The Girlfriend (The Boss) (48 page)

“We just got done with the two hour hyper-emesis Olympics, but other than that, he’s doing great,” I said, with a roll of my eyes. “He’s sleeping right now.”

“And how are you doing?” Holli followed me over to the little drinks station. I helped myself to an instant coffee packet and some hot water. “Oh, honey. No. Don’t do that to yourself. I’ll go get you some real coffee.”

I smiled gratefully at her. “Thank you. But I’m still doing this to myself. Out of desperation.”

“Like masturbating the night before your sailor comes home on shore leave. I get it.” She made finger guns at me. “I ask again: how are you doing?”

I hated admitting normal human emotions, and she knew it. “I’m scared. I mean, I knew this was going to be a lot different from last time, but the first part of chemo was so much easier for him than a lot of people have it. I was hoping he would do the same with this, too, but he went from zero to
The Exorcist
in three-point-five.”

“Yikes.” She made a face. “Well, whatever you need, I can do it. Lunch? Coffee?”

“Yeah. If you don’t mind, I’ll stay here.” I gave her a hug. A less intense one than before. “You wanna come to the house tonight? We can slumber party?”

“Absolutely! You guys have a hot tub. I’m there. Now, tell me what you want for lunch. And how much Monopoly money I have to take with me to get it.”

After Holli left, I went back to Neil’s room. He was asleep, snoring as loud as ever. I really hoped that would go away after he recovered from the transplant. I smiled to myself and went to my bag. I lifted out my iPad and checked my email.

There was a message flagged as urgent, from India Vaughn. I opened it, my eyes scanning her words quickly.

Sophie, you’ll never believe what’s happened. I have a friend at one of the networks who asked me about your videos. As it turns out, one of the morning shows is looking for someone young and hip to do beauty segments four to six times in the coming year. Now, you’re not their first choice; Michelle Phan passed. But Angela is willing to give you a chance, on my recommendation. Can you be in NYC in December for an audition?

I eeped. I eeped so loud, I disturbed Neil. He stirred, snorted and rolled to his side, and I had to get up to straighten his IV tubing before the alarm went off.

India had said she would help me, if she could. This seemed like a lot of help. I considered telling Neil about this opportunity, but wondered if India would get in trouble.

Then I thought of how shitty it would be for me to withhold that information after the way I’d betrayed him at
Porteras
. Obviously, I wasn’t going to wake him up and tell him. I would find the right moment, first.

* * * *

The right moment didn’t come. Neil became so dehydrated from nausea and gastrointestinal horror that he wasn’t discharged from the hospital. It was a devastating blow to him; he cried when Dr. Grant told him that he would likely stay in the hospital until after the transplant.

Over the next few days, as expected, Neil’s white blood cell count dipped lower and lower, as his body was stripped down for restoration to factory settings. Once his cells started going, they didn’t really stop.

I’d like to say it wasn’t difficult for me to be without him, but it was. I knew Holli would have to leave soon. It was sweet of her to offer to stay longer, but I couldn’t ask her to stay away from Deja and their life in New York for too long. Though Emma and Michael would be staying with me at the house, I didn’t want to burden them by being a third wheel, especially when Emma had to deal with her father going through all this.

The fact was high dose chemotherapy was terrifying. About six days into his hospital stay, Neil got a canker sore. By the next day, his entire mouth was swollen and covered in huge, painful patches that cracked and bled. This was another side effect of the chemo, and it affected his entire digestive tract. He couldn’t stand to eat or drink anything, so the doctor ordered a nasogastric tube inserted in Neil’s nose and down to his stomach for feeding, a procedure that was disgusting to watch and uncomfortable for him to go through. I held his hand through it and acted very brave, but I think he knew that when I excused myself to the bathroom afterward, it was to shake and throw up.

“I look like a corpse,” he complained when I came back. “Now I have this... thing. I’m going to scare children.”

“You don’t know any children,” I reminded him. I went to my purse for a piece of gum to cover up the vomit on my breath.

“I smell like death, I look like a skeleton, I have tubes sticking out of me all over...” He closed his eyes. “Promise me you won’t do anything open casket. I couldn’t stand it.”

