Department of Lost and Found Read online

  “Sometimes, it was easier,” I continued. “To not have to struggle, not have to feel like it was a fight to tie him down. Ned was happy to be tied. He was my beta,” I explained. “And it worked.”

  “Until it didn’t.”

  “Funny how that happens,” I said.

  Jake and I started to become unhinged after about a year. It took nearly two more years for us to fully break, but the year mark is around when I saw the first clear signs. Before Sony made the Misbees into superstars in the United States, they decided to sell them abroad. Jake packed up his duffel bag, made love to me twice the night before, and let himself out to catch an early flight at dawn the next morning. I heard him whisper “I love you,” before he left, but I think I was too tired to manage one in return. He was gone for nearly six weeks.

  The first time he left it didn’t bother me so much. The next time, later that fall, it wasn’t as seamless. My grandfather had died; I wanted Jake home. But we both knew that he couldn’t be—Prague was too far gone to fly back for a day—so I didn’t place blame. But it’s hard to keep building a life together when “together” isn’t really part of the equation.

  Every time that he’d come home, I’d fall in love with him all over again. His returns were like my drug: I fantasized about them, fed off them, and ultimately told myself that they were enough to keep us alive. He’d bring me chocolates from Switzerland or roses from Austin, and he’d swear to me that he couldn’t bear to be without me for another day. He’d pour salve on both of our wounds and at least for that hour, it would be enough. As we neared our three-year anniversary, his road trips grew more frequent and our silences grew longer. The distance he put between us was more than literal: It penetrated every layer of our love.

  When I sat down on our couch and told him that I was broken, he tried to talk me out of it. But I shook my head no, and instead, on the day before our third anniversary, I helped him pack up his things, the things that collect over time in a relationship and become so much a part of your living space, it’s hard to imagine that there was a point when they weren’t there, and then we said good-bye. Before he left, he asked me again to take it back. I started crying and told him that I couldn’t.

  “I love you, Natalie,” he said, right before he closed my front door.

  “That’s not enough,” I answered, and watched him drag his suitcase down the hall.

  Two years later, I lay in my hospital bed with my chest wrapped in bandages and drugs running through my body to numb the pain. Only now, as I stared at Jake underneath the jarring lights of Sloan-Kettering, it felt as if the wounds that lay below my chest, the ones that had been carved around my heart, were the only ones that were beginning to heal.

  “HE’S STAYING IN town,” I said to Sally, who had taken my 911 call and immediately rushed to my bedside. I’d decided that if my physical exhaustion from the surgery didn’t kill me, perhaps my emotional exhaustion would.

  “He is NOT! Oh my God, what did he say?”

  “That he wasn’t going anywhere this time. That it was his turn to choose to stay instead of having me ask him.” I tried to fight back a smile.

  “But you didn’t ask him, did you? I mean, wait, how has this happened so fast?”

  “No.” I shook my head. “I didn’t. In fact, I very firmly told him that I was fine. That showing up here two years later acting like my knight in shining armor was a fine costume for him to slip into, but that the act would get old after a while.”

  “And what did he say?” She leaned in toward my bed.

  “He told me that it wasn’t an act. That he’d been thinking of me these past few months and that he was doing everything he could not to call me. And that when my mother e-mailed him, he took it to be a sign.”

  When Jake left after we split up, I asked him not to be in touch. He ignored me initially, still calling once a week or so, breaking up my thoughts on the tail end of a meeting or as I was unwinding from a draining day at work. He’d call but have nothing really to say. The first few times, he’d try to convince me to undo what I’d done. By the fourth or fifth time he called, he stopped asking, but I’d feel just as empty, just as scattered when we hung up as I did when he was still here. Every time we spoke, he drew me back into his web again. If he did it often enough, I’d never be able to untangle myself. Finally, I told him to stop calling at all.

  “Do you believe him?” Sally asked, as she got up to change the water in the flowers that the senator had sent over. “That he was thinking of you before this happened?”

