“It’s so beautiful in here,” said Allie.
Eve closed her book, pushed it away from her, and took off her wire-rimmed bifocals. Her skin was like a pale, wrinkled bedsheet, and her eyes were deep blue and angry-looking.
“What are you doing here?” she asked sharply.
“Nancy sent me to take you to the movie. It’s Gone with the Wind.”
“I can’t go.”
“Nancy really wants you to,” said Allie. “Um, do you need help getting into your wheelchair? Because I can call for an attendant.”
“I am perfectly capable of getting into my own chair. The only reason I’m forced to use that thing is because the home is afraid of being sued.” Eve stood up very slowly and walked across the room, easing herself into the wheelchair that was in the corner by the door. “And who are you?” she asked, peering up at Allie.
“Allie Beekman.”
“How old are you, Allie Beekman?”
“Fifteen.”
“Please use a complete sentence when you answer me.”
Allie wheeled Eve outside and carefully closed the bungalow door. “Okay. I mean, um, okay, I will.”
“Are you one of those volunteers from a high school that has a community-service requirement?” asked Eve, as Allie pushed her along. “Or are you here because you want to be?”
Well, she wasn’t as friendly as most of the residents, but she sure was sharp.
“Can’t the answer to both of those questions be yes?” Allie asked.
“Oh, I highly doubt it,” said Eve. “This is your first day here, I take it?”
“It’s that obvious, huh?”
“What’s obvious is that ‘huh’ is not a word. So tell me, Allie, what do you think of the place?”
“It’s nice. I like it.”
Eve grunted. “Too many old people here for my tastes. I like to think of these lawns as grazing land. Essentially, we’re all cows that have been put out to pasture.”
“That’s so cynical,” said Allie. “This is a beautiful, peaceful place.”
“Like a sanitorium.”
Allie was beginning to understand why Nancy had warned her about Eve. She’d almost rather deal with Al the pervert. At least he was nice.
Just then her cell phone sang from her pocket. Pulling it out, she checked the caller ID. It was Quincy, her best friend.
Eve raised her voice to a throaty chirp. “In my day people knew better than to answer the phone while they were in the middle of a conversation.”
“Sorry.” Allie turned off her phone without answering it. Then she tucked it back into her pocket.
As she headed past the koi pond, she heard someone call her name. Surprised, Allie turned around.
“Over here,” said Julie, waving.
“Hi, Mom,” Allie called.
As Julie walked closer, she said, “I was going to wait in the parking lot, but I’ve always wanted to see what this place looked like, so I thought I’d take a walk around.”
“I’m almost ready. I just have to drop Eve off at—”
“Do not talk about me as if I am a piece of luggage,” Eve said, interrupting.
“Sorry, Eve. Please meet my mother, Julie Davenport. Mom, this is Eve. You never told me your last name.”
“Santora,” Eve replied.
“Eve Santora,” Julie repeated, her eyes widening. “You’re Eve Santora. I can’t believe it. It’s such an honor to meet you. I’m a huge fan.” She crouched down and grasped Eve’s hand.
Eve nodded and smiled, ever so slightly. Perhaps it was Allie’s imagination, but she seemed to sit up straighter.
“Allie, honey, do you know who this is?” Julie took off her sunglasses as if she needed to get an unobstructed view to confirm it. “Eve Santora is a legend,” she announced.
“I’m not dead yet,” Eve said.
Allie laughed, but her mom was mortified.
“I’m sorry. I didn’t mean that,” Julie said in a clumsy attempt to backpedal. “I’m a big fan of your work. I used to act also. I mean, I still do. And when I started out, I watched all of your movies, again and again.”
“I’m going to miss tonight’s film,” said Eve, looking up at Allie. “We’d better go.”
“Right,” said Allie. “I’ll be right back, Mom.”
“It was lovely meeting you,” Julie called, waving somewhat frantically.
