Like Life by Lorrie Moore Page A

Or ovaries or colon. “You guys practice medicine?” asked Zoë, aloud, after they had left the room. Once, as a girl, she brought her dog to a vet, who had told her, “Well,either your dog has worms or cancer or else it was hit by a car.”
    She was looking forward to New York.
    “Well, whatever. We’ll just play it cool. I can’t wait to see you, hon. Don’t forget your bonehead,” said Evan.
    “A bonehead you don’t forget,” said Zoë.
    “I suppose,” said Evan.
    The ultrasound Zoë was keeping a secret, even from Evan. “I feel like I’m dying,” Zoë had hinted just once on the phone.
    “You’re not dying,” said Evan. “You’re just annoyed.”
    “Ultrasound,” Zoë now said jokingly to the technician who put the cold jelly on her bare stomach. “Does that sound like a really great stereo system, or what?” She had not had anyone make this much fuss over her bare stomach since her boyfriend in graduate school, who had hovered over her whenever she felt ill, waved his arms, pressed his hands upon her navel, and drawled evangelically, “Heal! Heal for thy Baby Jesus’ sake!” Zoë would laugh and they would make love, both secretly hoping she would get pregnant. Later they would worry together, and he would sink a cheek to her belly and ask whether she was late, was she late, was she sure, she might be late, and when after two years she had not gotten pregnant, they took to quarreling and drifted apart.
    “OK,” said the technician absently.
    The monitor was in place, and Zoë’s insides came on the screen in all their gray and ribbony hollowness. They were marbled in the finest gradations of black and white, like stone in an old church or a picture of the moon. “Do you suppose,” she babbled at the technician, “that the rise in infertility among so many couples in this country is due to completely different species trying to reproduce?” The technician moved the scanner around and took more pictures. On one view in particular, on Zoë’s right side, the technician became suddenly alert, the machine he was operating clicking away.
    Zoë stared at the screen. “That must be the growth you found there,” suggested Zoë.
    “I can’t tell you anything,” said the technician rigidly. “Your doctor will get the radiologist’s report this afternoon and will phone you then.”
    “I’ll be out of town,” said Zoë.
    “I’m sorry,” said the technician.
    Driving home, Zoë looked in the rearview mirror and decided she looked—well, how would one describe it? A little wan. She thought of the joke about the guy who visits his doctor and the doctor says, “Well, I’m sorry to say you’ve got six weeks to live.”
    “I want a second opinion,” says the guy.
You act like your opinion is worth more than everyone else’s in the class.
    “You want a second opinion? OK,” says the doctor. “You’re ugly, too.” She liked that joke. She thought it was terribly, terribly funny.
    She took a cab to the airport, Jerry the cabbie happy to see her.
    “Have fun in New York,” he said, getting her bag out of the trunk. He liked her, or at least he always acted as if he did. She called him “Jare.”
    “Thanks, Jare.”
    “You know, I’ll tell you a secret: I’ve never been to New York. I’ll tell you two secrets: I’ve never been on a plane.” And he waved at her sadly as she pushed her way in through the terminal door. “Or an escalator!” he shouted.
    The trick to flying safe, Zoë always said, was never to buy a discount ticket and to tell yourself you had nothing to live for anyway, so that when the plane crashed it was no big deal. Then, when it didn’t crash, when you had succeeded in keeping it aloft with your own worthlessness, all you had to do was stagger off, locate your luggage, and, by the timea cab arrived, come up with a persuasive reason to go on living.
    “ YOU’RE HERE !” shrieked Evan over the doorbell, before she even opened the door. Then she opened