BETTER BOOBS
by
“How do you like my new boob, Mike?” Kelly smiled as I approached her on the front porch of her Sierra Madre cottage. She stuck her left one forward for me to inspect. It was impossible to detect any difference under her sweater and bra.
“Looks good to me.” I’m a painting contractor, mostly residential, so I tend to work with a lot of women in their homes. I drink a lot of coffee and tend to talk a lot, too. Sometimes, they confide in me. Last year, just as I was putting the finishing touches on Kelly’s kitchen remodel, she was diagnosed with breast cancer. Her sister had died a few years ago of the same cancer. Kelly had gone through a lot in the year since I’d seen her: mastectomy, chemo, radiation, recovery, and finally—her new boob. We hugged.
“You look good, kid.”
“Thanks. I feel good.” She smiled again. “Gary likes it, too.” Gary was her husband.
I laughed. I do that a lot, too. We went inside. She poured me a cup of coffee. I leaned against the counter, sipped her strong, hot brew, and we gabbed for the next hour or so about everything except cancer. We finally got around to scheduling a starting date for some touch-ups around the house. I put my empty coffee cup in her sink.
“You have another job to go to today?” she asked.
“Yup. Or I’d let you feed me, too.” She was a good cook. We both laughed. Kelly did that a lot, too. Probably why we got along so well.
“Next time,” she said.
We hugged goodbye and I hurried out to my truck, where I’d left my cell phone on the seat. One missed call. I recognized the number; it was Waters’, my next job. I called back.
“Haylo?” It was the housekeeper’s voice.
“Mariela?”
“Si. Is that you, Mikey?”
“Si.”
“Mar-rgo wants to know if you still coming today?” Margo Waters was the homeowner. It had been a few months since I’d last worked at the Waters’ Castle, as I called it. It was an old, two-and-a-half story, twenty-eight room, concrete-walled, multi-million-dollar mansion on Pasadena’s west side above the arroyo overlooking the Rose Bowl. I’d painted one room seven years ago and had worked there doing odd jobs on-and-off ever since.
“I’m on my way. Did you miss me?”
“Oh, si. You so nice. You always help Mariela.”
I carried groceries up the back stairs for her, nothing any gentleman wouldn’t do for a lady. No big deal.
“I have sooprise,” she said.
“For me?”
“No, ees not for you. But ees sooprise.”
A few minutes later, I turned into the long driveway that led back to the castle. I parked, opened the tailgate, grabbed a few hand tools I figured I’d need, and headed up the back stairway. Through the row of kitchen windows on the landing, I saw Mariela inside at the sink. I knocked on the door, but opened it myself.
“Morning.”
“Hi, Mikey. Coffee ees in microwave for you.” She continued to wash dishes in the sink. “Mar-rgo go to gym. Leave note for you.” Without turning towards me, she indicated with a nod it was on the island.
I turned on the microwave, checked the note. I recognized Margo’s handwriting:
-fix latch on cab in Butler’s Pantry
-paint walls in Guest Room
“Margo’s sister went home?”
“Si.”
“How is she?”
Mariela shook her head. “Ees no good. Berry sick.”
I nodded. Margo’s sister was currently going through what Kelly had gone through last year. But her sister had been pregnant at the time the cancer was discovered, which had delayed and complicated her treatment and the cancer had spread. The oven dinged. I took out the cup, sipped the steamy coffee, went back to the list:
-replace all burnt-out light bulbs
-move potted trees from east patio to west patio
-assemble automatic cat box
“Automatic cat box?”
“Si. Mar-rgo get a new kitty.”
“Really?” In all the time I’d worked in the castle, the Waters had never had a pet. From under the island, a black paw reached out for my shoelace. I put down the cup, got down on one knee and bent low. Yellow-green, almond-shaped eyes stared back at me from the jet black face of a young feline—too old to be a kitten, too young to be a cat—perched like a sphinx, ready to pounce. “Hey, there.” I reached in to pet its head between ears pointed upright. “What’s it’s name?”
“Hair-rball.”
