“I can do this alone.”
“Miss Godowski, after any operation there is a physical and psychological stress that may affect both your stamina and mood. That is only natural.”
“I’m very fit. I have great stamina.”
“By this I mean many people feel blue and down for a while. You will need some support. I encourage you to talk to your mother. Honestly and frankly.”
Charlotte nodded in compliance. “I’ll try.”
“You will let me know her reaction?”
Charlotte nodded again.
“What if your mother opposes surgery? What will you do?”
Charlotte looked up and met his gaze squarely. “I will still have the operation.”
Dr. Harmon narrowed his gaze. “This operation means so much to you?”
“Yes. It means everything.” She forced herself not to shrink away from his questioning gaze.
“Why?” he pursued. “Why now? Usually women who are born with your condition have surgery at least by their adolescence. You are—” he again checked her chart “—twenty. What prompted you to seek help now?”
The image of Lou Kopp flashed in her mind. She couldn’t tell him that. Definitely not. And if she was honest with herself, Lou Kopp wasn’t the only reason why she wanted change. Truth was, he was just the tip of the iceberg, the proverbial last straw.
“I guess it just took me longer to grow up than those other women,” she replied slowly. Then, thinking of her old dreams, she added, “I used to believe that beauty was in the eye of the beholder. I had to. If I didn’t, I’d have to give up the dream that someday, someone would see beyond this face and love the person I am inside.” She looked at her shoes and her shoulders slumped. “I finally figured out no one will give me a chance with this face.”
“By give you a chance you mean…”
“Love me.”
“Ah, I understand.” Dr. Harmon tapped his fingers together. “And you believe that this operation will make someone love you?”
“No,” Charlotte replied, wise to the trap. “I know my face alone won’t make someone love me. That’s why I said ‘chance.’ All I want is a chance.”
“That’s a fair answer. So, in general, would you say that life treats you pretty well?”
She gave another crooked smile. “To be totally honest with you…no. This face hasn’t made life easy.”
“Have you ever seen a psychiatrist, or any other mental health professional?”
“I’m ugly, not crazy.” Charlotte dropped her hands and sighed. “I know you have to ask all these questions, Doctor. But I’m not asking you for some cosmetic repair here, like a nose job or a face-lift. I have a legitimate deformity. You said so yourself. I’m physically well. I exercise, eat well and have no known ailments. I’m a prime candidate. And though my life has been dull, Doctor, it has been stable. There are no skeletons in my closet. I assure you, I am not crazy.”
“No one is suggesting that you are. You must realize, however, that a surgery such as this, that can dramatically alter your appearance, will require psychological adjustment, too. It will take time—weeks, perhaps even months—for you to accept your new appearance. You may even experience a personality change.”
“I’m not afraid, Doctor. I’m ready for a change. I’ve waited for twenty years.”
She could tell by the way he tilted his head and stroked his chin that Dr Harmon was making far more than superficial observations.
“Very well, Miss Godowski,” he said, closing her chart. There was no warmth in the gaze he offered, but she hadn’t come here for that. Shining in Dr. Jacob Harmon’s eyes were the bravado and conceit of a supreme surgeon who had made a decision, who knew he could get the job done—and done better than anyone else. Charlotte sat straighter in her chair. Her excitement could barely be contained. She sensed that he meant to do the operation.
“One more question, Miss Godowski, and we’ll be done. Tell me. Do you believe that this surgery will change your life?”
She raised her gaze to his. “I don’t believe surgery will change my life. But it will make it better.”
Dr. Harmon allowed himself a smile then and she knew she’d passed the exam. When his smile broadened and his eyes twinkled, she knew she’d scored an A.
“Well then,” he replied, laying down his pencil and sitting up in his chair. “In that case, I don’t see why we can’t proceed.”
Jacob Harmon swiveled in his Eames chair while pouring over the computer images he had designed for Charlotte’s face. On the table beside him dozens of photographs of her face and body that he’d shot over the past week lay in scattered piles, along with X-rays, dental models and other diagnostic studies. He magnified the computer images and traveled the hills and valleys of her cheekbones to the gaping nostril hollows, then north to large blue lakes of eyes and the broadening plains of the brow. The doctor punched in coordinates and brought the whole face back again to gain better perspective of his new jawline design, the resulting curve of her lips and the triumph of her delicately curved chin.
Charlotte was a most challenging case. Her body…Remembering it now still gave him pause. If he had not known better he’d have sworn she’d been well worked over by teams of surgeons to achieve such perfection. It had everything. Symmetry, proportion, smoothness, color. Even her skin was perfect, like polished alabaster.
