Girl In The Mirror

Michael fingered again the envelope in his coat pocket. He had received the letter from his father early today and carried it with him, rereading it several times. His father hadn’t written him more than three letters in his whole life. Most of the letters he’d received were from his mother. Her English was better, and she would kindly include his father’s opinions. “Your father and I are proud of your good work at school.” “Your father sends you his love.” “Your father and I wonder why you don’t come home more often.”

His father, however, rarely lifted a pen to write a letter. Michael never judged him harshly for it. Truth was, he understood that his father was too exhausted from lifting a shovel all day to even consider lifting a pen into his large worn and callused hands.

He had received his first letter when an essay he’d written on the Constitution was published in the local newspaper. The second when he graduated from college. “A college graduate!” his mother had crooned, her breast as puffed as a hen’s. The first ever from his family. Michael’s entire extended family had gathered to celebrate the occasion at a noisy fiesta with plenty of singing and laughing. He remembered with chagrin the suspicious glares from the “gringos” neighbors. And now this one. In this third letter, his father, Luis, had called Michael home.

“My hands,” he had written in his own hand. “They are bad now. They no do what they must do. And the customers, they are not happy. So many young men come with new ideas. Ha! They know nothing of the soil. Of the plants. But they draw pretty pictures for los gringos who know even less nothing than they do.

“I need you now,” he wrote, underlining now. “To help the family. You know how to draw those fancy pictures. You know how to talk the English good. Most of all, you know the soil. I need you. Tu. Miguel. My son.”

Michael shivered as a cold blast shot down his spine. Mi padre. He loved his father. And he missed him. Yet his father was asking him to give up his career as an architect to return to California and the landscape business that his father had started thirty years earlier. Asking him to return to his roots.

Michael closed his eyes against the memories. Roots. The soil. Black dirt under his nails. He ground his teeth. What did he want with roots? He was an architect. He built skyscrapers. Madre de Dios, he swore under his breath. He strove higher and higher into the sky. Miles—years—away from the soil. Away from the time he was scurrilously considered just another spic with a shovel. Wasn’t that why he’d left California? To sever the roots? To break with the culture that grounded him?

Michael lifted his chin and laughed loudly into the bitter wind. Fool, he was! Such roots could not be severed. He would return. He knew it. Like poison ivy, the roots of his family were invasive. They dug too deep. No matter how he fought to deny it, he was Mexican. It was his culture, his blood. It was who he was. And, more, he was a Mexican man. Machismo. A Mexican male could not be weak or cry about his pain. Machismo required that he honor his father. Machismo demanded that he remember the family.

To remember it all.

The Michigan Avenue office of Dr. Jacob Harmon was as glittering and impressive as his reputation. The waiting room had the cool, smooth elegance of crystal, and as with fine crystal, Charlotte felt afraid to touch anything. But her eyes took in everything: the forced paperwhites in a pinecone basket, the lovely petit point upholstery, and a pungent, silvery eucalyptus wreath for the holidays. Even the artwork was original, not like the cheap prints and peeling posters on the walls at McNally and Kopp. It made her feel that she’d come to the right place. She held her hands tight against her thighs, not willing to so much as move a single up-to-date magazine in the plastic-protected covering from its precisely ordered line. In the corner, her blue wool coat hung in shabby contrast to the other luxurious ones. It embarrassed her just to look at it.

“Miss Godowski? Come this way, please.”

The stunning brunette nurse led her to a small, shell pink examining room to take a thorough medical history. Then she was transferred across the dove gray carpet and left to roost in Dr. Harmon’s office. She thought all the glass and shiny chrome was rather cold and hoped it didn’t reflect the doctor’s personality. Charlotte was exceedingly nervous about the interview. She knew that the doctor’s psychological exam was as important as the physical one in determining if she was fit for surgery. And she just had to have the surgery….

After what felt an interminable wait, the office door swung open and Dr. Harmon came sweeping into the room with a billowing white coat, followed by another model-perfect nurse. Charlotte’s mouth fell open. The doctor appeared more a boy. He was short, small boned, with amazingly smooth skin for a grown man. How old could he be? she wondered. More to the point, how many operations had he done?