  “Sure. Why not? I was dreaming about him—literally having dreams, so why shouldn’t I believe that he was doing the same?” It was true. I was having that dream again: the amusement park one where I was nearly suffocated with clowns and sand and claustrophobia. Only last week, when I looked up to see who saved me, who outstretched his hand to pull me out, it wasn’t a faceless blur, it was Jake.

  “So now what?” She plunked down on the foot of my bed.

  “Now he stays.” I looked at her and felt my nose tingle and my chin quiver. “Maybe it took cancer to bring him back to me.”

  “And you’re okay with that? That after two years, he’s sliding back in?” She put her hand on top of mine.

  “He’s not sliding. There’s no sliding. He loves me. And I could use someone in my corner right now.”

  “I’m in your corner. And besides, didn’t he love you back then?” she pointed out.

  “He did,” I conceded. “But maybe this time, it will be enough.”

  FIFTEEN

  I don’t know how I didn’t see it, but I guess when you’re doped up on Vicodin and confined to an adjustable bed (which I actually sort of enjoyed: with the press of a button, you’re in any position desired! Just like they say in the commercials!), things can get overlooked. So it wasn’t until my mom was doing a last-minute check to ensure that I hadn’t forgotten anything in the hospital room that she found it. It had fallen underneath my bed; it must have floated off the swivel tray where Carol placed my food and Sally stacked sundry magazines.

  “Do you need this?” My mom waved the sheet of paper in the air while still crouched down. I’d never actually seen her do anything even remotely like housework, so I just sat in my wheelchair and stared, mouth agape.

  “What is it?” I asked.

  She stood upright. “It looks like a note. From Zach.” Her eyebrows rose higher. In a momentary lapse of weakness (which were steadily increasing these days), I’d confided in my mom about the debacle of my stoned phone call. She handed it over to me.

  Natalie,

  I stopped by but you looked so peaceful sleeping that I didn’t want to wake you. Figured you could use the rest. Dr. Chin has kept me updated, and it sounds like we’re in the home stretch. I couldn’t be happier for you.

  If you need anything, please call. Really. Please do. Whatever weirdness came between us certainly isn’t worth you not allowing me to help.

  I know that you’ll be back on your feet and running the world in no time.

  Love,

  Zach

  I tucked it into my purse that was wedged beneath my arm in the wheelchair, then told my mom that I was ready. I surveyed the room: its view of the river, a crumpled gown near my desk, empty water bottles that never seemed to quench my thirst. And I decided I’d never be back.

  “Let’s go, Mom. Please take me home.”

  JAKE KISSED MY parents hello like he’d never been gone. Like two years hadn’t passed, and like, until three months ago, another man hadn’t taken his place in my bed. He supported my weight as I slowly rose from the wheelchair and hobbled into bed.

  “Dr. Chin told me that I should feel better by Monday,” I said, already offering up excuses for my own flimsiness.

  “I’m in no rush,” he replied while pulling back the covers. “And I dig your new method of transport. Can you do wheelies yet?” He smiled.

  I groaned and leaned into my pillows. I hated the damn wheelcha
ir, what it stood for, how it made me feel. “Don’t get used to it. I’m ditching it after the weekend.”

  I closed my eyes and overheard him talking to my mom in the living room. My parents were staying at a hotel in midtown, but he assured her that he’d look after me. I listened to him and wondered if he’d really do that this time: give me what I needed, even when I hadn’t asked. I saw that my closet door was open and noticed that he’d already hung up some of his shirts. I check into the hospital and two days later, my ex-boyfriend has slid back, not just into my closet, but into my life as well. Who’s in need of a doctor now? Jake still had a studio apartment in the East Village where he’d crash when he was in town, but I’d agreed to let him stay with me so that someone would be there in case I literally fell.

  My dad came into the bedroom and kissed me, saying that they’d stop by in the morning. My mom straightened up the towering stacks of research on my desk, chastizing me under her breath for working when I should have known better, and when she was satisfied, both at the guilt she’d laid and her cleaning job, she handed Jake an itemized list of precooked meals that she’d stowed in the fridge. And then, just like that, he and I were alone.

