I laugh. “I bet you can be.”
“Oh, you know I can be.”
I laugh again, shake my head. “You’re proud of it?”
“No. But I am who I am, and I know who I am, and I know what’s important to me. My work is important to me. Coming here, helping others, that’s important to me. Parties, luxury cars, and first-class travel? Not so important.”
“What about Alexis?”
He looks at me and then shrugs.
Not so important. Ouch.
“What about you?” he says. “What are your dark secrets, Ms. America? Or do you not have any?”
“Oh, God, I have hundreds.” I see his expression, grimace. “Not hundreds, but dozens.”
“Tell me one.”
“The network has informed me I’m getting old,” I say. “Between the not so subtle encouragement that I should get some work done, and the addition of a young co-host to the show, I’m feeling fifty-eight instead of thirty-eight.”
“Max should nip that in the bud.”
“Max was one of the forces behind the plastic surgery talk. He was pushing me to go to you to get a face-lift.”
“Max is a dick,” Michael says bluntly. “And he said a face-lift specifically?”
“Eyes, forehead, mouth, cheeks… pretty much tighten up the whole thing.”
We sit in silence for a few minutes, and then Michael asks, “Do you think your face needs work?”
“Yes, and no.” I feel like a traitor just saying the words. “Mostly no. I like my face.”
“So do I.”
I can feel his sincerity, and then I tell him a real secret. “My mom was thirty-eight when she died. I’m thirty-eight now— “ I break off, take a quick breath. “And I know it’s irrational, but there’s this little part of me that tells me my face is all I have of her. If I change it, cut it, I worry I’ll lose that connection to her.” As well as having the work botched. I’m terrified of being turned into something clownish, something laughable. “Am I crazy?”
“No.” He gives me a reassuring smile. “Paul Ekman, one of the world’s experts on facial expressions, said our expressions link us to our families. As children we imitate our mother’s smile, we stare fascinated at her expressions. Families look alike because they mirror one another’s expressions.”
“Yes! That’s it. That’s exactly it. I’m afraid I’ll lose that family resemblance. With my grandmother gone now, too, there’s no one left. There’s just me, and it’s crazy and scary.” I chew on the inside of my lip. “What about your family? Are they still alive?”
“My mum’s gone. She died of complications from cancer treatment when I was fourteen, and my dad sent me to live with friends of his in L.A. I ended up going to UCLA and then UCLA’s med school and just never left.”
“I’m sorry about your mom.” I reach out and touch his shoulder near his chest. “I was fourteen when my mom died. It’s a hard age to lose your mother.”
“Very.”
I’m quiet as I think about Michael’s past and how we’re far more similar than I would have imagined. His mom was Irish, and mine was South African. He was sent at fourteen to Los Angeles from Bolivia, and I was sent to boarding school in Natal. But within a year we both ended up in California. We were just at different ends of the state.
“Your mom’s death influenced your decision to become a doctor,” I guess, puzzling over the pieces of his life.
“Yes. I was so angry I couldn’t help her, it was my duty to help others. Call it atonement— ”
“You were fourteen.”
“Still felt responsible. She was my mum. I was a man— ”
“Fourteen.”
“My job was to protect her.”
I fight for control. It takes me several moments and then several more. “Why not oncology, then, why plastic surgery?”
“Her double mastectomy was performed in a government hospital in La Paz. It completely disfigured her. She didn’t heal properly. My dad used to say the grief of being turned into a road map killed her. I know now it was infection that wasn’t treated right. But I vowed years ago to learn how to do it properly to make sure no woman would go through what my mother went through.”
And I suddenly know who Michael is. Not the suits. Not the fancy practice. Not the ironic curl to his lip.
He’s a boy who lost his mom, and he has missed her as much as I’ve missed mine. And his life has been shaped by her death.
“And I always thought you were about silicone,” I say huskily.
“The show Dr. Hollywood, Surgeon to the Stars probably didn’t help that image.”
“No. But it’s easy to forget that plastic surgery isn’t always about vanity.”
