Looks to Die For by Janice Kaplan Read Free Book Online Page A

only one that was ever filed against me. That was back when I was a resident and a woman who’d had a rhinoplasty didn’t like the way her nose turned up at the end. We went to mediation, and instead of a financial settlement, the chief surgeon I’d been with agreed to do it over for her.”
    “Nothing else?” asked Chauncey.
    Dan shrugged. “Maybe I’ve been lucky. But I’m also not one of those surgeons who shows up to cut and never talks before or after. I’m involved with my patients. I try to build a relationship with them.”
    Chauncey cleared his throat. “What kind of a relationship?” he asked.
    Dan stared at him, getting his implication. “Professional,” he said curtly.
    Chauncey tapped his pen against the desk. “Fine. But when you talk about getting involved with patients — well, all I can say is you have to be careful.”
    Dan sat back, silent. I’d heard him explain a thousand times that he became a doctor because he cared about people, not paychecks. Medicine had changed, but he wouldn’t. He took calls in the middle of the night, rushed to hospital bedsides, and worried about surgical complications at all hours. I used to tease him that if I really wanted his full attention, I should be his patient, not his wife. But it was just a joke.
    “Is the risk of malpractice why you limited the cosmetic side?” asked Chauncey, moving on.
    “Not really.” Dan didn’t elaborate. The Vogue editors still lined up at his door, but lately he’d pared his practice to focus on serious surgery, treating accident victims and the badly scarred. He got kudos for his global good works, but the more he said no to cosmetically inclined clients, the more they clamored, begging for his magic touch.
    “Let’s talk about a few personal things now,” Chauncey said, adjusting his glasses. “Any particular problems in your marriage I should know about?”
    I popped up from my chair. “Listen, I think I’ll wait outside, after all. That way Dan can be completely honest with you.”
    Dan shook his head. “Sit down, Lacy. There’s nothing I can’t say in front of you.”
    I sat. This jack-in-the-box act was starting to get a little old.
    “Lacy and I have an unusually good marriage,” Dan said. I waited for more, but that was it. Actually, it wasn’t bad.
    “Just the normal arguments that any couple has?” Chauncey asked.
    Dan thought for a minute. “I guess that’s right. Nothing major for the neighbors to complain about.” He gave a little smile. “Lacy’s good-natured and even-tempered. The kids can be difficult and I can be moody, but she puts up with that and keeps all of us going.”
    Wow — nice testimonial. Definitely made up for not sleeping last night.
    “You and Lacy have been married how long?” Chauncey asked.
    “Almost eighteen years. We got married when she was twenty-two and I was twenty-five. Pretty young. I was still in medical school. My father didn’t approve.”
    Didn’t approve? Dan’s father had raged against me like King Kong on the streets of New York. He fumed because I’d gone to a state college on scholarship, had loans to repay, and had a bank account balance of zero. Three strikes even before he knew I was an art major. Dan’s tight-lipped mother was too cowed by her husband to suggest that a good marriage needed more than a hefty 401(k). Dan told his father he loved me because I was funny and free-spirited and opened his soul to the world. His father said to worry less about his soul and more about his surgery. Since neither of his parents would come to a wedding and my single mother couldn’t pay for one anyway, Dan and I got married on a beach in the Bahamas surrounded by a few friends (including maid of honor Molly) and a crowd of college kids on spring break. In one of the wedding photos, Dan was holding a ring in one hand and a Bud Light in the other. He claimed it was the first — and maybe only — time in his life that he was raucous, rowdy, and