Backcast (29 page)

“This.” She waved a hand in frustration. “All of this.”

“It isn't your fault. It isn't anyone's fault.”

“I'm still sorry.”

It was Vee's turn to pick up a small, black stone and hurl it at the water. It didn't skip, however. It landed with a loud plunk and disappeared immediately from sight. They watched as a concentric series of ripples spread out from the spot where it sunk.

“Well that was lame.”

Darien looked at her. “It just takes practice.”

V. Jay-Jay seemed to be considering her response.

“You think you can teach me?”

Darien was unsure about how to reply. She had a sense that her answer was important.

“I'm not sure. I think maybe if we're willing to work at it, we can both get better.”

V. Jay-Jay looked back at the water. The circles were all but gone now.

“I guess that's a start.”

“Can I talk with you?”

Marvin gave Montana a good once-over before he answered. Usually it pissed her off when men did that. But something about the way Marvin was looking at her right now felt different. Not creepy. More like he was really seeing her—not just leering at her boobs or her ass.

“You can talk with me if you can explain how many cars that woman robbed to come up with all these damn twelve-volt batteries.”

Marvin was standing beside the bank of batteries Quinn had daisy-chained together to run the ancient Kelvinator.

“She didn't steal them. She got them all from Junior.”

Marvin pursed his lips and slowly shook his head.

“What about this piece of shit?” He kicked the base of the refrigerator with his foot.

“She got that from Junior, too.”

“Why am I not surprised?” He bent down and checked the network of cables that all terminated at a small inverter. “How'd she figure out how many amp hours it would take to run this thing?”

“She asked Viv.”

“Viv?”

“Yeah. Viv did all the load calculations.”

Marvin rolled his eyes and stood up. He looked around the rest of the boat. “I don't know why they approved this hunk of debris for that damn tournament. It's like a floating junkyard.”

“Maybe. But it meets all the requirements.”

“Yeah. All of them but one.”

Montana was confused. “Which one did we miss?”

“The one that says you need a functioning brain stem.”

“Come on, Mavis—
Marvin.
She's not that bad. And she really believes she can do this.”

“Oh, yeah? I once knew a guy who really believed he could fly. It all went pretty well for him until the day he jumped off the top of Symphony Towers.”

“It's not gonna be like that.”

“For your sake, I hope not.”

“If you feel that strongly about it, why are you helping her out?”

“Why are
you
helping her out?”

“Me?”

“Yeah.
You.
I don't see anybody else lining up to help crew this thing.”

Montana thought about it. Why was she helping Quinn? It had started out innocently enough. Just casting lessons. Then teaching her how to drive the boat. When Junior started going out with them on their morning excursions, the whole enterprise took on a different flavor. Now it was more like a quest. Something she felt a certain ownership of. Even though she agreed with Mavis . . .
Marvin
. They didn't have a snowball's chance in hell at winning. Still . . .

She looked at him—the tall man who chose to go through life
dressed like a woman. It was obvious that he was on some kind of quest, too. She was tempted to point that out to him, but she knew it would be a mistake. He'd probably just toss her overboard.

She decided to play it safe.

“I don't know why.”

He stared at her.

The wind shifted and the scent of something wonderful drifted down to them from the inn. Marvin noticed it, too. She saw his nostrils flex and flare.

“Prime rib,” she said. “It's on the menu tonight.”

“What did you want to talk with me about?” he asked.

She shrugged. She didn't know where her shyness was coming from. It wasn't typical for her. He didn't wait for her to figure it out.

“Lemme save you some trouble. I'm not the first man in the world to put on a dress.”

“I know that.”

“And before you ask—
no
. I'm not a fag, and I'm not a drag queen.”

“I didn't . . .”

“And I'm not a transvestite, transsexual, transgender, or fucking Trans Am. I'm not a trans
anything
. I'm just a man who wears a dress. Period.”

“Then what about Mavis?”

“What?” He practically barked the question at her.

“What about Mavis? If you're just a man who puts on a dress, then why not be Marvin in a dress? Why invent Mavis?”

He glowered at her. “You got some balls, little girl.”

Montana could feel her face getting hot. She hated it when she blushed.

“I didn't mean to offend you.”

“Why the fuck do you care what my reasons are?” He was still staring at her, but he didn't look angry any more. He looked interested—almost normal. At least for him—
her
.

He looked like Mavis.

“I honestly don't know why,” she said.

He sighed. “Tell you what.” He slapped his massive hand against
the side of the green and white Kelvinator with its purple Astroglide decal. “You buy me a hunk of that prime rib tonight, and maybe I'll tell you a story.”

