by Cach, Lisa
He wasn’t only handsome, smart, and successful; he had a conscience, too. Dr. Velazquez was a world apart from Tom Haggerty, surfer cretin. Not that Tom was completely horrible. There was a hunky half to the hoaf equation, after all. Given a choice between the two men she’d choose Dr. Velazquez, of course, no question, although she had a feeling that the doctor was the type of man who would get tight-lipped and quiet if you spilled coffee in his car. Tom’s car, she imagined, would be full of greasy take-out bags and have a lingering air of Taco Bell chili sauce. You’d get out of it dirtier than when you went in. Spilled coffee wouldn’t even be noticed.
She sighed softly. No one was giving her a choice between either man. It was clear that neither thought much of Angelica’s looks. She’d expected no less from Dr. Velazquez, really, even though there had been a small part of her that, meeting him for the first time a week ago, had hoped he would say she was lovely and didn’t need a thing done. Acne scars filled? Well, perhaps, if she truly wished, but in his eyes the imperfection only served to add piquancy to the unique perfection of her person.
Foolish, foolish fantasy. He’d quickly shattered it.
She watched with sleepy eyes as Dr. Velazquez and the nurse arranged their equipment and checked supplies.
For the seven years she’d been living in L.A., Angelica had fought to retain some sense of herself as an average-looking woman who showed pretty well when she made an effort. Bit by bit, though, her attitude had changed. The local news spent half its broadcasts on celebrity gossip. The grocery store magazine racks were filled with Hollywood industry rags and beauty publications. The grocery store aisles were full of women—and men—who’d been lifted, filled, implanted, veneered, peeled, plugged, and all-over carved and polished into the shapes they desired. A chest measurement larger than the hips on the women looked normal to her now. Of course everyone’s teeth should look ready for an Orbit commercial; noses should be narrow and straight, with the swoop of a ski jump; lips should be full; jawlines should be trim and square on both men and women; collar bones should be hollow, chest ribs and sternum should show through the skin, and never, ever should an upper arm have a chicken cutlet of fat hanging from it, or a thigh be textured with cellulite.
Angelica worked indoors, fully clothed, which allowed her to hide the greater flaws of her person. Her face, though, was always exposed, with its myriad imperfections. When Karen got the job as a receptionist for Beverly Hills plastic surgeon Dr. Velazquez—and with it a 60% discount for friends and family!—Angelica had at last succumbed to the temptation to fix some of what was wrong with her instead of continuing to pretend she was okay with her body and face.
Filling the six shallow acne scars on her cheeks and being rid of an annoying little pocket of chin fat at the same time seemed relatively minor. No one would probably even notice the change, except herself. There was nothing wrong with doing this, was there? What harm could it possibly do?
“A pinch, Angelica, as I inject the anesthetic,” Velazquez said, his dark eyes shining above his mask. A moment later she felt the prick of the needle under her chin. His gloved hand came up and he brushed gently at the base of her forehead. “Have you thought more about these lines of worry we talked about?”
She had, staring at herself in the mirror every morning. “Mmmrr… Money,” she managed to say, past the spreading numbness in her jaw. It was more an excuse than truth. She was afraid of having a face as expressionless as Karen’s.
“I don’t think money should be the reason a twenty-eight-year-old woman bears such lines between her brows. I can give you, gratis, an injection of my proprietary formula, Phi-Tox.”
“I dunno…,” Angelica equivocated.
“You worry a lot, yes?”
“Mmm.”
“Maybe even too much?”
She nodded. Her friends and family always said so.
Dr. Velazquez pressed a fingertip against the spot between her brows. “The emotions follow the muscles of the face. If I stop you from making the face of worry, I will also stop you from worrying quite so much.” He stroked her brow, his voice dropping to a seductive murmur. His eyes were liquid with warmth and caring. “You will be so much more at peace, and look so much more beautiful.”
She was helpless under his touch and intense gaze. “Yeshh,” she relented.
“Good, good.”
