by Tony J Winn
*
When they got home, Nora took the first of her scheduled painkillers and lay down on the sofa in the rec room that adjoined the kitchen. Her mother brought her coffee, which didn't taste like anything at all. She realized it must have been due to the padding in the nostrils, and not being able to smell the coffee.
With her head and shoulders elevated, Nora napped on the couch the rest of the day, careful not to move.
*
Nora's mother had been the one to take her to all her important doctor appointments after the motorcycle accident. She'd taken a year off work to look after her daughter.
Nora's mother held her daughter's hand as she learned to walk for the second time. She kept detailed records of Nora's progress, always had an encouraging word, and never let anything get her down. When she came in to talk to Nora's principal after Nora had gotten into yet another fight—it was at a different school from where she taught—she'd defended her daughter like a mother tiger. It was always clearly something the boys had brought onto themselves, because her Nora was a “sweet and gentle child.”
By high school, Nora had quit hitting boys and taken a turn for the shy, skirting the edges of rooms, and making friends with kids who were on the fringe.
Tianne was a wild child with even wilder hair and a tendency to swear in the middle of class—a condition she claimed was a very rare, unusual form of Tourette's Syndrome, though the teachers wisely and more accurately assessed her as being a jackass. It was because Nora wanted someone to buy candy and magazines with after school that Tianne stopped doing the things that got her detention. Both of the girls' mothers seemed relieved by their new friendship, as though they finally had someone else to share the responsibility with.
Nora's father became obsessed with order and structure after the accident. He measured her height against the kitchen doorway, not every month, but every four weeks precisely. One November, they measured her height twice in the same month, and he labeled them November A and November B.
The day after she was fitted with her first custom-made prosthetic foot, he bought the Camarro from someone over the internet and began the restoration process. The car only left the garage once, to get painted.
Nora's father didn't talk to her much about the prosthetic or the transtibial amputation, though once, after they saw a man with no legs roll by them in a wheelchair at the mall, he asked what it felt like when she put pressure down on the bottom of her residual limb.
“It's like when you put your elbow on something,” she said. “It's different from the heel of your foot, because it's not the same bone, but it doesn't hurt.”
He seemed troubled by this and immediately changed the topic by giving her a handful of money to buy whatever clothes she wanted.
*
The morning after the surgery, Nora admired her blackened eyes in the mirror. The flesh on her forehead was swollen, making her look alien. She turned left and right, trying to visualize what she'd look like when the cast came off. The tip was visible, and it was the most adorable little thing she'd ever seen. It looked like a button—a real button nose, like the kind cute girls in fairy tales had. Dr. Garrett's office called to check up on her and reminded her not to pick at the scabs lining her nostrils. “Of course not,” she said, though she had been, just a little.
Three days after the surgery, she went in for a follow-up and to have the internal packing removed.
“It's going to feel like your brains are coming out your nose,” Dr. Garrett said.
“Why would you say that?” Nora asked, incredulous.
Dr. Garrett tugged at the packing. Nora saw stars and stopped breathing.
“I say that so you expect the worst, then it's not so bad.”
Nora gripped the edge of her chair with both hands.
After it was done, the inside of her blouse was stuck to her with perspiration.
Dr. Garrett said everything was healing on schedule, and took a moment to admire her work, noting how straight everything looked, even though no human is perfect symmetrical, and there are always underlying imperfections.
“I'm perfect now,” Nora said, smiling through her discomfort.
“Just a few more days until the cast comes off. Then you'll see perfect.”
Nora was glad to be rid of the packing and be able to breathe again. The inside of her nose felt tender and sensitive, and she was glad for the cast on the outside. She kept feeling like she might sneeze at any moment, though she hoped she wouldn't, for fear of damaging her healing nose.
The air in her nostrils felt hot and cold, moist and arid, all at once.
