Flavor of the Month (25 page)

She cried all through the garment center, down to Twenty-fourth Street. She kept walking, and finally paused long enough to go the bathroom and wash her face in the ladies’ room at the Chelsea Hotel. The hip, tatty place which artists and writers had been checking in and out of for decades was grim as ever. “Well,” she told herself, looking into the old, cracked mirror over the sink, “if Dr. Moore won’t take your case, or the plan doesn’t work, you can always come back here to the Roach Motel. Perfect for a successful suicide.” She wouldn’t be the first. It was the only thought that comforted her.

She walked down Seventh Avenue to Eighth Street, stopped in a used-book store, and browsed distractedly for an hour. She would learn not to think of Sam; she’d train herself starting now. She wandered over to Hudson Street. Then she had half a cantaloupe at a Greek joint (no cottage cheese—only forty calories, but an outrageous $3.50) and made her way down the Avenue of the Americas to Houston Street. There the marquee over Film Forum attracted her. It was a Mai Von Trilling double feature—both of which she had seen countless times before. Still, she loved those German movies of the early thirties, and Mai was surely one of the most beautiful actresses of all time. Mary Jane lined up along with the other losers who make up the crowd for the first show at art theaters. Still, for six bucks she’d buy four hours of forgetfulness, see some
real
acting, then walk all the way home and chew on some salad before she hit the sheets. And she wouldn’t let herself think about Sam.

So her pattern was set: out of the house by nine, walking for almost eight hours, with a movie break and a cup of coffee (black) when absolutely necessary. She didn’t call anyone, didn’t return any calls, not even Molly’s. After a week, she disconnected her answering machine. She found two kids to take the apartment, sold off her stuff, and found a cheap place to stay on East Nineteenth Street. But they wouldn’t take cats. So she made one last visit to Molly, with the cashmere jacket in one hand and Midnight howling in his travel box. Oddly enough, it was giving up Midnight that made her more lonely than anything else.

Mary Jane walked, hungry, up and down Manhattan, without the courage to weigh herself, or to read another newspaper. Her room was grim. No place to hang out. She avoided mirrors and haunted public libraries, bookstores, and the shops with theater and film memorabilia. She splurged and bought a few cheap stills, black-and-white glossies of the faces she’d loved on the luminous screen. Could I get Jeanne Moreau’s mouth? Garbo’s chin? Mai Von Trilling’s nose? Cheekbones like Hepburn—either Katharine
or
Audrey. She wasn’t particular. But mainly she walked. And when she was too tired to walk anymore, she rested at Grand Central Station, or Penn Station, or any one of the lesser hotel lobbies—temporary homes of the displaced person in Manhattan.

As she walked, memories came back to her. Memories of her grandmother, of Scuderstown, of nursing school. But mostly she remembered Sam. Whole conversations they had had. The night they got locked out of her apartment. The day he cast her as Jill. The surprise birthday party she threw for him. The way he made love to her. Sometimes she walked with tears running down her cheeks. Luckily, it was New York, and no one even noticed.

And she discovered something: if you only had one purpose, it wasn’t so hard to achieve it. When she had to cinch her jeans in three notches on her belt, she decided to call the Hennessey witch at Dr. Moore’s. She’d show him the photos she’d collected, she’d get weighed by Yenta, his nurse. But had she lost enough? she wondered. Would it prove her commitment? Would he take her really seriously?

When she called, Miss Hennessey was cool, but without argument she made the appointment for a week later. For six days, Mary Jane really starved herself. Would he not see her again, not move her on for more X-rays if she hadn’t shown enough willpower and commitment? She showed up almost an hour early, and paced the hospital lobby. At last, she had the courage to take the elevator up.

Stripped to a hospital gown, she stood barefoot on the scale while the nurse weighed her. Miss Hennessey fumbled, looked at Mary Jane’s chart, and then moved the weights again.

“Can this be right?” she asked Mary Jane. “In seven weeks, you’ve lost twenty-one and a half pounds?”

“Have I?” Mary Jane said, and wondered if it would be enough.

