I try to remember when we last had a family conference. Last year to decide teen tour versus going back to my usual camp in Maine? The safe sex lecture with all of us looking out different windows? I mean, my parents and I discussing condoms and body fluids?
Maybe “conference” is the wrong word. Meeting? Discussion? Whatever, the three of us sit together in the living room. I’ve asked for this meeting, but the whole thing feels forced because it’s not a conversation around the table or a “how was your day” kind of deal.
My parents have no idea what this is about. Even though I’ve told them how I feel about my nose, they have no idea how much time I spend dwelling on what’s in the center of my face.
We’ll talk after dinner because I wouldn’t bring this up on empty stomachs. So moving along after roast chicken, baked potatoes, and salad, I help with the cleanup and that is noticed because it is so out of the ordinary. Our kitchen is small, with no room for three of us, so we bump into each other as my father brings in the dishes and stacks them on the crowded counter, while I scrape everything into the garbage, pretending I don’t mind how revolting congealed chicken fat looks on the plates. My mom loads the dishwasher, aware that I’d rather be somewhere else. She looks relieved when my dad and I finally walk out. After everything’s all cleaned up, we make our way into the living room, sit down, and get uncomfortable.
I look at them both straight on.
“I’ve put off this discussion for a while, but now I really need to talk to you.” I look out the window briefly, opening myself to psychic powers passing through, and turn back to them. I think of “pacing” from speech class and keep that in mind for maximum impact. “Since I was twelve years old, I’ve wanted to have my nose done …”
There, it’s out there.
They don’t laugh or snicker. My soliloquy goes on for about three minutes straight, maybe more. I can’t even remember because when you’re nervous, everything is a jumble. You don’t know what you spouted out or if it made any sense because your mouth is trying hard to keep pace with your pulsating brain. You become like a football player running with the ball. All you know is that you can’t stop or slow down, because if you do, you’ll lose the advantage and get tackled.
I tell them about Mel, how she credits the radically different way she looks and feels about herself to the surgery. Finally, I go through the reasons I want it done, ticking them off one by one, calmly, logically, methodically:
I ease into cost. The best doctors. How long the whole thing takes. Plastic surgery is more common than ever. It’s part of the culture now, like it or not.
I stop and suck in air. My dad’s looking at me. No nervous gestures that shout out he’s uncomfortable. My mom can’t seem to stop playing with the glass Easter eggs in the bowl on the coffee table, and it’s making me nervous. I keep glancing at her nose and then looking away.
At least they’re listening, and they’re not hitting me with questions, objections, risks, and stumbling blocks. At least not yet.
This is not going the way I expected, and the air in the room seems to grow heavier by the moment. My senses are tingling and I feel like I suddenly have supernatural powers so I can hear what’s inside everyone’s head and read their expressions.
I am coming to the end of stating my case, and I feel the way I do on New Year’s Eve when I’m filled with excitement and fear and a total awareness of what’s passing and approaching as the last, meaningful seconds of the last minutes of the year are ticking by and I’m counting down louder and louder and crazier, almost holding my breath. Nervous, anxious, fearful, as I welcome in a new era and the baggage of the unknown with it.
In just seconds, when the ball falls, I’ll know whether I’ll be entering the New Year and new era with a different face, or whether my world will shatter into a million glistening shards when I hear a resounding no and have to resign myself to staying the way I am until I’m old enough to live alone and pay for the surgery with my own money.
My mom clears her throat. Have they been listening patiently because they feel they should, not because they agree, and now they’ll begin their full frontal attack?
“This is surgery,” she starts. “There’s anesthesia.”
“I know that.”
She holds up her hand. She’s not finished. “I realize that more and more teenagers are doing it … It’s the thing these days …
The thing?
“But,” she shakes her head, “this is a time in your life when you’re changing …”
“It’s not something I just came up with. I’ve wanted this for years.” My body heats up. I’m breaking into a sweat, losing my cool, despite my resolve to stay calm and act mature, like I’m old enough to handle everything. Everything is starting to crash in on me like a giant wave that’s about to take me down. I blink hard to keep the tears behind my eyes. I won’t cry. I won’t let them do that to me.
She shakes her head. “Being in high school isn’t easy, Allie. There’s a lot of schoolwork, a lot of pressure to get good grades, to compete with everybody else and look your best and be popular. I know you care about your looks, but if you waited …”
“I don’t want to wait,” I almost shout. I’m tempted to rush out of the room and slam my bedroom door. I hate when they do this to me. My face is getting hot, blood throbbing in my head. I’m about to answer and let my anger out, but then at the very moment I take in a breath, I detect the slightest change in her face, a shift, an opening. It’s like the clouds have parted for just the briefest second and I see a flash of resignation.
Silence.
We look at each other as seconds go by.
“Well, if you’re absolutely sure,” she says. “If this is something you really and truly want—”
Everything inside me feels hot and electrified, like the cells within my skin are about to ignite into tiny bursts of flame.
What am I hearing?
“—then we’ll support you.”
I lean forward and my face breaks into a smile.
“But,” she adds, holding up her hand like a traffic cop. “We want you to really think it through and make sure you’re positive, because you’ll be changing who you are,” she says, “the face you were born with.”
“And if I am, if I’m sure … you mean I can do it?”
She glances over at my dad and nods slightly. “It’s something we’d rather you didn’t do, obviously. But if you’re sure …” Her voice trails off.
I sit there for a minute. “Okay,” I say, my heart pounding inside me like a tribal drum sending out a message.
And what am I feeling? Happiness, relief, surprise, extraordinary joy. Which emotion is rising to the top? I can’t tell because I’m being bombarded.
It’s done.
Decision made. I have their support.
I cross my hands over my chest. “Thank you, really.”
The amazing thing about parents is how they can still surprise you. They had clearly been over this before. Otherwise they would have been giving each other sidelong glances to find out what the other one was thinking and feeling.
But there was none of that, and none of the pencil pushing—as my dad calls it—when he’s trying to figure out whether we can afford something and he’s analyzing it. This was a done deal from their point of view. I see that now, only I don’t know how I missed it. They were just waiting for me to put it on the table.
“We won’t be able to afford camp if we pay for the surgery,” my dad says. I figured on that, but since I’ll have it done during the summer, sports are out anyway. The last thing you want is to be smacked in the face with a softball.
And that’s it. Meeting over.
I go into my room, close the door, drop on the bed, and dance on my back with my arms and legs in the air like I’m Horace waiting for someone to scratch my stomach. Then I speed-dial Mel.
“Way to go, baby girl,” she hoots. “You have to call my guy. You have, have, have to.”
“I’m going to see a couple of people before I decide who.” We talk more about how good she feels about the way she looks now.
“Keep the end result in mind,” she says. “Don’t get hung up on the surgery.”
That reminds me of Mr. Wadler, last year’s history teacher: “The end justifies the means.”
Within days, I’ve set up two appointments. One is with Mel’s doctor, and the other is someone recommended by a family friend who’s a doctor. I won’t tell anybody else yet, other than Mel and Katrina—not even Jen. I can’t always trust her to keep things to herself. If rumors start circulating at school, everyone will start looking at my nose, if they didn’t before.