Such A Pretty Face

by Cathy Lamb

  Come to think of it, I don’t want Adam in my garden at all. I’ll take Eve if she promises to help me build my raised beds and never walks around naked.

  Or Noah, the ark builder. I could take him. He could build a mini-ark and I could fill it with flowers and vegetables.

  But not corn. No corn in the ark.

  At the end of my walk I had to leap over a three-foot-high, pokey green hedge owned by my neighbor, Nancy Bull, and hide myself facedown in the dirt like a bug.

  I do not want him to see me.

  Ducking was instinctive. Immature. And almost, but not quite, funny.

  My neighbor, Jake Stockton—what a romantic name, doesn’t it set a beat in your breast?—was leaving for work. He lives six houses down from me and moved in about seven months ago. I know he travels, sometimes for weeks at a time—not that I am stalking him at all. That would be weird. Not that I am spying on his house, either. That would be creepy. Nor am I keeping an eye out for gorgeous Jake at all times. That would be obsessive.

  I don’t know where he travels to. Whenever he sees me, and I cannot make a leap into an escape, he waves. Now and then he stops to chat, but I scuttle off, quick as I can, as a paralytically shy mouse would, because I can feel my vocal chords stiffening in fear. Plus, when he first moved in, I hadn’t had my second operation, so loose skin was hanging off me like uninflated parachutes.

  If there is a more gorgeous man on the planet, I have not seen him. Jake’s almost as tall as my grandpa and built in the same oxen form. He has blondish hair; is probably a little older than forty; and has huge, kind, green, mushy, yummy eyes and a jaw that could break a board in half. He is not pretty. In fact, I think he’s spent a lot of time out in the sun, because he has that tanned, weathered cragginess. He has a smile that reaches into my heart, wraps itself around me, and makes me hope.

  I avoid him at all costs.

  I stuck my head up when I knew he and his truck had zoomed off to work. I spit dirt and, I think, a small spider from my mouth and leveraged myself up, flicking dirt off my front.

  Yes, I avoid Jake at all costs because I envision him naked and smiling and cannot speak in his manly presence and therefore come off as imbecilic and fluffy in the intelligence department.

  But, my, he makes my heart flutter.

  “One day you’re going to have to talk to him, you know, like a real woman.”

  I about jumped out of my skin, then relaxed when I saw Nancy and her rake. She has blond hair, is on her third husband (“Upgrade your husband now and then,” she’d told me. “Look for improved models.”), and is a gardening maniac.

  “I know, I know,” I panted. “But not today.”

  “Gee whiz. How about tomorrow?” She rolled her eyes. “How about the next day?”

  “No, can’t do it. No, no, no.”

  “I’ve seen him talking to you. He looks at you like he likes you, and there you go leaping over hedges, landing on your face in the dirt.”

  “He doesn’t like me.” That was infinitely silly.

  She thumped her rake. “Yes, he does. Get some guts, you flying wonder woman, and go talk to him.”

  “No, no, no.” Whew. “No guts.”

  “Wuss.”

  “Manaical gardener,” I shot back, spitting out more dirt.

  She thumped her rake at me. Twice.

  He brought his full-sized female blow-up dolls to my little green house with the white picket fence. Lance, my cousin, had to make two trips back and forth to his car to bring in, with much pomp and circumstance, “the ladies.”

  “This one is Tiger Momma,” he announced proudly, pointing at the bikini-clad blow-up woman that he propped up right beside me on my red couch. He took two steps back and grinned, chest puffed out with pride. “And this one—” he turned and grabbed another doll. “This one is my woman, Veronica! I’m going to get ten thousand of these made up.”

  Veronica was wearing…nothing. Veronica was naked. Poofed out in all the right places.

  I swallowed hard. I am not a prude. This, however, was a tiny bit too much.

  I glanced across my living room at Lance’s sister—my cousin, Polly—who was perched on the church pew I’d decorated with red tasseled pillows.

  Polly is tall and leggy and rangy, very thin, excessively high strung, and has super curly auburn hair hanging halfway down her back. She was rocking back and forth in nervous agitation, fluffing her hands in front of her face, as if to cool herself, her expression pained.