When Mary Jane passed Miss Hennessey’s desk and entered Dr. Moore’s office, she felt as if she might pass out. By now he’d seen the preliminary X-rays. What if he told her that he couldn’t give her the results she wanted? What if Dr. Moore said it was possible but chancy? Would she risk it? And what if he simply said he could do it? What then? She was determined to move forward, but she was, she had to admit, petrified.

Dr. Moore was standing before a light screen, looking at cranial X-rays. He looked up as she came in, and gestured at the pictures. “The face is endlessly fascinating,” he said. “When I was looking for a surgical specialty, I had every intention of becoming a cardiac surgeon. It was where the hottest, smartest surgeons gravitated. But I found out there was a glut of them, and that I’d probably wind up practicing in Idaho. Then I was stuck, because, aside from the heart, I couldn’t think of an area where I could make a living but that would never get boring. Until I talked to a plastic surgeon, and I was hooked.” He looked back at the X-rays.

“Are those mine?” she asked. He nodded.

“Come over and take a look.”

She moved to his side, surprised to find she was taller than he was. Wordlessly, she looked at the dark shadows on the film. She could not bear to have to ask him again, to form the words, to beg. As if he could read her mind, he answered without taking his eyes off the screen.

“Yes, I think I can make you beautiful. You’re one of the lucky ones. For you, all it will take is time and money. Of course, there are no guarantees, and I need you to understand that and the extensiveness and risks of the program I’d outline.”

She nodded, feeling as if she hadn’t enough breath to speak. She was immensely grateful, not only for his answer but for the privacy that his averted face gave her. He was very close to her. He smelled of disinfectant soap and a very slight underscent—was it vanilla?

“I’d propose that we’d begin by working on the skeletal alterations: the bony superorbital ridge, which would have to be shaved down; the cheekbones, which require implantations; and the work on your chin to bring about a better proportion and relationship to the facial planes themselves.” As he spoke, he touched the X-rays of her jutting brow and her cheeks, and moved his hands finally to her chin. Only then did he look at her, and she nodded her agreement. She still couldn’t speak. “The skeletal work would take six months to a year, depending on your rate of recovery. Then we would move on to the soft-tissue work.”

“What’s that?” she managed to croak.

“The movement and realignment of your skin on your new skeletal frame. Blepharoplasty, for one thing, though I would propose only a modified eye-lift. You don’t have bags under your eyes, just some sagging on top. We only need to melt the fat that is deposited above, at your eyelids, and we can do that with a procedure I invented. I’ll insert a needle here”—he touched her eyelid very gently, but she winced—“and heat it, melting the fat away. That will give you a very clean, well-defined upper eyelid. And almost no incision, so no visible scars.”

He touched her neck, gently fingering the skin. “We’ll need liposuction here, and then we’ll do a fairly aggressive lift. I’m not talking about simply stretching the facial skin, but actually separating the skin from the fascia all the way down to about here”—he moved his hand to her breast bone—“then peeling it back, pulling it taut, and excising the excess before reattaching it.”

“That leaves scars,” she said.

“None that you will see. I reattach the skin
above
the hairline, into the scalp, so that natural hair growth will cover almost all of it.”

“Then you’ll have to shave my head?” she asked, horrified. Her thick mane of hair was the only naturally beautiful thing about her. Sam had loved her hair.

“No. We succeed in sterilizing it. I’ve never had infections at the scalp.”

He moved to his desk and indicated a chair. “I’m glad you’ve already done so well on the weight reduction. It demonstrates to me not only the resilience of your tissue but also your motivation.” He peered at her. She tried not to squirm under his gaze, wondering what imperfect feature he was assessing. But at the same time she felt grateful, and also close to him in a strange way. Finally, here was one man from whom she had nothing to hide.

Once again, as if he could read her thoughts as well as her bone structure, he spoke. “You know, there is a great intimacy in a project like this. In a way, it is a mutual seduction, and then a marriage. We will work together: a great deal will depend on your tissue, your ability to communicate what you want, to follow a regimen, and to heal; the rest will depend on me and my talent. Facial surgery is a gift. Beyond technique, there has to be a vision, and an ability to see the possibilities. And for me to do my best work, I have to be in love with the project.”

“And are you?” she asked. Outside, the rain was pouring down, and the only noises were the heavy dripping at an outside eave and the humming vibration of the frame of the light board against the clip that held her X-ray.

