Free The Girl with the Mermaid Hair by Delia Ephron

with my face,” said her mom.
    Sukie wasn’t following. “Because of the mirror?”
    “Decay.”
    “Decay? What are you talking about? You’re only forty-one.”
    Her mother ran her finger along the hairline crack. “Eventually everything goes.”
    “Why did you change your nose?” asked Sukie.
    “I hated it.”
    “You hated it? Hated?” Sukie sat with a thump on the side of the tub.
    “For goodness’ sakes, so what?”
    Sukie stared at her feet. Her pinkie toe on her left foot was longer than her fourth toe. She’d forgotten that. Weren’t toes supposed to get smaller from one to the other? “Did you touch Señor’s feet?”
    “Of course not.”
    “Then why did he scream? He only screams when people touch his feet.” To trim his claws, the vet had to anesthetize him, because Señor uttered a yelp so shrill it could blow everyone’s eardrums. “You touched his feet,” said Sukie. “You did.”
    “Don’t be ridiculous.”
    “Bitch,” Sukie muttered. It was the first time in her life she’d called her mother a bitch, and she had no idea why she’d said it. It scared her a little.
    “What did you say?”
    “Nothing.”
    After a silence of mutual dislike they turned to Señor. What would he tell them, how might he scold them or provide some perspective? But he was having none of it. His jaw was set, his nostrils quivered, but Sukie and her mom rightly deduced that he had picked up the scent from the pizza delivery truck. They’d seen that look before.
    “We had the same nose,” said Sukie plaintively.
    “Mine was more pointed than yours.”
    “No, it wasn’t.”
    “Yes, right at the tip.” Her mom ripped the tape off Sukie’s face and left.
    Sukie slumped. Her arms hung limply, her bare knees knocked together. In this deflated pose, didn’t she look a little like a junkie? Didn’t she? She peeked in the mirror. Maybe. Anyway that wasn’t the point, she reminded herself. The point was, Her nose was awful. Her nose was so awful that her mother had it fixed. The point was, How can I take this nose to meet Bobo?
    “Hey.”
    Sukie jerked up. “Dad?” She craned her head. He was in her bedroom. She got up slowly, exhausted, and joined him. “Are you in pain, Dad?”
    “Nothing I can’t handle.” He grinned at her in a way that Sukie knew meant he had more to say. She waited while his smile bled off. He rubbed his fist against his lips. “Better not to talk about it,” he said finally. “You know, out there.”
    She knew exactly what he meant, his incident on the tennis court. “Of course. I wouldn’t.”
    He picked up Madame Bovary and examined the front cover, which pictured a woman with a lovely long arched neck, her eyes closed, her face suffused in either emotional pain or thrall. He turned it over and read the back. “An adulteress, huh?”
    “It’s really good. It was shocking when it was written.”
    “Good for you.”
    She didn’t quite know what he meant by that.
    He placed the book back on the desk, taking extra care to center it exactly the way Sukie had placed it originally. “I got a call from the hotel, the one where she stayed after her surgery. She took a duvet.”
    “What?”
    “Yep. She just took it. Packed it up.”
    “Wow. How’d she squish it in? I mean into her suitcase?”
    He pointed his finger at Sukie as if he had the answer and then let his hand slap down by his side. “Three hundred sixty dollars. I told them to put it on the credit card.”
    “Why did she take it?”
    “When you figure that out, let me know.” Sukie and her dad laughed. “Don’t tell her I told you.”
    “I won’t.” Whatever her dad wanted, she would honor.
    After a moment he said, “Promise?”
    “I promise.” She spoke up louder because he seemed lost in thought. “Did you like Mom’s nosebefore she changed it?”
    He shrugged.
    Sukie pressed. “Did you hate her nose before? Did you think it was ugly?”
    “Crazy, really.” He might have been talking to