Dr. Harmon delivered a quick, piercing look as he passed her, then moved to sit behind the huge desk that only dwarfed him further. The nurse appeared attentive, even fawning, to Dr. Harmon as she presented him with the chart and a coquettish smile. She left without so much as a nod of acknowledgment to Charlotte.

Charlotte’s heart began to pound. She slunk far back into the chair and peered out at Dr. Harmon with a guarded expression. He appeared unaware that she was even in the office. He leaned far back in his leather chair and began reading her chart, flicking pages with sharp, quick precision. She thought of a sparrow picking at seed. Good hands for a plastic surgeon, Charlotte decided.

Gradually he lowered the manila chart and raised his gaze. It was as though a searchlight had been flicked on and was scouring every inch of her eyes, her nose, her lips and the awkward line of her deformed jaw. Charlotte didn’t feel embarrassed by the scrutiny because Dr. Harmon studied her with the cold focus of a clinician.

Then, as suddenly, his expression changed. The intensity dissipated, and a slight, practiced smile politely took its place on his face. Charlotte sat up. The interview was about to begin.

“Good morning, Miss…” He looked again at the chart.

“Godowski.”

“Ah, yes. Thank you. Miss Godowski. Your general health seems to be in fine shape. I’ll give you a complete exam, but I don’t anticipate any worries there.” He looked up again at her with a benign expression. “Suppose you tell me, in your own words, how you would like me to help you.” Dr. Harmon folded his hands neatly upon the desk and looked at her with a bemused expression.

Looking at his face, a face so baby smooth she wondered if hair ever grew on it, Charlotte was at a loss for words. “I…” She stammered and looked away. “I would think it’s obvious.”

The doctor only offered that same faint grin in reply.

She clenched her hands tightly in her lap. What could she say that he didn’t already see? He cocked his head as a prompt. Taking a deep breath, Charlotte blurted out the truth that hovered at her lips.

“I want to be beautiful.”

He furrowed his brows and pursed his lips in concern.

“I see,” he replied.

Charlotte flushed. Of course he saw, all too clearly, and no doubt he thought she was crazy. She shifted her weight, mortified to have released her innermost secret. “Well maybe,” she amended, plucking at her dress with trembling fingers, “maybe just sort of pretty?” She could hear her mother saying, “We’ll make her pretty, no?”

Dr. Harmon’s expression altered to reveal compassion. “Maybe,” he conceded. “In fact, quite possible.” Studying her face like an artist would a blank canvas, he continued. “There are changes I could suggest, but I’d like to hear your thoughts first. What specifically would you like to see done?”

Charlotte took a deep breath, blinking. He hadn’t laughed at her. He hadn’t said her dream was impossible, rather, he’d said “possible.” Did he have any idea how much hope he had just given her?

“Well…I guess…let’s see…” she stammered out. Then, raising her gaze to meet his, she said firmly, “My chin.”

“What about your chin?”

“I want one,” she said more boldly. “A real one that curves out from the jaw and rounds out under my lips. And now that I mention it, I’d like a jaw, too. One that rolls at a right angle from my neck. A separate entity, not the mountain slope that I have now.”

“And the rest? Your nose, your eyes, your cheekbones?”

Charlotte thought a moment. “No,” she replied. “God gave me those. They reflect my mother and my father, and I accept those as part of who I am.”

“Very good.”

He smiled, and Charlotte felt enormously relieved. That was obviously a right answer. She began to relax a bit, unclenching her fingers. She was aware that Dr. Harmon noted in that steel trap of a gaze every movement she made.

“How long have you been unhappy with your chin?”

“Forever. I used to think God shortchanged me on my face.”

“Shortchanged? That’s an interesting way to put it.”

“When I was a little girl, I believed that God made each of us separately, like a sculptor. The rest of me is just fine.” She blushed and laughed shortly. “I figured God ran out of time and had to push me through, leaving my chin unfinished.” She looked up, relieved to see an amused smile on Dr. Harmon’s face. “A child’s reasoning, I know,” she continued. “But I haven’t found another excuse yet. It just feels so…unfair.”

