Butterfly (30 page)

17

Hollywood, California: 1957

Rachel had lived as Beverly Highland for three years, serving up Eddie’s Royal Burgers

and living in the respectable boardinghouse on Cherokee, before she came to the realiza-

tion that in order to make a new life for herself changing her name hadn’t been enough.

She had to change her face as well.

Not that any of her new friends, by word or deed, reminded her of her homeliness.

They saw through the unfortunate arrangement of flesh and bone and saw the gentle

spirit of the quiet girl who had appeared from nowhere one night, who had stayed with

them loyally ever since, who didn’t talk much, whose background was a mystery, and

who, above all, in three short years, had turned Eddie’s diner into a success.

People now stood three-deep waiting for seats at the counter; Laverne kept a reserva-

tion book for the booths. And these days the sound of hammers and chisels filled the air

around the clock as a work crew knocked down walls and expanded the diner into the

shop next door, which used to be a dry cleaner’s.

The day Beverly had shown up for work, three years ago, to mop the floors, wash

dishes, and scrub pots, Eddie had given her a free lunch, and she had startled him by say-

ing quietly, “This isn’t a very good hamburger.” He wasn’t used to her honesty yet—he

wasn’t used to honesty in anybody—so he had said indignantly, “You don’t like my cook-

ing, eat somewhere else.”

But instead of apologizing or keeping her mouth shut, the girl had persisted by saying

softly, “I know what your hamburgers need.” And she had had the audacity to get up

from the counter, go into the kitchen, take his prepared patties out of the refrigerator and

mess
with them. Eddie had been a combination of mad and ready to fire her, but curious

also, when he saw her hand fly along the spice rack, pulling down tins and jars, her fingers

working swiftly, her face set in concentration. Ten minutes later, when he was biting into

a revised hamburger, his taste buds had told him this was his lucky day. He used cheap

hamburger meat, but the girl’s secret spices made it taste like expensive steak, and then

when Beverly had also let him in on the secret of adding chopped jalapeños to his fries,

the rest became history.

Eddie fed the spiced-up burgers to the cops, prostitutes, and out-of-work actors who

were his regular customers, and got rave reviews. Then, at Beverly’s suggestion, he shaved

ten cents off the price, did away with plates, wrapped the burgers in waxed paper, and

customer response was phenomenal. The word went up and down the street, and people

started coming. Pretty soon, not only locals came to feast on Royal Burgers in the plain,

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Kathryn Harvey

unassuming diner, but people drove in from Santa Monica, Pasadena, and even next-door

Beverly Hills to see what the noise was all about. They went away satisfied, and told their

friends. Then Eddie got the idea of having a To Go window, and soon did a thriving side-

walk business. People drove up, purchased Royal Burgers by the bag, and took off for the

beach or mountains or desert to enjoy them. Word spread, and spread.

So now Eddie was expanding into the shop next door, having bought out their lease,

and was thinking of opening up another Royal Burger diner in the rapidly growing San

Fernando Valley.

He owed it all to Beverly Highland. But she didn’t capitalize on his praise as another

girl might, demanding money or credit for his success. She just told him she was pleased,

in that maddeningly reserved way of hers, not smiling but being sincere nonetheless when

she said she was happy for him. And although Eddie often wondered about her, about her

past, which she refused to talk about, about the silence she seemed to live in, about her

standoffishness and the fact that she would never go to his and Laverne’s house for dinner,

and the way she shied away from making close friends, the way she wouldn’t let anyone

touch her—and although he
was
curious about her name, which was coincidentally that

of the intersection outside his diner—Eddie never pressed her. She was quiet and diligent

and loyal, and had not, in three years, missed a day of work or made any demands on

him. There was nothing, absolutely nothing, in this world he would not do for her.

“A
vacation?”
he said. “Are you out of your mind? We can’t handle the load as it is! I

have to interview new waitresses, Laverne has to keep all three eyes on that shiftless work

crew, and some magazine is coming to do a story on us. And you want a vacation?”

Beverly was used to Eddie’s bombast. It came and went like L.A.’s Santa Ana winds—

hot and fast and unpleasant, but transitory and unsubstantial, leaving little behind it

except dust.

“I haven’t had a vacation in three years,” she said quietly.

“So who has?” He turned away from the grill and eyed her.

She was not “little” Beverly anymore, he noticed. Three years of his cooking had

fleshed out those sticks and bones—that, plus nature. Beverly had curves now, and just

the right amount of roundness in the right places. He caught many a customer giving her

the twice-over. Too bad about her face.

“So where you gonna go, on this vacation?”

“Just…away,” she said in her usual cryptic way. Getting information out of Beverly,

Eddie had learned in three years, was like getting sex from Laverne. You might as well for-

get it.

“For how long?”

“Three months.”

He dropped his spatula.

The girl had moxie. No doubt about it.

“Sorry, kid,” he said. “Can’t afford to do without you for that long.”

“Would you rather do without me forever?”

Now, that stopped him. In all the time they’d been together Eddie had never known

Beverly to so much as question his orders. She was dutiful and obedient and never

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complained. To hear a challenge in that soft-spoken voice was like a declaration of war

from anyone else.

He gazed into those enigmatic brown eyes, eyes that locked away secrets—some of

them terrible, he suspected—and thought for a long moment. Then he realized: it must

be something she just had to do.

“Starting when?” he said finally.

“I don’t know yet. But I’ll tell you when I do know.”

“We’ll miss you, kid,” he said quietly.

He thought she was going to hug him then. But of course she didn’t. Even though

there were times when he thought Beverly was going to do something impulsive like that,

do something that any other person in the same circumstance would do, she always held

herself back. She never touched anyone, and never let anyone touch her.

