His Name was Ben Read online

  “Mike, you’re off early.” Ben, eyeing the mirror as he spoke, thought his skin looked lighter from when he was in Palo Alto.

  “How are you?”

  “I think I’m doing better. Zimmerman has me on some drug. I’ve got less nausea.”

  “You still have any?”

  “Yeah, but it depends on what I eat,” he grinned. “I’ve been fudging it a bit.”

  “That’ll do it.” Michael was distracted by the voice of a woman in the background. “Hold on a minute… Candace, I’m on the phone with Ben.”

  “You’re both home?” referring to the fact that Michael and his wife usually worked late most weeknights.

  “Yeah, we’re going to a dinner tonight. She’s getting an award for her work with the Pediatric Center.”

  “You’re a good team.” Watching his reflection in the mirror turn serious, Ben asked, “Any word from the folks?”

  “The usual. Have you talked to them?”

  “Who’s to talk to? I haven’t been in touch with them for months.”

  “You haven’t told them?” asked Michael.

  “No, and I don’t plan to.”

  Chapter Five

  In the days that followed, with several treatments under her belt, Sara’s stamina began to increase, which enabled her to get out for short walks with Taz. Regaining strength prompted her to do catch-up housework and handle a few odds and ends that had fallen into disrepair. Becoming more motivated, she embarked on the first good spring-cleaning she’d done in two years. While dusting her bookshelves, she thumbed through a photo album, appreciating how she appeared in better times. She smiled at a snapshot of herself, a slim, well-framed, woman with radiant chameleon hazel eyes, long curly, reddish-brown hair tied back in a twisty, and a speckling of freckles around her cheeks. I hated those freckles while growing up, she laughed, until they became fashionable on models in magazines.

  Coming across a picture taken a few months before the surgery, she looked at her fully formed beautiful breasts with just enough cleavage showing, a sad reminder of the torment she went through as she prepared for a double mastectomy. Then the sorrow was endless, wave upon unrelenting wave crashing in on her. With each surge of tears came the memories: her first bra, the first time a boy unlatched it and touched her breasts, hands roaming sensually on nipple stimulation bringing her close to orgasm, and how good her breasts looked in a bathing suit or a low-cut dress.

  The restless night before the operation, standing in front of her mirror sobbing, she caressed her bosom, watching her nipples expand and contract, fondling the curves, the smoothness, and feeling for the mass that she wanted to rip off her chest. “Go away!” At close to three in the morning, when crying failed to exhaust her, she phoned Ellen, “I can’t sleep.”

  “Do you want me to come over?”

  “Why did this happen?”

  “Sara, is there anything I can do for you?” Ellen’s heartbreak bled from every word.

  “I can’t stop thinking.” Floods of agony poured over an inconsolable Sara. “I feel like I’m going insane.”

  “Did you take what they gave you for sleep?”

  “It didn’t work,” she pounded a fist on her pillow.

  “Take another one.”

  “I already did.”

  “Make yourself a warm bath and get in. I’m coming over.”

  Two weeks into the chemotherapy, when the trauma from the surgery started to calm, another emotional crisis flared when Sara started to lose handfuls of her hair. “I’ve lost my femininity,” she cried to Ellen. “Am I still a woman?”

  “Sara, it’s the loss talking. It’ll pass, just hang in there.”

  “Easy for you to say when it’s not happening to you!” she protested. “I hate my ugly body!”

  “How you’re feeling is not how you look. Your body is beautiful. Your hair will grow back.”

  Fury turning to tears, “My breasts won’t,” Sara broke down. Four weeks after completing the first round of chemo, her hair started to return. “Things are looking better,” she told Ellen.

  Sara stared at the photo of herself at a perfect weight before she became ill, remembering how self-conscious she felt when Ben first looked at her. What’d he think of my scrawny figure? Wearing clothes to cover up her bony limbs, she worried, When am I going to get my appetite back so I can put some meat on?

