“I’m having a procedure in the morning,” I say. “This one.”

“But these people are sick,” he says and pokes the before images.

“Yes, they were,” I say, suddenly excited. “And now they’re better.” I reach over, swipe to the afters. “It’s a groundbreaking procedure, the only one of its kind.”

He clicks the informational video clip I’ve seen one hundred thousand times before. Glow back in time to the authentic you. Look in the mirror and see your real self again. I talk over it.

“They use 4D technology to scan patients’ faces and see the past work they’ve had done.”

Henry looks at me, an expression on his face. Wonderment, maybe—technological advancement, science, men and their inventions—maybe horror.

“Then they go in surgically and reverse the old procedures, stretch the skin out and wrinkle it with lasers or whatever so like, by the end, your face is the face you would have had if you’d aged naturally.”

His own face is grim as he passes back the phone. I take it.

“I’ve been through a lot,” I say. “I’ve made mistakes. I need to do something for me, you know?” He doesn’t answer, and I wonder if he can see what’s fake, now that I’ve admitted I’m fake, the fine lines and early jowling I’ve tried to fill in and freeze, worsening everything in the process; the chin filler, extending like a pointed beak long beyond where my real bone ends; the outline of old silicone cheek implants; the tear trough filler that’s made my eyes beady and small; the botched nose jobs and lip lift.

He reaches for his wine glass, drinks deep. I clear my throat.

“Six a.m.,” I say. “I have to be there at six,” but my breath is stuck and the words come out like whispers. I want him to ask me upstairs again, want him to tell me I don’t need Aesthetica™, that I’m real the way I am, even if I won’t believe him.

Henry puts his wine glass back with a clink.

“Women,” he says, finally.

“What?” I say, braced.

“I prefer a natural look is all.”

“That’s what this is all about,” I say. “Undoing the unnatural work you’ve had done in the past.”

“You look great,” he says.

“But this is all fake,” I say and touch my face, thinking as I do of the mother from the pool, her body, how it looked to me like home and wholeness, the woman I want to be, the woman I could be, if only I hadn’t tried for so long to stay a girl. I think of the little girl, the daughter—Isabelle—how her whole body craned in the direction of the hot tub, where older girls postured, preening to be seen. Rhinoplasty, brow lift, buccal fat pad removal.