  “I wrote a song for you,” he said, as he sat on the edge of the bed.

  Back when I was twenty-five and my boyfriend was a budding rock star, I used to think that this was the ultimate love letter: I mean, seriously, like the chick who inspired “In Your Eyes” wasn’t totally psyched when Peter Gabriel penned that one. Could there be anything more romantic? Like a promise etched in a high school yearbook or initials carved into a tree. What Jake did was make music, and if he could make music about me, surely, it would have sealed our fate. Every few months, I’d ask him, “Write a song for me.” He would always nod and swear that he would. Eventually, I grew too embarrassed to keep asking. I wasn’t sure which was worse: the fact that I was quietly desperate for lyrics inscribed with my name or the fact that he never got around to writing them.

  “Why now?” I asked, leaning back into my pillow, years after I’d lost my romantic idealism. “Is it because of the cancer?”

  “I wrote it long before the cancer,” he said. “You just weren’t around to hear it when it was finally done.”

  “What took you so long?” I sat up and stared at him.

  “I started it on the last road trip before we broke up. But you ended things before I could ever play it for you. And it’s funny—once you were no longer there, writing it became the most critical thing in the world.” He smiled slightly at the irony.

  “You don’t know what you’ve got ’til it’s gone,” I said wearily, my eyes drooping under their own weight.

  “Something like that,” Jake said. “Something pretty close to that exactly.”

  Dear Diary,

  It’s been nearly two weeks since Jake has been back; I’m sorry that I haven’t written sooner. It’s all been a little overwhelming, if I’m being honest.

  The good news is that the doctors are really happy with my progress and recovery. And though there are no guarantees—after all, we still have a few more rounds of chemo—for the first time, they feel confident that I can beat this. Dr. Chin said that he doesn’t want to get my hopes up, but it’s too late. They’re up. And maybe it’s having Jake here or maybe it’s just that my body is fighting back, but either way, like the nurse, Carol, said, I’m feeling like sunnier skies are heading my way.

  Which, of course, brings me to Jake. It’s strange, Diary. How you can live without someone for so long, and then how once he’s woven his way back into your life, once he’s proven himself invaluable, you wonder how you ever lived without him. Because that’s what happened with Jake. I tried to take it slow. But Jake is like the quicksand in my dreams: Even if I try to fight it, I’m pulled in deeper. It’s a strange thing for me, the collision of the two things that I can’t control. This cancer and Jake.

  To his credit, he’s been nothing short of wonderful. Ned never could have done what he’s done. Each morning, we change my dressing—the first few days, it was bloody and gooey and truly, fairly sickening, but he didn’t flinch. My new breasts still look like a porn star’s: swollen and engorged, and though I’m a little freaked out that I might look like a circus act for the rest of my life, Jake just smiles as he reapplies the gauze and tells me that with that cleavage, I’ll certainly get the senators to do whatever the hell I want. Fly you to the moon, they would, he said yesterday. Just one look, and they’d be putty.

  Of course, even if my boobs don’t deflate, these senators would still most likely be terrified of them in their present state. You see, dear Diary, I’m currently nipple-less. And yes, it’s as strange as it sounds. Where my small but pert breasts and rose-pink nipples once lay, now reside two hulking bald masses. But none of this seems to faze Jake. He tells me that I’m beautiful, even though I don’t think it’s true. I still try to wear my wig around him as often as possible.

  And it’s not just in tending to my wounds that he’s proven himself. He’s essentially been like a servant, which I realize sounds like a strange term to use when describing an is-he-or-isn’t-he boyfriend, but at this moment, at this exact time, that’s what I needed. He indulges me in my Price Is Right fixation, even hopping off the couch and rushing to the computer to frantically look up an average price of a barbecue grill or lawn chair or power drill just in the nick of time before the contestants place their bids. He’ll go to the grocery store when we’re out of food, he’ll walk Manny when he needs fresh air. Last night, I was so bored that I suddenly had a ridiculous urge to watch Top Gun, and he even ran out to the video store to grab the DVD. I watched him leave and thought that he’d be the perfect husband to have around when I was pregnant. (If I ever could be, I should note.) Pickles and ice cream at three in the morning? Yes ma’am!

