Younger (10 page)

The big living room was simply furnished in Ikea modern. “The lease is in Susanne’s name. It’s her name on the bell, Susanne Francke. She’s gone to Turkey for a month with Hana, who’s Turkish, so both their rooms are available. There is also Paola, who’s Italian. We’re like the UN. Come, I’ll show you the rooms.”

The two bedrooms were tiny, the apartment obviously having been broken up over the years. Each held a bed, chest of drawers, small bedside table, and a wheeled rack for clothes. There were hooks on the wall, with a shelf over them. “Not much space, but this is typical of Berlin,” Kirsten noted.

There was a decent-sized bathroom with a tub and a smaller bath with a shower, as well as a long, narrow kitchen.

“I like it,” Anna said when the tour ended. “And it’s three hundred and fifty euros for a month?” Pretty much the cost of a single week in a hostel or cheap hotel, and no need for a passport.

“
Ja
, either bedroom. Utilities included. And I would need three hundred and fifty euros as a deposit.”

“That’s perfect! An American I met on the train needs a place, too. Can I call her from your phone and have her come over?”

They waited for Chyna over mint tea in the living room. Kirsten explained that she was studying German for a year before going back to Denmark to teach, then asked “Lisa” what she did. Anna pulled out the old inheritance line. “I thought this might be my only chance to see the world. Not that my grandmother left me much, but since I ditched my awful job, I’ve been traveling on the cheap: London, Paris, Amsterdam. A month is good—long enough to get to know a place.”

Kirsten grinned. “What was the awful job?”

“Supposedly the assistant editor at an interior design magazine. Instead, I was a glorified file clerk. Not so glorified, either. Bumming around Europe was a better option.”

When the buzzer sounded, and Kirsten went to let in Chyna, Anna shook her head in bemusement at her own inventiveness. Still, when all this was over, she thought she really
would
try writing a novel. If she survived.

Chyna loved the apartment, so Kirsten went over the house rules. They were simple: no going into one another’s bedrooms without asking, no dates brought in without agreement, and no overnight guests ever.

They got to meet Paola before they left. Small, dark, and friendly, she, like Kirsten, spoke impeccable British-accented English. “In Italy, you have the choice of British or American teachers for private English lessons,” she explained when Anna commented. “We choose British if we wish to sound classy.”

“I’ll have you talking unclassy pretty soon,” Chyna promised, and with that, the deal was done.

“Come at ten tomorrow and I’ll have keys,” Kirsten said when they were leaving.

“What’s your plan, then?” Chyna asked Anna when they were sitting in a café over big salads that evening. “You’re outta here in a month, right?”

“I might leave even sooner if my boyfriend can take a few weeks off and wants to meet someplace else,” she said, laying the groundwork for any sudden departure.

“Not going back to the States?”

“No plans yet. Right now, I’m happy to be here.”
And to be alive,
she added to herself.

It was only eight o’clock when they got back to the hostel. “What now?” Chyna asked as Anna pushed the button for the elevator. “Want to come check out a club later? I’m having a drink with these Aussies I met earlier, then we’re going out. Would you believe some clubs here have happy hour from two to four—in the morning? Mega-awesome, huh?”

“Early to bed for me. I ran all over town today. But have fun.”

“Oh, I will. And I’ll try not to crash into the furniture when I come in!”

Anna could still hear Chyna’s high-pitched laughter as the elevator doors closed behind her. Maybe she’d be glad to get away from so much youthful exuberance at some point, but the girl’s enthusiasm was cheering. Chyna also kept her from being easy to spot. That might not make them bosom buddies, but it made her almost as good as a real friend.

Chapter 7

The rest of that first week at the manor house was more of the same, with the addition—starting on Day Two after a prebreakfast piece of fruit and cup of tea at half past six—with a full workout with Joe, a former United States Marine turned exacting personal trainer. Joe’s specialty was getting stars in shape for movies, and Anna soon understood how he could turn any quivering blob of jelly into muscle in record time.

She was puzzled that all these coaches were so incurious about her. No one asked any questions. Nor did they say anything about their own lives.

She was nosy. She decided Fleur would be the easiest nut to crack, so in between discussing trends, she tried a little casual pumping.

“Do you coach people like this all the time?”

