Jennifer Grey walked out
onto the patio of the Red Herring. Her costar, Matthew Modine, had taken
her out for drinks to celebrate the last day of shooting on the movie Wind.
Grey wrapped her expertly-manicured fingers around the metal
balustrade and looked out over the Swan River. She breathed deeply.
Even with the North Fremantle Peninsula between her and the Indian Ocean
she could still smell the stink of briny seawater.
A white and brown seagull
slowly crept towards Jennifer, its eyes shifting between her and a piece of
fried shrimp sitting a few inches from Grey’s shoe. When the seagull was
within a foot of its meal, Jennifer kicked the morselinto the Swan River.
The bird hopped backward. It beat its wings as if to express its
resentment and then flew away.
Wind was no Dirty Dancing, thought Grey. (What else could
be?) Hell it wasn’t even Gandahar, and that was a damn
cartoon. Wind was a contingency plan, a fallback. Grey shook
her head.
Robert Redford had promised her the role of Doctor Lowenstein in the film adaption of Pat Conroy’s novel Prince of Tides, but, for reasons that were never fully explained, Redford had forfeited the project to another production team, and she lost the part. It wasn’t fair.
Footsteps approached from
behind—Modine, she assumed. But before Jennifer could turn around she
felt a heavy thwack on the back of her head. Then everything went
dark.
Sterile light strobed through
Jennifer’s fluttering eyelids. She tried to sit up, but her body felt
weighted and numb. Jennifer groaned.
“Don’t try to move,” said a
woman with a voice that had the timbre of a clarinet. “You’ve been
heavily sedated.”
Although Jennifer’s nerves
were dampened, she could feel a dull, throbbing pain in her face. She
slowly lifted her hand to her head. There was pain to the touch.
Her hand recoiled. When the pain dissipated she tried again, softer
this time. Her probing fingers discovered bandages covering all but her
mouth and eyes.
“Wha—what have you done to
me?” she whimpered.
A silhouette stepped toward
the bed, eclipsing the blinding ceiling lamp. Jennifer strained to see
the woman’s face, but the aftereffects of the anesthesia made it hard for her
eyes to focus.
“I’ve made some,” the woman
paused, “alterations.”
Although Jennifer couldn’t
see the woman’s face she sensed her cruel smile. “Why?” croaked Grey.
“Shhh. You’ll
need your strength to heal.” The woman turned to leave. “Restrain
her!” she said as she exited the room.
Two orderlies dressed in
white uniforms strapped Grey’s arms and legs to the bed. When she was
firmly secured they left, closing the door behind them. Jennifer heard
the deadbolt engage from the other side.
As days turned into weeks
Grey lay strapped to a bed in a windowless hospital room. The orderlies
visited every few hours to inject her with painkillers and change her bandages.
Twice daily they loosened her restraints and walked her around the room
to exercise her legs, but she was never allowed to unwrap the bandages.
Even if she could remove the wrappings, there was no mirror to see her
reflection.
Finally, after what felt
like a year but was really only a month, an orderly came to Grey’s room and
announced, “It’s time.” He unfastened Grey’s restraints and helped her
sit upright. The second orderly produced a pair of scissors and proceeded
to remove Jennifer’s bandages.
Grey’s mind raced as she
imagined all the possible mutilations these psychopaths might have visited on
her innocent face.
When the bandages lay in a
heap on the floor, the orderly called into the hallway. “We’re ready!”
Jennifer stared at the
door, her stomach knotted in anticipation of who might pass through.
After a moment the door opened and in walked a familiar figure.
Jennifer’s jaw dropped.
“What are you doing here?” she said.
Barbra Streisand stood at
the foot of her bed, her hands clasped behind her back. Streisand’s mouth
twisted into a wry grin.
“Did you,” Jennifer
hesitated. Her brow wrinkled. “Did you do this to me?”
“Yes,” said Streisand.
She wore a black velvet gown that made it seem as if she were coming
from, or going to an awards ceremony.
“Why?”
Barbra produced a rounded
mirror from behind her back. “For this.” She thrust the mirror in
front of Grey’s face.
Jennifer looked at her
reflection and gasped. “Dear god! What have you done to me!”
“I took some of the fuel
out of that rocketship.”
