Untold Story

by Monica Ali

  She pulled herself together then and commandeered the rearview mirror to reassure herself that she was a dark-haired, dark-eyed beauty now. She said, “Will you please stop calling me ma’am?”

  Her lips are fuller and I think she was pleased with the result, when the swelling went down and it was apparent she wasn’t going to be left with a permanent pout. “They’re quite sexy, aren’t they, Lawrence?” Even in the midst of anguish she can flirt.

  In November she went through with the nose job in Rio, although I didn’t think she needed it. But when you have been the world’s most photographed woman it is difficult to believe that you are safe from discovery. And by the time I left her in North Carolina three weeks later (I had the house all arranged in advance of course) I could see that it had been done with artistry. Also that she was absolutely right to have had it done. Adding a new nose to the new mouth, the difference seemed not incremental but exponential, as it appeared to alter, as perhaps indeed it did, the very proportions of her face.

  21 January 1998

  God knows what she is doing with herself now. I try to imagine it and I can’t. She imagined it so many times, a “normal” life, but always with a man, the one who would take her away from it all. That was never going to happen and even she could see that in the end.

  I gave her some books, Vanity Fair, Pride and Prejudice, Madame Bovary, Crime and Punishment. She said, “It’s terribly sweet of you, Lawrence, pretending I’m clever enough for this stuff.”

  What will she be doing now? What does her morning look like? Perhaps she’s taken up gardening. Maybe she has a library card.

  It is too difficult to imagine her living life on a human scale, and I don’t know whether to put that down to exalting her too highly or patronizing her too much. When she wasn’t out in public, she was frequently alone in a room with a sofa, an embroidered cushion, a television set.

  She did love watching the soap operas, but there never was a drama to match the drama of her life. However difficult that was (again, the dryness) she must miss it, and when I was with her last she seemed almost to resent the fact that she could go about her business with ease. When, for instance, I took her to the hospital for the rhinoplasty, she did not gasp all the way there as she had on the previous trip to the clinic, although she would, according to the brochure, be under “close observation” during the stay. This time she was sullen, almost silent, and when I asked her if she was worried she said, “Why should I be? I’m just one amongst dozens.”

  That was true enough. Rio is probably the plastic surgery capital of the world. Buying a new nose was as simple as buying a new dress from a catalog; you can pick the style you prefer from a batch of photographs.

  I blanched, though, when we went into the reception room and saw her picture gracing the cover of many of the magazines they had there. She, however, was a step ahead of me. She picked one up and told me to hold on to it. At the “consultation” with the surgeon, a pretheater chat when she was already in a hospital gown, sitting up on a gurney, I had the magazine facedown on my lap and I felt it burning my knees. She was makeup-free with just a few strands of dark hair escaping from the plastic cap. After the preliminaries, the surgeon, a suave fellow, a lounge lizard in scrubs, began to scrutinize her profile. Two months since she was assumed to have drowned. Her portrait still plastered the press. As unremarkable as she looked in her gown and cap, was there any possibility of him recognizing her? I held my breath.

  “Darling,” she said, “pass me the magazine. Wasn’t she beautiful? I’d like you to make me look more like her. Can it be done?”

  The surgeon barely looked at the magazine. He said, “Such a tragedy. Such a beautiful woman. Now what I’d suggest for you, if I may, is that we streamline a little here, and here, and take the nostrils to there. I think you’re going to love the result.”

  She acquiesced by little more than a murmur and he began marking her face with his pen. I sat by her side, in the role of husband, I suppose. The surgeon must see them every week. A husband taking his wife on a nip-and-tuck holiday in Brazil, a couple of weeks on the beach thrown in to recover, before returning home remarkably “refreshed.”

  Still, I was nervous, I must admit, in a way that I had not been since she was officially deceased. When I returned to visit her in the morning I stood for a full five minutes on the hospital steps holding myself up on a railing while my legs did their best to let me down. I am ashamed to recall that my fear was as much for myself as for her, and that as I trembled at the prospect of discovery I had in mind my own inevitable disgrace perhaps more than anything else.

