Chapter 6 #3
“My mom used to read voraciously. I don’t think my father and sister have read a book in their lives.
She says she’s too busy living life to want to read about it.
I guess that’s one way to look at it. All my mom wanted was for me to get a good education.
She would have been thrilled that I went to MIT.
I couldn’t believe it when I got in, with a full scholarship.
My school counselor really went to bat for me.
” Listening to her, Jason felt faintly guilty, as he always did, for the easy childhood and youth he had had, going to the best private schools and great colleges, with enthusiastic and unfailing support from his parents.
He was always deeply grateful to them now that he realized how terrific they had been, and he enjoyed spending time with them when he went back to New York.
He tried to get back a few times a year.
It was harder to get to Vermont to see his sister, in the small town where she lived.
They spent holidays together in Connecticut with their parents since neither of them was married or had kids.
“Do you like sports?” Jason asked Billie, wanting to get to know her better.
“You mean playing them, or as a spectator?” she asked him with a mischievous look.
“Both. I play a lot of squash and tennis, and was crazy about basketball and baseball as a kid, and football too. I wanted to be a professional basketball or baseball player when I was in school. I play on a baseball team at the paper, and I love going to games. Do you like baseball?” He looked hopeful when he asked.
He was a rabid Dodgers fan. And he went to Lakers games whenever he could.
“I like it a lot,” she said. “I like football too. I went to the Harvard games a few times. It was really fun.” She was enjoying him too.
He just seemed like a happy, well-balanced person.
He hadn’t had a tormented childhood and didn’t hate his parents, which seemed rare.
The result was a happy guy who didn’t have a chip on his shoulder or a grudge against the world.
It made him fun to be around. She hadn’t had an easy childhood, but she wasn’t angry about it, and she had had unconditional love from her mother until she was seventeen, which had given her a good start, even if she had been alone ever since. The early years had counted for a lot.
“I’ve got season tickets to the Dodgers. If you like, you can come with me sometime.” He usually took one of the reporters he worked with, who were happy to get a free seat at the game.
The hour she had for lunch went by quickly, and he walked her back to the hospital.
He had gotten several texts during lunch, and had to go to a trial that afternoon.
There was a hostage situation in progress in East L.A.
The paper had sent him a text about it, to make him aware, but they had sent others to cover the story who were in the area at the time and could get there faster.
There was always a story breaking somewhere. There was no lack of crime in L.A.
“Thanks for the nice lunch,” she said to him when they got to the hospital. “It was an unexpected treat.”
“I’m all over the city. I’ll text you when I’m in the neighborhood next time and we can do it again.
” He smiled at her. “And I’ll see you at the apartment.
Maybe we can go for a swim one night after work.
I’ll call you for the next Dodgers game,” he promised.
There was a lot to look forward to. She waved as she disappeared into the building, and he walked to where he had left his car, looking pleased.
Their lunch together had been even better than he’d hoped.
And he couldn’t wait to take her to a Dodgers game.
Alex had three patients for simple Botox shots that day, two of them with Voluma for their lips, which was his preferred brand.
The treatments were easy to administer and the patients were young and starting early.
All three of them were under thirty and wanting to stop the signs of age before they started.
He had a patient for Thermage that afternoon, which used radiofrequency energy and had longer-lasting results than some of the other treatments.
He was using it on a patient for the third time, and she loved it, although it was more painful than most of his protocols.
He did a collagen thread lift after that, which required steady hands to inject the tiny threads loaded with collagen under the skin along the jawline.
As the collagen was released over time, it appeared to lift the patient’s face almost like a facelift, and you could see the results within days.
He finished the afternoon with a laser liposuction patient to dissolve fat around the patient’s face and neck.
It was one of the more expensive treatments he administered and like all of them required skill and experience.
It was less invasive than normal liposuction, which required the removal of fat with a tube and could be dangerous and cause life-threatening infections.
With laser lipo the body naturally eliminated the fat, so there was less risk of complications or infection.
All of his patients that afternoon were back for repeat treatments, and had been ecstatic with their results the first time.
Alex loved working on the women he knew well, who were well versed in what to expect.
The fearful, anxious first-timers were sweet but it took a lot longer to deal with them, to allay their fears.
He was wonderful with his patients. They all loved him and trusted him completely.
The proofs of the photographs for his ad campaign came in that afternoon. He was using them for a brochure too, listing and explaining all the different services he offered, like a menu for patients to choose from, to make it simpler for them by explaining the procedures.
The photos of Mickie were fabulous. He picked one for his first ad immediately, and for the front of the brochure, and he loved the before and after.
He was going to put them in the brochure.
He ordered all of it, and showed the proofs to Mickie when she came to his apartment that night.
She sat staring at the before and after for a long time.
“Shit, I hope I don’t look like that at forty. Can you do anything to prevent that, starting now?”
“Not at nineteen, my love. We can talk about it in ten or fifteen years, depending on how your face holds up.” It didn’t bother her for a minute that the photographs they were using were dishonest, that the photograph of her as she looked now was not an “after,” but very much a “before.” And the fact that the before photo was a total lie no longer even occurred to her as she studied how her hair looked.
She didn’t confront Alex about it. He was fine with it too.
As far as he was concerned, the ads were a form of art, and whatever he and Mickie did was part of the artistic process.
It would make his patients happy in the end and reassure them that they would get fabulous results too, just like Mickie.
The pure dishonesty of it didn’t bother either of them.
The end justified the means in their minds.
They were reassuring patients of the quality of service, and promising great results that Alex was sure he could deliver.
He told her they were going to a film premiere on Friday night, and asked her to buy another fabulous dress, and gave her his credit card to do so.
He felt comfortable doing that now. Several times that week, she came to the office and met his patients.
She was warm and fun and lively, and helped the new patients relax before they went in for their treatments.
Seeing Mickie and believing she was thirty-three made them ready to leap onto the treatment table if they would wind up with results like hers.
She played the part of ambassador well, and Alex was proud of her and happy he had hired her.
So was Mickie. She loved being around him, and when he had a break between patients, he would open one of the supply closets with his code, and they would have sex between the shelves, being mindful not to break any bottles or do any damage.
Mickie had never had as much fun in her life as she was having with Alex.
She was on top of the world with him. The movie premiere on Friday exceeded her wildest expectations.
They walked the red carpet, and were photographed continuously, Alex in one of his designer tuxedos and Mickie in a black sequined dress that molded her body like shimmering lava.
They were in the Style section of the paper the next day.
They were becoming the it couple, and had broken the sound barrier into the Hollywood set that Alex wanted access to.
He had placed ads in People, Vogue, Harper’s Bazaar, Vanity Fair, and Entertainment Weekly, online and on all the newsstands. Mickie’s face was everywhere and she looked incredible. She was as ecstatic as Alex about the press they were getting. And her modeling agency liked it too.
Jason asked Billie about it on Saturday, as they lay on deck chairs at the pool at their building. Mickie hadn’t been home all week. She was staying at Alex’s apartment, and texted Billie that she was fine.
Jason showed Billie a photo of her at the movie premiere, and asked about it.
The caption said “Renowned plastic surgeon Dr. Alex Addison with model Michaela Banks, the iconic face of his new nonsurgical esthetic center Bellissima,” and the photograph showed them on the red carpet with Mickie in the black sequined skintight gown. She looked like a black mermaid in it.
“Is that your sister, Mickie?” Jason asked her. Billie glanced at the photograph and nodded.