Butterfly (31 page)

estly think you could come in here and ask me to operate on you for
free?”

“No, sir,” she said, a little of the San Antonio accent creeping out. “I have never asked

for anything for free in my life. What I want, I work for. And I’ll work for you, Dr.

Wiseman. I’ve got to work for Eddie, because I owe him that, but I’ll work for you, too.

For as long as you say. Just please fix my face.”

He gave her a thoughtful look. “Are you a nurse?”

“No.”

“Can you type?”

“No.”

“Do you know medical terminology?”

“No.”

“Do you have a high school diploma?”

“No.”

His look turned to one of incredulousness. “What
can
you do?”

“Anything that needs to be done. I sweep floors and wash dishes—”

“We don’t have dishes in this office, young lady, and a cleaning service does our floors.

How old are you?”

“Nineteen.”

“Do your parents know you’re here?”

“My parents are dead.”

He frowned slightly. “I see. Who takes care of you, then?”

“No one. I’ve been on my own since I was fourteen.”

“Are you from the South?”

“I was in Texas for a while.”

“How did you live?”

“I worked for a woman named Hazel.”

“What did you do?”

“Hazel owned a whorehouse. That’s where I lived for three years. I was one of her

girls.” She added softly, “My boyfriend Danny put me in there.”

A silence filled the office then. A silence that seemed to admit every sound from the

outside and magnify it: the cars down below on Rodeo Drive, high heels click-clacking

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by, a distant siren. Seymour Wiseman removed his glasses again and wiped them even

though they didn’t need to be. He suddenly found himself remembering something—an

incident in the past that he hadn’t thought about in years, hadn’t
allowed
himself to think

about in years. What was it about this strange young girl that had triggered the unwanted

memory? He looked at her eyes—yes, her only redeeming feature—and saw the flame of

a very strong and determined soul burning brightly. He thought of Texas whorehouses

and boyfriends named Danny who victimized homely girls who have no parents to watch

out for them.

Then he said, “I have a daughter your age.”

He put her in a private hospital that evening and started the very next morning on her

nose. The cartilage to build up her chin he borrowed from her seventh rib; her ears he

would do last.

On the first morning of surgery, as Beverly lay on the operating table, a nurse asked

her to lift her hips so that she could slide the conductor plate under her—it was for the

electric cautery, she said. And in so doing, the nurse noticed the tattoo on the inside of

Beverly’s thigh. “How pretty,” the nurse said. “It’s a butterfly, isn’t it?”

Dr. Wiseman, coming into the room with upraised wet hands, water running off his

elbows, took a look and said, “I can remove that for you if you would like, Beverly.”

But she said, “No.” It was her daily reminder of Danny Mackay.

The surgery hurt, but Beverly stoically withstood it. All through the injections of local

anesthetic, the sound of a rasp sawing away at the bones in her nose, the taste of blood

running down the back of her throat, the feel of sutures going in, coming out, all through

the days and nights of loneliness in the hospital with no one coming to visit, no flowers to

cheer up her room, the endless chain of starched women with starched smiles ministering

to her body, and through the long hours on the operating table and the long hours of

waiting for the end, of looking at her swollen, bruised face in the mirror, the bandages

and caked blood—through the entire ten-week ordeal—Beverly thought of only one

thing: her ambition to make something of herself. And someday, when she was ready, to

meet up again with Danny Mackay.

When Dr. Wiseman was finished, Beverly saw that he had almost completely erased

the face Danny had so despised, the ugliness that Hazel’s kinkier customers preferred, the

face that had so enraged her father. In its place, he had put the face of a stranger.

“What do you think?” he asked on her final day in the hospital when the last of the

bandages and sutures came off.

Beverly wasn’t sure. Actually, she looked ghastly. The bruises had melted down to greeny-

yellow blotches, there were angry red lines where silk thread had sewn up the cuts, and she

was still puffy. Nonetheless, there was some evidence there…. The nose was definitely

smaller, the chin no longer recessed, and the ears stayed respectably back against her skull.

“Don’t worry,” Dr. Wiseman said, putting a fatherly hand on her shoulder. “The

bruising will disappear soon and the swelling will go down. The scars will vanish, and the

sun will give you some good color. Now let me give you some advice. Pluck your eye-

brows and do something with your hair. You’ll look like a movie star, guaranteed.”

BUTTERFLY

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She checked into a motel in West L.A. and visited Dr. Wiseman three more times after

that. Finally, the face he had promised her did appear, and when she saw him for the last

time, she arrived prepared to pay him.

“I earn ninety dollars a month at Eddie’s diner,” she said. “I can send you five dollars

every two weeks. You tell me when you want me to come in and I’ll be here, Dr.

Wiseman. I’ll do anything that needs doing around this office. I’ll come in on weekends

if you want—”

But he held up a hand. “Beverly, to quote yourself, I don’t need your money. I am, as

you accused, terribly rich. Don’t ask me why I operated on you—your case was very rou-

tine and not at all a medical challenge. I had other things to do and you were an incon-

venience. But I’ll tell you one thing. Twenty years ago a younger Seymour Wiseman had

a modest medical practice on a nice residential street in Berlin. He didn’t think much of

money in those days. In fact, he didn’t like people who worshiped it. And then a terrible

day came”—his eyes misted behind the little round glasses—“a day in which soldiers

came and took his neighbors, his best friends away. Then that young Dr. Wiseman, terri-

fied because he knew he was next, heard about a way to get out of Germany, so long as he

had the money. So Dr. Wiseman got the money, and was able to get his family out of

Germany and into America. All of his friends, however, died in Nazi ovens. Do you know

what I am talking about?”

