The Price of Beauty

Chapter Five: Into The New World

The car zoomed along the highway.

70 miles per hour? Nina thought to herself. She wasn’t sure. She was sitting in a car with Janice and a chauffeur whom she couldn’t see because of the opaque partition. The windows were tinted and covered with cloth. Janice had provided her with a secure phone and she had called Faith but it reached voicemail. She was probably in class. So, she had left a long message on the voicemail. Long, but obscure because she didn’t know any details herself and couldn’t criticize the place as much as she’d like with Janice sitting beside her and monitoring her words. She’d told her just enough about the warehouse, using codewords she and Faith had been using since their childhood. But she knew there’d be no way for Faith to find or talk to her until she was discharged.

An hour later, the car came to a stop and Janice got off and motioned for her to follow.

Nina had no idea where she was. She could be in another country or another continent. But logically, she narrowed it down to a place within 120 miles from her home. She could be in Santa Maria, she could be in San Diego. Once she stepped out of the car, she knew she was in none of those places. It was a small town, the kind you see in pastel colour books. She half expected a baker to step out and greet her. Before she could squint her eyes and see the name of the road on a shop’s placard, Janice ushered her inside the building right in front of them. All Nina had seen was a ten-story monster of glass and sharp angles, the sunlight glistening off the green windows.

The interior was white, sterile and smelt faintly of herbs. She passed through a waiting room consisting of women with various stages on plasters on their hands, arms and faces. The bright white lights made days and nights a blur as a speaker announced names. “Miss. Grace Decker, please come in next for your checkup.” And a woman with her blonde hair barely covering a large bruise on her neck got up. She gave Nina a stare hard enough to make the poor girl shiver and cover her face more with the scarf.

“In here, Miss. Thorne,” Janice said and ushered her into the interior room. “I will not be accompanying you anymore.”

Nina looked back at her and then looked ahead. It was a narrow passage of two doors leading into a larger room with another door at the end – a straight line of inching closer to an unknown future. At least now she knew she wasn’t being trafficked because this was a legitimate clinic. As she entered the next room, a woman clutched at her feet.

“Please, PLEASE, take me away from this place –,” the woman wallowed at Nina’s feet and clutched at the bottom of her dress. Another receptionist was trying to hold her up but the woman kept crying. Her eyes were swollen and her arms were marked by bruises and what looked like heat burns.

“Mrs. Cage, we cannot do anything to help you!” the receptionist said.

“This is a fake! They’re all fake! This place is – ,” the woman continued clutching at Nina’s dress. Nina tried to hold her hand, “Miss – ,”

“GO! Go from here!” the woman yelled, “They made me like this! I’m a monster.”

Nina stumbled back as she tried to free herself from the woman’s grip and glanced back at Janice standing outside. She smiled encouragingly and Nina thought she had never seen anything more sinister.

The receptionist finally managed to get the woman in her grip and propped her up. The woman kept clawing at clutching at her until security came to take her away. The receptionist sighed and looked at Nina who had backed away into a corner.

“Miss Thorne? We’ve been expecting you,” she smiled dusting her dress.

“Umm…can I – make a quick phone call?” Nina asked falteringly. The receptionist furrowed her eyebrows, “I’m sorry our clinic’s policy won’t allow that Miss. Thorne. The moment you enter the door, your contract is legal and binding.”

“Uh, I’m not sure I want to continue this…,” Nina trailed off knowing very well what the contract stated. Any abandonment of the pre-planned scheme will lead to the client paying a fine upto 10,000$.

The receptionist blinked, “Yes, you can. But I’m sure you know the terms of the contract.”

Yes, I do. Nine sighed aloud.

“If you’re worried about what you saw Miss, you need not be,” the receptionist stated, “We often have clients abandoning treatment mid-way because they cannot keep the expenses or not coming in for monthly check-ups despite being clearly told to do so. Often this results in degeneration of the surgical work done and they try to storm in here asking for refunds and what not. I believe it is also your duty to uphold your part of the agreement as we uphold ours. Wouldn’t you agree, Miss. Thorne?”

Nina nodded in mute shock. This was all too much to process. Everything about this place screamed ‘RUN AWAY’ including the woman who literally told her to do so. But she was here now and she couldn’t lose the 10,000$ for being a chicken.

Once I get my job, I can easily pay for regular top-ups. I won’t end up like them. Nina convinced herself. Not like I have a choice now anyway.

The receptionist introduced herself as Maria. Nina correctly placed her as a Mexican. Maria Esteban turned out to be a permanent employee since the clinic’s inception eleven years ago. It was run by Dr. Dexter Reeves, a renowned plastic surgeon who was earlier a top-notch surgeon at the John Hopkins Hospital. He had left the hospital to work on an idea of his own, which was not met with the expected enthusiasm from his colleagues and since then had started a research lab of his own. In the past three years, his success had been exponential and he had expanded to open a full-fledged practice that accepted all applicants and not just referrals.

