March 2007
Jen looked around her at the sterile doctors office. The leather under her creaked as he moved back and forth in her chair. Davis reached out, gripped Jen’s hand, and squeezed.
Jen had sat on the front row during Davis’ Brit Lit seminar. He had walked in on that first day, stately and elegant, his white hair shining and thick under the industrial lighting. Davis – he’d been Dr. Mozell to her, then – had stepped up onto the podium, cleared his throat, and begun his lecture. Jen was mesmerized. She watched his lips move as he accentuated particular words. She couldn’t take notes; she was far too interested in the eroticism going on at the front of the classroom. Gazing up at him as if he were a God, she lost control of her notebook and it slid off onto the floor in a huge crash. Jen had looked around, embarrassed. The people sitting around her looked up quickly, smiled sympathetically, and went back to their note-taking. She gathered the pages back onto her desk. Davis hadn’t stopped class or even noticed her. She was excited beyond belief, and she felt the familiar urge of longing inside her. Even without notes, she didn’t forget a word that her professor uttered the whole semester. She made an A.
On the last day of class, she stayed late. Shaking, she moved to the front of the classroom where Dr. Mozell was putting up his belongings. They hadn’t communicated all year aside from the congratulatory comments she received on her essays, papers, and tests. “Brilliant analysis.” “Intriguing hypothesis.” “Very well stated thesis.” Sometimes, just the bland phrase “good job.” But she kept it all. They were love letters to her, and she put them in small wooden boxes like she was some eighteenth century woman whose husband was away fighting a dramatic battle in a far-off place.
He looked up. “Good afternoon, Ms. Lindley” he said.
“Good afternoon.”
He glanced at her, then around the room, then back at her, waiting.
“Dr. Mozell . . .”
“Davis,” he whispered, “call me Davis.”
In that moment, Jen Lindley fell in love.
She found the courage to ask him to coffee, where he’d told her about his daughter and his ex- wife. Davis and Jen had discussed “Wuthering Heights.” Emily Bronte, they agreed, was the most talented Bronte sister. He mentioned that the movie version was playing at an old theatre he knew of, and would she like to go with him? And the rest was, as they say, history.
She heard a door slam behind her, and all thoughts of that first date were shoved to the side as her worry began to mount.
The doctor took his hand out of his crisp white lab coat and greeted both of them with a handshake. He went around his desk and sat down in a plush leather chair. Very appropriate for a doctor’s office, Jen thought.
She looked closely at the mole on his chin. It took all her concentration and it kept her from thinking about the real reason they were there.
“I’m sorry it took so long. I was in with a patient,” the doctor said, breaking the silence.
Davis nodded stolidly. He turned to Jen, squeezed her hand, and looked back toward Dr. Yelman.
Dr. Yelman nodded in response, and began. “Well, Dr. Mozell. Your chart says that you haven’t been to see me -- or any other doctor -- in twelve years, until you came last month.”
“No,” Davis said sheepishly.
“Okay. The test was positive, as it is in most cases where there is such a high reading on the initial examination.” Dr. Yelman spat this out as if it were nothing, as if he were telling them that the price of oranges had gone up.
Jen looked at Davis, angry with him for not telling her about the original high reading. It was this anger that postponed her processing of the rest of the doctor’s statement. When that realization did come, Jen turned to the doctor, ready to leap over the thick, dark desk and strangle him. She’d taken plenty of psychology classes in her day, but the last thing that she wanted to address at this moment was the typical rage that came with hearing such news.
The doctor droned on. “Your cancer is in advanced stages.”
Jen looked at him with bald-faced hatred, and the doctor averted his gaze back to his patient.
“We can do radiation, but we would need to start within the next few days, and even then . . .” The rest of the sentence melted and dropped off into the oppressive silence surrounding them.
Davis’ facial expression was an academic one, one that Jen had seen on him many times. While teaching or listening to one of his student’s presentations, or while proofreading her papers. It was a look that she loved. She wanted to throw her arms around him and squeeze this day out of his eyes and hands. She wanted him to do the same for her.
