CHAPTER 2: WHY DO YOU LIKE THIS MOVIE SO MUCH

“Why do you like this movie so much?” Kelly asked, as she reached over and grabbed a handful of popcorn. Salty with paprika sprinkled over the top, just the way we liked it. “It’s a mentally-disturbed boy who sees a human rabbit.”

I had known Kelly since seventh grade, when she sat next to me on the first day of school and turned up her nose at the cover of my notebook, which I had adorned with a picture of Jake Gyllenhaal. We then proceeded to debate about his merits and flaws, which led her to seriously question my judgment and tastes in men, something that had not changed almost twenty years later.

We now sat in the two armchairs in my tiny, cramped living room. It was the day after I had broken up with Brian, and I decided it was time for Kelly to know as well.

So I called her up, to watch my favorite Jake Gyllenhaal movie for the tenth time (I keep track), to which she at first balked, but I told her I had important news.

“Precisely,” I said. “It’s a mentally-disturbed boy who sees a human rabbit everywhere he goes.”

“Fascinating,” Kelly said.

“What if I’m mentally-disturbed too?” I said. “What if I’m seeing a human rabbit everywhere I go?”

“But you hate rabbits.”

“Maybe a human cat?”

“So, like, Cats.”

On screen, Jake Gyllenhaal got up from the bed and walked out of his room, dazed and in a trance.

“He’s so cute,” I said.

“But now he’s hot. Like really hot,” Kelly replied. “And hot is always better than – ”

“I have cancer,” I said.

“ – cute.”

Kelly stopped still. Her hand was midway through lifting out a handful of popcorn, the most literal representation of “caught in the act” if there ever was one.

“Sorry?” she blinked.

“I have cancer,” I said again. "I went to the doctor’s yesterday and he told me."

“No,” she whispered, staring at me.

I stared back.

She realized I wasn’t joking. “We’re watching a movie!”

It was exactly like how I had envisioned it when I had told her about it in my head, half an hour ago.

“What kind?”

“Breast,” I said.

“Like your mother."

Also foreseen.

“Yes, like my mom,” I said.

“You’re... gonna start chemo?” she asked.

I took a deep breath. “Yes. Possibly. And of course a mastectomy.”

“The whole breast,” Kelly said. She removed her hand from the popcorn bucket.

“Yes,” I said. “It’s gone too far to just be a lumpectomy.”

“Okay,” Kelly said. "You told Brian?"

"I broke up with Brian."

Kelly’s mouth dropped open. "Shit!"

I shook my head. "I don’t want to talk about it. It was just a mess. Too unfair for him, you know, and I don’t want him to be saddled with me everyday, when he’s so busy."

There was a pause, and she almost looked embarrassed to ask it. “Where is it?”

“Here,” I said. I lifted up my shirt with ease – a result of twenty years of best friendship – and felt through my bra.

It was small and hard, a little lump located deep in the tissue that, if I didn’t actively press and look for it, I would not have detected. Each time I pressed it, I felt just a little pressure on the muscle and blood below, along with the instinctive knowledge that it didn’t belong in there.

When I found it, I held on to it with one hand, while guiding Kelly’s hand to my breast with the other.

“It’s small,” Kelly said.

“It’s not about the size,” I said. “It’s about how intense it spreads, how aggressive it moves through the body.”

Kelly pulled her hand away. “When did you notice it?"

"Last month. And then I scheduled a consult with Dr. Elkins. My mom’s doc."

Kelly looked unsure. "What are you going to do?”

I shrugged. “Fight the good fight, right? Like my mom did. That’s the only way.”

“Yeah.”

“But,” I took a deep breath. “Maybe not."

I turned back to the TV screen, where Jake was now standing in his front yard, facing a large grey humanoid rabbit.

Kelly picked up the remote and pressed a button. The screen froze on the image of the rabbit, so he just stood there, glaring at the two of us from inside the television.

“What do you mean, maybe not?” Kelly demanded. “You’re going to give up? You can’t give up.”

I laughed. “I’m a lover, not a fighter.”

Despite the expression on her face, Kelly laughed, and I felt such a strong feeling of love for her at that moment.

She grabbed the bucket of popcorn from me and put it on the side table next to the armchairs. Then she took both my hands in hers, our greasy fingers intertwining.

“No, seriously,” Kelly said. “You don’t want to?”

“You know,” I said. “I’ve seen my mom go through this. I was there, holding her hand, in the hospital, by the bed, hours and hours on end. She puked, she shat over herself, she cried, she fell asleep, and she woke up and did the whole thing all over again.”