  “Please tell me you won’t advertise these in the newspaper.” She rocked and fanned, rocked and fanned. “Don’t go on TV again. We have the same last name, Lance. Everyone will know. Oh, ohhh!” She fanned. “Ohhh.” She groaned. “Ohhh!” She inhaled in and out of her cupped hands.

  I was so worried about Polly, and not because she was having trouble breathing.

  Lance pushed Veronica onto the couch, too. She started to slip off and I grabbed her, accidentally, by the boob.

  “Advertising is the name of the game, Polly Wants a Cracker, name of the game,” Lance said, bumping his fists together. “Advertising and marketing.”

  “But I don’t appreciate your advertising,” she protested. What Polly was wearing could best be described as “ethnic.” A cotton shirt from Mexico with embroidered animals across the bodice. A wraparound, orange and red cotton, Texan-style skirt with fringe and a golden East Indian scarf with tiny mirrors around her shoulders. Cowboy boots, dangling earrings. This was in direct contrast to what she wore on the air as Portland’s most popular news anchor. “I feel sorry for the dolls. Can you imagine what these poor girls are going to have to go through? It’s embarrassing. I can hardly breathe when I think of it.”

  “I think Veronica’s having a hot flash,” I drawled.

  Lance turned on me. Lance is an interesting man and I love him dearly. He’s a former professional football player, two years older than Polly and me. He’s six foot six inches tall, has piercing gray eyes, broad shoulders, and slim hips. Women go crazy for him, and yet he can barely speak around them, barely utter a consonant. He is pathologically shy around them. Plus, he’s very emotional. “She is not having a hot flash. She’s flushed. She’s healthy, rosy cheeked.”

  “She’s a plastic doll, Lance,” I said. “She’s not healthy or unhealthy. She is…there. She is an ‘it,’ not a person.”

  Lance’s face became flushed, like his doll. “I know she’s not a person, Stevie. I know it. I get it.” He spread his arms wide and reminded me of a giant eagle. “Is it too much to ask that my sister and my cousin support my new business?”

  I cleared my throat as he victoriously grabbed another doll and started pumping her up with a small red machine. Feet filled first, then the shapely, slender, impossibly long legs. I did not need to see the upper half inflate.

  “So. Another business?” I asked.

  “Yep. Make fun of me all you want, but this one’s gonna go flying. I can feel it. Feel it. My left ankle is twitching. Twitching!”

  I would not doubt that he would make millions, especially if his left ankle was twitching. Lance uses his left ankle for answers to everything in his life. He has never formed a company without the blessing and twitching of his left ankle and has made millions. It started with some computer software he developed when he was in college. He sold it for a gazillion dollars. He was twenty. He morphed into a real estate mogul, which made him a fortune, as he bought at the exact right time during his pro career (“My ankle was almost thumping during those deals, almost thumping!”). He provided venture capital to two new start-up, online socializing sites, and they both took off like rockets toward Uranus.

  He’s a modern-day Midas.

  “I think your dolls are gonna be felt by a lot of weirdo, middle-aged freaks who can’t get a date to save their flabby butts,” Polly whimpered. Rock, rock, rock. She brought a brown sack up to her mouth and breathed. “And everyone will know that my brother is a blow-up-doll dealer.”

  I
muffled my laugh, shook my head.

  “Those men should be arrested,” Polly went on, her mouth still forming O’s as she tried to capture oxygen. “They should be arrested and tried in court and sent to jail. If they want a freaky relationship, they should find it with their cellmate.”

  Polly might end up having a “mate” in her life soon. I shivered. I was going to have to force her to deal with her problem.

  “Treat my dolls with respect.” Lance kept blowing up his doll. She had blond hair and huge eyes. “This is going to go national. International. I’m going to sell to the Russians and Alabamians and the French peoples and the Africans and the Delawarians. I’m selling to everybody.”

  “Fine. I respect Miss Bongo Boobs. My respect is sky high! Sky high!” Polly waved her hands high in the air.

  I propped Tiger Momma up and told her, “You need to sue this man. Make him pay. He’s not your pimp.”

  Tiger Momma kept that weird grin on her face. She freaked me out.

