I go back to my desk and click on one of the videos I found online of Dr. John Taylor. Educational videos on websites devoted to disfiguring birth defects or trauma: www.abeautifulchild.org and www.nomoredefects.org. I’m not interested in watching the surgeries themselves—surprisingly, a fair number of these have been videotaped. Rather, I watch and re-watch the classroom lectures accompanying them.
I fast-forward through the clinical scenes until I get to the point where Dr. Taylor is standing in front of thirty students, explaining techniques for fixing cheiloschisis in infants. It is a beautiful thing. He ignores the camera. He makes eye contact with students, and uses his large hands as a ballet dancer would use her whole body, to express what is inexpressible in words. I watch his face in particular. He doesn’t look like a man who would lie to women. I hit pause and go to the Taylor Institute website and click on another video. It is required viewing for all men and women undergoing cosmetic procedures in his clinic. Dr. Epstein, when I interviewed him on the same day I interviewed Dr. Kramer, told me it discourages almost 20 percent of prospective clients. He did not sound happy about it. I’d asked him if they continued showing it to prospective patients after Dr. Taylor died. “No,” he said, firmly. “The partners agreed it was no longer . . . expedient . . . to do so.”
“By partners, you mean yourself and Dr. Kramer?” I asked. “Yes, the remaining partners,” he said.
In the video, Dr. Taylor is sitting at a desk. He looks directly at the camera. “Before you undergo this procedure, I want you to know some facts,” he begins. He talks about the trauma to the body due to breast augmentation, facial sculpting. He talks about the odds of procedures going wrong. He talks about percentages of women unhappy with the results. He gives statistics about self-esteem: Only 29 percent of women feel better about themselves one year after the surgery. “Rhinoplasty is the exception,” he says. “But body contouring, thigh lift, tummy tuck—the gratification is fleeting.” He stares deeply into the camera for his wrap-up. “If you have confidence issues, if you feel unattractive or unlovable, plastic surgery is not for you. It will not change those basic personality traits. You will only see more imperfections, want more improvements. Your body is not clay to be molded to your specifications. It is a gift. Treat it as such.”
The first time I saw this video, I described the procedures to Peter. He was repelled at the idea of a body lift, touched my insubstantial right breast and said, “But you are perfect the way you are” or some such nonsense. That is a lie. I am not perfect; I am not even regular.
Once you watch the before and after videos of Dr. Epstein’s and Dr. Kramer’s patients—the ones who saw the video but were not dissuaded—you do begin to look at yourself differently. This pinched inch of excess flesh, wouldn’t it be nice if this disappeared? As you grow older, wouldn’t it be nice to reverse the inevitable sagging? I am twenty-eight years old and imperfect enough to avert my eyes from the mirror when I get out of the shower. How will I feel when I’m thirty-nine? Fifty-nine? Peter and I rarely go to LA but when we do we’re struck with the billboards advertising cosmetic procedures the way that Silicon Valley billboards advertise the latest technology advances. This is the future. Dr. Taylor had his finger in the dam trying to hold back the flood.
He appears to be a man you could trust. Here is a man who had your interests at heart. I would imagine that many of his patients’ mothers fell in love with him. But as you watch the competent, straight-talking yet compassionate man in the videos, you know he would never take advantage of the emotionally charged situations, would never prey on his patients, or feed on their vulnerability. This is not a man who would cheat on his wife.
I wonder what I would feel, sitting in the clinic, considering an arm lift or body sculpturing, listening to Dr. Taylor’s attempts to stop me. I think I might fall in love with this bear of a man, would gladly join his harem for his eyes to light upon me and stay there for even a moment. That would be enough.
I notice that he is not wearing a wedding ring in any of these videos.
The phone rings. It’s Peter.
“What time you coming home tonight?” he asks. His voice is neutral, which is his way of saying he’s sorry. We had a fight last night. He said I haven’t been “present,” that I’m not there in the room, not listening when he speaks, not responding when he touches me. Perhaps it’s true. This case has cast a spell over me. I have the obituary from the Chronicle out on my desk. I’m looking at the photo of John Taylor as a young man. Very handsome. A light emanating from the eyes half closed in a mischievous smile that borders on lascivious. I’ve heard that women fall in love with their doctors, and now I see why. Really, who wouldn’t have been at risk from John Taylor?
“I’m not sure,” I tell him. “I’m working.”
“On the Taylor case,” he says flatly.