In Search of a Happy Ending

Chapter 1

Eve sat across the desk from young Dr. Lerner trying to make sense of what he, without once meeting her eyes, had just told her.

What do you mean, ‘irreparable’? she demanded, as if the cardiologist had used a scientific term beyond her comprehension. In fact, it was beyond comprehension, at least as applied to her. Is it, like, chronic? Or terminal?

The left ventricle shows a substantial amount of subendocardial fibrosis, so in this case I’d say it’s—both, he said brusquely.

So one hundred percent of the people who get this disease die?

The minute the question was out of her mouth, Eve realized its absurdity. Everybody dies, she thought. But is it going to be like—soon?

Dr. Lerner’s voice took on a reassuring note. The likelihood of death is not the problem. When Eve gave him an incredulous look—if the likelihood of death wasn’t a problem, what was?—he elaborated. It’s the probability of sudden— He broke off, looking stricken, as if he had been on the verge of revealing a secret.

When? she whispered, rising and backing away from the desk, as if more distance would lessen the impact of his answer.

Hypertrophic cardiomyopathy is, uh, that is to say, about forty percent of those who present with the kind of damage that, that is, in view of what we can see on the scan, statistically speaking, two years— Then, perhaps recalling from some doctor-patient communication class back in medical school that one should never predict a definite time for something as serious as death, he stuttered, But that’s not, uh, different orgasms do react differently.

Orgasms? Eve echoed, too shocked by his use of the word in this context to wonder what might have caused the Freudian slip.

I said organisms, Dr. Lerner blurted, with a blush that as good as admitted that he had misspoken. Research is going on all the time. A cure—

But you said it’s not curable. That it’s fatal. Didn’t you say that?

Yes. I mean, no. That is— He broke off, sounding as confused as Eve felt. If you’ll sit down, Ms. Austin, I can explain. In your case, the indicators seem to suggest—

The jargon-laden remarks that followed her as she fumbled for the doorknob might as well have been in a foreign language. With one foot already out in the hall, she turned back and said in a voice made shrill by emotional chaos, Write it down!

What? The young doctor looked as frightened as if she were a medical board examiner on the verge of failing him.

This cardio-whatever. I can’t pronounce it so at least I need the spelling so I can look it up on the internet, she said.

Oh, don’t believe everything you get from the internet!

I don’t believe everything I get from anybody, Eve retorted.

Dr. Lerner, looking pathetically unsure of himself and even younger than he probably was, wrote cardiomyopathy, along with a string of medical words so obscure that Eve could not even guess at their meaning. Reluctantly he pushed the paper across the desk toward her.

Eve suspected he was dawdling because he felt he had not broken the news properly, and was trying, belatedly, to think of something to add that might help. And what might that be? What if he said, Actually, I don’t believe this is a fatal disease. I think that’s pure hogwash to get people to allow themselves to be used by pharmaceutical companies to test new drugs. However, there was no indication that he was going to say any such thing. Eve grabbed the slip of paper and marched out.

A concerned-looking nurse whose name tag read Nancy called after her, Shall we schedule another appointment for you, Ms. Austin?

No thanks, Eve snapped. In the limited time I have left, I think I’ll just go to the Caribbean and find myself a boy toy.

Eve heard the nurse gasp just as she walked smack into the office’s glass exit door. She retreated a step to open the door, and yelled over her shoulder, Dr. Lerner’s communication skills suck!

• • •

Xanax, curled up next to the baseboard heater and looking like a fifteen-pound ball of dirty grey yarn, opened one eye but did not otherwise acknowledge Eve’s arrival. He would when the time was right, but by mutual agreement her first moment home was not the right time. He would open both eyes and get to his feet only when she headed for the kitchen, which she normally did after hanging up her coat and checking the messages on her answering machine.

The second eye opened warily when Eve broke the pattern by flinging her shoes across the room, dropping her coat on the floor, and collapsing onto the sofa. From this the cat concluded that something was amiss. He sauntered to the sofa, jumped lightly onto Eve’s stomach, and began to purr.

This was part of a different pattern, established when, at seventeen, Eve became morose over having broken up with her boyfriend. The doctor had recommended the anti-depressant Xanax, but her parents, whose own diagnosis was adolescent self-centeredness, had demurred. Instead, they presented her with a kitten whose name, they said, was Xanax. Xanax the cat had been effective in bringing her out of that funk and a great many since.

At first Eve did not respond, but as the purr vibrated through her chest, she ran a hand down his silky back. Xanax, she said, you have to die. Seventeen years is old. I know I’m twice as old, but thirty-four in people years is not as old as seventeen cat years. I do not want to sit around worrying about what’s going to become of you if I suddenly drop dead.

