CHAPTER VII
FIRST THE GOOD NEWS
The morning following the Topanga Canyon motorcycle trek, Paco and Julia went to work at the movie studio as usual. He was one of the Grand Poobahs of Marketing/Print Advertising. His department generated virtually every one-sheet (poster), billboard image, theater lobby standee and newspaper ad for each movie the studio released. Julia was an executive in the PR department, in charge of Promotions, in the same building as Paco, in an office on the floor above. Jay Russo was Paco's left and right hand man, his second in command, with the title Assistant Executive Director.
Paco and Julia received two pieces of news that day. The first was the announcement of the winners of the First Annual Studio-wide employee Kool Kitty Kompetition. Entries were by anonymous photographic submission only, and judged by an impartial panel chosen on the basis of their catlessness. Most of the cat owners working at the studio participated (any chance to glorify). Davey, Julia and Paco's youngest (in the batch after Moses and Shadrach), placed first in the Still-Among-The-Living category. The prize was a hundred dollar gift certificate at PetCo. Their cherished Moses got Honorable Mention in Deceased.
At one o'clock Paco and Julia met outside the elevator on Paco's floor. Everyone thought they were going to lunch together. They often did, but not that day. As the elevator doors slid closed and the car started down, they automatically reached for each other's hands.
At two o'clock they were again holding hands (a lot more tightly) as they looked across the desk at the doctor and began to process the second piece of news they received that day.
"It's as I feared. Leukemia," Dr. Daniels said.
Paco was thirty-six. Julia was thirty-two. At this point, both had been very anxious to start a family. As Dr. Daniels talked about Paco’s illness and iffy prognosis, Julia felt the world give a rough buck then stop dead on its axis for a moment before it began revolving again. In that moment of timeless dark she saw something lurking; something hideous and terrible; something determined to get the best of her. The oncologist their doctor had sit in on the meeting suggested an aggressive course of chemotherapy. It would begin the coming weekend and required an overnight stay in the hospital.
On the way home from the doctor’s office Paco and Julia stopped at the Italian market on Santa Monica Boulevard to buy everything they would need to make the elaborate manicotti Paco always prepared--with Julia’s help--to celebrate special occasions.
In the kitchen of their bungalow, they prepared the manicotti together--talking of nothing and of everything; everything but Paco's illness. To Julia, the carefully-prepared meal tasted like sawdust. She put her fork down after the second bite. "What are we doing?"
"Being good to ourselves while we absorb the shock, so eat my good food," Paco said softly.
She took another bite but she couldn’t swallow.
"I’m scared, too," Paco said. "But if there isn't going to be a lot of time, I'm not letting fear shape the time I have." He stood up and came around the table, then pulled her up and into his arms. "What can I get you, Jules?" he said. "Tell me what you need."
Jules said, "I need you."
"I’m right here." Paco said.
It wasn’t until after Paco’s first chemo treatment that Julia began experiencing the terrible nightmares. They were always about some aspect of Paco’s illness, about losing him, or about his course of treatment. One night she dreamed that everyone she loved, including their five cats, were tucked into beds of appropriate size along a dimly lit hospital corridor, all attached to IV bags on gleaming chrome stands, all receiving chemotherapy.
Except for their immediate families, for several weeks following Paco's diagnosis, he and Julia didn't tell anyone the news; not even Jay, who suspected nothing, and who believed Paco's perpetual weariness of the last few months was a product of job-related stress and overwork.
One afternoon, Paco invited Jay to lunch at their favorite restaurant, Musso & Franks (established 1919) on Hollywood Boulevard. Paco drove them there in the Alfa.
At Musso's, Paco and Jay occupied their customary seats at the end of the long and curving counter. "Bravo!" Paco laughed, applauding the diminutive, dapper Manny--his favorite waiter--who was something of a magician. Manny had just produced a magenta, bright yellow, electric blue and puce stream of silk handkerchiefs from his balled fist, where a trice before there had been nothing.
