Slick

Lily was in the shower with a new body wash (proposed name: Moist-You-Rama™) when she realized that she hadn't looked at her breasts in a year. A good year.

Her body nagged at her. It poked, and prodded, and wheedled her, whining for attention, like an uninvited guest with too much baggage.

"I don't want to put you out, but... " Lily's body hinted.

One night, Lily watched a show called How Old Are You, Really? An attractive, blonde epidemiologist, or a spokesmodel posing as one, explained that Lily's calendar age had little to do with her biological age.

Lily listened to the epidemiologist-spokesmodel while tapping out a brief that identified Canada's biggest users of body washes: Sexy Suburbans, Affluent Asians and Sushi & Chardonnays. Lily herself was a Sushi & Chardonnay: a professional, urban woman, thirty-five to forty-nine years of age. The same demographic watching How Old Are You, Really?

"Statistics don't lie," the epidemiologist assured Lily. "Experts agree that there are six secrets to living healthier, longer, better lives."

Lily bullet-listed the secrets on a sidebar of her brain:

1. Buy a dog. Studies by a leading pet food manufacturer show that canine companionship lowers blood pressure.
2. Don't commute. Fighting traffic boosts stress hormones.
3. Drink no more than two servings of alcohol a day. Even on weekends.
4. Stand on one foot. Balance is a key indicator of longevity.
5. Smile. Optimists live longer, healthier lives.
6. Have all the usual tests for blood in the urine and stool, lumps in the breasts, moles that change colour and shape, et cetera.

The sixth secret troubled Lily. She hadn't had a mammogram, or a blood pressure check, or a Pap smear, in years.

She was leading a dangerously unexamined life.

The next morning, Lily palpated her left breast, unsure of what she was looking for. She hated the word 'palpate'. Rory opened the shower door.

"How's the body wash? Are you using it now?"

"Yes," said Lily, making little round circles on the underside of one breast.

"What are you doing? Rubbing it in?"

"Palpating," Lily explained. "Checking for lumps."

"Don't," said Rory. "Imagine what would happen if you found something."

"So you'd rather I die?" asked Lily.

"I'd rather you apply for insurance before you start checking yourself for pre-existing conditions you'll have to tell the insurance company about," said Rory, closing the door. "Don't slip. The moisturizer in that body wash is leaving an oil slick on the tiles."

Lilly could hear the heavy liquid sound of Rory's first pee of the morning.

"No lumps in the right breast," she announced.

"Good for you," came the response. "Be considerate. Don't check the other one."

Lily towelled off. The product was greasy. Hard to rinse off. The line 'super-moisturized to drench your skin with lipids' sprung to mind. But what exactly were 'lipids'? Tiny wet things that clung to your skin like leeches, but instead of sucking moisture out, put it back in?

Dressed for work, slick with moisturizer, apparently lump-free, Lily sat down to fruit, nuts and yogurt. She noticed that Rory's cereal bowl was overflowing onto the Life section of the newspaper. Disgusting.

"Have you looked at the coverage I told you about?" Rory asked.

Lily sighed. "So that's what the bullshit in the bathroom was about."

"You're forty-two. You're still healthy. You need to do this now, before you get sick."

"You're worried about having to take care of me?"

"Shouldn't I be?" asked Rory. "You're the one who keeps telling me that you won't see sixty."

"I think I said that I don't want to be sixty. Or look sixty. But what's the alternative? Dad died at fifty-five. Mum lived to sixty. In a wheelchair. And that," said Lily firmly, "Is why they won't insure me."

"Winchester Life insures everybody," said Rory, pushing a brochure across the table.

"Critical Illness coverage," Lily read aloud. "Everyone accepted. No medical. But look at the payout, Rory: I'll end up with about $5,000, if I'm lucky enough to get sick while I'm still young. Pocket change."

"Ask about the enhanced coverage."

"Thank you, Angel of Death, " Lily muttered, tossing the brochure into her briefcase. "I'll look into it at work. Don't book the convalescent home yet."

