“Do you live alone?” the nurse asked.
Marley shook her head. “No.”
“Good. You’ll need help for the first few days… especially overnight.”
The nurse went over bathing instructions and the medications Marley would be prescribed after surgery for pain and to prevent infection. It was a lot to remember, and her mind kept wandering. She was glad it was all written down.
I can do this.Marley tightened her fist on the paper covering the examination table.
The nurse handed her a pamphlet. On the front of it were a few women sitting around a table, clearly a stock image, and the wordsBRCA Peer Support.
“What’s this?”
“A support group meets near here once a month… Jaime, the group facilitator, is fantastic. Her contact information is there. Oh, and you’d be eligible for this, too.” She handed Marley another pamphlet, this one for a charity that helped women who had breast surgery and/or cancer treatment with clothes, makeup, and wigs.
Marley took the pamphlets, adding them to her pile of paperwork, even though she doubted she’d use them. She wasn’t really a support group kind of person, and she certainly didn’t need help with clothes and makeup, considering she worked in luxury fashion. She opened the clasp on her bag to slip the paperwork in.
After finding out that she carried the BRCA1 genetic mutation that put her at an 80 percent breast cancer risk, Marley had seen countless surgeons and specialists and dealt with torturous mammograms and breast MRIs. Now she just wanted the surgery to be done. She didn’t want to be living with this anxiety anymore. Every day until her surgery, the chance of cancer coming for her like it had for her mother and her aunt just went up. Marley had ticking time bombs attached to her chest.
But that didn’t mean Marley wasn’tcompletely terrifiedabout the surgery itself. Or about what her life would be like afterward.
Marley straightened her spine and swung her Chloé bag over her shoulder. Being scared helped no one. All Marley could do was plow ahead. She had no choice.
“Hey, handsome,” Marley said as she walked into her east-end two story. “I missed you. I should have stayed in bed snuggling you this morning.” Her cat, McQueen, responded with a long meow as he came to greet her, his fluffy tail standing sky-high behind him.
“You don’t say,” Marley responded, leaning down to pet McQueen on his soft, tan head. McQueen continued to meow conversationally, telling Marley all about his day. As Marley caught up with her cat, she heard a distinct rhythmic thumping on the floorboards. Marley rolled her eyes, intending to ignore the summons. It was Shayne, her roommate and ride-or-die best friend forever, but she wasn’t in the mood for his antics right now. She wanted to sit with her cat and a hot ginger tea and mentally process that doctor’s appointment. Alone. She put a pot of water on to boil and took out her tin of black loose tea.
Loud thumps reverberated through the floors again.Ugh. Why had she agreed to this ridiculous communication system when they moved into this house last year? They were renting from Shayne’s grandmother, who’d just moved to a senior-living apartment, which was the only way Shayne and Marley could afford a whole house in Toronto. Even an extremely narrow house that had barely been upgraded in thirty years. But theyboth loved the vintage seventies and eighties furniture and decor and had added even more houseplants and macrame after moving in. Shayne was a fashion photographer and his office/studio space was in the basement. He’d developed this code system to communicate with Marley when he didn’t want to come upstairs. Why he didn’t text like a normal person was anyone’s guess.
Marley ignored the thumping as she grated fresh ginger and swirled it into the hot water and black tea. She added milk after it came to a boil and was soon curled up with her big orange mug on the goldenrod-yellow sofa with McQueen. She was inhaling the scent of the sweet ginger tea when Shayne finally gave in. She could hear his heavy footsteps as he climbed the basement stairs.
“Did you forget our code?” he said the moment he opened the basement door.
“I don’t know Morse code, remember?”
“Neither do I. That’s why this chart is here.” He tapped the laminated card stuck to the wall. Shayne was dressed in white ankle pants and a fuzzy pink sweater that glowed against his warm-brown skin. He looked like he could comfortably fit in both on a Paris runway and on Sesame Street. Shayne was biracial, with a Black Jamaican father and a white mother, and was an absolutesavantat picking the perfect shade to complement any skin tone.
Marley made a mental note to surreptitiously have Shayne help her with menswear trends. She just had to figure out how without violating the NDA. Shayne knew Nikhil from high school, too. And knew everything about Marley and Nikhil’s history. Shayne had even offered to chip another of Nikhil’s teeth when he didn’t call her after prom.
“Sexy,” Marley said, indicating the fluffy sweater. “With that thing on your upper lip, you look like you just arrived from Copacabana.” Marley was not a fan of his recent thin mustache. Just like she wasn’t a fan of Nikhil’s mountain-man beard earlier.
“Stop flirting—you’re not my type,” Shayne deadpanned, plopping next to her on the sofa. Which made McQueen hop from Marley’s lap to Shayne’s, purring. There hadneverbeen anyactualflirting of any kind between Marley and Shayne. Marley was bisexual, but Shayne was strictly into men and had informed her of that the day they met in grade-nine art class. Before Marley could put her own preferences into words, actually.
“What was your coded message, anyway?” Marley asked.
“I said,Put something cute on. People are coming over. Maybe that yellow floral romper with a wide green headband.”
Marley snorted. “There’s no way you said all that in Morse code with a broom handle on the ceiling.”
Shayne gave another deadpan glare. “I said the important parts.” He looked at his watch. “Be quick. They’ll be here soon.”
“Who ispeople, anyway?”
“Ruby and Reena.”
Marley frowned. “I don’t have to dress up for mycousins.”
“I want to take pictures. We have a surprise for you.”
