by Merry Jones
I pictured breasts being made larger and larger, until they tipped the woman over.
“For some patients,” he went on, “cosmetic surgery becomes a habit. In a way, they’re surgery addicts. They undergo procedure after procedure—liposuction and rhinoplasty. Breast enhancement or reduction—they keep coming back. Maybe they want attention from the medical staff, or maybe they want to look perfect. Who knows? I’m not a psychiatrist, so I don’t have to understand why. But often, American doctors turn these patients away. So they come here.”
“And you’ll do it? Even if you think a patient is addicted to surgery?” I was appalled.
Dr. Du Bois shrugged, took a drink. “Of course I will. As long as the procedure isn’t too great a risk to their health. If a patient wants it, we will do the work.”
I stiffened, looked off toward the ocean. Obviously, he’d work on anyone who could pay him. He’d operated on Jen even though she hadn’t needed anything done.
“What’s wrong? I’ve upset you?”
“Dr. Du Bois, why—”
“Alain,” he corrected. “Please.”
I met his eyes. They twinkled. “Alain.” I took a breath, tried not to sound judgmental. “Why would you perform unnecessary surgery? Especially on patients with a surgery addiction?”
He met my eyes. “Seriously? On such a beautiful night? You want to talk about my surgical practice?” He sighed.
I sat straight, attentive. Tried to look impartial.
“All right, if you insist. Elle, quite simply, each of us is given a body. It is my belief that, as long as we don’t hurt anyone else, we should have control over that body. If a man wants to change his appearance, why should anyone be able to tell him that he can’t?”
Emilio’s wife came over with chips, guacamole, and salsa. “I made these myself. The best.” She stood behind Alain, her hands on his shoulders. “This man is my hero. Be nice to him. I love him as my own.”
He took her hand and kissed it, released it as she walked away, ample hips swaying.
I drank more tequila-laced lemonade. Wondered if Dr. Du Bois thought I should fix my appearance. Did he think my nose was too crooked? My lips too thin?
“So you’ll do whatever a patient wants, no matter what?”
He chuckled. “Does that bother you?” He dipped a chip into the guacamole. Took a bite. Closed his eyes, savoring. “This is exceptional.”
“Anything at all? No limits?”
He chewed. Handed me a chip. “Have some.”
I scooped salsa onto it.
“Of course, there are limits—”
My cough interrupted him. The salsa was fresh. And bursting with hot peppers.
“Are you all right? Sorry. I should have warned you about the salsa.”
I said I was fine, asked him to go on. Dabbed tears from my eyes. Dipped a chip into guacamole, cooled my tongue with avocado. Drank tequila-lemonade. Tried to catch up with Alain’s conversation.
“—if a patient’s health rules out surgery because of, for example, a heart condition or other complications, such as advanced age. And sometimes, when patients have deeper issues.” He looked away. “But, that’s enough about my work. Let’s talk about you.”
“What kind of issues?”
He sighed. Leaned on his elbows. “You know, this isn’t really dinner table conversation.”
I leaned on my elbows, countering him. Watched the candle flame reflected in his eyes. Why was I persisting? I wasn’t sure. After all, Alain Du Bois was no one to me. Just a dinner companion. I pressed him nonetheless. “Fine. But dinner’s not here yet.”
He paused. Assessed me. Must have realized I wouldn’t back down. “Okay. Here’s an example. Occasionally, a patient will exhibit a condition called body dysmorphic disorder. These patients see themselves differently than they actually are—the image they perceive is distorted.”
I thought of Jen who thought she’d needed a flatter stomach and bigger breasts. When she looked in the mirror, had she seen a bloated belly and flat chest? Was she suffering from this disorder? How would anyone find out if they had it? If you saw your nose as big, how would you know if you were wrong?
Alain was still talking. “—enough to maim themselves. One of my current patients, in fact, is so offended by her leg—finds it so hideous, that she has actually attempted to cut it off above the knee. She failed, of course. So now, she wants me to remove it.”
I must have missed something. Or heard him wrong. I squinted, concentrated on his words.
