If You Only Knew(51)

“So are you in a lot of pain?” I ask my new best friend.

“Agonizing,” she answers. “I won’t lie. I was hit by a car when I was sixteen. This hurts more. I was begging for morphine the first three weeks.”

My eyelids flutter. I’ve never been brave with pain.

“Rachel Carver?” a nurse calls.

Rach puts down the magazine and stands up, running her hands over the front of her dress.

I scramble up after her. “Did you hear that?” I hiss. “She was begging for morphine!”

“Can you just relax, please?”

“Rachel, that woman looked like she was attacked by gorillas.”

She doesn’t answer. I’m being an ass, but come on! My sister does not want this, I’m almost positive.

The nurse shows us into a spacious exam room, much nicer than the regular doctor’s office, where you practically need to sit on each other’s laps. Rachel is given a soft terry-cloth robe, and when she’s changed, the doctor comes in, a very normal-looking woman, which I find reassuring. Maybe around sixty, a pleasantly big nose, bags under her eyes. “Hi, I’m Dr. Louper,” she says. “Rachel, right? So nice to meet you. So you’re interested in the Mommy Makeover?”

“Mmm-hmm,” my sister says.

“And why now?”

Why indeed.

“Well, I’ll be forty in a couple weeks,” Rachel says, her voice shaking a little.

“You look great for forty!” The double-edged compliment—forty is when you look old and haggard and flaccid, but you hardly do! “The most important thing to remember is that this should be for you. If it makes you feel better about yourself, why not go ahead, right? You have three daughters, it says here, so like most women, I bet you put yourself last.” She smiles kindly. “This would be something just for you to enjoy for years to come.”

Rachel looks reassured. I don’t roll my eyes. But I want to.

“Let’s have a look, then,” Dr. Louper says.

For the next fifteen minutes, Rachel is examined as if Dr. Louper is about to buy a racehorse. I’m surprised she doesn’t ask Rachel to turn her head and cough, frankly. My sister’s stomach, breasts, thighs, ass are pinched and poked and lifted. “So we’ve got sagging here, a little drooping here, some cellulite here. And of course, the loose skin here—you had triplets, so no wonder! You’re a superhero!”

“She is indeed,” I say.

Dr. Louper smiles. “We can do a little tummy tuck and get rid of that little bit of extra skin, move your belly button up to here, tighten everything up so you look like a teenager, because honestly, you don’t have that much extra weight.”

“She has no extra weight,” I say, unable to stop myself.

“Your sister’s right. And then for your breasts, I’d recommend a breast lift to get the girls back where they were, maybe some subtle implants if you’d like to go a bit bigger.” She smiles reassuringly, but I can’t get Eggplant Woman out of my mind. “And while we’ve got you on the table, we can do a little lipo on the thighs. You barely need anything. But a lot of women these days are doing that and then having some of the fat injected into their labia to plump things up down there.”

Yes. So Rachel can enjoy that for years to come, because what woman doesn’t fret over this? After all, don’t we all walk around with mirrors in our panties, making sure our labia looks plump enough? I try to fix my face, but I’m fairly sure my disgust shows.

“We can even do a little vaginal tightening to enhance sexual pleasure for both you and your husband.”

My sister bursts into tears.

Thank God.

“Please give us a few minutes,” I say, taking my sister in my arms. The doctor looks confused, but takes her evil clipboard and leaves.

“Rachel,” I say, hugging her tight. “Oh, my poor honeybun.”

She’s really sobbing now.

“You don’t need anything changed about you,” I say, my voice shaking.

“I know,” she whispers. “I just can’t... I can’t help... I hate myself for coming here, but I can’t help it! Emmanuelle is so beautiful, Jenny! She’s so scary beautiful! She’s Maleficent beautiful.”

I want to say so what or who cares or that shouldn’t matter. But of course it does matter to my sister. “I bet she’s not that beautiful.”

“She is,” my sister says.

“Well, she has a very ugly vagina,” I say, and my sister bursts into that mixture of laughter and crying. “And she’s a whore,” I add.

My sister gives me a watery smile. “I’m so glad you say all the things I can’t,” she says, wiping her eyes.

Dr. Louper opens the door. “Is everything okay?” she asks.

“Yes,” Rachel says. “I’m sorry. I’m just not ready for this.”

“That’s completely understandable. You have to do this for the right reasons,” the doctor says kindly. “Come back if you ever change your mind.”

* * *

I take my sister out for an early lunch and tell her about some of my clients—the Russian girl who wants to wear a dress completely covered in Swarovski crystals, no matter that it will be so heavy she’ll barely be able to walk in it; the bride with the EE bra size who wept when I told her it would be no problem to make her a dress.