by Jane Porter
I laugh. “I bet you can be.”
“Oh, you know I can be.”
I laugh again, shake my head. “You’re proud of it?”
“No. But I am who I am, and I know who I am, and I know what’s important to me. My work is important to me. Coming here, helping others, that’s important to me. Parties, luxury cars, and first-class travel? Not so important.”
“What about Alexis?”
He looks at me and then shrugs.
Not so important. Ouch.
“What about you?” he says. “What are your dark secrets, Ms. America? Or do you not have any?”
“Oh, God, I have hundreds.” I see his expression, grimace. “Not hundreds, but dozens.”
“Tell me one.”
“The network has informed me I’m getting old,” I say. “Between the not so subtle encouragement that I should get some work done, and the addition of a young co-host to the show, I’m feeling fifty-eight instead of thirty-eight.”
“Max should nip that in the bud.”
“Max was one of the forces behind the plastic surgery talk. He was pushing me to go to you to get a face-lift.”
“Max is a dick,” Michael says bluntly. “And he said a face-lift specifically?”
“Eyes, forehead, mouth, cheeks… pretty much tighten up the whole thing.”
We sit in silence for a few minutes, and then Michael asks, “Do you think your face needs work?”
“Yes, and no.” I feel like a traitor just saying the words. “Mostly no. I like my face.”
“So do I.”
I can feel his sincerity, and then I tell him a real secret. “My mom was thirty-eight when she died. I’m thirty-eight now— “ I break off, take a quick breath. “And I know it’s irrational, but there’s this little part of me that tells me my face is all I have of her. If I change it, cut it, I worry I’ll lose that connection to her.” As well as having the work botched. I’m terrified of being turned into something clownish, something laughable. “Am I crazy?”
“No.” He gives me a reassuring smile. “Paul Ekman, one of the world’s experts on facial expressions, said our expressions link us to our families. As children we imitate our mother’s smile, we stare fascinated at her expressions. Families look alike because they mirror one another’s expressions.”
“Yes! That’s it. That’s exactly it. I’m afraid I’ll lose that family resemblance. With my grandmother gone now, too, there’s no one left. There’s just me, and it’s crazy and scary.” I chew on the inside of my lip. “What about your family? Are they still alive?”
“My mum’s gone. She died of complications from cancer treatment when I was fourteen, and my dad sent me to live with friends of his in L.A. I ended up going to UCLA and then UCLA’s med school and just never left.”
“I’m sorry about your mom.” I reach out and touch his shoulder near his chest. “I was fourteen when my mom died. It’s a hard age to lose your mother.”
“Very.”
I’m quiet as I think about Michael’s past and how we’re far more similar than I would have imagined. His mom was Irish, and mine was South African. He was sent at fourteen to Los Angeles from Bolivia, and I was sent to boarding school in Natal. But within a year we both ended up in California. We were just at different ends of the state.
“Your mom’s death influenced your decision to become a doctor,” I guess, puzzling over the pieces of his life.
“Yes. I was so angry I couldn’t help her, it was my duty to help others. Call it atonement— ”
“You were fourteen.”
“Still felt responsible. She was my mum. I was a man— ”
“Fourteen.”
“My job was to protect her.”
I fight for control. It takes me several moments and then several more. “Why not oncology, then, why plastic surgery?”
“Her double mastectomy was performed in a government hospital in La Paz. It completely disfigured her. She didn’t heal properly. My dad used to say the grief of being turned into a road map killed her. I know now it was infection that wasn’t treated right. But I vowed years ago to learn how to do it properly to make sure no woman would go through what my mother went through.”
And I suddenly know who Michael is. Not the suits. Not the fancy practice. Not the ironic curl to his lip.
He’s a boy who lost his mom, and he has missed her as much as I’ve missed mine. And his life has been shaped by her death.
“And I always thought you were about silicone,” I say huskily.
“The show Dr. Hollywood, Surgeon to the Stars probably didn’t help that image.”
“No. But it’s easy to forget that plastic surgery isn’t always about vanity.”
“There’s nothing wrong with a little vanity. Beauty is important. It’s valuable. It makes us feel good to see beautiful things. But too much vanity can ruin lives. I’ve met far too many women who spend their lives torturing themselves for not being perfect. But there is no perfect body. There never has been. And there never will be. Perfection doesn’t exist.”
My heart thunders in my rib cage. Perfection might not exist, but I can’t help thinking this man just might be perfect for me.
Chapter Sixteen
The next few days pass in a blur of interviews and taping and editing, interspersed by meals and laughing and vicious Yahtzee games.
I feel as if I’m back in college. Fierce and passionate and so alive. I love being part of the group, and one lunch in the middle of a particularly intense debate, I grab Michael’s arm and call him Keith. And then I realize what I’ve said.
Michael does, too.
He glances down at my hand on his arm, then up into my face. I shake my head faintly. I’ve never done that before. Have never called anyone Keith. Why did I do that now? “I’m sorry,” I apologize. Part of me wants to run, yet another part needs to stay. I feel as though I’ve been running for a long time now, and I need to stop. I need to stay put. So that one day I can move forward.