At the office, Lily noticed that her pen kept slipping from her fingers while she tried to make notes on the Moist-You-Rama brief. When she pulled her laptop from her bag, it crashed to the floor.

Greg appeared at her door. "And how are you?"

"Moisturized," responded Lily. "Dangerously so. My laptop just slipped out of my hands. Can't rinse the damn product off."

"Problem, Lily? Or opportunity?"

"Oh, opportunity, definitely. Super emollient. Doesn't stop moisturizing even after you've attempted, and failed, to rinse. You'd have to roll in sand to soak it up."

"Maybe it's like a slippery-slide in a bottle," said Greg. "Is that what you call those water carpets kids use? You know the ones I mean."

Casually, he snapped shut the vertical blinds on the inside of Lily's office.

"Pants off?" asked Greg.

"I should think so," responded Lily.

As she tugged down her skirt and positioned herself on the edge of the desk, she glanced at the grey flannel trousers puddled around Greg's ankles and wondered: why didn't he wear jeans instead of this private boys' school double-pleated Dry Clean Only look of his? Even if it was meant ironically, at Greg's age (fifty? forty-nine?), he was no longer a young man geekily attired in the pants of a middle-aged man; he was that man. He was beginning to look like Lily's father, whose veins had silently congealed with the residue of too many backyard barbecues and Lily's mother's caramelized desserts.

Greg, nervous about discovery, came promptly. Lily almost slid off the desk. "Brilliant way to start a Monday," he said cheerily, pulling up his pants, closing his

fly, and opening the verticals in rapid succession. He then trouser-legged his way, all leather and Oxford cloth and wool tweed, back to the creative department.

Lily adjusted her skirt and checked her calendar. She had nothing penciled in for the next three minutes. Time to think about her mortality.

She took the brochure out of her briefcase. The front cover read:

Death. Life. Sickness. 1-800-333-4567. She called the number.

"Winchester Life."

"I'm calling about Critical Illness."

"Ah, yes."

"I want the enhanced coverage."

"Very wise."

As Lily gave her history, she glanced at her watch and started to make notes for her morning meeting. She wondered: should the branding follow the naming exercise, or should they name the product in order to brand it?

Mother dead at age sixty of Huntington's Disease, Lily explained. Genetic, of course; it ran in families.

"And your father?"

"Dead. Fifty-five. Heart attack. Boom."

"Gosh." The voice sounded surprised. No one in their right mind with her family history would apply for insurance. "Look, you can have a detailed medical and if you're in good health, you'll probably get coverage. Even with the family history. I can book the nurse to come to your office at the end of day."

Lily stood on one foot. Easy. She could do this all day. She was pretty sure she was biologically younger than forty-two.

"Fine," responded Lily. "I won't have my second cup of coffee today."

"Very wise," said the man. "Good luck."

Greg appeared at her door, looking pleased. "We have fresh ammunition for Moist- You-Rama," he said.

He placed a press release on Lily's desk. The lead read: New lipid-enriched personal care product can reverse damage to skin's DNA.

"What does this mean, exactly?" asked Lily.

"It means that if you've been out baking in the sun for the past, oh, twenty years, Moist-You-Rama actually changes damaged DNA into healthy DNA. Not that we can say that, of course."

Lily paused for a second. "But wouldn't that mean it was a cure for...I don't know...cancer?"

"Something like that. Draw your own conclusions."

"And do we have experts who will attest to this?"

"Depends on what you call 'experts'. Do chemists count?"
Lily shrugged. "Chemists are scientists. They invented the Pill. They put a man on

the moon. They made the lipids in Moist-You-Rama 'super emollient'."

"I doubt that our chemists put a man on the moon," said Greg.

      "Still, they are obviously a bright and hard-working bunch," insisted Lily. "If they were a demographic cluster, they'd be Intellectual Elites or Affluent Geek Chic. So why can't they find a way to prevent Huntington's Disease?"