*
After six days at home, she'd watched all the movies she could stomach, and wanted to do something productive. She'd never been off work so long before. She'd started at the radio station immediately out of college, and before that she'd worked as a grocery store cashier, a stock girl at a department store, and for a few weeks, an assistant at a shoe repair shop. The shoe people had let her go, citing lack of enthusiasm for their various resole services.
Bobby didn't phone, but emailed, using the address Kylie had given him. He asked if she was recovered and feeling up for a “snog.” She replied to give it a few more weeks before “light sports,” then she sent her daily recovery report, by email, to both Tianne and Kylie.
Since she was on the computer already, she pulled up her resume, added a few adjectives, and started emailing it out for a variety of job postings. She popped her antibiotics—she was off the pain pills—right on schedule, and sent out another three job applications.
From the sound of Kylie's reports back to her, the radio station was doing just fine without her. Nora decided that if the station didn't need her, she didn't need it.
*
The day before Nora went in to have the cast removed, she discovered the horror stories. While looking for other people's experiences with recovery time—specifically, how long they waited until they had sex—she discovered a message board full of people posting about their horrible, awful, botched nose jobs. Some of them even posted photos.
The scariest ones were the people who'd had multiple surgeries. It wasn't uncommon—and Dr. Garrett had confirmed this herself—for even the best plastic surgeon to need to perform a second procedure to get optimal results from a rhinoplasty. It was common for patients to ask for further work during the first twelve months, before the swelling had settled down, but most doctors waited at least a year before operating again, so that they didn't run the risk of making the nose too small once the swelling disappeared. Cartilage could be easily carved away during surgery, but it was not so easy to add back once removed. Bone grafts from a patient's rib, elbow, or even skull, were sometimes used to bring back structure.
Nora delved deeper into message boards and websites, feeling ill, but unable to stop herself.
In some cases, patients were not able to see their own faces with an objective eye. Some seemed to suffer from the same body dysmorphia people with eating disorders suffered from. From the looks of the faces on the bulletin board, Nora didn't know what to think. Either the patients had pushed for too much, or the doctors had gone too far. Patients named their doctors, and Nora hastily searched for Dr. Garrett, feeling some relief when she got no results.
At least she'd see her new nose the next day, at the appointment. She ran her finger down the cast lightly and imagined running her finger down her new, smaller nose. She wrapped her arms around herself, giddy with excitement. She should have done this years ago.
Chapter 7
For this appointment, Nora's mother came in with her to the consultation room. Dr. Garrett apologized for the stickiness of the tape as she peeled it off Nora's skin. She jiggled the cast as she pulled it away, and Nora saw pain stars again. She thought she might faint, but the feeling passed. The room's air was cool on her nose. She felt vulnerable, and flinched when Dr. Garrett's hand came near her face.
“Yes, very good,” Dr. Garrett said, looki
ng up and down with keen eyes. Nora looked back, hoping to see something reflected in Dr. Garrett's eyes, but all she could make out were the thin blue borders of contact lenses.
Nora turned to her mother, who smiled and made an aww face. “Very nice. You look like your Aunt Kathryn now. You have Aunt Kathryn's nose! Well, isn't that the funniest thing.”
“She has the Greco-Roman ideal nose now,” Dr. Garrett corrected. She pinched the bridge of Nora's tender nose, hard.
Pain shot through Nora, obliterating thoughts. “Wow,” she said.
“Just checking the break,” Dr. Garrett said. “Everything's healing nicely. I didn't squeeze it as hard as it seems, it's just really tender now. You'll have to be very careful, because the cartilage is still soft, and you could dent it. No sunglasses for at least three weeks.”
Nora looked back and forth between her mother and Dr. Garrett, who were both smiling, pleased with the results. Nora wondered when she might get to see her own nose that she'd paid for. Finally, she asked for a mirror.
“Of course,” Dr. Garrett said, grabbing a large, oval, hand-held mirror from the counter behind her.
