Embrace Me (28 page)

John still looks sorry for me.

When I heard through the grapevine years ago that Drew Parrish disappeared, I began dreaming up possible scenarios. My personal favorite? Polishing floors at night at a big mall somewhere in the Midwest.

John shakes his head.

Rick has conjured up some crazy ideas in his time, like suggesting I “just get some good makeup,” but this eclipses them all to such a degree the penumbra almost blinds me with indignation. To be honest, I'm a bit incredulous that Rick could be so, well, stupid really.

I throw my cigarette onto the front lawn and pull my coat around me more tightly. “Absolutely not! I'm not going to stand there and sing while you contort, Rick. Please! Can you imagine it?”

He holds up both hands. “Wait, wait! I'm thinking a sort of cobra angle, coiling myself like a snake and rising up, my back bent at a forty-five degree angle like this.” He splays himself on the porch and I watch the move.

“I've got to admit, it's pretty impressive.”

He jumps back to his feet. “And you can make me an outfit that mimics a cobra's hood.”

I roll my eyes.

“Now, now. So you can keep a beautiful veil over half of your face and it won't be weird because we're supposed to be in India, right? And you can stand there and sing like that! You know, your voice slipping and fluttering and sliding around like that singer in that Sting song.”

“‘Brand New Day'? This gets weirder and weirder, Rick, not to mention the fact that I don't have that kind of voice. I don't think I can sing that way even if I want to.”

“You sure about that?”

“Positive.”

“Then how about a duet for Valentine's Day? Gus says they're throwing a Love Feast for the lonely that day. This'll be their third year and it's a big deal at Shalom. With music, it'll be so much more like a real event.”

“Did he put you up to this?”

“No way. I swear.”

Rick's obviously not as dumb as he seems. Despite his poor theatrics, I fell right into his trap. I'm so good at that.

“All right. Just three songs, though, and one
has
to be ‘Embraceable You.' ”

“You got it.”

He holds open the front door for me as we walk back into the house.

“And you have to worry about accompaniment, arrangements, everything.”

“Okay, Val. Got it.”

I unwind my scarf. “And don't make it hard. I don't want to have to practice more than a couple of times.”

“Sheesh, Val.”

“And don't play your violin so loud I have to compete with it.”

“I got it, okay?”

“Hey, no reason to get all huffy on me, Rick.”

He throws up his hands, screeches, and clogs back to the kitchen to feed his impossible metabolism.

Okay, John, so be it!

I hold the icon on my lap. If he wants to hear the entire story, so be it. I've been avoiding it for years. Maybe getting it out in the open will do me some good. Lella's downstairs anyway. She won't hear a thing.

John asks me to tell him about the final surgery.

Well, the day of my final unveiling started off pretty much like all my other unveilings. I ate a little box of Total cereal, drank a glass of skim milk, a plastic foil-capped cup of orange juice, and black coffee.

I knew not to expect much with the bruising and the swelling. After two rhinoplasties, liposuction, and a butt lift (oh, sorry, John, don't mean to be crude), my expectations rose right to where they should on the yardstick of such things.

It mystified me that Mother and Drew sat with such expectation, their spines stretched from skull to pelvis like rubber bands, their eyes glazed with hope that I'd finally be perfect, truly beautiful, with a hint of Victoria's Secret gathering just below the surface.

Well, maybe it wasn't Drew so much as I thought. But still. I didn't know that then. And Charmaine could be wrong.

The doctor snipped away the lengths of gauze and removed the cotton strips, then stared at his handiwork, still somewhat in the raw.

He nodded. “When the swelling goes down, I believe you'll be very satisfied with the results. They should be just what you were seeking, Ms. Boyer.”

He didn't say I was going to be lovely. Dr. Denlinger didn't believe a woman had to be a cross between Brigitte Nielsen and Pam Anderson to rank among the beautiful people of this world.

He presented the hand mirror and I inspected my face. This had been major work. The implants in my cheeks, giving me sharp cheekbones for the first time in my life, were balanced out by a chin implant to, as Mother said, “remove that birdish quality from your face.” Though only twenty-five at the time, I had my heavy upper eyelids given a more defined crease with blepharoplasty and my brows raised a touch.

Yeah, John, I know what you're thinking. We're way too caught up in the whole youth thing. I hear you, friend. I hear you.

It wasn't that I had deep wrinkles. I'd always had eyebrows that simply rested a little too close to my eyes. I could do much more dramatic eye makeup with greater space in which to work.

So I went home to fully heal.

I called some of my friends from my former sales route and chatted about their lives. They told me how much they loved the show, that had, by this time, been on for almost eighteen months. The viewers were increasing week-by-week such that Charmaine and Harlan were as pleased as they could be.

Drew wanted more than that though, and he'd fallen into such a state of ego that every success rained like gold on his shoulders and every failure sat on mine like Atlas's world.

Oh, Judas was a little like that too? I'm not surprised.

Not only that, a major network had contacted him. They were thinking Drew and Daisy, a chatty morning show on the order of Regis and Whoever. They loved our chemistry. Now that was good.

Okay, okay, we had sex!

