Мэри Элис Монро – Girl In The Mirror (страница 11)

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!”

Behind him came the high-pitched welcomes of his mother and his sister, Rosa, and behind them, Rosa’s children. More slowly, his brother Bobby sauntered forward. As he embraced them one by one, he could smell the heady scent of a Mexican Christmas on their clothes, in their hair and lingering in their kisses. Dark chocolate, vanilla and oranges.