  I pulled myself together. For an instant I wished I could be felled right there and then, a sudden blood clot in the brain to trump the tumor, no more tightening and loosening of the hangman’s noose, no more service to him, to her, to anything, anyone. And then I pulled myself together, called upon my birthright as an Englishman, a stiffening of the upper lip drafted in like the Household Guards to quell an uprising of the emotions.

  I nearly laughed when I saw her, sitting on the bed, painting her toenails. With two black eyes, a bandaged nose, and swollen face I could barely recognize her myself. “I’m a mess,” she said. “And the nurses think I’m just some rich spoiled wife who has nothing better to do than chop a perfectly good nose around.” She sounded petulant.

  I took her home two days later. The drive was long and, again, silent. I made some dinner, or rather, heated two plastic trays in the microwave, while she lay on the sofa beneath a blanket, only the crown of her head and two punched-up eyes revealed. For the next few days her mood was as somber as I have ever witnessed. Not distraught, not hysterical, and not punctuated by those rays of light with which she pierced even the blackest of her moods. She was absorbing, I think, the realization that she will not be recognized, not by the neighbors, the shopkeepers, the nurses, or anyone else. When she goes out now she may take all the precautions she pleases, in the way she dresses, the way she speaks, what she says, but the drama will be limited to the scenarios playing out in her mind. Her outings will not be adrenaline-filled. The curtain has fallen. The soap opera has been axed. And so here starts the rest of her life.

  Chapter Five

  Although she wasn’t supposed to work the weekends Lydia liked to drop in on Saturday mornings because Saturdays were when families came to look for a new pet, meaning there were fewer staff available to exercise and care for the dogs. She pulled up in front of the prefabricated office and opened the passenger door to let Rufus bounce down ahead of her.

  Esther was in the clinic with the Kerry blue terrier puppy they’d taken in a few days earlier. “This one,” she said, “will not take his worming pills. Eric’s been mixing them in his food but he finds them and spits them out.”

  “He’s a smart cookie,” said Lydia.

  “With a sore backside to prove it.”

  Lydia stroked the puppy’s wavy black coat. It wouldn’t turn that lovely slate blue for another few months yet. She ran her hand over his little beard. “I’ll crush a tablet,” she said, “mix it with some peanut butter. That usually does the trick.”

  “I’ll leave him to you,” said Esther. “Got a family coming by in a minute and if I can get them to take one of the older dogs while this smart cookie is out of sight, all the better and amen.”

  Lydia took Tyson, Zeus, and Topper for a walk in the woods, along with Rufus, who proudly led the way. They were old dogs who had been at the shelter for years and would probably never be rehomed. Tyson dragged a back leg and Zeus and Topper grizzled at each other like the old bad-tempered men they were. She took them because the others would have more chances, were cute enough to find families who would throw sticks and rubber balls while Zeus and Topper chewed on their kennel’s wire netting and Tyson curled up and chewed on his leg.

  Last night Carson had come over and she had made chicken parmigiana and when the dishes were cleared he said, “Living by yourself is great. No one else to please
.”

  She’d waited.

  “But isn’t it a little bit lonely? Sometimes?”

  Lydia knew about lonely.

  “Nothing’s ever perfect,” she said.

  “Don’t get me wrong. I’m not complaining. Just wondering if there might be another way. It crosses my mind.”

  “Don’t turn all romantic on me,” said Lydia.

  Was there anything she didn’t know about loneliness? She had tasted it so many ways.

  “Now you know there’s no danger of that.” He rubbed the back of his neck.

  “Phew,” said Lydia. “I’m relieved.”

  “Being with other people doesn’t stop you being lonely,” said Carson. “Not necessarily. And living alone doesn’t make you lonely. But if you’re not spending enough time with the people you want to spend time with, that’s when maybe it starts to get hard.”

  “Carson,” said Lydia, “we’ve only been dating four months.”