Nora saw pretty much what she'd expected. The nose looked the way the shape under the thin cast had suggested. It was straight and lovely, and the tip was cute, with a thin line from where the edge of the cast had been. Nora pressed down on her puffy forehead above the nose, trying to flatten it. That was the part that looked odd. The nose looked great.
“That swelling will dissipate over the next several weeks,” Dr. Garrett said. “Your eyes look good. Not black at all. You've been taking the pineapple extract?”
“My eyelids are still yellow and purple underneath the makeup.”
“I think we've made an improvement here,” Dr. Garrett said confidently.
When Nora turned to check her mother's reaction again, she was rubbing the bulbous tip of her own nose. Nora grabbed her mother's knee and thanked her for coming with her.
Dr. Garrett explained further about how the nose would continue to change. When the cast first comes off, the nose looks as good as it will for several months, then it swells up without the cast there. Nora could already feel more blood pulsating through the tender nose, and stiffening her upper lip.
After the appointment, Nora and her mother walked outside to the bright afternoon sun, which felt twice as hot on her nose. It was so sensitive, so charged, that Nora felt like she was a nose, attached to a prosthetic body with relatively little sensation.
People walking by on the sidewalks seemed to stare at her, and she wondered if they knew about the plastic surgery clinic in the building. It was possible they saw people with new boobs and new noses and new faces walking down this same sidewalk all the time. Dr. Garrett had put a small piece of white tape across the bridge of her nose, so even with the makeup covering the bruises around her eyes, she still couldn't pass for normal.
Nora couldn't wait to get home and look in the mirror again, trying different hairstyle and maybe some darker shades of lipstick she'd never dared to wear before. While her mother drove, she gazed at her reflection in the little mirror in the passenger-side sun visor, all the way home. Her mother kept commenting about how much she looked like Aunt Kathryn now.
*
After another week, the swelling in her forehead went down, and her eyes were finally free of bruises. Nora's father begrudgingly admitted that the surgery looked good, and made a comment about needing to get a toupe to look better next to his beautiful wife and daughter, then he disappeared to the garage to work on the Camarro.
Once the white tape came off, Nora finally left the house for something other than a doctor appointment, and met Tianne for a shopping trip. Tianne gasped over her best friend's new appearance, and from that point on, she acted as though she had always been completely, one hundred percent supportive of the surgery.
In one store, Tianne's baby started to fuss. Nora lifted him from the stroller and held him close. His grabby little baby hands latched onto her tender nose. She made a noise that startled him to tears, and held him away from her body. Everybody in the store turned and stared at the monster who was shrieking at a baby, but Tianne grabbed the little boy and shushed him while laughing at her friend.
“I don't think he dented it,” Tianne said. “Is there a warranty?”
“Very funny.” She ran her fingers over the bridge to make sure he really hadn't dented it. There had been something about babies and children on the after-care sheets. She should have been more careful.
Tianne bounced baby Lucas on her hip and asked if they shouldn't go to the plastic surgeon to have it checked out.
“He scared me is all, it really is fine,” she reassured her friend.
They went back to shopping, and eventually, people stopped staring.
Nora held up a leather jacket in a raspberry shade. “Do you think I can pull this off?”
A pleasant-looking saleslady had approached quietly, and said, “Pretty girl like you? That jacket was made for you. Can I start you a changing room?”
Nora's head bowed humbly as she made her way back to the change rooms to try on jackets and jeans. Nobody had ever called her pretty before. Not once that she could remember. Sexy, yes, but never pretty.
Once the changing room door was closed, she let herself cry. They were tears of relief. She felt like she'd been holding her breath for years, and now she could let go.
*
Over the next few weeks, Nora weaned herself away from the mirror, allowing only a healthy ten minutes of non-makeup-related staring per day. The sensitivity faded, and she felt less terrified about accidentally re-breaking her nose, though she would not be letting Tianne's baby within smashing distance for a few months.