The cat purred on. Eve fell asleep.

• • •

When Eve woke it was morning, and raining. She felt a deep sense of dread without remembering, for a minute, what was so dreadful about her life that she had spent the night on the couch. Then, like a scene from a horror movie, her previous day’s visit to the cardiologist replayed itself, generating a combination of panic, disbelief, numbness, and an urge to scream. She sat up, dazed, as if the competing emotions were cancelling out each other.

Xanax stood in the passageway to the kitchen irritably switching his great grey brush of a tail, a clear indication that he disapproved of any sleep pattern that resulted in a long period of inattention toward himself. Looking at her watch, Eve saw that she had slept for thirteen hours.

Now there’s a solution, she muttered. If I slept for the next two years, I wouldn’t be bothered by the fact that some medical maladroit thinks I’m dying.

She stumbled into the kitchen, fed the cat, and made herself a double espresso. On a normal morning she would have carried the coffee to her desk in the living room and started to work on one of the software help files she had been assigned to write. Up to now that activity had provided her with an adequate income. However, the majority of such work was being outsourced to the Third World. Her services, the company had recently informed her, would not be required much longer.

Instead of following her usual routine, she remained at the kitchen bar, staring morosely across the living room at her desk. The computer technician she had engaged to install new software had called her computer obsolete. Obsolete, she muttered. "My job, my computer, my answering machine, my cat. And now a verbally-challenged heart specialist tells me I might not last as long as they do. That is depressing."

She wondered if there was anyone she ought to notify. Somebody, surely. For one thing, there was Xanax to think of. Her ex was out of the question. He had never liked the cat, and in fact, may have started supporting a mistress out of their joint bank account because he felt that Eve cared more about the cat than she cared about him. When in the last week of their marriage Eve found out about the mistress, she haughtily told him he was right and there were good reasons for that. The cat was more affectionate, more loyal, and, kitty litter notwithstanding, easier to pick up after.

Eve thought of her sister who worked for a refugee agency in Africa and her brother on a ship in Antarctica trying to stop the Japanese slaughter of whales in what was supposed to be a marine mammal sanctuary. Not only did that make her siblings poorly situated to take Xanax, it also meant that they were unlikely to feel compelled to leave what they were doing and return to commiserate with her. She found herself agreeing with their probable view of the situation. How did the impending demise of one person and care of a single cat compare to the monstrous amounts of suffering and death they were witnessing and trying to prevent? Her parents, serious social justice activists now retired and living in Costa Rica, would probably see it that way, too.

Her family was not religious and neither was she; thus she belonged to no church whose members would faithfully pray over her, take credit if she survived, and if she didn’t, whisper, It was God’s will. Working from home meant that she was not a member of a union and had no office mates. She did belong to a health club, but those acquaintances were so superficial that when she met them on the street fully clothed she had difficulty remembering where she knew them from. So who did that leave? Shop keepers? Her auto mechanic? Neighborhood kids whose names she didn’t know even though she had recently earned thank-yous from them with enough Halloween candy to rot every tooth in their darling little monster-costumed heads?

Eve gave up and faced the fact that the only people she actually knew in this city where she had lived for almost two years were the members of her writing group. It was a stretch to say you knew people you interacted with in a single context, but it had not taken long for her interpersonal radar to tell her that the men in the group offered no romantic possibilities—at least, not for her. Pi was a grad student almost a decade younger, Scott a retired professor at least twenty years older, and Hector so ancient that he frequently described himself as having one foot in the grave.

She liked the three women in the group enough to spend time with them in the twice-monthly meetings, but had not put her insecurities to the test by pursuing a closer relationship with any of them. Lisette, for all her pixy charm, had such a sophisticated aura that simply sitting next to her made Eve felt like a social klutz. Chelsea’s natural beauty was enhanced by enough high-octane pheromones to snare the attention of every male in the vicinity. And Raynee, barely twenty-one, was so coolly self-sufficient that she regularly went mushing in the mountains for a weekend of winter camping, totally alone except for her team of huskies.

Eve's conclusion was that chemistry between members of the group, while not negative enough to be abrasive, wasn't positive enough to facilitate genuine friendships. The best they had managed in the year they had been meeting was a degree of mutual acceptance regarding the very limited bits they chose to reveal about themselves to each other, mostly through their writing. Eve was not inclined to jeopardize that paper-thin connection by mentioning what she had just learned about her own precarious existence, let alone admit the toll it was taking on her emotional stability.