“Hey. We’re not talking like that,” I said softly, seriously. “A closed casket won’t work for a Viking funeral. I had planned to set you out on an ice flow.”

“I think you’re confusing Vikings and polar bears.” But he smiled, at least. That was all I could hope for.

He dozed off a minute, then roused himself through sheer force of will and asked me, “Your videos. I haven’t asked you how those have been going.”

“Oh, um. Fine. I’ve actually got some interest in, um...” Well, I might as well tell him what India had offered. “India Vaughn got me an audition with
Wake Up! America
. I need to go back to New York in December, and if I get the job, I’ll be doing four segments or so a year, on beauty trends.”

“Sophie, that’s—” he winced as he tried to push himself up. “That’s amazing.”

“It’s not that amazing. I mean, they asked somebody else, first.” I shrugged. “Are you mad at me?”

“For what?” he frowned, then comprehension crossed his exhausted face. “Because of
Porteras
.”

“Yeah, I thought you might not be happy with India getting me the audition.” I held my breath, waiting. Work-brain Neil wasn’t far from the surface of chemo-stupor Neil, and I suspected he would come roaring out with a bug up his ass about ethics really, really soon. “I didn’t ask her to do this, by the way.”

“You didn’t ask her to go hunting for book deals for you either. I’m beginning to consider the possibility that she’s not planning on staying with us.” He made a motion toward his things on the nightstand. “Get me my phone, I want to call Rudy.”

“As much as I don’t want to tell you what to do with your business, because doing so almost tore us apart before, I can’t in good conscience allow you to go to work with a tube sticking out of your face.” I crossed my arms. “India hasn’t asked me for anything. No compensation or percentage. If she’s leaving
Porteras
, it’s definitely not to agent me.”

“Mhm,” was all he said in reply.

I wasn’t going to argue with him. I leaned down and kissed his forehead. I snuck the occasional kiss or unnecessary touch in when I could, even though we were trying to keep the risk of infection down. “I’m going to go. Visiting hours are almost over, and I’m going to do a scarf-tying tutorial tonight. How to cover up your bald head during chemo, without looking like a pirate.”

“Yes, you’ve had some very good ideas on that front,” he admitted. “I just thought you might want to stay the night with me.”

“Do you want me to?” I’d spent the last three nights with him, sleeping in the horrible easy chair beside the bed. My spine almost jumped out of my body and made a run for it at the thought of doing it again.

“No, you go on.” He made a shooing motion with his hands. He wanted me to stay, I could tell. In a way, I wanted to stay, too. Because I was becoming acutely aware of how serious this whole process actually was.

But my therapist was also fond of reminding me that I couldn’t change Neil’s health by sitting and staring at him, as I had been kind of prone to do through the induction chemo. Going home wouldn’t be the worst thing in the world.

When the driver dropped me off at home, Holli was already there waiting for me, lounging on the couch in Neil’s den like she lived here now. Emma was with her, and they were watching some vampire show on Netflix.

“Hey, girlie!” Holli greeted me. “Are we going to do this thing?”

I’d asked her to be my model for the scarf video. I figured it would be easier than trying to keep my head in the frame while tying and talking at the same time. “Yeah. Oh, Emma?”

She looked up. “Yeah?”

“Your dad was still having trouble eating, so they put a tube down to feed him. It looks absolutely horrific, but I have been assured it’s totally normal and a lot of people have to have them.” I tried to keep my tone light, ignoring the nightmare fact that my boyfriend was so ill he needed to be force fed like a foie gras goose. “I just didn’t want it to be a shock when you go in tomorrow.”

“Yikes. Should I call him?” she asked, sitting up.

“I’m sure it couldn’t hurt. He seemed a little lonely about me leaving.”

“He can’t expect you to stay at the hospital all the time,” she said. I was relieved to hear her say it. The fact that she could forgive me for leaving Neil’s side, when I couldn’t entirely forgive myself, made me feel much better.

Holli and I went to the library, so Emma could make her phone call. I hoped Neil was awake, so she could talk to him. I felt as though she was sometimes, unfairly to herself, stepping back to give me more time with her father.

“Maybe I shouldn’t have said anything,” I whispered to Holli as I set up the camera.