“No, not really.”

“So how did my people get in touch with you?”

“The usual channels. You know.”

“Mmmn. And your next job? Is . . . ?”

Finally, Fleur snapped. “Look, Lisa,” she said, her voice rising, “I need this gig. And, as I’m sure you know, part of the agreement is that I can’t talk about anything except what I’m here for. So please don’t do this.”

“Oh, God, I’m sorry, Fleur. You must think the whole setup is weird anyhow.”

“If your producer has money for all this”—her sweeping gesture encompassed the house, the lessons—“the rest is none of my business. He must know what he’s doing.”

After that, Anna shut up and submitted to her coaches’ supposed expertise, though she was doing little more than humoring them. When the end of the week finally arrived, she thought objectively that she was moving and sounding more like a younger woman, had a bit better grasp of current lingo, and could tell the difference between bands previously unknown to her. But she considered most of the training a waste of her time and Barton Pharmaceuticals’ money.

At the end of the week, she celebrated with a festival of old films from back when she actually had been young, movies perhaps no one that age now had even heard of, much less seen, with one common theme: becoming someone else. Watching movies like
Educating Rita
and
Zelig
was her way of not thinking about the next day, when she’d be driven somewhere unknown to meet some mysterious doctor who would begin stripping the years from her face. Who wouldn’t be anxious?

Anna didn’t sleep well. Her skin was tight and literally cracking; she was comfortable only on her back. When she dozed, she dreamed her face had turned into a chicken’s, complete with beak; she pecked futilely and then realized Anna the chicken was pecking at the face of a young Anna, each tap of the beak making that face older.

At six o’clock, she gave up. No workout today, to enable her to stay “relaxed” for her procedure. After showering, she put on the most comfortable of the few clothes she’d brought, sweatpants and a shirt. Then she sat and waited, without even bread and water because she’d be getting light twilight sedation for the procedure.

Aleksei, in his usual chat-free zone, drove along back roads still shrouded in fog. When after about twenty minutes, they reached a road construction barricade and a “Diversion” sign and she saw Aleksei bang his hand on the steering wheel, she almost grinned at his showing human emotion. He pulled off the road to make a call on his cell phone, then turned the car and followed the detour sign. Anna had no idea where they were or how far they’d gone. She saw a signpost saying “Dibden Village, 10k,” then just hedgerows and fields skimming by until Aleksei turned sharply into the back driveway of a small, institutional-looking building.

The way the chauffeur stood by the car watching her as she walked to the back door and rang the bell irked Anna. Did he think she was going to run off? A plain, middle-aged woman wearing a nurse’s white tunic and pants let her in. “Hello, Lisa,” she said. “I’m Marianne. Come with me, please.”

Anna followed her down a hospital-green hallway to a small elevator. They went up a floor, then down another hallway, through a miniature operating room, and into a changing cubicle with a metal chair in it. “Take off everything but your knickers and socks, and put on the gown in that plastic wrap along with the paper shower cap and slippers on the counter there. I’ll be back in five minutes. Okay?”

Just minutes later, Anna was flat on her back on the surgical table in the other room, an IV needle in her arm. Marianne loomed over her to peer at her skin appraisingly. “The retinol did a good job. I’ve started the IV drip, so you’ll be in dreamland in no time at all. Now you’re going to feel a little chill.” Anna smelled nail polish remover and felt something cold on her face. “This is just acetone, to remove all the oil from your skin,” Marianne explained, swabbing down her face and neck—scrubbing it, really—with gauze pads. “And then all you’re going to . . .”

“Lisa, can you hear me? Time to wake up.” Marianne was gently shaking her shoulder.

“When’s the doctor coming?” she mumbled.

“Oh, he’s been and gone. All done! Now, don’t touch your face, okay? Just for today, he’s put bandages on to make the creams absorb faster, so don’t be scared when you see a mummy in the mirror. Don’t worry about your hands and arms. No laser there. Just some dermabrasion, and you’ll have extra cream on them today but no bandages. I’m coming back with you to your house. In the morning, I’ll show you how to use the treatments.”

“My house? Oh, oh, yeah, the house. You’re going to stay? Maybe we can watch a DVD later . . . Can I have a drink of water now?” Woozily, she tried to move, but Marianne’s firm hand stopped her.