In the brief time since Dr. Lerner had exploded his land mine—or rather, told her she had one in her chest that might explode at any time—she had cycled through denial, anger, panic, and depression. After being battered by tsunami-sized waves of each, she found that anger offered the best flotation device. Besides being the least painful, it was also the easiest to conceal with sardonic humor, which had been her go-to cover-up since adolescence.

Chapter 2

Eve left her apartment in Vancouver’s Kitsilano neighborhood and drove slowly to the Dunbar area, hoping that by the time she arrived at the Rosen home, others in the writing group would have gone inside. She did not trust herself to mention the thing uppermost in her mind in a rational way, or want the challenge of dissembling if someone noticed she was upset and asked what was wrong. It was all too new, too heavy, and too private. Why should she trust that pup Dr. Lerner anyway? She might seek a second opinion. Or maybe she wouldn’t. After all, having an incurable disease was not exactly something she wanted confirmed.

Fearing a return of the panic that had gripped her on waking, or a wave of anger like the one that had caused her to smash a bottle of calcium pills against the wall when she realized how ridiculous it was to take supplements aimed at preventing osteoporosis in old age when she was never going to reach old age, she focused on a minor but more immediate concern. She had nothing to present at this evening’s workshop.

In the year she had been attending these meetings she hadn’t even started the book she fantasized writing, but she usually managed to dash off a short humor piece. That was a ploy she had developed as far back as college, when she learned that in the absence of a well-researched paper, she could often earn a passing grade by writing something that amused the professor. But since the visit to Dr. Lerner she had found it difficult to see the funny side of things. She could, of course, simply tell a story. The fact that it wasn’t written down might go unnoticed. No topic came to mind but she had a talent for spontaneity that usually came to her aid in such situations.

Eventually Eve reached the Rosen's neighborhood and parked on the street in front of their house. As she sat musing in her Mazda, other members of the group began to arrive. First was Raynee in a rusted-out pickup with a camper shell. Raynee’s warm-weather uniform of cut-offs and braless t-shirts had recently given way to cargo pants and hoodies that made her look, from a distance, like a teenaged boy. Raynee was the only young person she knew who had not a single visible tattoo or body piercing—not even for earrings. Eve wondered, not for the first time, what non-conformist impulse caused a twenty-one-year-old to eschew the norms of her own generation like that.

Raynee had just entered the house when Lisette arrived in her Smart Car, a vehicle that seemed especially suitable for someone so petite. Like Eve, Lisette was in her mid-thirties, but they had little else in common. Lisette claimed to be from Quebec but her accent was decidedly Parisian, and her style—which today consisted of perfectly-fitted jeans topped by an expensive suede jacket with matching suede boots and a pert beret perched atop short black curls—was as European as her French name. Lisette’s contribution to the writing group was poetry, much of it highly erotic. Yet her present situation was a mystery. The poems offered no clue to whether she was single, married, divorced, or what.

Pi Lee’s Porsche pulled into the driveway behind Lisette’s Smart Car. At the same time, Scott McLeod parked his Prius behind Eve’s Mazda. Scott, like Eve, always parked at the curb, even though there was room for one more car in the driveway. Chelsea, who rarely arrived on time, would park her VW bug there if and when she showed up.

Scott unwound his long legs and got out of the car. He was wearing jeans and a sweater, which was all she had ever seen him wear, even when he was teaching the Latin American history class where they had met. He was also wearing a floppy toque that gave him a slightly goofy appearance. After a moment’s hesitation, perhaps realizing that it was not that cold, he pulled the toque off and tossed it onto the car seat—a gesture that left his longish grey-blond hair sticking out in several directions.

"Buenos tardes, Compañero Profesor," Eve called out in Spanish so poorly pronounced as to make him smile, which was her intent.

She liked Scott, liked everyone in the group for that matter, but had made no effort to get to know more about them than what they chose to reveal at the meetings. Learning more about other people invariably led to their learning more about you, and as Eve saw it, that offered no advantage to them or to her. She was pretty sure that sardonic humor and quick smiles were her best things. Scratch below that and she supposed there was not much to admire. Especially now.

As Eve and Scott walked up the leaf-strewn sidewalk to the house, he gestured toward Pi’s Porsche. Pretty fancy wheels for a recent graduate.

Eve shrugged. Probably stolen.

Scott’s eyebrows went up in surprise. You’re not suggesting that our Pi might be the real life hero of one of his bloodthirsty crime stories?

Eve realized that her meant-to-be-humorous remark had sounded snide, and backtracked. Actually he probably went from university straight into a six-figure salary. Top-of-the-class PhD’s can do that nowadays, can’t they?

