Mr. Perfect

  Jaine poured herself a much-needed cup of coffee. “What’s up?” she asked.

  “A special edition of the newsletter,” one of the women, Dominica Flores, answered. Her eyes were wet from laughing. “This one is going down in history.”

  “I don’t see what’s so funny,” said the guy, scowling.

  “You wouldn’t,” a woman said, snickering. She held out the newsletter to Jaine. “Take a look.”

  The company newsletter wasn’t officially sanctioned, not by any stretch of the imagination. It originated from the first two floors; give that many imaginations access to desktop publishing, and it was bound to happen. The newsletter appeared at irregular intervals, and there was usually something in it that had management trying to round up all the copies.

  Jaine took another sip of coffee as she took the newsletter. The guys actually did a pretty professional job of it, though with the equipment and software at their disposal, it would have been a disgrace if they hadn’t. The newsletter was named The Hammerhead and a nasty-looking shark was the logo. It wasn’t a hammerhead shark, but that didn’t matter. The articles were set in columns, there were good graphics, and a fairly witty cartoonist who signed his work “Mako” usually poked fun at some aspect of corporate life.

  Today the headline was set in huge boldface letters: DO YOU MEASURE UP? Below it read, “What Women Really Want,” with a tape measure coiled like a cobra ready to strike.

  “Forget about it, guys,” the article began. “Most of us are nonstarters. For years we’ve been told it’s not what we’ve got, it’s how we use it, but now we know the truth. Our expert panel of four women, friends who work here at Hammerstead, have come up with a list of their requirements for the perfect man.”

  Uh-oh. Jaine almost groaned, but managed to bite back the sound and show nothing but interest in her expression. Damn it, what had Marci done with that list she had written down? They would all be teased unmercifully, and this was the kind of thing that stuck forever. She could just see tape measures by the dozen turning up on her desk every morning.

  Hastily she skimmed down the article. Thank God; none of their names were mentioned. They were listed as A, B, C, and D. She was still going to wring Marci’s neck, but now she wouldn’t have to fold, spindle, and mutilate her.

  The entire list was there, starting with “faithful” in the number one spot. The list wasn’t bad until it hit number eight, “great in bed,” but after that it deteriorated rapidly. Number nine was Marci’s ten inch requirement, complete with all their accompanying comments, including her own about the last two inches being leftovers.

  Number ten had to do with how long Mr. Perfect should be able to last in bed. “Definitely longer than a television commercial,” had been T.J.’s—Ms. D’s—rather scathing indictment. They had settled on half an hour as the optimum length of lovemaking, not counting foreplay.

  “Why not?” Ms. C—that was Jaine—was quoted as saying. “This is a fantasy, right? And a fantasy is supposed to be exactly what you want it to be. My Mr. Perfect could give me thirty minutes of thrusting time—unless you’re having a quickie, in which case thirty minutes would kind of defeat the purpose.”

  The women were all howling with laughter, so Jaine figured some expression must be on her face. She just hoped it looked like astonishment rather than horror. The guy—she thought his name was Cary or Craig, something like that—was turning redder by the minute.

  “You wouldn’t think it was so funny if a bunch of men said that their ideal woman had to have big boobs,” he snapped, getting to his feet.

  “Oh, come off it,” Dominica said, still grinning. “Like men haven’t gone for big boobs since their knuckles still dragged the ground. It’s nice to see a little payback.”

  Oh, great. A battle between the sexes. Jaine could just imagine the conversations going on around the building. She forced a smile as she handed back the newsletter. “I guess we’re going to hear about this for a while.”

  “Are you kidding?” Dominica asked, grinning. “I’m going to frame my copy and hang it where my husband sees it first thing in the morning when he wakes up and last thing at night when he goes to bed!”

  As soon as Jaine got back to her office, she dialed Marci’s extension. “Guess what I just saw in the newsletter,” she growled, keeping her voice low.

  “Oh, damn.” Marci groaned aloud. “How bad is it? I haven’t seen a copy yet.”