“Just relax for a few minutes. I’m going to strap on this oxygen mask, okay? It will clear your head so you’ll be able to get up and not feel dizzy or have a headache. Okay?”

Anna nodded, thinking how strange it would be to be a nurse and have to keep adding “okay?” at the end of everything you said. She wondered if she’d ever see the doctor, whoever he or she was.
Secrets,
she thought.
So many secrets, and I don’t even know which ones I need to keep
. Then she was asleep.

By the time they got back to the house, she could walk, as long as she held on to Marianne’s arm. She was led straight to her bedroom, where no sooner had the nurse helped her put on her pajamas than there was a tap at the door, and Mrs. McCallum entered with a bowl of broth and glass of ginger ale. “We’re not eating together?” she asked Marianne, feeling childishly disappointed.

“Oh, no, we can’t do that.” Marianne grinned, but the smile was impersonal. “After all, you’re the patient, and I’m the staff. I’ll check on you later.” She fluffed up the pillows on the bed. “Sleep only on your back, propped up, okay?”

Marianne’s idea of checking on her seemed confined to stopping by before dinner and asking, “Everything okay, Lisa? Want something to help you sleep? No? Let me just put some cream on your arms then, and I’ll pop in to see you in the morning.”

Alone again, Anna sighed and blinked back tears that might run into the gauze on her face. She should be thrilled—she was going to be a millionaire, look better than she had in years, and have interesting and challenging work—but that didn’t make her feel any less lonely. Her physical isolation matched the sense of psychic isolation she felt. She missed her friends and her home. She didn’t, she realized, miss her leased Mercedes, her expensive wardrobe, her
things
.

Before going to sleep, Anna watched the latest top-grossing vampire movie that wasn’t George’s, figuring if she actually were twentywhatever, she would have seen it.

It wasn’t bad. Well, other than its premise, which as far as she could tell was that life wasn’t worth living after about thirty.

That part really sucked.

Anna was still in her pajamas when Marianne “popped in” the next day after breakfast. The nurse had brought her backpack, from which she took a camera, some jars, and a pair of blunt-edged surgical scissors. “Now, let’s have a look at you. Might be a bit pink, so don’t be shocked.”

As she heard the scissors snip-snip-snipping through gauze and tape, Anna anxiously wondered what was beneath. Would the same old face be staring back at her? Would the changes be minimal? Would she be scabby and burnt? Would it be like a horror film, in which a face like Madame Barton’s had replaced her own?

“There we go! Very good. Look straight at me, and we’ll get some photos.”

Anna let herself be annoyed at how nurses talked to patients as if they were toddlers. But when Marianne coyly asked, “Shall we have a look?” her heart leapt in anticipation.

She hurried into the bathroom. In the mirror over the sink, her face stared back.

Her skin was pink, yes, though no worse than a bad sunburn. There were still lines, and it could be just wishful thinking making them seem fainter. But the texture, the tone! Overnight, her skin seemed to have plumped up. It was dewy. It was radiant.

She saw Marianne’s reflection appear behind her. “So? What’s the verdict?”

“I think it’s good.” Anna leaned forward and peered at herself. “My neck feels a little tight.”

“That’s because you stretch the skin when you move. You want to avoid jerking your head around for a day or two as it heals. It will loosen up. And that puffiness will go down. Now, let me get the products and show you how to use them. You need to do it religiously, Lisa. Just as I say, or the results won’t last and won’t accelerate. Understand?”

Anna nodded, and Marianne fetched the jars from the other room, then explained in detail how and when to use each one. “No workout today, and it’s best if you stay indoors and take it easy. You can resume exercise—but no heavy lifting—and your normal life tomorrow,” she said. “Just stay out of the pool and out of the sun, and wear sunblock and a hat outdoors in the daytime even if it’s cloudy. Follow the regimen until Friday night, but do nothing Saturday, no breakfast again and just water on your face, and I’ll see you at the clinic, okay?”

Alone, Anna stayed in front of the mirror. It was almost as if she were being born again, as if the old Anna Wallingham were being erased, replaced by . . . what? Who would be looking back at her from this mirror next week? Would it be Anna? Or Lisa? Or some new, unknown person younger than both?