She considered his offer. Two could play at that game. She smiled at him.

“Deal.”

“Well, that was unremarkable.”

Towanda rolled to her side and wiped her mouth on a towel.

“Fuck you. I told you I was out of practice.”

Viv laughed. “At least we didn't wake up the Canadians next door.”

Towanda tossed the towel aside. “Not this time, anyway.”

Viv stretched and folded her arms behind her head. It lifted her breasts to a tantalizing height. Towanda found it hard to look away. Viv noticed.

“See something you like?”

“Maybe.”

Viv laughed.

“I don't know how you always manage to do this.”

Viv was slowly running the sole of her foot along the outside of Towanda's leg. “Do what?”

“Tie me up in knots this way.”

“I thought you liked being tied up?”

Towanda pushed Viv's foot away. “Not this kind of tied up.”

“Is there another kind?”

“You know there is.” Towanda crawled up the bed to lie beside her. “I don't know why we keep letting this happen.”

“Because it's terrific?”

“You just said it was unremarkable.”

“Baby, where you're concerned, unremarkable is still terrific.”

“You're so full of shit.”

“I know.”

Towanda looked at the clock on the nightstand. “I need to call Barry.”

“Screw Barry.”

“Been there, bought the t-shirt.”

“Honey, by my calculation, you've bought about five of those t-shirts.”

“You can't blame me for all of those. Barry already had three kids when we got married.”

Viv was running her fingertips in tight little circles across the taut skin of Towanda's bare abdomen.

“Well you sure don't look any the worse for wear from the two you cranked out legitimately.”

“Is that supposed to be a compliment?”

Viv kissed her shoulder. “You tell me.”

Towanda snuggled in closer to her. “This feels weird. And wonderful.”

“I keep telling you.”

“I know, I know. I can't do anything about it. I'm in too deep.”

Viv slapped her lightly on the derriere. “Would you knock it off? You're married—not undercover in the mob.”

“It's clear you've never been to a Faderman family reunion.”

Viv seemed to consider that. “Although Barry's mother does exude a certain Meyer Lansky quality—which I've always admired, by the way—I'd have to say that in the aggregate, the Fadermans are more like refugees from a freak show than members of the mob.”

“True. But there's just no way I can get out from under it all. Not with the kids still so small.”

“Someday you'll have to explain to me how a nice Catholic girl like you ended up married to a cantor with three kids.”

Towanda shrugged. “It seemed like a good idea at the time.”

“Famous last words spoken by every person who ever bought an Edsel.”

“Barry's not an Edsel.”

“Really? What would you call him?”

“I don't know. Edsels were at least
exotic
. Barry's just—dull. He's more like a K car.”

Viv chuckled. “You don't think we could manage the kids?”

Towanda pushed back and stared at her.

“What?” Viv asked.

“You want to try and wrangle five kids?”

Viv shrugged. “Why not?”

Towanda snuggled back in. Viv was just being crazy. She'd never last a week with her brood. Most days, she didn't even think
she
could handle it—and she had Barry to help out. He was a total dweeb as a husband, but at least he was a good father.

“Things are just better the way they are,” she said. “We don't need to change them.”

“You're okay with sneaking around and cheating on him like this?”

Viv's hand was doing wonderful things—gliding in and out of the moist space between her thighs. She shifted her legs further apart to allow her greater access.

“I wouldn't call this
cheating
, necessarily.”

The hand stopped. “Wanda?”

“What?”

“You just had your tongue halfway up my twat. If that's not cheating, I'd like to know what the hell it is.”

Towanda took hold of Viv's hand and pushed it back between her legs.

“It's not cheating if your husband doesn't care what you do.” Her voice was husky. She didn't want to have this conversation. Not right now, anyway. “Barry doesn't care what I do.”

“I'm not so sure about that.”

“Oh, for the love of god.” Towanda rolled over and straddled Viv. “If you're not going to finish what you started, then I'll just take matters into my own hands.” She began to bump and grind against Viv's trapped hand. Her movements grew more frenetic.
Come on, Viv
. She kept moving. Faster. Harder. Surely, Viv wouldn't be able to keep holding out?
Not when it felt this good.

“Wait.” Viv was in motion beneath her now. “Wait a goddamn minute.”

God.
The woman was strong. She was lifting them both off the bed with her bucking and thrusting. The headboard was slamming into the wall like a piston.

