Lucinda pulled a pad and pencil out of her desk drawer, reluctantly laid the mirror aside, and made a list of the shortcomings that required repair as soon as possible: * b.u.mp on nose-plane down bone * Lips too thin-collagen injections to fill out * Faint forehead lines-botox?

* Weak chin-chin implants * Flat cheeks-cheek implants * Moles on neck and left ear-remove * Earlobes too big-reduction * Hair too thin-hair implants * Imperfect teeth-bright white implants necessary * Lasix surgery-get rid of gla.s.ses * Bright blue contact lenses to have blue eyes.

Watching the cosmetic surgery channel for the past year had really paid off. She knew exactly what she'd need to have done, and by G.o.d, she was going to look like Heidi Klum if it was the last thing she ever did.

Now that she knew what had to be done to achieve facial perfection, she needed a plan to get there; and that plan required money, and lots of it.

Lucinda knew that her parents wouldn't allow her to make any major changes, so she'd have to wait until she turned eighteen for those. However, she thought she could talk them into paying for some of the minor surgery she wanted-like the mole removal and maybe the earlobe thing. Perhaps even the blue contacts that would transform her fog gray eyes. It wouldn't cost all that much, and her father had been talking about getting a second job anyhow; plus her mother was working at the flower shop and now doing custom sewing on the side, too, so there should be plenty of extra cash to go around.

In any case, she knew how to get her way now.

All she had to do was mope around and act suicidal and they'd sh.e.l.l out for sure. She could even insist on helping with the finances, and turn over all her babysitting money and any other money she raised. It would be so much less than the surgery would cost, but they wouldn't feel that they could turn her request down after that.

She knew them way too well.

Now the question was, outside of babysitting, what could she do? There was dog walking, car washing, leaf raking, and snow shoveling. She could also help around her own house more-cleaning and such-and put her parents even further in her debt.

Oh, that's a fine plan-everyone gets something out of it-especially me! Lucinda thought.

That very afternoon, she launched into "Operation Operation" and biked over to every grocery store and pharmacy in town. She posted a list of jobs she could do and the prices for each, along with tear-off flaps with her phone number on them. In no time at all, she was up to her eyeb.a.l.l.s in work.

She still didn't have any friends at school, but this time it was her choice not to. She had far too much to do to fit friends into her big picture. No, she figured that once she was perfect she'd be at least eighteen and she'd find a rich man to marry her and be set for life. After all, why play with boys when what you really wanted was a man, right? A boy can't take care of you and give you what you want.

The only thing that didn't change in her life, at least for a while, was her monthly movie "date" with Charlie, her one true friend. She'd never forget that.

Lucinda smiled, remembering Charlie's reaction when the final bandage had been removed.

He had been perplexed and said, "You don't look any diff'rint to me."

"But Charlie, don't you remember the big ugly thing that was right here?"

"Nope. I don't 'member that."

"But it was there. Don't I look beautiful now?"

"Sure, Lu. You were a'ways bootiful."

Lucinda smiled. "You'd have noticed it if you were older."

"Nah, I don't care 'bout stuff like that. All I know is when you have somethin' cut off, it means there's less of you left, and I like as much of you as can be, Lu. Maybe you should gain some weight."

Lucinda had laughed and hugged her little friend, feeling sorry for him that he was so terribly naive about the way the world really worked.

Her plan went along perfectly until one chilly day in January. When she got home from babysitting that evening, her mother and father were sitting at the kitchen table. If their expressions were any indication, things were not looking good for her.

"Hi, you guys. Hey, I have to tell you the cute thing that Mrs. Dillard's kids did. You'd have..."

"Lucinda Ruth Parker, you will take off your jacket and you will sit yourself down and explain this, please," her mother said.

No, not good at all.

Once Lucinda sat, her mother pushed her report card across the table. She stared at it and the Ds and Fs stared back. Her highest grade was a C minus, and that was for Physical Education.

"I don't understand, Lu," her father said. "It's always been As and Bs with you-and mostly As. What happened?"

"Oh, I'll tell you what happened, George. It's all this work she'd been doing-running here, running there. It's no wonder her grades have slid. She doesn't have time for homework-even though she's been telling us that she's finished it every night."