Angelica fell into a light doze, aware of but not troubled by the pulling under her chin as the fat was sucked out with a small vacuum, the sounds of the fat being processed, and then the pinching pain of the injections into her scars and the sting of the Phi-Tox being injected into her brow.
“I want you to think about letting me do something about this nose,” Velazquez said softly as he worked, his voice lulling her. “As I told you before, I am a descendent of the great Spanish painter Diego Velazquez, and I like to think that I have inherited his talent. Diego worked in oils, creating beautiful images of people. I work in flesh, creating beautiful people that he would have loved to paint.” Velazquez ran his finger over the arch of her nose. “I would not give you one of those pinched nostril noses, too thin for the face. Nor would I give you the recent popular style of a perfectly straight bridge, drawn as if with a ruler. You are an artist, so you know: Nature never draws a rigid, straight line; it’s unnatural. No, a Velazquez nose will be drawn with active lines; lines that ever so subtly change direction, curving. And a curve on the face or body must never be the perfect curve of a half-circle; such curves are dead. Unnatural. They must be curves that constantly change, just as a woman’s waist curves out into her hips. And just as your own chest should curve more fully out into breasts. I will fix that for you, too. Like Michelangelo with a block of marble, I seek to carve out of a woman the beauty I see locked within.”
So he did see beauty in her, somewhere. The thought warmed her dreamy mind, even as she shuddered deep inside at the thought of having that beauty released by a scalpel.
“There! We are finished. That was not so bad, was it?”
Angelica opened her eyes, squinting against the light. She felt like she was half asleep. “Hrrrmm.”
Dr. Velazquez took off his mask and smiled at her. “You will go home and sleep, and take it easy for a few days, to let your chin heal without too much bruising. And while you rest, you will think about your nose and your breasts, and the sculpting I could do to your thighs. All right?”
What could she say to such a man, while his fingers stroked her brow and she lay helpless before him?
“All right.”
Chapter Two
Five days later, Angelica’s chin no longer ached and the pinpricks on her face had healed. One of her coworkers had remarked that she looked well-rested, but no one else had given her a second glance. She wasn’t aware of the Phi-Tox in her brow unless she looked in the mirror and tried to scowl. Even then, it wasn’t that she felt the Phi-Tox, but rather that no muscles responded to her efforts. It was like trying to wiggle her ears or the tip of her nose.
Overall, Dr. Velazquez had done as beautiful and subtle a job as he had promised. It made her wonder whether she shouldn’t take him up on his offer to take care of the rest of her flaws.
What would she look like with a straighter nose and bigger breasts? Maybe a little like Salma Hayek? The thought both tempted and shamed her. It made her feel weak and shallow. Beauty was supposed to be on the inside, its inner glow transforming the outer. Or so her mother always said. “Smile, Angelica! You’re pretty when you smile.”
If she felt beautiful all the time, even when she wasn’t smiling, might her life be different? Might she then have the courage to ask to be moved to a different department at the studio, where her artistic skills could be put to better use than removing wires from live-action flying vampires, or making dogs look like they were talking? If she were beautiful, might she then have the confidence to find a worthy man with whom to share her life? If she were beautiful, might she be less fearful of life altogether, and m
ore willing to throw herself on the mercy of the world and pursue her truest, deepest dreams?
She dragged herself home from yet another fourteen-hour day at work and found Karen sprawled on the couch in their living room, eating blue bunny Peeps and channel surfing. The local news popped on for a moment, the anchor describing a forty-eight year old woman who’d gone missing; her photo showed a fit, attractive brunette in a low-cut halter top that showed off fake boobs.
“I thought you were on a diet,” Angelica said, kicking off her shoes with a sigh and setting her green cloth grocery bag on the kitchen breakfast bar.
“I was,” Karen said around a mouthful of marshmallow, one bunny ear protruding from her mouth. She had blue smeared on the side of her mouth. Two empty Peeps packages lay on the floor by her feet. She flipped stations, rejecting a baseball game and a sit-com. “I must be PMSing or something. I suddenly had to have Peeps.”
