CHAPTER TEN
Is there a word uglier than tumor? There is when the word before it is "benign" and one has spent the last twenty-two hours and twenty-six years wanting to go home.
When Diana hung up with Dr. Mason, she could feel the color draining from her face. She was nauseated, dizzy, paralyzed. She knew she should call her mother but just couldn't bolster the spirit to feign happiness over her "health." And what was health without happiness anyway? Was it healthy to wish the doctors were wrong? Was it healthy to expect that the one living person who was supposed to love her most would undoubtedly use her escape from death as a lesson on the necessity of weight loss? Was it unhealthy that she'd rather die than hear it?
That dream in the garden had given her something to hope for and something to hold on to while she was hoping. Unlike her hopes of one day possessing a Meteorologist Marsha Douglas body, she was actually on the road to attaining this wish. She hadn't had something to hope for and a reason to think it would happen since Barry and the wild sex streak that was going to bolster her ego while tipping her mother's scales of sanity toward "wacko." But that hadn't been about love or freedom. It had been about insecurity and revenge. This, however, this had been about peace and love and freedom. It had been about happiness. Sure, there would have been a few months of physical anguish, but that was to have been her earthly repentance—for being fat during most of her living years, for cursing God when those living years were less than a blast, for disappointing her mother, and for never really appreciating the invisible gifts that gracious people were supposed to recognize in their everyday lives and feel blessed for. And that repentance would have made her gracious. She was all set to become a pious person—all she'd needed was the disease. She'd been banking on cancer as her ticket to heaven. So, now what? Was heaven really that exclusive? Was the father of the world really so eager to keep Diana away from her own? She could feel herself beginning to hate God for rejecting her, and she could even feel His rejection, ringing in her ears—high-pitched, evenly timed, and constant—until her own voice sounded from out of nowhere, putting an end to God's wrath as it told Him to wait for the beep.
Mrs. Christopher spoke loudly onto the answering machine, as if Diana's one-bedroom apartment were so mansion-esque that if she were home and just not picking up, the message would go unheard unless shouted. "Diana, it's Mom! Are you there? Diana, I'm assuming you're there. If you are, would you pick up, please?. . . Oh, where could you be?. . . Maybe you're with that old lady upstairs again, Mrs., uh, Barton—"
"Bartle," Diana said, picking up the phone to correct her. "And it's downstairs." It was insulting that her mother never remembered Mrs. Bartle's name or what floor she lived on, especially since "that old lady" had only been Diana's only friend for the past three years. It wasn't as if Mrs. Christopher had any other names to remember.
"Oh, you're there!" her mother blared with dramatic relief.
"Yeah, Mom, but hold on. We need to stop talking so the machine will go off." Even though the walk to turn off the answering machine was only a few feet away, Diana didn't have the energy to even think that this would be a long enough conversation to make that walk worthwhile. And, of course, Mrs. Christopher did not stop talking, so Diana was forced to deal with hearing her mother's echoing voice in both ears.
"What did Dr. Mason say?" Mrs. Christopher continued. "Are you all right? Did he call you yet?"
"Yeah, he called."
"AND?"
"And . . ." Diana knew she should relish this moment, for it was probably the last time she'd ever have power over her mother, the last time her mother's "motherly concern" would be about something other than her weight and lack of social life. But she had to tell her. "I don't have cancer."
A serenade of Oh-thank-goodness!'s and You-have-no-idea-how-glad-I-am-to-hear-that!'s followed. But after all forty-two seconds' worth of her mother's jubilance subsided, she felt the need to point out the lesson-to-be-learned-from-all-of-this. Diana had known it was coming. After all, all roads led to the almighty diet discussion.
"Now, dear, I must say this cancer scare has been a bit of a blessing in disguise," Mrs. Christopher began. "It's caused you to realize the importance of your health and of taking care of your body. Consider this a fresh start, like today is the first day of the rest of your life." Mrs. Christopher giggled, impressed by what she obviously considered to be a brilliant allusion to their last lunch together, as if remembering the cliché proverb in her daughter's fortune cookie actually meant they were close. "I mean seriously, Diana, you truly have been given a second chance at life. It's time to take a serious look at the choices you make. Because, I tell you, it's your everyday choices—the ones you probably think the least about—that actually define who you are. Diana, it's really time for you to start taking care of you." Translation: Now that you don't have cancer, I can start nagging you about your weight again, you big, fat disappointment. And lucky Diana: since her mother could not manage to shut up for even ten seconds so that the answering machine could stop recording them, she got to hear the entire lecture in stereo.