Adventures with Max and Louise (14 page)

“A doctor’s appointment.” During which I hope to talk the good doctor into taking these chatty, opinionated, implants out sooner than planned.

“Okay, first thing in the morning, New York time. Turns out the publisher hired this trend-predicting guru who says products based on lifestyle are going to be the hot new ticket. Cooking as entertaining is done; now it has to have purpose. Lifestyle envisioning, she calls it. The art director here, you know, Lisa Vega? She has a sister at Sidney-Brace who did some spying for me.”

“They really wanted it all along?”

“Not until this chick came along and told them that you were all that and a bag of chips. Even worse, when Mr. Bullitt, who I might have told a few teensy little details, called Liz and offered his house for the photo shoot. I’m using the word
house
loosely here. Lemme put it this way: you have your choice of kitchens. I also might have let his wife take a peek at
The Evolution of Eating
somewhere along the way.”

“I wish you had asked me.”

“Hey, baby, you get what you pay for.”

“I’m really sorry, Martin. I want to talk more, but I really am with a client.” I try to absorb it all quickly and fail. “Ten o’clock in your office?”

“Come early. I’ll get an attorney. You do have to pay him.”

“Thank you.” I shut off the phone, then apologize to Sasha.

“Not a problem. Do you have room for a warm t tarte aux pommes? Michel made them marzipan this afternoon. Also, a chestnut mousse.”

If I want to collect my paycheck, I’d better fall in love with one of Michel’s desserts. But my mind is racing with the possibility of appearing on the cover of my cookbook, chatting up talk show hosts, and being interviewed by food writers across the country. I can’t do it without Max and Louise pumping me up, calming me down. As much as I resent how Max and Louise arrived, I need them. Don’t I?

By the time I’ve faked my enthusiasm for the cakes, Angeli has arrived to take me to Dr. Hupta’s office.

Chapter Fourteen

A
NGELI AND
I are quiet on the drive to Dr. Hupta’s office. Drips of conversation center on mundane things: the length of a traffic light, the weather. I think about what Louise could have meant about Wolf’s barbecue. Sure, the man can cook a mean rib and knows his seasonings, but so does my uncle Morty in Yakima, and he’s a philandering jerk.

Angeli checks her makeup twice in the rearview mirror. After a hard day of tasteful makeovers at the Clinique counter, she’s sometimes prone to outbreaks of glitter and peacock blue eyeliner, but today she is more subdued, closer to what her mother wished for: a good girl in sensible clothes. No medical degree, but her eyeliner is flawless. Is she wearing one of her lime green push-up bras with matching thongs under that fuzzy turtleneck and conservatively tailored slacks?

As we near the hospital, I mentally will Louise to talk. Gazing out the window, I concentrate like a child, anxiously tucked into bed on Christmas Eve, pulling Santa toward her house like a magnet.
Talk to me, Louise. Tell me what you think about Chas. Tell me. Tell me now.
I crave her approval, yet, at the same time, I stubbornly tell myself it’s immaterial. After all, I’m on my way to order Dr. Hupta to speed up this process of getting rid of Max and Louise. But the truth is, their opinions do matter. My inner monologue progresses from pleasant requests to cajoling whining to a bitter, angry diatribe about being invaded by alien beings in the most private of all female domains.

“Come on, luvey, it ain’t the most private of all female property,” Max interjects. “You ever hear of
The Vagina Monologues
?”

How in the hell, I wonder, does my male breast implant keep up with the arts? Does he read
People
magazine?
I don’t want you,
I think, clenching my teeth. Max is the neighbor’s cat that shows up when you call your own.

“You know what yer bleedin’ problem is?” he says as the car enters the medical plaza’s covered parking lot.

Angeli reaches out the window for a ticket. Shaking my head, I wish he’d shut up. Angeli glances over. I rub my neck as if it were stiff.

“You ask too many flippin’ questions.” Angeli circles the car up to the clinic level. “You ’ave a little accident on the operating table. ’Appens to the best of ’em. Thing is, instead of the good doctor makin’ a mistake, ’e gives you a gift. Two gifts, in fact, if you count Louise, which I don’t, ’cause her advice is worth ’alf a mine. Let’s call it one an’ a ’alf gifts.” He falls silent as Angeli pulls into a parking spot.

The headlights hang on the gray concrete for a moment. For some reason, Angeli keeps them on, and we both gaze, transfixed, at the spreading white light.

