Face Value (21 page)

There was a pause from the team, with a lot of shifting about from foot to foot and staring at the floor. A muffled laugh came from her left.

“I mean, she will be naked, so no, she won’t have any clothes on, but I don’t want too much hair and makeup. What’s so funny about that?”

Following Alexis’s change of schedule Kate had decided she would leave everyone to get on with it, and attend the plastic surgery conference for an hour or so before returning to the shoot to check all was going well. Her copy would just have to be written tonight. Strangely she wasn’t worried about that. She’d written most of the article in her head anyway. Since seeing Patty yesterday so much had happened, yet it had all been so unimportant and superficial in comparison with the main story. She hadn’t slept well because her mind had been buzzing with thoughts and ideas. Chance conversations among the beauty editors before everything had kicked off with JK3; snippets overheard in elevators; sitting out by the pool with Harold Epps . . . all these things, all her unconscious thoughts, were being processed somehow in her subconscious. She knew what would happen as soon as she sat down to write. A blank screen would confront her in all its sterility. But soon the words would appear on the page, and Patty’s hopeless story would eventually take flight. Besides, any previous concerns that Alexis might not approve her story had been swept away in the flood of publicity following JK’s speech last night. As Clarissa had helpfully pointed out this morning, she could pretty much write whatever she wanted now, Alexis would love it!

She had called Patty first thing this morning to talk to her about the CNN piece. It had been a wise precaution. Patty had been unable to speak, choked with tears, her sobs pregnant with accusations of betrayal and how-could-she’s. JK3’s muse! It had taken a full ten minutes of Kate calming her down and reassuring her that JK’s hijacking of Kate’s “look” was nothing but a PR stunt, guaranteed to get him news coverage for the big plastic surgery conference today, and had nothing to do with her. Eventually Aurelie had come on the phone, and seemed relieved to hear that Kate was writing the story tonight. She knew what JK was like; she’d calm Patty down, but in the meantime, all this upset and emotion couldn’t be good for her nerves. True to form, Aurelie’s parting gift was a veiled threat: Kate had to write the story soon, or they’d take it elsewhere. Aurelie couldn’t keep Patty from harming herself for long, especially not with this latest development.

A phone call to JK3 had followed. Strangely, his declaration to the world, avowing himself to be a devoted follower of Kate’s “natural” beauty, had had a twofold effect on Kate. Instead of finding it all repulsive, she did in fact feel empowered. Knowing that he found her if not attractive (it was he who had publicly decried any romantic associations, after all) then some kind of beautiful gave her a strange, new feeling of confidence. Was it because he was a man? Partly, and that worried her. It didn’t fit in with her beliefs that a woman should feel good about the way she looked without searching for male praise, for some kind of physical evaluation. But if she could just set those tricky little beliefs aside for one instance, then . . . wow! Here was someone who had previously transformed women into one version of beauty, saying that she was better looking than all of them! She was sure it was all cobblers, but it gave her such a feeling of power! He was right—beauty was empowerment—whichever way you dressed it, up or down. Of course, she could also see that had she not had the inside knowledge of Patty’s story, she could easily be taken in by his charm. Vanity was a great deceiver. But this accolade of his gave her neither the will to flirt nor the self-doubt to fear him and what he stood for anymore. It was her against him, pure and simple. She was the defender of Patty Patrice, and he could call her whatever he wanted, but he was only adding fuel to his funeral pyre.

He was as charming as ever this morning, but she wasn’t having any of it. Politely, distantly, she made an appointment to meet him straight after the plastic surgery convention. Just a few more questions, she promised. And vain as he was, he agreed.

She had one more call to make: Jean-Paul Suchet. He’d left several messages, and had been nothing but consistent in his efforts to redeem himself following their last night out before she’d been assigned to L.A. She would finish her copy tonight, fly back tomorrow, and he could take her out the following night. After all, she was becoming accustomed to all this romantic attention. Starting to like it, even. There was that accent of his to consider. And as long as it didn’t interfere with her career, which it surely wouldn’t, why not? Jean-Paul would be given a second chance.

seventeen

Face-Off was the most distinguished gathering of aesthetic plastic surgeons worldwide, boasted the billboard outside the historic medical center of Los Angeles University. It was certainly popular. Outside, on the steps leading up to the monumental building, film crews gathered, hoping to be the first to report the latest in cosmetic surgery techniques to a world desperate for a miracle transformation. Queues of delegates, mostly male, all wearing gray suits, filed their way up and round the building to a wall of ten or so security-screened entrance points.

