Tension and trauma

From then on, the car ride, the interlude in Monaco, the arrival in Marseille, we had both been calm. Except I noticed Nando had been acting more harshly to me, more critical, more impatient than he had been for several months. I asked him if he had been advised not to take his anti-depressant these final pre-op days. Oh no, he had continued to take them, he said.

So I figured this hostility was his way of releasing his tension. "Why do the traumas of the people nearest you always bring out the worst in you? It’s supposed to be the opposite: when the worst happens, it often brings out the best in people. Not you though."

Dog dry afternoon

Nando was complaining about his mouth being very dry. I had a flash of waiting in a recovery room somewhere (after the dog attack in France? when my wrist was broken and reset in Monaco?) and having the same sensation. Dry block for a tongue. What I had craved was a Coke or lemonade. But there had been no one to respond to my cries. I was not going to ignore my husband's. I brought him a glass of water from the bathroom and guided it to his mouth. He took a few sips, giggling about his pepperone trip in between small gulps.

The nurse kept telling me that Nando had to sleep. He would see better, feel better, be able to eat a meal, if he would just stop talking and take a rest. Eventually he did, but it took almost half an hour.

Petit tour de Provence

We'll stop off in Monte Carlo to see friends and stretch our legs, then drive on to Marseille. Two days later, bandaged and blue, we will set out for a petit tour de Provence, visiting, not necessarily in this order, Aix-en-Provence, Arles,  Nimes, and Orange. Unless we or the weather is not up to it, we’ll conclude by driving from Aigues Mortes to St. Maries de la Mer, the two cities book-ending the Camargue. The winter is the only time to visit the Camargue because otherwise it is knee-deep in mosquitoes. Then we'll stop again in Marseille for my final check and to remove the stitches (arggh), and then in Monaco or a Carrefours (my favorite French superkmarket chain) somewhere to buy bread, smoked salmon, creme fraiche, Dijon mustard, Armagnac and champagne before heading back to Busto. So much for the weight loss dimension of the trip.

French Camelot

Having just come back from Southern France, Nando assures me that the weather is great. Although the trip from Milan to the Italy’s Riviera Ponente (the Italian Riviera north of Genoa to the French border) is only 75 minutes, the weather changes dramatically in winter. It’s day and night. You can be driving through snow, fog and cold en route to Genoa and you pass through a series of tunnels to the Liguria region and suddenly you are in the land of eternal spring -- blue skies, clear air, birds chirping, expanses of green vegetation framing the blue of the Mediterranean. And the weather seems to improve the closer you get to France. Then you cross the border, with Monaco less than 10 miles away, and it’s as if Prince Rainier had ordained gorgeous weather for his little principality and its surroundings. I have made that drive hundreds of times and I always think of the lyrics from Camelot:
A law was made a distant moon ago here:
July and August cannot be too hot.
And there's a legal limit to the snow here
In Camelot.
The winter is forbidden till December
And exits March the second on the dot.
By order, summer lingers through September
In Camelot.

Crinkles on the Cote

As long as we were on the Côte d’Azur, we stopped to see Joan in Monaco. Yes she looks great, but her forehead is so . . . serene. It doesn’t crinkle. She shrugged. "That’s a small price to pay for the rest of it. Who needs forehead wrinkles anyway?"

"Me," I thought. The expressivity of my face is -- has always been -- important to me. That and my smile. Oh! What if I can’t smile as before? What if my smile isn’t framed by dimples anymore? It’s true that those dimples have turned deeper over the years and now run halfway up my cheeks -- sometimes when I’m not smiling. But they are part of ME.

RSVP

I gave my name again and the sitting nurse checked a list in front of her. "Are you sure you are supposed to be here today?" she asked in French. I thought of the time I had made a reservation for my family at Alain Ducasse/Louis XV in Monaco, then ranked one of THE best restaurants in the world by the International Herald Tribune, and when we arrived, the maitre d’ had observed the inadequacy of our attire, the absence of headline value in our faces, and inspected the reservations for that evening, before announcing with haughty disdain that our names were not on the guest list. Desolé.

This time we were not to be put off so easily. "Yes, our reservation is for today," insisted my husband, and said our name slowly, in the French way. The second nurse scanned the list again and found us. We were official. A few questions for a file; these were done by computer. Another few questions answered by pen on paper. Then a nod, you may go in now.

By a nose

When we met in the lobby of Milan’s swankiest hotel, Nicole eyed me up and down and said in her clear but rapid French, "But ClauDEEa, have you had a LEAF-T?"

She’s not used to seeing me with makeup, I thought. Thank goodness for the discreet lighting of expensive hotels, I thought. What I said was, "Funny you should mention that. I haven’t, but I have an appointment later this month with someone about that very subject. Dr. Delos in Marseille. Joan K, who lives in Monaco, had recommended him."

