Rebecca Schwartz 05 - Other People's Skeletons

lump, I’d turned into one of those people doctors call crocks. I called Mickey. “Are you okay?”
    “Listen, I’m really sorry about last night. I was about to call you.”
    “Was it something I said?”
    “Are you free for lunch?”
    I looked at my watch— not really. But I said, “If we could do a quick one. Sandwiches in the park or something.”
    “Perfect. How about Embarcadero Plaza? Could you get the sandwiches, do you think?”
    I sighed. My life was going this way lately. “Okay. But you didn’t answer the question. Are you okay or not?”
    “Things are a little weird.”
    I sighed again, feeling like somebody’s grandmother. “Well, how about you? You sound depressed.”
    “I’ll tell you all about it.”
    I went to the ladies’ room and felt my breast. No question: The Thing was there. Panic swept through me, leaving me shaking against the stall door. I had fought a man with a knife once, when I had no weapon at all, and I hadn’t felt this kind of fear. This was like the movie Alien ; when the beast was inside you, when your own body betrayed you, there was nowhere to turn.
    I went back and picked up the phone. I got the doctor’s office and said I wanted to make an appointment.
    “Is this for a checkup, or are you experiencing some problem?”
    Why did I have to tell this stranger? It was none of her damn business.
    I mustered as much dignity as I could. “I’ll tell Carolyn when I see her,” I said, using my doctor’s first name.
    “I’m sorry, our procedure is to find out when we make the appointment.”
    “Just like your procedure is to weigh me when I come in whether I want to be weighed or not.”
    The woman’s voice was frosty. “We need to know whether you’ve had a sudden change in weight.”
    “You know, I really can’t—” But before I got any further Kruzick stuck his head in my door. If it was none of the receptionist’s business, it was most assuredly none of his. I was suddenly so embarrassed the woman was spared the lecture I’d been about to deliver on doctors treating patients like children, infantilizing us and making rules for their convenience rather than our comfort. Rules, hell! I might have shouted, I’m hiring this woman, and I’m the one paying the bills. From now on, I make the rules.
    I could kill Kruzick. Think how satisfying that would have been. Instead I just asked to have Carolyn call me back.
    My secretary assumed a prissy mouth. “Shall I hold madame’s calls today?”
    “Let me talk to Rob if he calls, and Carolyn.”
    “And who might Carolyn be?”
    “That might be none of your beeswax.”
    “Veddy good, mum.” I kind of liked him in this role, but if I said so he’d think of a way to make it irritating; in his way, the man was a genius.
    When he had gone, I stared into space awhile, trying to orient myself. I was a wreck this morning, either from the fear or from the stress of living in denial for three days. Or was it only two? I couldn’t even count anymore. What it felt like that morning was the last day of Pompeii— something awful was going to happen, something cataclysmic. I got out my calendar and looked at it— sure enough it was two days before my period. Throw hormones in with the rest, and you had a major paranoia attack.
    Rationally, that should have explained it, should have calmed me. I should have been able to say to myself, “I’m doing what I can for Chris and also my lump, and that’s the end of it.” But I guess Julio was right about the mind being less important than we think. I couldn’t get a grip.
    Just to have something to do with my sweaty hands, I called Sarah Byers’s number, hoping for a referral to her office. Instead, I got this: “This is Sarah. Don’t ask for whom the bell tolls. It tolls for me.”
    God. Was that a suicide message or just a reference to ringing telephones? It gave me the creeps.
    After that, with Kruzick holding my calls, I had no choice but to work. I ended up so involved I was surprised when he came in, announced he was going to lunch, and dumped a stack of message slips on my desk. The top one nearly sent me through the ceiling.
    “Alan, I thought I told you to put Carolyn through.”
    “And so I would have, Mum, if the lady had called.”
    “She did call.” I showed him the message slip. “And by the way, the butler act’s wearing thin.”
    Without batting an eye, he changed to Southern ditherer: “Well, I declare to goodness if that doesn’t say