Charles Bock - Alice & Oliver

“It’s the worst possible time for this.” Ruggles spoke slowly.

“What?” Oliver said.

As if making a decision, Ruggles seemed to shift into a different gear. “Okay, look. I really don’t want to bring it up. I’m on your team, thick and thin. But this software thing is your baby. You’re the point man. You had me go to bat for you with a lot of people. I’m talking hat in hand to every friend I have on the brokerage floor. That’s a lot of good people, and some not so good people, too, putting hard-earned nickels and dimes into this on your word and name, because you made that presentation. Remember that?”

“I know.”

“ ‘We get this thing in shape, show Microsoft and those other bastards that Generii can go in and out of their program like mice, take whatever we want, they have to pay us to protect their borders. Otherwise, their big Windows 95 rollout is worthless.’ You were the one who stood up there, talked about free access and gatekeepers.”

“I remember, Elliot.” Oliver waited, stared; Ruggles downed a shot of Jameson, winced, pulled at his own tie.

“You fucking do what you got to, okay? Don’t worry. We’re all on board for the insurance. I already talked with everyone. Go with God. But, sahib, you got to make it right for us, too. Time to buckle down and kick shit into gear. Maybe it’ll be a nice distraction, give you something else to focus on. I fucking hope so.”

—

Alice’s mother drew a small but decent pension for the two and a half decades she’d spent teaching New Hampshire farm children to avoid split infinitives. She’d kept herself busy in retirement with her dogs, her garden, art classes, reading group, cutthroat bridge, and three days a week working the receptionist’s desk at a vet’s office. Friends had been taking care of her Weimaraners. But the staff at the vet’s office, for all their pledges of support, still needed someone to take calls and keep schedules. If Alice’s mom was going to keep her dogs out of a kennel, and maintain her pleasant part-time employment — i.e., checks that weren’t necessary but were far from unneeded — she had to get back to Putney. There wasn’t any easy solution, so Alice’s mother, in her measured and typical fashion, did the most reasonable thing she could come up with at that moment: change diapers. She doted on her grandchild. Replaced the filter in the air purifier, as she did not want that bedroom getting stagnant. She cleaned, dusted, sat bedside, held her daughter’s hand. She rocked the baby and made goo-goo noises and recounted a story: Alice, six years old, falling off a horse and breaking her arm.

Hold your horses, Alice’s mother said, as she padded across the apartment. Hold on. “Yes,” she answered. “Hello?”

“I thought I’d never get you.” The voice low, smooth.

“Do you want to talk with my daughter? Who should I say is calling?”

“Uh, I’m—”

“What number are you trying?” continued Alice’s mother. “We’ve been getting a lot of wrong numbers.”

Instead of an answer, the line clicked. Alice’s mother placed the phone back in its cradle. She went into the kitchen, washed her hands, then headed for her daughter’s bedroom, where she brought up the subject of white sugar.

—

The staff nutritionist in New Hampshire had been the first to mention the stuff. Sparrow, Tilda, Kate, and the rank-and-file of Alice’s more health-conscious pals all had brought up the same worry: that cancer fed on processed sugar.

“Never again,” Alice answered, raising her right hand toward Mom. “Scout’s honor.”

Dark chocolate, tiramisu, key lime pie, red velvet cake, all her favorite guilty pleasures. “Fallen to the wayside,” she swore. “You’ll see. A new regime.”

Then the end of her next exam-room discussion. Alice volunteered her new eating habits to the medical staff, waiting for assent and approval. In fact, Eisenstatt was quick to answer. “With the chemo regimen we just put you through,” he said, “sugar’s not going to reactivate anything.”

“Sorry?” Alice said.

“The disease isn’t metabolically active right now in your case. Cancer cells aren’t dividing in your bone marrow, the way cells divide in the gastrointestinal tract. Cycle tracts are different.”

“You’re saying there’s no connection?”

“I’d say gaining weight is the priority. You want to eat anything. Whatever it might be, we need you eating. ”

Nonetheless, per her orders and preference, the fridge remained stocked with unsweetened soy milk, coconut milk, plain whole-milk yogurt and ice cream, agave nectar, really, really good cheeses. Oliver spent part of each day running around — on Alice’s first day home he found a reasonably convenient lab that could turn around her blood counts, so that each night he could inject Alice with her proper Coumadin dosage (first wiping her lower belly with that brown antiseptic gel); he made copies each day for insurance appeals, double-checked things with his lawyers, handled Generii errands to get the new office in shape, juggled bullshit with the bank fools and credit card assholes. And always, before returning home, he’d follow orders, track down Madame ’s every stated need: fresh mangoes and limes, tubs of weight-lifter protein powder, raw unpasteurized honey extracted straight from the rears of bees that had to be purchased on the black market because unpasteurized honey was one of the health hazards that had spread black plague and there were still laws against it. Each day brought news of a new special salve. A friend told Alice about it.

“While you are out,” Alice wondered, “could you pick up some dark chocolate for me?”

Oliver stared. “So—”

“I’m giving in to Western medicine like you want.” Alice crossed her arms, responding to his frustration before it had a chance to manifest. When one of his confounded looks followed, Alice snapped, adding, “If it was up to me I’d do it holistically.”

“Candy’s holistic now? I can grab you a Mountain Dew while I’m at it. I hear that’s pretty organic, too.”

“I’ve lost my hair. I get bombarded by radiation every month. I have all of three bites before a lid closes over my stomach anyway.”

“Jesus,” Oliver answered, rising. “I made a joke. Don’t get so defensive. One second you want it this way, the next—”

“He said I could have sugar.”

“So we’re just cherry-picking the guidelines? This is the new regime?”

“I want a bite of key lime pie.”

Implicit was her threat: if he did not get it, someone else would. Others already were .

—

Tilda’s visit the following morning included a jaunt to the bagel place across the street. Presenting Alice with the small package — white butcher paper, a price scribbled in marker across the top — Tilda repeated familiar phrases. “That you even want to try is a good sign. Even a few bites will help.”

Alice unwrapped the paper, stared. “Didn’t I ask for strawberry cream cheese? I don’t mean to be difficult.”

Tilda was careful in her response. “It’s pink, honey.”

Alice squinted. “I can’t see that.”

In short order her support network was chugging on all cylinders, and had dutifully procured a saline solution. Dabbed eyes went teary; Alice blinked a lot. She and Tilda cautioned, making sure neither overreacted; they were rational and sober, and after some more discussion, came to a larger agreement: Alice had to search for new truths. This was the only helpful interpretation. “In the large scheme, what’s pink? What’s white?” Tilda sounded like a motivational speaker. “Who cares about a couple of locations on a spectrum? Use this as a chance to focus on what’s real .”