Faces of Fear (20 page)

Maybe she should show it to her mother. That would do it—her mother would hate the dress, and she'd be right, it was way too old for her, and nothing at all like the kind of stuff she and her friends in Santa Monica always wore. The most dressed-up they ever got was a skirt and blouse instead of their usual jeans and shirts.

Except she wasn't in Santa Monica anymore, and her new friends never wore the kind of stuff she used to wear all the time. Pushing the still unopened history book aside, she left her desk, pulled down the zipper on the bag, then shed the jeans and cotton sweater she'd been wearing that day.

The dress shimmered even in the daylight of the room—under the lights of a birthday party, it would be spectacular. She took the nearly weightless dress gently off its hanger, careful to do nothing that might render it unreturnable, and slipped it over her head. The straps dropped onto her shoulders, and she delicately adjusted the fit.

She stood on tiptoe, seeing how her legs would look if she were wearing the high heels the dress demanded. And as she looked at herself in the mirrored wall surrounding the closet door, she had to admit that Tasha and Dawn were right; the dress was absolutely spectacular, and except for the bodice, it actually looked right on her.

There was a soft knock, immediately followed by her mother's voice, muffled by the heavy wood of the bedroom door. "Honey?"

Alison hesitated, feeling like a child caught with her hand in the cookie jar, then let her heels drop back to the floor. She hadn't done anything wrong; in fact, the next thing she'd intended to do was ask her mother about the dress. "C'mon in," she called, bracing herself for what she was sure would be an instant rejection. "You better see what I bought."

The door opened, Risa stepped inside, caught sight of the dress, and stopped short, staring at her daughter in silence.

Seconds ticked by.

The silence stretched.

"You hate it," Alison finally said, her voice cracking as she realized the dress looked so bad on her that her mother couldn't even bring herself to speak.

But then her mother was smiling.

"Hate it?" Risa repeated. "How on earth could I hate it? It's absolutely gorgeous! I just never dreamed you'd choose something so dressy."

"Dawn and Tasha picked it out for me," Alison said, rising back up to her tiptoes and piling her hair up the way Crystal had told her in the store. "What do you think? Is it way too old for me?" But even before her mother answered, Alison saw the approval in her eyes.

"Given the occasion, I think it's perfect," Risa said. "Your friends have good taste. All we have to do is find you the right shoes and get your hair done, and you'll be the prettiest girl at the party, which is exactly as it should be."

A flood of relief flowed through Alison, but as she turned back to the mirror to see what her mother was visualizing, she caught sight once more of the bodice, and her relief drained away. "I don't know," she said, her fingers going to the loose top. "This doesn't seem to fit quite right." She eyed herself gloomily in the mirror. "In fact, it doesn't fit at all."

Risa pulled four tissues from the box on Alison's nightstand and tucked them into the bust of the dress. "Better?" she asked.

"Oh, that'll be great—I can hardly wait to hear what Tasha and Dawn have to say about me running around with my bra stuffed with Kleenex," Alison said. Still, if she imagined the tissues were flesh instead of paper, the profile was definitely improved.

Echoes of the conversation she'd had that afternoon with Lynette Rudd and Marjorie Stern recurred to Risa. "Suppose it wasn't Kleenex?" she said. "What if it was you?"

Alison pulled the tissues out of her bodice and sourly eyed the reflection of her flat chest. "Why do I think that's not going to happen?" she asked. "I mean, given how long it's been since I hit puberty, it's pretty clear that I'm just not going to get anything else up here."

Again Risa remembered the conversation earlier in the day. "Not naturally, perhaps," she said carefully.

Alison turned to look at her mother. "What do you mean, ‘not naturally'?"

"Well, there are other ways of gaining what nature isn't supplying," Risa said, still not sure how Alison might react to what she was about to suggest. But her daughter beat her to it.

"You mean implants?" she asked, her eyes widening.

"Well, it's just a thought," Risa began. "But apparently a lot more people are doing it than I ever thought."

"Including Tasha and Crystal," Alison said. "And Dawn even had her lips done."

"Really," Risa said.

For a long moment mother and daughter simply looked at each other as if each were wondering which of them was going to be the first to step across the line that had suddenly appeared in front of them.

