Cary
I barely
slept that night. I was exhausted, but
the conversation with Nick had left me wide awake, my mind racing.
After he went
to bed, I unpacked my laptop and used his wireless to get online. I googled the type
of lymphoma he said he’d been diagnosed with and read all the statistics about
it. They weren’t very encouraging.
I finally
crawled into bed, expecting to pass out as soon as my head hit the pillow, but
even though I’d been awake almost twenty-four hours, I tossed and turned,
unable to sleep. The bed in Nick’s guest
room was comfortable, but I couldn’t stop thinking long enough to relax. Oh my
God, I’m in Nick Carter’s condo had turned into, Oh my God, Nick Carter has cancer.
At some
point, I must have finally drifted off because the next thing I knew, it was
light in my room. Bleary-eyed, I gazed
across the room, not recognizing anything at first. Then, with a jolt, I remembered where I was
and sat up, the covers falling off me. I
looked around for a clock, wondering what time it was, but I didn’t see
one. My body felt heavy, my mind groggy,
like I’d woken abruptly from a deep sleep.
My head pounded, and I remembered how buzzed I’d been the night before,
bouncing around in the back of the cab with Nick, then breaking down into tears
and throwing myself at him when he’d told me he was sick.
I hadn’t
forgotten that part either, and the memory of it woke me right up. I felt worried and embarrassed, sick with the
realization of what I’d agreed to do. I
wished I could go back to sleep and forget it all, but now that I was awake,
there was no way I was going to be able to fall asleep again. With a sigh, I dragged myself out of bed and
pulled on the pair of shorts I’d left on the floor the night before. I always slept in just a t-shirt and my
underwear; I couldn’t handle pants. They
always got twisted up when I rolled around in bed.
I was
grateful for the connecting door into the guest bathroom, eager to get a look
at myself in the mirror and do damage control before I let Nick see the morning
version of me. I stumbled in, turned on
the light, and grimaced when I saw my reflection. My hair looked like a rat’s nest, and my face
was washed out without makeup. I found
my brush and did my best to tame and untangle my hair, finally pulling it back
into a bushy ponytail. I brushed my
teeth to get rid of my morning breath before I finally dared to venture out of
the bedroom.
The moment
I opened the door, I got hit with the enticing smell of brewing coffee and
frying bacon. It was such a heavenly
combination, I couldn’t help but follow it, still in my pajamas, right to the
kitchen. Nick was there, his back to me,
in a pair of pajama pants himself. He
had a shirt on this time, but it was just a plain white wifebeater, and I found
my eyes running up and down his bare, tattooed arms and broad shoulders,
watching him tending to something on the stove.
Stop it, I scolded myself,
when I realized what I was doing.
I cleared
my throat, and he turned around. “Hey,”
he said, one corner of his mouth jerking up into a half-smile.
I managed a
smile back. “Morning. Whatever you’re cooking smells great.”
He stepped
out of the way of the stove. There was
bacon sizzling in one pan, scrambled eggs cooking in another. “Hope you’re hungry.”
If I hadn’t
been before, I was then. I nodded
eagerly.
“Coffee?”
he asked, pulling the pot out of his coffee maker.
“Please.”
“How do you
like it?”
“Um – with
cream, if you’ve got it.”
“No
problem.”
As he
poured me a cup and added some creamer from his refrigerator, I noticed the
time on his microwave clock. It was
still early, just after nine o’clock.
I’d only slept a few hours. No
wonder I felt so groggy. I accepted the
warm mug of coffee he handed me gratefully and took a sip, hoping the caffeine
would make up for the lack of sleep.
“Did you
sleep okay?” he asked, as he went back to stove.
“It took me
awhile to fall asleep,” I admitted, “but once I did, yeah, I slept fine.”
He was
quiet for a minute, turning the bacon, stirring the scrambled eggs. Then he turned around to face me again. “Look, I’m sorry… about last night…” he said
awkwardly. “I shouldn’t have sprung it
on you like that. I just… didn’t know
how else to do it… and I figured if I was drunk, maybe it’d be easier…”
I
shrugged. “You don’t have to
apologize. It would have shocked me no
matter how you said it.”
He
nodded. “Yeah, well… sorry for any awkwardness.”
I shifted
my weight, remembering the shirtless hug.
“Me too.”
He turned
back to the stove, checked the food once more, and shut off the burners. “Have a seat,” he said, gesturing over his
shoulder to his dining room table. As I
went to sit down, I wondered how often he actually ate there. “You want toast?” he called from the kitchen.
“Sure!”
I watched
him move around the kitchen, getting out a loaf of bread, adding two slices to
his toaster. After another minute, he
asked, “You want anything else to drink?
Milk? OJ?”
“Orange
juice would be great.”
He poured
two glasses of juice and brought them into the dining room, setting one down in
front of me and the other across from me.
Then he returned to the kitchen, and when he came back, he was carrying
two plates, loaded with eggs, bacon, and toast.
“Crap, I forgot the silverware,” he groaned, as he put the plates down. “Hang on a sec.”
I followed
him into the kitchen. “Do you have
butter? For the toast?”
“Oh shit,
that too. Fridge.”
I opened
his refrigerator and found a bucket of spreadable
margarine. “Anything else we’re
forgetting?”
“I think
we’re good.”