“I think you must remind me of him.” My voice is husky, and I don’t know where to look. “And that’s a compliment.” I struggle to smile even as my heart pounds with raw emotion.
I could fall in love again. I could. But would it be safe?
But is love ever safe?
Suddenly he cups my face with his hand. “I hope you don’t do it,” he says quietly. “Don’t get work done. You’re beautiful. You’re exactly the way you should be.”
He’s just paid me the most amazing compliment. “And that’s your professional opinion, Doctor?”
His gaze meets mine. He drops his hand. “I’m not your doctor. Would never be your doctor. Couldn’t. Not even if you paid me.”
I smile slowly. “A man with principles.”
“A man who could never do anything to hurt you.”
I open my mouth, but I have no words, not when my heart races so hard that I hurt.
And I do hurt. Because there’s so much I want and feel and need. Love, love, love.
“Tomorrow, would you be interested in going to dinner?” he asks. “There’s a little restaurant in Chipata that serves some decent food. It’s a fifty-minute drive, but it’s going to be a dry night and it’d be fun to have a change of scenery.”
“Yes. What time?”
“I’ll pick you up from the center at six.”
“I’ll be ready.” It’s not until I’m in the van heading to the community center that I realize tomorrow night is our last night here. The day after tomorrow we head to L.A.
Michael picks me up at the community center in the old blue Renault again, and as he steps from his car I take a quick breath. The collar of his white shirt falls open at the throat, revealing taut muscles and tan skin. His khakis hint at strong quadriceps. This is a man I’d love to see naked.
When he sees me in the doorway of the center, he smiles slowly, and it’s such a slow, sexy smile that I suck in air, remembering the kiss at Big Bear.
I remember the feel of his lips.
And the shape of his jaw. And the texture of his skin. Even tipsy, I remember that one kiss and remember how I didn’t want it to end.
“You look beautiful,” he says, opening the car door for me.
“You’ve cleaned up pretty nicely, too.”
The beat-up Renault car lacks air-conditioning, so we drive with the windows down. My hair blows, and the windshield gets splattered with bits of sticky, flaky mud.
The drive is every bit as bouncy and bone jarring as I feared, yet with Michael at the wheel, the jolts make me laugh. Michael makes me laugh, and I push at my billowing skirt and tug at my hair.
“Is the air too much for you?” Michael asks, downshifting to avert a deep pothole full of pumpkin-colored mud.
“No. It’s perfect.”
Michael shoots me an amused smile, and I just smile back. But it’s true. I wouldn’t change a thing.
Not the bright hot twilight with the sky turning red above the burning sun, or the barely running car with the missing shocks, or my white sundress turning orange in places from all the swirling dust.
“Ever been married?” I ask, tipping my head back to look at him.
He swerves around another pothole, but the back tire hits a puddle and sends up a spray of dirty water. “I made the plunge once. It didn’t work out.”
“You’re divorced?” I’m surprised, and I don’t know why. “How long ago?”
“Seven years.”
I look at him, trying to imagine him married, wondering what kind of husband he’d be. And having observed him in action here in Zambia, I think he would have been a good husband. A kind one. Patient, too. I’ve never once heard him raise his voice, and even when frustrated, he keeps his cool. “Did you like being married?”
Lines form on either side of his mouth as his lips compress. “No.”
“Why not?”
One of his eyebrows lifts. “Am I being interviewed?”
“I think so.”
He glances at me. “Turnabout is fair play. For every question you ask me, I get to ask one in return.”
“Fine. Later. After my turn.”
“Something tells me you could be ruthless as an interviewer.”
“Well, we can’t all be Yahtzee champions.”
He laughs, and the warm glow in me just grows.
“So why didn’t you like being married?” I repeat my question, as I know there’s more to the story and I want the real story.
“I’m a better doctor than husband. My former wife would agree with Alex on a number of things. I’m not good at communicating, sharing, or letting people in. Oh, and I work too much.”
I look at him for a long time, trying to see beneath the darkened jaw and shadowed eyes. There’s a very complex man beneath the thick hair and solid bone structure.
I like this man. Even if his wife said he worked too much.
He probably did.
But I still like him, and I liked Keith even though he worked too much.
Hell, I work too much.
“I imagine she was beautiful,” I say, my arm resting on the car door. Men are visual, and they sometimes fall with their eyes instead of their hearts.
“She was,” he agrees flatly.
“Another aspiring actress, or a model?”
The corner of his mouth tugs. “A model who aspired to be an actress.”
“The perfect combination.”
Michael’s eyes laugh, and little lines fan at the corners, deep creases that extend all the way to his temple.
I like his smile. And I like that his face isn’t as smooth and perfect as I first thought it was. “You don’t Botox, Dr. Hollywood?”
He reaches up to rub at his creases. “My nurses tell me I should. They say it’s bad for business not to.”
“I don’t think your business is suffering too badly if there’s a thirteen-month waiting list just to get in to see you.”
His eyes crease again, and as he glances at me there’s a light in them, as though he’s swallowed a beacon and it’s shining through him.
He’s kind of magical, isn’t he?
My heart turns over and I suddenly wish we could have a fresh start. That I was less banged up by life so that I could have met him with a young heart. I would have liked him sooner, faster.