She paused, choosing her words. “I’m not looking to change all of me, Doctor,” she said in earnest. “I’m just asking you to finish what God started.”

Dr. Harmon didn’t speak for a moment. He seemed moved by what she had said.

“I’m pleased to hear that you don’t want me to change everything. That would be unrealistic. What you have is a congenital flaw in your jaw. It’s a rare condition, and correction will involve a long, sensitive procedure. The jaw will be cut and repositioned, bone grafts will be considered, and in extreme conditions such as yours, artificial implants are inserted to augment size and thrust of the jaw and chin. Simply moving bone is not enough. And follow-up with an orthodontist. It is, however, doable, and frankly, you have come to the right doctor. I specialize in craniofacial surgery.”

“I heard that. I also heard that you were the best.”

A flicker of satisfaction crossed his face, but he had the grace not to confirm the compliment.

“How does your family feel about the operation?”

“Family?”

He glanced at his chart. “It says here you live with your mother.”

“That’s right.”

“Is there anyone else important to you? A significant other?”

Charlotte sighed. “There’s only my mother.”

He raised his brows, determined that she would speak.

“I haven’t told her yet.”

His brows rose higher. “Why not?”

“I don’t believe she’ll approve.”

“Sometimes relatives don’t understand how important it can be for someone to have a particular operation. Nonetheless, it is important that you discuss it with her if only to determine the degree of support you can expect.”

“I can do this alone.”

“Miss Godowski, after any operation there is a physical and psychological stress that may affect both your stamina and mood. That is only natural.”

“I’m very fit. I have great stamina.”

“By this I mean many people feel blue and down for a while. You will need some support. I encourage you to talk to your mother. Honestly and frankly.”

Charlotte nodded in compliance. “I’ll try.”

“You will let me know her reaction?”

Charlotte nodded again.

“What if your mother opposes surgery? What will you do?”

Charlotte looked up and met his gaze squarely. “I will still have the operation.”

Dr. Harmon narrowed his gaze. “This operation means so much to you?”

“Yes. It means everything.” She forced herself not to shrink away from his questioning gaze.

“Why?” he pursued. “Why now? Usually women who are born with your condition have surgery at least by their adolescence. You are—” he again checked her chart “—twenty. What prompted you to seek help now?”

The image of Lou Kopp flashed in her mind. She couldn’t tell him that. Definitely not. And if she was honest with herself, Lou Kopp wasn’t the only reason why she wanted change. Truth was, he was just the tip of the iceberg, the proverbial last straw.

“I guess it just took me longer to grow up than those other women,” she replied slowly. Then, thinking of her old dreams, she added, “I used to believe that beauty was in the eye of the beholder. I had to. If I didn’t, I’d have to give up the dream that someday, someone would see beyond this face and love the person I am inside.” She looked at her shoes and her shoulders slumped. “I finally figured out no one will give me a chance with this face.”

“By give you a chance you mean…”

“Love me.”

“Ah, I understand.” Dr. Harmon tapped his fingers together. “And you believe that this operation will make someone love you?”

“No,” Charlotte replied, wise to the trap. “I know my face alone won’t make someone love me. That’s why I said ‘chance.’ All I want is a chance.”

“That’s a fair answer. So, in general, would you say that life treats you pretty well?”

She gave another crooked smile. “To be totally honest with you…no. This face hasn’t made life easy.”

“Have you ever seen a psychiatrist, or any other mental health professional?”

“I’m ugly, not crazy.” Charlotte dropped her hands and sighed. “I know you have to ask all these questions, Doctor. But I’m not asking you for some cosmetic repair here, like a nose job or a face-lift. I have a legitimate deformity. You said so yourself. I’m physically well. I exercise, eat well and have no known ailments. I’m a prime candidate. And though my life has been dull, Doctor, it has been stable. There are no skeletons in my closet. I assure you, I am not crazy.”

“No one is suggesting that you are. You must realize, however, that a surgery such as this, that can dramatically alter your appearance, will require psychological adjustment, too. It will take time—weeks, perhaps even months—for you to accept your new appearance. You may even experience a personality change.”