"Don't talk about me like I'm not here," Lucinda said.

"Then explain, Lu," her father said.

In answer, Lucinda stood. "I'll be right back. I have to get something out of my room."

"We want an explanation, young lady."

"That's what I'm going to get, Mom."

Lucinda smiled. This couldn't have been better timed if she'd planned it for a year. She reached under her bed and drew out a chipped gray-green metal strongbox the size of a hardcover book. She opened it with the tiny key she wore around her neck, then took it back to the kitchen with her.

"Here's why," she said, handing the box to her father.

"What's this? Please tell me it's not drugs, Lu."

"Just open it."

Mr. Parker flipped open the box. Then he handed it to Mrs. Parker.

"Where did you get all this money, Lucinda?" Mrs. Parker demanded.

"From working. I know things are pinched around here financially, so I thought I'd help out. That money is for you."

They melted immediately...just like she knew they would.

"But honey," her father said, counting the cash. "There's over five hundred dollars here. You earned all that babysitting?"

"Sure, and doing other ch.o.r.es for people. It's amazing what people will pay someone else to do because they're too lazy to do it themselves. I just wanted to help you guys out, that's all. I mean, we're a family, right? And family members should help each other-at least, that's how I feel about it. So please, take the money. I don't want it."

Her father sat back in his chair. "You are one impressive girl, you know that? How many other kids would try to help out their parents like this?"

Report card forgotten. Mission accomplished.

Her mother just shook her head in wonder. "I wish we could tell you to put this money away and that we don't need it, but we really do. With Dad's hours cut at the plant and mine at the flower shop, we're a month behind on the mortgage, and this will catch us up. Are you sure about this, sweety?"

"Absolutely, Mom."

"Then thank you, love. Thank you ever so much." Her mother stood and gave her a warm hug, followed by her father.

Oh yeah, they owed her now, boy.

Over coffee, milk, and pie, an agreement was reached in which Lucinda would cut back on her after school jobs and pull her grades up where they belonged. A workable schedule was arrived at that everyone could live with, and that was the end of it.

That night in bed, Lucinda smiled, happy that her backbreaking after school odd jobs were now over. She hated working that hard, but she had to acc.u.mulate as much money as possible quickly, because she knew that once that report card showed up, it would be coming to an end-which was the plan all along.

She'd continue to babysit Charlie and run errands for Mrs. Habbershaw, a kindly widow with six cats and one Chihuahua named Max-who was a nervous wreck-probably because the cats were all bigger than he was. Mrs. H. needed cat food and litter almost every day, and hauling that junk was hard enough work, as far as Lucinda was concerned.

She put on her depressed act for exactly one week before approaching her parents about the blue contact lenses and getting the unsightly moles on her neck and ear removed. The tinted lenses cost four hundred fifty dollars and the procedure for the moles another eleven hundred, but Mr. and Mrs. Parker didn't bat an eye. After all, who had a better daughter than they did? Mrs. Parker would drive her old car for an additional year.

Over the next few years, as Lucinda learned more about manipulation, her parents learned more about state bankruptcy laws. She managed to get a number of the more minor surgeries done-dusting, cleaning, and tweaking as Lucinda called it-pouring additional bills over the heads of her already fiscally drowning parents who just could not say, 'no' to their darling girl.

Talk about a huge ROI on a measly five hundred.

Just before her eighteenth birthday, Lucinda's mother sat her down in the kitchen for a "little talk."

"Lu, honey, I know you were counting on that earlobe reduction for your birthday this year, but frankly, we just don't have the money for it. We're still paying off all the other surgeries, and you're graduating this year. There's nothing left for college, Lu, much less more plastic surgery."

She studied her mother. The more Lucinda's looks improved, the worse her mother's became, it seemed. She was stick thin and gray. "Oh, don't worry, Mom. It's okay. I know you and Dad are struggling. There's no reason why I can't go to work and help out...again."

Mrs. Parker hung her head. They'd once been such a happy little family. Where had all that gone? "If you could do that, Lu, just until we're back on our feet, it would be a G.o.dsend."

"Of course, Mom."