Towanda was on her back.
When had that happened?
Viv's hot face and fire red hair swayed crazily in the space above her before starting a slow descent down her writhing body.
My god
. It felt like the woman was everywhere all at once. She knew she was moaning. Crying out. She didn't care.

The last thing she heard before exploding into sweet oblivion was the muted sound of an angry Canadian, pounding on the wall of the room next door.

Essay 10

“I said to my soul, be still and wait without hope, for hope would be hope for the wrong thing.” –T.S. Eliot

They taught us everything we needed to know about living.

All of our work was focused on life: how to sustain it, how to prolong it, how to extend it. When reasonable measures were exhausted, we resorted to extraordinary measures. We never quit. We never gave up. We never stopped looking for that magic bullet, that Holy Grail, that last, best hope. We never lost confidence or broke faith with our higher calling. To do so would mean failure—would mean defeat. And we were incapable of admitting defeat.

Arrogance. That was our real creed. Our pearl of great price. We were taught to believe in the infallibility of science. In the manifest destiny of research, clinical trials, emerging phyto-remedies and advancements in second-line therapies.

I was part of the medical oncology team at Memorial Sloan Kettering. I dealt with cases like hers every day. Everything about her cancer was textbook. It presented in all the usual ways. Pain during vaginal intercourse. Difficulty urinating. Abnormal discharge between menstrual periods. Unintentional weight loss. And, later, persistent pain in the pelvic region. But she didn't tell me about any of it—not in any of the ways that might have
made a difference for her—or for us. She said that was because she always understood how it would happen. It was how her mother died. And her grandmother before her. Her people were Persian. They understood inevitability. They knew how to wait. She said she'd been waiting her entire life. Now it was here—and she no longer had to wait. The advent had occurred. Her magi had come at last. But the gifts they bore were not happy ones.

“Truth is not happy or sad,” she explained. “Truth is not right or wrong. Truth is just true. It has no value. It cannot be altered because you will a different outcome.”

She said she knew me and she knew that I would never give up. She said it was her job to accept the outcome for both of us. She said that for me, enlightenment would come when I learned the virtue of acceptance.

Carcinoma sarcoma. That was her diagnosis. The cancer had already spread to her lymph nodes and invaded her bladder and bowel. The biopsies proved what we already knew. She was staged at IVA. Surgical cures were not possible. She would have refused them in any case. She also refused radiation and chemotherapies.

“I want to die with a full head of hair,” she insisted. She knew how much I loved her hair. How I gloried in it. “I want to die as I lived. Whole. With all of my parts.”

It didn't take long. Without treatment or remediation, the disease progressed quickly. I did everything I could to persuade her to relent. Reconsider. Change her mind. She refused.

I hid my frustration and rage from her. Each day at the hospital I met with an endless queue of other patients who begged for extreme or more aggressive treatments, who clung to hope in the absence of reason, who reached the outer limits of “all we could do,” and commenced clawing at the walls of their disappointed hopes with weak and bloodied hands. They
were the would-be survivors who willingly prostrated their burned and poisoned bodies on the altar of an unknowing and uncaring science that would always fall just short of salvation.

She grew weaker. Lighter and more translucent—like a memory of herself. I could carry her from room to room.

“I want to feel the sun,” she'd whisper. “I'd rather spend five minutes in the sun than five years on death row.”

Death row.
That's what she called the promise of all I had to offer her. The accumulated wisdom of all my years of study at the best medical establishments in the world withered and died on the vine of her simple pronouncement. Work became impossible for me. I could no longer tolerate the lies. The false hopes. The infernal spin that fed the ageing and outmoded ghosts that inhabited the great machine we called healthcare.

She left me in the early hours of the first day of spring. I dozed in a chair beside her bed. There was so little of her left that I shouldn't have noticed her going. Her exit should have been small and quiet—as unremarkable as her short life. But it wasn't. I awoke to a sound like a rushing wind. It was so loud that I was certain I had failed to close the only window in the tiny room. I staggered to my feet and stumbled toward it. The first rays of light were just beginning to paint the modest backyard of our house. I could make out some faint wisps of pink along the shadowy branches of the cherry trees that stood in a twisted line against our back fence. I reached for the window but realized it was already shut tight. The rushing sound went on and on. Louder. Stronger. More insistent. I raised my hands to my ears to try and shut it out.

Then I recognized it. The sound was within me. It was the surge of my own blood, raging at the end of her life.

I never returned to work. I couldn't. I had nothing more to offer. I was alone and unenlightened. My truth could not be altered because I willed a different outcome.

They taught us everything we needed to know about living.

But only the poets can teach us how to die.