“A penny for your thoughts,” he says.
The light is still in his eyes, and he makes sense to me in a way no other man has since Keith. I can’t help thinking that this is the man for me. That this is the man I want. This is the man I need.
My eyes suddenly burn, and the lump of emotion threatens to swallow me whole. “You make me wish I were younger,” I say honestly, tired of pretending all the time, tired of keeping the game face on.
“But we probably wouldn’t have gotten along if either of us were younger. You certainly wouldn’t have liked me ten years ago. Getting knocked around a bit has taught me humility and forgiveness.”
“You’re humble?”
He grimaces. “Compared to the old days? Yes.”
My eyes widen. I can’t even imagine how horrible he must have been, but before I can ask him about the “old days,” he changes the subject.
“Remember the little boy you were so worried about?” he asks. “Paul and I have been working on getting him the help he needs. The boy and his dad are already in Lusaka at the University Teaching Hospital— ”
“Paul’s hospital?” I interrupt.
He nods. “And if Paul and his team can’t help him, we’ll send him to Johannesburg.”
“He’s going to be okay?”
“Yes.”
“His care— ”
“It’s covered.”
“By whom?”
“It doesn’t matter.”
I know then it’s Michael who played angel. My throat burns and my chest aches and I can’t even articulate what I’m feeling. “Thank you,” I whisper.
Michael just nods.
* * *
We arrive at a squat concrete building with a rusting metal roof. Michael shifts into park and turns off the engine.
The restaurant doesn’t look much different from the center where I’m staying, and they, too, serve food. If we’d stayed there, we wouldn’t have had to bounce along a muddy, treacherous road for an hour; but then if we’d stayed there, we would probably have been joined by the doctors staying at the center.
The interior of the restaurant is marginally more inviting than the exterior, although back home it’d be called decrepit, and that’s relatively polite.
The restaurant’s empty except for two old men sitting by the door. I know why they’re by the door once we’re seated. They’re trying to get a breeze.
Perspiration beads on my skin, and I pick up my menu and use it to fan myself.
“The doctor who recommended the place said the food was good. He didn’t mention the heat,” Michael says with a glance at his menu.
“It’s fine,” I assure him. “I won’t melt.”
“That’s probably because you’re not wearing any makeup anymore.”
“I guess I should have put on something more than lip gloss and mascara.”
“I’m glad you didn’t. Your foundation hides your freckles.”
“I hate my freckles.”
“I don’t, and I’m the one looking at you.” He cocks his head, studies me. “Did you like being married?”
“Yes.”
“What was he like?”
I smile a little wistfully. “He was a good man. Smart, brave, creative, driven. And yes, I liked being married, but he died before our first anniversary, so I guess I don’t really know what marriage is like. I was still in the honeymoon stage.”
“Some people stay in the honeymoon stage.”
“You think?”
His shoulders shift. “My parents did. My father adored my mother to the very end.” Then he gets to his feet and heads to the very old jukebox in the corner.
I watch Michael drop in some coins and then p
unch his selections. The first song is “Billie Jean” by Michael Jackson, and as Michael returns to the table, I’m smiling. “Is this your kind of music?” I tease.
“There’s not a lot to choose from.”
“Not complaining.”
I thought music signaled a change in mood, but Michael continues our rather serious conversation into dinner. As we eat, he asks about my mysterious past.
I take a sip from my glass of Zambian beer. The beer is warm. They don’t serve many drinks cold here, as electricity is too expensive. “Why do you call it mysterious?”
“Your bio always starts with you graduating from Stanford. There’s no mention of your life before. I now know your mom died when you were fourteen, but where did you grow up? What about the rest of your family? Where are they now?”
This is going to get depressing fast. “I didn’t have your normal American childhood. You like to call me Ms. America. Well, my mother was Miss South Africa. The real one.”
I concentrate on the broken lights of the jukebox as I collect my thoughts. “She was at Miss World in New Zealand when she met my dad. He was an American teacher, traveling. They fell in love and returned to the Cape, where he found a teaching job and she stayed home and had babies. Three babies, all girls. I was the middle one.”
“And I thought my childhood was idyllic.”
I smile at him, and then my smile fades as I wonder how to tell the next part, the not so idyllic part. “Just months before my fifteenth birthday there was an accident.” I stop. “Everybody died. Everybody but me.”
His brow creases. “How?”
“I was the only one not wearing a seat belt and I was thrown from the car. Everyone else, buckled safely, died.” I’m staring hard at the red letters on the bottle. “How ironic that my act of teenage rebellion— refusing to put on my seat belt— saved my life.” How ironic that everyone else who’d done the right thing perished.
“You lost everyone?” Michael’s voice is filled with disbelief. “Mother, father, sisters?”
“All four.”
“Where did you go?”
“For the first week after the accident I stayed with neighbors while people struggled to get funeral arrangements made. And then Grandmother, my mother’s mother, arrived from Pietermaritzburg. I didn’t even know she was my grandmother. She was tall and serious, rich and scary.” I look at Michael, make a face. “We took an instant dislike to each other, which didn’t help the grieving process.”
