saying, “How cute!”
Anemone’s mother had the surgery on her vocal chords when she was nine, but by the time she was eighteen her records had stopped selling anyway, so she decided to have more surgery, this time on her face. The narrow eyes that had been charming as a child were almost grotesque on a teenager, so they were rounded out, and a new face was born, one that looked as if it could go on singing children’s songs well into its thirties. Not long afterward, that face managed to cast a spell over Anemone’s father, and they were married.
Anemone’s mother was content enough being a pretty wife until the time came to give birth. As the day approached, she got more and more anxious: what if the baby turned out ugly? Then her own surgical enhancements would be found out—and perhaps not only the work on her face but the little matter of a reconstructed hymen and the vocal chords as well. Her husbandwould divorce her, and she would have to go back to singing numbers like “A Shoal of Minnows” and “Rainy Night Moon” to drunken men in some cabaret. It was understandable, then, that when baby Anemone turned out so cute, her mother tended to solicit compliments, even from the servants, a little more often than the average doting parent. But as Anemone grew up, there was really no need for coercion; the reconstructed and remodeled child singer had given birth to a beauty. Searching for some explanation for her good fortune, Anemone’s mother decided that perhaps during one of her own operations, the doctor had accidentally left some tweezers and a scalpel inside and they had somehow slipped down into her womb and performed gradual, natural, and completely successful plastic surgery on the fetus.
While still in junior high school, Anemone appeared in a commercial for a new product her father’s company was introducing. She was spotted by an agency, and had worked as a model ever since. A year ago, she had dropped out of high school. She wasn’t quite tall enough for fashion modeling, so she concentrated on TV commercials and printed ads, signing regular contracts with several companies. Once, she had been asked to do a movie, but they cast her opposite an actor with pyorrhea and she walked off the set during the first day of shooting.
The year she dropped out of school, she had also left home and moved into this condominium. There were two major reasons for the move. One was that her mother and father had each taken a younger lover with the full knowledge of the other, and yet remained on the best of terms. What made this all the more disgusting was that she was convinced her parents really did like one another and weren’t just putting on an act for her benefit. Once they all had dinner together, the five of them: mother,father, young lovers, and Anemone. Afterward, while they were playing cards, Anemone had suddenly burst into tears.
“Now there’s nothing to cry about, honey,” her father had said. “You mustn’t go crying and feeling sorry for yourself. Anemone, your mother and I are doing what we truly want to be doing, but you know we’ll always love each other. You’re still young, but some day you’ll understand: it’s not that we’re unhappy with each other, not at all; it’s just that it’s not all that easy being a grown-up, all alone in the world. It took your mom and me a long time, years even, to work through this, but we’ve come to realize that we really do love each other. And once we were sure of that, we decided it would be best to get the whole thing out in the open. But the main thing to remember is that Mom and Dad are grown-ups; you’re going to grow up one day yourself, and when you do you’ll see what I mean. This is better than sneaking around, much better… And if you still insist on crying, tell yourself this, young lady—life’s not easy, and it won’t do any good to act like a spoiled child!”
The other reason concerned the pet that Anemone had kept for
Anemone’s mother had the surgery on her vocal chords when she was nine, but by the time she was eighteen her records had stopped selling anyway, so she decided to have more surgery, this time on her face. The narrow eyes that had been charming as a child were almost grotesque on a teenager, so they were rounded out, and a new face was born, one that looked as if it could go on singing children’s songs well into its thirties. Not long afterward, that face managed to cast a spell over Anemone’s father, and they were married.
Anemone’s mother was content enough being a pretty wife until the time came to give birth. As the day approached, she got more and more anxious: what if the baby turned out ugly? Then her own surgical enhancements would be found out—and perhaps not only the work on her face but the little matter of a reconstructed hymen and the vocal chords as well. Her husbandwould divorce her, and she would have to go back to singing numbers like “A Shoal of Minnows” and “Rainy Night Moon” to drunken men in some cabaret. It was understandable, then, that when baby Anemone turned out so cute, her mother tended to solicit compliments, even from the servants, a little more often than the average doting parent. But as Anemone grew up, there was really no need for coercion; the reconstructed and remodeled child singer had given birth to a beauty. Searching for some explanation for her good fortune, Anemone’s mother decided that perhaps during one of her own operations, the doctor had accidentally left some tweezers and a scalpel inside and they had somehow slipped down into her womb and performed gradual, natural, and completely successful plastic surgery on the fetus.
While still in junior high school, Anemone appeared in a commercial for a new product her father’s company was introducing. She was spotted by an agency, and had worked as a model ever since. A year ago, she had dropped out of high school. She wasn’t quite tall enough for fashion modeling, so she concentrated on TV commercials and printed ads, signing regular contracts with several companies. Once, she had been asked to do a movie, but they cast her opposite an actor with pyorrhea and she walked off the set during the first day of shooting.
The year she dropped out of school, she had also left home and moved into this condominium. There were two major reasons for the move. One was that her mother and father had each taken a younger lover with the full knowledge of the other, and yet remained on the best of terms. What made this all the more disgusting was that she was convinced her parents really did like one another and weren’t just putting on an act for her benefit. Once they all had dinner together, the five of them: mother,father, young lovers, and Anemone. Afterward, while they were playing cards, Anemone had suddenly burst into tears.
“Now there’s nothing to cry about, honey,” her father had said. “You mustn’t go crying and feeling sorry for yourself. Anemone, your mother and I are doing what we truly want to be doing, but you know we’ll always love each other. You’re still young, but some day you’ll understand: it’s not that we’re unhappy with each other, not at all; it’s just that it’s not all that easy being a grown-up, all alone in the world. It took your mom and me a long time, years even, to work through this, but we’ve come to realize that we really do love each other. And once we were sure of that, we decided it would be best to get the whole thing out in the open. But the main thing to remember is that Mom and Dad are grown-ups; you’re going to grow up one day yourself, and when you do you’ll see what I mean. This is better than sneaking around, much better… And if you still insist on crying, tell yourself this, young lady—life’s not easy, and it won’t do any good to act like a spoiled child!”
The other reason concerned the pet that Anemone had kept for
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