After Allie delivered Eve to the screening room, she headed for the parking lot, where her mom was waiting in the rented car. (Her own car was still in the shop, which Allie felt very bad about.)
“I can’t believe you get to spend time with Eve Santora,” said Julie. “This is such an amazing opportunity for you.”
Allie rolled her eyes. “It’s not like we’re hanging out. I was only dropping her off at the movie.”
“I didn’t even know she was still alive. Eve was so beautiful, Allie. Even through the wrinkles you can tell, can’t you?”
“I guess,” said Allie, who actually hadn’t given the matter much thought.
“Don’t tell me you’ve never heard of her.”
Allie shook her head.
“Oh, Allie. She was the biggest movie star of her day. You’ve heard of Katharine Hepburn and Grace Kelly and Marilyn Monroe?”
“Um, sure.”
“Well, Eve was more glamorous than them all. She was only in half a dozen films, and for some reason she just disappeared. I have all of her old movies at home. We should watch them.”
Allie agreed. She had to, or her mom would be disappointed. Of course, Allie was also curious.
A few hours later Allie and her mom watched the final credits of An Oriental Sunrise, Eve’s first starring role. Allie had to admit that her mother was right. Eve was an amazing performer. It was hard to believe that the beautiful actress she’d just watched on TV and the crabby old woman she’d met at the Motion Picture Home were the same person. It didn’t seem possible.
They were about halfway through Eve’s second movie when the phone rang. Julie picked it up and a few moments later handed it over to Allie. “It’s Quincy,” she said.
“Hey,” Allie said.
“Where have you been? I left you three messages on your cell.”
“Sorry,” said Allie. “I had to turn it off during my community service and I guess I forgot about it.”
“I’ve been dying to talk to you. You’ll never guess what Larkin is doing next week.”
“What?” asked Allie.
“It’s crazy. I want you to guess first.”
“I hate guessing. Just tell me.”
“She’s getting a nose job.”
Allie felt sick to her stomach. She hadn’t told any of her friends about her own plans for surgery. She was kind of hoping that it would just happen and they wouldn’t notice. It was stupid, but so much easier than actually talking about it.
“Hello?” asked Quincy. “Are you still there?”
“How do you know?”
“I called her to see if she still wanted to bunk with us in Colorado—I’m helping Coach McAdams with the list—and she told me she wasn’t going to play next year. I was like, ‘Why?’ And she just admitted it. The team will be fine—she wasn’t even that good—but still. She’s going to do yoga instead. Can you believe it?”
Yoga was what the pretty girls did instead of gym. Allie’s sister had actually campaigned to get the program on campus two years before.
“Wow,” said Allie.
“I know,” said Quincy. “It’s the craziest thing, right?”
Allie didn’t say anything. She couldn’t even bring herself to agree.
“Um, are you okay?” asked Quincy.
“Sure,” Allie replied weakly. “You’re right. That’s really crazy.”
CHAPTER SEVEN
Cameron had prepared more thoroughly for this moment than she had for the SATs, which she’d aced. The five days she’d been back from Cabo had been spent doing copious amounts of research. She’d m
et with doctors, had spent countless hours online, and knew all of the statistics. Her plan was flawless. There was nothing her parents could say that would make her change her mind. No argument she couldn’t counter. So, she wondered, why was she still so nervous?
It was 9:00 a.m. on Saturday and her parents were sitting at the kitchen table, waiting for her the way she’d asked. She’d specifically scheduled this meeting when she knew that Allie would be out of the house. She wasn’t sure why, exactly, but she didn’t want her little sister to overhear this. Quite honestly, she wished she could take care of the whole thing without Allie ever knowing, but that was something that not even she would be able to swing.
Cameron opened up her notebook and passed her parents each a piece of paper.
“What’s this?” asked her father, Jeffrey. As usual, he’d been up since six o’clock and had already run five miles and read three newspapers. It was intimidating on a normal day, but today even more so, because Cameron knew that the news she was about to deliver would make him uncomfortable and perhaps even angry.