“‘Hairball?’ That’s funny. How you doing, Hairball?” It purred gently. Then I noticed each nail on its front paws was coated with some kind of clear, plastic sheath. I took its paw in my hand to inspect it more closely. “What the heck?”
Still at the sink, Mariela looked down. “Ees so kitty won’t scratch furniture.”
“You’re kidding?” I ran my fingers across the floor in front of Hairball, who reached out to spoke my hand with its paw. The soft, acrylic sheaths kept its fingernails from digging into the skin on the back of my hand. I had to laugh. “What will they think of next?” Then I remembered the list—“-assemble automatic cat box”—and figured I’d find out soon enough.
“How’s you knee?” Mariela asked.
“Not bad. Rehab took awhile, but I’m back up to five or six miles a run now.” I’d hurt it last summer. Didn’t know how. Just woke up one morning and out of nowhere the darn thing was swollen like a volleyball. I sipped the coffee and found the loose latch in the adjoining pantry, took the Phillips screwdriver from my back pocket and carefully tightened the guilty, loose screw heads. “How’s your back?” I asked through the doorway.
“Oh, ees bueno. I’m so glad. I tell Mar-rgo ees no more heavy lifting.” She had been wearing a brace because of a lower back strain, but it was hard to tell under her baggy sweatshirt if she was still wearing it. She dried her hands on the dishtowel, turned to me with a funny, conspiratorial sort of look on her face. “You remember what we talk about last time you are here?”
I thought back.
“Come on.” She prodded me. “You remember.” She smiled and winked.
“Oh.” I did suddenly remember—breast implants. Mariela had lost thirty pounds over the last year-and-a half but had confessed to being unhappy with how the weight-loss had left her breasts, so she had consulted a plastic surgeon in the San Fernando valley. I glanced down slightly, but the loose-fitting sweatshirt hid any clear indication. So risking a faux pas, I was compelled to ask uneasily: “Did you do it?”
She pursed her lips and nodded.
“Really?” I looked again. More closely. “Obviously, you didn’t opt for the Ds.” Her husband’s suggestion, as I remembered.
“No.” She shook her head. “Ees a full C.”
“Ahh. A full C.”
“You want to see?”
“What?”
“Come on. I show you.” She walked ahead of me farther into the house. I followed—What else could I do?—through the dining room, where from a wall-sized painting the luminous faces of Renaissance men and women stared judgmentally down at me, into a small hallway, where she closed the doors at both ends. She turned to me and pulled up the baggy sweatshirt, under which firm, twin mounds—like cantaloupe halves—were wrapped snuggly by a cotton crop top.
“Oh.” I couldn’t help staring. But didn’t figure it rude in this instance anyway.
“Ees no bra,” she stated proudly.
“No, bra? You’re kidding?”
She shook her head. “No. Ees too sensitive.” She covered them up again, smiled again. “Eh?”
“To quote my favorite sitcom: ‘They’re spectacular.’ Good for you. Good for your husband, too,” I kidded.
“Oh, he crazy now. He keep asking doctor: ‘How soon? How soon?’”
“So you haven’t tried them out yet?”
“No, no, no.” She wagged her index finger like a mother playfully instructing a child. “Ees too sensitive. Doctor say ees okay for Saturday night.”
“Really?” I smiled, thinking of her husband. “This Saturday?”
She nodded, wagged her finger at me again. “Doan you tell no one. Ees secret. No want Mar-rgo to know. I tell her I have back surgery. Take two weeks off. Thees morning she look over while I cook. But I no tell her.”
“Yeah, she might get pissed-off now that her housekeeper has better boobs.” We both laughed.
A door closed with a thud from the kitchen end of the house.
“Ees Mar-rgo. I go now.” She hurried out the doorway towards the kitchen. I knew she’d clean-up my half-finished coffee cup on the way.