“—suffers from a condition called apotemnophilia. It’s an overwhelming inexplicable desire to remove a limb—sometimes more than one. Often, these patients are sexually stimulated by amputation. They might feel, for example, that only by being an amputee can they become sexually aroused.”
I shook my head. “Wait. Back up. Your patient wants her perfectly healthy leg cut off?” He had to be making it up. “For sex?”
“I told you it wasn’t for the dinner table. But you asked if I have limits.” He poured straight tequila into his empty glass. “For me, this amputation is a limit. I’ve refused to do it. She needs a psychiatrist. My partner thinks I’m wrong, though. He thinks apotemnophilia is as legitimate a cause for amputation as, say, crushed bones or gangrene. We’ve had several serious arguments over it.”
Emilio’s wife arrived with bowls of rice and black beans. Emilio brought platters of fish, which he proceeded to bone at our table. “Pescado en verde,” he announced, his knife penetrating the skin, severing the head. Fish eyes regarded me dully in the dim light, and I looked away, out at the mass of black that was the ocean, saw Madam Therese’s dark eyes with their promises of bloodstained auras and death.
“Elle?” Alain’s eyes glowed. “Would you like some wine?”
Wine? Emilio chatted as he finished filleting our dinner, recommending which would go best with his sauce of garlic, cilantro, chiles, other herbs I hadn’t heard of.
It wasn’t until he went for the wine and Alain offered me the bowl of rice that I became aware of my hands. They were under the table, clenched in a death grip on my leg just above the knee.
We didn’t mention anything related to medicine for the rest of the evening. Somehow my teaching career and my work with second graders seemed like wonderful topics for conversation. I rattled on with anecdotes.
“Trust me, I know whose dad had hair transplants, whose parents smoke marijuana, which dads sleep naked, which moms torture their kids by kissing them at the bus stop.”
Alain laughed. Seemed interested. Asked questions about the school, the kids. He moved on to me. Resumed the first-date Q and A. Where had I grown up? In Philadelphia. Did I have a big family? No, but Jen, Becky, and Susan were like family. How was it that a woman as attractive as I was still single?
Boom. There it was: the dreaded inevitable question. I took a breath, looked down at my ringless finger. Heard Charlie call me the love of his life. Blurted out an answer: I’d been married. But my husband had died. I stumbled on the last part. My throat was tight.
Alain reached across the table, wrapped his hand around mine. His fingers were firm and soft. And lacked a wedding ring.
“What about you?” I diverted attention onto him.
His gaze shifted, turned inward. “Well, in a way, my wife is also gone.”
He had a wife? I slid my hand out of his. Cursed myself. Stupid Elle—of course he had a wife. Why had I thought otherwise? Alain was in his forties, painfully handsome, accomplished, successful. Men like Alain had wives. They had families. But wait—none of that should matter to me. I wasn’t out with him because he wanted to date me; we were having dinner because he appreciated my attempt to save his patient. Once again, I’d lost touch with reality, letting tequila, wine, ocean air, and candlelight carry me off, letting myself imagine that his interest in me was more than mere kindness. I was too needy. Had been alone too long. Felt my face burn.
“—so even though I’m married, it’s as
if I’m single.”
What?
“Inez will never recover. Her condition is permanent. I’ve finally come to accept that. Unlike your husband, Inez is alive, but as far as having a life? She’s gone. It’s limbo.”
Clearly, I’d missed a key piece of information.
I tried to reconstruct what I’d missed. But I’d been drifting. Hadn’t heard. “I’m sorry.”
“Thank you.” He straightened up, inhaled. “It’s life. Accidents happen.”
So his wife had been in an accident? What? In the car? A fall? A fire?
“Anyway, it seems that both of us have lost our spouses.” His eyes were steady and somber. “I suppose that makes us simpatico.”
I remembered Charlie in his casket, his cheeks too pink from the rouge.
“But you’re at least free to move on. In my case, I’m still tied to Inez. People tell me to get a divorce. I suppose I should. It’s not easy here, but we were married back home in Canada. I can get one there. The trouble is—the accident was my fault. I am responsible for her condition, so I can’t walk away from her.”
