Текст книги "The Unfortunate Importance of Beauty"

Автор книги: Amanda Filipacchi

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Текущая страница: 14 (всего у книги 16 страниц)

“What did you forget to arrange?”

“Mainly, I’m out of office supplies, and I forgot to buy more.” He now looks very distressed. “I wish I’d made sure my desk was always well-stocked, so then if I did go to prison, at least I’d have everything I needed when I got out. And knowing that would make being in prison so much more bearable.”

My bafflement at what he’s saying is short-lived because I quickly realize he’s being influenced by Lily’s music. She must be using that new musical skill she developed recently: the ability to beautify—and create a desire for—things even when they’re not there. Clearly, in this case, she chose office supplies.

“Staples is open till ten,” Penelope says to him.

“You’re kidding!” He looks at his watch. “I’ll go to prison even if I don’t kill Barb, and I’d love to kill her, but she’s taking so long, and I can’t face going to prison without a well-stocked desk; that’s my priority. Maybe I could get to Staples without getting arrested until after I’ve bought my stuff.”

“You are so wise,” one of the guests says. “You should go to Staples right away, before it closes. And if you don’t mind, I’ll go with you because I’m out of pencils and getting low on thumbtacks.”

“You’re as bad as I am!” the doorman tells him, while other guests are now also clamoring to go to Staples. “Okay, I’ll let you all come with me, but you have to walk in front of me so I can see you.”

And the guests in my apartment miraculously depart. Lily has outdone herself. My urge to follow them to replenish my stock of printing paper almost equals my relief that they’re gone. I can tell that my friends are struggling with similar issues as well.

Jen Bloominosky, Georgia’s editor, is one of the last to leave. Before exiting, she turns around and says to me, pointing to my body, “I didn’t dream the extent of it. But I was onto you, give me credit.”

I can’t help smiling.

She says, “I wish I could stay and chat about it, but unfortunately I’m in desperate need of file folders.”

When all the guests are gone, Jack locks the front door and phones the police downstairs. He alerts them that the doorman and guests are on their way down and headed to Staples, possessed by an irresistible need to buy office supplies.

We melt all over Lily, congratulating her, thanking her, and then we do the same with Peter, thanking him for saving my life. If he hadn’t come to the party, I’d probably be dead. I express my gratitude to Penelope and Georgia as well, for their efforts. And of course my friends do some fussing about me—being the one who almost got killed.

We’re all in high spirits except for Lily, who seems sadder than ever.

Some of us use the bathrooms, others pour ourselves drinks. When it’s my turn to emerge from the bathroom, I’m surprised to see Georgia coming back into my apartment from the outside hall.

“What are you doing?” I ask.

“I was just throwing out some trash,” she replies. She pats Lily’s arm with concern and says to her, “God, you look even less well than Barb did. You can relax now. The nightmare is over.”

“Yours is. Mine never will be.” Lily goes back to the piano and resumes her sorrowful playing.

I suddenly feel the need to put my disguise back on. “Excuse me for a minute,” I mutter, and head toward my bedroom-office to find it.

“Don’t bother,” Georgia says. “It’s shredded.”

I freeze. “What?”

“I sliced it up into a million pieces and threw it down the garbage chute just now.” She finally looks at me.

I’m speechless. I feel a rapid headache coming on.

She says, “You don’t need it.”

All my friends are looking at me now.

“I can make myself another one,” I blurt.

“And undo tonight’s silver lining?” she says. “That would be a shame. And pointless. My publicist saw you being stripped. Now that she knows what you really look like, you can be sure the whole world knows. The era of the disguise is over. It’s no use wearing it anymore. It would just look affected.”

“Plus,” Penelope says to me, “it’s not your beauty that’s dangerous, it’s your personality. We found that out tonight.”

I say to Georgia, “If we ask your publicist nicely not to tell anyone, I’m sure she won’t.”

Peter is wisely choosing to stay out of the conversation.

I look at Lily, who hasn’t yet said anything on the topic. Her feelings on this issue are those I care most about.

Sensing this, she stops playing. “You know my opinion,” she says. “I’m glad Georgia threw out your disguise. I think you should enjoy your beauty. You don’t seem to realize how lucky you are. And sometimes I find that inconsiderate. To see you not appreciating something that could have made my life so happy is almost offensive to me.”

Even though I realize this might be a selfless attempt to help me overcome my need to hide my appearance, her words come as a shock, which must be visible on my face because she quickly adds, “I’m sorry, I shouldn’t have said that. You’ve been great. I’m just so depressed about Strad.”

