by Schow, Ryan
His sexual appetite waned with concern.
“There is a robe for you when you are done,” he said, nodding toward the back wall of the stark white bathroom. She turned and took it down, wrapped it around her, cinched the belt tight.
“Please forgive my lack of modesty,” she said, “I never thought something like this was possible. I mean, after seeing Christian, I knew it was but, it’s different when it happens to you.”
She couldn’t peel her eyes off her new face. She then turned, unexpectedly, and gave the doctor a hug. “Thank you,” she said. She sounded slightly drugged though, hesitant. Like she wasn’t sure just yet.
“For the part I played,” he said, “you’re welcome.”
3
Savannah had been right to become Abby. Atticus was right to become Christian. Margaret, however, was wondering if it was right that she become…whoever the hell she was now. How was she supposed to get used to this stranger in the mirror? It wasn’t her face. It was stunning, true, but it wasn’t hers.
And this body?
A lovely, miraculous, almost instantaneous gift that came with no pain. The old adage, there is no beauty without sacrifice—her sacrifice was her old body. She missed it already. The familiarity it held for her. The story every body part told and how it reminded her of the different events of her life, of her various triumphs and struggles.
She nearly exhausted herself becoming the woman she once was. Now it was all gone. Like the struggle was never real. Hers was a body erased from existence within days. She didn’t want to be rude in front of the doctor, even though she knew he was undoubtedly delighted with the outcome, but part of her wanted her old self back.
Standing in the mirror, trying to see herself with a more appropriate perspective, there were things about her new body she appreciated, things she forced herself to like as a way of staving off this strange flirtation with “buyer’s remorse.” Things like the young, natural feel of her breasts (even though they weren’t as big as before), her round and now dentless butt, and how her vagina had the kind of tight virginal feel she hadn’t known in decades. And her skin. It was not her skin as much as it was the skin of a twenty-five year old.
The body was fine. It was great. She was used to identifying less with her body than her face, though, so it was in seeing her new facial features that she worried most. The face was never a face on earth until it became hers this week. It was a creation. A mask. Not something natural, but something she borrowed and would never give back. She was a creation absent the touch of God.
An aberrant fabrication of science.
“Here come the waterworks,” she mumbled as her new body teetered. At least she recognized her emotions. She was totally unstable, which gave her a small measure of comfort.
In the privacy of her own company, she refused to be embarrassed by her impending breakdown. After all, this was not some drug fueled, soap opera bitch fit she was about to throw. This was sadness bleeding out of her. And loss. This was fear of the unfamiliar. This was her body having been chosen for her.
“So this is me now,” she said with a barely tempered reverence.
Big, clear crocodile tears spilled from mesmerizing, foreign eyes. They rolled down new cheeks, dodged the edges of lips that had never tasted food, lips that had never kissed a man’s mouth.
The onslaught of emotion started a vertigo-like spiraling in her. Grief felt mixed with loss mixed with her uncertainty. Apprehension bled into the mix, poisoned her with regret for who she had become, and that caused her to both loathe and lament her former self, her dead self. The beautiful self she made one surgery at a time but would never be again.
God, what have I done?
She wiped her eyes, but more tears bubbled up from those brand new ducts, then slid warm and wet out onto her face, the brand new face she could never imagine getting used to.
“You made your bed,” she said, her voice shaky, not sounding anything like the voice she once recognized and took for granted. “Time to fluff the pillow.”
She dried her eyes, pushed her new hair back over her new shoulders and then joined the doctor in the main lab. He was leaving a message for Christian. When he hung up, the doctor said, “When I spoke with him last night, he said he’d be here this evening. It’s barely two o’clock.”
The look in his eyes hinted that something with Christian might be amiss.
“So what now?” she asked, swallowing her suspicions. Her clothes were neatly folded on the metal gurney beside her shoes and makeup bag, which sat next to the canister she had come out of.
“At your leisure, you can shower and change, and then we need to do some tests, just to make sure everything is as it should be.”
“How long will that take?” she asked, trying not to look at all the other bodies in stasis. The excitement she suffered earlier seemed to be draining her by the moment.
“An hour at most. Your husband purchased the biometric package as well. I understand all of this was orchestrated on short notice?”
“The biometric package?”
“The fingerprints we took and your full retina scan. From before. Your old fingerprints have been transferred to five sets of latex adhesives, which will allow you to physically override your new fingerprints, should you need to do so.”
“And the retina scan?”
“Contact lenses specific to the previous version of you have been created for the same purpose. Christian thought it might be overkill, but he’s also a boy scout of sorts. Always planning ahead.”
“That’s Atticus.”
“Christian,” he corrected.
“Yes, Christian.”
“He said you didn’t have time to transfer your car and house into a new name.”
“What is my new name?” she asked. She felt like half her mind was caught in a dreamscape, and the other half was wading through the muck of a nightmare. If her face and body was chosen mostly by Christian, what’s to say he didn’t choose a new name, too?
“That is for you to decide, Ms. Van Duyn. Naturally a full identification package is included, but you can take the time you need to decide the specifics. There is so much that goes into a name these days, wouldn’t you agree?”