Still, she had something more that compelled him toward absolute perfection. She possessed an ethereal quality that brought her beyond mere mortal beauty. Charlotte’s eyes—they mesmerized him. Past her veil of shyness, Charlotte’s eyes held mystery.
Jacob returned to his sketches with renewed vigor. His fingers itched to work. Surgically, Jacob knew what had to be done. He’d reached the point where the physician’s work ended and the artist’s work took over. Crossing this line was what made his work poetry and so many other surgeons’ efforts merely adequate. He chuckled to himself, delighted at the concept of himself as an obsessed artist at work on his masterpiece.
For that was what she would be—his masterpiece. He knew that body image was a view of the body through the mind’s eye. But this girl wanted to be beautiful. And he would make her more beautiful than even she had dreamed possible.
Charlotte’s visit with Mr. McNally a week later was quick and businesslike. As she coolly told her former employer the reason why she was quitting her job, she watched McNally’s usually ruddy face pale and pinch. As she stammered out the sordid details, his lips thinned and his eyes narrowed in silent fury. At the end of the discussion, Mr. McNally did not call in Lou Kopp, as she had worried he would. He calmly assured her that she would be spared any further discomfort, then asked if she’d like a cab home.
As soon as Charlotte left, Mr. McNally hurried to his phone and dialed his lawyer.
“George, Kopp has been at it again. I had some girl in my office threatening to sue for sexual harassment.”
There was a long, rumbling sigh on the other end of the line. “What did he do this time?”
McNally briefly recounted the events, including the job threat.
“I think it would be better if we settled this one quickly,” the lawyer advised in a somber tone. “The other one may still go to trial.”
Charlotte was delighted later that the amount offered for settlement was enough to cover the cost of her operation. Charlotte’s lawyer had suggested more, but Charlotte wasn’t greedy. In fact, she was so relieved by the amount that she had to stop herself from thanking Mr. McNally.
“I only want one assurance,” she said as they shook hands.
McNally raised his brow.
“I want assurance that Mr. Kopp won’t do this to someone else. He’s plagued the women in that office for years.”
“I think we can take care of that.”
That was enough; she was not out for blood. Although she did break out in a grin when, a few months later, she learned that Mr. Kopp had left the company for “personal” reasons.
O
n Christmas Eve, Michael Mondragon eased his rented Mustang convertible onto Interstate 5, stretched his arm over the car seat and began whistling along with the Christmas melodies playing on the radio. He had to admit, Christmas Eve was always best when spent with family. And he’d be home in time for Mama’s Christmas Eve dinner.
As he pushed beyond the gray tentacles of Los Angeles into the vertical green of the mountains and valleys that surrounded his home, he felt the long trip’s tension slide off his shoulders like rocky boulders. Chicago seemed a million miles away. An hour’s drive out, he turned off the main road to an obscure side road, barely fit for travelers. Those with money and sense kept to the main road that led to plush resorts and well maintained camping grounds. Only the adventurous few ventured along these roads that wound past small townships and farms and through forests of white fir, cedar and piñon, ponderosa and Jeffrey pines. He knew the names of all the trees and vegetation. It was, after all, the family business.
The road angled sharply, then dipped lower as he entered the familiar lushness of the valley he called home. It had rained recently; the road was slick and black sage lent a purple hue to a whole mountainside. The rain-scented wind stung his face and he could taste its sweetness. Michael drove steadily down the same road that, years ago, he’d driven trucks along from the Mondragon nursery to the yards of California suburbia.
Memories passed through his mind like mile markers as he drove by familiar landmarks of his youth. At a favorite lookout point, Michael slowed to a stop and turned off the engine. Dusk was setting in; the birds were calling. From his high vantage point, the valley lay spread before him as open and lush as a willing woman. He breathed in deeply, his chest expanding. Damn, but she smelled sweet, too.
Deep in the valley, the dark vegetation reached up to the sky, as though to grab the pale evening clouds that hovered low. “The hems of the angels,” he’d called them as a child. Michael had always felt that at this languid hour, at this mystical spot, he was within reach of heaven.
He sighed, running his hand through his thick hair. So many old memories stirred. It was here that he first found love in the cab of a Mondragon truck. Here that he’d made his decision to defy his family and take the Harvard scholarship. Here that he’d sworn that someday he’d leave these mountains and never return.
And he did leave. His life in Chicago was more than the few thousand miles away from his Mexican-American family. It was a world apart. Yet there lay the irony. Why was it, he wondered, that no matter how far he traveled or how much he changed, when he returned home he slipped back into old, familiar patterns? He knew that when he drove through the Mondragon gates, he would no longer be Mr. Michael Mondragon who’d graduated magna cum laude from Harvard, who’d earned a hard-fought-for position at a well connected architectural firm in Chicago, who’d billed more in one year than his father dreamed of billing in a decade. No, in a few moments more he would be poor little Miguel, the brooding outcast who’d dared to leave the family fold.