“You’ll get over him,” Georgia says.

“I know. What I’ll never get over is the world. The importance of the casing.” Lily resumes playing her sad but beautiful piece.

“Don’t you want to sit with us on the couch?” I ask her.

“No, I just want to play a bit longer,” she says.

I have a profile view of her sitting at the piano, and from where I’m standing it looks as though she’s wearing gloves. Having never seen her, or anyone, play the piano with gloves on, I approach her to take a closer look.

I stop in my tracks when I realize she’s not wearing gloves. Her hands are like nothing I’ve ever seen, though exactly as she has described them to me. They’re as reflective as mirrors.

Filled with horror, I watch the transformation creep up her forearms. I remember full well that she thought this change meant death, and I also remember her telling me she was tempted to give in to it.

“Lily!” I bark.

She doesn’t even flinch, as though she hasn’t heard me. She continues playing, her expression glazed.

The reflectiveness is spreading over her chest. Her clothing fades away as her skin turns to mirror.

I shake her, but it makes no difference. The metamorphosis descends toward her legs and simultaneously rises up her neck.

I take both her arms and pull them away from the piano keys. She doesn’t resist. Nearly her entire body is a reflective surface now, and the effect is crawling up her face like beauty once did. She looks at me and murmurs, “I’m sorry.” The transfiguration creeps up to her eyes, making her look as though she’s sinking in mirror, drowning in what’s around her. I see myself in her. But because she’s three-dimensional, I’m grotesquely deformed, like in curved mirrors at amusement parks.

“Lily! Lily!” I yell. I grab her by the shoulders and shake her again, then tap her cheeks. Her gaze, though fixed on mine, is vacant. “Lily, stop that. Come out of it. Fight it, don’t let go.” And suddenly there’s a little crack that appears on Lily’s chest, at the level of her heart. And the crack expands like a cobweb.

“What’s happening?” I scream, turning to the others. They are gathered around me, looking at Lily’s chest.

“Lily, don’t,” I say, putting my palm over her heart, hoping to stop the web of cracks from growing. But the fissures continue to radiate in an ever-widening circle. It’s only a few more seconds before they reach her arms, her thighs, and then crawl up her neck.

I yell to her that she can stop it. I beg her not to let this happen.

The cracks cover her face.

“It’s not too late,” I tell her, more softly. “There’s so much to live for. Everyone loves you.”

It’s not working.

“I order you to stop.”

It does not stop. The cracks continue spreading, dividing each fragment of her into smaller fragments. Her entire being is now cracked in a million places.

I close my eyes. “I can’t live if you die.”

I sob, my eyes clenched shut. When I open them again, a fragment of her broken reflective surface comes loose and falls at my feet. And then another piece becomes detached and falls. And then a tiny piece of her arm. The holes left behind are dark and empty.

I won’t let her come apart. These broken pieces must be held together because they are all there is left of her now. I loop my arms around her. I lift her off the bench to a standing position, and I plaster my body against hers to prevent pieces from falling. I ignore the pain as her sharp fragments cut into my flesh. It doesn’t matter. She must be held together. I move my arms against her back to make sure I’m holding onto as much of her broken self as possible. In the process I get more cuts. If I’d still been wearing my disguise, I would have been protected by the padding.

Our friends haven’t yet noticed my injuries because my back is to them, and they’ve barely had a chance to process what’s happening.

“Lily, I will help you,” I tell her. “We’ll all help you. We’ll do a better job, this time. Give us another chance. Don’t let yourself come apart like this. Fight it! You can still fight it.”

To my horror, my friends start pulling me off her. “No!” I scream, resisting them, but I’m weak because I’ve already lost a lot of blood.

When they see the front of me drenched in blood and with numerous shards of mirrored glass planted in me, they gasp and I hear Peter yell, “Call 911!”

Penelope is standing near us, crying, her hand over her mouth. She’s dialing 911 on her cell phone.

I feel faint. My legs give way under me. Jack and Peter gently lay me down on the floor, still restraining me, for I haven’t stopped struggling to get back to Lily. They position me away from her. “Let me go!” I turn my head in every direction, looking for her, but I can’t see her.

“It’s too late,” Georgia says, sweeping the hair out of my face, trying to calm me. “It’s over.”

No. I yank my arm away from them and lift myself up on one elbow, but I get dizzy. Just before losing consciousness, I see, a few feet away, what is left of Lily: a pile of tiny, sparkling pieces.