  Later that afternoon at her computer she typed in the name Ben Gottlieb, with nothing of any value coming to the screen. Images of his strong facial features surfaced, those astonishing blue eyes, and she pondered if there was more to him than his good looks. From the gentleness in his voice she surmised he was a kind man. Her reverie was curtailed when Tazzie nuzzled that she wanted a walk.

  As appointments continued at UCLA, Sara spoke with other patients who raved about their positive results. She, too, was experiencing encouraging changes. Sleeping through the night was more commonplace. Probably, she thought, because I have the strength to take longer walks. Each day as her fortitude increased so did her morale and fantasizing about Ben. Nightmares intermingled with new visions of pleasure. On one particular night she dreamed of floating on a wave, moving up and down riding the curl to shore where a lifeguard in the buff was on duty, his muscles glistening in the sun. Just as he offered to oil her down, she awoke with her hand on her crotch inside her pajama bottoms masturbating. Reaching to the nightstand, she got her vibrator out of the drawer. Thoughts of absent breasts, no nipples left to stimulate, ran through her mind. Don’t go there. I don’t need to dwell. Kicking off her pajama bottoms, she spread her legs and continued to work the rhythmic motion over her clitoris until spasms rose up her spine and exploded into tiny energy particles scattering over her body. Off came the internal physical and emotional suppression from months of anguish with chemo and radiation. I love sex!

  She recalled her first sexual encounter, experimenting in high school at sixteen. Her first orgasm didn’t happen until she was nineteen, in college, when her sensuality awakened. The ultimate turn-on was marrying Henry. The sparks never had a chance to die by the time he dumped her, three years into their marriage, for a metaphysical cult he was involved in. After that, she shied away from sentimental investments with men. Now, speculating about Ben was opening her up to what she hoped might turn into something promising.

  Appreciating the last of the tingling sensation yet in her body, she instinctively knew, My sex drive is returning—I bet the treatment is working.

  Chapter Six

  Sara was right. And the treatments continued to progress at an intense pace with minimal side effects—mild flu-like symptoms, slight fever and muscle aches—that were less severe the longer she was on them. In only a few weeks, the night sweats diminished and her appetite was returning. As she became stronger, she persisted in her mission to find information about Ben.

  “Did you check into his area code?” asked Ellen.

  “I hadn’t thought of that.”

  “You might get some results.”

  It turned out to be useful advice. The phone number and name led her to a Ben Gottlieb who lived in Palo Alto, an attorney who worked at NASA. Why would he be seeing Zimmerman when there’s Stanford and UCSF up there? It didn’t make sense. “He lives in Palo Alto,” she told Ellen.

  “You found that in the search?”

  “Yeah, but what’s he doing down here?”

  “Good question. You going to call him?”

  When it came right down to it Sara was afraid to be with a man, fearful that she’d look disfigured to him. This fear ran deep in her to a confused jumble that lived in the murky recesses of her psyche, in subconscious lifelong incidents that started bubbling up in nightmares shortly after her mastectomies. What she had successfully kept blocked for so many years was creeping back in, one dream, one image, and one memory at a time—the pieces of a puzzle that had not yet formed a whole picture. But, entertaining the idea of receiving affirmation from Ben that she was attractive wa
s a salve. And wanting to feel normal, she continued to obsess over him. Programming Ben’s number into her cellphone, she imagined him at the other end, smiling when he saw it ringing. This is nuts! Vacillating between old flirty patterns and her hesitation, she played with her phone, opening it to his name and closing it. I’m getting nowhere fast.

  “Well?” Ellen repeated, “You going to phone him?”

  Squirming in her seat, a meek “No” escaped as Sara’s heart pounded in her head.

  “You’re gonna drive yourself nuts if you don’t make the call,” Ellen laughed.

  “It’s not funny,” whined Sara.

  “I know. I’m not laughing at you. It just came out.”

  Sara, a bundle of tension, remained quiet.

  “Tell me, what do you think is going to happen if you do it?” asked Ellen.