"Mais Dr. Delos,” gasped Nicole. "He is the one who did my nose and my first leaf-t. I was the one who recommended him to Joan."

It was my turn to be surprised. "Then you think he is good? That’s a relief. He did a wonderful job with your, um, nose. But tell me . . . does it hurt?"

Milan-Monaco-Marseille

A return fax from the doctor. Oui, ça va. My appointment is set for 12:30 pm on the 24th. The address is on a well-known oceanfront boulevard so I don’t anticipate problems finding it. Nando will accompany me and he has a wonderful sense of direction so I am sure we won’t get lost.

Tonight we went to Milan to have dinner with John and Nicole, who were here on a shopping trip from Monaco where they live. John is an American in his 60s, a self-made millionaire who takes good care of his health and his appearance -- except for his non-stop smoking habit. Nicole, only a few years younger than he, has been his main squeeze for more than eight years. When I first met her, she had a fabulous figure but a slightly hooked nose. Within a year her nose had been straightened and her face was as fabulous as the rest of her.

At the time, John had explained that he (not she) had interviewed a series of plastic surgeons before awarding the golden scalpel. They had both been satisfied with the result.

When duty calls

Timing, timing. Money, money. I don’t mind kissing off the Monaco conference. That was an excuse for a vacation anyway. I do feel uncomfortable about changing the appointment for the plastic surgeon a second time. I don’t think he is going to like that very much. Then there is all the arranging: airfare, rental car, rental Uhaul, strong arms to help me move, where to stay, how to get access to my niece's apartment if she has already left. Some of this depends on when I can get a flight.

Plus the female things: moving up appointments for hair color, hair cut, waxing, electrolysis. Plus leaving Homer again. Well, that I had been planning to do, but for five days, not eight or nine. Never mind; he will survive. Anyway, it’s an opportunity to see my father again, plus a chance to see my older son's current apartment and possibly his future roommate, and Boston and friends there.

Maryland versus Monte Carlo

Unlike my husband, who is beginning to show signs of extreme boredom (because he doesn’t know what to do with himself, how to fill his days as a retiree), I have plenty to do in spite of the lack of commissioned work right now. There are short stories to start and to finish, pitches to make, follow-ups, new biz, plus my never-ending office organization project. And a new fillip: my niece sent me a note yesterday announcing that she has accepted a job in Pennsylvania, and she is moving from Maryland in two weeks. So she wants me to get my stuff, i.e. everything I managed to salvage from my parents' home when they had to move to assisted care, out of her apartment by then. She moves exactly when we are supposed to be leaving for a conference-cum-vacation in Monaco.

Emergency

An emergency family situation, a complication resulting from my mother’s death,  necessitates my presence in the U.S. next week. I won’t be attending the business conference in Monaco so I called today to cancel my appointment in Marseille, explaining that I didn’t know exactly when I would be back but would call "soon" to reschedule. Annick seemed to be very understanding about this, not haughty or indignant as I might have expected from a Frenchie.

Canary on the Cote

Annick called me back today, a cheery-voiced woman who pretended not to be offended by my mutilation of her language. We understood each other well enough for me to set an appointment for September 14 in Marseille, the day after a business conference I’d planned to attend in Monaco. Done. I told my husband. “What took you so long?” he wondered. “I wanted to wait till I had a business reason for being on the Cote d’Azur,” I explained. I asked if he would be available to accompany me. He agreed readily and I wasn’t surprised. I already knew that his interest in my facelift was intertwined with his interest in cosmetic surgery for himself. I was his canary . . . and that was okay by me.

Facing a decision

"One of the big problems in deciding about a facelift is figuring out the doctor to do it," Jane reminded me. "Some women spend months before they find a person they can trust."

"Oh, THAT is not a problem. Actually, that’s what makes the idea so tempting. I know this woman, Joan, in Monaco, and she spent three YEARS interviewing doctors before she had her face done. She looks great. She had all the time and money she needed to find the right person. And she picked this guy in Marseille. So I figure fate has saved me the trouble of market research. If I am going to do it, I will do it with Dr. Delos."

"Makes sense. If you decide to go ahead with this, let me know," Jane said. "I am curious to see what happens."

The doctor dilemma

When I finally called Joan, she put me at ease right away. She had never done anything so wonderful in her whole life, she gushed. If she had it to do again, she’d do it tomorrow. No, it didn’t hurt, not enough to fuss about anyway. And no, she didn’t look plastic or pulled; she still had wrinkles on her face and was plenty proud of them.

"I spent three years interviewing eight surgeons in four countries (five if you count Monaco) before deciding on Dr. Delos," she said. "I wanted to take my time. This is my only face, after all." She described the woman doctor who had taken harshly unflattering “before” pictures to convince Joan of the need for surgery. She described the Parisian doctor who had promised to eliminate all her wrinkles. She described the Milanese doctor who had flaunted his celebrity clientele.