“It’s an outline,” said Cameron. “Of the points I want to make. I want you to know that I’ve given this a lot of thought. This isn’t something I’m jumping into. I’ve spoken to many people about it.”
“About what?” asked Julie.
“You’ll see.” Cameron consulted her own copy of the outline, feeling silly for treating her parents as if they were in a company board meeting. But this was how she got what she wanted in her family. At sixteen she’d impressed her father with auto-safety statistics enough to convince him to buy her an Audi (used but still really cool). And this past spring she’d listed the advantages of going to a public, UC school versus a private college back east when she’d informed them of her decision not to go to Penn, her dad’s alma mater. This current issue was a lot more personal and not the kind of thing she wanted to discuss in front of her dad, but she knew there was no other way. She had to get through it. This was too important. In the end, it would be worth the discomfort.
Cameron cleared her throat and read. “My first point is this: I morph my body in many ways. In fact, I’ve been doing so since I was nine when I got my ears pierced. Mom, you and I diet together sometimes. I go to yoga three times a week, which builds muscle. Pilates and sit-ups have changed the definition in my abs. I wore braces for two and a half years to shift my teeth into place. All of these practices have had a physical impact on my body. A change of my actual flesh, if you will. What I’m asking for now is no different.”
Frowning, Jeffrey scanned the outline. “What are you asking for? You don’t say.”
Ignoring him, Cameron read on. “Two: My image, the way I present myself to the world, is constantly in flux. I wear makeup. I get my hair highlighted and cut every other month. I got spray-on tan before the prom, and even regular tanning is something that changes my body. One day at the beach and my image has changed, ever so slightly, right? Also, I pluck my eyebrows, and I get bikini waxes. All stuff you both approve of. Some of it you even pay for.”
“And some of it I don’t need to be reminded about,” Jeffrey said with a groan.
“Sorry, Dad, but this is important to my larger point.”
“Cameron, what are you getting at? Please just tell us where you’re going with this, or we’re going to think the worst,” said Julie.
Cameron started to worry, knowing the “worst” her mom spoke of was probably exactly what she was about to reveal. But she had to get through this. Her parents were her only obstacle, and they’d never been able to stop her from getting what she wanted before. “Just bear with me,” she said. “Now, three: You’ve already sanctioned cosmetic surgery in the past; as we all know, my nose job three years ago was your idea, Mom. You made the appointment for me just like you did for Allie. So this is not really any different.”
“What’s not any different?” asked her mother.
“Patience,” said Cameron. “I’m getting there. My fourth point: It’s not like I want anything unnatural or trendy, like a tattoo. This is not something I’ll regret in five years. This is something that’s important to me. I’ve given this a lot of thought and I know what I’m getting into. I understand the risks and the dangers involved. What I want is to correct something about my body that I’ve been self-conscious about for years. It will be perfectly natural-looking, and it really isn’t a big deal when you think about it logically …”
Cameron sneaked a peek at her parents. They were looking at each other nervously. Taking a deep breath, she continued. “According to the American Society for Aesthetic Plastic Surgery, in 2005 there were eleven-point-five million cosmetic procedures performed in this country. What I plan to do is the second most common medical one. There were 364,610 of them performed last year. Rounding up, that’s half a million.”
“That’s actually very far from half a million,” Jeffrey observed.
“Where are you going with all this?” asked her mom.
Cameron swallowed hard. This was it. Her points had seemed legitimate when she was coming up with them and putting them down, all neat and clear, on the brand-new laptop they’d given her for college. So why was she having such a hard time now? Why did her argument feel so flimsy?
“Promise you won’t freak out?” Cameron cursed herself for asking. She didn’t need their permission, she reminded herself. That’s not what this was about. She was an adult now. She could vote, go to prison, drink alcohol in most countries …
“Just tell us what you want,” Jeffrey said, in a stern tone of voice that Cameron wasn’t used to.
