Mr. Perfect Read online

  Leah Street entered and took her neatly packed lunch out of the refrigerator. She had a sandwich (turkey breast and lettuce on whole wheat), a cup of vegetable soup (which she heated in the microwave), and an orange. Jaine sighed, torn between hate and envy. How could you like someone who was so organized? People like Leah, she thought, were put on earth to make everyone else look inefficient. If she had thought, she could have packed her own lunch instead of having to make do with peanut butter crackers and a diet soda.

  “May I join you?” Leah asked, and Jaine felt a twinge of guilt. Since they were the only two people in the snack room, she should have asked Leah to sit down. Most people at Hammerstead would simply have sat down, but maybe Leah had been made to feel unwelcome often enough that she felt she had to ask.

  “Sure,” Jaine said, trying to infuse some warmth into her voice. “I’d like the company.” If she were Catholic, she’d definitely have to confess that one; it was an even bigger whopper than saying her father didn’t know anything about cars.

  Leah got her nutritious, attractive meal arranged and sat down at the table. She took a small bite of the sandwich and chewed daintily, blotted her mouth, then ate an equally small spoonful of soup, after which she blotted her mouth again. Jaine watched, mesmerized. She imagined the Victorians must have had the same table manners. Her own manners were good, but Leah made her feel like a barbarian.

  After a moment Leah said, “I suppose you saw that disgusting newsletter yesterday.”

  Disgusting was one of Leah’s favorite words, Jaine had noticed.

  “I assume you mean that article,” she said, because it seemed pointless to dance around. “I glanced at it. I didn’t read the entire thing.”

  “People like that make me ashamed to be a woman.”

  Well, that was going a little too far. Jaine knew she should leave it alone, because Leah was Leah and nothing was going to change her. But some little demon inside—okay, the same demon that always prompted her to open her mouth when she should keep it shut—made her say, “Why is that? I thought they were honest.”

  Leah put down her sandwich and gave Jaine an outraged look. “Honest? They sounded like whores. All they wanted in a man was money and a big … a big…”

  “Penis,” Jaine supplied, since Leah didn’t seem to know the word. “And I don’t think that was all they wanted. I seem to remember something about fidelity and dependability, sense of humor—”

  Leah dismissed that with a wave of her hand. “Believe that if you want, but the entire point of the whole article was sex and money. It was obvious. It was also vicious and cruel, because just think how it made men who didn’t have a lot of money and a big … thing—”

  “Penis,” Jaine interrupted. “It’s called a penis.”

  Leah pressed her lips together. “Some things aren’t meant to be discussed in public, but I’ve noticed before you have a potty mouth.”

  “I do not!” Jaine said heatedly. “I admit I swear sometimes, but I’m trying to stop, and penis isn’t a dirty word; it’s the correct word for a body part, just like saying ‘leg.’ Or do you have an objection to legs, too?”

  Leah gripped the edge of the table with both hands, holding so tightly her knuckles turned white. She took a deep breath. “As I was saying, think how it made those men feel. They must think they aren’t good enough, that they’re somehow inferior.”

  “Some of them are,” Jaine muttered. She should know. She had been engaged to three of the inferior ones, and she wasn’t thinking about their genitals, either.

  “No one should be made to feel that way,” Leah said, her voice rising. She took another bite of sandwich, and Jaine saw, to her surprise, that the other woman’s hands were shaking. She was genuinely upset.

  “Look, I think most people who read the article thought it was funny,” she said in a conciliatory tone. “It was obviously meant to be a humorous piece.”

  “I don’t feel that way at all. It was filthy, ugly, and mean-spirited.”

  So much for conciliation. “I don’t agree,” Jaine said flatly, gathering up her trash and depositing it in a can. “I think people see what they expect to see. Someone who’s mean expects others to be just as mean, the way people with dirty minds see smut everywhere.”

  Leah went white, then red. “Are you saying I’m dirty-minded?”

  “Take it any way you like.” Jaine went back to her office before their little disagreement escalated into open warfare. What was wrong with her lately? First her neighbor, and now Leah. She didn’t seem able to get along with anyone, not even BooBoo. Of course, no one got along with Leah, so she didn’t know if that should count, but she was definitely going to make a bigger effort to get along with Sam. So he rubbed her the wrong way; she had evidently been doing a good job of rubbing him the wrong way, too. The problem was, she was out of practice in getting along with men; since the breakup of her third engagement, she had been off men in a big way.

  But what woman wouldn’t be, with her history? Three engagements and three breakups by the time she was twenty-three wasn’t a good track record. It wasn’t that she was dog food; she had a mirror, and the mirror reflected a slim, pretty woman with almost-dimples in her cheeks and an almost-cleft in her chin. She had been popular in high school, so popular that she had gotten engaged to Brett, the star pitcher on the baseball team, in her senior year. But she had wanted to go to college and Brett had wanted to give baseball a shot, and somehow they had just drifted apart. Brett’s baseball career had been a nonstarter, too.

  Then there was Alan. She had been twenty-one, fresh out of college. Alan had waited until the night before the wedding, rehearsal night, to let her know he was in love with an ex-girlfriend and he had only gone with Jaine to prove he was really over the ex, but it hadn’t worked, sorry, no hard feelings.

  Sure. In your dreams, bastard.

  After Alan she had eventually become engaged to Warren, but maybe she had been too gun-shy by then to truly commit herself. For whatever reason, after he asked and she said yes, they both seemed to pull back and the relationship had kind of died a slow death. They had both been grateful to finally bury the thing.

  She supposed she could have gone ahead and married Warren, despite the lack of heat on both their parts, but she was glad she hadn’t. What if they had had children, then split? If she ever did have children, Jaine wanted it to be in a solid marriage, the kind her parents had.

  She had never thought the demise of her engagements was her fault; two had been mutual decisions, and one had definitely been Alan’s fault, but… was something wrong with her? She didn’t seem to inspire lust, much less devotion, in the men she had dated.

  She was jerked out of her unhappy thoughts when T.J. stuck her head in the office door. T.J. looked pale.

  “A reporter for the News is here talking to Dawna,” she blurted. “God, you don’t think—?”

  T.J. looked at Jaine; Jaine looked at T.J.

  “Ah, hell,” Jaine said in disgust, and T.J. was so upset she didn’t even demand her quarter.

  That night, Corin stared at the newsletter, reading and rereading the article. It was filth, pure filth.

  His hands were shaking, making the little words dance. Didn’t they know how this hurt? How could they laugh?

  He wanted to throw the newsletter away, but he couldn’t. Anguish gnawed at him. He couldn’t believe he actually worked with the people who had said all these hurtful things, who mocked and terrorized—

  He took a deep breath. He had to control himself. That was what the doctors said. Just take the pills, and control yourself. And he did. He had been good, very good, for a long time now. Sometimes he even managed to forget himself.

  But not now. He couldn’t forget now. This was too important.

  Who were they?

  He needed to know. He had to know.

  seven

  It was like having the Sword of Damocles hanging over her head, Jaine thought gloomily the next morning. It hadn