“Even then?” Davis shot back at the doctor, finally finding words.
Dr. Yelman pulled out a graph, and began pointing toward a red line that snaked through the middle of the page.
Jen put her hand up. “Put your damn graph away. We’re not children, we don’t need pictures,” she said derisively.
Dr. Yelman bowed his head for a moment. He put his graph away silently, clasped his hands across the desk, and leaned forward. “Okay. I’ve spoken with Dr. Michaels about this and he and the other specialist on his wing say that with the treatment, you might have two months.”
Jen breathed in sharply.
“And without?” Davis asked.
“Month. Month and a half. Something like that. It’s your call, Dr. Mozell. I’ll phone Dr. Michaels and let him set up some appointments, or I won’t. Either way.”
Davis looked at Jen. She tried to give him comfort with her gaze and her touch. In any case, he found his voice and said “I’ll call your answering service tonight and let you know.”
Dr. Yelman smiled sadly. “Okay. I’m sorry for this. I’m truly sorry, it never gets any easier for me to do this.”
All in all, Jen felt very little sympathy for him, and stood up.
“Thank you, Doctor,” Davis said, as Jen pulled open the heavy metal office door and made her way down the hall.
He followed her to the elevator, where she turned to him. She reached up and put her hand to the side of his face. He closed his eyes and rested his head on her hand. He pulled her next to him and pressed her body against his. The elevator dinged, the doors opened, and they stepped on, holding hands.
The apartment was dark and cold, almost as if it hard heard the terrible news as well. Jen took off her coat, her shoes, and worked her way around, eventually disrobing totally.
“Jen . . .” Davis smiled at her, his face reddening.
She grinned wordlessly, and walked toward him. Putting her hands on his back, she led him to the bedroom.
“Jen . . .”
“Be quiet, you big chatterbox.”
She forced him onto the bed almost violently, and began taking his clothes off in much the same way she had her own.
“I love you, Jen.”
She whispered in his ear, as if it were some great secret only they knew. “I love you, too.”
He immediately flipped off the light by the bedside.
Afterwards, he lay in her arms as she gently stroked his hair.
“I’ll miss you most,” he told her morbidly.
She looked at him with shock. “What? No way, Mister. You’re not going to miss me for a long time. I’m not going to let you go, you can just be assured of that.”
Her words were empty promises and both of them knew it. She had no more control over his illness than the doctors did. But it reassured him nonetheless.
“Okay,” he told her.
She looked at him, choosing her words. “Have you decided?”
He nodded slowly. “Yes.”
She didn’t ask him what the decision was. She knew.
He crawled out from under the covers and made his way into the living room. She heard only his side of the conversation.
“Dr. Yelman, how are you? Fine . . . yes . . . no, I don’t think so. Thank you for everything, though. Yes, thank you. I really appreciate the offer. No. No, thanks. You too, Doctor. Goodbye.”
He walked into the room smiling. She turned back the covers and beckoned him to get under them. He did so, and she made love to him for the rest of the day.
Davis had left the apartment to turn in his resignation at the university. Jen was happy that, whatever else might come, they would at least be able to have this time together.
And yet . . . she was angry. She had never felt such rage toward anything in her life. It was the worst kind of rage, too. The kind where she felt helpless and inept and weak in the face of something much bigger than herself. If she lived alone, she would have smashed half the china dishes and all the flower vases and most of the glass cups in the house. But she didn’t, so she couldn’t.
She thought something that might work just as well. She picked up the cordless phone and took it out on the balcony, shutting the sliding glass door behind her.
“Hello,” a chipper voice said to her after the second ring.
“He has a month, give or take,” she replied, without preamble.
Jack knew the voice instantly, but it took him a moment to comprehend her words.
“Oh my God, Jen.”
She sighed.
“When did you find out?”
