Page 33 of Shameful Addictions

“Hello, this is Anita at the office of Dr. Richard Johnson. Am I speaking to Charlotte Aria?”

Her heart leaped up into her throat. “Yes,” she squeaked.

Maybe, just maybe, her change in tone would reach the woman on the other end of the phone. Maybe Anita would sense something was wrong and reach out to her, become her one and only supporter. She might have connections to other, more powerful people, and could start a chain reaction that eventually led to vindication.

All Anita said was, “Great. I’m just calling to remind you of your appointment on Saturday.”

Saturday. Too soon. Much too soon.

“What time?” Charlotte croaked.

Please, hear my voice. Please listen to me, Anita. Something is very wrong and I need someone to help me. Anyone. Get me out of this.

Her desperate fantasy of being rescued by some sort of modern white knight would go unfulfilled. Anita sounded almost bored when she spoke again, a woman reciting a list she had been made to memorize. “Your appointment is at noon. Please show up an hour early to have plenty of time to fill out the forms. Please do not eat for twelve hours before the surgery, though make sure to stay hydrated. That’s about it.”

Charlotte licked her lips. “Where is the clinic?”

That seemed to throw Anita for a loop, pulling her out of her script. “You’ll be having your surgery at the Memorial Hospital.”

A hospital, where dozens of people would see her. She had been hoping to have this done at a plastic surgery clinic, as strange as that sounded when put in context with the rest of her hopes. Fewer people would be at a specialized clinic. But a general hospital? She would draw so much attention. The thought of starting another frenzy like the one at the job fair terrified her and filled her with shame.

Her heavy breathing echoed into the phone.

Anita hung up, perhaps eager to get out of the conversation after its weird turn. Charlotte set her phone down and put her head in her hands. She had become quite a bit more imaginative in the several months since she lost the trial to Mamba and could picture easily how things would proceed from here. Blissfully unaware of Charlotte’s identity, Anita would look into her as a curiosity project, goaded on by wondering what sort of woman scheduled a breast augmentation surgery without knowing where she would be having it done. Anita would be then dropped into the rabbit hole of hate and loathing Charlotte had unwittingly dug for herself.

Charlotte’s only consolation, and it was a pitiful one indeed, was that Anita worked at the clinic and would not be at the hospital to see her.

Charlotte pulled out of her daydreaming and shook her head at herself. The reality was so much worse than anything she could conjure up. She was nothing. A no one. Whether Anita learned who she was or not didn’t matter. Charlotte was nothing, had nothing.

She got into her car at 9:30 on Saturday, stomach empty, mouth dry despite the copious amount of water she had been drinking to have something to occupy her fiddling hands. She arrived at the hospital at 9:50 and parked in the outpatient lot, in the farthest spot back she could find. Climbing out of the car with her purse, she strolled off through the parking lot, toward the pristine and imposing castle that was the hospital, trying to make the journey last as long as possible.

The sound of a car door shutting, almost right in her ear, brought her flinching around. A woman with natural golden blonde hair looked over her shoulder at her, hands still on the handle of the liftgate on the back of her van. She grimaced. “Sorry. I didn’t see you.”

“It’s okay,” Charlotte started to say.

A much older woman, idling nearby in a wheelchair, zipped up with a few strokes of her wheel, running right up on Charlotte’s little toe. “Don’t talk to her, Susan!” the old woman croaked. She raised her gnarled hand and pointed a branchlike and knobby finger into Charlotte’s face. “She’s the little prude who thinks she’s too good to suck cock!”

Charlotte turned and walked away, incapable of comprehending what had happened. Never in her life would she have imagined hearing those words coming from the mouth of an elderly, supposedly respectable woman.

Inside the hospital wasn’t any better. People turned to stare at her as she passed and normal conversations ended with an abruptness, replaced by whispers that simply had to be about her, having no other explanation. Charlotte ducked her head to hide behind her long, pale hair and walked faster, though she had up until then been trying to make the moments last.

Only when she was striding through the halls, purposeless, did she realize that she didn’t actually know where she was supposed to go. Stopping, she looked around, and saw the sign for an information desk.

No. I don’t want to have to talk to someone. Not like this.

She told herself to use her brain. Where would a woman go to have a surgery like this? Not cardiology. Not radiology.

She looked around a bit more and found a directory not far from the information desk sign. Scanning through the list, she came across Cosmetic Surgery. That had to be it.

Charlotte took a peek at the map and then worked her way from where she was to the cosmetology department, on the second floor. She walked inside the room and went up to the desk.

A very large and very black woman peered at her over her glasses. “Sign in, please.”

Charlotte reached for the pen on the window ledge.

The large woman laughed. “Just kidding, honey. Do you see anyone else in here?”

“No,” Charlotte replied, after a cursory glance around. She had been so intent on not being noticed that she’d ignored her surroundings and hadn’t noticed she’d wandered into a completely empty waiting room.

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