When I look into the mirror after surgery, there’s Cameron Diaz. Dazzling white teeth. Blonde shiny hair. Her china blue eyes stare at me like magic. OK, not magic; I paid a small fortune for her cloned face. Limited edition, one of ten.

 

“Happy?” says the technician holding the hand mirror.

 

That’s when things get weird.

 

My lips coil away from each other like snakes separating. My eyes cross, then enlarge. My skin shudders, like it wants to crawl right off me.

 

“Ma’am?” the technician asks, dropping the mirror. “Ma’am?”

 

I’m not deaf, I want to shout. There’s something wrong with my face! But I can’t use my mouth.

 

Then my neck starts itching, like hundreds of spiders scrambling.

 

A flare of heat.

 

“Ma’am, stop!” The technician grabs my hands. “The nanohealers haven’t had enough time yet!”

 

Bells. Beeps. “Code Blue, Code Blue!”

 

* * *

 

My mom loved retro movies, especially Cameron Diaz. I asked her once, why Cameron? She said it was because she always held the truth in her eyes.

It was hard on my mom, living off-planet. On good days, we’d play Something About Mary or Charlie’s Angels, shout out our favorite lines, strike silly poses pretending our fingers were guns. On bad days, we’d turn the lights to glow and stream Being John Malkovich and The Invisible Circus.

 

She’d replay that one scene over and over, where Faith is standing on the wall. Her boyfriend’s holding her hand and she says, “Let go, it’s all going to be okay.”

 

He lets go.

 

She jumps.

 

* * *

 

When I wake in the hospital, Dr Chaterjee’s hologram beams at me, his face as serene as a yogi. “And now you join us! I am so sorry you had problems. Very regretful.”

 

I hesitate before touching my face, fingertips cold against my cheek.

 

“Let’s try again, shall we?” Dr Chatterjee hands me a mirror.

 

I follow his instructions to yawn, frown, smile, taking my time, less trusting the second time. I thought this would be a way of staying close to my mom but now I’m not so sure.

 

Thankfully, everything stays in place.

 

“There you are, right as rain. The anti-rejection drugs are very good.”

 

I ask how long I’ll be on the drugs. I ask if he should have warned me. I ask if I can take my old face home, as a keepsake.

 

He uses long fancy words to explain that the cloned face is like a rubber glove snapped over my skull. Essentially, my old face had to be scraped off and incinerated as medical waste.

 

My stomach convulses. Medical waste. My parents are gone. The face they gave me is gone.

 

Dr Chatterjee’s hologram passes me a tissue, tells me everything will be okay, that I’ll adjust. His hologram’s haptics are amazing. His arm around me is so comforting.

 

“You have top-of-the-line face, yes? The face of a star,” he says. “But you’re still you. Underneath, you’re still you.”

 

I guess he thinks that will reassure me.

 

* * *

 

My dad was a great believer in science. “It’s thanks to science that we’ve eradicated disease, conquered space, communicated with thousands of species.”

 

But science couldn’t solve loneliness, anxiety or homesickness. Science couldn’t save Mom.

 

It’s not logical, he’d say. She was healthy. All her needs were met.

 

I didn’t bother arguing. I was too mad. She knew how much I needed her and she left anyway.

 

There was no data to chart the moment my mom decided to book into a Helium Room. All the data recorded was 21:06, 12 March 2064, subject expired.

 

***

 

After I’m released from the hospital, the girls and I go to lunch to celebrate. “Your teeth are so big and white!” Georgia says.

 

I pretend to lunge at her. “All the better to eat you with!”

 

She emits a strangled laugh.

 

The wine arrives. “A toast,” Mel raises her glass, “to the new you. And your teeth.”

 

We clink glasses.

 

“You know, cells have memory,” Georgia says. “They know where they’ve been. They don’t forget.”

 

“Jesus, Georgia. Trying to celebrate.” I shake open the menu, eager to tuck into real food after all those nutrition pellets at the hospital. Tasted like sawdust.

 

“No, but after a transplant, people's food preferences can change. Some people get hairier.”

 

“Gee, thanks.” I ask the waiter for a wine menu. Sancerre isn’t hitting my palate today.

 

When I order a Malbec, Mel raises her eyebrows. “Red wine?”

 

“Forewarned is forearmed,” Georgia says. “You're part her now.”

 

“That's true,” Melanie says. “Heads are like 30% of your body weight.”

 

“Technically, it’s just her face,” I say.

 

“Whatever. You're part Cameron now.”

 

“Hello, still here. Still me!” I protest. But I think about the Earl Grey I threw out this morning in favor of an espresso. Coffee used to taste so bitter.

 

* * *

 

I put on Mom’s favorite necklace, a string of cream pearls she once told me came from Earth’s ocean, not the simulator. Now I’ve started wearing them, I can feel the difference. The soft row of pearls warms my skin as I brush my hair, apply a new shade of coral lipstick that’s suddenly taken my fancy. I can’t predict what will change next, but I'm okay with that.

 

On my way out, I touch the glass vials one by one that Mom labelled grass, sand, and sea water, like a blessing. She loved Earth in the marrow of her bones. I’ve put them on the shelf by the VuFrame, where my parents stand, arm in arm, incredibly young, hair tousled by the wind, looking more relaxed than I ever knew them.

 

In the hallway mirror, I smile my legendary smile — Cameron with an echo of Mom — and head out the door.