“Yesterday. We went back to the doctor together. The bastard with his Ethan Allen furniture and gargantuan-sized bald spot told us Davis has a month, give or take. He actually used the phrase ‘give or take’. Can you believe that?”
“You sound angry, Jen, and that worries me. Because usually, when it’s you, you’re only angry when you don’t want to admit that you’re sad.”
“I am sad, Jack. But I’m damn angry, as well. What the hell kind of thing is this to happen?”
Jack paused. “I don’t know Jen.” He couldn’t think of anything to say to make it better for her, and ached to hold her and comfort her.
She sobbed into the phone. “It’s not like everything has been perfect, Jack. It never has been, in fact. And now it finally is . . . sort of, almost, kind of perfect. Which to me is beyond perfect because I’ve never actually experienced true perfect . . . but . . .” she gave in and began crying in earnest, choking each time she tried to speak. “I wish you were here,” she said with a small voice.
His heart broke and fell on the floor in front of him. “I know. I know . . . I want to be there with you.”
He was struck with an idea. What *was* he doing here when Jen was going through something so terrible? What kind of friend was he being, really? Putting work and Paul above her?
“Let me come to Dallas, Jen. If you need me, I’ll leave today.”
She laughed through her tears. “How gallant of you. No, Jack, you know I can’t let you do that. You have your own life. You can’t just drop it and come running here every time something bad happens.”
“This isn’t just any old bad thing, though. This is like the king of bad things.”
“I know. Believe me I know,” she breathed in and out once, “but you shouldn’t come. I mean, not that I don’t want you here, but . . .” She chose her words carefully. “I think Davis might take it as me being weak if I admitted that I needed you here. And he’s so strong, Jack. You know? I have to be equally as strong for him. And if you were here, I couldn’t be.”
He spoke after several moments. “Okay.”
He would have left everything for her that day if she’d asked him to. But, at the same time, he understood her point. His coming to Dallas would drive a wedge between her and Davis and neither of them needed that. His presence would only complicate things.
Both she and Jack knew from experience that what’s she’d said was true. This wasn’t the first time when they’d reached out for the comfort of each other when their duties had clearly existed elsewhere.
This was the issue that had originally driven them to opposite ends of the earth. One Thanksgiving, they were both home from school. Her from BU, him from Columbia. They had paddled out onto the lake as they had so many times before, and she told him that she was taking her doctoral studies in Dallas. He hadn’t understood why, not at first. She had been offered a position at Columbia.
Jack had pictured them living together, going back to the way they were in high school. It was beyond him that she would take a degree from a lesser university. Jen had explained to that they both needed to go out and find someone to love, who could love them. Someone that they could make a life with. After some initial anger at being abandoned, Jack had agreed, and helped her pack for Dallas. He was regretting that now, going back over the past year and wondering what things might be like if Jen hadn’t gone to Texas. He heard her talking, and he was snapped out of his musings.
“Okay,” she repeated. He heard her sniff a few times, as if finishing her cry.
“You’re okay?” he asked.
She nodded, though he could not see her. “Yeah. Yeah, I will be.”
“Good. You know that you can call me anytime. Day, night, whatever. Okay?”
“Yes, okay.”
“I want to hear from you very soon. I want to know how you’re doing. Will you promise me that you’ll call?”
“I promise.”
“Okay, then.”
“Bye, Jack. Love you.”
“Love you, too.”
He heard her hang up, and replaced his own phone in it’s cradle reluctantly. Wandering around the house, he questioned if he’d done the right thing by not forcing her to allow him to visit. He sat down on the sofa and looked at Paul’s things sprinkled around the room. Yes, he’d made the right decision, he finally decided. If Paul were sick, he would want to be with no one but Paul every moment of the day. And then, after . . . after everything, he knew, with equal certainly, that he’d want his best friend at his doorstep with her suitcase.
“What are you doing sitting in the dark, Babe?”
Jack turned around and saw Paul standing behind him. He turned away from him quietly and looked out into the darkness. “I was talking to Jen. Davis has lung cancer.”