Chapter Eighteen

When I regain consciousness at the hospital a few hours later—at around six o’clock in the morning—the first two things I’m aware of are a red tube going into my arm and the pain of my wounds. A moment later, far greater pain invades me as the memory of Lily’s death comes rushing back.

My failure to keep her together replays in my mind in horrific detail.

I gaze at my arms lying over the covers. Both wrists are bandaged, as well as my left upper arm, and I can see many Band-Aids on the rest of my skin.

I hardly care when the doctor tells me I was lucky the paramedics reached me quickly and began fluid resuscitation as soon as I was in the ambulance. I’m told that if they hadn’t, I might not be alive because I’d gone into hemorrhagic shock due to the massive loss of blood. My blood pressure was dangerously low and my heart rate insanely high.

I hardly care when the doctor tells me I arrived at the hospital with over a hundred shards of mirrored glass lodged in me. And I hardly care when he tells me it took him and his team three hours to remove all the pieces.

But suddenly, I have a question I care deeply about: “Where are the pieces?” I ask, getting agitated.

“It’s important that you stay relaxed,” he tells me. “You’re in the last hour of a four-hour blood transfusion. You suffered a class III hemorrhage and lost 40 percent of your blood, most of it lost through four deep incisions—one on your neck and three on your wrists and arm.”

“You’re not answering my question. Where are the hundred pieces you removed from my body?”

“Don’t worry. We saved them all, per your friends’ instructions. We’ve already given them to Peter Marrick. It must have been a valuable sculpture, eh?”

I sigh with relief, though I have no idea what he’s talking about regarding a sculpture.

He comes closer and says, “You were very lucky. You have eighty-five stitches on your body, but you didn’t get a single cut on your face.” He puts his fingers under my chin and raises my face toward his. “Your face is flawless. It would have been a shame to get it scarred.”

I pull away, put off by his bedside manner.

Quickly, he adds, “That’s not to say your body is any less perfect. But scars on the body don’t matter. They’re cool, like tattoos. I’m just saying it’s a miracle your face came out unscathed.”

There’s nothing miraculous about it. I don’t have cuts on my face because I wasn’t saying goodbye, I was trying to save her. If I’d been saying goodbye to Lily before she died, I would have pressed my cheek against hers, I would have rested my mouth and chin on her shoulder, I would have buried my face in her neck. Instead, I was trying to see how best to hold her, trying to look where best to apply pressure to keep her together. If getting my face disfigured could have saved her, I would not have hesitated.

Tears start running down my cheeks. The doctor wipes one away and says soberly, “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to cause offense.”

I burst out laughing and instantly resume crying. A sense of loneliness invades me.

He keeps trying to fix what he thinks made me cry. “Don’t worry, you’ll hardly have any scars on your body. Most of the cuts were superficial and didn’t require stitches.” Finally, he wisely decides to change the topic. “Are there any family members you’d like us to contact?”

“No,” I say, shaking my head. I don’t want my mom’s dream vacation in Australia to be ruined by news of my condition. She’d be so distraught, she’d either cut her trip short or at the very least she wouldn’t be able to enjoy the rest of it, and I can’t bear either option.

“But . . . are any of my friends here?” I ask.

To my relief they are. The doctor lets them in. Georgia rushes to me, looking extremely anxious. Jack and Peter follow. They all look traumatized. Peter holds my hand.

As for Penelope, she’s not here. When the doctor leaves and my friends and I are alone, they tell me Penelope is home, trying to piece Lily back together, like she would one of her ugly broken pots. They say she stopped by the hospital earlier and got all the remaining pieces from Peter.

Georgia adds, in an urgent, secretive tone, “Everyone was asking how you got a hundred shards of mirror stuck in you. I had to make up a story. We said you had a large mirror sculpture that you accidentally knocked over and fell on top of as it shattered.”

I nod, filled with gloom as I’m visualizing what really happened. After a moment, I ask, “What happened to Lily? What was that?”

Georgia looks at Jack and Peter. Then she replies, “Death by sorrow, we assume. I think the sad music she played each time she felt depressed created a vicious circle she couldn’t get out of. Her mood made the music sadder, which in turn made her mood sadder. It’s as if her mood and her music became entwined in a dance of despair, reinforcing each other, creating a downward spiral that pulled Lily under.”

My throat is clenched so tight I can hardly breathe.

Peter is at my other side. He’s caressing my cheek, smiling at me lovingly, wanting me to turn away from Georgia.

