Short Story: Nose Job

Note: And now for something completely different! 

I wrote this last year, as part of a short series experimenting with characters of various ages, inspired from my realization that a lot of authors I read seem unable to pull off writing young children. I'm around kids all the time for my job, but figured that I might have a similar blind spot. Thus, I started practicing writing snippets about characters who were both older and younger than me. This one was my favorite.

* * *

I hadn’t won the genetic lottery. Not that I could’ve afforded a ticket. Growing up, even my bras had been hand-me-downs from my older, cup-size-bigger, sister. Still, Daddy had been a mechanic and had stuck around just long enough to teach me the value of elbow grease and replacement parts. I hadn’t been born beautiful. I’d worked damn hard to get there.

Jason never liked it when I got a new procedure. Not that my husband had ever liked much of anything that I did outside of our bedroom, and those activities had stopped years ago. But I argued that if he could afford to buy a vintage Lotus then I could afford a nose job. That damn car was insured for more than I was anyways, since I hadn’t thought to demand a prenup back when we first got hitched—me the trashed trailer to his shiny new sedan. I always figured that, if one of us ever did make it big, it would be the MIT graduate. Not the girl from Mukilteo who’d dropped out of eleventh grade.

But it had been my idea to start DiviniTea. My recipe, my marketing, my dedication. My company.

My money.

Money that would go half to Jason in the case of a divorce. Which is why I was here: in our state-of-the-art kitchen instead of my boardroom, trying to ignore hellfire smoke spewing from our La Cornue oven where my roast was beyond redemption, and begging my husband of twenty-six years not to leave me for his twenty-two-year-old secretary.

Secretary. I would’ve snorted had Dr. Ellis not advised against it. Jason hadn’t held a real job since DiviniTea went public, except to decide which of his college buddy’s startups we should invest in. Not that I blamed Kelly for the affair. Idiot girl had won all the lotteries except that for brains, and Jason had taken full advantage of her naiveite. She was the same age as our daughter, for frick’s sake. A child.

“I love you,” I lied. The gauze covering my new nose muffled my voice, and I had to overenunciate each word like a politician at a rally. “I love you so much.”

A suppressed sneeze caused a dart of pain to jab my nasal cavities, and I didn’t bother holding back the resultant tears. Maybe showing vulnerability would remind Jason of the early days, when I’d been filled with flaws and insecurities.

But he refused to meet my eyes. “I’m sorry,” he said. A liar just like I was. “But I can’t do this anymore. You don’t understand . . .” He pinched the bridge of his nose, which was too long for the squatness of his face. He’d only laughed when I’d suggested getting it fixed, though. Laughed, and then ignored me for an entire weekend. “It’s hard, being married to you.”

“Because I’ve been successful?” I bit out. “Because I’ve worked my ass off to get ahead and refuse to play the part of Mrs. Beaver, fetching your slippers every evening and hiding myself in floral sackcloths that you think are age appropriate?”

“This has nothing to do with your clothes. Even if . . .” he trailed off and shook his head. “It’s not about your clothes. Or the business. It’s about who you’ve turned into. You’re not the woman whom I married.”

No, thank God, I wasn’t.