Life and Other Near-Death Experiences(5)

“Tom is gay,” I said.

Paul hooted. “Charlie, wake up!” he said to his partner, who was not a morning person and was undoubtedly dozing nearby. “You have to hear this!”

“That is your first response?” I said, tears pricking behind my eyelids.

“Libs, I’m sorry, I didn’t mean it like that. I’m—well, I’m gobsmacked. How on earth could he do this to you? Are you all right?”

“No,” I admitted. “I’m in a very bad place right now.”

“Oh, Libs,” he cooed. “I hate Chicago, too. Will you consider moving out to the East Coast, preferably the United Republic of Manhattan? You would be so much happier here.”

“Paul.”

“Brooklyn?”

“Paul.”

“I’m sorry, Libs. I’m only joking because I’m upset. You know how I get. So this actually happened? What did he say? What did you say?!”

“It happened,” I said miserably. “I might have stabbed him with a fork.”

“Mad Libs, I love it! Though . . .”

“Though what?” I asked sharply.

Paul hesitated. “Is Tom okay? This must be awful for him.”

“Tom?” I said. “Is mother-fudging Tom okay?” (One of the things I remember about my mother is that she despised swearing, so I figure the least I can do to honor her memory is scrub my vocabulary of curse words.)

“Libs, you know what I mean.”

“Don’t Libs me.” I sniffed, thinking of how Tom only blurted the truth out after he thought I already knew. “And yes, he’s fine.”

“I’m sorry,” Paul said again in a way that told me we’d be revisiting the topic sooner rather than later. “What are you going to do now?”

That was a very good question. I pushed my glasses up on my nose and eyed the clock; I had about an hour before I had to be at the office. Of course, I could call in, but that would mean I’d spend the day crying in the home I shared with the man who had torn my beating heart from my chest. Bad enough that I’d just learned my body was disease-ridden; I would be damned if my husband’s accidental outing was going to be the thing that took me out of the game of life.

“I’m going to shower. Then I’m going to get dressed. Then I’m going to work.”

“You will do nothing of the sort! Tell Jackie to shove it. One’s husband coming out necessitates at least a full week off, if not a month.”

I did a mental rundown of my day, which meant I was really taking a survey of my boss’s day. Jackie, who was the head of advertising at a large media conglomerate that had a hand in radio, television, and custom print publications across the US, had a breakfast meeting with one of the company’s publishers at eight forty-five; conference calls, which I would facilitate, with various heads of sales at ten, ten thirty and eleven; then an early lunch with the CEO at the Ritz, which would buy me an hour of downtime, although I would need to pick up her gown for the Joffrey event this evening, or at least find a messenger competent enough not to get it caught in the spokes of his bike while playing bumper cars on LaSalle—

I have cancer, I realized yet again, as though for the first time. I felt around my stomach, wincing as I fingered the still-bandaged incision to the left of my belly button. If the tumor was out, but I still had cancer, did that mean there were malignant cells lingering in the area right now? Or were they already speeding through my body, like microscopic surveyors trying to figure out where to set up their next subdivision?

Where the cancer was didn’t matter. The only thing of importance was that I was dying that very second. If I said this to Paul, he would point out that we’re all dying every second we’re alive. But as I mentioned, I wasn’t ready to drop the C-bomb on him just yet, for reasons pertaining not only to his psychological well-being, but also my own. I needed a few days to evaluate the barren desert of my mental landscape before I started telling people.

If only I could confide in Tom, I thought, fresh tears springing to my eyes. Unlike Paul, he would not launch into strategy mode or offer advice I wasn’t ready to take. He would hold me until I was done crying, and he would ask me what I wanted to do next, a question that—only when he asked it—always seemed to help me point myself in the right direction. But for all intents and purposes, there was no Tom anymore.

Regardless, Paul was right: I should take some time off work. But I was going to do it on my own terms.

Unaware that a good chunk of my anguish was due to something even worse than my imploded marriage, Paul was still thinking about Tom. “If it helps, I always had my doubts about him.”

“You suspected he was gay?” I spat. “Why didn’t you tell me?”

“Libby, love, if I suspected that, you would have been the very first to know. Trust me, this is as shocking to me as it is to you. I just felt that you could do better.”

This, at least, was not news. A week before my wedding, Paul pleaded with me to put it off. “You’re so young, Libby. Go date other guys, figure out if you really want to settle for Tom.”

“I’m not settling,” I told him. “I’ve had ten years to think about this, Paul, and I know that love like this doesn’t come along more than once in a lifetime.”