Play & Book Excerpts
Almost Family
(She Writes Press)
© Ann Bancroft
It was a thrill to be hanging out in a park on a weekday, playing hooky with these new friends. Not a soul at the lake yet except us. My anxiety lifted and I felt giddy with possibility.
Dave looked different, but it wasn’t just his hair. We all seemed somehow different, out of that awful room once again. More alive, and more exposed. I was the only one whose scars didn’t show, but all three of us were lopsided, each in our own way. Dave with his hair, Rhonda with her face, me with my boobs.
Ever since radiation two years before, it hurt me to wear a bra. I’m not even sure why, since the burn was long gone. Maybe it was a chemo thing. Nerve damage, whatever—and what was the difference, anyway? Most days I just wore a thin undershirt instead of a bra. The effect was that, on the left, I looked like my grandma, small tit hanging like a change purse halfway down to my belly. On the right I looked sixteen because that breast was pulled up when they took the tumor out and had to sew the skin back together. So it was perky but indented where the scar was. Rhonda looked so pretty on the left side of her face, but when she turned to show the right, well, I’ve already described that side of her face. Dave would look normal once the hair grew back, unless it didn’t grow back all the way over those pencil-dot radiation tattoos and the smudgy red scar running from his right temple to his scalp.
Rhonda pulled from her bag three extra-large T-shirts in Day-Glo green. Extra-large would be perfect for extra-loud Dave.
“I had them made,” she said, holding them up with a proud, shy smile, like a child showing off an art project.
The Mets was written across the front in orange and blue script, Oakland above it in gold.
We’re the only ones who’ll get it,” Rhonda said. She winked at Dave.
I got it right away, the joke in the shirts, and it made me think there was more to Rhonda than I’d given her credit for. “Mets” was for metastases. Bone mets. Brain mets. Liver mets. Whatever other mets might come along. Oakland was where we lived, except for Dave. I hadn’t figured out yet why Dave drove across the bridge from San Francisco just to attend our group.
“That is so cool!” I said. Our special, slightly snarky inside joke.
She lifted her elbow and leaned across the picnic table. Dave did the same, and their elbows tapped. Back to remembering immune systems. “T-shirts and a secret handshake,” Dave said. “Bonded for life, ladies.”
That remark took the breath out of me. Much as I was tickled by the shirts, the bonding part felt like a suffocating reminder of why I’d never joined clubs. Because if you joined, you were expected to stay, and what if you made the commitment and it turned out badly?
Dave lifted one steel-toed boot over the bench, then the other, and settled himself down at the table. He stretched the T-shirt out in front of him on the redwood planks worn gray, and he smiled wide as he looked at the name. You could see the years of coffee and cigarettes on Dave’s teeth when he smiled, but when his eyes crinkled up and the crags down his cheeks disappeared, he looked ten years younger just like that.
“The Oakland Mets. Ha! Sounds like the Chinese knockoff factory screwed up on the teams. Ah, Rhonda. This is too much. The hell with elbows.”
He stretched across the table to give Rhonda a cancer hug. Hugging is okay if you can turn your face away from the other person’s face, and that’s what Dave did. He reached around Rhonda’s shoulders and clasped his forearms across her back, and he turned to me with a smile. They made an arc over the table, Rhonda’s face looking sideways at the lake, Dave’s face looking sideways at me.
I felt I should hug Rhonda too. At least a cancer hug, not the bullshit one-shoulder hug, that WASPy kind I usually do, half in, half out. The kind Marisa still did with me. I couldn’t blame her. Nobody ever hugged in my family, so it never came naturally to me. I guess military families in those days weren’t big on hugging; it didn’t go with the underlying ethos: suck it up and always be prepared to leave or be left. It wasn’t until I was in high school, my dad finally out of the army, that my parents hugged their lifelong best friends, Ed and Arlene.
“People are hugging now,” Ed said as they prepared to leave one night after a bridge game and too much booze. “Even men are hugging. Have you noticed? I think we should hug.” And the two couples awkwardly embraced. I looked on, astonished, from the top of the staircase, where I waved goodbye. I wished they’d had that conversation when I was little. Wished that hugging came naturally to me from birth.
I was tempted to scootch off the edge of the bench and go over to Rhonda and Dave. But something held me back; all I did was smile.
“You are so good, Rhonda,” I said. I took off my rain jacket and pulled the shirt over my head, and Dave and Rhonda did the same. Extra-large went practically to Rhonda’s knees and hit me mid-thigh but barely went past Dave’s waist. I immediately felt self-conscious in the matching shirts. No T-shirt looked good on me, least of all an ill-fitting one in unflattering, screaming green. Would we have to wear them all day? Every time we met?
All of us giggled then, and Dave’s giggle turned into a “Ha!” and a loud smack on his knee. In that moment I wanted never to take the shirt off again.
Dave looked different, but it wasn’t just his hair. We all seemed somehow different, out of that awful room once again. More alive, and more exposed. I was the only one whose scars didn’t show, but all three of us were lopsided, each in our own way. Dave with his hair, Rhonda with her face, me with my boobs.