“There’s nothing wrong with a little vanity. Beauty is important. It’s valuable. It makes us feel good to see beautiful things. But too much vanity can ruin lives. I’ve met far too many women who spend their lives torturing themselves for not being perfect. But there is no perfect body. There never has been. And there never will be. Perfection doesn’t exist.”
My heart thunders in my rib cage. Perfection might not exist, but I can’t help thinking this man just might be perfect for me.
Chapter Sixteen
The next few days pass in a blur of interviews and taping and editing, interspersed by meals and laughing and vicious Yahtzee games.
I feel as if I’m back in college. Fierce and passionate and so alive. I love being part of the group, and one lunch in the middle of a particularly intense debate, I grab Michael’s arm and call him Keith. And then I realize what I’ve said.
Michael does, too.
He glances down at my hand on his arm, then up into my face. I shake my head faintly. I’ve never done that before. Have never called anyone Keith. Why did I do that now? “I’m sorry,” I apologize. Part of me wants to run, yet another part needs to stay. I feel as though I’ve been running for a long time now, and I need to stop. I need to stay put. So that one day I can move forward.
“I think you must remind me of him.” My voice is husky, and I don’t know where to look. “And that’s a compliment.” I struggle to smile even as my heart pounds with raw emotion.
I could fall in love again. I could. But would it be safe?
But is love ever safe?
Suddenly he cups my face with his hand. “I hope you don’t do it,” he says quietly. “Don’t get work done. You’re beautiful. You’re exactly the way you should be.”
He’s just paid me the most amazing compliment. “And that’s your professional opinion, Doctor?”
His gaze meets mine. He drops his hand. “I’m not your doctor. Would never be your doctor. Couldn’t. Not even if you paid me.”
I smile slowly. “A man with principles.”
“A man who could never do anything to hurt you.”
I open my mouth, but I have no words, not when my heart races so hard that I hurt.
And I do hurt. Because there’s so much I want and feel and need. Love, love, love.
“Tomorrow, would you be interested in going to dinner?” he asks. “There’s a little restaurant in Chipata that serves some decent food. It’s a fifty-minute drive, but it’s going to be a dry night and it’d be fun to have a change of scenery.”
“Yes. What time?”
“I’ll pick you up from the center at six.”
“I’ll be ready.” It’s not until I’m in the van heading to the community center that I realize tomorrow night is our last night here. The day after tomorrow we head to L.A.
Michael picks me up at the community center in the old blue Renault again, and as he steps from his car I take a quick breath. The collar of his white shirt falls open at the throat, revealing taut muscles and tan skin. His khakis hint at strong quadriceps. This is a man I’d love to see naked.
When he sees me in the doorway of the center, he smiles slowly, and it’s such a slow, sexy smile that I suck in air, remembering the kiss at Big Bear.
I remember the feel of his lips.
And the shape of his jaw. And the texture of his skin. Even tipsy, I remember that one kiss and remember how I didn’t want it to end.
“You look beautiful,” he says, opening the car door for me.
“You’ve cleaned up pretty nicely, too.”
The beat-up Renault car lacks air-conditioning, so we drive with the windows down. My hair blows, and the windshield gets splattered with bits of sticky, flaky mud.
The drive is every bit as bouncy and bone jarring as I feared, yet with Michael at the wheel, the jolts make me laugh. Michael makes me laugh, and I push at my billowing skirt and tug at my hair.
“Is the air too much for you?” Michael asks, downshifting to avert a deep pothole full of pumpkin-colored mud.
“No. It’s perfect.”
Michael shoots me an amused smile, and I just smile back. But it’s true. I wouldn’t change a thing.
Not the bright hot twilight with the sky turning red above the burning sun, or the barely running car with the missing shocks, or my white sundress turning orange in places from all the swirling dust.
“Ever been married?” I ask, tipping my head back to look at him.
He swerves around another pothole, but the back tire hits a puddle and sends up a spray of dirty water. “I made the plunge once. It didn’t work out.”