“I’m not afraid, Doctor. I’m ready for a change. I’ve waited for twenty years.”

She could tell by the way he tilted his head and stroked his chin that Dr Harmon was making far more than superficial observations.

“Very well, Miss Godowski,” he said, closing her chart. There was no warmth in the gaze he offered, but she hadn’t come here for that. Shining in Dr. Jacob Harmon’s eyes were the bravado and conceit of a supreme surgeon who had made a decision, who knew he could get the job done—and done better than anyone else. Charlotte sat straighter in her chair. Her excitement could barely be contained. She sensed that he meant to do the operation.

“One more question, Miss Godowski, and we’ll be done. Tell me. Do you believe that this surgery will change your life?”

She raised her gaze to his. “I don’t believe surgery will change my life. But it will make it better.”

Dr. Harmon allowed himself a smile then and she knew she’d passed the exam. When his smile broadened and his eyes twinkled, she knew she’d scored an A.

“Well then,” he replied, laying down his pencil and sitting up in his chair. “In that case, I don’t see why we can’t proceed.”

Jacob Harmon swiveled in his Eames chair while pouring over the computer images he had designed for Charlotte’s face. On the table beside him dozens of photographs of her face and body that he’d shot over the past week lay in scattered piles, along with X-rays, dental models and other diagnostic studies. He magnified the computer images and traveled the hills and valleys of her cheekbones to the gaping nostril hollows, then north to large blue lakes of eyes and the broadening plains of the brow. The doctor punched in coordinates and brought the whole face back again to gain better perspective of his new jawline design, the resulting curve of her lips and the triumph of her delicately curved chin.

Charlotte was a most challenging case. Her body…Remembering it now still gave him pause. If he had not known better he’d have sworn she’d been well worked over by teams of surgeons to achieve such perfection. It had everything. Symmetry, proportion, smoothness, color. Even her skin was perfect, like polished alabaster.

Still, she had something more that compelled him toward absolute perfection. She possessed an ethereal quality that brought her beyond mere mortal beauty. Charlotte’s eyes—they mesmerized him. Past her veil of shyness, Charlotte’s eyes held mystery.

Jacob returned to his sketches with renewed vigor. His fingers itched to work. Surgically, Jacob knew what had to be done. He’d reached the point where the physician’s work ended and the artist’s work took over. Crossing this line was what made his work poetry and so many other surgeons’ efforts merely adequate. He chuckled to himself, delighted at the concept of himself as an obsessed artist at work on his masterpiece.

For that was what she would be—his masterpiece. He knew that body image was a view of the body through the mind’s eye. But this girl wanted to be beautiful. And he would make her more beautiful than even she had dreamed possible.

Charlotte’s visit with Mr. McNally a week later was quick and businesslike. As she coolly told her former employer the reason why she was quitting her job, she watched McNally’s usually ruddy face pale and pinch. As she stammered out the sordid details, his lips thinned and his eyes narrowed in silent fury. At the end of the discussion, Mr. McNally did not call in Lou Kopp, as she had worried he would. He calmly assured her that she would be spared any further discomfort, then asked if she’d like a cab home.

As soon as Charlotte left, Mr. McNally hurried to his phone and dialed his lawyer.

“George, Kopp has been at it again. I had some girl in my office threatening to sue for sexual harassment.”

There was a long, rumbling sigh on the other end of the line. “What did he do this time?”

McNally briefly recounted the events, including the job threat.

“I think it would be better if we settled this one quickly,” the lawyer advised in a somber tone. “The other one may still go to trial.”

Charlotte was delighted later that the amount offered for settlement was enough to cover the cost of her operation. Charlotte’s lawyer had suggested more, but Charlotte wasn’t greedy. In fact, she was so relieved by the amount that she had to stop herself from thanking Mr. McNally.

“I only want one assurance,” she said as they shook hands.

McNally raised his brow.

“I want assurance that Mr. Kopp won’t do this to someone else. He’s plagued the women in that office for years.”

“I think we can take care of that.”

That was enough; she was not out for blood. Although she did break out in a grin when, a few months later, she learned that Mr. Kopp had left the company for “personal” reasons.