I think of Zack Turner, a fifth-grade transfer student from Jersey who said a developing girl was “getting her headlights turned on.” He illustrated his point to a snickering audience with crude hand gestures, as though he himself had the power to adjust them. Maybe my headlights were finally turned on. Sure, maybe they were halogen and a little over the top, but why exactly was I asking Dr. Hupta to remove them?

“Remember Zack Turner?” We stare at the radiating light on the gray wall.

“Who could forget?” Angeli moves her hands as if tuning twin radios. “He offered me six Ho-Ho’s if I’d lift up my shirt in sixth grade.”

“Did you?”

She shrugs. “Heck no, I’m not a Ho-Ho ho.” We chuckle. She doesn’t turn off the lights; we just sit there staring at the wall. I am a half second away from telling her about Max and Louise when she exhales heavily.

“I’ve been talking to Dr. Hupta. At night, on the phone.” She gives me a sideways glance.

“About what?” My face flushes with anger. “Me?”

“Well, not directly. He’s just, I’m just. . . . Honestly? I just understand what’s it’s like to make a mistake. To have this big, pushy Indian family expecting you to be one thing, and then you deliver something else. His father did double shifts driving a taxi in Mumbai to put him through medical school. He’s having a really hard time with this, you know . . .” She pauses. “Sanil’s worried you’ll sue him.”

The leather seats squeak as I turn toward her. “Sanil, is it? So, Sanil’s been talking to you instead of me? What are you supposed to do? Spy on me, find out if I’m talking to an attorney?” Jumping from the car, I slam the door and head for the elevators.

Angeli’s boots patter in staccato beats on the pavement as she follows. The garage echoes with our footsteps. “I knew you’d be mad. I haven’t told him one thing about you that he doesn’t already know. He’s worried about you and himself. It’s the first surgical error the man’s made in his entire career.”

A second after I punch the up button, the elevator yawns open. We join a young mother wiping the sticky hands of a three-year-old boy.

“Yeah, sure, worry about his career. He’s the one who screwed up my surgery, not me. You knew this bothered me before, and you went ahead and called him. I thought you were my best friend.” Deep down I know this isn’t entirely rational, but it doesn’t matter. I feel betrayed.

Angeli eyes the curious mother and gives her a friendly smile before turning to me. “You are. He just needed someone to listen.”

The elevator grinds to a halt. I can tell from the mother’s alert face that she is quietly thrilled to have picked this car. This is elevator drama at its best.

“Yeah, right; I’m having the worst crisis of my adult life, and what do you do? You hit on my doctor. There’s a time and place, Angeli.”

The elevator reaches our floor, and I storm out, leaving Angeli to follow.

We don’t even have to wait to see the doctor. As soon as I give my name to the receptionist, a nurse appears and leads us to Dr. Hupta’s office. I’m relieved that I don’t have to sit in the waiting room next to Angeli, the Benedict Arnold of friends.

“Angeli, Molly, come on in!” Dr. Hupta opens the door. “I’m, um, sorry it’s kind of a mess.” He shakes my hand vigorously, his eyes rimmed with grayish bags.

He opens the blinds and throws some take-out boxes in a garbage can. The couch, with its rumpled pillow and throw, looks slept upon. Through the windows, the skyline of Seattle spreads out in the feeble sunshine: skyscrapers, ferries, and soaring gulls coasting along the wind currents. I pick out the skyscraper that houses Schubert’s before joining Angeli near the desk. Dr. Hupta needs a shave.

“Would either of you ladies like coffee or tea?” He smooths his tousled hair, glancing at Angeli shyly as he pulls out my chair. Would I have noticed if she hadn’t told me? I doubt it.

Angeli eyes me as if waiting for another outburst. “Tea, thank you.”

Dr. Hupta raises his eyebrows at me. “Something for you, Molly?” I shake my head no. I can tell from the second, appraising look he gives me that he senses my anger and has decided to proceed carefully. He orders two teas from the receptionist. Dr. Hupta, whom I now can’t help but think of as Sanil, leans back in his chair. “Angeli tells me you’re having some complications.”

The idea of my surgeon and my best friend chatting cozily about my very private problem infuriates me. Did they laugh on the phone about the bras she loaned me? Did she cry and tell him how much she loved my dead mother? My face flushes red. I reached for cutting words that will convey my hurt feelings with dignity and pride.

