Why I Wore Lipstick to My Mastectomy by Geralyn Lucas Read Free Book Online Page B

make my cab driver quite pleased, especially because I’m not wearing a bra. This is shaping up to be quite the last hurrah for my breasts.
    “Hello, LADY!” He is screaming at me over some blaring dance music that sounds like the club mixed version of “La Bamba.”
    Oh, no . . . I’m noticing that he has a small disco ball hanging in his rearview mirror. It is reminding me of the disco ball over the stage where the strippers showed their boobs.
    I offer back a weak “hi,” pull my large black sunglasses off the top of my head and put them on, hoping to signal that I don’t want any conversation on this cab ride.
    “I saw you from three blocks away. Wow! I nearly crashed that other cab to meet you! My insurance goes way up if that happens!”
    So now I sort of feel obligated to talk to the guy, because he risked a higher insurance rate for me.
    “Oh. I just thought you were a bad driver like a lot of cabbies.”
    I am trying to be rude—maybe this will stop him. He must be a masochist, because he continues with even more excitement.
    “No, I’m a very good driver. And dancer.” He starts to hit the brakes in time with the music and I can’t help but crack up.
    “You like to dance, lady? Wow, I bet you look hot on the dance floor.”
    I think about myself on the dance floor—my breasts are shaking with the music—but then it sounds like a scratch in the record when I realize that tomorrow only one boob will be shaking on the dance floor. How will I dance? Will everyone notice that only one boob shakes and the other is reconstructed? The vision of myself as a hottie in the taxi is fading. I wanted this attention but I’m suddenly feeling very annoyed by this cab driver. It’s not really his fault, but now I’m pissed that he’s hitting on me. Furious, really. He doesn’t know that I’m just wearing a costume because my breasts and hair are about to disappear. I know he won’t leer tomorrow when I only have one boob. He won’t turn his head when I lose my hair. He’s compounding my grief by admiring what I’ve already given away in my head. He could be any man. He’s leering and he wants me for things I will soon not have. I’m scared he will not want me when they are gone. Trying to be a sexy woman is making my heart so heavy now, and I feel it pounding hard.
    I remember the articles I have read about repression, that holding problems close to your chest causes cancer. I’ve been trying to tell everyone I have cancer, but the articles say you have to go further than just confessing. The truth is hard for me. I speak in a high voice and like to sugarcoat. I don’t like confrontation. It’s really hard for me to get angry. I have decided the whole idea of repression causing cancer is such bullshit, but I am still covering all my bases.
    So I decide I need to get it off my chest. Right here in the dancing taxi I will keep telling the truth. I will even bare my soul. This is a sign about my newfound honesty: I have nothing to lose.
    “Actually, I won’t be doing much dancing because tomorrow I’m having my right breast cut off because I have cancer . . .” I take a dramatic pause and peek over my sunglasses just to see if he has gotten what I just told him. “And after that all my hair will start falling out from my chemotherapy.”
    The cab is lurching and I think he is starting to make it dance again and I’m relieved that maybe he didn’t hear what I said and I’m already feeling better because, like I will do with my cancerous breast tomorrow, I have gotten it off my chest. But he has stopped the cab, parked it actually, haphazardly, illegally even, in front of a bus stop on the southeast corner of Madison Avenue and Ninety-sixth Street.
    Wow! I really shook him up, I smirk to myself. He will now definitely think twice before he leers at young girls’ boobs and nearly causes an accident just to flirt. I’ve shown him!
    And then he shows me.
    He opens the door and comes to sit next