“Are you going to get a wig?”
The thought of putting a heavy wig on my head was not appealing to me in the least. It would make my head sweaty and hot and I just didn’t see the point. “I think I’ll just wear a hoodie every day.”
He tilted his head, studying me. “Not a bad idea. I think I have a knit cap or two. Something to wear when it’s not eighty degrees out.”
“Can’t stand the thought of a wig.”
“You could wear bandanas. But be careful what color you wear in whatever part of OC you’re in.”
I flashed him a phony gang hand sign. “Yeah, because there are so many gangs in Newport Beach.”
He grinned at me and it made my heart flutter more than a little bit. He looked so much like the guy I’d fallen in love with. That brilliant, sexy man with the little boy’s impish grin.
“I think this night calls for some ice cream and Farscape.”
I frowned at him. “Farscape?”
He raised his brows at me. “Seriously? You’ve never seen Farscape? It’s only the best science fiction that has ever been televised. I will have to force you to watch a marathon someday so that you, too, can appreciate the genius that is Farscape. And there’s a hot bald woman in that, too. Zahn. She’s not as sexy as you, either. And she’s blue.”
I laughed. “Glad to know I’m sexier than the blue bald chick.”
I couldn’t eat any ice cream. The chemo diet did not allow dairy, nor did it allow soy. I was doubly screwed in that department. No frozen yogurt, either. He muttered something about ordering a snow cone machine instead.
We sat in recliners in his home theatre room to watch the episodes of this show from the early 2000s. I made it all the way through the first two episodes—the bizarre but amazingly done fantastical journey of John Crichton, hunky, brilliant astronaut from Earth who inadvertently discovered how to create a wormhole and ended up on the other side of the universe, where plants had evolved into humanoids, giant spaceships were creatures that were alive, and a strange, controlling race that looked exactly like humans, called the Peacekeepers, ruled with an iron fist of tyranny.
It was late when the second episode ended. He clicked off the widescreen TV and came to stand in front of me. “Off to bed with you, baldy.”
“I could so kick you in the nuts right now,” I muttered, yawning.
“Yeah, you aren’t very frightening when you can’t even keep your eyes open.”
“Where’s my paintball gun? I could so shoot you in the nuts right now.”
He gasped as if in remembered pain. “You are going to trigger my PTSD from the paintball war with talk like that.”
I half-heartedly kicked my foot in the general direction of his crotch and he caught my leg around the ankle, laughing.
“Bed. Now.”
And I didn’t have the energy to argue. It had been a long, harrowing day.
***
The next morning, a tiny pixie-like woman with blond hair and the highest heels I’d ever seen showed up at the house with several garment bags slung over her shoulder. I’d met her once before, when I’d lived here with Adam before the breakup. Sonia was Adam’s shopper, who stopped by every month or so with new clothes for him.
That was the day I’d discovered that what I had once thought was Adam’s knack for dressing wasn’t really a knack at all. He relied on Sonia to dress him. And she did a good job. Not only did she have great fashion sense but knew enough about him to determine his own style. Not that Adam would ever wear something he didn’t want to, and he did send some clothes away every time a delivery came.
Sonia usually just had clothes delivered to the house from the department store where she worked at Newport’s exclusive high-end mall, Fashion Island. But today she paid a visit in person and I’d learn later that it was at Adam’s request that she stop by.
Because now, Sonia wasn’t just Adam’s shopper, she was mine. And though the idea of someone else buying clothes for me didn’t thrill me at first—especially when she started talking about head-covering options and wigs—her suggestions soon intrigued me.
She took my measurements and we looked through some magazines. She asked me a big long list of questions about my own sense of style and she had color swatches. She showed me the different things I could put on my head, from creatively-tied scarves to berets to “buffs”—a thin, tube-like knit cap that hugged my scalp.
When she left, I gave Adam a tight hug and a kiss, thanking him. I actually didn’t need an excuse for wanting to be close to him but I took advantage of one whenever it popped up.