The Promise by Danielle Steel Page A

11
    Nancy settled herself comfortably in the easy chair near the fire and sighed as she leaned her head back. She was five minutes early today, and anxious to talk to Faye. She heard the click-clack of her high heels coming across the hall to the study she used for seeing patients, and Nancy smiled and sat up straight in her chair. She wanted to give Faye the full benefit.
    “Good morning, early bird. Don't you look pretty in red today.” And then she stopped in the doorway and smiled. “Never mind the red. Let me see the new chin.” Faye advanced on her slowly, looking at the lower part of Nancy's face, and at last, with a victorious smile, she found Nancy's eyes.
    “Well, how do you like it?” But she could see the answer in Faye's face. Admiration for Peter's work, and pleasure for the girl.
    “Nancy, you look beautiful. Just beautiful.” Now one could see the lovely young neck, arching gracefully away from the slim shoulders, the delicate chin and gentle, sensuous mouth. What one could see was exquisite and perfectly suited the girl's personality.
    Peter's endless sketches and sculptures had not been in vain. “My God, I want one like that too!”
    Nancy chortled with glee, and sat back in the chair, hiding the rest of her face, which was still concealed by bandages, behind the dark brown felt hat she had bought a few weeks before at I. Magnin. It went well with the new brown wool coat and brown boots she was wearing with the red knit dress. Her figure had always been excellent, and with the striking new face she was going to be a very dazzling girl. She was even beginning to feel beautiful, now that she could see something of what was to come. Peter was keeping his promises.
    “It's embarrassing, Faye. I feel so good I could squeak. And the weird thing is, it doesn't even look like me, but I love it.”
    “I'm glad But what about it not looking like you? Does that bother you, Nancy?”
    “Not as much as I thought it would. But maybe I still expect the rest to look like me. This is just one isolated part, and I never much liked my mouth before anyway. Maybe it'll seem stranger when the rest looks like someone else too. I don't know.”
    “You know something, Nancy? Maybe you ought to just sit back and enjoy it. Maybe you ought to play with this a little. Go with it.”
    “What do you mean?”
    “Well, you're working on being Nancy, and we've been trying to adjust to giving up pieces of that Nancy as we go along. Maybe you ought to just stand back and look at the whole canvas. For instance, did you like your walk before?”
    Nancy looked puzzled as she thought about it. This was a whole new idea, and something they had never discussed in the four months she'd been seeing Faye. “I don't know, Faye. I never thought about my walk.”
    “Well, let's think about it. What about your voice? Have you ever considered a voice coach? You have a marvelous voice, smooth and soft Maybe with a little coaching you could make more of it. Why don't we play with what you've got and really make the most of it? Peter is. Why don't you?”
    Nancy's face lit up at the idea, and she began to catch some of Faye's excitement. “I could develop all kinds of new sides to myself, couldn't I? Play the piano … a new walk …. I could even change my name.”
    “Well, let's not leap into any of this. You don't want to feel you've lost yourself. You want to feel you've added to yourself. But let's think about all this. I have a feeling it's going to take us in some very interesting directions.”
    “I want a new voice.” Nancy sat back and giggled. “Like this.” She lowered her voice by several octaves, and Faye laughed.
    “If you do enough of that, Peter may have to give you a beard.”
    “Terrific.” They were suddenly in a holiday mood, and Nancy got up and began to prance around the room. At times like that, Faye remembered how young she really was. Twenty-three now. Her birthday had come and gone, and she was growing up in