Face Value (22 page)

“No silicone? That sucks,” he muttered, folding his arms.

The sight of two mounds of bloodied flesh and tissue on a giant screen was making Kate queasy. She tried to see where JK was onstage, but the lights were spotlighting Paracato and his two domes of quivering breasts. There was no escape. She looked at the floor and waited for the clapping to start. When it came, it was to celebrate his outfit: a green jumpsuit revealing a trim belly, doubtless the work of some other surgeon, an “in” joke. He was a born showman. Before he took over from where the theater assistant had left off, he kissed his assistants and, standing in a circle with their hands resting on each other’s shoulders, he led them in a muttered prayer.

“You know he insists on working on each of his assistants first? Wants them all to have the Paracato look,” said the sweaty man next to her.

"That’s just weird,” said Kate, although she was beyond being shocked now. It was over in a few minutes. She looked back up from the floor just in time to see him taking a bow, having his brow wiped by one of the assistants.

She had been dreading JK’s appearance, following his surprise revelation yesterday evening at the beauty editors’ dinner. She had been trying to second-guess his presentation with Clarissa. Would he call Kate up onto the stage and reveal a photo display of yet more pictures she hadn’t been aware had been taken in the first place? Clarissa had sniggered he should get Patty up onstage, show the world just how far he was prepared to take the new imperfect perfect. Kate would have laughed at this, she was so relieved to have made progress with Clarissa on the joke front, but it really wasn’t appropriate. Poor Patty. If only she had foreseen this that day she’d first gone to see him.

"This guy’s great . . . ,” said sweaty man, tapping at the picture of JK in the Face-Off brochure.

“Oh, yes?” Kate pretended not to know who he was talking about, and pulled her hair over her face, hiding just in case.

The audience stood up, clapping wildly. A standing ovation? For a man who had butchered a woman’s face and didn’t seem to care? It was wrong, but she stood up with the others, not wanting to draw attention to herself. He was wearing a theater-green suit, but the color was all it had in common with the usual operating garb. His was like something from Tom Ford, Richard James, Balenciaga, worn with a tie a couple of shades darker and matching green shoes. It was ridiculous, yet, and it annoyed her to admit it, it worked somehow.

“Such a cool dude,” murmured sweaty man appreciatively.

Aurelie stood to one side of the stage—at least he hadn’t traded her in for a fleet of white-suited models. She looked neither happy nor unhappy to be there: a perfect study of assistant’s complacency.

JK spoke into a microphone affixed to his lapel. He smiled, that infectious, charming smile Kate knew so well.

“I hope you don’t mind,” he began, “but there’s no music. I want you to be with me every step of the way and”—he laughed—“I don’t want the music to come between us.”

The audience laughed with him. They loved him, the bunch of sycophants, thought Kate. Images once again flashed up onto the screens, but this time, instead of being carved-up faces, what appeared was footage of celebrities with not quite perfect faces. A-list actors and actresses with wrong noses, craggy faces, sagging jowls, all still beautiful people, but you got his point—you loved them in spite of, even because of, their imperfections. They were characterful, larger than life, familiar, warm people you felt you knew somehow. Much to her relief, she wasn’t among them.

The whispering started among the crowd. What was he going to do? Take some model and mess up her nose? Only JK could pull off a stunt like that, you just knew he would! They hushed again, awestruck.

“Now, I hope I’m not doing myself out of a job here . . . but, ladies”—he nodded in the direction of the beauty editors, who smiled smugly—“and gentlemen, I really feel like I’m on to something big here, as some of you may have seen this morning on CNN.” He grinned.

“Here’s a model, pretty perfect, not just any model, a young twentysomething friend of a friend who volunteered to attend today’s convention.”

He walked over to the shrouded figure lying flat on the gurney and took hold of the scalpel Aurelie was passing to him. A “before” picture of a pretty girl flashed up onto the screen.

“Belle Sarandon. In just a few minutes, her face will be altered. Irrevocably. She’s pretty perfect now, but I’m going to make her . . . imperfect perfect!”