Moments later, after Manny produced their lunches (Tuesdays' special: corned beef and cabbage), Jay's body resembled a balled fist as his fork dropped and clanged on the counter. "Who else have you told?" he demanded.
"Just the family." Paco laid a hand on Jay's arm. "Jules and I needed some time to survey the topography of this on our own, Jay . . . You can understand that, can't you?"
Jay couldn't. He pushed his plate away and dropped his napkin on the counter. Without a word, he extricated himself from the swivel seat, then left by the front door.
Late that afternoon, Jay arrived back at the Studio on foot and picked up his car. He didn't return to his office in the Marathon building.
"Seen Jay Russo this afternoon?" Paco asked Chris, who was one of the regular guards at the Melrose Avenue gate.
"Couple hours ago. Driving like a bat outta hell."
Jay didn't return to the Studio for three days. Nor did he respond to any of Paco's phone calls. Paco covered for him with the Studio brass.
The morning Jay resurfaced, Paco arrived in his office to discover on top of his immense, messy desk, a small, antique, tin, wind-up Checker Cab. Both Paco and Jay collected wind-up toys since High School of Art & Design. The Checker cab was the jewel in Jay's collection. Under the toy was a page with one-sheet copy typeset on it; part of the campaign for a movie the Studio was due to release on Thanksgiving Day. The sheet of type was set in Palatino Serif.
For nearly three weeks Jay had been arguing for Palatino sans serif for that particular type solution (in this case strictly a point of--in Jay's opinion--good design). But when Paco saw the sheet of typesetting, he immediately understood that while Jay was, indeed, capitulating on the design point, what he was truly communicating was his embarrassment and sorrow over behaving in such a sans serif way that afternoon at Musso & Franks, when Paco told him the bad news.
Shortly after Paco's diagnosis, Julia asked him how he wanted to play it. She was open to anything. The family was interested in the answer to that, too. Sal and Uncle Nick even offered a trip around the world, or to underwrite a trip to the moon, whatever Paco wanted. "Nope, Guys," he said over the phone in his office. They were calling from the Brooklyn Heights co-op, with Sal on the kitchen extension and Uncle Nick on the one in the front room. "What I want," Paco continued, "is to live my life exactly the way I have been; enjoying my missus, my cats and my job. One foot in front of the other."
Through all of it, therefore, no matter how bad it got, Paco and Julia did just that, and except for eliminating tennis and skiing from their list of activities, which they replaced with an interest in professional basketball that bordered on the obsessive, outwardly their lives changed very little. For Julia, inwardly, everything had changed. It was only when she was with Paco, talking with him, touching him, looking at him, that her life had any reality.
"Is it all right?" Julia asked Paco. It was May again. Nearly a year had passed since Paco’s diagnosis. He had just pushed away, almost untouched, the labor-intensive eggplant parmesan it had taken her three hours to prepare.
"It’s terrific," he said. "You got the breading just right. And I like it this way, with a little more basil in the sauce. I think maybe I was always a little stingy with the basil." According to their division of labor, Julia was responsible for the laundry, and Paco did the major share of the cooking. As time passed, he felt less and less like doing that. Julia asked Paco to teach her all his recipes.
"Please try to eat a little more," she said.
Paco shook his head.
Her heart sank. She knew he wouldn’t want anything later, that she’d have trouble even getting him to drink a can of the high-calorie dietary supplement his doctors recommended he drink each night before bed.
"There’s chocolate Mighty-Fine for dessert if you want some," Julia said.
Mighty-Fine was Paco’s favorite brand of pudding, the brand he always favored when he was growing up. Because it wasn’t available in Los Angeles, Sal and Libby mailed a case of the stuff from New York every other month.
"Not just now."
"Tell me what you want," she whispered, "tell me what you need."
"More time," Paco smiled.
Time, the one thing she couldn’t give him.
The toll on Paco of the twin evils--the leukemia and the worse-than-kill cure--mounted. Yet when people at the Studio saw him in hot negotiation with a print vendor in the large and posh corner office he occupied (Jay had a cramped one down the corridor), or spotted him as he joked and clowned around, or watched him as he chaired departmental meetings, he seemed so vital and energetic, everyone believed it was a portent that complete remission was just around the next corner.
