Free Skin Deep by Gary Braver

something about it and don’t, it is a sin. The point is you want to be as youthfully attractive as possible, right? Right! You don’t like your nose, right? Right! So you owe it to yourself…and others.”
    â€œWhat others?”
    â€œLook, I don’t have a crystal ball, but if things don’t work out with Steve, you’ll be entering a new phase of your life.” She leaned close again. “Look at these gorgeous hunks.” She put her knuckles in her mouth and moaned. “Check out the kid in black to your left.”
    Casually Dana looked left to a table of three young men and a woman. The male in a loose black shirt opened at the neck had thick shiny black hair pushed back and a tanned Adonis face. Perhaps he saw Dana out of the corner of his eye because he smiled. Dana smiled back, having difficulty thinking that she had a moral obligation to get a lid lift for him.
    â€œLook what’s out there for you.”
    â€œYeah, me and Demi Moore.”
    â€œYou know what I’m saying. You’d be jump-starting your life with a new you and all sorts of possibilities.”
    â€œWe’re only separated, not divorced.”
    The waitress came with their lunch.
    Through the window Dana saw a print of a painting she recognized as Renoir’s Nude on a Couch. “Some things never change,” she said, and she nodded to the painting.
    Lanie squinted. “What never changes?”
    â€œWomen never stop posing and men never stop re-creating them.”
    â€œI guess.”
    â€œInstead of a couch, today it’s an operating table. Instead of a paintbrush, he uses a scalpel. Meanwhile, the woman is nothing more than material to be refashioned.”
    â€œAren’t we getting a little deep?”
    â€œNothing deep about it. It’s the same old, same old sexist pressure on women to look good.”
    â€œAnd it’s not going to change, sweetie. We live in a culture that reveres youth. You’re not old, but you don’t look young enough for the job. And that’s what you want. So get real, kiddo, and do something about it.”
    Dana nodded. “I wonder if anybody knows her name?”
    â€œWho?”
    â€œThe model in that painting. She’s just another nude woman on a couch, but the artist is world-famous. And today they’re plastic surgeons on TV.”
    â€œI see your point, I think.”
    After a few minutes, Lanie said, “I saw Steve’s name in the paper—the murder of some health club instructor. You see the photo of her? She was a knockout. They have any suspects yet?”
    â€œI’m not sure. He doesn’t talk about his cases.”
    Lanie took a sip of wine. “So what’s happening with you two?”
    â€œI don’t know. I just want to be on my own for a while. It’s a trial separation.”
    â€œThere’s no such thing. And you’re only fooling yourselves if you think so. I’ve known two dozen people who had trial separations, and each one ended in divorce.”
    â€œWe’ll see. But I need time to reassess things.”
    â€œDo you love him?”
    â€œThat’s not the issue.”
    â€œIt’s the bottom line. If you don’t love him, then get out and get on with your life. There’s too much you’re missing.”
    Yes, Dana still loved Steve. And she still had a sexual yen for him. But even before his infidelity, they had begun pulling apart. He was content to remain just the two of them, a streamlined childless couple for the rest of their days. And she wanted kids.
    But there was more. Because of the stress of the job, the mounting pressures due to the increased crime rate, and their squabbling over his commitment problems, Steve had taken to alcohol, made worse because he also took antidepressants.
    In his adolescence, he had been diagnosed with obsessive-compulsive disorder that apparently grew out of the guilt he had carried over his