“Yes,” she whispered.

He sighed. “Anyway, it happened a long time ago and in a world that no longer exists.

But ever since then, I have placed all my faith in money. I worship money, Beverly. I

always will. And if you’re smart, you’ll listen to what I say. Money is power, Beverly.

Money is the key to freedom. Money allows you to do all the things you want to do. Can

you understand that?”

She nodded.

“However,” he hastened to add, when he saw how intensely she agreed with him,

when he saw secret visions burning darkly in her eyes, “just once in a long while, Beverly,

let yourself do something purely for charity, purely because it will be a tonic for your soul,

and you’ll be able to live with yourself. Do you understand?”

“Yes.”

He regarded her for a long moment. She made him sad. It made him want to weep to

see one so young already set on the road of hatred and vengeance, for that was surely what

he saw burning so feverishly in her eyes. And that was what it was about this strange girl

that had triggered the unwanted memories the day he had met her. She had reminded

him of himself, of a bitter, grieving young Seymour Wiseman on his way to a new world

while the corpses of his friends and loved ones burned in Nazi ovens.

He stood and held out his hand. But, of course, she didn’t take it. That was where he

and she differed: at least Seymour had learned to touch again, and to love. He could only

pray that whatever wounds tormented this poor girl would someday heal and she would

forgive but not necessarily forget, and allow herself to live once again. “We’ll say good-bye

now, Beverly. You don’t need me anymore, and I have to get back to my rich patients.

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Kathryn Harvey

Promise me you will come back and visit me someday. And tell me what you have done

and where you have gone with your beautiful new face.”

Beverly got off the bus on Highland Avenue and went into the first beauty shop she

saw. She was there for six hours and gave the beautician all the money she had, which

included her bus fare the rest of the way home. So she walked it, suitcase in hand, down

the familiar streets of Hollywood to Eddie’s diner.

He was in the kitchen frantically frying up hamburgers when she walked in. “Hey!” he

said. “No customers allowed back here!”

“It’s me, Eddie,” she said.

“Me, who?”

“Me, Beverly. I’m back.”

He frowned. He stared at the beautiful face with the pretty nose and delicate chin, at

the finely arched eyebrows and platinum hair stretched back into one of the new stylish

French twists. Then he looked down at the familiar battered brown suitcase with the

P&O sticker on it, and he dropped his spatula.

18

Jessica screamed when she scored a direct hit.

Then, seeing the stunned look on John’s face, she turned and started to run. But the

snow was too deep and her clothing too cumbersome for her to make a good getaway;

John was on her in an instant, pulling her down and pinning her arms over her head.

“You won’t get away with that!” he shouted as he straddled her and scooped up snow

with his free hand.

She shrieked and struggled. But he was too strong for her. As he rubbed snow in her

face he said, “Say ‘uncle’! Come on, Jess, say ‘uncle’!”

She tried to fight him, but finally she had to cry
“Uncle!”
and then he released her. But

as soon as she rolled away from him, she scrambled in the snow, hastily packed a ball

between her gloved hands, and threw it at him, scoring another direct hit. Before he could

strike back, Jessica was on her feet and running, laughing, looking over her shoulder and

sticking out her tongue at him.

John, also laughing, ran after her. This time, when he caught her, he swung her

around, pulled her into his arms and kissed her.

She slumped against him, exhausted, breathless, and happy.

“Come on, honey,” he said, holding her. “Bonnie and Ray will wonder what’s taking

us so long.”

Jessica didn’t care. She knew that the other couple had returned to the condo an hour

ago and were waiting for the Franklins, but the walk back from the ski slope had been so

invigorating that Jessica hadn’t been able to resist starting a snowball fight.

She hadn’t wanted to come to Mammoth for the weekend and share a condo with

John’s business partner and his wife—she had too much work waiting on her desk. But

now she was glad she had given in. This was what they needed: a weekend of escape.

They stamped the snow off their boots and delivered themselves into the cozy warmth

of the house. A fire was blazing, and Ray and Bonnie were sitting in front of it, playing

Scrabble.

“Ooh!” said Jessica, shedding her parka and mittens. “Is that mulled wine I smell?”

“It’s on the stove,” said Bonnie. “Help yourself.”

As Jessica started to head for the kitchen John said, “Why don’t you go upstairs and

change first?”

She started to protest—she desperately wanted to get something hot inside her—but

instead she said, “Okay,” and headed for the stairs.

While she slipped into a soft velour caftan she heard the rumble of laughter down

below. Bonnie and Ray prided themselves on being expert Scrabble players. It wasn’t a

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Kathryn Harvey

game Jessica particularly enjoyed, but John liked it, so she was resigned to spending the

evening playing it. Before leaving the bedroom, she paused to look at herself in the mir-

ror. Her cheeks were flushed, her dark brown eyes bright with happiness. John had made

love to her that morning, before they had headed out with their skis. And it had been very

nice. She knew he would do it again tonight.

A mug of hot wine was already waiting for her when she joined the others. As John