“Yeah, sure,” she said lazily. Sounding sloshed, or even high, she said, “I mean, I would agree.”
“Do you have any ideas?” he asked. “Any name that stands out in your mind as fitting for this new you?”
She forced a laugh, then said, “I’ve always thought of myself as Margaret, never anything else. I was never one of those girls dreaming up new names for myself.”
“Then this will be an adventure,” he said, delight shining in his now lightly accented voice.
What is wrong with me? she wondered. She had to snap out of this! “So if I don’t have an ID,” she said, “how will I get back home?”
“Naturally, our private plane is at your disposal.”
“And my ID packet?”
“If you would like to do your hair and makeup” he said, looking down at her makeup bag, “I will photograph you for your ID package.”
“Right now?”
He smiled an acknowledgement, then said, “It will take time for us to prepare your back history. Specifically your new social security card, your credit cards and bank accounts. Your license, however, should be ready within a few days. You need only let me know which name you’ve chosen, then we can finalize everything.”
“This is all so…routine for you,” she said. “Completely erasing and creating lives.” Again he offered her a delicate, understanding smile. “For me, as you can imagine, this is anything but routine. This is the history of my life, all gone and replaced with a fiction I’m supposed to make real before I can rejoin society.”
“Everyone adapts in their own way,” he offered. When she gave no reply, he said, “You and Christian will return home this evening, or tomorrow if he requires a break from flying.”
Her voice was a wisp of soun
d falling further and further away, like some part of herself seeking escape, or pieces of her simply dissolving into nothingness. She thought, my life is no longer mine; I’m a disappearing act I can’t control.
Clinging to the traditions of her former life, to her craving for the sumptuous ambiance of an unusual restaurant, to her love of fine dining and being seen with the trendy and the affluent, she found a foothold in the dark. A desire she could throw herself into. If there was anything she excelled at, it was making the most of high society.
“It’s been a long time since I’ve had dinner in New York,” she said. “Are you familiar with the flatiron district?”
“I am,” he said, his nearly unreadable expression relaxing.
“Is 230 Fifth still around?”
230 Fifth was one of the most beautiful rooftop bars/restaurants Margaret had ever been to. At twenty floors up with floor-to-ceiling views, Manhattan at night was like a dream she refused to wake from. The penthouse lounge’s décor was bold and trendy, like something out of Alice in Wonderland. We’re talking cozy, freeform couches done in reds, purples and deep, deep blues accented with backlit draperies and charcoal colored leather stools banded with polished metal. The walls were patterned glass reflecting a red ceiling polished to a high shine. The space felt larger and more luxurious than it actually was. It was the kind of penthouse lounge you just couldn’t imagine existing anywhere outside cities like New York, San Francisco and Chicago. 230 Fifth wasn’t just a place to eat, socialize and be seen, it was an escape from reality. Which was exactly what she needed right now.
Thinking about Alice in Wonderland had her considering the metaphorical red pill (which had you willfully accepting the hard truths of life) and the blue pill (which was a polite way of delving into the bliss of artifice and ignorance). Going to 230 Fifth was her way of taking the blue pill. Tonight, she didn’t want to see herself, or think about what she’d done, or wonder who she would become. Tonight she only wanted the bold, the dramatic and the unusual, and 230 Fifth was just that.
“230 Fifth will always be around, Ms. Van Duyn,” the doctor answered.
“While I’m getting ready, would it be too much of me to ask that you make reservations for me and Christian?”
“It would be my pleasure.”
“We’d like bottle service as well,” she said. “Around eight, perhaps?”
“As you wish,” the doctor replied, looking a bit more chipper.
4
This is not my face, she thought. This is not my body. What she was thinking most was that sometimes, when you look at something so perfect and so beautiful, and it’s you, it doesn’t resonate as “this is me.”
Her emotions felt dragged out to sea, like the tide, then they changed course, slamming her face-first in the sand. She was thrilled, and terrified. Bursting with the kind of nervous anxiety she couldn’t define.
In the bathroom, getting dressed and ready for pictures, Margaret found herself in the heart of an existential moment. Her brain was a scratched, skipping CD. It was OCD on crank. It was a recycling loop of wonder and frustration. What is perfection? She wondered, am I perfect?
I can’t be perfect.
Perfect meant no more work. Nothing to fix. Nothing to look forward to.
Looking in the mirror, the lack of familiarity left her with a profound sense of emptiness. Even worse than when she was in rehab and had to do a self-evaluation. In rehab, when she had sufficiently sobered up enough to take an inventory of her life, all she could think about was all the people she hurt. And when she was asked to write down all the good things about herself, anything she deemed valuable, the only thing she could do with her pen in hand was stare at a blank sheet of paper and cry. She didn’t want to cry, but when you realized you had done nothing of substance in your life, that your only value came from how you looked (even that’s fake), you can’t help wondering what the point of living was.
Ever since leaving rehab, her sole purpose was to right the wrongs of the past. But now she had no past. No errors as this person. No prior transgressions to pay penance for.