She was pulling her blonde hair back into a low ponytail. “I think it was a good thing that you did. I know that if I saw my dad with a tube coming out of his nose, I would fucking freak.”

“Yeah.” I frowned. The battery pack was getting low. “Hang on. Let me go get the cord.”

I dashed up the stairs to the bedroom, and heard Emma’s voice inside. “Okay, Daddy. I love you, too. I’ll see you in the morning.”

She was in the closet. Weird.

I was about to turn around and head back downstairs— it wasn’t like I was going to open the toy cabinet to get the camera cord when she was right there— but then I heard a hiccup and a sniffle, and I realized why she was in there.

Oh, Scaife. You idiot.

I went to the door and pushed it open, and there was Emma, sitting on the floor of the dressing room, holding one of Neil’s sweaters, crying. She looked up and guiltily swiped her eyes, then dropped her gaze to the sweater in her hands.

“I was cold,” she said by way of explanation.

I wasn’t buying it. I went to her and sat down beside her, leaning my back against the built-in cedar drawers. “I put one of his dirty t-shirts from the hamper on his pillow and snuggled it.”

She laughed through her tears. “Sophie, that’s truly pathetic.”

“As pathetic as cuddling a sweater on the floor of your dad’s closet?” I said it in jest, but her face fell, and I hurried to add, “I’m not making fun of you. I think it’s good that you’re showing emotion over this.”

“I’m not very comfortable with showing my emotions,” she admitted. “I don’t like getting all cuddly and touchy-feely over things I can’t change, anyway. It wastes energy that could be used more constructively.”

“That kind of sounds like something you’ve talked yourself into, instead of something you really believe. And besides, crying does do something constructive. It releases pressure.” My therapist had told me that, when I’d expressed similar concerns about my inadequacy and cry-baby ways.

Oh, fuck it.
I put my arm around Emma’s shoulders. “It’s okay to cry about this. I cry all the time.”

She laughed again. “We must never tell dad about this moment. He’ll use it as proof that we get along.”

“We can’t have him knowing that, can we?” I hugged her tight, and to my surprise, she let me. She even hugged me back.

When we parted, I asked, “Do you want to come make a video about how to cover up your bald cancer head fashionably?”

“No power on earth could get me to be in a video, sorry,” she said, wiping her eyes.

“Then you can just hold the camera.” I put out my hand when I got to my feet, and helped her up.

“If I do it, will you promise to never tell my father that I expressed genuine concern and love for him?” she asked with an arched brow.

“I promise.” I crossed my heart, too.

I didn’t have to tell Neil. I was absolutely sure he already knew.

CHAPTER TWENTY -THREE

After a while, it began to feel like the transplant would never happen. It only took twenty-seven days to get down to “day zero,” the day they thawed out Neil’s stem cells and put them back in his body. But that was twenty-seven days of protective isolation, crazy hand-washing, and paper masks. Twenty-seven days of mouth sores and drastic weight loss, insomnia and fatigue.

But we were finally there. And it was all going to be worth it.

Emma was already at the hospital when I arrived. She was sitting in the chair beside Neil’s bed, absolutely slathering her hands and forearms with hand sanitizer. She tossed me the bottle and I rubbed some on myself. After the high dose chemo, Neil had the immune system of a premature baby.

“Happy day zero,” he said, motioning me over to his bedside. His words were slightly muffled by a paper mask over his nose and mouth.
 

I kissed the air beside his cheek and squeezed his hand. “Are you ready to be cancer free, baby?”

“Oh, I am. I most definitely am.” He patted the bed beside him. “Give me a cuddle, before they come to jab at me.”

“They’re not going to jab at you,” Emma told him in her long-suffering, super-practical voice. “They’re going to stick the thing into your catheter.”

“Are we going to be able to stay with you?” I asked. If he was just getting an IV bag full of cells, then I didn’t see what the big deal was.

“I hope so, though I’m afraid they’ll say no. Technically, I’m not supposed to be touching you. They practically scrubbed me down with a wire brush this morning,” he informed me happily.

“He was a little nervous, so they gave him something,” Emma explained.

“I thought I recognized the sound of sedated Neil.” I stood up. “If I’m not supposed to be touching you, then I’m moving.”

“When I get out of this hospital, I’m going to touch you,” Neil declared.