But as soon as he realized I wanted commitment, he backed off. I don't know why I expected anything different, to be honest. He never said he loved me. I just thought . . .

Well, I guess I thought what millions of women do when the man of their dreams takes things too far.

Maybe he'll really love me now.

Maybe he'll be a gentleman.

Maybe he'll do the honorable thing.

Oh, brother.

But this opportunity for a network show? I was going to do whatever it took, and if it took another round of surgery, so be it.

Trician could hardly follow us to New York, could she? Honestly, that sealed the deal on the surgery for me.

But the Christmas season was coming up and with my looks honed, the songs picked out, the guests engaged, and the set that Drew found financing for through various companies—their products displayed or their logos emblazoned on our coffee mugs—it all promised to be a major coup in “Podunk programming” as Mother called it. Mother, who was already talking to Nashville, who assured me she had some takers along that route if we could get our numbers up.

I prayed for New York instead.

I know, I know, John. It's a good thing Jesus wasn't all about the numbers here on earth. You're right about that. I mean, how would any more of you fit on that icon, right?

I let my mother move forward, figuring she'd be busy pursuing Nashville and would leave me alone. At least away from gospel entertainment there'd be no pretense that at the end of the day, the show was really the thing after all.

Drew solo-piloted
Faith Street
during my healing, inviting notable guest hosts while I was “on a well-deserved time of rest and restoration.”

I received over seven hundred letters during that time, begging me to come back soon. I felt loved. Some folks sent snapshots of themselves or their kids or their pets. It meant a lot to me.

On the Monday after Thanksgiving, we began taping our first Christmas special, our debut show with the completed Daisy, a size zero masterpiece by this time, sculpted and without flaw. Despite what people may say, I didn't have an eating disorder. I realized I was too skinny and looking freakish. But I saw the tabloids every day, and skinny and freakish had become the new normal.

But nothing can be perfect, and those who seek it and display what they perceive to be just that are not reliable. You simply can't trust that kind of artifice.

What's that, Peter? It's the flaws that sometimes give things their beauty?

I see that now. Up to a point. Back then, though, I couldn't wait to hear the feedback once the show aired. As I walked onto the set to tape, my face bearing no bruising, no noticeable swelling, the crew gasped.

Well, sure. I looked a lot better, and quite different. I mean, yes, I saw a difference, but nothing deserving of a gasp, for goodness sake. The camera would love my new angles. They'd see. And I'd be off to Nashville or New York, leaving Trician behind. We taped the special for the next three days.

Catching my reflection in windows, mirrors, and shiny surfaces, I navigated through the snowfall of heavy glares by convincing myself I was finally beautiful. Perfect. But most important, I could leave Mount Oak behind.

That was the goal of it all.

Looking over the footage in the editing suite the next day, Drew looked at my mother, then laid a hand on my shoulder and squeezed. “Now, this may sound improper and I don't mean it to be. But what if your front balanced your back a little bit more?”

“Another boob job?!”

Sorry, disciples.

I slammed myself back in the swivel chair. And something came over me. I reached out and smacked him across the face, as hard as I'd ever smacked anything, including my lips at a perfectly done steak—and boy did Drew make sure I'd never have anything like that again.

“What's the matter with you?” he yelled, laying a hand on his cheek.

“You, Howdy-Doody. You're what's the matter with me.”

He winced.

“Stop thinking I don't know what's going on with you. Just stay away from me. I'll do the show. But leave me alone.”

Peter would cheer if he wasn't painted in one position. I'm pretty sure of that.

Something snapped in my brain. It's hard to say how a true snapping occurs. I felt something loosen, almost physically, inside my skull, as if a cage door opened and let loose a small, glinty-eyed creature who stared out of my eyes and groped through an almost drunken haze at the same time.

I hurried out of the suite and ran for my car. Drew didn't bother to follow, not surprisingly. The animal in my forehead scratched down to the bone and I longed to scream in frustration. It was easy to know where to go. Since childhood I'd stood before her medicine cabinet in the bathroom off her bedroom—Dad had been down the hall for several years by this time—memorizing her prescriptions, wondering what they were all for.

But now I knew.

Reaching up my hand, I hesitated, wondering which bottle to choose. Maybe I should ask Trician, I remember thinking, suppressing a chuckle. I mean, she knew everything about everything and everybody, everywhere, and everyhow. The woman was a storehouse of smarts and savvy and
stick with her kid and she'll take you places you never dreamed of going
.

And what were my dreams, you ask? Thank you, James the son of Alpheus. Not much, in answer to your question. Just to be rid of Trician in a way she didn't mind, a way that would get her off my back by the sheer affirmation she was right all along about my talent. Other than that, I liked selling comic books. I wasn't naturally high in the ambition department and I was fine with that.

I grabbed two bottles and stared at the face in the mirror, unrecognizable as myself, then tiptoed down the hall to my own bathroom, the walls hung with twenty-two framed comic book covers denoting the issues I made top sales. Each frame displayed little gold plaques with my name and the month they debuted.
Sergeant Hero
,
Lady Illusion
,
Lizard Girl
, and my favorite,
Conundra and Indestructibo
.