“I am perfect,” she said, but not in a cheery way.
Sitting in a bathroom by herself looking nothing like herself, and ten times more beautiful than before, that truth was never more evident than now. She was utterly and completely worthless.
You did this for Abby, Christian’s voice said in her head. Her body heated up thinking of their last kiss, in the bathroom before she changed. She thought of how they made love desperately, with so much passion. It was never like that.
Never so…damn hot.
Revising her last statement, she said, “I’m perfect for Abby.” Her voice was hollow though, and it bore a weakness she couldn’t seem to shake.
Why is this so hard?
It took her three tries to get her makeup right, and even then she wasn’t sure how she felt. When she cleansed her face for the third time and started again for the fourth time, she realized she didn’t need most of what she was trying to wear.
Her old face needed makeup; her new face didn’t need that much.
Margaret applied a light dusting of eye shadow and some eyeliner and then she put on the right lipstick and that was it. To her amazement, less was so much more. She found herself wondering, is it really this easy to look so beautiful?
As she stared at herself in the mirror, this perfect gorgeous stranger, a sweep of vertigo ripped through her. Left her reaching for the pedestal sink for balance.
Perhaps this wasn’t the best decision; perhaps in the depths of her despair, she’d been too hasty. I’m not me, she thought. This isn’t me.
Then it occurred to her: she wasn’t pitching a fit, nor was she a ruined, banished woman. This was her mourning. Then she thought, oh my God, is that really what this is?
Yes.
She was mourning what used to be. What would never be again. This time, when she cried, she owned her tears, owned her face, released her past. For all of the years she suffered plastic surgery, and recovery, and the discovery of new flaws that needed fixing, she emptied her heart. This agitated roller coaster she spent so much of her adult life on—the one that swept her into insanity, caused her to betray Atticus, to constantly ridicule her daughter—it was coming to an end. Resolving itself. Which left her wondering, what now?
This stopped her flat.
That was the question that emptied her of purpose. What do I chase now? In the unattainable quest for beauty, for perfection, she had arrived. Had she ever imagined arriving?
No.
Absolutely not.
Am I addicted to self-improvement?
Addicts, they never get enough. They always want more, more, more. But looking at her face, at her body, at her hair and eyes and mouth, she couldn’t imagine anything being more perfect than who she was right then.
Mourning tapered into a search for purpose.
Abby, she reminded herself. Christian. They were all that mattered. When it came down to it, when she was stripped completely of her existence, all that truly mattered was family.
5
Christian’s plane was late arriving due to unexpected weather conditions. Margaret had already gone shopping with the doctor, buying a sleeveless top and pencil skirt by Akris, and Manolo Blahnik point-toe pumps with a four inch heel from Saks Fifth Avenue. Nothing at Saks Fifth Avenue in New York was cheap, let alone a simple dinner outfit like the one she purchased. The entire ensemble was nearly fifty-five hundred dollars, but the doctor said it was his treat. Margaret knew he was all too happy to pay. It was the pleasure of her company he admired. Besides, she knew what a procedure like hers cost. Fifty-five hundred dollars was pocket change when compared to the profits derived from the kind of full bodied genetic modification she’d experienced.
The black top was sleeveless with a rounded neck and dyed lamb fur, which made it feel oh so luxurious against her bare skin. The skirt was Nappa leather and it hovered just above her knees, knees th
at no longer had that extra circling of pudge. She slid on her heels and appraised herself.
“Wow,” she said to herself.
Wow.
When she presented herself to the doctor, he handed her a long velvet box and said, “Your outfit, as spectacular as it is, wouldn’t be complete without this.” The handsome doctor wore the lovesick eyes of a teenager, which she took as a compliment, since his entire life had been dedicated to making people pretty. Inside the box was a flawless pearl necklace.
“It’s gorgeous,” she said, her breath catching. Giving him a hug, she said, “Thank you.”
He helped her into her pearls, then he stood back to appraise her. His lusty gaze was a warmth in the room he tempered well. Slowly, however, his attraction to her was showing.
“It is impossible to remain unmoved by your beauty.”
“All thanks to you,” she said. She gave him another hug and said, “I am eternally indebted to you.”
This was her way of saying both thank you and good-bye.
Downstairs, a limo picked her up and took her back to Fifth Avenue. The driver rolled down the glass privacy barrier and said, “Your husband just called from the airport. He is on his way now.”
“His timing was never so impeccable,” she said, not sure why she said it.
A moment later, he parked the limo, got out, opened her door and helped her out. She looked up at the building she was about to enter and things stirred inside of her. Her face smiled on its own. She took the elevator to the top floor where she tried to relax. Everyone was looking at her.
Everyone.
It wasn’t like before where she was pretty and people knew her from her paparazzi stardom. People were looking at her like she was the second coming of Christ. Am I really so beautiful? she wondered. I am, she thought with a delicious smile.
Seriously, it was like time stopped and everyone couldn’t do anything but stare. The whispering wasn’t ridicule as much as it was everyone wondering where her entourage was, and if she was a movie star, a singer or a model.