Paul walked farther into the room and sat down on the sofa next to Jack. “Is he going to be okay?”
Jack shook his head. “He has a month, the doctors say.”
Paul smoothed his hands through his hair and sat back in the sofa. “Wow. That’s terrible news.”
Jack looked at him and nodded silently. “It makes me sorry, in a weird way.”
“Sorry?”
“Yeah. Because we’re so . . . happy. I mean, who decided this? And with just a twist of everything, it could be the other way around. We could be the ones . . . going through that.”
“But we’re not.”
“No. We’re not.”
Paul turned toward Jack. “Look, I know you’re unhappy about Jen and Davis. I am, too. But their situation is not ours. And knowing that the same thing could happen to either one of us any day of the week is not going to change things for them. Your worrying is not going to help her.”
Jack shook his head. “You’re wrong, Paul. My worrying does help her. Knowing that I’m worrying about her is the best thing -- the only thing -- she has.”
“My God, it must be tiresome being you.” Paul shook his head, attempting to be humorous.
“No. I’m thankful that I have people to worry about.” Jack stood up, walked down the hall to his office, and shut the door.
Jack made his way down Ninth Street with his backpack slung over his shoulder. Paul always told him he looked dumb carrying a backpack, but it was nostalgic thing with Jack. He’d kept the same one since he had first gone to college. He and Jen had exchanged gifts the summer after senior year and, totally without knowing it, had gotten each other the same thing. He’d had JML stitched on hers and she’d had JAM stitched on his. They were the same dark green color with the same bright yellow thread. He laughed, remembering their identical looks of shock as they had opened their gifts.
Jack read the street signs above him and took a shortcut home. He observed the people crowding past him and enjoyed the knowledge that he was one of them. He loved the way living in this city united people. He loved knowing that he was a part of something so complex and vibrant.
He found it unbelievable that he’d only known Paul for six months. Halstein and Lippman was possibly the largest architectural firm on the eastern seaboard. When he had gone in for his interview, he had been shocked that a partner was conducting the question and answer portion. His nervousness that day could have taken up an entire room. He observed a slight attraction to Paul, but didn’t think about throughout the whole interview. It was his single-minded interest in the job that propelled him to be his most entertaining, intelligent, and competent. When Paul asked him out for drinks afterward, it was the smaller joy in comparison to the fact that he’d gotten the job. In any event, he said yes to Paul and the job. He didn’t regret either decision.
His memories of Paul spiraled around him in unison with his thoughts of Jen. He didn’t want to call her every moment of what would be her last days with Davis, but he constantly thought about her. He was actually surprised at Paul’s less-than-sympathetic reaction to her problem. Paul had never liked Jen, anyway. And Jen liked Paul even less. She’d liked John, Jack’s previous boyfriend, much better. The bad thing about John, Jack remembered, was that John had had a nasty habit of sleeping with women while living in Jack’s house.
With all the other things on his mind, he hadn’t had time to consider the conversation he’d seen between Paul and Lewis. He still hadn’t mentioned it to Paul, and didn’t plan to. This was normally something that he would go to Jen and ask her advice about. But now, with things crashing around her, Jack couldn’t and wouldn’t call her for something stupid like a maybe, semi, possible hint of infidelity.
He pressed his entry code number into the keypad at the door to his building. The door buzzed, then swung open. Riding the elevator up the fourteen floors to his apartment, he wondered what Ryan and Helen would be doing tonight. Paul had reminded him that he was working late tonight, and Jack had been left with absolutely nothing to do.
He stuck his key the lock, turned it, and opened the door.
“Yoo hoo!” he called.
Helen came bouncing out of her room in overalls and a flannel shirt. “Hey, Jack.”
“Hey,” he said, laying his backpack on the kitchen table. “What are you up to?”
“I was working on hypothetical plans for a day care center.”
“Dr. Hornesby’s class?”
“Yeah,” she said, surprised. “How did you know?”
“Two semesters with him. Didn’t enjoy one minute of it. I forget what I did for the daycare presentation.”