The doctors were hoping to let me go home later, but it turns out not to be possible because the transfusion doesn’t agree with me. I develop a fever, which I’m told is a febrile non-hemolytic transfusion reaction. They say it’s common and won’t cause any lasting problems.

The fever goes away by the end of the day, and I’m allowed to leave at four the following afternoon.

PETER, GEORGIA, AND Jack are here to escort me out. We move down the hospital corridor like a funeral procession, our heads bowed, thinking of Lily.

Our plan is to go directly to Penelope’s apartment because I want to see Lily’s remains.

Before we’ve even left my hospital floor, I’m being stared at by doctors, nurses, and visitors. They stare at me as we wait for the elevator, then in the elevator, then in the lobby. Not being disguised is even worse than I remembered. And they don’t just stare. Some of them whisper to each other while staring. I can’t wait to get out of here.

Georgia decides we should sit in the coffee shop in the lobby for tea and a snack, which annoys me because she knows I want to see Lily’s pieces right away, and I’m the one who’s injured. But Jack’s on her side and Peter’s neutral, so we go in and get a table.

I refuse all food and drink. While my friends are getting their snacks at the self-service counter, people keep staring at me. It’s excruciating. I’m getting agitated, and the stress is causing me to feel my cuts more acutely, as though these strangers’ eyes are cutting into me. I won’t be able to take this on a daily basis, especially now that Lily is dead from all this crap.

My friends return to the table, unwrapping their snacks and stirring their teas.

“I won’t be able to live like this,” I state flatly. “I’ll have to put my disguise back on. Or attack people looking my way.”

“Don’t worry, today it’s not normal staring,” Georgia says. “I’m really sorry, but my stupid publicist secretly used her phone to film you while we were stripping you at the party. You’re on most newspapers’ front pages today. They’ve published some photos of you wearing your hideous getup next to some photos of you in all your natural splendor. They seem fascinated by the contrast, and they used headlines like ‘Strip or Die’ and ‘Stripping For Your Life’ and ‘Psycho Doorman Blinded By Beauty.’ You’re being referred to as ‘The Woman Who Was Stripped of Her Ugliness to Save Her Life.’ The video of your stripping has been online since yesterday morning. They keep showing it on TV, too.”

After several seconds of shocked silence, I say, “That sucks. Why didn’t you tell me right away?”

“We were afraid you wouldn’t leave your hospital room if you knew.”

“So you figured you’d prolong my suffering by making me sit here to be gawked at by everyone? Did you want to torture me?’

“No, we wanted to prepare you. The paparazzi are outside, waiting for you to come out. They’re being kept out by security. We couldn’t let you walk out without warning you, right?”

“Right,” I mutter.

“Don’t worry,” Georgia says, “the crazy staring will pass. Until then, it’ll be rough because people are going berserk over this story. They find your story inspiring, for some reason. There’s even imitation going on. I heard on the news that earlier today there was a fashion show in which male models pounced on female models on the runway and stripped them of their dowdy, unflattering clothes, to reveal their chic couture outfits underneath.”

“It’s true,” Peter says. “And a wedding took place today in which the bride walked down the aisle wearing a big ugly sack or tent and a bunch of her friends stripped her, uncovering her beautiful wedding gown.”

Jack says, “A buddy of mine was at a strip club last night and said some of the strippers were doing it, too, taking off big hideous outfits to reveal their sexy little selves underneath.”

“You see what I mean?” Georgia says to me. “But mostly the media wants to know why such a beauty as yourself would hide her looks for years. That’s what they want to ask you.”

“I don’t want to talk about it,” I say.

“That’s fine. You can leave it up to the men.”

“What men?”

“The men you did your ritual on, at bars. They’re coming out of the woodwork, offering their theories, their gibberish, not always flattering to you, by the way—obviously, because their pride was wounded. They describe how you misrepresented yourself. One guy said it’s as bad as dishonesty the other way around, like when he meets women online who pretend they’re better-looking than they are by showing him photos of themselves younger, thinner, or photos of other women.”

Clearly, I can never put my disguise back on. Too many people would know it’s just a disguise. And it would excite them. And their excitement would make my life more miserable than simply enduring my appearance.

“Do we want to get out of this hospital the straightforward way or do we want to sneak out?” Georgia asks.

“Sneak out, obviously,” I say.

“I think it would be a mistake.”

“Why?”

“If you’re elusive they’ll never leave you alone. If you’re accessible they’ll get bored faster.”

