Pleasure Palace

It took me a while to realize it, but the quality of the construction job in my fabulous new bathroom began to deteriorate as soon as the contractor broke up with his lover, who happened to be my hairdresser. Stuart had been doing my hair ever since Jordan and I moved to Long Island, and he was the one who set me up with Ron when he heard that I was in the market for a contractor. I’d been putting off the construction for months, though originally Jordan and I had planned on a starting date of July 1. On April 13, Jordan died of a cerebral hemorrhage that had left hint brain-dead, lingering in a coma for six days. The hemorrhage was caused by the cancer that had tormented him for a year and a half, but it came as a complete surprise to everyone, including the squad of doctors on the case. The truth was that, from the start, none of them had been particularly optimistic, but I never did tell Jordan, thinking the knowledge wouldn’t have been the least bit helpful to him.

He was 34 years old when he died; we’d been married for 12 years and had been in love for even longer than that, since high school.

The last time I saw him conscious, only hours before he disappeared into the coma, he was sitting up in his hospital bed enjoying smoked turkey and Dijon mustard on a croissant. Crumbs littered the bedclothes, and if we’d been home, I would have gone after them with the Dustbuster. But since he was in the hospital (recuperating from a low white count that resulted from his chemo treatments), I just let them stay where they’d fallen.

We’re not going anywhere, Jordan said. Not in 2 years, or 20. We’re just going to hang around forever enjoying our pleasure palace.

Jordan was looking pretty good: his bald head was wrapped in a dark-blue-and-white bandanna, and the little gold earring in his left ear (I’d pierced it myself with a cork and a sewing needle) gleamed beautifully. He looked like a person who led an exciting life — a rock star or a pirate, maybe. (In fact, he was a lecturer in the art history department of a local college and would have been an assistant professor if only he’d finished his dissertation.) After the second cycle of chemo, he lost every bit of his thick, unruly dirty-blond hair. It fell out in handfuls in the shower over