When she met Greg, he was finishing up at Boston University, and she spent most weekends there. They slept in his beat-up twin bed against the wall in the small apartment. He took her to a real dive bar nearby, and they ordered wings and waffle fries and clinked Heineken bottles together. “If we get married,” she said then, “we have to go to a place like this once a year at least.”
“To remember where we came from,” he said.
God. How strong his arm was as he picked up the beer then and lifted it to his mouth, tilting his elbow high so he could drink every last drop. “Two more, buddy,” he said to the bartender, and looked at her and kissed the air, making her love him so much that she never wanted to leave that place.
Alex Lionel gives Freddie the just a second sign and ushers Kay over to a seat in the waiting area. Freddie loves how Alex holds Kay’s arm, and how easily she settles into his support. She always loved old couples—her parents, the ones she sees at the mall, at doctors’ appointments. She loves their endurance, the familiarity in their gestures: the hand on the arm, the finishing of each other’s sentences, the knowledge in their eyes, knowledge that comes from knowing another person over years and across circumstances. She sighs. She takes a sanitizing wipe out of her purse and quickly wipes off the pager she holds and then her hand before anyone can see. Kay smiles as she sits down, her posture regal, and then leans over and waves to Greg, who is three people away on the long bench. Kay is in a pink mohair sweater, and she wears her brown hair in a pearl clip. She holds her white coat between her knees and takes a small bag from her purse and motions to Addie. “Santa left this in my mailbox for you,” Freddie can faintly hear her say.
Alex looks both ways before he crosses the crowded walkway where the servers come through with trays and pitchers of beer and returns to Freddie at the hostess stand. He crosses his arms. “Christmas is right around the corner,” he says. His cologne smells like a country club. Like brandy and good soap.
A hostess squeezes by Freddie and calls a table of twelve. “Yeah. I feel like I have nothing ready.” She holds the pager in her hand and wonders when it will buzz. Her heart thumps as she starts to panic. Greg shouldn’t be here. He shouldn’t eat this food. At home, he only drinks distilled water.
“How’s he doing?” Alex asks, gesturing toward Greg. As though she could think of any other he right now.
“Okay.” She wonders how many people have touched this pager. She never used to be a germaphobe. She used to wipe her hands on her jeans after pulling weeds. She never worried about anything then. Dirt. Poison ivy. A kiss from the dog. She drank out of the milk container once in a while. “At least he’s listening to what they tell him… he doesn’t want to stay in the hospital again.”
“I miss him at the office.” Alex smiles at a woman who comes in with two baby carriers. “Hands full,” he says, and holds the door for her. “Twins—can you imagine?” he whispers to Freddie after the woman passes. Alex has nice lines around his eyes. He is seasoned. A later-years Michael Douglas or James Caan. Will Greg ever be his age?
She looks across the people, holding their coats over their arms, some carrying holiday gift bags. Addie is lying on Greg now, her head against the arm where all the bruises are. He doesn’t flinch. He holds her there and closes his eyes.
The third rule is that she will not cry. Her role model in not crying is Mrs. Crowley, who always keeps herself composed. She can try to be Darcy, can’t she? When she sat in Darcy’s office at the dry cleaner’s that day in October after the big appointment when their whole world seemed to collapse, Darcy stayed calm and took in every word Freddie told her. She sat at her desk with her hands folded, and Freddie sat in one of the chairs opposite her, slumped over, sharing the news in a low voice.
Darcy’s steely eyes watched Freddie carefully. She nodded as Freddie spoke, voice cracking, saying it was bad, saying she might have to miss some days, saying she might have to leave the seamstress job altogether, saying she couldn’t even look at Addie. Darcy stood up then from her desk chair, and it rolled backward and bumped the wall, and she shocked Freddie by rushing over to the seat beside her. She patted her shoulder. “I have no idea what’s next,” Freddie said, and she started to cry.
“I will do anything, anything to help you, my dear. And I mean that.” The blazer she wore was scratchy against Freddie’s neck, but the hint of her perfume felt like a blanket. Darcy put her hand under Freddie’s chin. “Look at me,” she said, and her voice was unwavering. “You will get through this, and you will help him. And I will be with you.” Freddie didn’t want Darcy to move away from her. She never imagined sharing something like this with her boss, but now she felt like they could never know each other in another way. Something about Darcy’s steadfastness inspired her to push forward and confront the disease head-on.