, or that if I asked them over now, they'd surely run off—our house had become Spooky House, one of those run-down, weedy, crumbling places that's the nightmare of every kid on the block. We never uprooted dead plants or picked up the litter from the yard, and inside, funeral casseroles still filled the freezer, my mother's clothes hung in the closets, and bags of supplies from her office sat unpacked in the basement. We hadn't even thrown out her magazines or her used-up shampoos, as if we feared even the dust would shift.

I'd also made a scrapbook of her, pasting in photos, birthday cards, letters, the obituary. I'd started a ritual of leafing through it before I went to bed at night.

It was still an hour before I had to leave for school, but I got dressed and left the house. I lingered at the newsstand by the subway, and there I saw it, gleaming at me from the cover of
Cosmopolitan
: “How to Find Love.” I devoured it during my subway ride to school.

HOW TO FIND LOVE

Love may
happen
to some women—goddesses, movie stars, models—knights descend on them, scooping them onto white horses, hunks of the month call and ask them for dates. But the rest of us have to go out and
find
our true loves.

It isn't as hard as you think. He's out there; you just have to look for him. If you seem friendly and receptive, someone will notice and take an interest in you. So here's the secret to finding love: get out there, make yourself available, be
open
to love! Here are some places to start your search.

Libraries.
Find an attractive man and ask, “How do I use this microfiche?”

Grocery stores.
Check his shopping cart and ask where he got the fresh basil. (Stay away from men with tampons in their carts—they're spoken for.)

Hospitals.
A wealth of opportunities here: doctors, medical students, patients—they do recover!

Car shows.
Men flock to them . . .

“What the hell kind of guy are you gonna meet at a car show, someone from
Grease
? Danny Zucco? Kenickie?” a voice said over my shoulder. It was Kelsey Kang, my Spanish Level Two deskmate. I hadn't noticed when she'd gotten on the train, I'd been so engrossed in the article, and it was strange seeing her on the subway; I'd never seen her outside of school before. Mornings on the 7 train were always the worst, most crowded time, and in the hot weather it only grew smellier.

I smiled at her and stuffed the magazine into my book bag, embarrassed to have been caught reading it. What if she thought I was desperate?

But I was desperate. I was always daydreaming, getting a crush on some guy. Unrequited or not, during even the most awful day a crush could change everything—it could make you forget the two classes you failed last semester, and the general overall suckiness of your life. A crush removed the world, at least for a little while.

And it wasn't so different with friendships. At Grand Central several passengers got up and we took their seats, and I loved the thought of riding the subway with Kelsey, walking the long blocks to school beside her. I stared at our reflections in the darkened window. I wanted a best friend as much as a boyfriend, someone I could talk to about everything. But was it a myth, that kind of friend? A myth like having a mother was a myth, or a father like the ones on TV?

Kelsey glanced at her watch. “How come you're going to school so early?”

I shrugged. “I woke up early.” I didn't want to say that it was my birthday, that I had nothing special going on. “What about you?”

“I usually get to school early to do homework. I never have time after school—I work at my parents' store or am making dinner for my stupid brothers or something. I'm a nerd now,” she added with a resigned sigh, though with her sleek black hair and high-heeled boots she clearly wasn't. “I'm turning over a new leaf. You really just woke up early?” She looked at me oddly, as if she couldn't imagine a stranger thing to do.

“Well, actually . . .” Why not just say it? “It's my birthday.”

Her eyes lit up. “Happy birthday! How old are you?”

“Sixteen.”

“What do you have planned? Are you having a sweet sixteen?”

“I don't think so.” My father and I hadn't made any plans except for eating the Sara Lee cake in the freezer. “It's not such a big deal.”

“It is,” Kelsey said. “The last place you should be on your birthday is in school.”

I nodded. Aside from the unbearably dull classes and diabolical teachers, the building itself was miserable—the soiled bathrooms, the cafeteria that smelled like cold oatmeal and cottage cheese. Then there were the guards who wouldn't let
you in without your ID card, and the whole prisonlike, nameless, faceless state of being in high school.

At the Fifth Avenue station, we walked down the corridor to switch to the D train. “I know what we should do today,” Kelsey said. “We should hang out in a supermarket and ask some guy where he got the basil.”

“Or we could stroll around a hospital, looking for cute patients,” I said. I didn't admit that I'd already done that, sort of.

“I always wanted to be a candy striper.”

“We should do it. We should stay out until we fall in love.” I said it jokingly, but Kelsey looked up.