  “From what I read, it’s pretty much verbatim. Damn it, Marci, how could you?”

  “That’s a quarter,” Marci said automatically. “And it was an accident. I don’t want to say too much here in the office, but if you can meet me for lunch, I’ll tell you what happened.”

  “Okay Railroad Pizza at twelve. I’ll call T.J. and Luna; they’ll probably want to be there, too.”

  “This sounds like a lynch party,” Marci said mournfully.

  “Could be,” Jaine said, and hung up.

  Railroad Pizza was about half a mile from Hammerstead, which made it a popular place with the employees. They did a booming take-out business, but they also had half a dozen booths and about that many tables. Jaine got the back booth, where they would have the most privacy. Within minutes, the other three arrived and slid into the booth, T.J. next to Jaine, Marci and Luna across from them.

  “God, I’m sorry,” Marci said. She looked miserable.

  “I can’t believe you showed the list to someone!” T.J. was horrified. “If Galan ever finds out—”

  “I don’t see why you’re so upset,” Luna said, puzzled. “I mean, yeah, it’d be a little embarrassing if people found out we’re the ones who made the list, but it’s really kind of funny.”

  “Would you still think it’s funny six months from now when guys are still coming up to you offering to show you that they measure up?” Jaine asked.

  “Galan wouldn’t think it’s funny at all,” T.J. said, shaking her head. “He’d kill me.”

  “Yeah,” Marci said glumly. “Brick isn’t what you’d call sensitive, but he’d get pissed that I said I wanted ten inches.” She gave a weak smile. “Guess you can say he’d come up short.”

  “How did it happen?” T.J. asked, burying her face in her hands.

  “I went shopping Saturday, and I ran into Dawna what’s-her-name, you know, that Elvira look-alike on the first floor,” Marci said. “We got to talking, went for a late lunch, had a couple of beers. I showed her the list, we had a good laugh, and she asked for a copy. I didn’t see why not. After a few beers, I don’t see why not about a lot of things. She asked a few questions, and somehow I wound up writing down everything we’d said.”

  Marci had an almost photographic memory. Unfortunately, a few beers didn’t seem to affect her memory, just her judgment.

  “At least you didn’t give her our names,” T.J. said.

  “She knows who we are,” Jaine pointed out. “Marci had the list, so any idiot can figure out she’s one of the four friends. Take it from there.”

  T.J. covered her face with her hands again. “I’m dead. Or divorced.”

  “I don’t think anything will come of it,” Luna said soothingly. “If Dawna was going to spill the beans on us, she would already have told her pals on the first floor. We’re safe. Galan will never know.”

  five

  Jaine was on edge the rest of the day, waiting for the other shoe to drop. She couldn’t imagine how nervous T.J. must have felt, because if this ever got out and Galan found out about it, he’d deal T.J. misery for the rest of her life. When it came down to the bottom line, T.J. was the one who had the most to lose. Marci was in a relationship, but at least she wasn’t married to Brick. The thing Luna had going with Shamal King was on-again, off-again at best, without commitment.

  Of the four, Jaine was the one who would have the least difficulty if their identities became known. She wasn’t in a relationship, having given up on men, and she answered to no one but herself. She’d have to endure the teasing, but th
at was all.

  Once she analyzed the situation and came to that conclusion, she stopped worrying so much. So what if some office clown tried to show off his wit? She could hold her own with any bozo.

  Her improved mood lasted until she got home and found that BooBoo, in an attempt to impress on her how upset he was at having to stay in a strange house, had completely shredded one of the cushions on her sofa. Tufts of stuffing were scattered all over the living room. She closed her eyes and counted to ten, then to twenty. There was no point in getting angry at the cat; he probably wouldn’t understand, and wouldn’t care even if he did. He was as much a victim of circumstance as she was. He hissed at her when she reached for him. She usually left him alone when he did that, but in a moment of pity she scooped him up anyway and burrowed her fingers into his fur, kneading the limber muscles of his back. “Poor kitty,” she crooned. “You don’t know what’s going on, do you?”