“Yes,” he said, and she felt a tightness in her chest. “It’s a challenging, fascinating project.” He came closer to her, very close. “Have you ever smoked?”

“No.”

“Good. Now you never will. Also, no sun. None at all. Never. Sunscreen at all times.”

She looked out at the freezing rain and the overcast day. “At all times, doctor?”

He smiled. “Well, not at night. Also, no alcohol.”

“Not even wine?”

“Not even beer. Well, let me put it this way: I know you will, so be very moderate. It’s not good for your skin. I can see you’ve lost weight, and the sun has done little damage to you so far.”

“I never could afford a vacation, and tar beach didn’t appeal.”

“Well,
that
was good luck.” He paused. He took her hand in his and for a moment, she thought he was going to get personal, to give her a kind word. Instead, he pinched the back of her hand, then watched as the little ridge of skin he had made resolved itself back into the relative smoothness of her wrist. “You still have remarkable elasticity for a woman your age. That helps. What’s your diet like?”

She told him.

“Fine. But I want you to eat more raw vegetables. A lot more water, too. Hydration is critical for skin. And to keep this somewhat unnatural weight and the benefits of surgery, you can only eat two spare meals a day from now on. You are trying to attain an unnatural ideal, one that is almost impossible for a woman to maintain beyond adolescence. Now that large breasts have been added to the lanky, extremely thin model that’s been in vogue for years, almost no woman naturally has that shape to begin with.”

“Do you give young, thin models those breasts if they want them?” she asked.

“I don’t do body work. Only facial surgery. And I don’t know any male surgeon who does a good job on breasts. I recommend a woman doctor: Sylvia Wright. It makes sense that a woman would have a better feel for breasts than a man.” He smiled. “But Wright won’t do implants. Nine years ago, reputable journals were reporting problems with silicone. Anyway, you won’t need implants. Yours would only require a restructuring and lift.”

She looked down at her drooping chest. Despite the weight loss, or because of it, her breasts looked worse than ever. Well, she told herself, one thing at a time. The important thing was, he would take her case. And that she believed he could work miracles.

Sharleen pulled the Datsun that Dobe had bought for her and Dean onto the gravel parking lot in front of the aluminum-sided diner there on Ming Avenue and braked to a halt alongside a row of battered cars, pickups, and semis with trailers. She sat in the car, the
Bakersfield Times
in her hand folded open to the want ads, and thought about what she was going to say.

Darn, she thought, they all said “experienced.” Eight diners today said “experienced only.” Then each of the disgusting diner owners had made her a proposition, if she really wanted the job. She thought of Dobe, of what he told her about being beautiful. Maybe she could have handled the men, but she didn’t want to get into another situation with Dean.

Anyhow, how much experience do you need to serve eggs and hash in a truckers’ diner, for heaven’s sake? I’ve eaten in enough of these places to do the job in my sleep, she told herself. But she hadn’t been sleeping. No work, no money equaled no sleep. What could she do? Unless she let these guys touch her, or told a lie, she didn’t know what she’d do. If only she had experience that wasn’t a lie.

She snapped her fingers. That’s it, she thought. I’ve had experience
eating
in them for months; maybe that’s enough experience for anyone.

Sharleen strained to look at her face reflected in the grimy rearview mirror. She pinched her cheeks the way she remembered her mother doing when she couldn’t afford makeup. It brought a bright-pink glow to her face.

Sharleen squeezed her lips together, bruising them to a cherry red. She felt along the top edge of her white Mexican blouse, and gave a tug to pull it up; it did keep falling off one shoulder.

“Oh, Lord, help me with this,” she prayed.

She sprang out of the car, locked the door, and gave her cowgirl belt a cinch to pull it tighter. Sharleen sucked in her breath and encircled her small waist with her hands. Just right, she thought.

She rubbed the front of her high-heeled sandals against the backs of her tightly blue-jeaned legs and, deciding she was ready, walked resolutely toward the front door. She swung her hips and her straw bag just a little, in case the boss was watching her approach. Might as well walk like she felt good, even if she didn’t.

Before she could put her hand on the knob, the screen door swung open, and the fattest man she had ever seen stood before her.