So I’ve heard. But when I asked Pi what he was up to these days, he said he was still considering career options.

Oh well. Maybe he’s part of the one percent for whom work is purely optional.

Anything’s possible. Scott smiled, and reached around her to ring the doorbell.

They heard Golda commanding Hector to answer the door, and Hector’s cranky response, Damn it, Golda, it’s your group. Why do I have to play doorman? And in a louder voice, presumably meant for them, Let yourself in! Door’s not locked.

Eve twisted the knob to no avail. "The door is locked! she shouted, pounding on it with her fist. Please, Hector, let us in! There are vampires out here!"

They heard Hector’s chuckle as he shuffled to the door. Liar, he growled. There’s not enough blood in this neighborhood to attract vampires. And if you’ve brought one along in a story, I’ll throw you both out.

Who’s a liar? Eve countered, giving him a peck on the cheek. How dare you call us Golda’s group when you know perfectly well we belong to you, body and soul?

Then get your body in here, wench. Your soul, too, if it’s fit for civilized company. And to Scott, Close the door, man. You’re letting cold air in.

With that Hector thumped off in the direction of the dining room, muttering, Age has privileges, you know. Hector made no secret of the fact that in his opinion, one of these was the privilege of ignoring conventional courtesies.

It was reasonable for Hector to call it Golda’s group, since it had been formed at her behest. She had gone about asking people, including total strangers, if they would like to participate, the way some Jewish mothers ask everyone they encounter if they know any nice single girls who might like to meet their unmarried sons. In a remarkably short time Golda had assembled six amateur writers interested in meeting twice monthly to receive what she assured them would be professional guidance from her husband.

However, once those she recruited revealed their questionable abilities and even more questionable commitment to the craft of writing, Hector’s interest in leading the group, never strong, dropped off considerably. What guidance he did offer was less about technique than simple encouragement. Most of them, like Eve, had more trouble getting it out than getting it right.

Initially meetings rotated from one person’s home to the other, but that had proven impractical. Hosting was not a problem for Scott, a widower who lived alone. Nor was it much of a problem for Eve, as it inconvenienced only her cat, who merely retreated to the bedroom when strangers intruded into his space. Chelsea’s flatmate Victoria was almost as resentful as the cat and a good deal more vocal about being, as she put it, crowded off her own couch by a bunch of wannabe writers.

By contrast, the five dogs who shared Raynee’s garage apartment seemed delighted to meet new people. However, having hyperactive huskies poking noses into your crotch and slobbering you with their version of hospitality was not conducive to anybody’s literary efforts except, possibly, Raynee’s.

Pi had said that he could not host the writing group at his apartment but if hosting was a criterion for belonging, he would hire a conference room when his turn came around. Nobody thought it fair to put him to that expense, so Lisette offered to host on Pi’s nights as well as her own. Once the group had experienced the serene atmosphere of her exquisitely-decorated condo, everyone was ready to accept her offer—except Golda.

Hector is eighty-two years old, she reminded them. He doesn’t drive anymore and you know what taxis cost in this city. Why not have all the meetings at our house?

When Hector visibly sagged, Golda had responded to his lack of enthusiasm by throwing up her hands in a gesture that no one construed as defeat. Believe me, Hector! I am not interested in participating. Between bridge and my book club and corresponding with friends, where would I find the time? But I could contribute coffee and cheesecake by way of refreshments. You’d like that, wouldn’t you?

Hector brightened at the promise of cheesecake and coffee, an apparent relaxation of the strict diet Golda kept him on. Eve had wondered if hosting might be too much for a woman Golda’s age, but said nothing. No one else objected either, probably because parking had been a problem everyplace else. At the Rosen's there was room for four vehicles in the driveway and no resident sticker was required to park on the street. Also, it was within a twenty-minute drive of where the others lived.

And it was comfortable. The living-dining area was a large room divided by artfully-placed Oriental screens. The end nearest the kitchen was dominated by a black lacquered dining table big enough for the group to assemble without feeling crowded. Apart from table and chairs, the only furniture at that end of the room was a matching black lacquered sideboard. It always held an arrangement of fresh flowers, and on the nights they met, also held everything Golda needed to serve coffee, tea, Hector’s decaf, and one of her splendid cheesecakes.

• • •

Hector took his place at the head of the table, and Scott, as usual, pulled up a chair at the opposite end. Eve sat down next to Lisette and smiled across the table at what she thought of as the kids. It wasn't the age of Raynee and Pi, plus Chelsea who hadn’t arrived yet, that caused her to think of the three Millennials that way; it was that they lacked the stability she associated with adulthood. What little Eve knew about them led her to believe that their living arrangements and work situations were impermanent if not precarious.

