Dancing in Red Shoes Will Kill You (9 page)

“He thinks Devin or Karen or I might have something to do with the red shoes thing.”

“What?” Gray said. “That
you
might have put them up?”

I shook my head. “No, that we might be targets because we're wearing red shoes in the ballet.”

Gray's face turned serious. “You don't think you're in any danger, do you?”

“I don't know. I thought it was just someone making trouble, but now I'm starting to wonder.”

Gray leaned toward me. “But you're not scared, are you? I mean, it's not affecting your dancing or anything, is it?”

I shrugged. “I don't think so.”

Gray started to say something, but then Timm called the step trio to the stage. I got up and adjusted my
leotard. “Thanks for the book,” I said.

“No problem. Keep it as long as you want. But remember—
Bulimic Barbie
.” He swept his hand in the air as if the words were already on a marquee. “
The Ballet
.”

I pretended to put my finger down my throat and
bourréed
toward the stage steps.

 

That night I decided to bring up the subject of plastic surgery with my mother. Paterson had already gone to bed, and my mom and I were alone in the kitchen when my dad walked in. I thought he might leave when he figured out what we were talking about. He usually let my mom do the “girl talk.” But, surprisingly, he stayed.

“I've had several patients who've had plastic surgery,” he said, pulling out a kitchen chair.

I wasn't crazy about being compared to someone that my father counseled on a weekly basis, but I figured I'd listen.

“I think you have to ask yourself some questions before making a decision like that,” he said. His voice suddenly went from parent tone to professional speak.

“What questions?” I said.

“What do you expect to gain from this surgery?”

“Smaller breasts?”

He laughed. “Yes, but how do you think this will
change your life? Are your expectations reasonable?”

My mother set out three cups of mint tea. I lifted the cup, but the steam was too hot on my nose. “I don't understand what you mean.”

My father grasped his mug. “What do you think will happen if you have this surgery? Instant self-confidence? Instant ballerina stardom?”

“I'm not that stupid,” I snapped.

The steam from my father's cup rose like fog. “I know that. But these are the questions you have to ask yourself.”

I thought about it. I was a good dancer. Maybe even a great dancer compared to some of the others at Farts. But…I hesitated before trying to explain. “Becoming a ballerina involves a combination of talent, looks, hard work, and luck. The only one of those things that most dancers have any real control over is the hard work. But in my case it's different.”

My mother sat in the chair next to me. “What do you mean?”

“Usually in ballet if you have a problem like bad turnout or short muscular legs with a too long torso, you can't change that. But I can change my body to fit the ballerina mold. It's an opportunity to give myself another advantage.”

My parents nodded.

“I don't think this surgery will guarantee my success,” I said. “But at least I'd have a shot at it. Without the surgery, I don't. No way.”

My father took a sip of tea and nodded. “I see you've thought about this a lot.”

I shrugged, warming my hands on the mug. I guessed it had been on my mind, subconsciously. More than I'd thought. Suddenly I was saying things that I'd never really put into words. My father, the psychologist, really
did
know what he was doing.

“There's one more thing you should think about,” he said. “What about your self-image?”

My tea was finally cool enough to drink. I felt the warmth in my throat as I stared at him questioningly.

“I think you have to examine exactly how much of your identity is tied up in having large…umm…”

My mother finished his sentence. “Breasts.”

I sat back in my chair abruptly. “I'm not some slut who flashes them around in tight shirts if that's what you mean.”

My mother patted my hand. “Your father knows that, sweetie. But he's just trying to point out how different you'll look.”

My father nodded. “Yes, yes. I just mean…how do you see yourself? Do you see your…umm…
breasts
as an integral part of your identity?”

I hadn't really thought about that. It was too bad I couldn't go around without them for a day or so. Someone who wanted implants could just stuff her bra with balloons to see how it would feel, how people would react. But there was no way I could take mine away temporarily. For me, the decision would be permanent.

Before I could admit I wasn't sure about that one, my mother intervened. “I think what you really need to do is talk to a professional about this.”

“I thought dad was a professional,” I said.

My mother laughed. “I mean a plastic surgeon.”

My father got up from his chair. “Your mother's right. It's always good to get several opinions.”

My dad was always looking for several opinions. That was one of the things I liked about him. Once he and my mom had decided Paterson and I were going to go the arts route, he researched the best places for us to take lessons. He'd even looked at the last five years of standardized test scores at Farts before giving in to Patersons's begging.