September 1
Salvatore Berelli
1431 Columbia Heights Avenue
Brooklyn Heights, NY 11201
Pops, Pops. Pops.
Jules and I are sure looking forward to seeing you guys at the end of the week. We got big plans, including an afternoon at Santa Anita race track. We're having Lucy in to clean twice the week you'll be here so you won't have an infarction about the cat hair.
This is going to be hard, Pops, but I got a few things to say to you which I want to say here. If we try to talk about it face to face we'll both just cry. None of it'll get said.
First, I've lost another eight pounds, and the hair that was growing back, has all gone south. I hate the hair thing, but I'm making it work for me. I pretend I'm a pirate and tie a bandanna on my head. I even got my ear pierced. Jules and I scramble every A.M. to see who's gonna wear which earring.
Don't throw yourself about the weight loss. It's the new, way-stronger chemo more than the disease. I'm telling you up front because it's a big change since we saw each other over Fourth of July. I also think I better warn you that minus these eight pounds, the face is all Juanita. Don't hold it against me.
And try to remain when you see me, okay? Lots flip out when they haven't for a while. It bothers me more than I let on. That's one of Jules's best qualities. She never flinches. She never looks away. No matter how bad this gets.
Don't give up on me, Pops. The cause ain't lost yet. Jules and I still have hopes. There's always room for a miracle.
Pops, I want to thank you--formally--for sticking close, but not too close, this last year. I'm glad you're only a five-hour flight away. I'm also glad you're getting such a kick out of teaching again. Sorry I can't catch any of the lectures. It's always a kick for me seeing the way you hold a room.
Next, I want to thank you--formally--for seeing potential in all those semi-X-rated cartoons I drew when I was a kid, especially the ones on my bedroom wall. I owe you big time for getting me into art school, before Uncle Nicky lured me into a life of crime.
I love what I do, Pops. Everything about it. Even the politics are a blast. Some people around town call me the Godfather of Graphics. I do this thing that's part Marlin Brando, pat Uncle Nicky, part Sally Red. I've got the mumble and the hand gestures down perfect. Sometimes I wonder if the vendors I use lower their prices when I tell them to because they're afraid of me. You know, like they're afraid of waking up in the morning with a horse head in their bed. Everyone makes a big deal about how I show up at the Studio every day. They think I'm courageous. I'm not. Kind of the opposite. I'm afraid not to go there. The place is my Never Never Land.
Most of all, Pops, I want to thank you--formally--for loving the hell out of me. I just wanted you to know I love the hell out of you straight back. Always have.
Remember how I once told Jules it was my job to figure out what she needs and get it to her? I get scared sometimes when I think about how I might not be around to fulfill that promise. I'm now pretty sorry we waited to have kids . . . I want to give her something, Pops. Not jewelry or clothes, or a car. Something important. Something to last. I'd appreciate any thoughts you have on this.
That's all for now, Daddy-O. Can't wait to see you on Friday.
Your son, Paco
FROM THE JOURNAL OF SALVATORE BERELLI
September 12, 1960
At daybreak this morning, I saw Juanita out at Walpi again. She was again performing a corn meal blessing over her earthen oven, with her brown puppy sitting nearby like an acolyte. Today her dress was yellow and she wore an old straw hat that was a perfect frame for the lovely, lovely oval of her face.
I believe she felt my presence long before she turned around and acknowledged it with her deep and glittering brown eyes. Around her neck was a hammered silver chain with some kind of medallion on it. The medallion hung down the front of her dress, resting against her breastbone. I felt acutely jealous of that medallion.
This evening, as Dewey and I enjoyed our customary post-prandial smoke and conversation, every time he introduced whatever topic I just kept trying to get him to talk more about Juanita. He wasn't very forthcoming, but I did learn that her mother and grandmother before her were noted potters as well. I want to know more, more, more . . . everything.
(to be continued)
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