Kelly nodded, but I could tell she knew where this was going.

“I don’t want to do that, you know?” I said. “I want to...” I took a deep breath. “There’s a lot of things I haven’t done yet.”

“And you’d rather die than have the chance to do them?” Kelly asked, incredulous.

“Either way I die," I said. "It just depends if I die miserable... or die happy."

"It’s not mutually exclusive," Kelly said. "You can live, do what you wanna do... then seek treatment."

"Complete my bucket list, huh?" I said. "Cliche!"

"It’s commonly-known," Kelly corrected. "Because it’s true. What do you most want to do in life?"

I paused to consider. "To become - "

"No, no," Kelly cut me off. "Nothing about being editor, nothing about work."

"You asked me what I wanted most in life," I pointed out.

"Okay, apart from work," Kelly said. "Take the magazine out of the equation, take the whole Anna Wintour, editor expense-account thing away. What would you want to do?"

"I would want to travel," I said.

"Where to?" Kelly asked.

"Anywhere," I said.

"Be specific," Kelly said.

"Now I know what it feels like to be in your class," I laughed.

Kelly cocked an eyebrow. "No joke."

"Probably Asia," I said. "I mean, not China, land of my people and what-have-you. Other countries. It’s really big, and I’ve never been anywhere else."

Kelly nodded. "Then do that. Do that, get it out of your system... and come back for the treatment."

I felt uneasy. "I don’t know. Just splurge on a holiday like that?"

"Remember," Kelly said. "You want to be a happy girl now."

I nodded. She did have a point.

"So," Kelly said. "Do you want to change movie, or what?"

"Nice try," I said. "Unless it’s like, The Ring, or something."

Kelly got the message. She picked up the remote to unpause the picture of the humanoid rabbit on the screen, and handed me back the popcorn bucket.

***

The next day I went back in to run the tests Dr. Elkins had suggested. After collecting my blood samples, I sat in the same office - sterile, unfeeling, office - and waited for him to return.

The damn skeleton was still grinning at me. This time his head was tilted to the other side.

I couldn’t fight the urge anymore, so I stood up, walked to behind Dr. Elkins’ desk, and turned it face-down onto the surface.

The door clicked open. Dr. Elkins stepped in.

"Hello, Jenny," he said. "Everything okay?"

"Yes," I said. "Just checking out some of your props, here."

"Yes," Dr. Elkins said. "Skellan is pretty popular."

"Oh, he has a name?" I asked, trying not to be annoyed.

"Yes, Skellan has a name," Dr. Elkins said. "I bought him at a flea market downtown many years ago."

I returned to my seat as Dr. Elkins sat down. He set his file down on the table and looked at me.

"Now, I will ask this, but there is a practice we do here at this center," he said. "We arrange for a counsellor for each patient."

I nodded. I remembered, from the days with my mother.

"Do you think you will need one?" he asked.

I paused.

"It’s different, what you went through as a supporter of your mother, and what you have to go through," Dr. Elkins said, as though he had read my mind. "It’s completely up to you, but you have to be prepared mentally."

I felt a little pain in my hands, and I realized my right fingernails were digging into my left palm.

"Maybe I could try one session," I said.

***

After lunch, for the first time in two days, I finally returned to office, a seven-storey grey building sitting on the corner of Hyde and Leavenworth. The publishing company I worked at produced two of America’s biggest magazines - one for advertising and one for home decor.

My office was on the 5th floor - the home decor mag - right below the executive floors. It was an office full of the creative side of things, people walking around, sheets of paper with words and sketches gripped in their hands. Everyone seemed to be moving, seemed to be in flux.

Again, like what had happened at Dr. Elkins’ office, I felt a strange out-of-body sensation... like this four-wall structure I was walking into wasn’t real. That it would all collapse around me in a flash and I would just rise above into some ether.

It was a typical design-oriented office. A large sculpture of a man opening a door sat by the front reception desk, that greeted people as they came out of the elevator. Pretentious, but well-crafted single red leather armchairs lined the wall next to the sculpture, naturally leading entrants to the big mahogany reception counter.

As I came in, the sculpture felt imposing and... possessed, the right arm of the man opening the door somehow angled differently, as though he would reach out and close the fake art-installed door instead. Yet, the armchairs looked small and tiny, little transplants out of a strange and maudlin variant of Alice in Wonderland, welcoming guests to sit down and be STRANGLED.