“We'll make some calls tomorrow,” my mother said. “Ask around about who has a good reputation.”

I pulled out the rumpled business card that I'd stuck in my pocket before starting the whole conversation.

My father bent over to look at it. “Andersen Marlowe.
He has an excellent reputation. Several of my patients have gone to him.”

Now this was the stuff Dad was good for—knowing about doctors, not ballet and boobs. I mean, he and my mom both appreciated my dancing and Paterson's art too, but I knew neither of them could identify with loving something so much that you didn't mind doing it twenty hours a day if you had to. They liked their professions well enough, but teaching and psychology just weren't the same as dancing and drawing.

My mother picked up the card and stuck it by the phone. “We'll call tomorrow, then.” She smiled at me. “Okay?”

I shrugged. “Sure, sounds good.” I looked at my father. “Thanks,” I said. And I meant it. But I really hoped that would be the last time I had to engage in conversation with my father about my intimate body parts.

S
omehow my mother had managed to get an appointment for that Friday. I was glad I didn't have to think about it for too long, but mad that I was missing seeing Gray. He and Paterson were meeting to talk about the next day's protest strategy session. I definitely would have preferred being with Gray talking boycotts than being with a plastic surgeon talking boobs.

The waiting room didn't have that funny smell you usually associate with doctors's offices. It smelled normal, whatever that is. I was really starting to hate that word
normal
. I'd never realized how much people threw it around all the time. The reason I was sitting in this doctor's office was because my breasts apparently weren't
“normal.” Until Miss Alicia had given me Dr. Marlowe's card, I hadn't really seen myself as abnormal.

I looked down at the paperwork my mother was filling out—things like insurance company numbers and whether I'd ever had gall bladder surgery. There was a list of about fifty things that could be checked off: allergies, asthma, bleeding, colitis…. It was a virtual alphabet of afflictions. I didn't know so many things could go wrong with one body. I was pretty much only worried about two things—and both were double D.

Mom and I had told Paterson we had to drive to a special store to find a bra to wear with my costume. I wanted to make my own judgments about the surgery and Dr. Marlowe, without Paterson bombarding me with her theories. I understood her position, but I wanted to get another opinion—even if it meant being on the same side of the argument as such vastly different factions as Timm with two
em
s and a group of flat-chested high school girls who seemed to see me as some sort of rival in a bizarre mammary match. And, as much as I hated to admit it, Miss Alicia was right. There might not be a place for me in the traditional world of ballet. I loved dancing, loved the feel of a perfect
pirouette
or an effortless
grande jeté
. Why else had I spent all these years in a dance studio, with sore muscles and bloody toes, if I wasn't going to be a ballerina? But did I
have to be a “traditional” ballerina? Was there a place for me—and my boobs—somewhere else in the dance world?

I looked around the room and tried to take my mind off the fact that in a little while I was going to be talking to a perfect stranger about my breasts. An older couple sat on the pink and purple flowered couch next to ours. I was trying to figure out why they were there when the nurse called both of them in, leaving my mother and me alone in the waiting room.

“What do you think they're having done?” I said.

My mother shrugged. “I don't know—maybe their kids got them joint face-lifts for a fiftieth anniversary present. Maybe a two-for-one deal.”

I wasn't sure if she was serious. Sometimes after teaching third grade all day, the sarcasm she'd been holding in for hours just spurted out. “Would
you
want a gift like that someday?”

“Not unless I'm really hideous. Was it you or Paterson who had chicken pox?”

I could see my mother was preoccupied with the paperwork, so I searched for something else to distract me. As I reached for a magazine, I noticed a small poster on the table that read
WHO SAYS ONLY FAMOUS PEOPLE HAVE PLASTIC SURGERY
? Under a picture of an attractive blond woman it read
CERTAINLY NOT SUSAN
.
SHE'S ONE OF OVER A
MILLION AMERICANS WHO CHOOSE TO IMPROVE THEIR LOOKS
—
AND HOW THEY LOOK AT THEMSELVES
—
THROUGH PLASTIC SURGERY EACH YEAR
.
SHE CALLED THE AMERICAN SOCIETY OF PLASTIC SURGEONS TO FIND A PLASTIC SURGEON
. I guessed she wasn't as fortunate as I was to have someone shove a doctor's card in her hand after suggesting a rack reduction.

