Do They Wear High Heels in Heaven? by Erica Orloff Read Free Book Online Page B

It’s a war. But I’m up for it if you are.”
    “This really means bye-bye hair.”
    He nodded.
    “I could go for a platinum wig. Or hot pink.”
    “Hot pink would be flattering.”
    “Am I going to die?”
    “No predictions. I don’t believe in breaking things down into statistics. Wouldn’t you rather be the one who defies the statistics?”
    “Sure. But the losing-hair thing sucks.”
    “You don’t have to shave your legs then. Have to look at the bright side.”
    “When I’m boyfriendless I never shave them much anyway. But I see where you’re going with that.”
    We talked some more, talked about chemo and radiation. But mostly it was more hand-holding. More consoling. More jokes.
    I left his office and went and sat in my van and tried to cry. The c-word. Aggressive.
    But I was too stunned to cry.
    When I got to my sleepy little town up the Hudson River from Manhattan, I smelled a first snow—super early that year—in the air and found my senses alive in ways only those who are sick can understand. I drove home from the train station and stood in front of my Cape Cod house, shingled in white with royal blue shutters, looking at the huge jack-’o-lantern with a candle inside reflecting an orange glow out onto the street.
    Michael, of course, was in the kitchen when I walked in, cooking. He’s the reason Tara and Noah eat anything of nutritional value. I had tried to cook scrambled eggs for Noah the day before and had burned them terribly. They were brown and yellow with this sort of brown-black skin clinging to the top of them. Noah had looked at me with his baleful brown eyes and asked, “What’s wrong with my eggs, Mom?”
    “They’re suntanned. Eat them. Trust me, they’re better that way.” He was not convinced.
    I pulled off my boots, silently thanking God for Michael. The sounds of opera echoed through the house. Michael was playing a Boccelli CD as he prepared, from the looks of the pans when I went in the kitchen, enough food to feed all the citizens of New York City and still have doggie bags left over. But that’s Michael. Always big, big, big. He cooks the way his heart is, generous and full. He wants to stuff you with his love. The fact that he never gains an ounce totally makes me despise him, but he is my best friend, so I allow him this one small failing.
    “What’s for supper?” I asked, taking off my black peacoat and my new favorite scarf, an Hermés that Michael had bought me. He had been beyond supportive since the surgery, and I think the scarf was in anticipation for what was next. Music filled the kitchen. Boccelli’s a man Michael and I both agree on.
    “Mom!” Noah’s face lit up as I entered my least favorite room in the house. “Uncle Michael’s teaching me to make…what is it again?”
    “Pâte brisée, for starters, and linguine with white clam sauce à la Angelo.”
    “Sounds heavenly,” I murmured. “Where’s Tara?”
    “Where else?” Noah said, sitting on the counter so he could see what Michael was simmering in the saucepan.
    “Justin’s?”
    Noah rolled his eyes as he did every time Tara swooned over a phone call from her new—actually, first—boyfriend. “Mom’s a genius,” Noah giggled.
    “And don’t you forget it, Champ.” I smiled, pinching his cheek.
    Michael looked over his shoulder at me, and of course, without my saying a word, he read it on my face.
    “Noah, honey,” Michael said, “we’re just going to let this absorb some of the garlic flavor. Why don’t you go play on your computer, and I’ll call you when it’s time to set the table.”
    “Okay.”
    Michael lifted my little boy, with his lopsided grin and missing two front teeth, down from the counter, and sent him off to his room with a kiss on the top of his head.
    “Well?” Michael turned to me, his black eyes filled with worry.
    “It’s not good, Michael. It was in the lymph nodes.”
    “You’re too young. How is this possible?”
    “It just is,