Ever since radiation two years before, it hurt me to wear a bra. I’m not even sure why, since the burn was long gone. Maybe it was a chemo thing. Nerve damage, whatever—and what was the difference, anyway? Most days I just wore a thin undershirt instead of a bra. The effect was that, on the left, I looked like my grandma, small tit hanging like a change purse halfway down to my belly. On the right I looked sixteen because that breast was pulled up when they took the tumor out and had to sew the skin back together. So it was perky but indented where the scar was. Rhonda looked so pretty on the left side of her face, but when she turned to show the right, well, I’ve already described that side of her face. Dave would look normal once the hair grew back, unless it didn’t grow back all the way over those pencil-dot radiation tattoos and the smudgy red scar running from his right temple to his scalp.
Rhonda pulled from her bag three extra-large T-shirts in Day-Glo green. Extra-large would be perfect for extra-loud Dave.
“I had them made,” she said, holding them up with a proud, shy smile, like a child showing off an art project.
The Mets was written across the front in orange and blue script, Oakland above it in gold.
We’re the only ones who’ll get it,” Rhonda said. She winked at Dave.
I got it right away, the joke in the shirts, and it made me think there was more to Rhonda than I’d given her credit for. “Mets” was for metastases. Bone mets. Brain mets. Liver mets. Whatever other mets might come along. Oakland was where we lived, except for Dave. I hadn’t figured out yet why Dave drove across the bridge from San Francisco just to attend our group.
“That is so cool!” I said. Our special, slightly snarky inside joke.
She lifted her elbow and leaned across the picnic table. Dave did the same, and their elbows tapped. Back to remembering immune systems. “T-shirts and a secret handshake,” Dave said. “Bonded for life, ladies.”
That remark took the breath out of me. Much as I was tickled by the shirts, the bonding part felt like a suffocating reminder of why I’d never joined clubs. Because if you joined, you were expected to stay, and what if you made the commitment and it turned out badly?
Dave lifted one steel-toed boot over the bench, then the other, and settled himself down at the table. He stretched the T-shirt out in front of him on the redwood planks worn gray, and he smiled wide as he looked at the name. You could see the years of coffee and cigarettes on Dave’s teeth when he smiled, but when his eyes crinkled up and the crags down his cheeks disappeared, he looked ten years younger just like that.
“The Oakland Mets. Ha! Sounds like the Chinese knockoff factory screwed up on the teams. Ah, Rhonda. This is too much. The hell with elbows.”
He stretched across the table to give Rhonda a cancer hug. Hugging is okay if you can turn your face away from the other person’s face, and that’s what Dave did. He reached around Rhonda’s shoulders and clasped his forearms across her back, and he turned to me with a smile. They made an arc over the table, Rhonda’s face looking sideways at the lake, Dave’s face looking sideways at me.
I felt I should hug Rhonda too. At least a cancer hug, not the bullshit one-shoulder hug, that WASPy kind I usually do, half in, half out. The kind Marisa still did with me. I couldn’t blame her. Nobody ever hugged in my family, so it never came naturally to me. I guess military families in those days weren’t big on hugging; it didn’t go with the underlying ethos: suck it up and always be prepared to leave or be left. It wasn’t until I was in high school, my dad finally out of the army, that my parents hugged their lifelong best friends, Ed and Arlene.
“People are hugging now,” Ed said as they prepared to leave one night after a bridge game and too much booze. “Even men are hugging. Have you noticed? I think we should hug.” And the two couples awkwardly embraced. I looked on, astonished, from the top of the staircase, where I waved goodbye. I wished they’d had that conversation when I was little. Wished that hugging came naturally to me from birth.
I was tempted to scootch off the edge of the bench and go over to Rhonda and Dave. But something held me back; all I did was smile.
“You are so good, Rhonda,” I said. I took off my rain jacket and pulled the shirt over my head, and Dave and Rhonda did the same. Extra-large went practically to Rhonda’s knees and hit me mid-thigh but barely went past Dave’s waist. I immediately felt self-conscious in the matching shirts. No T-shirt looked good on me, least of all an ill-fitting one in unflattering, screaming green. Would we have to wear them all day? Every time we met?
All of us giggled then, and Dave’s giggle turned into a “Ha!” and a loud smack on his knee. In that moment I wanted never to take the shirt off again.
|
Ann Bancroft began writing fiction after a career in journalism and communications. Her first job after graduating from UC Berkeley was as “copy boy” at The Oakland Tribune, at a time when there were few women in the newsroom. As a reporter, she worked in the State Capitol bureaus of the San Francisco Chronicle, United Press International and the Associated Press. She wrote editorials for The Sacramento Bee and was later appointed communications director for the State Department of Education.
After a first bout of breast cancer, she retired early and began writing fiction, leading generative writing workshops, and mentoring breast cancer patients. She’s an alumna of the Community of Writers, the Tomales Bay Writers Workshops, and Everwood Farmstead artist’s residency. Almost Family is her debut novel. Ann and her husband are avid travelers and hikers, and when not writing, she loves to cook and entertain. They live in Sacramento and Coronado, California. UPCOMING EVENTS:
Santa Fe NM House Event July 11 Avid Reader Sacramento, CA August 3 Book Passages Bookstore Corte Madera, CA August 4 |
Photo Courtesy: Ann Bancroft
|