As I surveyed the room, I found several similar posters. There was:
WHO SAYS ONLY PEOPLE OVER FORTY HAVE PLASTIC SURGERY
?
CERTAINLY NOT CHRISTINE
. And then there was:
WHO SAYS ONLY WOMEN HAVE PLASTIC SURGERY
?
CERTAINLY NOT JIM
. Jim was wearing white boxers and a white bathrobe, opened in front. He looked like a soap opera star. I wondered if the picture had been taken before or after the surgery. Upon further reading, I learned that Jim was
ONE OF
70,000
MEN IN THE
U
NITED
S
TATES WHO CHOOSE TO IMPROVE THEIR LOOKS EVERY YEAR
.

I did the math—a total of one million Americans who'd had plastic surgery minus 70,000 men. That meant that every year more than 930,000 women thought they needed to enhance their appearances. I pictured the student body at Farts. There was no way that many of the guys were better looking than the girls.

After I finished learning about Susan, Christine, and Jim, I searched the coffee table for a magazine. There were all sorts of choices—
Seventeen, Soap Opera Digest, GQ.
I wondered if at the last minute, patients picked out a face or body they wanted and brought the magazine in
with them. I pictured the doctor looking down at the magazine and then up at the patient and shaking his head sadly.

I didn't feel like looking at computer-enhanced pictures of beautiful people, so I picked up a Sesame Street book instead to try to remember what it was like before I became “abnormal.” I turned to the first page. At the bottom, under the picture, someone had written,
WHO SAYS PLASTIC SURGERY IS ONLY FOR REAL PEOPLE
?
CERTAINLY NOT BERT AND ERNIE
.

I chuckled, thinking I'd like to be friends with the person who wrote that. I was about to show my mother the book when she got up to give the nurse the first page of the paperwork. The nurse thanked her and gestured toward the door to the examining rooms. “You can go right in now.”

I turned back to my new friends Susan, Christine, and Jim. I wondered which of their body parts had tingled as they walked through the plastic surgeon's office for the first time.

As I hoisted myself up onto the vinyl examining table, the wide white paper rustled beneath me. I was glad the nurse hadn't handed me one of those skimpy paper gowns—I could never get them to stay closed in front. I looked down at my feet, dangling from the table. It reminded me of the times my mother would let me sit
on the kitchen counter while she was cooking. Had I known I'd eventually be dangling my legs from a plastic surgeon's table and contemplating breast reduction surgery, I definitely would have appreciated how simple my life was then.

My mother, who was finally done filling out more forms about my most intimate bodily functions, put the clipboard down and sat in the chair next to me. “Are you nervous?”

“A little.”

“Don't worry,” she said. “You don't have to make any decisions today. It's just a consultation.”

I rested my hands on the table behind me. The crunch of the paper was deafening in the quiet room. Packages of gauze, sponges, rubber gloves, and humongous Q-tips stood neatly against the back of the desk. I imagined the doctor standing on a stool, cleaning the ears of a gigantic patient, though that probably wasn't what the Q-tips were for. Above the desk, next to the medical degrees and diplomas, there was a poster of a cartoon. It pictured a truck with the word
LIPOSUCTION
written on the outside. A huge snakelike hose extended from the back of the bulging truck and through the front door of a place called Fairtree Medical Center. Ahh, I thought, a little plastic surgeon humor. Was that a good thing? Did I really
want a funny plastic surgeon?

“You know whatever you choose to do will be fine with your father and me,” my mother added. “This is your decision.”

I wondered how such an important thing could suddenly be my decision. After so many years of “Look both ways before you cross the street” and “Make sure you call me before you leave the party,” how could something as important as altering my body parts suddenly be just “my decision”? It didn't seem right. For my whole life, my parents had told me the same things over and over, making sure I did exactly what they wanted me to do, and then when I really needed them to make an important decision for me, they were like, “Sorry, we're outta here.”

I was just about to say something to make my mother feel guilty about all that when the door opened.

Dr. Marlowe didn't look the way I'd expected him to look, which was sort of like Jim, from the picture in the waiting room. I figured if he had access to free plastic surgery, why not look like a soap star? But Dr. Marlowe looked, well…normal. Medium height and build. Short hair. No beard or mustache. No visible signs of abnormality. But then again, he probably got a discount for fixing those things.

After the introductions, the first question Dr.
Marlowe asked me was, “What are your goals?”

I hesitated. “To be a principal dancer in a ballet company.”

Dr. Marlowe smiled. “I meant surgically, but you've answered my next question, why you want smaller breasts.”

