by Sally Quinn
In mid-May there was a meeting of the National Commission on AIDS at the NIH. She had planned it as an excuse to see Michael. It was obviously the only way she would get to see him. He was going to speak to the commission members and give a tour. If she had her facelift now, she would be ready to go out and see people by then. It would give her a full month. She knew she could get an appointment right away. Lorraine had hinted all along that Dr. Granta, her plastic surgeon, owed her. She had dropped so much money on him for every possible procedure (to no avail, she was afraid) and recommended him to so many friends that he would drop everything for her. Sadie had never mentioned to Lorraine that she planned to do it, but she would certainly use Lorraine’s name as a reference. And then there was the fact, not to be overlooked, that she was the former First Lady. There would be no problem about timing. He would fit her in. Confidentiality was her only concern now.
* * *
She was a nervous wreck. There was something so demeaning and undignified about the idea. She couldn’t explain why. She highlighted her auburn hair as the few gray strands appeared. She wore makeup. She did everything she could think of to make herself more attractive. Why not plastic surgery? Nevertheless she didn’t like the way it made her feel. Which was dishonest. She wasn’t going to tell anyone. People would guess, though. She wondered if Michael would guess. She wondered what he would think about her doing it if he knew. She knew what he would think. He would be appalled. He would tell her it was horrible and grotesque and disgusting. He would say he loved her the way she was. He would say she was beautiful now and part of her beauty was her life lived on her face. He would say that she had character and depth in her face and that if she had plastic surgery it would just iron out all the grace and dignity and loveliness that was her. He would tell her that she didn’t want to look like a stretched, plastic mask of a doll’s face. He would say that her face reflected her soul and that to touch it would be to destroy her spirit. He would say all of that because he loved her. Fuck Michael. Where was he when she needed him anyway? Certainly not here in New York on Park Avenue in the backseat of her car waiting to get out and be escorted into the doctor’s office after hours in dark glasses with a scarf wrapped around her head. She felt as if she was about to see a back alley abortionist.
She took a deep breath and sailed in as casually as she possibly could, given the fact that her legs were barely holding her up. Dr. Granta’s personal assistant met her at the door, as arranged. The large attractive waiting room with several sofas and coffee tables was completely empty. The assistant led the way down a hall and into a small room with an examining table, medical instruments, and several mirrors. Before she had a chance to sit down or even look around, the door burst open and Dr. Granta appeared, smiling. He was tall and distinguished-looking, graying at the temples, with a warm smile and slightly mischievous eyes.
“Hi,” he said, completely forgoing any kind of protocol, which immediately put her at ease.
“Hi,” she said back. Her teeth were chattering so she couldn’t say any more. This was silly.
He grabbed her by the shoulders and propelled her over to a mirror. Standing behind her he reached around and pinched the skin over her eyelids, then took his hand away. To her amazement, the skin remained in a hideous fold hanging over her eye.
She gasped.
“See that,” he said, “that’s what gives your eyes that tired look.”
“Tired!” She was horrified. “Actually,” she said, trying to muster up as much self-confidence as she could, “I prefer to think of them as bedroom eyes.”
“Whatever,” he said with a knowing look and shrugged. “Why don’t you join me in my office?”
They walked across the hall into another room, this one pinepaneled, lined with bookcases, filled with antiques, a comfortable sofa, and two chairs facing the desk. It looked like a very expensive library in a Park Avenue apartment.
She took a seat across the desk from him. He leaned back in his chair and looked at her.
“I’m not even forty-six yet,” she said defensively.
This was his cue to gasp. “No!” he was supposed to say. “You can’t mean it. My God, I’ve never seen anyone look as young as you do for your age. It’s not possible. You don’t look a day over twenty-nine, thirty at most.”
Instead he said, “Chronological age doesn’t matter. What matters is the way you look.” Given his tone he might as well have added, “You hag!”
Well, of course he wouldn’t have been shocked at her age. She was probably one of the most famous women in the world. He would know how old she was. Why hadn’t she considered that right away? But he might have at least told her she looked great or something. Good even.
“What I had in mind—” she started to say, in her most calm voice.
“I would do the eyes and clean up the jawline and the neck, get rid of some of that fat around the jowls…” he interrupted.
“Fat? Around the j-jowls?” She grabbed her chin and neck, feeling frantically for the offending fat.
“You don’t need the forehead, you don’t need the cheeks or under the eyes, not now at least.”
“Not now?” Her voice quavered with gratitude.
“But you’re on the fence.”
“On the fence?”
Now she was reduced to repeating everything he said, just to make sure she understood each atrocity.
“You have maybe two good years before it’s too late.”
“Too late? For what?”
“Now you have a certain elasticity in your skin. The longer you wait, the less elasticity. In another two years the operation will be riskier, more extensive, and the change will be more noticeable. If you do it now you can wait another seven to ten years before you have to do it again. The eyes will last ten years. And the jowls will require a touch-up in about seven years. In and out. Same day.”