“Yessss.” I emphasize the last letter to express my rage, sounding instead like a snake. “And I could have told you about them if you had called me instead of her.” I sound like a snotty eighth grader left out of a sleepover.

Dr. Hupta picks up a small ebony stick and begins tracing lines around the miniature Taj Mahal in the desktop sand garden. “Angeli, would you mind helping with the tea?”

Angeli jumps up with relief. “Yes, sure. Take your time.” She closes the door with a “good luck,” glances at Sanil, then gives me a tight, quick smile. I glare back, hoping she feels guilty.

The only noise in the room is the hum of a heater deep in the building. Dr. Hupta’s eyes study me, waiting. I reward him with an arch look, snapping, “I hear you’re having some complications as well.” I immediately regret the nasty tone. He looks awful.

“Yes. I’m very sorry that I had to share some of my personal problems with your friend. She’s a good listener. I find they’re in short supply these days. Still, it’s no excuse. I apologize.” Tracing some more lines in the sand, he concentrates before looking up. “How are you?”

I’m not sure. The stillness of his office, his kindness, and my anger at Angeli has worn me down. I feel tired, very tired. A fat tear glides down my cheek. He offers Kleenex. “I’ve been running around too much. My sister got into a little trouble, and my editor needed a review. And then I met this woman who needed help planning an event. I should have said no, but I couldn’t.”

“You took care of everyone but yourself.” Is he a plastic surgeon or a shrink?

I think about it for a moment, wanting to refute this, but I can’t. “Yeah, I guess so.”

“Slow down. It’s crucial that you get enough rest. People underestimate surgery. Your body has been through quite an ordeal.”

“Oh, boy,” I snort and laugh. “You can say that again.”

He cups his face with his hands, giving me his utmost attention. “Tell me about some of the changes.” His gentle manner inspires trust.

“I can’t seem to slow down. A few days after the surgery my life went haywire. I look different. I feel different. I act like a completely changed person. I’m dressing up when I used to live my life in jeans. I’m flirting with total strangers. I went on my first date in about a hundred years, and I was just so . . .” I search for the right word. “Not myself. Is this normal? I mean, sometimes I feel absolutely crazy, and I know it’s related to the implants. I know it.”

He exhales, then leans back in his chair. “Molly, you’re a bit of a special case. You strike me, and excuse me if Angeli helped me understand this, but you haven’t exactly welcomed change, have you?”

I take a moment to look out the window at the clouds. The hours spent in my kitchen unravel as slowly as the ticking of a clock. My burrowed existence for the last decade is a dark tunnel, insulated from the world. I don’t welcome change; I sprint away from it. I don’t mind Angeli telling him; it’s true. “No, I haven’t.”

He leans forward, pressing his fingers to his chin. “So, the implants are a very big change. And one of the biggest components of recovery is how you are adjusting, physically and mentally.”

I laugh. “You got an hour?”
Should I tell him about Max and Louise?

“Oh, Molly, please. You cannot imagine what I’ve heard within these walls. I do penile implants. Imagine what that first appointment is like.”

“No, thank you,” I laugh with mock horror. “It hasn’t been all bad. It’s just very confusing. It reminds me of being a teenager: one minute I think I’ve got it all figured out, and this operation is the best thing that’s ever happened to me, and the next I think I’m losing my mind.” I choose my words carefully. “I feel like they, the implants, have their own personalities.”

He puts his fingertips together, gazing at me over the tops. He’s not a bad looking guy. His eyelashes are a bit girly, but I can understand what Angeli sees in him. “That’s not unusual.”

I practically jump out of my chair. “You’ve got to be kidding me!” I want to blurt out, “Mine talk to me!” but my Catholic sense of decorum comes in handy. I hold back.

“No. I’ve heard lectures on this very subject. It’s not unusual for women with implants to name their breasts, flaunt them—change their behavior quite dramatically.”

You call that dramatic? How about a chatty Brit in your left boob and a sassy black woman in your right? At least I haven’t gotten butt cheek implants . . .
“My mom said in her next life she was going to be a red head with big breasts. Maybe she’s dancing in heaven right now.”

He smiles kindly. “I know this is a very personal issue but maybe you’d like to see someone professionally, to talk over some of these issues. My office, of course, will cover all costs.”

“Thank you, I don’t think so,” I say automatically. Saying the words aloud, “I hear voices,” will turn my two gifts into a clinical diagnosis. It comes to me in a heartbeat. I don’t want to lose them.