Linda, a blonde woman wearing horn-rimmed glasses, glanced up as I entered, staring at the armchairs.

"You okay ther’, Jen?" she asked. She had a strong Southern accent.

"Huh?" I snapped out of my stupor.

"You were starin’ at the chairs," she said.

"Yeah, no, I"m good," I said.

"Had a lil’ break?" She asked.

"Um," I began. I had thought of a clear, well-rehearsed speech in my head, but the armchairs had thrown me off. "Just the usual, I went for a little spa, resting at home, catching up on Ellen."

"Sound like a good one. The way Nadia’s behavin’, ya gon’ need it," Linda said.

"That reminds me," I said. "She in?"

Linda checked the schedule on her computer. "You got ten minutes."

I thanked her. I crossed the open office, weaving past colleagues who either acknowledged my existence briefly or completely didn’t notice me. Straight in a line, headed for Nadia Kumala’s personal office.

The tall brunette behind the workdesk looked up when I opened the door and entered, without knocking.

If Dr. Elkins’ office was a lesson in tasteful restraint, Nadia Kumala’s Editor’s Office was a lesson in all-out shebang. The walls hung with multiple frames of random works of art that made absolutely no sense by themselves, let alone juxtaposed with one another. The floor was cluttered, stacked high with old issues of the magazine, creating a little obstacle maze race to the workdesk. Strange coffee stains - and the rumor goes, others too (although sex in this office would pose a physical danger) - littered its surface.

On a usual day, this office irked me, and on this particular day, I was so intensely disgusted by this office I almost wanted to throw up the moment I entered the office, just spill all my coffee and Nicoise all over this gaudy carpet.

"Jenny!" Nadia said. "Welcome back! How was the long weekend?"

"Great," I said. "Hey, I need to talk to you."

Nadia removed her glasses and placed them delicately next to the open MacBook in front of her. "I have five minutes, because I’m headed upstairs to talk to Brandon about the ad kit for next month. They’re lowering rates."

I was surprised. "Why?"

"Advertisers aren’t biting. Both offline and digital," she said.

I wanted to make a comment about it, but shook my head. "I... need to talk about my future here."

Nadia’s eyes narrowed. "Promotion talk? So soon?"

Direct woman, she was.

"No," I said. "I... have personal issues. Which was why I needed the little time off."

Nadia frowned. "What about?"

I took a deep breath, and tried to muster up sadness. "Break-up with Brian."

It was a convenient excuse.

"Oh!" Nadia cried. "Oh, babe, I’m so sorry!" Nadia stood up, smoothed out her pencil skirt, and stepped out from behind her desk to give me a hug. Her long arms formed a spacious ’O’ around me awkwardly, with plenty of space between her limbs and mine.

"It’s fine," I said. "But... I was thinking, I need a little break now."

Nadia pulled herself out from the awkwardness. "Three days before we go to print."

"Yes," I said.

"Jen," she said. "What break do you need?"

"A sabbatical," I said. "Maybe... a few days off."

"How long?"

I mustered up my courage. "A month."

"Can you do it... after we go to print?" Nadia asked.

I couldn’t tell her the truth. "I really need it."

Nadia’s lips flattened out into a thin line. "Jen, we all go through breakups. It’s not easy, I get it. You want to just drink, cry, drink somemore, drown yourself in the proverbial sorrows! I totally, hundred-percent get it. But," Nadia said, placing her hands on my shoulders - God, was that woman tall.

"But," she added. "I know you’ve been eyeing senior editor for a while now, and if I know anything about it, it’s that you get your way in the end and you won’t let a man do anything to jeopardize it."

"Yes," I admitted. "But I need a longer break this time. Just to sort out some things."

Nadia pursed lips did not open. "Between your mom dying and Brian... it’s tough. I get it. Trust me, I do."

No, you don’t.

"But it’s just three days. Three days, and I’ll give you two months off, how about that?" she offered.

Now it was my turn to purse my lips. "Okay," I said. "Three days, and then I need to go for two months. Thanks."

"Great," Nadia said, her voice unable to mask the mixture of relief and annoyance. "So, I need to run."

Nadia reached out behind me and picked up her Macbook. She smiled at me, a fake, "I-believe-now-I’m-being-friendly" smile, then pushed her way out of her office door.

She left me there, standing there alone, amidst the mess of colors and foreign objects, feeling mortified and weak, all the while wondering: How the hell did I let myself get to this horrific, horrific moment?

Next Chapter: A List of Places to See and Die In, Before You Die