“Any suggestions?”
“Take him a bottle of liquor. Give him that, you’ll get an A no matter how terrible your presentation is.”
“Sounds like a good idea to me.”
Jack looked around. “Is Ryan here?”
Helen shook her head. “Nope. He went out with Margaret again.”
“THE Margaret?” Jack said, good-naturedly mocking Ryan.
“You got it. What about Paul?”
“Working late,” Jack replied, trying to keep the disappointment out of his voice.
She pointed to the kitchen in a way that reminded him so much of Jen that he thought Helen could be her younger sister. “Want some coffee?”
Jack nodded. “That sounds really good.”
Helen returned within a few moments, taking a seat next to him at the table. “How’s the Winslow project?”
“Good. Or, at least it will be good as soon as I can get those stupid contractors to follow the plans I drew.”
Helen laughed and took a drink of her coffee.
“And how are things otherwise?”
He studied her, shaking his head at the way she resembled Jen. “Really good. So good that I feel a little bad.” He laughed ironically.
She changed the subject effortlessly, as Jen might have. “What are you and Paul doing this summer?”
“I don’t know, to tell you the truth. I was going to take some time off and go see Jen, but now I don’t know . . .”
Helen looked up. “Why? Did something happen between you and Jen?”
“Oh, no. No, not at all. I told you about Davis, her boyfriend?”
“Yeah.”
“He’s dying.”
Helen put her hand to her mouth. “Oh, no. That’s horrible. Of what?”
“Lung cancer.”
She took a drink of her coffee, then opened her mouth, closed it, opened it, closed it again.
“Say it, Helen,” he told her in a fatherly tone.
“I was just wondering what you’re doing here,” she asked kindly. “I mean . . . why aren’t you in Dallas?”
Because of the resemblance, looking at Helen saying that to him was almost like watching Jen herself ask him why he wasn’t by her side.
“She didn’t want me there. He only has a month. Anyway . . . I think I would just be in the way.”
“I doubt that, Jack, but I’m sure you’re doing what’s right.” She patted his hand, took his empty cup from him and brought it to the sink along with her own.
“I don’t know if I am, Helen.”
She shook her head. “I know you. The phrase ‘right thing’ is pretty much all you ever think about. It’s like an obsession. You want to do the right thing, the moral thing, the compassionate thing. And that’s good. It’s one of your best qualities.”
“Thanks. Although I’m not sure that I love being referred to as someone with an obsession.” He smiled at her and opened his eyes to psychotically round disks. She laughed at his joke and began sticking cups and plates into the dishwasher.
“I told Ryan to do this yesterday. It was his day for the dishes.”
“Why didn’t he?” Jack asked.
He answered his own question at the same time she did. “Margaret.”
They looked at each other and shrugged, then burst out laughing.
“I better get back to work,” she said.
“Okay. And I should get back to missing Paul.”
She reached up and tousled his hair.
“I know, I know. Self- pity is not a pretty thing.”
She smiled, slapped his arm, and padded down the hall.
God, she is so like Jen, he thought to himself as he watched her.
Jack went to bed with a terrible headache and the latest issue of “Entertainment Weekly.” He read the hot sheet, which was his favorite part, then closed the issue, wishing for the fiftieth time that night that Paul was home.
He turned on the television. David Letterman, Jay Leno, David Letterman, Jay Leno, he flipped from one to the other. He always felt that, whichever one he chose, it would be a betrayal of sorts. Paul had laughed when Jack told him that. Paul was firmly pro-Jay Leno. Trying to remember the joys of time alone, he turned definitively to David Letterman, attempting to be thrilled that time away from Paul allowed him the luxury of choosing the late night program. In minutes he gave up and turned back to Leno.
In a half an hour more, Jack heard the front door open and shut. He resisted jumping up and running into the living room. He willed himself to lay back in bed, and strived to look as nonchalant as possible. Paul peeked his head in the door, still holding his briefcase.
