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chocolate soufflé. And, maybe one more Ativan, too? I love those and I am so glad I finally did see a psychiatrist. As I lift up my head I feel dizzy and see some black spots from my head being down so long. I can see my mom’s and Tyler’s smiles as I squint in the bright sunlight. I order a cappuccino to counter the Ativan/champagne buzz, and when I hear the milk steaming it sounds like the bone scan sounded when it stopped whirring. I realize that the things that used to scare me feel so softball compared to an hour in a bone scan machine.
    Bring it on.
    My eyes are swollen and my nose is running so I grab the napkin on my lap. My mascara is all over the white tablecloth and my lipstick has left a thick red smear across the table, too. I’m not embarrassed. I don’t care anymore. My mom and Tyler and the waitresses and the customers think that I am unraveling.
    But I know that it is just my courage starting to show.
     

 

 
    4
    I Need to Get It Off My Chest
     
     
    It is my twenty-eighth birthday and I am actually supposed to be having a mastectomy today, but when Dr. B realized it was my birthday he refused. He didn’t want me to think about this on every subsequent birthday. But I am so not convinced there will be that many more to celebrate. I just want to hit thirty.
    More important than celebrating my birthday, I need to somehow mark the last day of wearing my girly costume: Today is my last day with both my breasts, and just yesterday they told me that I definitely have to do six months of chemo. So my long black hair is about to disappear, too. How do I mark this day? I decide I should go outside and get street-harassed for one last time.
    I need a day to not talk about cancer. I need a break, because I have been telling everyone. It has only been two weeks since my breast cancer diagnosis and I’m still adjusting to what my new life as a cancer patient will be. It is so strange that I look and feel exactly the same—but everything is different.
    My parents and my brother Paul have come in from Philly to help me celebrate my birthday with Howard and Tyler and to be with me for my surgery tomorrow. I can’t tell them about my plan because I’m too embarrassed to admit it, but I am so incredibly desperate for some attention before it all goes away.
    I always hated it when men would catcall or leer and I always shouted back something lewd at them or gave them the finger, but now I want it so bad.
    I’ve got to leave my nine-hundred-square-foot, one-bedroom apartment because it is not big enough to handle all the well wishes mingled with grief. Every minute the phone is ringing with high-drama “Happy Birthdays,” or the I-never-told-you-how-much-I-loved-you-but-now-that-you-have-cancer-I-want-to-show-you flowers are arriving.
    I need to clear my mind of cancer for just one afternoon. I want to have some fun and not talk about my tumor size or chemo regimen. I’ve been talking nonstop about cancer now for over two weeks, inappropriately telling strangers that I have cancer. I even tell the male stripper at a bachelorette party. I make it come up in conversation because I’ve been reading articles that suggest that breast cancer happens because women repress things and hold them close to their chests. I think it’s bullshit, but I need to cover all my bases—but did I have to tell the poor deli guy? “Sorry, I won’t have my regular coffee because I was just diagnosed with cancer and a macrobiotic nutritionist told me that caffeine makes tumors grow.” (My parents have insisted that I start eating health food since my diagnosis.) My deli guy sort of looked at me like it was too much information, and it was.
    But I couldn’t tell my Grandma Ruth that I have cancer. It would have been too sad for her and, because she is losing her mind, I was scared that I’d tell her and then she’d forget and then I’d need to tell her again, and how many times could she stand to hear that her granddaughter