With a closet full of new clothes, Nora faced a difficult choice on her first morning back to work. Her six weeks of leave had passed, and it was that Monday. Back to reality.
As far as choices went, it wasn't a bad problem to have. Her eyes were between green and blue, and she didn't know if she should wear the green blouse or the blue. After ten minutes, and laughing at herself for being so indecisive, she chose the emerald green blouse and paired it with gray slacks that were only a few months old. The waistband felt a little tight, and she regretted her new pudding habit. If she wanted to not move up a pants size, she was going to have to cut out the pudding.
Nora had put word out at the station, through Kylie, that she'd had some surgery to correct a deviated septum, and gotten a little reshaping done while on the table. This was exactly the sort of thing celebrities would say. Dr. Garrett herself had recommended just such a white lie, and since it was prescribed by a doctor, it didn't seem so wrong. Besides, her breathing did seem better now, less obstructed.
The full impact of returning to work didn't hit Nora until she parked her car and found herself unable to get out of her seat. She eyed the front entrance, dread in the pit of her stomach.
They'd all be talking about her. Not just her new nose, but her hitting a co-worker, and biting another one. She considered starting her car and turning right around, but that would put her uncle in a bad position, scrambling to fill her spot. They had pre-recorded entire shows, just for such emergencies, but the tapes were an absolute last resort, because no matter how good you thought they were, the audience at their homes and offices could tell immediately that the people they were hearing weren't live. It was like the voices didn't match the weather, or something.
In the age of internet music and easily-accessed digital libraries on personal electronic devices, radio stations continued to exist for a reason. People wanted to feel connected to their city, and local radio stations were the conduits of connectivity. Radio, the theater of the mind. Only a DJ who lived where they lived in the city could talk about a national TV show, and tie that into mentioning a local pub that was supporting a finalist from nearby. Nora and the other announcers were the voice and ears of the city itself, nevermind that the voice of the city was having a
level three panic attack in her car.
She considered calling Tianne to give her a pep talk, but then she remembered she wasn't that type of girl. She preferred to … what had she said that day? Play with the big boys.
Nora took one last look at herself in the rear-view mirror, winked for good luck, and opened the car door.
*
Inside the air-conditioned station, Nora noticed the smell of something plastic. It was new carpeting in the lobby, and the scent was sharp and aggressive in her nose. The old carpet had been patterned, which hid stains, but looked more appropriate to a casino or banquet room. The new carpet was brown, with small houndstooth checks.
Nora stopped by Kylie's desk on the way to hers. She posed, turning one side to the other.
“I love those earrings on you,” Kylie said.
“Anything else?”
Kylie whispered, “The you-know-what looks nice too. Very natural. It suits you.” Her hand shook as she raised her mug and took a sip of her hot water with lemon wedges.
“Are you feeling well?” Nora asked, noting that Kylie's pretty cheeks looked hollow.
“Of course. Everyone's so glad you're back. Murray finished his sensitivity training and he's been making amends and driving me crazy. He keeps bringing me gifts.” She pointed to a potted tea rose adorned with ribbons, and a rainbow mug with the same ribbons. “Wait til you see what's on your desk.”
Nora ran to her workstation, Kylie at her heels, and found another potted tea rose, mugs and a selection of chocolates and coffee, plus a stunning bouquet of exotic-looking flowers. “Is that a bird of paradise?” she asked Kylie.
“Looks expensive.”
Nora spied the stack of memos and imagined how full her email inbox would be, which brought her down to earth. After a trip to the kitchen to get coffee, she settled down to her work. It didn't feel good or bad to be back, it just felt normal. Normal was fine, for now.
A few coworkers came by with questions about work-related things, but nobody mentioned the slap, or her surgery. Some people seemed to be making extra-careful eye contact, not letting their gaze move to her nose. A few of the men asked if she'd changed her hair, and after asking a few questions of the guys, Nora concluded that despite having put the word out via Kylie, most people were completely unaware she'd had facial surgery.