“Hey, Baby,” he said to Jack as he came by the side of the bed and kissed him.
Jack sat up. “Hey. I thought you were never coming home.”
“I thought the same thing.” Jack watched as Paul entered the bathroom and began taking off his outer clothes and brushing his teeth. He did love Paul. They’d never said it, not yet, not in those words. But Jack knew it was only a matter of time. Paul pulled the covers back on his side of the bed and climbed in.
“What were doing at work?”
“Making plans for a business trip,” he said, as his head pivoted toward Jack
Jack’s heart fell. “Oh.”
Paul reached out and took his hand. “Um, I know this may be a little stupid and premature of me to ask, and maybe I shouldn’t but . . . I was wondering if . . .”
“If what?” Jack asked anxiously.
“If you wanted to, I don’t know, tag along on the trip?”
Jack bit his lip to keep from grinning across the whole room. “I’d love to tag along.” He sunk down on the pillows and flipped off the light.
Paul flipped on the light on his side of the bed and turned toward Jack. “Don’t you want to know where we’re going?”
Jack shrugged and smiled. “I don’t care.”
Paul looked down. “Well, you have to know so that you know what to pack.” Paul was an intensely logical person.
“Okay.”
“London.”
“I adore London,” Jack said. He smiled, rolled over, and reached across Paul in order to flip off Paul’s lamp.
Paul flipped it back on. “Do you want to know when we’re leaving?” Her was getting exasperated, and Jack just stared up at him, goofily happy.
“Sure.”
“Tomorrow. For a month.”
Jack sat up. “A month?”
Paul nodded. “A month.”
“Wow, that’s a while.”
“What? Too long? I mean . . . I have to stay that long to finish the class. I’m taking this architectural class there that the company requires me to do every year. It takes a month to get the course finished.”
“Wow . . . wow. Well, I don’t know if I can get off work that long.”
Paul shook his head. “Jack, Jack, Jack, Jack, Jack . . . tsk, tsk. I know you’re new at this but please tell me that you understand that there *are* some perks that come when dating the boss.”
“What are you talking about, Paul?”
“I cleared it. Your schedule is free. Welcome to one month of paid vacation, Buddy.”
Jack was stunned. On the one hand, he was going to one of his favorite cities in the world for a month with one of his favorite people in the world. On the other hand, Paul had taken liberties with Jack’s job and schedule that he hadn’t give him permission to take. And on the other hand . . . there was no other hand. Paul just asked him to go away with him, why was he even debating?
Paul face was rapidly falling as more and more time elapsed.
“It . . . sounds great!” Jack said finally.
“Say that you love me.”
“I love you,” Jack said before he realized what had come out of his mouth.
“Me too,” Paul said. He rolled over and flipped off the light.
Jack was perfectly still, staring up at the ceiling. He couldn’t believe he’d just told Paul ‘I love you’ for the first time. And he couldn’t believe he’d been the only one who’d said it.
Jack was putting together his office for the month he was going to be away. He was sure that Lewis was thrilled. Jack wasn’t dumb enough to think that Lewis would actually get any work done while he was gone.
He sauntered around the office, picking up papers from the corners of tables and desks. Some, he threw away. A few, like Jen’s letters and the records he’d kept from his business investments, he filed away in the drawers at the back of the office. He picked his coat off the coat rack and got his briefcase from the desk. Shutting the door behind him, he walked out of the office, telling Lewis goodbye on the way out.
Paul met him at the end of the hall carrying his own briefcase.
“Hey!” he said, and ran toward him, pecking him on the cheek. “Ready to go?”
Jack nodded. “Yeah.”
Paul took his hand and drug him bodily to the elevator. Jack looked back at the hall behind them. The fax machines buzzing happily, the computers humming busily, and people rushing from office to office. He looked back at Paul, who was forging ahead, closer and closer to the elevator. Then back at the hall full of his co-workers. Paul pulled Jack onto the elevator abruptly, pressed ‘lobby,’ and grinned, brimming with excitement.