“Okay, the straightforward way, then,” I say.

I’m holding on to Peter’s arm as we exit the hospital through the main entrance. Georgia wasn’t kidding. There are TV news crews and a throng of photographers shoving one another, shouting things at me, like—

“Barb, show us your cuts! Your stitches!”

“Do you hate men, Barb?”

“Why didn’t you go into modeling or acting? You could have made a fortune!”

“Barb, you’re gorgeous!”

“Smile, Barb! Show us your teeth!”

“Got anything to say to TMZ?”

I fight my urge to turn away or run. It’s challenging, because I feel as though I’m in a pool of sharks. And yet that’s exactly what one’s supposed to do in a pool of sharks: move calmly, don’t panic, don’t go berserk trying to escape.

Despite my efforts to remain accessible per Georgia’s advice—at least visually if not verbally—their excitement is growing. They seem energized by my lack of resistance.

Trying to control the edge of hysteria in my voice, I say in Georgia’s ear, “They’re not getting bored like you said.”

A paparazzo shouts, “She spoke! What did she say? Barb, say that again, we didn’t hear you!”

Georgia’s face reaches up to my ear and replies: “Yes, they are. This is them, bored. If you had fled, you would have seen true madness.”

Peter’s driver is double parked, waiting for us. As we’re about to get in the car, several of the paparazzi behind me shout, “Over your shoulder, Barb!” I look behind me to see what they’re talking about. They just wanted to get another shot.

We’re followed by a few news vehicles.

When we arrive at Penelope’s building, we hurry inside.

In her apartment, we stand around Lily’s feet, which Penelope has succeeded in putting back together. On the coffee table is a portion of her face, which Penelope has also put back together like a separate piece of a puzzle. It’s heart-wrenching. Every part of Lily has retained its horrible mirror-like reflectiveness. Next to the excerpt of her face is her reassembled hand, and part of her other one. Penelope says the extremities are the easiest, whereas the larger, less detailed planes such as the thighs and back will be more difficult—like sections of clear blue skies, or virgin snow, in puzzles.

I give Penelope a hug and a kiss of gratitude for her touching but pointless efforts to put Lily back together.

After our visit, Peter takes me to my apartment. He helps me get into bed. He lies next to me, dressed. I cry and he caresses my face. It all seems so inevitable. Lily, dead of sadness, me, here, loved for a worthless reason by an otherwise wonderful man. It’s all so predetermined and inescapable.

AT NINE THE next morning, the ringing of my cell phone wakes me. I don’t usually sleep this late, but my injuries have exhausted me and I took some painkillers in the middle of the night.

I answer my phone. It’s my mom, calling from Australia, sounding excited.

The first thing out of her mouth is: “That video is the most beautiful thing I’ve ever seen! I was at a bar a few hours ago and saw you on the TV getting stripped! I’ve been partying ever since, waiting until it was late enough to call you. I want to thank your crazy doorman. I’m sorry you got injured by all those pieces of glass, but sweetie, it was worth it!”

“I needed a four-hour transfusion. If I’d been wearing my disguise, I would have been protected from those shards and I wouldn’t have lost 40 percent of my blood.”

“Oh, honey, I’m sorry. But I still think it was worth it.”

Hurt, I say, “If it hadn’t been for my disguise and the chance it gave me to hide by taking it off, I probably would be dead, shot by the doorman.”

“If it hadn’t been for your disguise, perhaps he wouldn’t have wanted to shoot you in the first place.”

“You don’t understand my doorman. He wanted to kill me because of my personality, not because of how I looked. I was too calm for his taste. He hated me for never getting offended by his insults. He found it belittling. His desire to kill me had nothing to do with my appearance.”

“So you think.”

I huff. “I’ll have some scars on my body,” I say, thinking at least she’ll care about that, since it has to do with beauty.

“Who cares! Bodily scars are nothing compared to how hideous you looked. I hope you’re never going to put back on that disgusting fat. I have my beautiful daughter back!” she screams.

Not wanting her vacation shortened on my account, I talk her out of jumping on the next plane to care for me. I tell her my friends have been helping me plenty.

AND THEY HAVE been, especially Peter, who is devoted to me. During the next few days, he stays with me, nurses me. He leaves me only to go to the station to anchor the news and comes right back to take care of me. He is endlessly attentive and affectionate. I tell all my clients that I need extra time to complete the various projects I’m working on. Everyone is, of course, very accommodating.