Kate couldn’t believe this was happening. Surely he wasn’t going to . . . he couldn’t do that to her! Mess up her face deliberately? To look like what? Some freak’s idea of what was in fashion—her?! This had to be unethical, illegal, immoral—not that anyone seemed to care about ethics or morals here! It was disgusting. She couldn’t just stand by and watch, article or no article.

She stood up and pushed her way past the sweaty man, rushing toward the exit. She wasn’t about to be complicit to his act of cosmetic vandalism. She felt sick.

Out in the corridor, she sought sanctuary in the ladies’ loos. She stared at herself in the mirror, remembering a time not so long ago when she had stared at her reflection in Brian Palmers’s office, wondering who she might become given the chance. It all seemed so far away, was so far away. Now she was caught up in something she didn’t understand, and seemed to be the only one who didn’t understand. She hadn’t changed so much. A few streaks in her hair, but otherwise, nothing much else. She was still Kate. So how had the rest of the world gone so crazy? She splashed water on her face, drowning her tears of frustration. It just wasn’t right!

Aurelie appeared in the doorway and, in the brief opening of the door, she heard the filing past of the crowd, excited talk among men who rarely got excited, signaling the end of the Face-Off.

“He’s done,” said Aurelie, coolly. “You can go and meet him now.” She looked resigned to all that had happened. Yet another stage performance for her, this was nothing new.

“Was it . . . a success?” asked Kate, wiping her face with a tissue.

“Depends what you call a success,” she said, turning away to avoid the sudden opening of one of the loo doors behind Kate. Aurelie disappeared, just as a blonde woman in a white suit came out, one of Paracato’s assistants. She washed her hands in the sink, professionally, as if she’d just done an operation. From a pocket in her suit she pulled out a spicy-pink lip pencil and shaded in her lips. She ran her fingers through her hair, studying her reflection in the mirror, all the while maintaining a hint of a smile. She nodded at Kate and left.

Kate stared once more into the mirror. It was still Kate staring back at her. Still the girl in Brian Palmers’s office who had tried to fix her hair up to make herself look more like . . . what exactly? One of the beauty editors she was now trying not to be?

eighteen

She was ready to write. Six bottles of Diet Coke and two packets of Wrigley’s Juicy Fruit lay on the desk before her.

The Flaming Lips played softly on iTunes, the volume switched to just below the halfway mark—not too intrusive to write, but loud enough to keep her awake. The hardest part had been persuading the bellboy to move her desk—clear the lamps, letter racks, and hotel directories and reposition the bleached wood desk away from and at a right angle to the window in a nod to something Lise had told her about feng shui, and all your ideas flying out of the window. He’d wanted to call Housekeeping, but from previous experience Kate knew that could take ages. She didn’t have ages. The Diet Coke had been the next hardest thing to find, as they only had Coke Zero, but they got there in the end. Someone in the kitchen with the same Diet Coke obsession had apparently been stashing it away secretly in case Coca-Cola were about to render it obsolete in the face of their new hero diet drink. The final touch was a packet of Marlboro Lights, still in their cellophane, waiting like some postorgasmic reward for when she’d finished her masterpiece. She hadn’t smoked for a while, but it was comforting to know she had backup.

Her bag was packed, just in case she had to work right through the night. She knew she didn’t need them anymore, but she couldn’t resist scooping up the free toiletries and depositing them in a laundry bag. The bath cap and shoe shine kit might also come in useful, although she couldn’t remember when she had last shined her shoes, but with winter coming up, who knew, there might be knee-length boots to polish.

There was one last thing to do. She sat on the bed, kicked off her shoes, and picked up the small notepad and pen by the phone. She hit Play on the answerphone.

“Message one, received today at nine a.m.”
"Then Lise’s voice:
“Hi, doll, it’s me. Haven’t heard from you in a couple of days, wanted to check you’re okay. Can you call me? Am away at the weekend, need to tell you all about it. It’s important, so call me!”

Dirty weekend with Steve. Kate hit Erase.

“Message two, received today at nine fifteen a.m.”
Her mum:
“Hello, Kate, it’s Mum here. Can you call me, please? All’s well, but need to talk to you.”

Well, they could wait. They obviously hadn’t heard about the CNN thing. Probably better that way—what would Lise have made of it? She pressed hard with the biro on the pad in a circular motion, but it wasn’t giving up any ink.