Inside, the building seemed to relax into its more historic self. Gone were the officious-looking media guides, handing out press packs in branded carrier bags to journalists. Instead, most of the action seemed to take place in a high-ceilinged wood-paneled hall, flanked with TV screens. It wasn’t appealing viewing. Filling each screen to gargantuan proportions were various aspects of red and bloodied noses. Scalpels pulled them upward, outward, a slit here, a cut there. Oil paintings of distinguished men in surgery looked down as a new generation of gray-suited individuals watched the screens avidly. Tissue was snipped away. A brochure offered other how-to DVDs:
Rhinoplasty: The Boxy Tip
, fifty-one minutes;
Saddling Following Septoplasty
, fifty-five minutes. Posters advertised different types of facial peels. A table was laid with several silicone implants, willing passersby to see how real they felt, encouraging them to pick them up and hold them. Kate gave one a squeeze. It felt worlds apart from her own breasts. This was more like some executive stress-relieving toy. Inserted into some willing, nubile blonde, it probably was.

There were coffee machines everywhere. You could tell the surgeons apart from the salespeople. The salespeople all had improbably orange tans, which irked her. She knew there were much better ones on the market. You’d think that working in the beauty industry, they might have bothered to get that right. The surgeons, on the other hand, had tans that looked natural, but improbably smooth foreheads. She’d heard—possibly from Vivienne Fox, but she couldn’t be sure—they did each other’s Botox.

A gong sounded. The main event, the "Face-Off ” between three of the world’s leading surgeons, was about to begin.

She filed through to the adjoining theater and took a seat. Strangely she couldn’t see any of the beauty editors from last night. On her right was a Japanese-looking man in a gray suit. He had strange-looking eyes, which, after further observation, she realized had been surgically enhanced to appear rounder and more Western-looking. On her left was a rather sweaty, slightly overweight forty-something man. He looked like a salesman. She imagined him driving round anonymous towns in the Midwest, a suitcase full of silicone breast samples, visiting clinic after clinic. It had to be more interesting than selling double-glazing, she supposed.

The glossy brochure lying on each seat described Face-Off as being only in its fourth year, yet already the prestigious convention had attracted worldwide interest thanks to its distinguished board of members, all surgeons with hundreds of years of experience between them. It was dedicated to reestablishing the profession as being serious, in spite of the increasing entertainment value attached to cosmetic surgery, thanks to TV programs performing lunch-hour makeovers. The brochure’s editor, one Dr. Val Baker, wanted to assure those attending the conference that promoting the serious, safe side of surgery was the only way ahead. Dr. Val Baker blamed the media for promoting the gimmicky, celebrity surgeons, whose standards many in the profession knew to be below par, and being less interested in the exciting new techniques developed by its pioneers.

Mea culpa, thought Kate to herself. Another moan at the press. Oh, well. A hush descended as the beauty editors suddenly appeared, ushered in like a group of well-dressed flight attendants to the front two rows of the audience. Kate sank down farther into her seat. After last night’s performance the last thing she wanted was to join them, although it amused her to notice that a few of them seemed to have neglected to brush their hair this morning, and a couple were definitely not wearing makeup. Imperfect perfect. She giggled quietly to herself. The sweaty man jostled his elbow next to hers, until she elbowed it back over the armrest.

It wasn’t long before the real hush came. Face-Off was about to begin. The three speakers, a Brazilian surgeon, Feliz Paracato, and two Americans, one of whom was JK, walked slowly and seriously onto the stage. The audience clapped, some stood up, somewhat melodramatically, Kate thought, then silence fell again as the three took their seats toward the front of the stage. A glamorous yet frail elderly woman wearing a long Oscar-style frock tottered onstage, and the crowd’s clapping grew even louder.

