The four hundreds would be too big, but keeping three sizes ready for an operation was standard. Silicone was back in — saline was out. In the nineties, there were headlines about silicone leaks causing cancer and lupus, but after extensive studies, they found no link between silicone breast implants and an increased risk of breast cancer.
“What kind of incision are you going with?” Ivan asks her.
“I prefer the inframammary,” she says. “Assuming that’s okay with Nadia.”
He nods. There are three types of incision used in breast augmentation: inframammary (under the breast), periareolar (around the edge of the areola, a sort of half-smile incision), and transaxillary (in the armpit). The inframammary is most common. The periareolar sometimes affects sensation, and the transaxillary is used only for saline and makes positioning difficult.
Maggie starts clicking through the pages, seeing if anything sticks out. “Can I keep these medical files to review in full?”
“Of course. That tablet is yours.” Ivan checks his watch. “The gala ball is in a few hours,” he says, putting his hands on the sides of his chair as though ready to push himself up. “So if there’s nothing else—”
“Hold up a second,” Maggie says. Ivan waits. She clicks back, then forward. She reads the history again. “It says here Nadia only has one kidney.”
“Yes. She donated the other, what, six, seven years ago.”
“To whom?”
“Her brother.”
“Do you know what he had?”
“The brother?” He looks up as though trying to remember. “Nephrotic syndrome, I think. We ran a urine test and bloodwork on Nadia, of course. She has no signs of it.”
Maggie mulls that over. Something isn’t adding up. “Where is Nadia from?”
“Originally? I have no idea.”
“How did she meet Oleg Ragoravich in the first place?”
“In a club in Dubai. What difference does it make?”
“Having only one kidney could be an issue.”
“Could be, but it’s not. Nadia has been medically cleared. She’s in excellent health. As for the rest of your questions, Oleg Ragoravich is a private man.”
“Which reminds me,” Maggie says. “If he’s so private, why is he throwing a huge party tonight?”
“It’s a ball, not a party.”
“What’s the difference?” Maggie asks. Then, thinking better of it, she adds, “I’d rather not go.”
“You should. For one thing, you’re expected. For another, you will want to see the difference between a party and a ball with your own eyes.”
“Would it be a cliché to say I have nothing to wear?”
“It would be,” Ivan says, rising from his seat, “if that were true. But come on, my dear, you must know by now that we are prepared.”
Chapter Eight
Maggie stares out her bedroom window and watches the guests arrive. A long tent-like walkway has been put out between the helicopter landing pad and the front door. The snow, which was still falling, is strategically gone, though she has seen no one shovel it away. She’d asked Ivan Brovski how they cleared it away.
“Heat coils under the ground,” he told her.
But of course.
Other guests are pulling up in big black cars, either stretch limos or oversize SUVs. The men wear tuxedos. The women wear formal gowns.
Maggie’s bedroom is, no surprise, larger than most apartments. Ivan had shown her the way to her room. The first thing he’d done when they arrived was open her walk-in closet with, she estimated, somewhere between thirty and forty outfits.
“All in your size and style,” Ivan informed her, “including...”
He gestured to the three formal gowns suitable for, well, a ball.
Maggie shook her head. “I’m not even surprised anymore.”
“I assume you like them.”
She did. Very much. She pulls out a navy blue dress nearly identical to the one she’d worn at Johns Hopkins a few days ago. Same shoes in her size too. “Weird,” she says. “I have this same outfit at home.” Then it dawns on her: “But you already knew that.”
Ivan shrugs. “Not me, personally. But yes, artificial intelligence made the selections — a new software program that scours the internet for all your photos and videos, sees what you wear to various events, and creates a wardrobe based on what it believes is your taste.”
“Terrific.”
But there is no way they could have done all this in, what, twelve hours?
Someone has been watching her.
For how long?
“There are a few nice diamond pieces on the bureau. Tasteful, I’m told. Feel free to borrow them.”
“Okay.”
“How about if I stop by at eight? We can go to the ball together.”
She nods. He leaves. Maggie remembers what Nadia said about bugs and cameras. Not much she can do about it, she supposes. The room is fully stocked with a potpourri of dream products — Chanel perfume, Christian Dior makeup, every top-of-the-line skin product imaginable, all touting promises of youth via peptides and collagens. She takes a shower, letting the hot water steam up the room just in case of cameras, throws on a robe, lies in bed. She closes her eyes. No time for a nap. Instead, Maggie starts visualizing and even acting out the surgery. Her father had told her about Colonel George Hall, a Vietnam War combat pilot who spent over seven years in the notorious Hanoi Hilton prison. To maintain his sanity in the face of starvation and torture, Colonel Hall imagined himself playing golf in his tiny cell. He would feel the sun on his face, smell the green grass, take each swing with care. He would see the ball go up in the air, watch it land on the fairways and greens of his favorite courses. Supposedly he did this every day and actually improved his game just through this visualization. Maggie didn’t know if that last part was exaggeration or myth, but that didn’t matter. She got it. She lies back now, closes her eyes, raises her hands into the air, and uses the scalpel to make the first incision. In her mind’s eye, she goes through the entire operation — her own virtual world of surgery. She does this a lot — or used to when she was licensed. It is her way of both meditating and preparing.
At eight p.m., there is a knock on the door. Maggie opens it. Ivan’s eyes widen when he sees her all dressed up. He swallows back whatever comment he was about to make about her appearance, and says, “You chose the navy.”
“Yep.”
“It suits you.”
“Thank you.”
“Are you ready?”
Ivan looks stiff and uncomfortable in his tuxedo, the bow tie wrapped tourniquet-like around his neck. The house is oddly silent when they leave the bedroom. It’s not until they leave the wing that she starts to hear voices, occasional laughter, string music. They stay on the third floor and enter the ballroom from a balcony above it. The ballroom is polished white marble with gold leaf. It is huge, the approximate size of a college basketball arena. Relief carvings of baby angels, a look Maggie never understood, line the ceiling’s perimeter. There are probably three, maybe four hundred people mingling below. As she heads down the stairs, Maggie notices what appear to be food stations, a worldwide tour de cuisine on steroids. She wanders around and, for a moment, lets herself be a guest. She tries the abalone with liver and uni dipping sauce from Sushi Yoshitake, a three-star Michelin restaurant in Tokyo’s Ginza district. Lung King Heen, another three-star Michelin restaurant in Hong Kong’s Four Seasons Hotel, offers a scallop and prawn dumpling. Talula’s from Asbury Park provides pizza slices with Calabrian soppressata and local honey. Fromagerie Cantin, the renowned Parisian cheese shop, offers Aisy Cendré, a semisoft cow’s milk cheese buried in oak ashes for a month.