  “This is a business opportunity. An investment in the future internationally.” You would never know Lance is a multimillionaire by looking at him. He’s got the weathered face of a mountain man, a head of brown hair, and a short, scruffy beard. He wears flip-flops, jeans, and sweatshirts. He does have a modern, woodsy, Oregon sort of home with incredible views of the coast range, and a boat, and a Porsche, but nothing else showy.

  He stopped pumping and asked, “Do you think they have conventions and stuff for this kind of business?”

  “Lemme see.” I pretended to stare into space. For someone who had made so much money already, sometimes Lance came off as shockingly naive. “Maybe the United Blow-Up Dolls Convention. I think that was on Jupiter last year. The Squish Me Conference is in Vegas in July. I think there’s even a Puffy Girls Union. You should know that the Blow-Up Dolls Girls have filed a union grievance against heavy men. They don’t want their boobs smashed. It makes them feel deflated.”

  “That’s not funny, Stevie,” Lance said. “Why are you girls making fun of my new business? You’ve both hurt me. Right here.” He thumped his heart. “You’ve hurt my beater.”

  Polly eyed one of the dolls on the ground, then grabbed her and hissed, right in her face, “Run! Run for your freedom, your dignity, your very soul. Run!” She threw the doll up in the air, and Lance protested in outrage, catching the doll with one hand.

  He pushed the doll onto the couch by me. I was now surrounded by a bunch of blow-up dolls, as if they were people.

  “This isn’t funny, Polly. My feelings are hurt again!”

  Anyone else and I would have discarded that. With Lance, by golly, he’s telling the truth. I saw a sheen glistening over those gray, deep-set eyes.

  “I think the dolls are…” He waited eagerly for my opinion. “I think…they seem real. As if they’re smart and they would have interests and hobbies and that they…that they would want, uh, desire to be…uhhh…fondled.”

  Lance beamed. “That’s right. You got it! Now I want you two to be investors in my business.” He stood tall, huge chest out, chin up. “It’ll be a family business. A family business! Great salaries for the employees, great benefits. I’m thinking health insurance, dental, ortho, eye, time off for the ladies poppin’ out babies, time off for the new fathers, time off when Grandma gets sick. You know. The best of the best companies to work at. You two are gettin’ in on the ground floor. You can be vice presidents, if you want!”

  “I want to be an investor,” Polly squeaked, “about as much as I’d want to wake up in the morning with a blow-up plastic woman in my bed playing with my hair.”

  “Come on, I want us to do this together!” Lance pleaded. “It’s a great venture! It’s a business! You’ll make a fortune. I’ll give you part ownership. Four dollars each and you’re a part owner of Lance’s Lucky Ladies.”

  I gagged. Blow-up naked girls? For yucky men? No. Not me.

  I elbowed one of the naked dolls. She was kind of pretty in a plasticky way.

  “Thank you, Lance,” I told him, squeezing his hand under the mound of girls. “I appreciate the opportunity, the thought. That you even asked me, it makes me feel…” I struggled for the right word.

  “Warm inside?” he asked, eyes hopeful. “Cared for? Loved? Flattered? That’s how I would feel.” He squeezed back. “You girls and I…” He paused to gather himself. “I feel so close to both of you. You’re my kin. My sister and my cousin.” He pounded his heart. “But you’re the sister of my soul, Stevie.” Pound pound. “The sister of my soul.”

  I started feeling emotional again.

  “I want to do something with you both where we can see each other every day. Where we can communicate as only family members can, with confidence and love and trust and love and laughter and love….”

  I sniffled. I didn’t want to work for Lance in any of his companies. It would be taking advantage of him, and I don’t want to mix our family relationship with business. It would feel wrong in my bones to do so, but Lance was so sweet.

  “Oh, no, Stevie!” Lance’s face twisted. “You’re not going to cry, are you?”

  “No, I’m not.” But my voice was already ragged. “I’m not going to cry.” I sniffed again. I tried to hold it in, I did, but there was no fooling Lance.

  He burst into tears, holding his big head in his hands. “Oh, Stevie, Stevie!” he cried. “Stevie!”

  I wiped my face. I was a mess.