  “I don’t want to lie about why I’m phoning, and I feel silly telling him.”

  “Just phone and be honest about it. Say you’d like to meet him. Maybe it would help both of you?”

  “Hmm…” Sara groaned.

  “You don’t have to do it, if you don’t want to.”

  Clicking a nail on her tooth, “I’m stuck,” Sara looked out her bedroom window at a squirrel on an overhead wire, running back and forth.

  “Talk to me.”

  “Maybe it’s too soon for me to be contemplating meeting someone. It’s so stupid…he’s a cancer patient.”

  “So are you, Sara. You’re also a woman. And if the cancer taught you anything, it’s to live while you can. No guarantees for tomorrow.”

  Sara shot back, “Oh, that’s helpful.”

  “I’m not being disparaging. Listen to me. We’ve both seen it in the ER. We collectively walk around deluded that the future is a guarantee when we know it’s not true.”

  “Yeah.”

  “I understand your predicament. I sense your pain. I sure as hell don’t want you doing something that’ll compromise your treatments, but I also know you. I know what a relationship with a man could mean for you. We both do.”

  “Relationship? Who’s talking about that? I just want to meet him. What kind of future could there be between us?”

  “What do you think is going on? You can’t stop thinking about him and I hear the animation in your voice.”

  “El, I don’t know what to do.” Sara switched the receiver to nestle it between her left cheek and shoulder. She rubbed the sore spot on her right ear.

  “Follow your heart. Let it do the walking. And for God’s sake Sara, don’t lose sight of the gift you’ve received getting on the study. It’s a miracle. Try entertaining some gratitude and keep your perspective on where you were a few weeks back.”

  As shadows of the sun drifted behind the mountains, Sara knew they’d been on the phone for over an hour and that Ellen would continue as long as she needed her. “Ellen!”

  “Yes?”

  “I love you!”

  “It’s mutual.”

  Fumbling with the phone, she looked at Tazzie and remembered when she first saw her at the shelter whimpering to be free. Sara’s life had been empty until she got a dog. Having a pet gave her the companionship she lacked with friends at school. It also taught her that there were other ways to be, not filled with pretense, being polite to win favor, or telling others what they wanted to hear to gain acceptance, which never helped build friendships anyway. Sara got down on the floor next to Tazzie. “I don’t think I can do it.”

  Taz, forehead wrinkled and head titled to one side, looked like she wondered what the trouble was. She relaxed back down and rolled over to show her underside, as if to say, Be open. I’m here. We’ll get through this together.

  “Thank you, girl.”

  The next morning Sara woke to her dog’s licking, Feed me. Sara grabbed hold of her, rubbed a hand over the dog’s saddle region sending her leg moving—the harder she scratched, the faster it went. “Got your sweet spot, girl?” Her hand on Taz’s chest moved up and down to the motion of the dog’s breathing, bringing home the mystery and marvel of living things. It’s astonishing how any of this happens. My heart beats twenty-four-seven along with my lungs working tirelessly. This moment is all there is. Perspective, I mustn’t lose it, despite my insecurities.

  Sara got up, fed Taz, and made herself a cup of coffee. By a stroke of luck, her phone rang and it was Zimmerman who called to let her know her last set of lab results were starting to show improvements. “What does this mean?” she asked.

  “The drug is taking hold,” he replied, and went on to say it was what they wanted to see. “Follow-up tests will be done but we’re on the road now.”

  “Wow, thanks! You just made my day!” I’ve been blessed with a second chance. She reflected back on the last two years and remembered what Ellen said to her about gratitude. Ellen’s right.

  Inhaling the fumes of caffeine brought back the last treatment she’s had, sitting around with other patients and a nurse who was raving about the successes. “It’s a miracle drug. I’ve never seen anything like it throughout my years of practice.” Sara thought the nurse just wanted to make her feel good, until she met one of the women from an earlier trial. “I had metastases to my brain and bones. They’re 90 percent resolved.” The words were not important compared to the glow on the woman’s face, a walking miracle of cheer and goodwill energizing everyone around her. There were others, even one more dramatic—a complete cure. At first Sara choked on these stories but slowly accepted they were real, as if she was seeing the Resurrection with her very own eyes.