Pi, who sat between Raynee and Chelsea, rarely offered one of his stories for critique, causing Eve to wonder why he even chose to participate. She assumed it had to do with the fact that he and the Rosen's grandson Danny had been classmates. Upon earning their doctorates in geothermal physics, the Rosen boy took a job abroad, but Pi had remained in Vancouver. He probably had been recruited by Golda the way she recruited her husband: with a combination of cajoling and cheesecake. Like Scott, Pi always wore jeans, but there the similarity ended. Pi was almost a foot shorter and had a head of thick black hair. His jeans held a razor crease and were worn with a crisp white dress shirt that looked as if the laundry plastic had just been removed.

Eve was speculating about Pi’s age and ethnicity—he looked Asian—and whether he really was one of the wealthy one percent when Chelsea arrived.

Sorry I’m late, she exclaimed breathlessly. Have I missed the status reports?

Hector ran his fingers through thick white locks as untamed as Albert Einstein’s, and said irritably, Not this time. Did you finish that article on illegal logging?

Chelsea slid into her seat with a bosom-heaving sigh. No, I’ve been too crazy running from paper to paper trying to get a job. They say investigative reporting is passé and they don’t have a budget for that sort of thing and readers aren’t interested anyway.

So do an investigative piece on spec. If it’s good enough, somebody will buy it, Hector urged, and moved on. Pi?

Not today, Pi said indifferently. He glance toward Raynee. How about you?

Raynee looked down the table at Hector. I’ve got a new story pretty much done, but I want to go over it once more. Just so you don’t jump on me about my grammar.

Don’t make mistakes and you won’t get jumped on, Hector shot back. "Did you buy Strunk and White like I told you?"

Got it from the library, Raynee mumbled.

Buy one, Hector instructed. It’s something you’ll need for reference as long as you call yourself a writer.

I have several grammar books kicking around, Scott told her. I’ll bring one for you. He gave the others an apologetic look. My turn? I’m afraid I haven’t got anything to discuss.

Of course you have, Hector barked. Either we discuss your writing or we discuss why you’re not writing.

Scott took a breath, and confessed. When I was diagnosed with prostate cancer three years ago, writing an autobiography seemed like a way to get some perspective on a life that had been pretty good so far but seemed likely to go to hell before my sixtieth birthday. Now that the cancer seems to have been licked, I’m thinking that maybe I should wait another decade or two. By then I might have something interesting to write about.

Chelsea gave a bracelet-jangling wave of dismissal. What does age have to do with it? Lots of young celebrities write their autobiographies. If they don’t die right away, they can write a sequel later on.

The chapters you’ve read to us so far were interesting, Raynee offered. Growing up in Florida, the Civil Rights movement—I loved hearing about that stuff.

"And getting from Florida to British Columbia—that kind of culture shock could be the basis for a TV series, like Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy," Eve deadpanned, hoping that this time her attempt at humor wouldn’t fall flat.

Lisette tilted her head thoughtfully, I have read autobiographies about lives that were ordinary but so well-written that I enjoyed them. I have also enjoyed poorly-written ones simply because the author’s experiences or ideas were so interesting.

Scott smiled. Thanks, ladies. That’s a lot to think about.

The room fell silent. They were all looking at Eve, anticipating more of the humor they had come to expect of her.

I, uh— There was a second of mental blankness, then what Eve thought of as her natural nonsensical nature came to the rescue. I was working on this piece about, uh, about a couple trying to make a baby, where the wife gets poked and prodded through a whole battery of tests. After months of lab-hopping hell, the doctor finally decides to test the husband. Turned out that their fertility problem was ‘lazy sperm’.

Lazy sperm? echoed several voices.

Yep. Caused by spending too much time in the hot tub.

Pi’s mouth opened in surprise. Can hot tubs cause that?

Oh, Pi! Chelsea laughed. You know Eve. It’s a joke.

Once they found the problem, did the couple in your story go ahead and have a kid? Rayne wanted to know.

Eve smiled. Already they had forgotten that her story was unwritten, and were discussing one she had merely sketched orally. Nope. They got a divorce.

Why would they divorce over something like that? Scott asked.

Because they didn’t have a hot tub.

Then how—? Lisette began, but Eve interrupted.

The husband’s mistress, formerly the wife’s best friend, had one.

So this is lazy sperm thing for real? Pi asked again.

Real and personal. Which not only explains why I never had a kid, but also why I no longer have a husband, Eve replied