I slumped back, sighed. “What exactly is it that you want, Pam?”
She leaned in closer to the table, eager. If I was deflated by the direction our conversation was taking, she was excited. “What I want is for the playing field to be leveled a bit. What I want is for you to have a little less of what you have, and for me to have a little more of what you have.”
It was at this point—I know, I know, I know—that I should have stopped and asked myself, Did I really want this woman to continue in the role of my Default Best Friend? And, why had I ever chosen her in the first place?
But I never got the chance to ask myself that question—not then, at any rate—because it was then that that evening’s Bachelor #1 chose to approach our table, insinuate himself between Pam and me with his back to her as if blocking out some kind of Martian sun, and utter the unfailingly catchy words: “Buy you a drink, pretty lady? I just hate to see a pretty lady sitting all by herself.”
On any other night, that “sitting by herself” part would have been enough to topple Pam over into a seething frenzy, which would have, in turn, prompted her to hit the eject button on my Bachelor #1 before I even had the chance to avail myself of the free beverage on offer. But not on this night. Not on this night that was all of a sudden different from all other nights. No, on this night, instead of doing the usual, Pam craned her neck around the side of Bachelor #1, a smug smirk on her face revealing her satisfaction at having obtained proof of the inherent unfairness of the world, and mouthed the words at me, “See what I mean?”
And, for a moment there, I guess I kind of did.
6
Dr. Berg was right: my illness got worse.
Oh, did it get worse.
The hardest thing about living alone is being sick all by yourself.
Home for me was a condo three-quarters of the way up a high hill in Danbury. I’d purchased it the year after I got the job at the library, so I’d been living there for a long time, but you couldn’t really call it a home. Maybe that’s the thing about condos; even when you own one outright it still feels like temporary lodging, like the place you’re living only until you get serious about what you’re going to do in life. At any rate, that was certainly the case with my condo, which I’d only decorated in the most marginal sense. Sure, I’d hung things on the wall—framed photographs that Best Girlfriend, who had made a whole career out of being something of a camera buff, had taken. And of course there was furniture, mostly of the looks-like-Domain-but-bought-at-a-shop-cheaper-than-Domain variety. I’d even painted: yellow in the tiny kitchen, leaf in the bathroom, heather in the dining and living rooms, periwinkle in the master bedroom. Every now and then I bought a few plants; but, with my black thumb, none of them ever survived for very long. So, despite my meager efforts, it still all had the look of a way station, a place to provide temporary shelter until I found where I was really meant to be.
For a week I remained there, alone in my temporary shelter, contemplating my current pain and the past life I had lived.
There are really no words to describe the physical pain of chicken pox at thirty-nine. I’d certainly experienced my own fair share of pain in my life—the usual sprains and broken bones brought on by a life lived both athletically and carelessly. (Okay, I’m a klutz.) And I’d even had a fair amount of dental work done without benefit of Novocaine. (I hate needles.) But nothing had prepared me for this. (Nothing.)
I wondered, through my pain, if this was what it had been like for Sarah, the girl who’d given me the chicken pox. Had she been this miserable? A part of me, the part that was still irrationally mad at her for giving the disease to me—when really it was her mother I should be mad at, for letting her out of the house!—was glad in a vengeful way. But then I remembered what Dr. Berg had said about it being much harder the older you are and I was suddenly glad to realize Sarah hadn’t suffered as much. After all, it wasn’t her fault she’d been out and about, it was her mother’s.
For the first three days, my fever raged at 103. And, as the pocks spread downward from my face and chest, eventually covering my entire body—even places that it would be indelicate of me to mention, but damn!—it became as though a thousand painful bonfires were roaring beneath my skin. When awake, I tried to obey Dr. Berg, tried not to scratch; but whenever I would actually fall asleep, I’d wake to find that I’d been involuntarily scratching while unconscious. I took the oatmeal baths as recommended—gross!—but they were just a stopgap measure, only serving to relieve the pain for the two twenty-minute periods a day I was submerged in the tub.
Of course, my mother offered to come over and take care of me.
“Scarlett, you shouldn’t be alone!”
“Um, really, that’s okay, Mom.” Please don’t come, pleasedontcome, pleasedontcome, I fervently prayed. The last thing I needed was for her to walk in the door and, first thing, tell me how awful I looked.
As if I didn’t already know.
Each morning, as the illness progressed, I rose, dragged myself to the bathroom, looked in the mirror. And then really-really wished I could avoid looking in the mirror. For, each day, I looked less and less like the me I’d always known. What had started out as a few pinkish-red spots had turned into an angry eruption, the spots multiplying and taking on the appearance of a plague until I no longer recognized myself. I didn’t know this woman. This woman was ugly.
Again, I found myself wondering what it had been like for Sarah, encountering an ugly version of herself in the looking glass. True, Dr. Berg said kids didn’t get it as bad, but I was sure he was referring to the pain and not the pocks. Surely, the quantity of pocks would still be great. Had Sarah felt as horrified at her image as I felt at mine now? Had she been scared, or at least reluctant, to have her friends see her? Why, when I had first seen her, I’d been sure her problem was prepubescent acne and I’d pitied her.
I pitied me now.
What, I began to wonder, would life be like if I always looked like this? What if this was the face that the world saw all the time?
As Pam had pointed out, and as I well knew, I’d never had any problem attracting men, being that literature-defying rarest of birds: an attractive librarian with a good sex life. Okay, maybe I’d never managed to marry any of those men but I’d never had trouble attracting them. I’d always assumed, unlike what Pam implied, that men were attracted to me because, well, I was just so damned much fun to be with.
I was the girl that, never mind men needing excuses to justify playing poker, played poker with.
I was the girl at the ball game, always rooting for the right team.
I was the girl who was nice.
I was the girl who was fun.
You’re probably wondering right now, “If she’s so godawful wonderful, so nice, then why hasn’t anyone asked her to marry them yet?”
Actually, I had been asked, more than once, but that’s not the point here. Because this isn’t so much a “Why isn’t she married yet?” story, as it is a “Why doesn’t she seem to care that she isn’t married yet?” story.
I guess I don’t want things just because everyone else has them.
I guess I don’t want to settle.
I