Taking a deep breath, Cameron looked her mother in the eye because she couldn’t bear to look at her father. “I’ve been self-conscious about my flat chest for a long time, so I’ve finally decided to do something about it. I’m going to get breast implants.”
Her mother gasped and brought her hand to her mouth in horror.
“No!” her father said, standing up so fast that the kitchen chair tipped over and crashed to the floor.
“Honey, you don’t need this,” said her mom. “This is crazy. You have a beautiful body. Your breasts included.”
“You got into an Ivy League college,” said her dad. “Why are you acting so stupid?”
“What’s stupid about wanting to improve my body?” Cameron demanded.
Rather than answer her, Jeffrey turned to his wife. “I knew we should have forced her to go to Penn. If she was going to school back east, she wouldn’t care about this kind of thing.”
“UCSB is an excellent school,” Cameron insisted.
“Did Blake put you up to this?” asked Julie.
“Blake?” Cameron said, amazed that her mom would ask such a thing. “Blake doesn’t even know about this. This was my idea completely, and it’s my decision. I’m an adult and this is what I want. This is what I’m doing.”
“You are not,” Jeffrey whispered urgently. “You can’t.”
Cameron was intimidated but unwilling to back down. “I have the money,” she said.
“How do you have the money?” asked her mom.
“From babysitting and from waiting tables last summer.”
“That’s supposed to be your spending money for college,” said her father.
Cameron shrugged. “So I’ll get a job in the fall.”
Jeffrey shook his head. “We agreed that you weren’t going to get a job so you could focus on your studies. Do you know how competitive graduate schools are these days?”
“Dad, I’m not even thinking about graduate school yet. I haven’t even started college. Anyway, you can’t tell me what to do with my money.”
“Your money? How’d you like to put yourself through college?” her dad asked angrily. “Your money won’t take you that far, Cameron.”
“You wouldn’t do that,” said Cameron. “It’s not fair to threaten me. I’m trying to be reasonable.”
Her dad opened his mouth, but no words came. Strange, since Jeffrey neve
r had a problem saying exactly what he wanted to. He turned to Julie, as if prompting her to speak, but she couldn’t either. Finally, he left the room, shaking his head in disbelief as he headed upstairs.
Cameron sat down across from her mom. “I’m doing this,” she said. “You can’t stop me, because I’m not asking for your permission, and I wish you guys wouldn’t make such a big deal out of this. It’s a small thing, when you think about it. I have this problem, so I’m fixing it. End of story.”
Tears streamed down Julie’s face as she looked down at Cameron’s outline. “Then why did you go to all this trouble? You obviously want something from us, and I hope it’s not our approval, because you’re not going to get that.”
“Actually,” said Cameron, “I only have four thousand dollars, which means I can afford to get implants from this guy in North Hollywood named Dr. Platt. He seems pretty young, so I guess that’s why he’s so cheap. I’d much rather go to Dr. Glass. Everyone says he does really great work, and look what he did to my nose. He has an opening, too, but his surgery would cost ten thousand dollars.”
“You’re asking us to pay for this?”
“I’m having the surgery either way. I thought that you’d want to help make sure it’s safer, that I’m going to someone we all trust. If you give me the rest of the money, I promise to pay you back.”
“Jeffrey!” Julie walked to the doorway and called out, “Jeffrey, come down here, now!”
“I can’t face Dad. He’s too angry.”
“Then go to your room.”
“You can’t ground me.”
“Cameron, just go,” said her mom. And Cameron went.
A couple of hours passed before her parents came to speak with her. Well, at first only her mom did the talking. Her dad was too upset to utter a sound. His anger was so intense, it scared her.
“I’m trying to understand why you want this,” said Julie.
“Because my chest is too flat. We’ve been through this already,” said Cameron.
“We don’t approve of your plans, and we’d like for you to reconsider,” Julie said.
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