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operas are plentiful, though, and they’re all doing that manic back-and-forth face-searching. I wonder where they learned this style of acting. I turn the TV off, lie back in bed, and rub at my forehead. I think of Dr. Singh, how I stillhaven’t heard back from him on the CAT-scan results, and how strange that day was.
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    â€œYou know,” the CAT-scan operator started to say that day, then let his words float unfinished in the room. I stood there in my little green gown, waiting for him to complete his out-loud thoughts. He was a tall, wiry guy with veiny forearms, probably younger than me, but he spoke as if he were the chief of surgery. MIKE , his name tag said in black plastic letters. “Paul McCartney helped pay for these machines to be made into mobile truck units,” Mike said. “You’re getting scanned with a little help from the Beatles.” He grinned at his pun.
    â€œI bet they’re a bitch down the long and winding roads,” I quipped.
    Mike’s face went blank.
    I felt bad that he was trying to put me at ease. It meant he had compassion, and I was a big liar going to get scanned. It wasn’t really a lie; I just wasn’t meeting with the right person, maybe. I was wondering if an exorcist might be the more appropriate choice, but Paul McCartney probably didn’t fund any mobile exorcism units.
    â€œHey,” I offered, “did you know if you play one of the Beatles songs backward, it says ‘Paul is dead’?”
    MIKE strapped me onto the ice-cold gurney. “I’m not really a fan, actually,” he said, slid up the safety rails, and rolled me into the belly of the giant humming machine. “It’ll be over soon.”
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    The curtains on my hotel room windows are maroon and delightfully thick, like the ones in movie theaters. I pull them closed andshut off all the lights. I push the bed up against one wall and surround myself with blankets and pillows. It’s not the same as the nest I used to share with Zoe, but it serves its purpose as I wait for my headache to melt away.
    I sleep for what must be several hours. When I wake, the daytime no longer creeps in around the edges of the curtains, which tangibly decreases the pain in my head. But my headache is replaced by a numbing boredom. With only four television channels to surf, I quickly cycle through my choices and realize it’s time to get outside.
    I open my “See Sexy Spain” vacation guide and study the photos: beaches populated with alluring models—uninterested women with dark tans, confident in their tinted eyewear; deeply tanned men with wraparound sunglasses, feigning indifference. Everyone is so cool, so apathetic. I need something to wake me up. I flip through more pages and find the discotheque section. I can’t read most of the writing, but there are a lot of exclamation points and that looks exciting. According to one ad, a popular club is right up the street: Club de Cuerpo. I imagine Zoe might be drawn to such a place—an entire building filled with new, alluring people. Her interest in other cultures always showed itself for several days after we’d watch a foreign film. She’d talk about discotheques and boulangeries , stressing the correct foreign pronunciation to make those words stand out like works of audible art—as if their unique sounds were reason enough to visit faraway lands. I guess I need to see what all the noise is about.

chapter 24
    My vision and hearing are officially gone. All I can sense is the thumping. A giant mass of soap bubbles has washed over me and most of the dance floor, like a horror-movie fog. The pulse is maddening, a physical presence infusing my internal organs. My hair vibrates. My eyes burn. Wild women whoop and swing their hair around and grind on other women.
    It’s a wild scene, but already I feel sick. Sick of this club, with all its strobe flashes and percussion bombs; sick of