Chill

Parking, grab spot close to entrance. Elevator, push fourth floor button. Register, secure wrist bracelet with my essential information, like the ones put on newborns. Find dressing room, shirt off, wipe armpits, tie robe around waist. Now, time to relax with a cup of tea. The illusion of a spa experience takes my mind off the pending exam in which a stranger smashes my breasts between cold plates for picture-taking. Today, the spa is closed. "We're moving," the receptionist says. Translation: no hot beverage available before you take a long walk through public halls to the new, and soon-to-be-beautiful, reception area for all things mammary gland-related. I sit, nipples alert and wait. A non-medical man with a leather tool belt smiles at me. We make eye contact and I run to where I should not be and see many breasts on computer screens. "Can you make the construction men go away? I find it hard enough to be here,"I say. My radiologist takes my hand and off we go. She moves my skin this and that way while telling me about her sister who manages a place like this many states away, but who now has breast cancer. "I'll call if there's anything urgent." I have two phones. Neither ring all day.