  Lance reached across the blow-up girls and held me close. We squished Tarzan Sister between the two of us.

  “Come on, Polly! Everybody together!” Lance said, voice breaking.

  Polly was having trouble with her breathing—stress does that to her—but she came over anyhow and hugged us and Tarzan Sister.

  “Tarzan Sister does feel awfully sexy, Lance,” I said, choking back my tears. “I’ll admit that.”

  “Yes, squishy in all the right places,” Polly said, trying to be reassuring. “Sexy. Cuddly.”

  Lance smiled. “She’s a warm, giving woman, Tarzan Sister is.” He wiped his tears. “She’ll be very popular.”

  I am almost broke.

  Cherie pays me well, and my house payment is a little high but manageable, but I have medical debt. Huge medical debt.

  After my deductible, my insurance paid for most of my bariatric surgery to strangle up my stomach so I would feel full ultra-quick, lose weight, and not die of another heart attack. They did not, however, pay for my second operation, which was needed to cut off the massive, hanging folds of skin that were no longer propped up by 170 pounds of fat. They said it was “cosmetic.” All that skin was causing heat rashes, irritation, and pains in my back, shoulders, and stomach.

  In addition, I was frightening naked. It looked like my entire body had been stretched and pulled by invisible hands until I resembled a white, mushy Gumby doll.

  I didn’t even try to fight the insurance company. I had my boobs lifted and enhanced and my extra skin whacked off. The doctor, who had actually been through the surgery himself, agreed I could pay him monthly.

  I double up my payments because I hate debt, and therefore I am almost broke.

  Was it worth it to get this second operation?

  You bet.

  I don’t regret it for a second. Sometimes I sneak a peek at my boobs and I giggle. They’re upright and they’re full, but they’re not the mammoth jugs I used to have that killed my spine and thunked around on their own like bouncing bowling balls. My stomach is actually flat. I am not wearing wings under my arms and fat globules on my legs. My butt is not drooping to my knees.

  People do not gasp, giggle, snicker, or make stabbingly hurtful remarks when I walk by, like, “She is disgusting” and “I can’t even look at her.”

  But now I have to pay for it.

  I sent out my résumé by mail and Internet, hoping for a weekend job in retail, a café or a local business open on weekends.

  There’s a restaurant that needs someone to dress as a chick
en and stand on a corner with a sign advertising the company’s meal specials.

  I laugh.

  I would never dress as a chicken.

  That would hit way too close to home.

  I searched further.

  I watched the news Monday night after work. I had had the fifth of my allotted small meals. I could not eat more than fifteen bites without feeling full, so I had to eat five times a day. I wanted to eat more, piles more, which is how I’ve handled my vast emotional issues my whole life, but I couldn’t shove it down, I knew that, or I would get dumping syndrome. Dumping syndrome is what people who have had bariatric surgery can get if they’re not careful. Here’s how I would describe dumping syndrome: Envision someone putting a spear in your stomach and twisting it around. Add panic, breathlessness, profuse sweat, cold chills, diarrhea, and a sense of delusion. Lots of fun.

  I avoid it at all cost.

  It’s the only thing that prevents me from eating my pain away.

  Polly smiled serenely out from the TV, proper yet beautiful in a pink suit and white silk undershirt with the slightest bit of lace. Her curls were pulled back conservatively, only a few artfully escaping, her nails polished. It is amazing what the spray-on, pancake makeup that people on TV wear can cover up.

  She receives regular offers of marriage.

  I’ve been to the newsroom right before she’s on the air. She is running around, a paper bag clutched in her hand, snapping orders, asking machine gun, rapid-fire questions, and making moaning sounds.

  She collapses in her anchor chair minutes before the camera rolls, yanks her papers toward her, hands shaking, yelling directions, and as soon as the producer points at her, camera on, live shot, three, two, one, she settles right down, smiles peacefully, cheekily, and calmly delivers Portland’s best newscast.

  The second it’s over, she’s pulling a bag out from under her bottom and breathing into it. Sometimes her co-anchor, Grant Joshi, has to hold it for her, propping her up with one arm. This is not an act. Polly sags after each newscast as if all the air has been sucked out of her with a vacuum.