“There’s police presence at the games. Couldn’t your contact at SFPD turn up Ostrow’s address?”
“Longshot. Officers aren’t supplied by SFPD, they’re off-duty cops hired by the SFBA. I know that because of an insurance case we had a while back.”
“What about the rest of the park security force? Private firm?”
“Uh-uh. SFBA has their own security task force.”
“Must be some way to get that address.”
“Direct appeal to SFBA, maybe. If that doesn’t work, I’ll get creative.”
“Anything you can do.”
“Yeah, man,” she said. “You just leave it to me.”
24
KERRY
She was five minutes early for her two o’clock appointment with Dr. Pappas. Not that she had any intention of arriving early. Usually the six-block walk from Bates and Carpenter to the 450 Sutter medical building took a leisurely twenty minutes. Today she seemed to have done it in a fast fifteen. Her body trying to convince her head that it was in good shape in spite of what was growing inside it? Hey, look, I’m not a bit tired, brisk walks don’t bother me. Next year why don’t we sign up for the Bay to Breakers marathon? Sure, great idea. If we’re still here next year.
She checked in at the desk and then sat on one of the uncomfortable chairs in the nondescript waiting room and opened an old issue of People and leafed through it without seeing anything on the printed pages. She was at ease, though. Not tense at all. Funny thing was, she’d always been at ease in doctors’ offices, hospitals. Most people, like the one other person in the waiting room, a tight-lipped woman in an expensive Donna Karan suit, were time-conscious and showed little fidgety signs of nervous tension, as if they were afraid of receiving bad news. Not Kerry Wade. Always optimistic, that was her. Even now, when she knew the news she was going to be given was bad, had known it the instant Dr. Pappas’s nurse called to ask her to come in for an immediate consultation, she was more or less relaxed. As though, ho-hum, it was just another routine visit to her gynecologist.
Still optimistic, too? Not as much as she had been, or tried to be, before the nurse’s call this morning, but hopeful nonetheless. It was not in her nature to be downbeat. She was no longer even particularly upset, or resigned. What she was, she supposed, was numb. She’d passed through most of the emotional stages in the past week-fear, anger, anxiety, everything except denial. That was one of many things Cybil had taught her growing up: accept facts, face your problems, and then deal with them.
So far she’d accepted this fact, faced this problem, but she wondered again if it had been the right choice to do it alone except for Cybil. Same conclusion: Yes, even though it hadn’t been easy. She’d come close to telling Bill the truth on Friday night; would have if Jake Runyon hadn’t called when he did. She was glad then and still glad that she hadn’t. He was strong, tough, courageous, but he was also emotional and overly sensitive and inclined to pessimism. If she’d burdened him with this from the first, he’d have been a basket case by now, and coping with that on top of the rest would have turned her into one. It had been hard enough telling Cybil, coping with her reaction and with her own worst fears about Russ Dancer. Hard enough dealing with the long wait as it was. And if the biopsy results had turned out negative, anguishing Bill prematurely would have been an unnecessary cruelty.
Now…
She couldn’t keep it from him any longer, of course. Or from Emily. Unfair to both of them if she tried even for a little while longer; unfair to herself. She would need their support to get through what lay ahead. She’d always believed that any sort of physical illness was affected, positively or negatively, by the person’s mental attitude-and her optimism wasn’t unshakable. It would require plenty of shoring up over the next few months…
The door to the inner offices opened and the heavyset young nurse put her head out. “Ms. Wade? Will you come in, please?”
The tight-lipped woman shifted position on her chair and aimed a frown in Kerry’s direction. Waiting longer, so she believed it should be her turn. Kerry smiled at her, thinking: You don’t know how lucky you are, lady. I wish all I was facing here was a little inconvenience and a sore butt. It wasn’t much of a private joke, but it allowed her to hold the smile in place as she followed the nurse inside.
None of the usual routine today of being weighed and having her pulse rate and blood pressure taken; nor was she deposited in one of the examining rooms as per usual. Ushered straight into Dr. Pappas’s private office, where the doctor stood waiting behind her desk. The nurse closed the door behind Kerry as soon as she stepped through.
Audra Pappas had been her gynecologist for more than fifteen years. Their relationship was strictly doctor-patient, pleasant enough but without any personal connection. That was fine with Kerry, now especially. No-nonsense, straightforward professionalism was what she wanted and needed in the present circumstances. So was the air of authoritative competence she projected. Competence and efficiency were the two words that best described Dr. Pappas. Midforties, tall, sandy-haired, brusque, with very little if any sense of humor-as if life and the practice of medicine were too important to her to be tempered with either levity or social niceties.
She seldom smiled, but she smiled now, a brief stretching of her closed lips, as she took Kerry’s hand-a firm handshaker, Dr. Pappas-and invited her to sit down. Professional, that smile, meant to be reassuring. If Kerry hadn’t known what was coming, the uncharacteristic smile would have told her.
Pappas sat behind her desk, folded her hands on top of a thick file folder. The Kerry Wade file, no doubt. Wherein the damning evidence lay. At length she said, “I imagine you know why I asked you to come in this afternoon.”
“The biopsy results. Bad news.”
“Well, the results are not what we hoped for. To begin with, the biopsy surgeon wasn’t able to remove the entire mass.”
“Large tumor, then.”
“Substantial, yes.”
“And not benign.”
“No. Malignant, I’m afraid.”
Despite the fact that she’d prepared herself for it, the confirmation still jolted her a little. Malignant. What a nasty little word that was, one of those words that exactly fits and conveys its meaning. A malignant word.
She cleared her throat before she trusted herself to speak in a normal voice. “Do you think we caught it early enough?”
“I hope we have.”
“Meaning it’s too soon to tell?”
“Yes.”
“So. What’s the next step?”
“You’ll need to consult with a cancer surgeon. As soon as possible.”
“Is there one you recommend?”
“Dr. Emil Janek at UC Med Center is one of the best. I’ll make an appointment for you.”
“All right. And then what? Further tests, surgery?”
“Both.”
“What kind of surgery? Lumpectomy?”
“Dr. Janek will help you make that decision. It depends, first of all, on the grade and stage of the tumor and whether its borders seem fairly distinct or not. The more diffuse the cells, the more invasive the cancer and the more radical the necessary surgery.”
“Full or partial mastectomy.”
“Yes. Some women opt for that in any case.”
“Better chance of survival?”
“Actually,” Pappas said, “clinical studies have shown there’s a small difference in the survival rate between a lumpectory and either type of mastectomy. The reason some women make that choice is the need for a period of radiation therapy following a lumpectomy.”
“How long a period?”
“A minimum of six weeks, five days a week. Longer, if necessary, to make certain all the cancerous cells in the breast have been destroyed.”
She dreaded the thought of losing a breast, of the need for reconstructive surgery or worse, a prosthesis. It wouldn’t matter to Bill, would have no effect on their relationship, but it would matter to her; it was her breast, a part of Kerry Wade that would be lost forever. But the prospect of six weeks of radiation was no more appealing. Fatigue, all the other side effects… God.