Finally, Risa spoke again. "I suppose it wouldn't hurt to talk to Conrad about the possibilities. I mean, he's the professional."

Alison wasn't quite sure she'd heard right. "You'd really let me get implants?"

"Well, we can certainly talk about it," Risa said. "Everything is worth at least
considering,
isn't it? Besides, talking about them doesn't mean scheduling surgery." She turned Alison around to face the mirror. "Of course, your father might not agree."

"Dad doesn't have to agree with everything," Alison said, speaking to her mother's reflection. "And he doesn't even need to know that we're talking about it, since talking doesn't mean scheduling."

"How about if I talk with Conrad later?" Risa asked. "Then he can take a look at you and give us his professional opinion."

Alison felt a shiver go through her at the thought of Conrad Dunn seeing her topless, let alone touching her. "No," she said. "I don't want Conrad looking at my breasts! That's just too weird."

Risa rolled her eyes. "For heaven's sake, Alison—he's a doctor! A professional. And he's the best there is. Who else do you think should do it?"

"I don't know," Alison said, rubbing the shiver from her arms. "It's just too creepy."

Risa sighed. "Well, at least give it some thought, all right?"

"I guess," Alison replied, but Risa could hear the doubt in her voice. She slipped off the dress and held it up. "And I'm going to keep the dress. At least for now."

"You should. You look fabulous in it."

"
Almost
fabulous," Alison amended archly. Then, as her mother left the room, she hung the dress in her closet, closed the door, and eyed herself in the mirror once again, twisting and turning to see her torso from every angle.

There was nothing wrong with her waist, or her buttocks, and when she rose to her toes, her legs took on a very nice shape.

She just didn't have anything on top to balance out everything else.

She cupped her hands under her small breasts and lifted them up into mounds.

And that, she decided, is how they should look. Or even, perhaps, maybe a touch larger.

FOR THREE DAYS RISA HAD TRIED TO FIND THE RIGHT WAY TO BRING up the subject of Alison's breasts with Conrad, and for three days she'd failed. She told herself that the time wasn't quite right, or that there wasn't enough time to discuss it, or used any one of a dozen other excuses not to have the conversation she knew she had to have. But when Alison came down to breakfast while she and Conrad were already at the table on the fourth morning, Risa knew she couldn't put the talk off any longer.

Alison wore her usual jeans, and a tank top that clearly showed that her bra had increased by at least one cup size. She'd watched Alison's bra look a little fuller each day, but today there was no mistaking it. Alison had bought a new bra and was filling it with something other than her breasts.

And she looked good. Even that minor change had turned her from a still flat-chested adolescent into the beginnings of what promised to soon become a curvaceous young woman.

"Lit test this morning," Alison said after bolting down her orange juice and a fistful of multivitamins. "And I need to get to the library first, because I won't have a chance later." She grabbed a piece of dry toast from the buffet and quickly ate it, perching on the edge of her chair.

"Okay, honey," Risa said. "Put a banana in your backpack for later."

Alison grabbed one from the buffet. "Got it," she said, then kissed her mother's cheek, eager to get going.

"Have a nice day," Conrad said.

"You, too," she called over her shoulder as she went through the swinging door to the kitchen to meet Maria for her ride to school.

Conrad shook his head, smiling. "Now
that
was a whirlwind breakfast."

"
That
was a typical teenager," Risa corrected.

"She sure adds a lot of energy to the house." He leaned back in his chair. "I like it."

Risa eyed him carefully, trying to decide whether he meant it. "She can be a handful," she said, offering him a chance to voice any doubts he might be harboring about having taken on a teenager at this stage of his life.

"I think I can handle it," he said. "In fact, I've been thinking about a birthday present for her. Sixteen is a special age."

Risa put down her coffee cup, recognizing the perfect moment to broach the subject that had been on her mind for days. "I have an idea," she said.

"Oh?" Conrad's brows rose with curiosity. "I was thinking a car."

"Which I'm sure she'd love, but I'm not sure I'd love her having, at least for another year. But there's something I think she would rather have but is too shy to tell you about."

Conrad frowned. "What?"

Risa saw no point trying to be delicate. "Breast implants."