“Message three, received today at five p.m.” His
voice:
“Hi, Kate Miller. It’s JK. Where are you, gorgeous girl? I was expecting to meet you after today’s little show—did you like it? Your assistant tells me you’re off tomorrow but that I will be seeing you soon. Great news. Call me!”

Erase. Erase. Erase.

Kate shivered. Every time he’d called her at the studio she’d seen his number come up and had passed the phone over to Clarissa.

“Tell him I’m sorry about this afternoon, but we were shooting and, er . . . there was a panic at the studio,” she’d said, and Clarissa, annoyed that her efficiency was being slandered in this way, nonetheless dutifully got rid of him.

There had been no panic at the studio. When she’d returned, still shaken from the conference, Blondie’s “Heart of Glass” was pumping out from somewhere, the camera was whirring and clicking, and the photographer was making approving noises. Everyone was entirely absorbed in what was happening in the corner of the white cavern; no one looked up as she entered the room. She dropped her bag on the floor and walked over to see what they were looking at.

Her name was Petruschka. It was funny how Kate hadn’t even registered her name before, but here she was coiled in the white cavern, naked except for a gold anklet with the word PERFECT engraved on it (that had been Clarissa’s idea; Kate thought it was a little tasteless, but hadn’t wanted to shoot her enthusiasm down as it was such a rare occurrence). Kate was mesmerized.

She’d seen women naked before, of course she had. Lise was always taking her clothes off at any given opportunity. Charlie, the ex-boyfriend, had even had a collection of what he called “soft” pornography. When Kate had forced an argument with him and issued an ultimatum—the mags or her—her mum had tried to explain. “Well, to be honest, darling, you should be grateful that’s all it is,” her mum had said. The women in the mags had been appealing, even she could see that, but not exactly beautiful, rather more like the girl behind the counter at Boots, or Lise even. They looked like they had that bobbly rough skin on their thighs and bottoms, this being the age before “exfoliation” was popular.

Petruschka naked was another thing altogether. She lay slightly on one side, her shoulders square to the camera. Her skin was a honey-colored bronze, the quintessential shade of Californian that all the fake-tan companies tried to emulate. Her hips were womanly, curving round between waist and legs in the shape of a ripe peach. The makeup artist had applied some kind of sheen effect to her shins and thighs, so that her skin took on a golden translucence, but Kate got the feeling it was probably like that naturally anyway. Her legs were long, neither too skinny nor too muscly, but moving ever so slightly in synchronicity with the photographer’s utterances. An ankle would lift up now, a knee would bend upward, only by a millimeter or so, but just enough to tense a muscle or relax into a new pose. Her stomach was tight, her tummy button an “inny”; a mane of blonde-brown hair in glossy waves skimmed her shoulders; her mouth opened and closed as her eyes narrowed and widened, her audience captive to her now seemingly ever-changing moods. Her breasts . . .

Her breasts. Kate blushed as she took them in, drank them in with her eyes. She almost had to look away; it couldn’t be right to feel like this when looking at another female, could it? She had to be professional, had to look, but it was embarrassing, and yet how stupid to feel embarrassed. Petruschka’s breasts were full, evenly tanned, upturned, moving naturally when she moved. Occasionally the model would bring her hand up to conceal them, her eyes looking coy and teasingly at the camera. Kate blushed again. They were evenly spaced, with a natural cleavage that wasn’t forced or too deep, just . . . comfortable? Comfort did come into it, because you wanted to touch them, wanted to feel how soft, how responsive . . . would the nipples spring to attention the way they were now with the fan softly blowing on her? Oh, lucky, lucky girl, imagine what life would be like with a pair of breasts like that? What you could do with breasts like Petruschka’s!

“You okay?” asked Clarissa. The team was staring at her. The photographer held his camera to one side, waiting for her to get on with whatever she’d arrived to do. Petruschka looked mildly irritated at having been interrupted, but kept her pose.

“Oh, God, yes!” she said. “I mean, they look great. I mean,
you
look great. You look great, Petrusch . . . ka, is it? Sorry . . . yes, well done, everyone, well done!”

“Can you guys get me some water?” asked Petruschka, causing everyone to rush to the kitchen at once.