The Perfect Body
Excerpt
It was only after we were all seated that I noticed Stephen looked different. His black dress shirt was snug over his shoulders, and his neck was thicker (either that or he’d shortened his bolo tie). He looked like he’d been lifting weights, something I’d never known him to do before.
Aside from the new muscles, he was the same old Stephen Park. His jet-black hair was pulled back in a ponytail, as always. Defying the usual order of things, his hairline had advanced, rather than receded. Stephen’s parents owned Park Beverly Hills Aesthetic Center. Each time he flew to Southern California to visit them, he came back looking a little younger.
But I noticed glints of silver at Stephen’s roots. The eternally-youthful Stephen Park was finally going gray.
It had been a long time, I realized. Years. Maybe it was time to let old resentments go.
“We’re very lucky tonight, Bee,” Stephen started in as he reached for the bread basket. “We get to sit with the world’s happiest couple. Isn’t it marvelous?”
Apparently not everyone was letting things go. Stephen liked to poke fun at my “bourgeois conformity.” I had moved on and gotten married, he hadn’t, and this was his way of getting back at me. Well, I wasn’t going to take the bait. The only thing to do was to maintain a dignified silence.
“Wow, Stephen,” I said, “it looks like you lost all of that weight you gained after rehab. Between that and the gray hair, I almost didn’t recognize you.”
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