Read Online Barefoot by Elin Hilderbrand - Free Book Online Page B

breath?” Dr. Garcia asked. They were in his office, which was bland and doctorish: medical books, diplomas, pictures of his family. Two children, Vicki noted. She liked Dr. Garcia more for the picture of his daughter dressed up as a dragonfly for Halloween.
    “I’ve had tightness in my chest, a little pain for a week or two, since Easter, but I didn’t think anything of it. But now, I can’t get air in.”
    “Do you smoke?”
    “God, no,” Vicki said. “Well, I tried a cigarette when I was thirteen, outside the ice-skating rink. One puff. I smoked marijuana in college, three, maybe four hits altogether. And for two years I had a Cuban cigar once a week.”
    Dr. Garcia laughed. “Cuban cigar?”
    “It was a poker game,” Vicki said.
    “The MRI shows a mass in your lung.”
    “A mass?”
    “It looks suspicious to me, but we’re going to have to take a cell sample to figure out what it is. It could simply be a water-filled cyst. Or it could be something more serious.”
    Vicki felt her stomach rise up in revolt. She spotted a trash can next to Dr. Garcia’s desk. Something more serious? Do not, she implored herself, think about the children.
    “We’ll do it now,” Dr. Garcia said. “When I saw your scan, I blocked off time.”
    It sounded like he expected Vicki to thank him, but it was all she could do not to spew her breakfast all over his desk.
    “It could just be a water-filled cyst?” she said. She held out hope for a juicy bubble of stagnant liquid that would just pop!—and dissolve.
    “Sure enough,” Dr. Garcia said. “Follow me.”
    “Vicki! Vicki Stowe!”
    Vicki looked up. A woman was waving at her. It was . . . oh dear God, Caroline Knox, an acquaintance from Darien. Caroline’s sister, Eve, had been in Vicki’s Lamaze class when Vicki was pregnant with Blaine. Eve had brought Caroline as her partner a few times, and somehow Nantucket had come up—that Vicki stayed with Aunt Liv, that Caroline owned a house and came for the summer with her husband and kids. A few weeks ago, Vicki bumped into Caroline Knox in the parking lot of Goodwives, and Caroline asked Vicki if Vicki was going to Nantucket, and Vicki, not wanting to discuss the only topic on her mind that day, which was her cancer, had, without thinking, said, Yes, we’ll be there on June tenth. To which Caroline had replied, Oh, us, too! We must get together! Vicki had agreed, though really, if she and Caroline Knox didn’t get together in Darien, why would they get together on Nantucket?
    Vicki pushed herself up out of the chair. Porter had crawled off the blanket and was sitting in the sand chewing on the handle of a plastic shovel.
    “Hi!” she said, trying to muster enthusiasm at the sight of Caroline Knox, who, Vicki noted, looked very matronly in her black one-piece suit. And she’d cut her hair short. Not even forty and she looked like Barbara Bush. “Hi, Caroline!”
    “Hiiiiiiiiiiiiiiii,” Caroline squealed. “Vicki, how are you? When did you get here?”
    “Yesterday.”
    “We’ve been here a week already. It’s heaven on earth, don’t you think?”
    Vicki smiled.
    “When is Ted coming?” Caroline asked.
    “Friday. He’s driving up with the car.”
    “Well, we should have dinner while it’s just us girls. Are you free on Wednesday?”
    “I’m free . . . ,” Vicki said.
    “Oh, good!”
    “But I start chemo on Tuesday, so . . .”
    Caroline’s face stopped its smiling. “What?”
    “I have lung cancer,” Vicki said. She felt mean dropping it on Caroline this way, in front of Brenda, who had just scrawled two lines on her yellow legal pad, and Melanie, who was still staring at the phone in her lap. But Vicki enjoyed it, too, making Caroline Knox uncomfortable, watching her grope around for something to say.
    “I had no idea,” Caroline said. “Eve didn’t tell me.” She dug her toe in the sand and the flesh of her thigh wobbled. “You know that Kit Campbell’s father had lung cancer last