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concluded, she really didn’t know how to rate the

man. She sat up a little straighter, tied on the breeziest

of Bette Davis routines and said, “Don’t come down

too hard on the kid, Bradshaw. It’s hard to be a girl,

believe me. Especially if you’re too tall, or too fat or

too short or too smart—any ‘too’ is too much.”

“This is no joke, Marks,” Bradshaw grumbled.

“I’m trying to teach her about character—about the

things that really matter. But all she cares about is

what her silly little girlfriends think and whether a

bunch of dumbo teenaged boys with their balls in

their brains think she’s cute. Her rudeness to you is

just—just—”

“When you were sixteen you had balls for brains,

too,” Audra interrupted, keeping her chin high and

enunciating every syllable of every word as was the

style in the films of Bette’s era. “You may still have

them, for all I know. The point is, she wants accep-

tance from her peers like most teenagers. Hell, like

most people.”

He was silent for so long Audra suspected she had

offended him in her frankness.

I don’t care
, she told herself.
I’m sick of tap dancing

around, trying to get this man’s attention.

“You don’t sound so good,” Bradshaw said at last.

“You doing okay?”

Fat lot you care
, Audra almost replied, but she

stuffed the words back. “I’m having surgery in the

morning . . . and . . . I’m a little scared,” she answered

truthfully. “That’s all.”

“Hell, give me a prison fight any day,” Bradshaw

muttered. “I hate needles and knives.” He sobered a

little to ask, “You changing your mind?”

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Audra shook her head. “No. I’m going to do this.”

“Okay,” Bradshaw said quietly. “Then I guess

what you have to do is keep telling yourself that

you’ll be fine. Say it over and over in your mind un-

til you believe it.”

“Do you think that will work?”

“Know it will. Got me through Iraq War, Part

One,” he said solemnly. “That and picturing myself

getting home in one piece. When things got tough,

I’d imagine that Kodak moment at the airport.”

“Kodak moment . . . ?”

“You know it, Marks. When the soldier steps off

the plane and his family comes running to meet

him. See, Penny was just a baby then and I’d

imagine holding her in my arms and hugging my

wife—” The sentence came to an abrupt end at the

specter of Esmeralda. “Anyway,” he continued in

his brusque military way, “just picture yourself get-

ting what you really want. Feel the joy of it. You’ll be

fine.”

“Joy?” Audra repeated. “Wait a minute . . . Is this

Art Bradshaw? Hardboiled corrections officer? Talk-

ing about joy?”

“Joy is the only word for it—the only word I

know for the feeling,” he said softly. “The word for

loving something so much, it comes alive with feel-

ing. If this makeover does that—gives you that

feeling—that’s great. But if it doesn’t, you gotta keep

searching until you find that thing. That thing that

gets your heart and soul involved with the day-

dream. That’s what you want to think about and

think about and think about . . . until it happens.” He

paused. “Listen Audra, I just wanted to apologize,

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okay? Hear that you’re okay out there. Don’t want

to keep you up too late . . .”

“I’m fine, really.”

“I’m not. I’m working the seven-to-three tomor-

row. I’ve got to go to bed,” he said, yawning, and

Audra imagined him stripping off his shirt to reveal

a sculpted chest. “I’ll call you again in a few days . . .

after the surgery . . . to check on you.”

“Sure,” Audra thought, wondering how many

weeks were bound together under his “few days.”

“If you want . . .”

“Then that tears it,” he said, using an idiom of a

bygone era. “Good luck tomorrow,” he said quickly

as though he didn’t like talking to her and didn’t

care to continue. “Good night.” Then he hung up,

leaving Audra with one more thing to contemplate.

She lay back on the bed, searching through the

swirling images in her brain, looking for the one

that sparked the emotion Bradshaw had talked

about, the one that made her long for its fulfillment

above all others. The one that connected mind and

body with the power of emotion.

Of course the Reveal was there, and she saw Petra’s

and her mother’s faces, shocked into stunned admi-

ration. There was a sort of weird triumph in the mo-

ment, but behind that a surprising emptiness. She

took the image deeper, imagining every detail . . .

seeing her mother, her sister and Michael, little

Kiana . . . but there was no joy there, just the dis-

comfort of so many issues and hard feelings still yet

to be resolved.

Joy, joy, where are you?
Audra thought.
Come out,

come out, wherever you are!

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She closed her eyes again, searching for joy along

the streets of New York, and finding nothing but the

sad reality of life without its presence . . . until the

image of Art Bradshaw, walking at her side along

the dim corridors of Manhattan Men’s Correctional

Facility filled her mind’s screen.

Her body relaxed, her mind cleared, her lips

curved into a smile . . . and she drifted back to sleep.

Chapter 17

July 5

Dear Petra,

Are you okay? No email in over a week . . . I’m getting

worried now. Please write as soon as you can.

Be careful, please . . .

Audra

One big, oozing incision.

That’s what she felt like when she came fully

to herself again about four days later, covered in ban-

dages from what felt like forehead to foot. For the

first few seconds, she had no idea where she was,

even though it was the third time she’d woken up to

the sounds of beeps and buzzes in the little recovery

room, the third time an oxygen mask had made her

face feel heavy and stiff, the third time for the pulse

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oximeter clipped to her finger and the EKG wires

feeding from her chest. And for the third time, there

was an odd sense of anxiety—a nervous impulse

that bordered on absolute panic, that only subsided

to manageable when, for the third time, a recovery

nurse leaned into her face and said sharply, “Au-

dra!” as though she were in trouble or something.