My dangling feet swung involuntarily. I wasn't sure if I was supposed to answer.

Dr. Marlowe continued asking questions, sometimes duplicating the extensive biography my mother had just written. “What about family history?”

I looked at my mother.

Dr. Marlowe turned toward her too. “Are there any other members of your family with large breasts?” I had never met anyone, man or woman, who could say the word
breasts
so many times with such a serious face.

“My great-grandmother was rumored to be large,” my mother said, adding, “I guess it skipped a couple of generations.”

She made it sound as if it were some kind of genetic defect, like being color-blind or having eleven toes. If Dr. Marlowe hadn't had such an easy manner about him, I might have felt like a freak.

He asked me a lot more questions, and then said he was obliged for legal and medical reasons to tell me all
the things that could go wrong. I braced myself.

“There's a low incidence of complications,” he said, but then quickly added something about anaphylactic shock. I wasn't sure what that was, but it didn't sound good. The look on my face must have concerned him, because he quickly assured me that in nineteen years, he'd never seen it happen. He went on about the slight chance of losing nipple feeling as well as the ability to breast-feed. By now my feet were swinging beneath me like crazy.

During our whole conversation, Dr. Marlowe was writing furiously in a folder, but at a certain point he came toward me with his pen. I thought for a second that he was going to write on me, but he moved toward the paper sheet I was sitting on instead. “This is the type of scar you will most likely have,” he said. He drew a straight line and what looked like a large smile underneath it. “It's called an anchor scar—because it looks like a boat anchor.” He then drew another type of scar, one with a straight line and a circle on top. “This one's a lollipop scar,” he explained. “But because of your size, you'll most likely have an anchor scar. The trade-off is size for scars, and the benefits are proportion and function. It will be easier to exercise, and you'll get rid of the rashes underneath your breasts.”

I wondered how he knew about the rashes. Then I
realized how many breasts he must have seen. In fact, a lot of the guys at Farts probably thought Dr. Marlowe's profession was some kind of dream job.

“Now what size were you thinking of?” Dr. Marlowe said.

I looked at my mother. She stared at me with a blank look. I had never really thought I'd have an opportunity to choose my size. “Umm, maybe B, or A, or somewhere in-between.”

The doctor wrote in a folder.

“Wait a minute,” I said. “If I go between sizes, will I be able to find a bra to fit me?”

“Certainly,” he said. “It'll be much easier than it is now.”

That was good news. Every time I finally found one that fit, the company would stop making it. And the salespeople weren't any help either. Once when I'd asked a department store clerk if she had a bra that would make me look two sizes smaller, she'd answered, “Honey, I sell brassieres, not delusions.” Then she showed me something called The Minimizer. It sounded like a movie with a heroically challenged action star. I ended up buying two of them, but it didn't make any difference. My breasts still hurt when my feet left the ground.

Dr. Marlowe continued talking about what the surgery would entail: about five hours in the operating
room, ten days of recovery, two weeks of sponge baths, yuck.

“I have to warn you,” Dr. Marlowe said. “Sometimes when girls in their teens have this surgery, there's a chance they aren't finished growing. But I think it's probable that you won't get any bigger.”

I hadn't even thought of that possibility.

“It's good that you're thinking of this now,” he continued, “when it's just your decision.”

“What do you mean?” I said. “Who else's decision would it be?”

Dr. Marlowe looked up from his folder. “I've had cases where a husband doesn't want his wife to have the surgery for some reason or other.”

I could imagine what Paterson would say about that.

“Usually I tell the patient to split five pounds of apples into two bags and connect them with a rope, then have the husband wear it around his neck with the apples in front. After a few hours, the husband gets the idea.”

My mother laughed knowingly.

Dr. Marlowe skipped the physical examination, saying that if I decided to have the surgery, he'd take measurements at the next appointment.

That was a relief.

He started to explain some things about insurance
to my mother, but I had already stopped listening. I couldn't help thinking of that phrase “Damned if you do; damned if you don't.” I finally understood what it meant. If I went ahead with the surgery, I would be giving in to the demands of the whole ballet world that refused to let me and other women be individuals, to look the way we did and still perform. But if I didn't have the surgery, I would be giving in to all those jerks at school who didn't care about me at all, but just wanted to ogle. And I'd never be able to dance in a ballet company. Either way, I was letting someone else dictate the design of my body, the same way fashion designers somehow get women to fit their squared-off toes into pointy shoes.