“It's Friday,” she said. “Not much happening—no tests or anything. Nothing due. Did you have breakfast yet? I
am
kind of hungry. . . .”

I imagined it, the two of us off on our own, roaming around the city. “Have you been to Manhattan Bakery?” I said. “It's right near here. They have the best croissants in the world.”

Before we could change our minds we were out on the street.

Businessmen marched up Fifth like a gray tweed parade; we strode to the bakery and gazed at the pastries rising like a hundred half-moons in the window. We bought three croissants—chocolate, almond, and regular—and shared them in the park, digging our fingers into the soft, buttery insides, pulling out puffs of cotton. How good they tasted, how good
everything tastes when you're not supposed to be eating it, when right then we should've been saying
hola
to Mrs. Torres.

We walked up to Central Park and bought a romance novel at the Strand carts; at the Sheep Meadow we lay reading in the grass, skipping to the good parts, watching Frisbees slice up the sun. Kelsey read aloud:

Tristan reached his hand down to Anastasia's furry domain. He let it rest there, as the sensations swelled and swarmed through her tawny thighs and womanly petals . . .

I groaned.

She smiled. “My sister and I own more at home. Three shelves.”

“I have two shelves of them.”

We saw a movie at the Paris Theatre, with subtitles and a plot neither of us understood, and we took the train to the Village, where we could shop.

Shopping: a girl's true cure for any ailment of the soul. It had begun to rain lightly, and we wandered through the dampened Village streets, pausing in stores, admiring clothes in shop windows, buying earrings from the umbrella-covered street vendors, sharing honey-roasted peanuts beneath an awning, the sweetness whirling out from the cart like a cloud.

We bought sleek black barrettes, the same kind, and silver
rings with imitation rubies; we huddled under an umbrella and laughed at the crazy people walking by, muttering; we dipped our fingers into the peanut bag and clutched our packages by our sides.

I was enamored of her elegant stance and her effortless beauty, which she didn't even seem aware of; her easy laughter, trying on a leopard-print prom dress and velvet pillbox hat; the way her eyes darkened and widened as she spoke; and the circles underneath her eyes, like a sadness.

We shared bits of ourselves in passing:

My father sold gum on the streets of Seoul to put himself through college, and what was the fucking point of it, to own a goddamn store?

I wish my father'd reopen his shoe repair shop and get off the damn couch. I almost even miss the stories of everyone's smelly feet and bunions and corns
. . . .

This old Jewish man steals from us. Bread stuffed in his shirt. My mother lets him because she feels sorry for him. . . .

Oh my God, what if he's my father?

Clutching our packages, we stopped in Roy Rogers for dinner. We loaded our sandwiches up high and took them to the top section, which we had all to ourselves. “We still haven't met our true loves,” she said.

I glanced at my watch. “I think the libraries are closed.” It was already five o'clock; my father was probably home on the couch, ready to tell me how his grilled chicken was.

“Do you have to be home at a certain time?”

“No,” I said, thinking of the cake holding vigil in the freezer. We hadn't set a specific hour for when we'd eat it; it was surely still frozen rock-hard in its foil pan. “Maybe I should call my father,” I said.

I fished out a quarter and used the pay phone by the entrance. “Daddy? It's me. I'm out with my friend Kelsey. I think I'm going to be home a little late, okay?”

I hadn't been out late since Jay Kasper. I half expected him, like my mother had, to launch into a barrage of questions—wanting the full itinerary, with phone numbers, addresses, exact latitude and longitude of where I'd be—but he didn't. He told me happy birthday, and then said, “You're going to miss
Murder, She Wrote.
”

“Oh. Well.”

“I can tape it for you. Do you want me to tape
The Cosby Show
too?”

“Sure . . . thanks.”

He yawned and told me to have a good time, and we hung up.

Back at the table I asked Kelsey, “What about you? Do you have to call your parents?”

She shook her head. “They keep the store open till midnight; usually they don't get home till one. I never even see them. I could stay out all night and they wouldn't notice—it's fine as long as I don't wake them up, barging in at two.” She
smiled. “Let's do that—let's stay out all night.”

I nodded. “Until our womanly petals bloom.”

We didn't have to enter a hospital, a supermarket, or a car show; we only had to sit in the Tenth Street Bar for fifteen minutes before two men approached us. Miraculous, I thought.

“You must be a wonderful Spanish teacher,” Gil was saying to Kelsey. Gil and Corky: Corky was mine. They sounded like the names of goldfish, but they were handsome, they were gorgeous, they were
men.
They were from London, recent university grads, on vacation in New York for three nights.