"Really?" Conrad smiled. "So you, too, have noticed a curiously quick expansion in her bra size?"

"How could I miss it?" Risa countered.

"Well, it's a very easy fix," Conrad replied. "Implants are nothing anymore."

"
Noth
ing?" Risa echoed doubtfully.

"Okay, not nothing," Conrad agreed. "But with Alison I'd do a transaxillary incision." When Risa only looked blank, he chuckled wryly. "That's a small incision in her armpit. Then I create a channel, go in with an endoscope, and position a bladder exactly where I want it. Once it's in place, I fill it with the amount of saline required, and that's it. A little pain of course, but only a tiny scar hidden under the arm." He glanced at the date on the morning paper folded next to his breakfast plate. "In fact, if we move reasonably quickly, she'd be pretty much healed up by the time of her party."

Risa's eyes widened in surprise. "That quickly?"

"Shouldn't be a problem," he assured her with a shrug. "Want me to put her on the schedule?"

Risa shifted uneasily in her chair. "It's sort of a touchy subject."

"What is?" Conrad frowned, then reached over to cover Risa's hand with his. "Tell me."

"Well, you're her stepfather, and she's—well, she's feeling a little shy about having you see her breasts."

Conrad chuckled.

"No, really," Risa said. "I'm not kidding. So what would you think of someone else doing the procedure?"

"I'd think that's not going to happen at all," he said flatly. "Do you really think I'd trust anyone else with Alison's surgery?" When Risa said nothing, he patted her hand reassuringly. "Don't worry about it," he told her. "Believe me, over the years, I've become as good at talking to teenage girls as I have at working on them. I'll talk to Alison—maybe even tonight."

Wondering why it had taken her three days to work up the courage to have what turned out to be a simple conversation with her husband, Risa leaned over and gave him a long, slow kiss full of what she hoped he would perceive as a promise of more to come at the end of the day.

"Maybe," he whispered, still close enough that she could feel his warm breath on her lips, "I should make Alison's breasts look just like yours."

She remembered, then, what Lynette and Marjorie had said a few days earlier. "Or maybe you ought to do a little work on mine, too."

Conrad chuckled for the second time that morning. "Work on you?" he asked. "Why? Let's just make Alison perfect, okay?"

Though Risa said nothing, his comment stung, and kept stinging for the rest of the day.

* * *

CORINNE DUNN KNOCKED softly on her brother's office door, then turned the knob and entered.

Conrad was quietly dictating surgery notes into a handheld microphone, so she sat on the brocade sofa next to his desk, a file folder on her lap, and waited for him to finish.

Eventually, he put down the microphone, clicked off the machine, and turned to smile at her. "And a very good morning to you," he said. "Sorry about that—just had to finish before I lost my train of thought."

"Like you've ever lost a thought in your life," Corinne teased. She held up the folder. "The foundation's gotten a request to fix a facial mutilation on a young woman from Bakersfield."

Conrad's brow rose skeptically. "Bakersfield? Since when did Bakersfield become a center of birth defects?"

"Okay, so it isn't as heart-tugging as a cleft palate from Honduras," she agreed, "but it's still an interesting case. The girl is only eighteen." She placed the file on his desk.

"What's the nature of the mutilation?" Conrad asked, leaving the file where Corinne had placed it.

"She was attacked while jogging. Whoever attacked her slit her throat and—if you can believe this—sliced off her eyebrows."

"Her eyebrows?" he echoed. "Now that is truly weird." He removed the before-and-after photographs of the girl from the file, set them on his desktop, and studied them. She'd been almost beautiful at one time, with shiny black hair and perfectly arched, beautifully proportioned eyebrows that he was sure had never seen so much as a tweezer, let alone any cosmetics.

"Something happened in the middle of the attack," Corinne explained. "Apparently, another jogger came along, and the attacker took off before he'd killed her. Neither the girl nor the other jogger got a good description, and they never caught the guy."

Conrad studied both pictures as she spoke. While the first was obviously a high school photo, the second one had been taken by a police photographer. It showed not only the bloody mess that had been her forehead, but the gash on her neck as well. A third photograph showed the girl with poorly done, uneven ellipses of skin grafts where her eyebrows had once been. "Good God," he muttered. "Who did this to the poor girl?"