His large, manicured hands molded over the gearshift, tightening in resolve. He’d worked too hard, come too far, to play any more roles. When he saw his father, mother, sister and brother, he would make them see, this time, who he was. Now. Michael took a last look at the fading sunset, then shook his head as a bittersweet smile hovered at his lips.
He might as well try to catch the hem of the angels.
Once he passed the borders of his father’s property, he saw visible signs that the business had taken a bad turn. The outbuildings were slipping down, the stock was sparse and what was left didn’t have the luster and vigor that Mondragon plants were known for. His brow knit, but he traveled without pause past the hilly slopes of viburnum, euonymous and evergreens to the small stucco house with the red tile roof a hundred yards beyond. His father’s Chevy pickup was parked in front beside a few newer, full-size American cars. He recognized his sister’s wedding garter hanging from her Mercury’s rearview mirror.
The house looked pretty much as it always did. Mama’s bright yellow front door was trimmed with fresh pine boughs and holly, and behind Mama’s lace curtains, the lights were blazing and Papa was playing mariachi music. His heart skipped with anticipation—no, he had to admit, eagerness. No sooner had he pulled the car to a stop than the front door of the house flung open and his father stepped forward, both arms stretched wide and a toothy grin on his weathered face. Michael felt childishly pleased knowing that they’d been on the lookout for him.
“He’s home!” Luis boomed, his voice like thunder in the valley. “Everyone. Come out. Miguel, he is home at last!”
Behind him came the high-pitched welcomes of his mother and his sister, Rosa, and behind them, Rosa’s children. More slowly, his brother Bobby sauntered forward. As he embraced them one by one, he could smell the heady scent of a Mexican Christmas on their clothes, in their hair and lingering in their kisses. Dark chocolate, vanilla and oranges.
Once inside, he was tempted to walk around the family home, to peek into bedrooms and closets, to see if he still had a room. He felt nervous. Out of place. The family clustered around him, however, chatting amiably, reminiscing over events that were far sweeter in memory. After a few minutes the conversation slowed, but this was to be expected. After all, it’d been several years since he’d been home. His ear was quick to pick up the soft, intimate sounds of Spanish, the language of his family. Michael could feel his tongue stumble around the vowels and consonants as he struggled with his broken replies.
“Little Francisco speaks better Spanish than his uncle Miguel,” his mother teased. Michael only smiled. This was an old stalemate that had begun when Michael, the only Mexican in his suburban first grade class, announced one night at family dinner that he would only speak English as the nuns had instructed him to. His mother, hurt and confused, had ceased her fluid flow of Spanish and met his announcement with obedience. “If the nuns said so…”
His father had responded typically, exploding in anger and casting him off to his room, where Michael preferred to be, anyway. It was the beginning of the unraveling of his ties to his family. The first step in the distance he was to create between them.
Tonight there was no criticism in Luis’s eyes, however. He beamed at his youngest son.
“Rosa,” Luis boomed to his daughter. “Settle your children. I want to talk to Miguel alone for a moment.” He guided Michael to the large family kitchen. Closing the door, he paused and sighed a bit theatrically. “Ah, some peace and quiet, eh? If I could harness the energy of those
bebés,
I could live forever! But—” he shrugged with his whole body, arms and palms lifting upward “—I’ll settle for a small glass of beer.”
“Ah, Mama,” Michael said, accepting a bottle and sniffing the air. The familiar scents of Mexican cooking, mingled with the sounds of children laughing and grown-ups talking in Spanish in the room next door, was like a soothing balm, restoring his sense of place.
“Smells like heaven.”
Marta said nothing, but her skin flushed with pleasure as she hovered over the huge stove covered with simmering pots. He and his father leaned against the wood counter in the delicious-smelling room, arms crossed, bottles held in fists as they began the awkward conversation that always followed months of separation.
“So,” Luis began. It was more a clearing of the throat.
“How are you?”
“Fine…fine,” Michael responded slowly. He hoped he didn’t sound cautious, and took a long swallow of beer.
“Real good.”
“What you doing in Chicago?”
He shrugged. “Same old, same old. Mayor Daley wants more trees planted, so when we finish a building, we plant him more trees.” Father and son exchanged glances over their bottles and shared a mutual laugh.
“Glad to see you’re still planting something.”