  Distracted by Taz’s food dish banging around indicating it was empty signaled Sara it was time to take her for a walk. With fresh air, the encouragement from Zimmerman, and contemplation clearing her head, she decided to contact Ben. Worst-case scenario, he wouldn’t be interested and she runs into him at Zimmerman’s. So what? She felt more confident. If I don’t do anything, then nothing happens. When ten o’clock rolled around, she dialed.

  Ben was toweling off from his shower when he heard his cell phone ring. Opening it to a strange number and no message, he wondered if it might be someone connected with Zimmerman. He hit return and when a woman answered said, “This is Ben Gottlieb. Did you just try to reach me?” He tightened the grip on his towel and went to sit on his bed while he listened to a strange new voice fumbling to say something intelligent, and then he remembered. “You’re the one sitting next to me my first day at Zimmerman’s?”

  Sara shifted about feeling foolish that she’d attempted such a dumb move. Thoughts of anything worthwhile vanished, confidence gone, as she withered with embarrassment, and “Yes” was all she thought to say.

  Clearly taken aback, he asked, “Did they give you my number?”

  “No, absolutely not.” She tried to think of some lie, something less humiliating than she spied on him because he was cute and she was being nosy, but her mind went blank.

  “Hello.”

  “Yes, I’m still here. Please hear me out for a minute.”

  Ben waited.

  “I noticed when you filled out your form.”

  “Um-hum.”

  “And, well,” she coughed, “excuse me.”

  Squeezing his grip on the phone, “Can you get to the point? I need to get going.”

  “I saw your number and memorized it,” shot out.

  “You did what?”

  The edge in his speech sent a hot flush through her belly. “Please let me explain why.”

  “I don’t have time for this. You’ve got a lot of nerve. That is personal information.”

  “I know. I’m sorry.”

  “I have to go. I trust you’ll delete my number and leave me alone.”

  “Wait! We both have cancer. What’s the harm? Please don’t hang up.”

  Again he went silent, waiting.

  “What do you have to lose by just listening to me?” Not hearing him hang up, she continued, “Zimmerman is my doctor. I would have assumed you had cancer even if
I hadn’t seen the form. All his patients…he’s an oncologist. And I know most are palliative. That’s his specialty.”

  “Why are you phoning me?”

  “You caught my attention, we had a few nice words, and I figured out why not get in touch with you.” Courageously, she told him she’d just been approved to be on a clinical trial, the only positive news she’d had in over two years, the same day he came for his first visit, and clarified why she had waited this long, several weeks, to phone him. “I wanted to start my study first,” she explained. “I was afraid that it might not work and I’d be in no shape to connect with a new friend. It’s been going well.”

  Intrigued with the success she was having with the treatments, it hadn’t dawned on him that she was attracted to him. “So then, why now?”

  “I’ve had you on my mind. I’d like to meet you.”

  Oddly amused and now understanding her flirtation, the sensual softening of her voice, he smiled. “I’m presently not in a good place to meet women. I hope you’ll understand that I’m…”

  “Ben,” taking the liberty to call him by his first name, “I’ve lived through it. Perhaps I can offer you something no one else can?” Nervously doodling squiggles on a notepad, “And now being on the study myself… Plus, I’m also an NP.”

  “NP?”

  “Nurse practitioner. Sorry.”

  That changed the equation. “Oh,” he responded.

  Hearing the shift in his tone helped her feel more composed, and after a few minutes she convinced him it might not be a bad idea for them to get together. He would be in Oxnard the following Wednesday for an office visit with Zimmerman, and they could meet somewhere in Ventura County for a cup of coffee.

  Enthusiastically, she chose the place and gave him directions.

  “See you then,” he hung up.