  There was a time when Lydia had thought—oh, the arrogance, the almighty arrogance—that nobody had known loneliness like hers. Her life was so . . . singular, so removed from the common experience. What a fool she was. There were so many lonely people, and she was just one of them. Hadn’t Lawrence been lonely too? She’d been blind to it at the time, but wasn’t that something that had bound them together?

  “I bought tickets to the ballet,” Carson said.

  “I love the ballet,” said Lydia.

  “I know. You told me. One of the few things I’m allowed to know.”

  Lydia laughed. “What are we seeing?”

  “Swan Lake at Lincoln Center.”

  “You’re taking me to New York?”

  “Don’t you have a birthday coming up? Thought we’d have a weekend away. Walk in Central Park. Nice dinner. The ballet.”

  She was quiet as she looked at him. She didn’t know if she wanted to go to any of the places she used to go. A few years ago she definitely would have refused. Now she just wasn’t sure.

  “That’s so sweet of you,” she said.

  “Then you’ll come? I already bought tickets—the weekend after your birthday. Was going to keep it a surprise, but then I thought maybe you wouldn’t appreciate being kidnapped.”

  She really should stop this thing right now before it turned into a mess. Already she was breaking her own rules, having him stay some nights at the house.

  She said, “I’ll have to find something to wear.”

  After Lydia had put the dogs away she watched Esther training Delilah in the yard.

  “I’m not getting too ambitious here,” said Esther. “A five-second sit-stay is where it’s at for today. Good girl!” She gave Delilah her treat and the Lab jumped up, a great lolloping yellow ball of glee. “Don’t spoil a good thing, now, Delilah. Down.”

  Lydia was still learning about obedience training. She’d read a couple of books. She’d worked with a number of dogs, including her own. But watching Esther was still the best.

  “So does she do a little longer each day?”

  “That’s the idea,” said Esther. “We add the three Ds—duration, distance, and distraction. We don’t try to do too much at once.”

  They took a break in the staff room with mugs of herbal tea. It was a horrible room, with a leak-stained ceiling and a sink that dripped constantly. Aside from the table and plastic chairs there were two easy chairs that smelled of mildew. Esther kept saying she was going to throw them out. She kept saying too, that she was going to do something about the general nastiness of the room, but whenever they got any money Esther said the dogs had to come first—that’s what people gave the money for.

  “Kid came in with his mom this morning, gave thirty-two dollars he’d saved himself.”

  “What a darling,” said Lydia.

  “Darling is right. I told him so. Eight years old.”

  “Anything else come in?”

  “Janice Lindstrom came by with the collecting cans. We counted up eighty-nine bucks and ten cents.”

  “Oh,” said Lydia.

  “Right again.” Esther ran her hands up and down her bare arms. She always wore a sleeveless T-shirt and camouflage pants that she bought from an army surplus store in the city. It was a look she pulled off with panache. She had long steely gray hair that she wore tied back in a ponytail, up in a bun, or corralled in two thick braids.

  Esther examined a bruise on her bicep. She was careless about letting the kennel doors swing against her arm, standing half-in, half-out of the doorway while she let one dog out and held another back. “Oh, and four new adoptions over the website, that makes another hundred and twenty dollars per month. We should say hallelujah for that.”

  “Every bit helps,” said Lydia.

  “I’m packing it all in,” said Esther. “I’m packing it in and moving to Maui to sip margaritas by the sea.”

  “Can I come?”

  “Sure. Let’s go pack our bags.” Esther laughed. “How did we end up in this town anyway?”

  After all those years of moving and renting Lydia had been looking for a place to buy in Gains, ten miles down the highway. When the Realtor in Gains ran out of options she put Lydia in touch with Tevis and the idea of living in Kensington immediately appealed. If you kept a sense of humor you had not lost everything.

  “It’s not so bad,” said Lydia.

  “If you’d told me when I was twenty,” said Esther, “that this is where I’d end up . . .” She shook her head, but she was smiling. “If you’d told me that I’d ever be old. Sixty-six! An old woman. Me. No way.”

  “When I was twenty,” said Lydia. She stopped.

