Due Justice

Chapter 13

Tampa, Florida

Friday 4:45 p.m.

January 8, 1999

 “Wilhelmina, please join us,” Victoria said, her speech slurred just enough to let me know how many Bloody Marys she’d already consumed in addition to the one on the table in front of her. Kate and Cilla both insisted that I sit down and I couldn’t graciously refuse.

Kate and Cilla looked like what they were: middle-aged matrons at lunch. But again today, Victoria had on a bright pink dress suitable for a much younger woman, tight in the bodice with another low-cut neckline. She wasn’t wearing a bra. Sunlight illuminates everything:  she was no longer tewnty-five years old, or even fifty-five. But she was blessed with a long neck and her bosom did look fantastic. She laughed loudly, put her hands on the sides of her breasts to push them up almost out of the top of her dress. She said, “It’s impolite to stare, my dear, but aren’t they fantastic?”

Embarrassed to be caught looking, I blushed but had to agree.

“I had them done in New York about six months ago. I’ll tell you it wasn’t easy to find a doctor who would do them, even though I offered to pay twice the normal cost. I tried to get Mike Morgan to do them for old time’s sake, but he wouldn’t return my calls. Men are such assholes, especially the ones you’ve slept with. They think it gives them the right to be an asshole for some reason.”

Cilla’s nostrils flared, whether at the crude language or the mention of Victoria’s well-known philandering, I couldn’t tell. “It’s bad enough that you’ve slept with every man in town, Victoria. Is it necessary to broadcast it, too?  It’s not like you’re the only woman in Tampa to have had an affair with Mike Morgan. Take a number.”  She was impatient, and snappier than usual. And she sounded too bitter.

More to distract them from Morgan than anything, I said, “I’ve never known any doctor to refuse to do elective surgery. There’s so much profit in plastic surgery. If you agreed to pay twice the cost, why would they possibly refuse?”

Victoria was remarkably coherent, and much more voluble than she likely would have been if she hadn’t been drunk. “Well, there’s been an FDA moratorium on breast implant surgery for several years. The only way to get silicone breast implants now is to become a part of a controlled study. And, of course, for the controlled studies they want younger, more vigorous women or cancer reconstruction patients. You wouldn’t believe all the releases I had to sign and the strings I made the senator pull to get them to do it. But they did, obviously.”  She giggled, looking down her chest. No kidding.

“But aren’t you afraid of the health risks?  Tory, really, this is a fairly stupid thing you’ve done to your body.”  Cilla was out of patience. She may be a grand dame, but she doesn’t suffer fools.

Victoria looked at all of us with open hostility. “I think it’s fairly obvious that my body is no temple. It takes years for the ill health effects from implants to develop, according to the doomsday theories. I’m sure I won’t live that long, if my darling husband’s wishes have anything to do with it. A widower is so much more electable than a man with an adulterous wife, you know. Everyone wants to know why she cheats.”

None of us had a response to that. Kate changed the subject to some recent charitable activities they were involved in and that gave me my excuse to leave. As I walked out of the dining room, they were still discussing the budget for the next homeless shelter benefit, and I was trying to figure out why discussing Tory Warwick’s affair with Dr. Morgan would make Cilla so angry and Kate so quiet.