The Girl With Nine Wigs by Sophie van der Stap Page A

father’s never been able to see that. This morning he pulled on an apple green shirt with an olive green jacket.
    â€œFor a special occasion!” he says. Bless him. The occasion in question is dropping me off at the hospital again.
    These days he hates to shop; he can’t be bothered. But it was different when he was younger. Back then he had a mustache at least twenty centimeters long that curled up at both ends like Dalí’s. Before he went to sleep each night he clamped the ends with two clothespins to keep them curled. And when he went to parties he brought his “pet” with him: a stuffed crocodile on roller skates with a leash around its neck. My father pulled him around all night long, dressed in striped boat shirts with an Italian silk scarf around his neck. Both the mustache and the crocodile are gone now, but all the rest has stayed.
    When my father met my mother she was still running her antique shop. In the evenings she worked for a fashion designer, sewing costumes and evening dresses. By the time my sister and I were born, she had swapped her fishnet stockings and cowboy boots for pencil skirts and vintage heels. I don’t know if it’s Amsterdam or them, but I’ve come to realize that my parents are kind of cool. Nothing’s ever been taboo in our house. Although it’s easier to talk to my mom about stuff, my father turns everything into a joke, not leaving much untouched either. Like the other day in the hospital when I went to pee and he waited in the hallway for me, and I discovered my pubic hair was now parting from me too.
    â€œI wonder if they sell bunches of pubic hair at the wig store?” he joked.
    â€œOr maybe they’ll throw some in for free with the purchase of a wig?” I replied.
    â€œThe colors do need to match of course.”
    â€œOf course.”
    *   *   *
    For the same occasion for which my father wears his green ensemble, I have put Sue on my head and packed Blondie and Daisy—in the hospital I prefer to blend in rather than stand out. I’ve left Stella home, whom I haven’t taken out in months. On the way to the hospital it’s always a bit quiet in the car, because we have to prepare ourselves for Dr. L, rhabdomyosarcoma, fear, and all the other misery the hospital has to offer.
    But the moment I set foot in the building I switch gears, and the only thing on my list is survival. Despite the ward smelling like chemo and death, I do feel safe in the hospital. It’s a small and lonely world but also a cozy and warm one. That switch gets me through my hospital days but makes the distance between my two worlds feel greater than ever. In the hospital I’m a girl too sick for her age, seeing time pass by while lying in bed. But the outside world is so full of life, being so many women at the same time and being occupied with only one thing: having a good time.
    Today I get to see the images from my scan. There’s a series of small, dark images hanging in front of me that Dr. L has clamped to his projection screen.
    Dr. L laughs when I walk into his office as fierce Sue, and then turns to the matter at hand: my lungs. I can see it for myself, the tumors are smaller. The contour of my right lung shows much fewer abnormalities than it did two months ago, when the battle had only just begun. The pleura around my left lung runs in a curve so nice and smooth I could copy it with a compass. The fleece around my right lung, however, is not geometric in the least. It looks like spaghetti with some odd pieces of ravioli. The biggest ravioli is down low, close to my liver. I named the three hanging around the middle of my lung “Huey,” “Dewey,” and “Louie.” There’s a loner up at the top, hidden deep behind my right breast. I christened him “Naughty Norbert.” “Rhabdo” means rod-shaped, “myo” means muscle tissue, and a “sarcoma” is