“You don’t have to—” Peaches began, but took the money anyway. That was the first rule of working at a public school in a neighborhood like Cobble Hill: always take the money. The parents had plenty because they were educating their kids for free.
“Wait here,” she told Stuart. “I’ll be right back.”
* * *
This was how it started:
One weekday back in early July, after Stuart and Teddy had left for Little Mushrooms summer day camp, Mandy flipped aimlessly through the TV channels, just like she always did. She watched the end of a show in Spanish about some jungle in Colombia where the snakes were so slithery and disgusting, she couldn’t look away. Then she watched a show about strange addictions, featuring an elderly woman who was addicted to watching cheesy, sad movies about anorexics—Kate’s Secret, The Best Little Girl in the World, My Skinny Sister—which Mandy was pretty sure was going to get her addicted to anorexia movies. Then she watched Worst Cooks in America, Celebrity Edition, a show she always wished someone would nominate her for. When the show ended, she clicked off the TV and floundered around on the perpetually unmade bed, unsure of what to do with herself.
She hadn’t always been this way. The obvious turning point had been when she’d gotten pregnant and had Teddy. She’d let herself go, which was such a cliché. In Cobble Hill, though, she was the anomaly, not the norm. Most of the moms in the neighborhood were super fit and looked good in skinny jeans even though they were fifty years old. It just made her hate them, which she knew was uncool. Still, she hated them.
That day in July, as she lay on her back in Stuart’s old yellow Blind Mice T-shirt and the same pair of black underwear she’d been wearing for two days straight, she tried to think of something good. Häagen-Dazs coffee ice cream was good. Entenmann’s pecan ring was good. Something good about herself though. She turned over onto her stomach, her large chest flattening and oozing into her armpits and against her clavicle. There, that was something good about her. She had great tits. White teeth. Shiny hair. And she was only thirty-five. But somehow that didn’t make her feel any better.
The staying-in-bed thing had started the first warm day in May, when she’d put on a pair of old cutoffs and discovered that she couldn’t zip them. First, she’d complained of an upset stomach, then headaches, then just plain tiredness. She’d stayed tired into June and then taken to her bed permanently, like a woman in an old-fashioned novel. And whatever it was seemed to be getting worse. She was still tired in July, even more tired than she’d been in June.
Deep down, Mandy knew there was really nothing wrong. It was a fake sickness, all in her head. Nevertheless, that pivotal July day she flipped over onto her back and made the fake sickness real.
Her iPad lay on the bedside table for easy access to takeout menus and movies and TV. She slid it onto her chest and googled Always so tired, what’s wrong with me?!?
Thirty-seven pages of links came up. The first few were full of mundane tips about diet and exercise and anemia. Further down she found one that interested her: Signs You Have MS.
She clicked on it.
Multiple sclerosis is a neurological disorder that presents itself in a multitude of symptoms. It is more common in females age 20–50 and in temperate climates, such as the United States, Australia, Scandinavia, and Northern Europe. The most common symptoms are fatigue, double vision, a heaviness or tingling sensation in the legs, clumsiness or difficulty walking, slurred speech.
Goose bumps appeared on Mandy’s arms. She often felt a tingling sensation in her legs, especially when she got up to pee. Sometimes when she ordered food from Seamless it was hard for her to get to the door in time to buzz in the delivery guy because her legs and feet felt like they were disintegrating, like a sandcastle in the rain. She kept reading, feeling the exact same way she’d felt when she’d first heard Stuart and the Blind Mice play “My Girlfriend Wakes Up Pretty.” Like the words had been written expressly for her, because, of course, they had.
Around noon that day her phone buzzed and a text appeared alongside a cute picture of her and Stuart at an outdoor show eleven years ago, when the band was still in semi-existence. Mandy and Stuart weren’t even married then. They hadn’t gotten married until after Teddy—he sat in the sand while they said their vows. Mandy had never even thought about kids or marriage. They’d never even discussed it. But then her IUD had fallen out while they were surfing—or attempting to surf—in Montauk. She hadn’t even noticed until more than two months later when she suddenly craved strawberry shortcake ice cream bars and couldn’t stay awake any later than nine. Stuart had been very sweet about marrying her and embracing the whole daddy thing, which should have made it a lot easier, but nothing about their lives was the same or any kind of easy again.
That July day, still in bed, Mandy read Stuart’s text.
did you call dr. goldberg?
She found the doctor’s number in the list of contacts on her phone, stared at it for a moment, and then went back to Stuart’s text and typed a reply.
yup, news is not good
!!! calling u now!
A few seconds later her phone rang and the same picture of her and Stuart, looking tan and young and thin and happy, lit up the screen. She watched it ring and go to voice mail. A few seconds later it rang again.
can’t talk waiting for tests
She tossed the phone aside and slipped down under the covers, pulling them up to her eyes. It didn’t even feel that weird to lie. It didn’t even feel like a lie. She probably did have MS. All the symptoms matched up. She didn’t even need to go to the doctor.
She sat up, reached for the iPad again, and googled “treatment for MS.” There was a lot of information, stuff about vitamins and injections of hamster placentas and changes in diet. She clicked on a few links and ordered some massive jars of vitamins and green juice powder from Amazon, paying the extra $6.99 so it would arrive the next day.
That was just the beginning. Now it was September and faking it had become almost second nature. The fridge was stocked with green juices, Stuart had changed all the lightbulbs to ones that mimicked rays of real sunlight, and the bedside table was laden with self-help books about coping and parenting with MS. They’d replaced the couch in the open-plan kitchen-living room with a queen-size bed where Mandy spent all her time. Teddy had started playing and reading to himself on the bed so he could be near her. Stuart bought fancy organic frozen meals at Whole Foods or Trader Joe’s. The three of them ate dinner and watched movies in the bed. It was nice. But Stuart thought she was deteriorating. He was alarmed. He kept reminding her to call the doctor to set up “another round of tests,” maybe get a second opinion. Pretty soon Mandy was going to have to decide whether to continue faking it, or pretend to try some new vitamins or experimental drug and make a miraculous recovery.
The thing was, she’d already gotten so used to pretending, it had become real. The idea of attempting to do anything—walk to the corner deli for toilet paper, open the mail, pay the bills, attend to the Blind Mice fan page, shop online for new clothes for Teddy—just seemed exhausting. She had always been the “responsible adult” in their marriage, the one who made sure the bills and taxes were paid and filed, Teddy’s shots up-to-date, Stu’s fan mail in order. Now she used Post-its for toilet paper until Stu brought home more. The bills stacked up under the bed, unopened, and the late fees accumulated. The fans continued to post adoring stupid shit whether anyone responded or not. And when Stu took Ted for his checkup, even Dr. Goldberg said Ted’s short pants looked fine with long socks.