“Oh, my, I thought she died years ago!” said the man to Kate’s left, working up a sweat as his hands met over and over.

“Who is she?” said Kate.

“Mary Powell . . . the ex-president’s wife! She’s awesome!”

Quite what Mary Powell was doing in a place like this, Kate had no idea. It looked like Mary Powell didn’t have much of an idea either, as she struggled to read an Autocue introducing the three speakers.

“Oh, dear . . . she’s got the disease . . . ,” said the man sadly.

“What disease?”

He turned to look at her, as if taking in the full scale of her combined youth and ignorance.

“Aging!”

So aging was a disease. She’d heard it before, at the antiaging skin care launches, but she wasn’t expecting to hear it so casually bandied about. As if it was anything other than a handy little sound bite. Of course now that it had worked its way into common parlance, albeit at a rarefied gathering like this one, it was only a matter of time before everyone would be talking about getting old as if it was an illness. There would be vaccinations against it, maybe even colonies where sufferers could live in splendid isolation, for fear of passing it on to others. Fund-raising benefits to support those who couldn’t afford antiaging creams and face-lifts. If there weren’t already.

More clapping. Mary Powell hobbled off, supported by two skinny girls with big breasts and huge grins, as if the audience needed a reminder of the disparities between youth and old age.

The music started up. Quite whose bright idea it was to play "The Eye of the Tiger” to announce the American surgeon Ben Kingdom’s work on eye lifts, Kate could only guess (Dr. Val Baker, whose editorial in the Face-Off brochure had so aptly spoken out against cosmetic surgery as entertainment?). Ben Kingdom was in his sixties, and retiring next year (cue: applause) ; he hailed from New York (cue: applause); and he couldn’t reveal his list of famous clients, but you only had to tune in to Letterman each week to see a roster of A-listers who didn’t seem to be getting any older (cue: applause/laughter). He was now going to demonstrate his pioneering technique with the eyes, which meant that surgeons could now perform an eye lift that would last longer than ever before, in half the time!

“Is this legal?” Kate couldn’t help asking out loud. The sweaty man picked up on her concern. He looked confused.

“Not legal enough! It’s awesome, isn’t it? You know they called it Face-Off after that new procedure they can do . . . the one where they reconstruct a patient’s face by grafting someone else’s face onto the original? One day I reckon they’ll do it live onstage.”

A patient was wheeled on. Much to Kate’s relief, it was announced that she was under anesthetic. Large screens came down from the ceiling midway through the audience so that observers wouldn’t miss any of the details. The skin around the patient’s eye was opened up by a theater assistant, while Ben Kingdom was dressed by six women wearing white tight-fitting trouser suits, all of whom looked like models. He emerged from behind a curtain in his green operating outfit, monogrammed with his initials in diamanté. He walked casually over to the horizontal patient, as if he was taking a walk in the park. To be fair, she figured, it probably was as easy for him as taking the proverbial walk. A man of his standing in “the profession, ” as she was learning to call it, couldn’t possibly be awed by a little thing like an eye lift before an audience of hundreds, could he? Sure enough, before "The Eye of the Tiger” had finished, so had his work. She hadn’t counted the number of choruses exactly, so they could have cheated and stuck another couple or so on, but it was impressive nonetheless. Like a victor in a boxing ring, Ben Kingdom raised his arms in the air and smiled.

Next up was the Brazilian. A whole host of possible song titles started to play in Kate’s head. ZZ Top’s “She’s Got Legs.” “I like big butts” from “Baby Got Back” (but who remembers Sir Mix-a-Lot anymore?) Oh! “Our Lips Are Sealed” by the Go-Go’s! Kate had to force herself back into the here and now, before her thoughts wandered in the direction of a similar musical talent she shared with JK, discovered the night of the better-forgotten peach Bellinis. To his credit, the Brazilian, who was joined by twenty identical-looking blondes in tight white suits, as if to upstage Ben Kingdom’s coterie, opted for Chopin’s Second Prelude for what turned out to be a breast lift, using a new meshlike bra that was inserted over the patient’s own breasts. The sweaty man didn’t like this.