She thought, during her long, juddering drive back from Las Vegas, that she might refuse treatment, pretend nothing is wrong until the day she is struck dead. But though her mother had a friend who approached cancer like that, to save her family the pain, and though this seems both admirable and courageous, and smacks appealingly of martyrdom, Yolanda understands that she is afraid and she will get professional support, because her need to talk to someone about what is happening to her is stronger than her need to avoid it. Still, somehow, she finds it impossible to pick up the phone.
On her way back from the bathroom, one afternoon in June, Yolanda discovers that she doesn’t know where her office is. The Capitol is a perfect circle, and the hallways go all the way around, punctuated by offices and occasional corridors to the chambers. The curved walls are endlessly beige; above, the fluorescent lights hum. Over thirty years she’s worked in this building, and now it’s like the stage of a nightmare. Be calm, she tells herself. If you can make your way back to the bathroom, then you can make your way. But the bathroom doesn’t reveal itself, either. Doors, doors, on either side of her, but none opens onto that short hallway and her own snug, familiar office.
During the legislative session, these offices are all open, bustling, people rushing briskly by with folders tucked under their arms. The House chambers are cheerful, the curved benches decorated with fresh flowers and little flags and jars of candy. Now, though, the place is deserted, the offices dark through the panes in the doors.
Panic starts beating its wings in her chest. Finally she stumbles upon an elevator. Above the panel of buttons is a map showing fire exits and egresses, and she peers at it, hoping it will illuminate her current position, but the map is confusing and unlabeled and she can’t make the green arrow line up with anything she sees around her.
“Making sure our emergency exits are in order, Yo? Or you just lost?” asks Sylvie Archuleta. She presses the elevator button, then bends to pull her hose up her leg.
Sylvie Archuleta is an old friend, another of the year-round employees. She’s older than Yolanda, thrice married and flamboyant, and her politics change with each new husband. She works in the House Speaker’s office, despite the fact that she’s currently a Republican. She still has her West Texas drawl, though her family moved to Roswell when she was a teenager. She’s Anglo with big blond hair; her second husband, the one who died on her, was the Archuleta. “He was my favorite,” she says. “The love of my life. I like him even better than Willy.” Willy Greene is her current boyfriend, who also works in the legislature, though just during the session.
For a moment Yolanda considers confiding in her. Yes, I am lost, she’d say. I don’t know how to handle this.
“Just taking a breather.” Yolanda laughs, and the sound is false in her ears. This is it, she thinks. Game over.
But Sylvie Archuleta does not appear to notice that Yolanda is adrift. She fluffs the back of her hair and with her chin gestures down the hallway on the left. “I just saw Jim Gordon lingering around your office. He wants to ask you about Monica’s schedule next week.”
“I’ll try to catch him.” Yolanda sets off down the hall. A few seconds of disorientation, and then, as if someone rotated the focus on a camera, everything is clear. She pushes through the door to the suite of offices.
She sinks into her desk chair, gripping the armrest, filled with an overwhelming urge to sob. That afternoon she calls the first number on Dr. Mitchell’s list of resources.
MORE TESTS ARE ORDERED, and Yolanda is required to fast for ten hours. They call the night before to remind her. Maybe it only takes a bite of oatmeal or a piece of toast or a single grape to throw the test results, to cheat fate and orchestrate another diagnosis for herself. Maybe, with the right breakfast, she could walk out of here with a normal life expectancy. But with her luck, she’d probably only further diminish her paltry allowance of days, so she fasts as instructed.
She spends a lot of time in various waiting rooms at the Cancer Center, which is not, as Yolanda expected, part of the St. Vincent’s campus, but rather in a separate location behind the Albertsons. She avoids eye contact with the other pallid patients who are squandering their last precious hours in this sucking, air-conditioned sterility. They are bundled in sweaters and scarves, and it’s only when she makes this observation that Yolanda realizes that she, too, is wearing winter layers, that she, too, has been feeling an insidious chill along her spine. Some of the other patients wear knit caps on their heads, some pull oxygen tanks, some vomit weakly into pink kidney-shaped tubs. Everyone but Yolanda is accompanied by frightened spouses or heavily accented caregivers or adult children with set jaws, determined to advocate. A gray-haired Native American woman with a windbreaker spread over her lap smiles at Yolanda, and Yolanda looks away.