Such a Pretty Face by Annabelle Costa

Chapter 1

There are very few things in life I hate more than going to see a doctor.

Bee stings. That’s one. Cockroaches. That’s another. Anchovies—that might be a tie.

I really don’t want to be here right now.

But our company requires us to have a physical exam every five years. I don’t know why. Something to do with our insurance. I’d go without health insurance, but just my luck, I’d do that and get hit by a bus the next day. So that’s why I’m sitting here on an examining table, naked underneath an uncomfortable paper gown that barely covers me. Every time I shift on the table, a crinkling sound echoes through the room.

I picked Dr. Richmond at random from a list of practitioners covered by my health insurance plan. Also, his name is Leslie, and I mistakenly believed he was a woman. And now that I know the truth, it’s too late. Not that a female doctor would be that much better, but it would be a little better.

Dr. Richmond bursts into the examining room without even knocking, and I instinctively hug the gown to my chest. He’s older, maybe in his fifties, and stick-thin with buzz-cut graying hair. My first instinct is that I don’t like him. But I try to push that away. Appearances can be deceiving.

He’s got a clipboard in his hand and he barely looks up at me as he reads off, “Emily?”

“That’s me,” I say.

Dr. Richmond lowers the clipboard to look at me, and I can see the disgust dawning on his face. “So… you’re here for a physical?”

I nod.

He glances down at the clipboard again, then back up at me. “Do you have any medical conditions?”

“No.”

He lifts an eyebrow. “No?”

I shake my head.

He sighs. “Any medications?”

“No.”

“So what do you use for birth control?” There’s a smirk on his lips as he asks the question.

“I’m not…” I look down at my hands, wishing I were eating anchovies in a tub of cockroaches while being stung by bees. “Active. At the moment.”

He makes a noise I can’t identify, then looks back down at the chart in his hands. “Your blood pressure is high.”

Of course my blood pressure is high. Who wouldn’t have high blood pressure in this situation? “Well, I’m nervous.”

“It’s pretty high,” he says. “You’re only twenty-seven. I hate to put you on blood pressure pills at your age.”

Then don’t. “Oh.”

“I’m sure you know,” Dr. Richmond says, “that if you lost some weight, your blood pressure would come down.”

And there it is. Every. Goddamn. Time. “Right…”

“You know, Emily,” he continues, “at your weight and height, we would consider you morbidly obese.”

I freeze. “I… I am?”

“You’re quite a bit over the cutoff,” he tells me. “It’s not even close.”

Well, that’s news to me. Christ. Morbidly obese. Morbidly obese. I suppose I should have been able to guess, but I hadn’t. As awful as I felt a minute ago, I feel so much worse now. I squirm in my paper gown, feeling… well, disgusting. Morbidly disgusting.

“Have you tried to lose weight?” he asks me.

I almost laugh out loud. As if there hasn’t been one moment in my entire life when I wasn’t trying to lose weight. I am literally always on a diet. Even when I was a fetus, I was pinching off my umbilical cord to limit my caloric intake. I am always watching what I’m eating. And if I’m not watching, everyone else around me is watching. I have never consumed a mouthful of ice cream without experiencing heart-wrenching guilt afterward. I’ve ruined my diet!

“Yes,” is all I say.

“Well, you’re not doing a very good job,” he says.

And then he launches into The Speech.

If you’re a fat girl like me, you could recite The Speech in your sleep. Don’t eat so much junk food and sweets! Count your calories—remember, you want to take in fewer calories than you burn! Exercise! Drink a lot of water!

I smile blandly through the entire thing. And I nod a lot. But all I want is to get the paper saying I pass the physical and get out of here. And then I never have to come back. At least for another five years.

_____

I spend forever in the doctor’s office. He listens to my heart and my lungs, and he checks my blood pressure again. It’s still too high. But we agree I will work on losing weight (ha!) and recheck it next time I come in. Which will be never.

When I walk outside, I hear my phone ringing inside my purse. I pull it out—it’s Camille, my older sister. I know why she’s calling, and I consider not answering. But I know Camille. If I don’t answer, she will call again and again and again. And again. So I click the green button as I walk to the bus stop.

“Hey,” I say.

“Emily!” Camille always sounds like she’s shouting on the other line. She’s slightly quieter in real life, but not much. “I have great news.”

I groan, already knowing what the great news is. “Camille…”

“Don’t say no yet. He’s really nice.”

My sister is on an eternal mission to set me up on a date, which has gotten worse since her own wedding last year. She means well. But it’s been one disaster after another. No, not just a disaster. Disaster is an understatement. Every single setup has been an emotionally scarring event that has haunted me for months after.

“His name is Jack,” she says. “Rob works with him. He’s sweet. Slightly balding, but very cute.”

I give a non-committal, “Mmm.”

“Tomorrow night, okay?”

“I’m busy.”

“Doing what?”

I flinch at the astonished tone in my sister’s voice. As if she cannot envision anything I could possibly be doing on a weeknight. “You know I take classes at night on Tuesday and Thursday.”

“Oh, right.” Camille clicks her tongue. “The night after then? I’ll ask if he’s free.”

I shift my phone to my other ear. The doctor’s office isn’t very close to any bus stations, and I’m working up a sweat as I walk. If I go any farther than two blocks, my thighs rub against each other uncomfortably. “I don’t want to do this.”

“I promise, he’s nice.”

“Yeah, right.”

“Emily.” Camille lets out a huff. “Don’t be so difficult. I’m trying to help you. I don’t want you to be alone for the rest of your life.”

I stop short, right in the middle of the street. I know that’s what Camille is thinking, but she doesn’t usually say it so bluntly. She usually puts it a bit more delicately: I just want you to be happy, Emily. But now she is saying what she really thinks:

If I don’t get you a man, you’re going to be alone forever.

The thing is, I’m not afraid of being alone. Yes, I’m single. But I enjoy my life. I’m not one of those women who feels like I can’t be complete without a man.

But at the same time, the thought of being alone forever gives me a tiny pit of dread in my stomach.

“Fine,” I say through my teeth. “I… I’ll go have coffee with Jack the day after tomorrow. Not dinner. Just coffee.”

“That’s wonderful! He’s going to love you!”

I chew on my lip. “You showed him my photo?”

“Yes! And he thought you were gorgeous!”

“Mmm,” I grunt. Seems unlikely.

“Stop it, Em! You have such a pretty face.”

I would bet my right hand that this date will be an epic disaster. But I suppose there’s a little tiny part of me that’s hoping maybe it won’t be. Maybe this guy Jack and I will hit it off for a change. Maybe he’ll be my great romance.

As I stand there waiting for the bus, I allow myself to daydream just a little bit.