“If I do it now will I stay in the hospital?”
“Oh, yes. We would keep you overnight. Two if you like. There’s always the possibility of a hematoma, or blood clot, usually in the cheek near the ear. We would have to come in and open that up and suction out the excess blood…”
Sadie could see his face begin to blur and his voice sounded very distant in her ears. She knew he was talking to her, and she was conscious enough to grab onto the arms of the chairs and brace herself for a fall in case she actually fainted dead away, which is what she thought she was going to do.
She could vaguely hear words in the background… best anesthesiologist… ice packs… sleep propped up… no smoking… no drinking… no aspirin…
“Do you have any questions?”
Her only question was whether she would be able to actually get up and walk out of the office on her own or would she humiliate herself in front of him by blacking out and crashing to the floor.
He said a few more things about his assistant, who would be giving her a fact sheet, and to call if there were any more questions and to go home and think about it before making an appointment and of course he would be able to squeeze her in at her convenience. There were always cancellations.
The assistant had put an envelope in her hand and was showing her to the door and the Secret Service agent was there and she grasped his arm and held on until they reached the car and she was inside. It was only then that she allowed herself to pass out.
* * *
It wasn’t until she had gotten back to Washington that she opened up the envelope. She was in bed, ready to go to sleep in case she began to feel faint.
It was a list of instructions for “a facial and eyelid plasty.” There were twenty-eight items on the list, several of which she vaguely remembered he had mentioned to her.
Written in capital letters were the words YOU MUST STOP SMOKING. You could dye or tint your hair ten days before or three weeks after surgery. You could wash your hair one week after surgery but you couldn’t set it for three weeks. You could not brush your hair for two weeks. It was six wee
ks until you could use normal makeup. No indoor exercise for one month. No alcohol for two weeks after. No sexual relations for three weeks after surgery. Well, that wouldn’t be a problem. No false eyelashes for four weeks. She supposed she could live with that, too. No driving for two weeks. She had a car and driver. You had to be careful when removing clothing overhead so as not to tear earlobe sutures. She started to feel woozy.
At this point she still hadn’t decided whether she was going to do it or not. What she knew absolutely in her heart and in her gut was that she didn’t want to do it. She really didn’t want to do it. But the words on the fence and two more years before it’s too late kept echoing in her head. Not to mention “tired” and “fat in the jowls.” She had spent hours when she got back examining her face in the mirror from all angles. One minute she thought she looked gorgeous and young, then the light would catch an angle the wrong way and all she saw was sagging skin. One minute she knew she had no choice but to do it, the next she convinced herself it wasn’t necessary. She couldn’t ask anyone. She was looking for some sign, some reason not to do it short of calling up Michael and asking him what he thought. Then she saw it. Like a bolt from heaven, an answer to her prayers, at the bottom of the page. In large type, just like the no-smoking exhortation: PLEASE AVOID USING THE TELEPHONE FOR TWO WEEKS AFTER SURGERY AS IT IS A SOURCE OF INFECTION.
There was a God.
She would simply have to wear tinted glasses and hold up her chin very high from now on when she was out in public.
* * *
He seemed haggard, and he had lost weight. His white doctor’s coat hung on his shoulders. Just as well, given the way she thought she looked, jowls and all. Though she had to admit he was still gorgeous and incredibly sexy. Almost more so being thinner—it emphasized his eyes.
When they talked on the phone it was his voice that overwhelmed her, his hypnotic voice, and often she had difficulty picturing him. In person it was his eyes, his penetrating eyes. He could look at her and know everything she was thinking and feeling. It was annoying, frustrating, and an enormous relief at the same time.
She always forgot, until she saw him again, what effect those eyes had on her. When they were apart, she missed him but he faded in her memory. Then she would see him and fall in love with him all over again. He knew it too. Sometimes when she didn’t want to tell him the truth about something, didn’t want to let him in, he would force her to look at him and stun her with his ability to make her come clean. There were no defenses against those eyes.
She had arranged for the members and staff of the National Commission on AIDS plus representatives from the National Hemophilia Foundation, the American Foundation for AIDS Research, the Institute of Medicine, Project Inform, ACT UP, and the American Association of Physicians for Human Rights to meet at the NIH.
The meeting had been called for 5:00 P.M. Most of the daytime business would be over with so there were fewer people around. Michael was to greet them, give them a briefing and a tour of the Clinical Center’s labs and patient facilities. There were about thirty of them in all and they gathered in the auditorium first to hear him speak. He was not on the stage—the group was too small—but stood in the midst of them to give an update on AIDS research and experimental trials. She sat in the front row, having greeted him when she arrived.
They were exceptionally polite when they met. Too polite, really, but there with so many others around they had to be.
“Hello, Michael,” she had said with a lilt in her voice.
“Hi, there,” he had responded, a little too brightly.
The entire time he spoke he never looked in her direction. During the question-and-answer session afterward he would look over her head to call on someone as though she weren’t there.