Angelica frowned at the detritus. “I thought you were trying to eat organic.”
Karen reached for a fresh package, the cellophane crinkling under her tearing fingers. “What part of ‘PMSing’ don’t you understand?” Karen’s gaze alit on the grocery bag. “You didn’t buy any ice cream, did you? I’ve been craving Ben & Jerry’s Phish Food all evening.”
“All I got is salmon and vegetables.” She was trying to eat healthily, a chore that was especially hard given the long hours she worked. After fourteen hours in front of a computer screen, all she wanted was to wolf down something cheesy and carb-y and collapse into bed.
“Damn. I might have to go out and buy some.”
Angelica blinked in surprise. “Jeez, Karen, you’ve got it bad.”
“Ha! Not as bad as Kelsey Magnuson. Come look.” Karen pointed at the TV screen, now displaying Spotlight on Show Biz, a daily entertainment industry program.
Angelica came over to see, curious. The host, Carrie Sharp, looked like she had a bad sunburn despite her makeup, and her upper lip was swollen. “Kelsey Magnuson is one of today’s hottest young stars, her bikini-clad body appearing on the covers of men’s magazines and in two movies in current release,” Carrie was saying. “There are even rumors she’ll be the next Bond girl; but maybe not, if she keeps this up!”
On screen, papparazi photos showed Kelsey Magnuson emerging from a Costco pushing a cart that the host described as full of Red Vines, Hershey Bars, and three big canisters of jellybeans. Two cardboard trays of cinnamon rolls sat atop the candy, and a chunk of unrolled bread and frosting hung from the corner of her mouth.
Angelica felt a tickle of schadenfreude. Like anyone else, she was delighted to see that stars were human, too. “Wow. Looks like you’re not the only one PMSing.”
“Those cinnamon rolls look good.”
Angelica’s mouth watered. “Yeah.” Much better than salmon.
“Oh, hey, I almost forgot!” Karen said, suddenly grinning.
“What?”
“Guess who asked me for your phone number today?”
“Asked you for it? I don’t know! Who could have?” Angelica’s mind raced through the few men they knew in common. Karen couldn’t mean Dr. Velazquez, could she? The thought made her heart skip a beat.
Karen’s voice took on a teasing singsong. “I think someone is going to ask you on a daaaa-ate.”
“You don’t mean—”
“Tom! The hunk of burning surfer boy love, oh yes I do!”
Angelica’s mouth fell open in astonishment. “Tom? Really? Why?”
Karen rolled her eyes. “Why do you think?”
“But he thought I was ugly,” she said in confusion.
“Apparently not!”
She felt a spark of flattered pleasure, but quickly snuffed it. She couldn’t go out with him: what a horror! He’d be making rude comments about her all night. “Of course you didn’t give my number to him.”
“You mean of course I did!”
A flush of alarm burned through her. “But you can’t! Confidentiality. You can’t give another patient my contact info!”
Karen waved off the concern. “Phht! It’s you. You’re not going to tell on me. Besides, how could I say no to those blue eyes?”
“Karen!”
Her roomie stuffed two bunnies in her mouth, her cheeks poofing out. “Don’ get awll wirginal on me,” she said, chewing. “You know you want him.”
“Karen!”
In Angelica’s purse, her phone started to ring. She yelped. Karen grinned, showing bits of blue marshmallow up to her gums.
“I’m not answering it!”
“You gotta at least check who it is. It might not be him.”
Her hands shaking, Angelica grabbed her purse and dug out her phone to check the display. “‘Half Shell’? What the heck is ‘Half Shell’?”
Karen shrugged innocently, her eyes glittering. “I dunno.”
“I do have a Shell gas card. Maybe someone stole the number?” She answered the phone. “Hello?”
“Angelica! Hi!” a deep nasal voice said. “It’s Tom. Remember, from Dr. Velazquez’s office?”
Angelica glared at Karen, who was lying on her side, hand over her mouth to smother her laughter. “I remember.”
“How are your acne scars? Karen told me you were having them filled with your own body fat. That is weird, man. I didn’t know they could do that.”