Lucinda's father, a proud man, wasn't happy about the idea of further financial a.s.sistance from his teenage daughter.

They discovered him hanging in the bas.e.m.e.nt the next morning.

His life insurance policy and his will were in his shirt pocket.

There was no note.

Her mother was crushed into catatonia, so Lucinda made all the calls necessary, as well as the funeral arrangements. She opted for cremation, since it was much easier on the pocketbook, and skipped the casket in favor of a cheap pine box in which the Parker patriarch would be committed to the flames. The funeral director had looked askance, but Lucinda was past caring. Her father's will had read: "To my dear wife goes seventy percent of my estate remaining after my funeral expenses and to my dear daughter, thirty percent in hopes that she will use it to further her education." If it was to be thirty percent, then she wanted that figure to be as high as possible, and she wasn't about to waste resources on incinerating a four or five thousand dollar casket. After all, funerals were nearly as expensive as cheek and chin implants, and there wouldn't be funds enough for both.

Her mother was never quite the same after they scattered her father's ashes over Sunset Pond, where he liked to fish now and then. Since Lucinda had skipped the embalming, the urn, the burial plot and the memorial service, disposing of her father's body had cost a grand total of two hundred twenty five dollars-which his social security death benefit covered, thank you so much. They weren't out a single cent. Her mother would get over the lack of a burial plot to visit and adorn with flowers. She could sit at the edge of the pond and put flowers into the water if she wanted to, couldn't she? What was the difference?

The following week, after the life insurance check was divvied up, her mother caught up on back bills and just managed to save the house from foreclosure.

Lucinda made a surgery appointment.

It was during her recovery at home that Mrs. Parker's relic of an automobile, the one that should have been replaced years ago, finally gave out. The brakes failed, and in her panic, she lost control of the vehicle and hit a two hundred year old maple tree head-on. She made it through with only a broken leg to show for it, but when they took her to the hospital for a CT Scan, they found the cancer.

It was everywhere.

She had, at most, three months to live.

When she gave Lucinda the news from her hospital bed, her beautiful daughter managed to summon up a tear or two, then rushed home and dug out her mother's life insurance policy and will-which left everything to her.

It was hard for Lucinda to be too upset with that kind of a windfall staring her in the face.

She met with her mother's doctor the next morning to discuss her mother's illness and her final days. As the doctor was walking her out, he inquired about family medical history, since her mother was alternately too sick or too upset to discuss it.

"Has anyone else in your family ever had cancer?" he asked.

"Oh, sure. One of my uncles died of it a few years ago."

"A blood relation?"

"Yes. My mother's brother. Why?"

"I'm concerned that you may have a predisposition for cancer."

"What does that mean?"

"That because it runs in your family, you would be more likely to get it than someone whose family is clean of it. What sort of cancer did your uncle have?"

"Colon cancer, I think."

"Then you should be sure and get a colonoscopy at least once every two years.

Lucinda was alarmed. "And what kind of cancer does my mother have?"

"Well, since it's spread so far, it's a little hard to say, but from what I've seen in the scan results, I'd guess it started somewhere in the reproductive tract."

"I had an aunt who died of ovarian cancer."

"Mother's side or father's?"

"Father's."

"Oh, then you have a predisposition for it on both sides of your family. Any breast cancer?"

Lucinda nodded miserably. "Two cousins. Both dead."

"My advice to you, then, is to get a PAP smear, mammogram, and colonoscopy every year, like clockwork," the doctor said. "My dear, are you all right?"

Lucinda was sheet white and trembling all over.

"I understand that you lost your father recently, too. I'm sure the stress of that and your mother's situation is taking a huge toll on you." The doctor pulled his prescription pad forward. "Ever taken Valium?"

"No."

"Well you're going to start. This will at least allow you to get some sleep. Under no circ.u.mstances are you to drink alcohol with this medication-do you understand?"

"Yes. But I don't drink. It's really bad for the skin. Ages it, you know? I can't have that. Thank you, doctor." Lucinda took the slip from his fingers, then left the office.

As the doctor watched her walk away, his eyes narrowed slightly. The only time she showed any emotion at all was when I explained predisposition.