Beautiful(30)
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She walked for a long time, and then took a cab the rest of the way downtown to her hotel. She hadn’t bothered to put the mask on, and she saw the driver glance at her in the rearview mirror, but he didn’t comment. When she got back to her hotel, and searched for her room key in her bag, she found the paper where Doug had written the name of the plastic surgeon in New York. She looked at it for a minute when she was back in her room, and hesitated. She didn’t know if she wanted to call him or not. The Belgian surgeons had been so definite that little improvement was possible, if any, that it seemed pointless. And then, in an optimistic mood after seeing her father, she decided to put it in the hands of fate. She called, and told herself that if there was an appointment the next day, before her flight, she would take it, and if not, she’d forget about getting another opinion. She didn’t want to spend the rest of her life, or even the next few years, chasing doctors with empty promises, who offered her results they couldn’t deliver. It would be a life of constant disappointment. She was trying to accept the hand she’d been dealt and make the best of it. That seemed more sensible.
The phone rang and a receptionist answered. “Doctors Talbot and Dennis,” she said, and Véronique said that she was hoping for an appointment for a consultation with Dr. Talbot, who had done the work on Doug’s model friend who’d been mugged. She was sure they wouldn’t have room for her on a day’s notice, and was prepared for a rejection.
“Please hold,” the nurse said, after Véronique told her it had to be the next day, since she was flying to Paris that night on a late flight. She came back on the line a full five minutes later, while Véronique waited. “We don’t have a regular appointment available till February, but we had a new patient cancellation at ten-fifteen tomorrow. Can you make it?” His office was on Park Avenue at Sixty-ninth Street, so she would have to go back uptown, but she had nothing else to do. She wasn’t shopping and had no one to see all day before her flight.
“Yes, I can,” Véronique said, almost sorry she’d called him. She didn’t want to deal with more doctors. It had been a stupid idea, she decided, but she’d stuck her neck out now.
“Please come to the office at ten so we can get a new patient history and insurance information.” She didn’t bother telling the receptionist that she’d pay cash, or by credit card, since she didn’t have American insurance, and had no reason to. All her expenses so far had been paid by the Belgian government, or she could have been treated in France for free if she preferred, with her carte Vitale, which paid for all medical fees.
The receptionist hung up then, and Véronique sat quietly, thinking about her father again. She would have liked to see him again before she left, but with his poor health, it seemed like too much to ask of him. He had looked drained when she left him, but happy to have seen her. She decided to call him to say goodbye, but not ask for another meeting so soon. They had said everything they needed to today. He had told her everything she had always wanted to know about him, and her mother.
The best part about seeing him was that for the first time in her life, she felt like she had a father. Papa. She liked the sound of it. She had never missed him before, she had only been curious about him. But now she knew who he was, and although he barely knew her, she could sense that he loved her. Knowing him now was a tiny consolation for the enormous loss of her mother, but it was something. He felt like a living link to her mother. He had been her mother’s final gift.
Chapter 9
It took Véronique an hour to get uptown to see the doctor. New York was one giant snarl of cars at that hour. She took a magazine with her to read in the cab, and she was nervous about the appointment. She had seen enough doctors to last a lifetime. She had no idea why she had allowed herself to add one more. But Doug had been so insistent about it. She was in New York anyway, and they’d had the cancellation. But it seemed like a waste of time, as she got out of the cab and walked into his street-level office. She was startled when she walked inside. There was very expensive contemporary art on the walls. A Damien Hirst, a Julian Schnabel, and two large Diebenkorns. The office was mostly white and soothing pale colors, except for the art. There were comfortable oversized chairs by a well-known Italian designer. Everything about the office shrieked money. The nurses were wearing crisp little white suits, and Chanel flats. The women in the waiting room wore expensive exercise clothes, and chic outfits. There were women there of all ages, and she guessed that most of them were there for fillers and Botox shots. She knew that many of the models she had worked with started Botox in their twenties to smooth out their faces and prevent lines. They were all obsessed with fighting the aging process even before it began. Véronique had never bothered with any of it. It seemed stupid at twenty-two, or whenever they started. There were a few middle-aged women in the waiting room, but not many, and Véronique was suddenly worried that models she knew might walk in and recognize her. She hadn’t bothered to wear the surgical mask for the appointment.
She filled out the paperwork quickly, and was ushered into a large office, with more impressive art, a sleek ebony desk, and a forest of exotic white orchids along one wall. In less than five minutes, Dr. Phillip Talbot walked in. He was tall, blond, and handsome, with a slight tan, piercing blue eyes, perfect teeth when he smiled, and he looked like a movie star or a model. Véronique had worked with hundreds of men who looked like him, and he was every bit as handsome as they were. She saw that he was wearing a wedding band, which she suspected must have disappointed many of his patients, and she guessed him to be in his early or mid-forties. He was wearing a white doctor’s coat over gray slacks and Gucci loafers, with a perfectly tailored white Hermès shirt and no tie.