“He sounds amazing,” Nina uttered, neutrally assessing the corridors they passed by. It seemed endless as they kept walking, took a stair and kept walking again in a bright white sanitorium. They had crossed a series of rooms with people sitting and typing rapidly and yelling into a telephone. The building was fully air conditioned and Nina had already lost track of time. The harsh white lights still glared at her. It could be evening now. Or night. Or a new day.

“You’ll now enter Dr. Reeves clinic for a personal evaluation,” Maria said, “The patient’s dorm is another building and there won’t be any white lights there.” Nina blinked in surprised. Is everyone here a mind reader?

“No, we’re not,” Maria smiled, “But we do get psychological training. This is a sensitive workplace to be in and humans have the weirdest of triggers as you saw earlier.” She motioned towards the door they had come in.

“You’ll find Dr. Reeves to be a very caring, attentive doctor,” Maria continued, “Please proceed.” She gestured towards the huge glass paneled door before her. The frostiness did not allow Nina to see inside. She had only a handful of words since morning and now she used her remaining strength to mutter a thank you as she pushed a panel ajar.

The interior was draped in white and the lightest of green. Dr. Reeves sat at his desk at the center. The roof was domed and Nina could see the sky through the glass panels on it. It was still afternoon. Various equipment lined the wall with pale green beds on some. Dr. Reeves table was of white board and behind him hung a poster showing a before and after of a man and a woman. His desk was bare except for two books, a notepad and a pen. Beside him was another pale green bed with a focus-light mounted on top. The walls extended forever to curve upwards into one small oculus. Nina felt like she had entered a shrine, no sound except her shaggy breathing.

Nina looked straight ahead at the tiny man at his desk. He wore thick horn-rimmed glasses and his head was bald save for hair at the sides. she realized he wasn’t tiny but the desk was too huge for even him. He was wiry arms and a stick thin disposition. He smiled encouragingly at her, without showing his teeth.

“Come in,” he said softly. A faint echo.

Nina stepped closer and sat down opposite him. Her breath was still heavy as she raised a hand and lowered the scarf from her face. Dr. Reeves did not flinch for a second but looked straight at her. A heavy few seconds later, he uttered his first and only words.

“You’re the one.”

***

Nina barely had kept track of all the things that had happened. As she sat down on her hard mattress, in the small room given to her, she appreciated two things. One, that the clinic didn’t seem like a fraud. True to Maria’s words, the patients lived in a separate quarter with a courtyard and a back lawn, filled with bougainvillea flowers and small patches for gardening to calm down the distressed. There was a library and clean toilets, a small kitchen and nurses on standby.

Two, she’d be here longer than a month. She had only spoken to a few patients so far on her way here, but while most seemed happy about their treatment, almost all had been here longer than actually intended.

What seemed odd to her about the place was how careful they were. Unlike the main administrative building, there was barely any glass here. The window panes were wooden, the doors did not have handles and could not be locked, ceiling fans did not exist. All the paintings were oil-paintings and therefore needed no glass. Nina quickly noticed the absence of any sharp object in the kitchen as well.

It’s to avoid people…from committing suicide. The thought jolted her to her roots. Why would there be such restrictions unless such acts had occurred before? There was still a hook on the ceiling where the fan used to be. So, it wasn’t by design – it had been an afterthought. A thought after what?

But the thing that distressed Nina the most was the absence of mirrors. Not anywhere. Not even glass panes or doors where one could catch a glimpse of themselves. As Maria had explained, it was better for people to not constantly see and scrutinize their face – it led to an unhealthy obsession. The lack of locks on doors meant no privacy. Again, Nina chalked it up to the nurses being able to check up on patients.

Some people have seizures or react negatively to the antihistamines or prescribed medication, Maria had said, it’s why we place patients in groups of two. But nurses also need to access whenever needed.

Despite the restriction, Nina felt quite free. So many worldly burdens lifted themselves off her mind. She had been X-rayed and subjected to three separate tests and filled a physical health report. Her ID no. was N89 and the bracelet stamped around her hand attested to that. She left her identity slipping away but welcomed the change. Here, no one thought her face was hideous – it was normal. Everyone here was scarred or disfigured – accidents, intentional attacks, injuries due to profession, all was normal, all was accepted. She looked out the window, to the wall beyond that blocked her view of the outside world. In between there lay a small garden where matrons walked about and laughed. The only one with normal bodies.

As she prepared to sleep, she heard a small shriek at the door. It was a frail woman with pale hair and a face white enough to match. Half her face was the most angelic thing Nina had ever seen, whereas the other half was bandaged in layers of white.

“I’m sorry, I got scared,” the woman said.

“By my face, I know,” Nina smiled. It’s okay here. “Are you my roommate?”

“Yes,” the woman said walking inside and sitting gently on her bed opposite to Nina. “I’m I29…I mean Isabella…I’ve been here a month.”

“I’m Nina, came today.”

Isabella smiled at her with half her face and bade her goodnight. She fell asleep almost instantly.