Corpse Suzette

but...” Tammy shot
a panic-filled look at Savannah. “It’s a very high-end spa,” Savannah offered,
deciding to dive headfirst into the deep end with her friend. Hey, what are
friends for? she thought as she heard herself add, “...with all sorts of
extras besides just the massages and—”
    “I don’t do massages.”
Abigail crossed her arms over her chest and stuck out her chin. “That’s just
what I need... some skinny woman massaging my naked body, thinking of the
wisecracks she’s going to make to her friends the minute my back is turned.”
    Savannah thought of the
kind, gentle, nonjudgmental therapists who had soothed her aching muscles when
she had been fortunate enough to afford a massage. “I don’t think they’re all
that way,” she said. “They see and touch bodies all day long and the vast
majority of us don’t look like runway models.”
    “And the majority doesn’t
look like me either,” Abigail snapped. “That’s what you’re thinking. You might
as well go ahead and say it.”
    Savannah’s temper flared.
“That isn’t what I was thinking at all. And I don’t like people telling me what
I’m thinking, especially when they’re just flat dab wrong about it. You’ve been
doing that ever since you got here, and frankly, I don’t appreciate it.”
    “Uh, well, um…” Tammy
interjected. “This spa isn’t really known for its massages anyway. It has a lot
more to offer. It’s run by this doctor, Suzette Du Bois, and she’s famous. A
lot of movie stars go to her for... um... rejuvenation and stuff.”
    Abigail’s nostrils flared.
“What kind of rejuvenating stuff .”
    “ Well,” Tammy continued as
Cleo growled, “she’s a surgeon, and she does all sorts of amazing things
like... uh... liposuction and tummy tucks and butt lifts and skin resurfacing
and... you know... stuff that anybody would just love to have if they
could only afford it, but I could never afford it, and I suppose you couldn’t
either, so I put your name in the drawing and told them what a fantastic person
you are, and how deserving you are, and they said, ‘Okay, she wins!”’ Tammy
took a deep gulp of air and added, “Now isn’t that just about the best news you
ever heard?” What they heard was nothing.
    Nothing at all.
    Silence reigned for what
seemed like ten and half years.
    Then Cleo yowled, bit Tammy
on the thumb, jumped out of her lap and ran away.
    Abigail sat there,
smoldering for another eternity before she said in a quiet, deadly tone, “Let
me get this straight. You ‘won’ me a chance to have some butcher carve up my
body and—”
    “And liposuction!” Tammy
offered feebly. “Don’t forget the liposuction! That’s not cutting anything,
it’s...” Her voice faded away as she watched her cousin’s face grow purple.
    “Carved up and vacuumed
away. My body hacked up and parts of it thrown away as biohazard material just
because you and society think there’s too much of me! And that’s why you
invited me to come visit you here in sunny California? Is that what you’re
saying to me, dear cousin of mine?”
    Tammy sat there on the
footstool, holding her bleeding thumb, opening and closing her mouth like a
goldfish who had just jumped out of his bowl, and staring at Abigail. “I...
I... well... I...”
    Savannah couldn’t take
anymore. “I’m sure it seemed like a good idea at the time,” she said in her
most conciliatory tone, “but knowing now how you feel about it, Tammy can just
contact the people there at Emerge tomorrow morning and gracefully decline on
your behalf. And you, Miss Abigail”—she fixed her with the no-nonsense,
big-sister glare that she had perfected over the years when dealing with eight
younger siblings—“can assume that your cousin had nothing but your best
interests at heart. You can say a simple, ‘No, thank you,’ and spend the rest
of your vacation lying on the beach, soaking up some of our golden California
sunshine and thanking Tammy that you’re not back there in New York City,
enjoying that foot and a half of snow the weather man says they just got.”
    Abigail glared back and
said, “Oh, yes, that’s just what I want to do... go lie on a beach with all the
skinny California girls in their bikinis, who look like heroin addicts or
escapees from a concentration camp, who starve themselves to conform to
society’s standard of...”
    Savannah sighed and shook
her head. Some days it just didn’t pay to gnaw through the