Four

On Christmas Eve, Michael Mondragon eased his rented Mustang convertible onto Interstate 5, stretched his arm over the car seat and began whistling along with the Christmas melodies playing on the radio. He had to admit, Christmas Eve was always best when spent with family. And he’d be home in time for Mama’s Christmas Eve dinner.

As he pushed beyond the gray tentacles of Los Angeles into the vertical green of the mountains and valleys that surrounded his home, he felt the long trip’s tension slide off his shoulders like rocky boulders. Chicago seemed a million miles away. An hour’s drive out, he turned off the main road to an obscure side road, barely fit for travelers. Those with money and sense kept to the main road that led to plush resorts and well maintained camping grounds. Only the adventurous few ventured along these roads that wound past small townships and farms and through forests of white fir, cedar and piñon, ponderosa and Jeffrey pines. He knew the names of all the trees and vegetation. It was, after all, the family business.

The road angled sharply, then dipped lower as he entered the familiar lushness of the valley he called home. It had rained recently; the road was slick and black sage lent a purple hue to a whole mountainside. The rain-scented wind stung his face and he could taste its sweetness. Michael drove steadily down the same road that, years ago, he’d driven trucks along from the Mondragon nursery to the yards of California suburbia.

Memories passed through his mind like mile markers as he drove by familiar landmarks of his youth. At a favorite lookout point, Michael slowed to a stop and turned off the engine. Dusk was setting in; the birds were calling. From his high vantage point, the valley lay spread before him as open and lush as a willing woman. He breathed in deeply, his chest expanding. Damn, but she smelled sweet, too.

Deep in the valley, the dark vegetation reached up to the sky, as though to grab the pale evening clouds that hovered low. “The hems of the angels,” he’d called them as a child. Michael had always felt that at this languid hour, at this mystical spot, he was within reach of heaven.

He sighed, running his hand through his thick hair. So many old memories stirred. It was here that he first found love in the cab of a Mondragon truck. Here that he’d made his decision to defy his family and take the Harvard scholarship. Here that he’d sworn that someday he’d leave these mountains and never return.

And he did leave. His life in Chicago was more than the few thousand miles away from his Mexican-American family. It was a world apart. Yet there lay the irony. Why was it, he wondered, that no matter how far he traveled or how much he changed, when he returned home he slipped back into old, familiar patterns? He knew that when he drove through the Mondragon gates, he would no longer be Mr. Michael Mondragon who’d graduated magna cum laude from Harvard, who’d earned a hard-fought-for position at a well connected architectural firm in Chicago, who’d billed more in one year than his father dreamed of billing in a decade. No, in a few moments more he would be poor little Miguel, the brooding outcast who’d dared to leave the family fold.

His large, manicured hands molded over the gearshift, tightening in resolve. He’d worked too hard, come too far, to play any more roles. When he saw his father, mother, sister and brother, he would make them see, this time, who he was. Now. Michael took a last look at the fading sunset, then shook his head as a bittersweet smile hovered at his lips.

He might as well try to catch the hem of the angels.

Once he passed the borders of his father’s property, he saw visible signs that the business had taken a bad turn. The outbuildings were slipping down, the stock was sparse and what was left didn’t have the luster and vigor that Mondragon plants were known for. His brow knit, but he traveled without pause past the hilly slopes of viburnum, euonymous and evergreens to the small stucco house with the red tile roof a hundred yards beyond. His father’s Chevy pickup was parked in front beside a few newer, full-size American cars. He recognized his sister’s wedding garter hanging from her Mercury’s rearview mirror.

The house looked pretty much as it always did. Mama’s bright yellow front door was trimmed with fresh pine boughs and holly, and behind Mama’s lace curtains, the lights were blazing and Papa was playing mariachi music. His heart skipped with anticipation—no, he had to admit, eagerness. No sooner had he pulled the car to a stop than the front door of the house flung open and his father stepped forward, both arms stretched wide and a toothy grin on his weathered face. Michael felt childishly pleased knowing that they’d been on the lookout for him.

“He’s home!” Luis boomed, his voice like thunder in the valley. “Everyone. Come out. Miguel, he is home at last!”