Page 62 of That's Not a Thing

“I know why you’re calling, sweetie, and let me save you the trouble.” Her tone is not unkind.

“You do?”

“Yes, you really got to me yesterday, with your big puppy-dog eyes and your pleas on Aaron’s behalf. So, fine, I fold.”

“You’re going to tell him?” I ask, relief flooding my limbs.

“No, of course not.” Gladys is curt. “But I’m going to do the chemo.”

“Oh.” Well, that’s definitely better than nothing. I know that Aaron would want her to do everything to try to beat this, even if the odds are against her.

“Well, good,” I say. “Good.” I repeat, processing. “Where? When?”

“Easy, Fido.” She laughs her big laugh, and I wonder how she can possibly be in such good spirits. “I still don’t want you telling Aaron. We’re clear, yes?”

“I won’t tell him. But I won’t stop tellingyouto tell him.” I stand again and walk toward the windows, looking down into Gramercy Park, eight flights below. There are a couple of women pushing strollers along the path, a man walking a poodle.

“Whatever. That, I can put up with.”

“When is the treatment? Can I come sit with you?”

“Oh, honey, that’s sweet. Mitch and I would be delighted for the company, I’m sure. It’s at NYU.”

I feel a little guilty at the weight of my relief, not because Gladys is getting chemo, but because I don’t have to return to Sloan and relive all those memories of my mom being on what I thought was her deathbed, my dad leaving us, etc. etc.

“I expect to start next week,” she adds.

A second wave of relief washes over me as I process what she has said. She is going to get treatment, to take care of herself the way Aaron would want her to.

“Send me the time when you know it and I’ll meet you guys there, okay?”

My relationship with Aaron may truly be over, but that won’t stop me from doing right by his mom, from being there for her when she won’t let her son be by her side. I’m doing it for Aaron but also for Gladys—another woman who I thought was going to be my mother-in-law.

I walk out of my room feeling a little lighter. Even if Gladys’s odds of survival are not generous, at least she isn’t giving up. It reminds me that I shouldn’t give up, either.

Wesley is no longer in the kitchen but has moved over to the TV, where he’s watching the news, footage of a small brick building on fire, firemen with hoses.

“You’re just going to watch TV all morning until Lulu gets here?”

“Yeah, you inspired me with that Jon Favreau movie the other day. I just found another chef movie, with Bradley Cooper.”

“You’ve never seenBurnt?” I ask in disbelief. I actually walked out of the theater when I went to see it a few years ago with my law school friend Nikki. The smoldering, complicated chef character reminded me too much of Wesley. “Well, no time like the present.” I try to sound upbeat, sorry to see him stuck in front of the TV on a sunny summer day. But at least he will get out for a bit when his cousin arrives. When Aaron will be at the apartment. My stomach sinks at the thought. I wonder if I should leave Aaron a note on the bed or something, but I can’t think what I could write that might do anything other than irritate him.

I grab my messenger bag and head for the door, forcing myself out before I concoct a reason to be here when Aaron arrives.

“Off I go to my office, where I’ll be busy not working,” I call lightly over my shoulder to Wesley.

“Okay. I’ll be just as busy not cooking,” he calls back with a smile. “See ya,” he adds, as he turns back toward the screen, and I feel like he and I have reached a new place. More than a détente. An actual friendship. A shame it will be a finite experience for us both.

WORK IS ASslow as I expected. Everyone seems to know that I quit in the midst of a tantrum, and I’ve become something of a pariah. Partners look at me with hasty disapproval as I pass them in the hallway and younger associates, whom I might formerly have called peers or colleagues, are shunning me, as though they’re afraid they might catch whatever social conscience has recently infected me. Either that or they’re worried they might tarnish their images by consorting with me. The good news is that, with the exception of Ian and Darren, who I know approve of my decision, there’s not a single person from this office whom I will miss following my departure.

I settle in at my desk and use the idle time to search for new jobs online. After looking at websites for the ADL, the EPA, the PLI, the ABA, and even the FBI, I feel completely overwhelmed. I don’t have a career dream, some professional goal I’ve always fantasized about achieving, and I hate myself for that lack of passion. Aaron and Lana and even my brother, the tax attorney–math geek, have all known what they wanted to do with their lives since they were kids. All I wanted back then was to be a unicorn. At this point, there is only one stagnant motivational kernel that I can latch on to—one that I’ve always felt, but which, sadly, is useless in its current, amorphous state. My goal is simply to spend my days helping people in one way or another. Or to work as a backup dancer in pop music videos. Since I’ve always been somewhat clumsy and the dancing thing isn’t going to pan out, I try to make a more directed plan for how I will find my next job.

I open my desk drawer and pull out one of many blank notepads, the empty sheets of paper emphasizing how little I have achieved in my time at this office. I will do better in my next position, find something where I am more than another cog in the wheel, somewhere I can perhaps become essential.

As I arrange highlighters next to the notepaper, readying to make a chart, some basic method of organizing my thoughts and options, Nicola breezes into the office and snorts when she sees me. “Doing art projects until your two weeks expire?” she snarks.

“Wow, Heather,” I respond, referencing the ’80s movie in which Winona Rider is the bitchiest of all high school bitches, “nice to see you, too.”