Page 16 of That Birthday in Barbados
“To the contrary. Proof is in the sweat.”
She smiles a half-smile and shrugs. “Turning forty is motivationenough.”
“You? Forty?”
“Today as a matter of fact.”
“You don’t look a day over-”
“Thirty-nine and a half?”
We both laugh then, and I say, “I was going for considerably underthat.”
“Well, thanks,” she says, “but it is what it is, you know.”
“Are you celebrating with family today?”
I keep my tone light, as if I’m not fishing for info on who she’s vacationing with, but I can see by the way she drops her gaze that I’m not that slick.
“No,” she says. “I’m flying solo for this one.”
“I have it on good authority that it isn’t healthy to spend birthdays alone.”
“Ah. Makes you age quicker?”
“Exactly.”
Everyone else has left the room by now, and I’m suddenly aware ofthis in a way that makes me take a step back. There’s a current of something between us I recognize as physical attraction. But then I work for the hotel, and she is a guest. I put the necessary line back in place between us, and say, “Well, I hope the rest of your day is everything a birthday should be.”
“Thanks,” she says, reaching down to pick up the bag she’d brought to class with her. “And thank you for the workout. It was much needed. And really great.”
“You did your label proud,” I say. “Come back tomorrow.”
“If I’m not too sore to walk,” she says, turning then and heading for the door.
I watch her leave, something inside me wanting to call her back. But what would be the point? The two of us live in different worlds. Mine is here, for however long I’m around to live it. And hers is in New York City, a place where I can no longerlive the life I need to lead.
*
Four years ago
I SIT IN the chair at the far corner of the crowded room. I’m one of twenty or so people laying claim for the day to an off-white lounger backed up to one of the room’s only two windows. If I turn my head, I can see the very large Bradford pear loaded with white blooms at the corner of the building. The petals remind me that it’s spring. Which reminds me that this is the time of year when I would be running in Central Park. Getting in shape for a marathon. Or riding my bike for a 50-miler.
Thinking of myself as the person who had done those things seems as if I must be dreaming. That person isn’t me. Did I ever do that?
I turn my head away from the window and catch a glimpse of the mirror hanging on the wall across from my chair. I see the skeleton of a man reflected there. His face is thin, and it has a grayish tint. He has no eyebrows and no eyelashes.
With a jolt, I realize that man is me.
Next to me in the mirror is a silver stand from which hangs a plastic bag. It drips its slow poison through a skinny plastic tube that connects to a needle that connects to a tortured vein in my right arm. I watch the bag empty its contents drop by drop by drop, aware that I am being filled with a chemical weaponry smart enough to kill the dividing cells in my body. Apparently, cancer cells divide more often than normal cells, the theory being that chemotherapy is much morelikelyto kill them.
Some part of me knows that the reason I look the way I do is because normal cells are dying too.
After all, I do look like I’m dying. Which, in reality, I guess I am.
I wonder if the medicine – I loathe using that term for it – is winning the battle or losing it. My guess is losing. Who could declare the way Ifeel a win?
I’ve been at this for six weeks, and with every passing day, I knowthe life is seeping from me. Something outside the window catches my eye. I look. It’s a bike in the parking lot. A cyclist in a helmet and skinny pants and a racing shirt. He aims a key at a nearby car, locks it and climbs on the bike. He pedals off, as if he doesn’t have a care in the world, and I am hit with such envyit feels like acid eating a hole in the center of my heart.
