Beautiful(33)

She was smiling when she thanked Dr. Dennis, and left the office a few minutes later. It was the most hopeful thing that had happened to her since the bombing.

She went over to Madison Avenue, and walked almost all the way downtown to her hotel, looking in the shop windows. She stopped at one of them, and bought a bright red sweater, which suited her mood. She had been wearing subdued colors, she realized, so as not to draw attention to herself, and suddenly she felt fine about it. She felt like she was coming back to life. She could hardly wait until Christmas. She wanted to call and tell them that she wanted to have the surgery, but promised herself to think about it, and not make a hasty decision. She’d loved everything she’d heard at the appointment.

She was in great spirits when she got back to her hotel, and decided to call her father and tell him about it. The butler told her that Senator Hayes was resting and couldn’t be disturbed. He’d had a difficult morning. She hoped she hadn’t contributed to it by wearing him out the day before, and left a message saying that she hoped he felt better, and sent him her love. He had told her that she could call him anytime, and she had taken him at his word, and hoped that was all right.

She spent the rest of the day taking it easy and thinking about everything the two plastic surgeons had said. They had given her a glimmer of hope for the first time in months. A hope that she might look even slightly more normal again. She walked around SoHo in the late afternoon, went back to the hotel for an early dinner, and left for the airport in time for her evening flight to Paris.

She was standing in the airport, waiting to board her flight, thinking about the past twenty-four hours, seeing her father, and the doctor’s appointment that morning, and she knew that she didn’t want to wait any longer to book the surgery. She took Phillip Talbot’s card out of her purse, and called him on his cellphone. It was nine o’clock at night, but she didn’t want someone else to get her slot for the surgery.

He answered immediately and she said who it was.

“I’m sorry to call you so late, but I wanted to tell you, before I fly back to Paris. I would like to do the surgery on December twenty-second, as you suggested. And Dr. Dennis said that he could do some of the scars on my body too.”

“Well, that is good news, Véronique. We’ll be very happy to have you with us for Christmas. Would you like me to book one of the guest apartments for you?” He made it sound like a fun weekend and a party, not surgery.

“Yes, I would,” she said, feeling breathless. She would never have thought that she would be excited about surgery. He had already told her that the surgery itself would be performed at NewYork-Presbyterian Hospital, and she would spend three nights there before moving to one of their guest apartments to continue the recovery. The apartments sounded extremely plush and comfortable, and she was sure they were. She also wanted to ask him the cost of the surgery, since she had no insurance that would pay for it. She was going to use some of the money her mother had left her. She was sure her mother would have been happy to know how she was using it.

“I’d like to know what the fees will be for the surgery, so I have some idea. I can send a bank wire before I come over.”

He sounded serious when he answered. “Dr. Dennis and I discussed it after you left, Véronique. None of this should ever have happened to you. There is a terrible injustice about it. We’re going to do the surgery for free. We both want to do that. It’s our Christmas gift to you. You’ll have to pay for the hospital stay, but our fees and the use of a guest apartment are a gift. We can discuss fees for the next time, but this one’s on us.” She was stunned and had tears in her eyes.

“I don’t know how to thank you. You were both so kind to me today. I’m really excited about the surgery.”

“It won’t be perfect,” he reminded her, so her expectations wouldn’t be unrealistic, “but we think you’ll be happy with the result. You’ll need to come in the day before for some lab work. So we’ll see you on December twenty-first.”

“Thank you, with all my heart,” she said, and ran for her plane after she hung up. There were still truly good human beings in the world, and clearly the two doctors she had met thanks to Doug were among them. She felt as though she were flying herself when the plane took off. After that, she slept all the way to Paris. It had been a fantastic visit to New York.





Chapter 10


After feeling euphoric when she left New York, her arrival in Paris was harder than she’d anticipated. She let herself into the apartment at noon and unconsciously expected to see her mother come out of her bedroom, or hear her in the kitchen, making coffee and something to eat. It was a Saturday and she should have been home. Instead, the apartment was dark and empty, the shades were drawn, and there was silence. It was crushing it was so quiet, and the reality that her mother was gone hit her all over again. Her heart felt like a lead weight in her chest as she put her suitcase down in her own room, and walked around the apartment, looking for some sign of life. There was none. There was silence and darkness everywhere, and the weather outside was gray.

She sat down in the kitchen, trying not to cry, and her cellphone rang. She hesitated, and then answered it. The caller had used a blocked number, so she had no idea who it was, but it was a relief to hear a human voice. She was startled to hear that it was a Swedish model she knew and hadn’t seen in two years.