I went the other direction, up the stairs to the guest room, where the pillows were perfectly arranged on the bed and the bedspread was pulled snuggly across the mattress—not a wrinkle to indicate a human being had ever slept there. The blue walls didn’t really need patching or painting, but Margo quite often changed colors on a whim—sometimes her own, sometimes her interior decorator’s. A paint chip card was scotch-taped to the wall; the soft yellow color was named: “Morning.” I took the flat-head screwdriver from my back pocket and began removing the brass faceplates, putting them all together in an empty wastebasket. A few minutes later, Margo poked her head in the room. “Hi, Mike.”
“Hey, Margo. How goes it?”
“Okay.” But she sounded weary, not convincing. She wore a designer work-out jacket and pants. Had recently turned forty, but was quite fit and attractive. A personal trainer at the gym and the Wonder bra under her little, white T-shirt helped.
“Sister moved back home. Huh?”
She nodded. “Yeah. She and the kids left last week.” They had been staying with Margo during her sister’s treatment at the USC-Norris Cancer Center.
“How is she?”
She shrugged her shoulders. “It’s too early to tell.” Sounding like a doctor, she educated me on the billions of cancer cells that had made up the multiple tumors that had forced the removal of both breasts, then maximum chemo and radiation treatments. Her sister’s hair had fallen out. She had lost twenty-five pounds.
Trying to give Margo some hope, I told her about Kelly and her new boob.
“That’s nice. But it won’t save your friend if the cancer comes back.”
I got more stuff from the truck, covered the furniture with plastic and the carpet with dropcloths. I’d paint the walls tomorrow. Change-out the lights and assemble the automatic cat box, too. Today, tomorrow? What the hell did it matter? I didn’t see Margo or Mariela on my way out. But it was a big house. You could get lost. So in the kitchen, I wrote a note on the island to let them know I’d be back first thing tomorrow. From under the island, the black paw reached out for my pant leg, but its prophylactic nails couldn’t hook me.
No one was home when I got there, so I put on my running shorts and shoes, covered my bare skin with sunscreen, pulled down the bill of my cap, and went for a run. A long run. A very long run. But the melancholy followed me like a dog on a leash—if the cancer comes back. By the time I got home, it was nearly dark and my wife’s car was parked behind my truck in the driveway. My knee ached again, as I climbed our front porch steps. My daughter let me in. She was thirteen. And wearing a bra now. They ought to make those damn things cancer-proof. That’d be a Wonder bra.
“Hi, Dad. How was your run?”
“I don’t know.”
She screwed up her face. “You’re so weird.”
“Where’s your brother?”
“At the Mall with Valerie.” My son was seventeen. Valerie was his girlfriend. She drove a hot yellow, convertible Mustang, which made my wife uneasy. “Mom’s in the kitchen.”
But I had already smelled our dinner on the stove, where my wife was grilling a salmon steak in a black, frying pan. I leaned against the door frame, watching her carefully flip the big, red piece of fish with the spatula. Truly, she was a beautiful woman.
“Smells good.”
“Oh.” She flinched, looked over at me. “I didn’t hear you come in.”
“Sorry. Didn’t mean to startle you.”
She turned to get something from the sink, stopped, stared back at me. “What?”
“What ‘what?’”
“What are you looking at me that way for?” She eyed me suspiciously.
“Just looking.” I grabbed a quart bottle of Gatorade—Cool Blue—from the refrigerator and unscrewed the top.
“Oh, Margo’s housekeeper called. Something about an automatic cat box? She said you’d know what she meant.”
“Yeah. I know.” I took a big gulp of the cold, pale blue liquid, then remembered—How soon? How soon?—and I laughed again.
“What’s so funny?”
“‘Ees secret.’” I took another sip, then before leaving to shower, leaned against the door frame and asked my wife: “You busy Saturday night?”
She answered with a question: “Why?”
word count: 2190
previously published in:
www.chicklitreview.org, March/April Issue, Fiction section, ’09;
www.farmhousemagazine.com, March/April Issue, Fiction section, ’08;
Illness & Grace, Terror & Transformation, Wising Up Press, GA, ’07; www.voidmagazine.com, September Issue, Fiction section, ’06; www.girlswithinsurance.com, February Issue, Fiction section, ’05.