After his talk he led the group on a tour through the corridors, into research rooms, never addressing a single word to her or even glancing at her. Yet she could feel his eyes on her when he wasn’t speaking, even when she couldn’t see him.
Michael’s talk had been a great success. He was a dynamic speaker and everyone was impressed. The tour was rather pedestrian. The Clinical Center didn’t look any different from a regular hospital. She could understand why he had resisted giving the tour when the staff had asked him to.
Even though it was after hours the place still seemed to be bustling and they had to squeeze their way past an AIDS support group meeting in one of the larger waiting areas. Michael was racing along the corridors, obviously bored and trying to get it over with as quickly as possible. At one point he took the group into his own private lab. The outer room looked like any research lab, strewn with old coffee cups and diet drink cans, sweaters rolled up and stuck in bookcases, cartoons Scotch taped to the refrigerator, books piled high, a radio playing classical music, posters of the Swiss Alps pasted on the door. He opened the door to the adjoining room and peered in to see an attractive young Asian woman working with test tubes. He closed the door and turned to the people surrounding him.
“I’d be happy to show any of you through this room, but I feel I should warn you that there are live AIDS viruses in here.”
Why was it she detected a slight note of a challenge in his voice? Was it her imagination or did he direct that last sentence to her. Did he want her to go in there or was he warning her not to? Was he trying to scare her? I could get AIDS so stay away. She couldn’t figure it out. She looked up at him and saw he was looking at her. She was tempted to accept his challenge and go in. But she really didn’t want to. She had Willie to think about, if there was any risk at all. Besides, what did she care what he thought. Why should she let him get to her like that?
“I think I’ll pass, Dr. Lanzer,” she said with a smile. “I have a small child to worry about.”
Several of the medical types asked to see the lab and several others decided to wait outside with her. A few minutes later he emerged with the rest of the group.
“Why did you warn us about the live AIDS virus?” Sadie asked, in front of the group. “Was there really any danger to us? How likely would it be for anyone to get AIDS by going in there?”
He seemed surprised by her questions.
“Just by walking around?” he asked. “Probably zero.” She sensed he was reluctant to admit it. “But if anyone messed around with anything, touched anything, knocked anything over, well, then it’s possible.”
“How much at risk are you or any of your researchers, then? You deal with this stuff every day, don’t you?”
“Actually I don’t really do it anymore. I have too much administrative business to attend to. It wouldn’t be fair to the researchers if I just stuck my two cents’ worth in now and then. As far as risk is concerned, we have never had anyone become sero-converted in our lab. We test everyone every three to six months. There is very, very little chance of becoming infected by working with it the way we do. Although when we first started out no one knew that and there were actually people who refused to work on it. Now, though, I think people can consider themselves pretty safe.”
This was the first time he had actually said that he didn’t work with the AIDS virus anymore. He more or less had to admit it in front of this group. They were too savvy. But if that were so, why would he try to warn her away? Was it just another barrier to keep them apart? Sometimes with Michael she felt as if their relationship was an Olympic decathlon competition. If she wasn’t jumping hurdles, she was throwing javelins or sprinting. She never seemed to get to the end, she never seemed to be able to win. It was so exhausting. She had actually begun to wonder whether it was worth it.
It was toward the end of the tour that one of her Secret Service agents approached her.
“Mrs. Grey,” he said. “We’ve just had a call from the White House. Mrs. Osgood needs to talk to you. She says it’s urgent. You can take the call in here. It’s secure.” He pointed the way to an office near where they were standing.
She slipped away quietly. Michael had noticed her leaving the b
ack of the group and he couldn’t help following her with his eyes as she disappeared into the next room.
She rang through to Blanche’s private number.
“Oh Sadie, thank the Lord! Are you with Michael Lanzer?”
“Well, sort of. He’s giving us a tour. I told you about it on the phone this morning. What’s the matter, Blanche? You sound frantic.”
“It’s Freddy. Sadie, somethin’s awful wrong with him. I’m scared to tell anyone. He refuses to see the White House doctor. He finally agreed to let me call Michael. Do you think you could get him to come over here? I want you to come, too.”
Sadie found this request unnerving for many reasons. She was horrified at the idea that Freddy might have tested positive. She was torn about going to the White House with Michael. It would be awkward. They were virtually not speaking to each other, except in public. He hadn’t tried to communicate with her since their Sabbath dinner. What would they say to each other?
She didn’t want to go back and join the group. If she went directly to Michael it would be too obvious. She asked one of her agents to get him and have him join her in the small office when there was a break.
Several minutes later he came in with a worried expression and closed the door.
“What is it, Sadie?”
“I’ve just had a call from Blanche. The President is sick and he won’t see anyone but you. She wants us both to come to the White House now. The President is in the family quarters.”
His face tensed.
“I’ll go get my coat. I’ll meet you in your car in front of the clinic in five minutes.”
Sadie slipped out the back corridor without saying anything to anyone and, accompanied by her agents, she went down the elevator to her car and waited for Michael.