“Thanks, Eddie,” she said, and went back to work making up her secret spice mix.

The first doctors she went to were general practitioners who unanimously said there

was nothing that could be done. Then she made appointments with surgeons and suf-

fered their close scrutiny of her face, only to be told the same thing. “The nose, maybe,”

they all agreed. “But you’ll always have that chin.” She learned that only a specialist could

help her. So she went painstakingly through the telephone book and began visiting plas-

tic surgeons. Few were interested once she said she had no money and no insurance; one

suggested he might work on her face if she worked on him in payment.

Beauty, it seemed to Beverly, or even just passing looks, was the privilege of the

moneyed.

But she would not be daunted. Sitting in front of her mirror in Eddie’s sister’s board-

inghouse and staring at her face, she would recall one of the last things Danny Mackay

had said to her: “You’re a stupid, ugly bitch, Rachel.”

Well, she had already changed part of that sentence—her name. Surely it would be a

simple matter to change the rest.

But eight weeks of searching—of riding L.A.’s every-two-hours buses to the far-flung

offices of doctors who ended up shaking their heads, and of repeatedly telling Eddie that

her vacation would start soon—produced no results. She was no closer than the day she

had started her quest. Still, this did not discourage the determined Beverly. The more elu-

sive her goal and the harder she had to fight to reach it, the more each new day strength-

ened her resolve.

She
was
going to change her face.

And then one morning early in May, when the weather was cool-warm and the smog

hadn’t yet started to collect for its summer siege, Beverly was standing at the chopping

block, mixing her secret spices for Eddie’s Royal Burgers and listening to the radio. The

news was all about Eisenhower sending paratroopers into Little Rock, the Russians

launching something called Sputnik, and a pilot named John Glenn breaking a speed

record in a jet. “And now for the local news,” the announcer said. As Beverly was about to

add the tarragon, basil, and sage to her chopped scallions, a report came on about a

famous movie star being in a spectacular car accident on the Pasadena Freeway, and

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Kathryn Harvey

rushed to Queen of Angels Hospital. “Dr. Seymour Wiseman, chief physician on the case,

told KFWB News that while Miss Binford sustained serious facial injuries, she has been

stabilized and is off the critical list. Miss Binford, who won an Oscar for her stunning per-

formance in
Desperate Roses
last year, will require extensive reconstructive surgery, said Dr.

Wiseman, who is a plastic surgeon. And now for the sports. Here’s news! The Brooklyn

Dodgers are moving to Los Angeles—”

But Beverly didn’t hear the rest. She was already going through the phone book.

Seymour Wiseman, she discovered, had an office in Beverly Hills, a town that—

despite its proximity to Hollywood and despite the fact that Beverly Canyon Road, the

street the diner was on, wound around and eventually found itself snaking up into the

Hills above famed Sunset Boulevard—Beverly had never visited.

She called for an appointment. She was given one two months away—Dr. Wiseman

was very much in demand.

Then she went up to Eddie, who was filling out his order for beef, and said, “I’ll be

starting my vacation on July the eighth.” She was that certain Dr. Wiseman would take

her.

Beverly had never seen a doctor’s office like this one before. The furniture of polished

leather and delicate tables with dainty wrought-iron legs, with modern art on the walls,

and magazines she had only seen in drugstores but could never afford to buy. The recep-

tionist didn’t look like a nurse; she didn’t wear a uniform but was all dressed up. And the

only other patient in the waiting room was a woman wearing a mink coat. In July.

Beverly filled out a form asking for medical history—
Parents:
dead;
Pregnancies:

none—and sat down to wait.

An hour and a half later she was called.

No scary examining room for Dr. Wiseman’s patients. Beverly was taken into a com-

fortable office that was, in contrast to the impeccable waiting room, surprisingly messy.

Stacks of medical journals covered a desk; all sorts of knick-knacks and mementos were

placed haphazardly on bookshelves—little doctors made out of nuts and bolts, ceramic

figurines of surgeons standing at operating tables, “Thank You” carved out of redwood,

and so on. Little extra gifts from grateful patients. Beverly was just wondering what little

extra gift she could give him when he came into the office.

“Now then, Miss Highland,” he said, sitting at his desk. “I see on this form you’ve

filled out that you want me to ‘fix your face,’ as you put it. What exactly would you like

me to do?”

“I want you to change my face.”

He looked at her. She sat rigidly in the chair, her back ramrod-straight, hands clasped

tightly in her lap. There was an intensity about her that made him curious. She looked

so…
serious
for one so young. Had her unfortunate homeliness made her short life so mis-

erable that she was angry at the world? “What exactly don’t you like about your face?”

“Do you see anything in it to like?”

“You have very pretty eyes.”

“Can you help me?”

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131

“I think so. There is a small operation I can do to pin your ears back, and I can trans-

plant some cartilage into your chin. Your nose might require more than one operation—”

“I have no money,” she said quietly. “And no insurance.”

His smile faded. The look on his face said, Then why are you here?

“Dr. Wiseman,” she said softly. “I’m homely and I’m poor. I need help and I have

nowhere else to turn. You’re a famous doctor. You operate on movie stars. You don’t need

my money. But you have a God-given skill in your hands that I don’t think someone as

nice as you is going to keep from someone as desperate as me, just because I have no

money.”

Seymour Wiseman very carefully removed his glasses and wiped them on his white lab

coat. When he put them back on, he crossed his arms, gave Beverly a skewering look and

said, “Young lady, are you hustling me, or are you really as naive as all that? Did you hon-