“They’re fine,” Angelica said flatly. “They’re almost invisible.”
“They were invisible before. I didn’t even notice them.”
“So I wasted my money?”
“In my opinion, yeah.”
“Thanks?” she said faintly.
“Hey, you’re welcome. But that’s not why I’m calling.”
“Ah?”
“I want to take you out on Saturday. Karen said you aren’t busy, so how about I pick you up at nine a.m.? We’ll make a day of it.”
“I—”
“Bring a swim suit.”
“Wait, I—”
“You can swim, right?”
“Yes, but—”
“Great! See you at nine!”
He hung up before she could say another word.
Angelica pointed a finger at Karen, who had tears of laughter slipping down her cheeks. “You are so dead.”
Chapter Three
Tom parked his truck in a visitors space at Angelica’s apartment complex, killed the engine and took a slow, deep breath in an effort to calm down. Be the jellyfish, he said to himself. Go with the flow. Don’t fight the waves. He closed his eyes and pictured the school of giant moon jellies he’d once seen, backlit by the sun and streaking through clear blue water. Their umbrella-shaped bodies pulsed with rhythmic movement, silent and graceful. Be the jellyfish.
He got out and slammed the creaking door, then pressed a kiss from his fingertips to its faded painting of a woman’s face. “Wish me luck, Angel.”
He followed signs towards Angelica’s apartment number, the complex’s paths taking him through lush landscaping and past a pool occupied by a sole swimmer doing a lazy breaststroke. The complex was in Marina del Rey, a community built around a marina just south of Venice Beach. The location was, he thought, a good sign.
Then again, he’d seen nothing but good signs from the moment he laid eyes on Angelica Sequiera. At sight of her long dark hair and large, eloquent eyes, he’d heard something inside him, an inner voice that rarely spoke but was always listened to, say, “Yes.” He got the impression, though, that Angelica had heard an equally imperative one saying, “No.”
He couldn’t blame her. He’d never been particularly good with words, or expressing himself. He hadn’t needed to be. Actions spoke for him just fine, and any situation requiring a delicate dance of words was not a situation where you’d find Tom Haggerty. Nor did the women in his life look for sweet nothings whispered in their ears: they knew they were getting a guy who could give them good, physical fun either on the waves or between the sheets, and that he’d give them a fond kiss good-bye when that w
as no longer enough. When a woman wanted a relationship containing words, especially ones like “I do,” she found someone else. He’d been to the weddings of six ex-girlfriends so far, and borne the protective glares of six fresh husbands. Those six ex-girlfriends would have laughed to see him talking to Angelica in Dr. Velazquez’s office—laughed, or, like his brother Mike’s wife Lucy had done, slapped him upside the head.
“You said what to her?” Lucy cried when he told her about his questioning of Angelica regarding her visit to the plastic surgeon. Tom had been sitting with Mike and Lucy around the iron patio table on their back terrace, sipping pale ales and listening to the kids shriek and splash in the pool. Lucy had reached over and slapped him. Twice.
“I wanted to make sure she wasn’t going to do anything to deflate that marvelous round butt,” Tom said, defensive. “I meant it as a compliment!”
Mike’s laugh sent beer up his nose.
Lucy had handed her choking, coughing husband a napkin without taking her eyes off Tom. “You’ve probably destroyed any chance you might have had with this woman. You’ll have to do something dramatic—something downright chivalric—if you’re going to make up for such a bad first impression.”
“Like what?”
Lucy waved her hands. “Slay her enemies, rescue her from monsters, sacrifice your life to save hers!”
He’d pictured Angelica being mugged on the street and him swooping in to bash together the heads of her attackers. Great idea, but difficult to implement. “I don’t think she’s in any danger.”
Lucy blew out a breath of exasperation. “Then take her out and show her a very, very, very good time.”
When Lucy took the kids in the house, Mike had studied Tom for several long, quiet minutes. At last he’d spoken. “There’s something different about this one, isn’t there?”
“Yeah,” Tom said, taking a sip of his beer.