  BooBoo snarled at her, then ruined the effect by lapsing into a rumbling purr.

  “Just hold on for four weeks and five days. That’s thirty-three days. You can put up with me that long, can’t you?”

  He didn’t look as if he agreed, but didn’t care as long as she continued kneading his back. She carried him into the kitchen and gave him a treat, then put him on the floor with a fuzzy toy mouse to battle.

  Okay The cat was trashing her house. She could cope. Her mom would be horrified at the damage and pay for it, of course, so all in all Jaine was just being a little inconvenienced.

  She was impressed by her own mellowness.

  She got a drink of water, and as she stood at the sink, her neighbor arrived home. At the sight of that brown Pontiac she could feel her mellowness begin to circle the drain. But the car was quiet, so evidently he had replaced the muffler. If he was trying, so could she. Mentally she put a stopper in the drain.

  She watched out the window as he got out of the car and unlocked his kitchen door, which faced hers. He was wearing slacks and a white dress shirt, with a tie hanging loose around his neck and a jacket slung over his shoulder. He looked tired, and when he turned to enter the house, she saw the big black pistol in the holster on his belt. This was the first time she had seen him wearing anything except old, dirty clothes, and she felt a bit disoriented, as if the world had shifted off center. Knowing he was a cop and seeing him as a cop were two different things. The fact that he was wearing street clothes instead of a uniform meant he wasn’t a patrol officer, but was at least a detective in rank.

  He was still a jerk, but he was a jerk with heavy responsibilities, so maybe she could be more understanding. She had no way of knowing when he was asleep, short of knocking on his door to ask him, which kind of defeated the purpose if she didn’t want to disturb him when he was sleeping. She just wouldn’t mow her lawn when he was at home, period. That didn’t mean she wouldn’t tear a strip off his rhinoceros hide whenever he disturbed her, because fair was fair, but she would try to get along with him. After all, they would probably be neighbors for years and years.

  God, that thought was depressing.

  Her mellowness and charity toward all lasted … oh, a couple of hours.

  At seven-thirty she settled down in her big easy chair to watch some television and read for a while. She often did both simultaneously, figuring that if anything really interesting happened on the tube, it would get her attention. A cup of green tea steamed gently at her elbow, and she antioxidized herself with an occasional sip.

  A loud crash destroyed the quietness of her little neighborhood.

  She surged out of the chair, sliding her feet into her sandals as she ran for the front door. She knew that sound, having heard it hundreds, thousands of times in her childhood, when her dad would take her to the test sites where she watched them crash car after car.

  Porch lights were coming on up and down the street; doors were opening and curious heads were popping out like turtles peeking out of their shells. Five doors down, illuminated by the corner streetlight, was a tangle of crumpled metal.

  Jaine ran down the street, her heart thumping, her stomach tightening as she braced herself for whatever she might see and tried to remember the basic first aid steps.

  Other people were pouring out of their houses now, mostly elderly people, the women wearing bedroom slippers and shapeless dresses or robes, the men in their sleeveless undershirts. There were a few high-pitched, excited children’s voices, the sound of mothers trying to keep their kids corralled, fathers saying, “Keep back, keep back, it might explode.”

  Having seen a lot of crashes, Jaine knew an explosion wasn’t likely, but fire was always a possibility. Just before she reached the car in the street, the driver’s side door was thrust open and a belligerent young man erupted from behind the steering wheel.

  “What the fuck!” he yelled, staring at the crumpled front end of his car. He had rear-ended one of the cars parked along the curb.

  A young woman came running from the house directly beside them, her eyes wide with horror. “Omigod, omigod! My car!”

  The belligerent young man rounded on her. “This your car, bitch? What the fuck you doin’ parking it in the street?”

  He was drunk. The fumes hit Jaine’s nose, and she moved back a step. Around her, she could hear the collective neighborhood concern changing to disgust.

  “Someone go get Sam,” she heard an old man mutter.

  “I will.” Mrs. Kulavich headed back down the street, shuffling as fast as she could in her terry-cloth bedroom slippers.