I can tell by the way Peter looks at me that he’s affected by my real appearance. I’ve noticed this every day since he ripped off my disguise. Yet, he makes no pass at me, which is just as well because if he did, I know I would rebuff him. Despite my attraction to him, I would reject him because I refuse to let beauty win. Especially now that Lily has been destroyed by it.

When I go out, people’s stares get on my nerves.

I screen my calls. I ignore the many messages I get every day from journalists asking me to grant them interviews and to explain why for years I squashed my beauty under a load of hideousness and why I did my bar ritual.

Why should I grant interviews? Only to become even more recognized, even more stared at? I wouldn’t have minded explaining myself, or expressing my harsh opinion of beauty, but the cost is too great.

Plus, Georgia does something much more powerful to further my cause against beauty worship. She turns Lily into a legend. She doesn’t mean to. She means only to honor Lily’s memory by writing an in-depth article for the New York Times about her life.

Surprisingly, at the bottom of the article, in a separate section entitled “What Happened to Lily?” Georgia doesn’t shy away from describing Lily’s end—the true version. Given its supernatural nature, everyone takes this finale to be an imaginative and metaphorical account of Lily’s breakdown and alarming disappearance. They believe Lily got depressed and “fell to pieces” after her breakup with Strad. They believe the split “shattered” her and that then she decided to vanish, leave town. For a while or maybe forever.

Correcting this misconception would be unwise of us, we feel, particularly as her parents have already recruited the police’s help in trying to locate her, and any insistence on our parts that Lily broke to pieces literally, not metaphorically, will only make us seem like lunatics, deserving of being more thoroughly investigated in connection with her disappearance—an investigation we would not welcome for fear it might uncover the fact that there does happen to be, coincidentally, a killer among us.

But that’s not the only reason we don’t want people to know Lily is in real pieces. We’re afraid Penelope will go insane if those pieces are taken from her. She’s already demented, spending her entire days trying to put Lily back together.

Georgia knows her article is powerful, but she didn’t expect fashion magazine editors to be so stunned by Lily’s tragic story as to discuss it among themselves and decide to turn Lily’s ugliness into the new beauty.

These editors are smart, realistic women and men. They know that radically redefining modern beauty is not going to happen overnight.

But they’re wrong.

It does.

Virtually.

Here’s what happens. First, Georgia’s article stirs up a vigorous debate in the media about beauty. Two days after her article appears, Ellen DeGeneres announces she is going to devote a show to the topic of the unfortunate importance of physical beauty in our world. She invites the editors-in-chief of the top four monthly fashion magazines, as well as the head of Women’s Wear Daily. She wants them to defend themselves on her show after they’ve read the Times article—not an easy task, she predicts.

Far from defending themselves, the magazine editors agree with Ellen. This makes for a surprising show. One of them, the editor-in-chief of Elle magazine, confesses she’s been made sick by Georgia’s article. She says she wishes she could do something about it.

The show ends with a plea from Ellen for Lily to come back, wherever she is. Everyone is distraught over her disappearance.

The next day, Women’s Wear Daily introduces the new ideal face: Lily’s face. They cover the story incessantly, with front-page updates and news about models who are being discovered all over the world and signed before they even create a portfolio.

The monthly beauty magazines redo their cover shots and cover stories; they whip up new feature articles based on the new beauty; and they quickly reshoot, in studio, either twelve, twenty-four or—in Elle’s case—forty-eight pages, out of sixty fashion pages, for their next issues, using models who are ugly in ways that resemble Lily as much as possible.

It’s a holistic, industry-wide embrace, a coordinated effort. Even nightly newscasters offer regular updates, particularly Peter Marrick.

We’re sad that Lily is not alive to enjoy her new beauty.

Several top fashion designers in London, Paris, New York, and Tokyo announce that they, too, are supporting this new beauty ideal and replacing all the models in their upcoming runway shows.

Not everyone’s reasons for joining the trend are noble. A few are mercenary.

Three high-ranking plastic surgeons report that there’s been a dramatic decrease in business. They say women are having second thoughts about getting rid of flaws that are now highly prized. When the three surgeons are asked if they are disappointed in this turn in fashion, two of them—possibly insincerely—say no. The third one, however, says yes he is disappointed but expects that women will start booking appointments to get flaws (now considered “improvements”) incorporated into their faces and bodies. He adds, “As long as women are dissatisfied with how they look, I’m satisfied. I don’t care what form their dissatisfaction takes, provided it requires me to fix it.”