“No,” said Jennifer
pushing the mirror away. “No!” She began sobbing. Tears
beaded in the corners of her eyes. They streamed down her cheeks, running
along the sidewalls of her nose—her perfectly sculpted nose. It
was a nose that could have been on the face of a model in Vogue
magazine. A nose that any plastic surgeon would have been proud to
display in their portfolio.
Streisand carried on as
Grey cried. “You see a cosmetic flaw is a reminder that sometimes even god
has his off days. It’s a defect—something no one wants to have and
no one else wants to look at. But sometimes a flaw becomes endeared in
the public's mind. It slowly transforms from defect to defining
characteristic. Do you see this?” She gestured proudly to her bulbous
nose, like a jeweler might present an elegant diamond necklace to a prospective
client. “This is my identity, and I'll be damned if I'm
going to let some little brat come along and steal it from me.” Streisand
cocked her head. “The Prince of Tides?”
Grey stopped sobbing and
looked at Streisand with wounded eyes.
“I was born to play the
part of Doctor Lowenstein, but Redford said that the role called for a fresh
face. Someone with character. If I hadn’t used my
connections to take the project from him, I would have missed out on the movie
of a lifetime.” She smiled. “I
couldn’t have that.”
“You’re a monster!” shouted
Grey.
Streisand cackled.
“Maybe I am. But with your nose out of the picture, Hollywood is mine.”
She said as she smashed the mirror over the bedpost emphatically.
Jennifer ducked with a
shriek as shards of glass flew past her head.
“Dump her near the
airport,” said Streisand, caressing her nose.
One of the orderlies
nodded. He pulled a black velvet hood from his back pocket and looped it
over Grey’s head. Jennifer writhed and kicked.
“You can’t get away
with this!” Her words were muffled by the bag. “I’ll tell the police!”
Streisand laughed
defiantly. “Go ahead. Do you think anyone will believe you?”
Jennifer felt a sting as
the second orderly injected her with a sedative. Her thrashing grew
weaker and weaker until she lost consciousness.
Jennifer awoke on a bench
outside the Perth International Airport. Her hospital gown had been
replaced with the clothes she had worn on her date with Matt Modine a month earlier. In her pocket was a first class airline ticket to Los Angeles aboard Qantas Airways.
When she returned to the
United States Grey attempted to press charges against Streisand, but not a
single person, not even her family, believed her story. Her psychiatrist
attempted to explain it as a delusion created by her subconscious in order to
cope with the regret of having altered her trademark nose. “It’s only
natural that you would project the blame onto someone whom you identify with
both physically and professionally,” he had told her.
Eventually Jennifer
returned to acting, but she was no longer able to command the starring roles
she had before the rhinoplasty. At many auditions she even had to remind
the casting director who she was—her face no longer so easily recognizable.
In 1995, Jennifer
auditioned for a bit part in the movie To Wong Foo Thanks for Everything,
Julie Newmar. It was only a bit-part, but Jennifer had grown
desperate.
Several weeks had passed
without a word, and Grey grew nervous. She called her agent to see how
casting was proceeding.
“I’m sorry, Jennifer, but
they decided to go with someone else,” said her agent gently.
Jennifer sat in a recliner
with the phone pressed to her ear, a tumbler of whiskey and a lit cigarette in
the other hand. Even though it was two in the afternoon, she was still in
her bathrobe.
“They did?” Grey’s voice
trembled.
“Yes. Kidron thought
the role needed someone with more,” he paused, "more character.”
“More character?” A lump
formed in Jennifer’s throat. There was a moment of dead air on the
phone. “Who did they give the part to?”
He was quiet.
“Who was it, Charles!”
He let out a deep exhale.
“Barbra Streisand.”
“I see,” said Grey.
She pulled the phone away from her ear and stared into the distance.
Her agent continued talking, but Grey could no longer hear him. The
receiver fell from her hand and clattered against the floor.
Grey slowly rose from her chair. Her breathing grew loud and
unsteady. "No." Jennifer grimaced. She hurled the
glass of whiskey, smashing it against the wall. “No!” she screamed. Grey
collapsed in her chair and began sobbing hysterically. Rivulets of tears
streamed down the channels that outlined her nose—her expertly-carved, anatomically
perfect nose.
The End