  Yeah, where was he? Jaine wondered. Everyone else who lived on the street was out here.

  The young woman whose car had been smashed was crying, her hands over her mouth as she stared at the wreckage. Behind her, two young children, about five and seven, stood uncertainly on the sidewalk.

  “Goddamned bitch,” the drunk snarled, starting toward the young woman.

  “Hey,” one of the older men piped up. “Watch your language.”

  “Fuck you, pops.” He reached the crying woman and clamped a heavy hand on her shoulder, spinning her around.

  Jaine started forward, pure anger flaring in her chest. “Hey, buddy,” she said sharply. “Leave her alone.”

  “Yeah,” a quavering elderly voice said from behind her.

  “Fuck you, too, bitch,” he said. “This stupid bitch wrecked my car.”

  “You wrecked your own car. You’re drunk and ran into a parked car.”

  She knew it was a losing effort; you couldn’t reason with a drunk. The problem was, the guy was just drunk enough to be aggressive and not drunk enough to be staggering. He shoved the young woman, and she stumbled backward, caught her heel on a protruding root of one of the big trees that lined the street, and sprawled on the sidewalk. She cried out, and her children screamed and began crying.

  Jaine charged him, bulldozing into him from the side. The impact sent him staggering. He tried to regain his balance but instead fell on his butt, his feet in the air. He struggled up and with another lurid curse lunged for Jaine.

  She dodged to the side and stuck out her foot. He stumbled, but this time managed to stay on his feet. This time when he turned, his chin was lowered, tucked close to his chest, and there was blood in his eyes. Oh, shit, she’d done it now.

  She automatically fell into a boxing stance, learned from many fights with her brother. Those fights were years in the past, and she figured she was about to get stomped, but maybe she’d get in a few good punches.

  She heard excited, alarmed voices around her, but they were oddly distant as she focused on staying alive.

  “Somebody call nine-one-one.”

  “Sadie’s getting Sam. He’ll handle it.”

  “I’ve already called nine-one-one.” That was a little girl’s voice.

  The drunk charged, and this time there was no evading him. She went down under his onslaught, kicking and punching and trying to block his punches all at the same time. One of his fists hit her in the rib cage, and t
he power behind it stunned her. Immediately they were surrounded by her neighbors, the few younger men trying to wrestle the drunk off her, the older guys helping by kicking him with their slippered feet. Jaine and the drunk rolled, and a few of the older guys were mowed down, collapsing on top of the heap.

  Her head thudded against the ground, and a glancing blow stung her cheekbone. One arm was pinned by a fallen neighbor, but with her free hand she managed to grab a chunk of flesh at the guy’s waist and twist it, pinching as hard as she could. He bellowed like a wounded water buffalo.

  Then abruptly he was gone, lifted from her as if he weighed no more than a pillow. Dazed, she saw him slam to the ground beside her, his face mashed into the dirt as his arms were wrenched behind him and handcuffs snapped around his wrists.

  She struggled to a sitting position and found herself practically nose to nose with her neighbor the jerk. “Damn it, I might have known it was you,” he snarled. “I should arrest both of you on drunk and disorderly charges.”

  “I’m not drunk!” she said indignantly.

  “No, he’s drunk, and you’re disorderly!”

  The unfairness of his charge made her choke with rage, which was a good thing, because the words that hung in her throat probably would have gotten her arrested for real.

  Around her, anxious wives were helping doddering husbands to their feet, fussing over them and checking for scrapes or broken bones. No one seemed much the worse for the fracas, and she figured the excitement would keep their hearts beating for several more years, at least.

  Several women were clustered around the young woman who had been shoved down, clucking and fussing. The back of the woman’s head was bleeding, and her kids were still crying. In sympathy, or maybe because they were feeling left out, a couple more kids began wailing. Sirens screeched in the distance, coming closer with every second.

  Crouched beside the captive drunk, holding him down with one hand, Sam looked around in disbelief. “Jesus,” he muttered, shaking his head.