Beautiful(32)

“I won’t have any. I don’t have any family. My mother died in the attack, so maybe it would be a good time to do it,” she said, and he nodded, and smiled at her again.

“I don’t want to press you into it. Why don’t you give it some thought and let me know? I think we can get you a pretty good result. It won’t be perfect, or look the way it did before, but I think we can get a very satisfactory outcome to smooth things over, and calm things down.” As he said it, another man in a doctor’s coat walked in, he was shorter and had dark hair and chocolate brown eyes and looked like a teddy bear. They were an interesting contrast to each other. The other doctor looked about fifty. Phillip Talbot introduced his partner to her.

“This is my associate, Dick Dennis. He does great bodywork, if you ever want to clean up the scars on your arms and legs,” he said casually with a warm smile, and Dr. Dennis rolled his eyes.

“He makes me sound like a mechanic at a used car dealership.” He smiled at Véronique too, and Dr. Talbot explained to him in very dry technical terms about the bombing and her injuries. He also recognized her name immediately and knew who she was. She was even more beautiful than in her photographs, he thought but didn’t say. He was shocked by the scars on her face but didn’t show it.

“She’s considering some retouching on her face in December, she’s going to think about it.” She liked them both so much that she wanted to stay and let them do it now, but it was too soon. Her last surgery was still too recent, and it made perfect sense to her that the kind of facial surgery Dr. Talbot did would be more refined than what they did in the military. “She might be spending Christmas with us.” He smiled at Véronique and his partner.

“We’ll let Santa know where you are,” Dick Dennis promised. “I’m sorry to barge in, Phillip. I wanted you to look at some photographs for me. I’ll leave the file with you.” He put it on Talbot’s desk, and Véronique liked the way Phillip Talbot had referred to her surgery as “retouching,” like a photograph that needed correcting. The way he phrased it made it sound less frightening, and not as grave. Everything they had done in the military always sounded so terrifying, and they were so pessimistic about the results, particularly about the scars on her face.

“Could we do some bodywork at the same time?” she asked cautiously. “I wasn’t really planning to do that, but some of the scars are pretty bad, especially on my back and stomach. There were huge chunks of metal flying everywhere. And my arms look awful. I just keep them covered.”

“Would you like me to have a look?” Dr. Dennis asked her, and she nodded.

“Do you have any other questions for me?” Phillip Talbot asked her.

“I don’t think so. You explained everything.” She smiled shyly at him, and he took out his card, jotted his personal cellphone number on it, and handed it to her.

“Just let me know if you plan to spend Christmas with us. If not, I’ll try to find another date that works for you, but it may not be till the end of January.”

“I’d rather not wait,” she said. She was excited about trying what he suggested. She knew her face wouldn’t be perfect, and never would be again, but better would be wonderful, and she was very impressed by both of the surgeons. She and Dr. Talbot shook hands and she followed Dr. Dennis out of the room to an examining room, where she carefully removed what she was wearing, and stood in her bra and underpants, and turned slowly so he could check all her scars minutely. He used a magnifying glass on some of them. He looked at her seriously afterward.

“The force of the blast must have been tremendous. I think you got lucky with the one on your left foot. You could have lost a foot, or even your leg.”

“They operated on those right away. Apparently, I almost did lose the foot, but they saved it. And the one on my stomach is where I lost part of my liver. I had metal lodged all through my body, and still have quite a lot, but they got a lot of the shrapnel out in the twenty-six surgeries.” Even as a doctor, he couldn’t imagine what going through it must have been like.

“You’re a very brave woman,” he said. “I have a daughter your age. I would be beside myself if something like that happened to her. I assume you had therapy at the hospital while you recovered.”

“I did, but I wasn’t brave. I was in a coma for three months. They did most of the surgeries then, so I was asleep. It was harder when they woke me up.” She had marks all up and down her arms and legs from the constant IVs.

“How much of it would you want to work on?” he asked her gently.

“Maybe just the worst ones for now, when I get the surgery on my face. They did cosmetic work on my face in Brussels, but not on the scars on my body.”

“I can see that. We’ll do a little sanding and polishing,” he said, smiling at her, “and see how you feel about it afterward. Dr. Talbot will do a wonderful job on your face. It’s what he does best. As he told you so inelegantly, I do the bodywork.” He did mostly tummy tucks and breasts, but she didn’t need either. And liposuction on thighs and buttocks, none of which was relevant for her. She had a flawless body, along with her perfect face, except for the scars she had everywhere now from the shrapnel. It was a crime to see what had happened to her, but in spite of the damage, she was a stunningly beautiful young woman, and he wanted to help restore her to something closer to what she had been. “I look forward to seeing you if you come back to us, Véronique,” he said kindly. “I’d be in the surgery with Dr. Talbot. The recovery will be fairly quick, much faster than what you went through while you were in critical condition.” It all sounded appealing to her, and she liked them both. She had liked her surgeons in Brussels too, but they were more serious and more military, and not as polished and friendly. She had fallen into a very high-end practice, one of the best in New York. She was excited about what they might be able to do, and they gave her a glimmer of hope for the future.