And it was so cold in the place, just like the other

two times. Cold enough to make her want to beg for

a roaring fire, or a trip to Phoenix in the middle of

July. “Cold,” she managed to force out of her numb

lips, hoping the nurse would understand the word.

“Cold . . .”

“From the anesthesia,” the nurse said matter-of-

factly. “I’ll get you some extra blankets in a bit, but

first we’ve got check on some things. Make sure

you’re all right . . .”

Then, for the third time she started the poking

and prodding that went part and parcel with the

whole experience. Audra lay still, focusing on noth-

ing, still struggling to make her brain function.

“Looking pretty good, considering everything,”

the woman said, her examinations complete. “I’ll

tell Dr. Koch. He’ll want to come in and look you

over himself, but it’s all over, Audra. You did it.”

All over . . . you did it
.

The words echoed in her mind, fraught with sig-

nificance.
All over . . . you did it.

But what have I done?
Audra thought, the panic

flashing fresh in her mind. At this moment, thick

with bandages, drainage tubes in her belly, her

thighs and buttocks encased in some kind of tight-

fitting girdle that probably would have seemed

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211

sadistic even by medieval standards, she wasn’t en-

tirely sure what she had done. It might have been

her imagination, but she could have sworn there

was a camera in the corner of the room . . .

It was all too much to think about right then.

“Think . . . think about it . . .” she murmured.

“Hmm?” the nurse asked. “What are you trying

to say?”

“Think about it . . . tomorrow . . .” Audra mum-

bled, closing her eyes.

“Why, of course, dear,” the woman replied. Audra

couldn’t see her face, but there was a smile in her

tone. “Like Scarlett O’Hara said: Tomorrow is an-

other day.”

“It’s probably going to take three to four weeks for

you to feel well enough to resume normal activi-

ties.” Dr. Bremmar smiled as though this were a

particularly wonderful thing, then did his little toe-

heel bouncing bop like he was pirouetting for the

camera behind him. “But I have to tell you, Audra,

the surgeries went wonderfully.”

“Better than I thought,” Dr. Koch added, sound-

ing like he really wished for a cigar and ice-cold

beer. He was unshaven and tired-looking, as if her

extended surgical procedures had taken something

out of him as well. “I’m still a little concerned about

the potential for scarring, but we’ll keep a close eye

on it. The pressure garments—”

“You mean the girdle?”

He nodded. “That should help . . . but if neces-

sary, we may have to look toward the corticosteroids

to break down keloids if they form. If that doesn’t

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work . . .” He shrugged as if to say, “there’s not

much more I can do.”

“Goodbye Ugly Duck, hello Frankenstein’s mon-

ster.” Audra managed to say it cheerfully enough,

but the words stirred her deepest anxiety—

especially as stiff and bloody and bandaged as she

appeared right now. What if the surgeries had done

nothing more than make things worse? What if—

she thought quickly of her mother, of Petra, even Art

Bradshaw and his daughter crossed her mind—she

really became some kind of monster? What if, in her

bid for beauty, she’d only made it all worse? And

there were no mirrors, no way to check—

She shook the grim thoughts from her mind,

fighting with a sense of depression bordering on de-

spair.

As if reading her thoughts, Dr. Bremmar offered

his optimism once again, and Audra received it with

a tidal wave of gratitude. “I really think we’ll be fine.

Especially the face,” and he stretched his fine-boned

fingers toward her bandaged features as though he

could already imagine the end results. “I was able to

work toward the hairline for everything but the

nose,” he said, brushing at the air around her face in

demonstration. “You may have to style your hair

more toward your face in the future. Maybe some

bangs?” he suggested with the happy hopefulness

of a wannabe hairstylist. Audra could almost hear

her mother grumbling, “Don’t know what he’s talk-

ing about,” as the man continued, “And I’m opti-

mistic that Dr. Jamison’s treatments will minimize

any scarring from the nose.”

The nose. Audra couldn’t understand why he was

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213

so excited. She could barely breathe out of the thing,

packed with cotton as it was. But Dr. Bremmar kept

bouncing and smiling, then clapped his hands to-

gether. “I’ve got to say, I’m excited about this Reveal,

Audra. Very, very excited.”

“Doc, I got a feeling you say that to all the girls,”

Audra quipped, her voice sounding nasal and flat in

her ears, like she had a very bad head cold.

Dr. Koch snorted.

“You’re right,” he deadpanned. “He does.” And

before Dr. Bremmar could object, he continued with,

“So now it’s time for the fun part.”

“The fun part? More fun than I’m having right

now?” Audra lifted her arm to gesture toward her

heart, disturbing the incisions from the liposuction

of her upper arms and all along her chest from

her newly-lifted breasts. Even hopped up with

painkillers, it hurt with a wrenching ache just bad

enough to make her wish she hadn’t attempted it.

“You want to talk about fun, guys, my last trip to the

bathroom was more fun than I think I can handle.

I’ve resolved not to drink anything else for the next

three weeks.”

“It’s good to get moving, Audra. I know it hurts,

but—”

“Do you?” Audra would have liked to quirk a

doubtful eyebrow at him, but she wasn’t sure if she

still had any . . . and if she did, where they were.

“And tell me, Doc. Just how much plastic surgery

have
you
had?”

Dr. Bremmar’s cheeks went a little pink. “My ex-

perience with my patients gives me a pretty good

idea of how you’re feeling at this point,” he said

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