  Sally, always the skeptic, is a little less enthused. “Remember that they call it ‘winning you back’ for a reason,” she said one afternoon when he’d run out to Citarella to pick up some mint chocolate chip, right before I lit up a joint. “It’s a challenge at first for him, to see if he can pull it off. What really matters is if he can keep his game face on once the thrill of the game has worn off.” Maybe you should write an article on that, I told her. “Please.” She sighed wearily. “Like I haven’t a hundred times.” She then eyed me and said dryly, “Clearly, the advice doesn’t rub off on readers.”

  I should probably also tell you that Zach has called twice. I returned his call the first time but got his voice mail, and I haven’t yet called him again. I know. I should. But Sally told me that he and Lila are still hanging out, and for whatever reason (and really, Diary, I’m not sure of the reason or else I’d try to explain it because Janice tells me that that’s the real benefit of having a diary to begin with), I’m still pissed off about it. Any theories as to why? Yeah, I know. Me neither. I’ve asked Manny to contribute his brilliant thoughts, too, but he wasn’t entirely helpful, either.

  Sally told me that I wasn’t being fair. That Jake was back in my life, and if Zach wanted Lila back in his, then who was I to begrudge him? She’s probably right. No, she is right. But I sort of figure that I’m a charity case, so I’m allowed to take the help of whomever offers, even if it just so happens to be the ex-boyfriend who was the only person I ever truly loved. I’m not so sure what Zach’s excuse is.

  ROUND SIX

  February

  SIXTEEN

  I got to work early enough the morning of my first day back. Not as early as I would have liked to, and certainly not as early as I would have six months before, but 8:45 was pretty damn good for me right now. Jake wanted me to stay in bed with him. Don’t get me wrong: I still had the physical desire of a dead whale and he’d only recently moved back in with me. Still though, I’d wake in the middle of the night and watch his chest rise and fall. And I’d gotten used to lingering in bed with him—sometimes, I’d smoke a joint so I could stomach breakfast, other times, we’d just lie around, spi
nning our worlds together after they’d drifted so far apart. At night, he’d pull out his guitar and sit cross-legged in the middle of the bed, the comforter puffy around his legs, and sing to me. I hadn’t yet asked to hear the song he’d written for me, but I knew that I would one day. And I hoped that I would one day soon.

  But this morning, my first morning back, I pushed back his hand from around my waist that tried to tie me to the sheets like an anchor and rose with a purpose. I, Natalie Miller, was going back to work. Regaining control. Getting back in the saddle. I tore the plastic from the dry cleaners off my perfect black Calvin Klein pantsuit, steamed up the mirrors in the bathroom from a long, hot shower, and even took the time to apply the earth-toned eye shadow that Sally insisted I buy during a recent venture to Sephora. The finishing touch was, of course, the wig. I secured it in place and gave myself a once-over. If you didn’t peer too closely, you could barely see everything that cancer had changed about me.

  The security guard to our building barely recognized me. In fact, he asked me for my ID, something he hadn’t done in at least four years. I chalked it up to my brunette Farrah Fawcett locks and pressed the elevator button to the thirty-first floor. The office was just getting warmed up for the day. Junior aides were sipping coffee and picking at bagels in their cubes, and the phones were building a slow roar before reaching their fever pitch. I pushed open the door to my office, my revered office with the window view, the one that I earned from putting in countless and thankless late-night hours with and for the senator when everyone else had gone home to get some sleep or to see their kids or to catch the Knicks game. And what I saw was not my immaculate desk, piled high with pictures of diplomats with their arms slung around me and various charitable plaques that had been dropped by the office as a thank-you for Dupris’s support. What I saw instead was Kyle with his feet propped up and his borderline tenor voice blaring into the earpiece on my phone. He waved me in, and I sat sulking on the leather chair that I’d bought at Pottery Barn until he finally hung up.