This time, my hand went out to his. He looked up, nodded. We sat like that for a moment.
Emilio collected our plates, accepted lavish praise for his cooking. He brought espresso and bananas flambé. We sat without talking, oddly comfortable with silence.
As we walked to his car, Alain asked if he could see me again. An image flashed to mind—I’d come home early, found Charlie in the shower lathering suds onto a woman’s back. Why was I thinking of that? Alain was asking to see me again, not to have an affair. And even if he were, what was the problem? Charlie was dead. Alain’s wife was an invalid. We still needed companionship. Needed to survive.
Of course, I told him. I would love to see him again.
After all, I was only going to be there for five more days. Not time enough for anything serious to develop. What would be the harm?
Susan was sprawled out on the sofa, snoring, her neck bent at a sharp angle to her body, her computer on her lap. Probably, she was exhausted from spending the day with Jen. Otherwise, she wouldn’t have been able to sleep. The hotel was having a fiesta with Mariachi bands playing on the pool deck. I debated waking her. If I didn’t, she’d get a crook in her neck—or was it a crick? Neither name made any sense. But sleeping with her neck at that angle would definitely give her one of those.
On the other hand, if I woke her, she’d ask me about my dinner with Alain. Which I didn’t want to talk about—not that there was anything about it to hide. Except maybe that he was married. And that, even so, I’d agreed to see him again. And that, as we’d said good night, he’d leaned over with a kiss so tender that I’d actually stopped breathing, so light that minutes later my lips still tingled. So arousing that, when I tried to thank him for dinner, I couldn’t find my voice for a moment, and when I finally did, it came out a few octaves lower than normal.
Anyway, I didn’t want to talk about it. I hadn’t been attracted to a man in a year. I wanted to think about it, savor it. Privately.
So, finally, instead of waking her, I lifted Susan’s head and put a pillow underneath, moved her computer to the table, covered her with a blanket. She didn’t stir.
I went onto the balcony, looked down at the party, found Becky and Chichi near the bar, Chichi’s arm around Becky’s waist. I looked for Luis, didn’t see him. But Melanie was there, sitting with a table of middle-aged women—maybe her grandmother’s friends. Good, I thought. As long as she was with them, Luis wouldn’t be bothering her.
I stretched out on a lounge chair, listening to the band, the chatter. Replaying the evening. Feeling mellow. And then I heard the argument.
At first, I thought I was hearing a television show. Or that the voices were coming from someplace below. They were soft, and the fiesta music almost drowned them out. But when the band stopped, the voices didn’t. There was no mistake: people were arguing on the other side of the brick wall. On Claudia Madison’s balcony.
But they couldn’t be. That suite was empty, wasn’t it? Claudia Madison had died there just two days ago, and her death hadn’t been an accident. Wasn’t the hotel keeping the suite empty pending investigation? Wasn’t it a crime scene? And if it was, who could be out on her balcony?
I moved closer to the wall, straining to listen. A man was talking, his voice low and rumbling.
“—to resist you? I am only human.” He had a Mexican accent. “Please, bonita. I have missed you. Let me be with you. I want to kiss you—”
“No. Leave me alone.” Her voice broke. Was she crying?
“Why do you push me away, mi amada?”
“Stop pawing me.”
I leaned forward, trying to see around the wall, but I couldn’t lean too far without being seen. Or falling. When I peeked, I saw only a table with a phone and a wineglass, not people. But I heard the woman sniffling.
“Why do you cry? Bonita, you are the most beautiful, most desirable woman—”
“Stop the crap. Stop lying to me. Just stop. Take your hands off—”
“Cara, why do you push me away? Why hurt me this way? I need you—”
“I’m not one of your horny, desperate, lonely, old tourists. Understand? Your bullshit doesn’t work on me. I know the truth about my looks. I know why you’re here. Stop lying. Stop trying to seduce me. It won’t get you anywhere.”
Silence. Then she sniffed, blew her nose. “Just go away.”
“Please. Let me dry your tears.”
“I said, go away.”
