Skin Deep

own kiddie porn.”

“I once got in trouble for sending a love note to a girl in my class. For a month I got razzed. Not to mention how dear ole mom reacted.”

“Well, the sexual market’s gotten younger and meaner, and if you ask me it’s the Lindsay Lohans and Paris Hiltons who’re to blame, teaching kids that all that counts is how hot you are. It scares the shit out of me.”

The light changed, and the college women began to cross the street as Neil trailed them with his gaze. As he pulled away, the woman with the auburn hair turned and looked back in their direction, as her friend pointed out some building. And in that microsecond Steve almost caught whatever recollection was trying to land, skittering just beyond the veil.

Something that set his chest pounding all the way back to headquarters.

8

“Look, there are dozens of good plastic docs in this town, but Carl says he’s the best: ‘Cosmetic surgeon of the rich and the wrinkled.’”

Dana had met Lanie at a bistro on Newbury Street, Boston’s Rodeo Drive. The curb was lined with Porsches, Mercedes, and BMWs and behind them were designer clothiers, designer hair salons, designer florists, designer galleries, and designer people sporting big shiny shopping bags with names like Armani, Chanel, DKNY, and Rodier of Paris. Because it was a warm spring day, they sat outside at faux Parisian marble cafe tables under red Cinzano umbrellas.

Lanie Walker, an administrator at GEM Pharmaceuticals, was ten years older than Dana and married to a pediatrician. Because the tables were packed closely to each other, she lowered her voice to a conspiratorial whisper. “Aaron Monks. You can’t do better than him.”

“I think I’ve heard of him.”

“Of course you’ve heard of him. He’s on all the morning talk shows. Boston Magazine listed him in the top twenty-five most eligible bachelors in town. In fact, today’s Globe has a story about his getting an award Saturday night at the Westin Hotel for inventing some transplant procedures.”

“I’m just thinking of a lid lift, maybe a nose job if I can afford it.”

“Then start at the top. I think he’s done everybody who’s anybody in Boston, not to mention a lot of movie people who don’t want to be outed by the Hollywood paparazzi.”

“Yeah, and I’ll probably be sixty-five before I can get an appointment.”

“Use my name.”

The waitress came to take their orders, and they each asked for a glass of Chardonnay. Dana ordered a Caesar salad topped with grilled shrimp, and Lanie ordered a grilled fillet of arctic char. “Isn’t that an endangered species?” Dana asked.

“Probably, because this is Newbury Street not Harvard Square.”

They were surrounded by young suburbanites in town for lunch and people-gazing, young professionals off from work, and chain-smoking Euro college kids, most dressed in tight black. “Ever notice that the older you get the more you’re aware of all the twenty-somethings inhabiting the world?”

“Yeah, and I hate them.” The waitress returned with their drinks. “To makeovers,” Lanie said, raising her glass.

“But I haven’t decided anything.”

“You will.”

Dana took a sip of wine then removed her sunglasses and surreptitiously pulled up her eyelids. “What do you think?”

Lanie lowered her own sunglasses. “You just took ten years off your face. Go for it.”

“And the nose?”

Lanie whispered, “You want the God’s honest truth?”

“Maybe not.”

“Well, that’s all I see. You’ve got a beautiful face and this distraction in the middle of it. Sorry, but it doesn’t belong on your face. Period. Get rid of it and you’ll be drop-dead gorgeous.”

Lanie’s brutal honesty was part of her carpe diem charm. Unlike Dana, she was not conflicted over cosmetic augmentation. Over the last eight years she had had a brow lift, upper and lower lid lifts, and a lower face-lift that tightened her jawline. She also had regular Botox treatments and microabrasion therapy, giving her skin a fresh suppleness.

“I’m thinking of getting lipo on my belly.”

Lipo, not liposuction. Already the procedures had nickname familiarity. “You think you really need it?”

Lanie dropped her hands below table level and grabbed a handful of flesh. “At least two inches.”

Dana’s head filled with TV images of masked doctors ramming large suction tubes into women’s bellies. It looked so violent. “Didn’t you just get an elliptical machine?”

“That was Carl’s idea. I hate the thing. In five minutes I’m exhausted.”

“What about your treadmill?”

“Terminal boredom. Look, I’m not like you. I hate jogging, I hate working out. I admit I’m weak, going for the quick fix and all. But, screw it.” Then she leaned forward again. “I bet you half the women at this place—and maybe some men—have had cosmetic work, including the Euro and Latin club kids. In fact, where they come from they start in their teens—nose jobs, boob jobs, butt jobs, tummy tucks, lipo, you name it. It’s like going to the hair salon for them.”

“That’s insane.”

“I agree, but it’s happening. Look, for four thousand bucks you get a simple lid lift. Another six or seven you get the nose you’ve always wanted. If you have the money, it’s a no-brainer, because you’ll be happy. Even if you don’t have it. Get a loan. You owe it to yourself. And do it now while you’re still young, while your skin is still elastic.”

“Young enough for preventive surgery but too old to get a job. There is a God, and She doesn’t own a mirror.”

“It’s not just the job thing. I think you have a moral obligation to yourself.”

“You’re making aging sound like a sin.”

“Well, if you can do something about it and don’t, it is a sin. The point is you want to be as youthfully attractive as possible, right? Right! You don’t like your nose, right? Right! So you owe it to yourself…and others.”

“What others?”

“Look, I don’t have a crystal ball, but if things don’t work out with Steve, you’ll be entering a new phase of your life.” She leaned close again. “Look at these gorgeous hunks.” She put her knuckles in her mouth and moaned. “Check out the kid in black to your left.”

Casually Dana looked left to a table of three young men and a woman. The male in a loose black shirt opened at the neck had thick shiny black hair pushed back and a tanned Adonis face. Perhaps he saw Dana out of the corner of his eye because he smiled. Dana smiled back, having difficulty thinking that she had a moral obligation to get a lid lift for him.

“Look what’s out there for you.”

“Yeah, me and Demi Moore.”

“You know what I’m saying. You’d be jump-starting your life with a new you and all sorts of possibilities.”

“We’re only separated, not divorced.”

The waitress came with their lunch.

Through the window Dana saw a print of a painting she recognized as Renoir’s Nude on a