Up Front
Fierce Attachment
my husband for confirmation, but he only nodded, a ghastly
expression on his face for which I couldn’t really fault him.
“We’ll see,” the doctor answered. Apparently, some deci-
sions get made on the operating table when the surgeon can
finally see how the scar healed. Unfortunately, the person who
will have to live with what is implanted in her body for the rest
of her life is unconscious at that moment. I looked down at
my handsome doctor’s perfectly polished Italian loafers and
panicked. A man I did not know at all was going to choose
my new breast?
Suddenly, I regretted my impulse to always dress up for my
appointments, something I did because my doctor’s office was
right across the street from Barneys and sometimes I would
wander in there to cheer myself up. But the Mikimoto pearls,
the Marni jacket, the Robert Clergerie shoes, maybe they were
sending the wrong message? The bulk of my days were spent
in UGGs and yoga pants at a computer.
“Listen,” I told him, “if I were a pair of
shoes, I’d be Birkenstocks.”
“So,” he answered, “comfort above
all?”
“Absolutely.”
When I woke from surgery in the Ev-
elyn H. Lauder Breast Center on Man-
hattan’s Upper East Side, I released all
my years of bitterness at paying $30 for
a tube of lipstick. My room had marble
floors, a killer view of Manhattan, and
a private nurse who told me people beg
to stay a few days longer.
It took me weeks to lo