A chair scraped. “Okay. I’ll go if it’s what you want. But I won’t give up. I’ll be back. I can’t stay away from you, mi amada. I cannot help it.”
I leaned against the brick wall, heard the sliding door open, close. The woman sniffled again.
Downstairs, the fiesta was breaking up. People wandered back into the hotel.
I backed away from the railing and went back to my lounge chair, wondering about the woman next door. When had she moved in? What was her relationship with the man? When he’d said she was beautiful, why had the woman accused him of lying? Was she somehow deformed, here for corrective plastic surgery? It was none of my business, but I couldn’t help it. I wanted to lean over the railing and look at her. Maybe I could pretend I didn’t know anyone was there and act surprised to see her sitting there. I could say something like—“Oh, you scared me. I thought that suite was empty.”
I told myself to keep out of it. To leave the poor crying woman alone. So I did.
Until I heard her speak again.
“It’s me.” Her voice was raspy, curt. Demanding. “What do you think? I’m sitting here, waiting for you.”
No one responded. But I’d seen a phone on the table—she must have made a call.
“Don’t make excuses. I want to see you.”
A pause, and then she said, “The door’s unlocked. Stop talking. Just get here.”
Wow. Her voice sounded entirely different than it had earlier. It was stern, gruff. The tears were gone. What had happened?
Never mind. Not my business. I was way too nosy. I got up, went into our suite. Susan was still snoring. In the kitchenette, I found some cheese and crackers. Poured some leftover wine. Went back outside with my snack, wondering once more why the suite had been occupied so soon after Claudia’s death. I sat at the table, sipped wine. Looked out at the black ocean. Pictured Claudia, reaching out for me. Losing her grip. Falling. I shuddered at the thud, closed my eyes. Saw the woman on the beach, her scarf rippling over her face, hiding its features. Charlie appeared, leading her away.
“It wasn’t your fault.”
I stiffened, put down my glass. Who’d said that? I looked around, even though I knew that no one was there. I must have thought the words, imagined the voice. Even so, I went to the railing and looked down, half expecting to see Claudia face down on the concrete, calling up to me. But of course she wasn’t. Instead, I saw hotel staff, scurrying to clean up from th
e party, preparing for the next morning’s activities. Nothing indicated that Claudia had ever plunged onto the pool deck in a corona of blood. I leaned forward, glanced at the railing on which I’d found her. Was her spirit still there, clinging to it? Did her terror remain? Had Claudia just spoken to me?
Of course not. I’d imagined the voice. I returned to my seat, ate crackers with cheese. Drank wine. Lay down on the lounge chair. Refused to think about Claudia or the man who looked like Charlie or my new neighbor. Thought instead about Alain, his kiss. About seeing him again. And dozed.
Drifting off, though, I heard a woman’s ghostly voice. “Be careful,” it whispered. “Or the one who killed me will also kill you.”
The voice was crisp and clear. And close—I smelled floral perfume.
I opened my eyes, sat up, and looked around, but no one was there. I thought the sweet scent lingered, but I must have been mistaken. Or maybe it drifted over from the balcony next door.
After that, I was wide awake. I went inside. Thought again about waking Susan, decided not to. What would I say to her? That a disembodied voice had warned me of danger? That for months after Charlie died, I’d heard his voice, and that now, I was hearing Claudia’s? I worried my hands, shivered. Did laps around the living room.
Stop this, I said aloud. I hadn’t heard Charlie’s voice after his murder; I’d imagined it. Just as I had now imagined Claudia’s. The voices were symptoms of my psychological disorder—I tended to wander in my mind and confuse thoughts with reality. The voice—the warning hadn’t been real. No one was trying to kill me.
I sat in the chair opposite the sofa, assuring myself that I was safe, watching Susan sleep. Hearing the voice repeating itself. “The one who killed me will also kill you.” The words weren’t Claudia’s. They’d come from my own mind. But why would my mind have said that I was in danger?
I looked back at the balcony, searching for Claudia’s ghost. Saw my wineglass on the table with the rest of the crackers. I leaned back, closed my eyes. Madam Therese smiled patiently, repeating, “The dead are drawn to you. You already know that.”