They tried hard to maneuver their conversation into friendly territory, and the occasional quips Marta offered as she stirred at the stove helped. Yet it was clear to Michael that his father was pining to talk plainly but didn’t want to push his son hard the moment he stepped in the door. Luis was a tall, big-fisted and broad-shouldered man with a voice to match. Seeing him stutter over inanities was like watching a bull stumble in a china shop. Michael decided to make it easier for him.
“The nursery looks hard hit,” he opened, going straight to the point.
Luis’s face revealed surprise, immediately followed by relief. He began to nod his burly head widely. “Yes, yes, exactly!” he boomed, stretching out his arm in agreement. “The drought last year, aieee! We lost so much, and what is left—” he shook his hands to the heavens “—it’s not fit to live. Son of a bitch drought. Grass burn like hell, and the people call and say, ‘No cut.’ When we no cut they no pay. Do they care? No! ‘No cut’ is all they say.” He shook his head. “So much dies.”
“I heard it was bad. I’m sorry you were so hard hit.”
Luis shrugged. “Will of God, no?”
“Perhaps…” He took a long swallow of beer, avoiding a religious debate. In the Mondragon household, life’s twists and turns were all part of God’s infinite plan. To be endured. “How is Manuel doing?” Michael didn’t know his brother-in-law very well. He seemed a decent sort of fellow, but the man would have to be a saint to live with his hot-tempered sister, Rosa.
His father shrugged noncommittally. “He does okay cutting the lawns. The men they like him, but…” Luis rubbed his jaw. “It’s not just drought. He no can draw the land pictures like the people want now. They want something special, you know? And if you can draw the pictures, you can sell stock, too. Draw for free sometimes, just to get the job.”
“I know what you mean, Papa. It’s common now. Why didn’t you hire someone? A designer?”
“Why I go hire someone when my son is best there is?”
Michael’s sigh rumbled in his chest. “Perhaps because I’m an architect in Chicago? Papa, I build skyscrapers. High in the sky.” He ground his teeth and said softly, “I don’t dig in the earth anymore.”
“
Madre de Dios.
How can you like working away from the soil? What you want to play with concrete blocks for in Chicago when you can have all this fine California earth? This precious land. I ask you!”
Michael heard the pleading hidden in the boisterous exclamation and it broke his heart. His father was a proud man, raised harshly as an orphan by his relatives in Mexico. At twenty-two he brought his family to America because a bachelor uncle had died and left a small piece of California land to his only living nephew. From the moment he’d seen the fertile valley, Luis Mondragon’s life had had purpose. He’d turned a deaf ear to the many lucrative offers for the land and held on tight to his future—a risky move for a poor Mexican with three hungry children.
When he’d saved enough money, Luis had moved his ragtag family to the suburbs and established a modest lawn maintenance company. He slaved in suburban yards from dawn till sundown seven days a week, like a huge bull in the harness. Luis hated the suburbs, but Marta had wanted the good “gringo” schools where the nuns would teach her children the same things as white children. Besides, what could he do? The suburbs was where the money was. The people liked his wit and strong back, and his business thrived. When the boys grew older they helped run the mowers and hedge clippers, working for a pittance.
Though his father may have been cheap with a dollar, he was very generous with his knowledge. Like his precious nursery, he nurtured his boys, teaching Roberto and Miguel about the soil, stock and the family secrets for a vigorous plant. Every spare penny earned went back to the land. When at last he could begin a nursery, he sold only a few select plants, just the ones his customers were likely to buy. Then, slowly, with his twinkling eyes and infectious laughter, he teased his customers to “try something a little bit different, no?” Plant by plant, Luis built the reputation of the Mondragon nursery, and Michael knew it had to break the old man’s heart to see a lifetime of struggle strangled by heat, drought and competition. Looking at his face now, he saw how the drought had coursed new crevices in his father’s handsome face as well.
“What would you have me do, Papa?” he asked simply.
His father searched his face, then relaxed with a satisfied, proud grin. “Ah, Miguel. You are a true son to me.
Sí
! I see so much of me in you.”
Michael stepped back from the bear hug, rebelling against the comparison. He wasn’t like his father. Not at all. “Papa…”
“You see, Marta?” Luis interrupted, tightening his possessive arm around Michael’s shoulders. The force of his will flowed through him. “I told you my son would help me. I have
one
good son.”
Michael met his mother’s gaze over his father’s head.
“No, Luis,” she replied somberly. “You have
two
good sons.”
When the feast was prepared, the family gathered around the long, dark wood table while Marta served the family favorites with pride. Ceviche, roast leg of pork in adobe sauce, corn pudding and green rice. For dessert, Marta insisted on no less than four cakes with fresh strawberries and cream.
“Sit down now, Marta,” bellowed Luis. “Enough! You run like a rabbit. It makes me tired just to watch. Sit! It is time to eat.”