      "Ah," said Greg. "We're worried about that now, are we?"

"Rory is starting to worry. We're talking about insurance."

      "I've always been relieved that I've never had to work on an insurance account," Greg said. "At my age, it's the kind of project they tend to offer you."

      "You'd be great at it," Lily said. "Think of the creative possibilities. Two women in a coffee shop. One says, 'Did you hear about Polly's husband spontaneously combusting?' And the other says, 'Yes, it's a shame he didn't leave insurance. They had to bury him in a baggie. I'd never want to have that happen to me!' So the other says, 'Me neither, which is why I got Drastic End of Life Coverage Plus: peace of mind for less than the cost of a cup of coffee a day!'"

Greg said, "You should pick up an insurance client. Clearly, you were born to it."

"Clearly, I was born to be turned down as a bad risk," said Lily. "Which is exactly what is going to happen later today. But at least I can tell Rory that I applied, was quoted a stupendously unaffordable premium, and we'll move on, living our lives and not worrying about it."

"Well, you won't worry anyway," said Greg. "Sounds like Rory's a different story. You can have a genetic test for Huntington's, can't you?"

"Yes. Something the chemists came up with, no doubt. But do I want to know that in twenty years, my life will be over?"

      "If you know, you could get out of this racket now and do something worthwhile," suggested Greg. "Who cares if Moist-You-Rama becomes a category-killer? You could be doing good and worthy work."

      "No, thanks. I figure a life spent flogging personal care products is so selfish and self-serving, I'll live to a hundred."

      "Only the good die young?" suggested Greg.

      "Sure looks that way to me," answered Lily. "Besides, if Moist-You-Rama can change DNA, maybe I've been slathering myself with a cure. Now, if you'll excuse me, I have to stand on one foot while I wait for the insurance company nurse to drop by."

"Ms. Daigle?" asked a presence at her door. Lily expected a clip-art nurse with a starched white cap pinned to a steel-grey perm. Instead, Nurse was a trim, dark-haired man in his twenties in grey pants and a black leather jacket, holding a backpack and motorcycle helmet. Something about his fine, unlined features reminded Lily of a molded doll.

"I'm Nurse Pereira," he said, offering his hand. His voice had the slightest trace of an accent. Portuguese? Spanish? wondered Lily.

"Come into my office," suggested Lily.

Nurse Pereira unpacked his gear and starting assessing Lily: weight (Lily didn't look), blood pressure (didn't ask), test for HIV/AIDs (didn't want to know). As he removed the needle from her arm, Lily said, "I'm trying to place your accent. Where are you from?"

"Newmarket," he told her. "Now I need to ask you a few questions, Ms. Daigle. Parents alive?"

      Lily outlined her parents' early demises. Nurse set down the facts on a questionnaire.

      "Your father hadÉwhat, angina?"

      "I suppose so."

      "Age of onset?"

      Lily was lost. "You mean, when did he get sick? He never got sick. One minute he was alive. The next, dead. So if you're talking about age of onset for his death, it was the year he died."

      Nurse nodded. "And your mother? Age of onset?"

      "Probably about forty," Lily said.

      "Your siblings Ð any serious illnesses?"

      "Siblings?" Lily was startled. "I didn't know you asked about siblings Ð I thought just my parentsÉ"

"We do ask. Any siblings?"

      "Just my sister," Lily answered. "Rory. Aurora, really."

      "No serious illnesses?"

      "No, butÉwell, there's no genetic connection between us. She was adopted."

      Adopted, thought Lily from a healthy teenage mother who was no doubt alive right now. Never suspecting that her baby had been adopted by parents who would be (a) dead and (b) disabled before they had a chance to move from being MAAs (Middle-Aged Accumulators) to AASs (Affluent Active Seniors). And so Rory in her turn would turn into a CC (Concerned Caregiver) instead of a SS (Successful Single), unless she married before Lily turned into a YUDDIE (Young Underutilized and Disabled).