We went
back into the dining room and sat down.
For a few minutes, we were quiet, buttering our toast, tasting the
food. “You’re a good cook,” I said,
unable to hide the tone of surprise in my voice.
He
smirked. “What, didn’t think I could
cook? I’m a bachelor; what else am I
supposed to do?”
What
happened to his girlfriend? I wondered, but didn’t ask. We’d had enough awkward conversations
already. “I dunno, live on pizza and
take-out like other bachelors do?”
He
laughed. “Been there, done that. I’ve been tryin’ to eat better the last
couple years, though, so I learned how to make my own food. Not that this is exactly healthy…” He looked down at his plate of bacon shining
with grease, eggs scrambled with cheese, and toast smothered with melting
better. “I’ve been tryin’ to eat a lot
before I start a new chemo cycle, in case I can’t keep anything down after
that.”
I watched
him toy with his fork in sympathy. “Have
you been getting pretty sick from it?”
“The first
cycle, not at all. The second cycle was
bad. But they alternate, so maybe this
next one will be okay.”
“I hope
so.” I raised a forkful of scrambled
eggs to my mouth. Swallowing, I asked,
“When do you start the next one?”
“Today.”
I nearly
dropped my fork. “Today? Does that mean you expect me to start today
too?”
He
blinked. “Well… I thought we should make
sure it works out okay before tour… so, yeah…?”
I raised my
eyebrows. “Gee, thanks for the advance
notice.”
“Sorry,” he
said, with a crooked smile. “I’m kind of
a procrastinator, if you couldn’t tell.”
“You, who waited
six weeks to tell anyone about your cancer, a procrastinator? Um, yeah… I could tell.”
He offered
another sheepish smile. “Are you mad?”
“No,” I
sighed. “And I’m not usually this
sarcastic either; I’m sorry. I’m just
trying to get used to this whole idea.”
He
nodded. “I feel ya. It’s been six weeks – seven, really – and I
still wake up wishing it was all just a bad dream.”
I didn’t
know what to say to that. He was making
me feel sorry for him again – not that it was hard. I didn’t want to pity him, but he was as nice
a guy as he’d always seemed, and he didn’t deserve to be in this predicament,
sick and trying to hide it from everyone he loved. Even if I didn’t agree with him, I still felt
sympathy for him.
We finished
breakfast and cleared up the dishes together.
Then Nick said, “I wanna grab a shower before you start the first
infusion. It takes three hours, and I
have to have it twice today.”
Wow, he really is serious about starting this today, I thought,
feeling a surge of panic. “You have all
the equipment to do this?” I asked, skeptical and hoping to stall.
“I think
so. Wanna check it out and make sure?”
I nodded
faintly, and he took me into his bedroom, which was a mess – tangled sheets
hanging off the huge, unmade bed, dirty clothes lying all over the floor, a
musty smell lingering in the air. It was
what I’d expect a teenage boy’s room to look like, only much bigger and more
maturely decorated. At least he didn’t
have posters of cars and hot babes in swimsuits on his walls.
“Sorry,
it’s a mess in here,” said Nick, after I’d had a chance to look around. He disappeared into his giant, walk-in closet
– I peeked in curiously after him – and emerged carrying a big, plastic tub. He took it back to the dining room, set it
down on the table, and pried off the lid.
“Hopefully everything you need is in here. Schedule… instructions…” He handed me a packet of paper that had been
laying on top. I skimmed over it,
relieved to find a neatly-printed schedule of his chemo regimen, detailing
which drugs he should receive when, how, and how much.
Noticing a
doctor’s name on the schedule, I said, “Why don’t you go take your shower and
give me a chance to look through all of this?”
“Okay,” he
agreed. “Make yourself at home.”
He disappeared
back into his bedroom. I waited a few
minutes, looking over the other contents of the tub, and when I heard the
shower start, I grabbed the chemo schedule and my cell phone and snuck back
into the guest bedroom. I closed the
door, sat down on the bed, and looked at the letterhead on the piece of paper
in my hand. UCLA Santa Monica Hematology and Oncology, it said, and below was
an address, phone and fax numbers, and the name of a physician, Chanda Subramanien, M.D.
I hesitated
only a few seconds. Then I dialed the
number on the paper and asked to speak with Dr. Subramanien.
***
Nick’s
doctor was a polite Indian woman who told me in no uncertain terms that she
thought his plan was suicide.
“It’s not
just that he wants to receive chemo at home,” she explained. “Although it’s not common for it to be
administered completely outside a hospital setting, I did find an article about
the benefits of home chemotherapy in patients who would otherwise be incompliant
with their treatment. As long as you
feel comfortable giving the chemo as instructed and monitoring Mr. Carter’s
blood counts, I see no problem with him choosing home care.
“My concern
is this tour he’s planning to go on,” she continued briskly. “I warned him of the dangers of being around
large crowds of people with a suppressed immune system. Perhaps if you could get him to agree to wear
a mask…”
Fat chance, I thought doubtfully, knowing Nick would never be seen wearing a
surgical mask when he was trying to hide his illness. “I’ll see what I can do,” I said. “The tour doesn’t start for another couple
weeks. Maybe I can convince him to
change his mind.”
“I hope
so,” she said solemnly. “Otherwise, I
worry this treatment will kill him before it has a chance to save him.”
***