Free Mimi by Lucy Ellmann

in proportion to your body. Now, if they were causing you back pain, or—”
    “My husband wants me to get something done,” she replied dully.
    “No ethical practitioner would advise surgery under these circumstances,” I told her. This wasn’t strictly true. I did unnecessary boob-jobs all the time! Changing already acceptable breasts into breasts that were equally acceptable, but slightly different, was my forte. Nonetheless, I tried to weed out the ones who were just doing it because they hated themselves.
    Now she seemed on the verge of tears, and gestured dismissively at her chest. “But I can’t. . . keep. . . looking at these things!” I offered her a Kleenex and let her cry. With that husband, she was entitled to it. Then she asked again, “But couldn’t you do something?”
    I stuck to my guns about the surgery but finally asked, “Have you considered therapy?” Adding, “For your husband .”
    She looked blank. “Oh, he doesn’t have time for that. . . ” (Don’t be so sure, you dope—he has time to train his own kid to be a geisha girl!)
    I told her I’d need to consult one of my colleagues about her case, and got her to go back to the waiting room. The truth was, most of my colleagues would happily take on this breast reduction. Hell, they’d do a female circumcision on their own mothers if they were paid enough. Bit heavy on the scalpels, light on the scruples, I sometimes felt. I didn’t consult any of them. I went straight to the receptionists’ private office instead and told Cathy to call the cops. Cheryl got all excited.
    “Why? Why?! ”
    “Don’t ask,” I told her, feeling that if I went into the whole thing right then, I might throw up. “Just get them over here and keep that family in the waiting room until they come.”
    I limped back to my office, wishing I had a bucket of cold water to pour over my head. Boy, great to be back! But my next patient made me feel better—a young woman in a miniskirt and spaghetti-strap top, who strode in and started joking around.
    “Nice office,” she remarked. “See you’re keeping the flower thing going in here.”
    “Flowers!?”
    I swiveled my chair around and found that somebody (Cheryl?) had shoved a whole basin-load of tiger lilies on the window sill behind me. I hadn’t even noticed before, but now the perfumed stink of them was dizzying. I turned back to the girl with a look of perplexity and she laughed. But what could her problem be, I wondered. She looked confident enough, though I thought she must be cold. Why do women have to display so much bare flesh these days, as if advertising constant sexual availability?
    “When I was a kid,” I told her, “we dressed up to go to the doctor. Now it’s like everybody’s off to the beach—in midwinter!”
    “You sound like my dad. I do have a coat, you know.”
    “And a very healthy metabolism, I guess.”
    “What about you? You’re wearing sneakers! Call yourself a doctor in that getup?”
    “You win.” I liked her. Sassy patients are the best. “Anyway, what can I do for you today?”
    She slowly pulled up a portion of her minuscule top, to reveal a long straight scar cut diagonally across her middle. How could a girl this savvy and sophisticated have gotten herself knifed?
    “Yeah,” she said, in response to my questioning look. “My very dumped boyfriend did it to me.”
    “Why? I mean, how did it happen?”
    “I stayed out too late, or didn’t fold his newspaper right. I don’t even remember. The guy was impossible. The trouble is, I can’t wear half my clothes anymore. I can’t let people see this! So I, uh, wondered if there’s something you could do about it. Can you hide it or something?”
    What is it with women? Pole dancing at two, and by twenty they’re running around half-naked getting stabbed . And now, she was at a great social disadvantage, since more and more surface area has to be provided, blemish-free, for public view. Even the midriff,