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Tatum knows all about the BRCA gene, though she’s never been tested because she and Kyle pay for their own health insurance, and besides, Tatum has always been the picture of health. Now, of course, she feels like she’s run out of luck, that the Grim Reaper is lurking outside the door. Tatum thinks about her dark hair swirling around the shower drain, about nurses inserting IVs, about the chemo they call the Red Devil coursing through her bloodstream. She thinks about sweating, puking, shivering, about lying on the operating table like a roast on a platter, her very existence in the hands of a surgeon who is, like her, a mere mortal. She thinks about no longer having sensation in her breasts; she thinks about tattooed-on nipples; she thinks about being unable to lift a gallon of milk. There are plenty of scenarios where she’ll have to quit her job and Kyle will have to take a leave of absence from his business because who else is going to take care of her? How are they going to afford all the trips back and forth to the hospital in Boston? For the past thirty years, she and Kyle have joked about winning ten million dollars in the lottery—they play Powerball every single week—but even without any windfalls, they’ve nearly paid off their house. Tatum is supposed to work only another two years, then she and Kyle are going to take some real vacations. Now she thinks about not being around to watch Orion grow up or see Dylan get married. She had a horrifying dream where she was dead and Irina came over to their house on Hooper Farm Road to clean out all of Tatum’s things—and Irina ended up in bed with Kyle.
“Ridiculous!” Kyle cried when Tatum told him about the dream. “I will never sleep with Irina. I will never sleep with anyone else, baby. My life begins and ends with you. Why are we even having this conversation? You’re going to be fine, you have to believe that.”
But the dream haunts Tatum, and their client Mr. Albright is to blame. When Irina took on this account two summers ago, the first Mrs. Albright was dying of lymphoma, and Tatum and the other girls had to maneuver around the hospice workers. Meanwhile, Mr. Albright had already taken up with the woman who would become the second Mrs. Albright. He claimed this was with the first Mrs. Albright’s blessing. She wanted him to be happy.
Tatum was absolutely verklempt. Mr. Albright didn’t bring the girlfriend to the house, but he brought her to Nantucket—they stayed together in a suite at the Wauwinet. Appalling! Could he not just wait until his poor wife passed before he screwed somebody else?
Tatum wipes crumbs from the plastic bags covering the shirts. She’s late; she didn’t get to finish her cigarette; Irina radiates impatience. If Irina yells at her, Tatum is afraid she’ll start to cry.
The best thing about Hollis’s girls’ weekend is that it’s given Tatum something else to think about. She’ll have to dream up a little payback for Dru-Ann. That alone will make it worthwhile.
6. The Phantom
On Thursday morning, Dru-Ann Jones threads her Phantom through traffic on Lake Shore Drive, and, as usual, everyone around her changes lanes as if sensing that if they don’t, she’ll run them over. Dru-Ann loves this car—she’d debated getting a Ferrari for the wow factor, but the Phantom is so classy, it can’t be argued with.
Dru-Ann’s phone rings and a silken British voice announces, “Call from Marla Fitzsimmon.”
Whaaaaaa?Dru-Ann thinks. Marla, Dru-Ann’s cohost onThrow Like a Girl,is a Millennial and will talk on the phone only if she’s calling 911.
“Accept,” Dru-Ann says. Her tone is guarded when she says, “Hey, girl… what’s up?”
“Did Zeke get ahold of you?” Marla asks.
Zeke is their producer. (Yes, it does rankle Dru-Ann that the producer of their woman-forward sports show is a man.)
Zeke hasnotgotten ahold of her. Dru-Ann tried calling him multiple times so she could explain what had happened with Posey, but she had been relegated to his voice mail. Is it concerning that, apparently,Marlahas spoken to Zeke? Marla is the ingenue on the show, the baby talent. She’s a former client of Dru-Ann’s. She was a basketball star at Tennessee heading for a starting position with the Chicago Sky until she tore her ACL skiing. The injury ended Marla’s basketball career, but did Dru-Ann give up on her? No! Zeke and the execs at ESPN had approached Dru-Ann about doingThrow Like a Girl,and she’d agreed to do it only as long as Marla could be her cohost.
“Why?” Dru-Ann says. “Is he angry about the Posey thing? Because for the record, that wasn’t my fault.”
Dru-Ann can hear Marla sucking on her vape. “Don’t shoot the messenger,” she says.
“He’s notcancelingthe show, is he?”
“No,” Marla says. “But he’s replacing you until this thing blows over. Crabby Gabby is taking your spot.”
“You have got to be joking,” Dru-Ann says. The cars in front of her have stopped, which Dru-Ann belatedly notices. She slams on the brakes, and her coffee spills all over the console. “Please tell me he’s not doing that.”
“He is doing that.”
“But it isn’t that bad!” Dru-Ann says.
“Itisthat bad, though, Dru,” Marla says. “I assume you haven’t checked Twitter this morning?”
After Dru-Ann pulls into her parking spot in her office building’s garage—is it her imagination or did the attendant give her alook?—she brings up Twitter on her phone and types her own name into the search bar.
#DruAnnJones
Trending
#cancelDruAnnJones
13.5k tweets in the last hour
#PrioritizeMentalHealth
11.2k tweets in the last hour
#TeamPosey