      "What about you?," asked Nurse. "Have you had: Stroke, High Blood Pressure, Angina, Diabetes, Cancer, Mental Illness, HIV/AIDs or diseases of the joints, muscles, or lungs?"

      "No."

      "Are there any conditions or symptoms of medical conditions that you have not sought treatment for, but which you have been thinking of discussing with your doctor?"

      "Are you asking," Lily said slowly, "Whether I have ever, in my deepest, darkest thoughts, wondered if a drop of blood in the toilet meant colon cancer? Whether a pain in my side before my period meant a tumour? Whether a slight headache when I haven't had my first cup of coffee is really the warning sign of a stroke?"

      "That's right," said Nurse.

      "And you're telling me," answered Lily, "That if say, 'No, I have never thought in my wildest imaginings about any of these potentially life-threatening conditions', that I would be instantly believed? How would Winchester Life check that out? If I suddenly got sick, would they do some kind of mind control experiment to see if I suspected I was sick all along, but didn't go to the doctor?"

      "Should I tick 'no'?" asked Nurse.

      "No, don't tick 'no'! Of course I worry about getting sick. I worry every time my foot goes to sleep that maybe it's the beginning of my mother's illness and that within a year, I'll be in a wheelchair."

      "I don't have enough space to write that," answered Nurse.

      "Okay, just let me think about this for a second."

      Lily thought: They're just asking this question to protect themselves. People must cheat the insurance companies all the time. But that begs the question: would you rather cheat the insurance company? Or cheat death?

      "I'll answer 'no'," decided Lily.

      Nurse Pereira ticked the box with a little flourish of his pen. "We're done."

      "Fine," said Lily. "I won't get my hopes up."

      As Nurse Pereira packed up, Lily was plagued by a phrase that Greg often used when he presented creative concepts to a client and then had a better idea after returning to the office: esprit de l'escalier.

Lily's esprit de l'escalier was the exchange that she should have had with Nurse Pereira. She pictured herself taking the questionnaire and folding it, smaller and smaller, then poking the paper into the creamy depths of a bottle of Moist-You-Rama.

      "You've already signed it," warned Nurse.

      "Then process my application, by all means," Lily said, and handed the bottle to him.

"I've had to take forms out of worse," sneered Nurse. "One applicant changed his mind and ate his long-term disability application. I put him in a locked room, and waited."

And with that, he placed the soggy facts of Lily's life in his briefcase, and left.

"You won't be able to hold onto me," she yelled after him. "My life is going to slip right through your fingers!"

In reality, Nurse had simply packed up and looked at her without expression. The face of Winchester Life. Of no surprises. Of the click of a wheelchair on linoleum. The sound of a doctor's heels walking away when there was nothing left to do or say.

Lily watched him walking down the hallway in his motorcycle jacket and thought: Maybe if I killed him now, I'd live happily ever after.

      At 6 p.m., Lily met Greg at the elevators.

      "Can I buy you a drink?" he asked.

      "Only if you don't mind buying one for Rory, too. She's going to want all the details of the day."

      "Two drinks then," said Greg.

      They stepped out of the building into a pool of knowledge workers, huddled in the entranceway to escape a soft rain. Lily saw Rory stepping down from the streetcar.

      Rory didn't see the fast-moving Vespa that showed no sign of coming to a full and complete stop behind the streetcar door.

      The rider, a slim man in a black jacket and grey pants, turned his helmeted head to look at an attractive blonde woman on the sidewalk, tugging a Bouvier.

"Heel, Merde!" the woman yelled at the dog. Lily recognized her as the epidemiologist/spokesmodel from How Old Are You, Really?

Rory, the blonde, the dog, the Nurse, the Vespa. They all kept moving, yet stayed in place, like a cartoon coyote standing over a canyon, unaware of the drop.

Lily shouted Rory's name. Then Nurse's name. Then braced herself for the impact of what would happen next.