chapter six.The Bisopsy

Finally the day for the biopsy arrived. I was so scared that even the check-in people could not make me laugh. Mark and I made our way through the maze of corridors until we found the radiology waiting room.
This was the same room where I had to wait for the ultra-sound just a few weeks earlier. But today, the room looked very different. This time it was standing room only. All but two of the seats were occupied, and they were not together. Both of the empty seats had people’s belonging on them, we stood in the room for a few minutes, yet no one made a move to clear a seat off for us.
While waiting to check-in I looked around at the people in the room. There was a mother trying to keep her small child entertained by reading to him. Some people looked frightened, others were lost in thought, but most were watching a soap opera that was blaring on the television.
There was some comic relief in the tension fill room, in the form of a young woman who was drinking a bottle of barium, which is a chalky substance that some patients have to drink before having certain types of scans done. Barium is nasty tasting stuff, the smartest way to drink it, is fast. Not this woman, she was gagging on every mouthful. Okay, that doesn’t sound funny, but the faces that she was making were funny. She would take a sip, make a face, stand up then run out of the waiting room. Then she would take another sip, then run back into the room and sit down again. This continued for sometime.
To get away from the tense mood of the waiting room and the barium woman, Mark and I stepped out into the hall, to ensure that I would hear my name called we stood just outside of the waiting room door. Eventually we got tired of standing, so we leaned against the wall on either side of the door of the waiting room; we looked like lazy soldiers guarding their post. Again I found myself waiting. Waiting for my name to be called…waiting for my biopsy to begin…waiting to see if either of the two tumors in my breast had cancer. Waiting.
As I stood playing door guard, I looked across the doorway at my husband. "What a great guy" I thought, "What were the odds that a chance meeting and a shot conversation all those years ago would lead to a husband. Not just any husband, but to one that would be with me while I was experiencing the most terrifying event in my life?"
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The year was 1988 and the month was June. In the last two weeks there had been two major changes in my life. One: I had sworn off men. I had had it. I was 32 years old and in the last year or so I had dealt with lies, infidelity and more lies. I had not had a date in six months (by choice) and I told all of my friends that I NEVER was going out on a date again. Two: The company that I had been employed at for the last twelve year fired me (unjustly of course).
I was working as a ticket agent for Eastern Airlines. For the last few years the company was on the verge of bankruptcy, so the working atmosphere there had been very tense and unpleasant. At that time the company was working on a two-tier pay system, A-scale and B-scale.
The A-scale workers were employees who had been hired before 1986. The B-scale were the employees who were those hired after that date (obviously were we non-union). The B-scale employees made about half of what the A-scale people made for doing the same job. I remember reading an article in one of those news magazines that in 1987 out of approximately 40,000 employees, Eastern had fired around 40 people. Yet, in 1988 the company had fired over 4000. I am guessing that like me, most of them were A-scale. Anyway on a Thursday night, June 09, 1988 one other A-scale employee and I were informed that our services were no longer needed, and I was out of a job.
Loosing my job did not surprise me, in fact I had excepted it. Working at Eastern in the late eighties was like being some scary novel, where everyday at work-people around me were disappearing. Unlike most of my co-workers I prepared for the loss of my job, three years earlier I had gone to a trade school called The Center of Media Arts, and took a six month course on Television production, editing and how to be a cameraman (person?).
I had hoped to work in television as an editor but soon after I graduated I discovered that I would have to start as an intern or at a low paying job. This meant that I would have to move back in with my parents. No way, at 29 I was going give up my independence. I had some new skills and I needed extra income, so I found a part time job working as a videographer, taping weddings, bar mitzvah and other parties. Although the work was hard, I found the job fun. I worked $10.00 an hour, tips and all I could eat at the cocktail hour (I love to eat).
I shot about two parties a week, mostly weddings. My normal routine for a wedding was to show up at the suite (church, temple, hotel, etc.) an hour before the event, find my contact person and bring all of my equipment inside (to hinder theft). My equipment consisted of two cameras, two large heavy boxes of lights and other stuff. Then I would shoot the wedding, the receiving line, the rice/bird seed toss and the happy couple leaving in their car, then rush to lug all of my equipment back to my car, speed over to the reception location and set up to shoot the reception.
When I videotaped a church wedding, my contact person was usually the sexton (who is a janitor, maintenance man and sometimes gardener). Most of these men were old. Sometimes these men would reek of alcohol. So you can imagine my surprise when after three years of being a videographer and two days after loosing my airline job, I walked in to a Presbyterian Church to see this bald, but hansom 28 years old who introduced himself as the church sexton.
I arrived at the church earlier than normal, which was the first miracle of the day. After we discussed the church rules he kept talking to me as I was setting up the camera equipment.
The Sexton introduced himself as Mark, but he didn't have to tell me that because he was wearing a blue work shirt with his name embroidered on the pocket. He was also wearing old blue jeans, grease stained sneakers, and one of his hands was wrapped with a blood stained piece of cloth. I was wearing my videographer uniform, black pants, a tuxedo shirt, red bow tie (I hated that tie), black jacket and black shoes. My long blond (I was still a natural blond then) was tied up in a ponytail held up with a red ribbon that matched my bow tie. Talk about first impressions!!!
It seemed like we talked about a lot of stuff, our jobs, education and so on. But we only talked for about five or ten minutes. Mark told me that being a sexton was the perfect job for a college student, because the hours were very flexible which was good for studying. He had just graduated from the Manhattan School of Music, with bachelors in music which meant that he was a classically trained clarinetist. It didn't take long for me to realize that in spite of his job and dress, this was one intelligent and interesting man.
Soon people started entering the church for the wedding and I had to go to work. I hate to admit it but I wasn't fully concentrating on the bride and groom.
After the wedding both Mark and the minister helped me bring all of my equipment back to my car (the second miracle). No one ever helped me with my camera equipment before or since that day. The photographer called the minister back in to the church for some pictures and Mark asked for my phone number! (The third miracle) I gave it to him (miracle number 4). To hear Mark tell his version of our meeting; never in his life had he ask a woman for her phone number. But something told him that if he didn't talk to me and ask for my phone number he would regret it the rest of his life.
Mark called me the next day and asked if I would go out with him. As we were talking I reminded myself that I had sworn off men. Yet, later that day one of my former co-workers (obviously I was invited before I got fired) was giving a picnic and I knew that the person that had to fire me (on someone else's orders) would be there. I wanted it to look as if I didn't care that I lost my job. Since I planed to go anyway, I thought it would look better if I showed up with a date. I said to Mark,
"How would you like to go to a picnic with me today?" Two hours later we were at the picnic.
The day was very awkward, my unexpected appearance made everyone uneasy, but I stayed. I even sat away from the main table, forcing people to come over to where I was sitting to chat. Mark didn't know what was going on, but he picked up on my need to be there, he learned on our first date just how stubborn I was. And I learned that I was unable to use a guy and the dump him.
I realized very quickly that this was not going to be our only date. At first I thought it was because being mean just wasn't not in my nature, then I knew that this guy was different, better than any man that I had ever met before. Amazingly Mark asked if he could see me on Monday, then Tuesday and so on. Four months later he asked me to marry him, a year later we got married.