  Esther had told Lydia about how she’d spent her teenage years and early twenties. (Have you heard of The Electric Kool-Aid Acid Test? I was there, baby. I was on that bus.) She’d stayed a hippie long after that, living in Haight-Ashbury, baking hash brownies with rare groove Lebanese black, sleeping with whoever wasn’t too stoned to get it up. A friend of hers was arrested at a gay rights demo for kissing a police officer, who beat him and then booked him for assault. He got eighteen months in the state penitentiary and Esther bought herself some law books because the lawyers were all too dumb-ass for words. By the time she had a single clue about law, her friend was on parole but Esther went back to school. She straightened out. She wanted to specialize in international human rights, get a job at the UN in New York. Where she ended up was Boise, Idaho, in a corporate law firm where she made partner within eight years. Her BMW was top-of-the-line. Her lawns were mown by Mexicans. Her high heels hurt her feet. The day she handed in her notice was the happiest of her life.

  “When I was twenty,” said Lydia, “I had just got married. My husband belonged to a very stuffy family. It was all so suffocating. I scarcely breathed for years.”

  She had come to realize, slowly, slowly, now that she had a few friends, that it wasn’t as difficult as she had assumed to mention certain things from her past. Nobody was out to get her; they weren’t waiting to catch her out, trip her up. And they didn’t find it so very peculiar that she had chosen to leave so much behind. In the States people moved around, lived far from families. Self-reinvention was American as applesauce.

  “You poor kid,” said Esther. “What did we know at twenty? I thought I knew everything. Think you’ll ever get married again?”

  “Not in a million years.” She liked Carson. She liked him a lot but she wasn’t going to allow herself to fall in love. Even when she was in her thirties she fell so hard it was always terrifying, out of control. Another form of addiction, of course.

  Esther seemed to be studying her. She said, “Carson’s a decent guy.”

  “I know,” said Lydia.

  They’d met about a year ago when he showed up at Kensington Canine, hitching his jeans with his thumbs. He filled in an application form, looked at some of the dogs, and arranged a date for a home inspection. When he returned he picked out an Irish red setter called Madeleine. Lydia had been certain he’d go for
a bulldog, a boxer, or a German shepherd. She liked that she’d been wrong.

  “Listen,” said Esther. “Get out of here. Don’t get married. Not to this place either. Not to the dogs. You’re still too young for that. And I know you like to be needed, but I really do not need you today. I got more volunteers coming in. So go on out there and get yourself in some trouble while you still can.”

  Driving into town to pick up some groceries, Lydia said to Rufus, “Doesn’t hurt to open up a little, does it?”

  Rufus kept his counsel.

  At the traffic light she leaned over and kissed the top of his head. He smelled of pet shampoo, forest floor, and dog. He pushed his nose under her chin.

  “Of course it doesn’t,” she said.

  She allowed herself a few moments to reflect on a memory. Her boys, flanking her on the sofa, watching a movie, flicking popcorn at each other, laughing when a piece got caught in her hair. Not too long. She pulled herself back. The past was an ocean, and although she swam toward the shoreline, she knew it could suck her down. The trick was to swim at an angle, not fight the currents directly yet not give in to them.

  After she had finished the grocery shopping she remembered she had promised to lend Mrs. Jackson a book that had been sitting in the glove compartment for several weeks because she kept forgetting to drop it off. Mrs. Jackson was a pillar of Kensington society, and Esther kept muttering about trying to rope her into fund-raising. It was worth a little detour now. Lydia walked up to the bed-and-breakfast, a three-story colonial revival brick house on Fairfax, which the Jacksons owned.

  Mrs. Jackson was on her way out with Otis who, only a few steps in front of the bed-and-breakfast, was already tangled up in his leash.

  “Oh, goodness,” said Mrs. Jackson. “This naughty dog.”

  Lydia pulled the book from her purse. “We’ve found this really useful up at the shelter,” she said.

  “When Pigs Fly!” read Mrs. Jackson. “Training Success with Impossible Dogs. Did you hear that now, Otis? Did you?”