A Perfect Life?. Dawn Atkins

attractive.

      Claire plowed doggedly onward, ignoring the way her pumps pinched her toes and rubbed her heels. Her suit was as airless as a plastic bag. By the time she reached B&V Advertising, she had blisters and felt woozy from being overheated. Oh, well. At least she had something besides her breakup to focus on—survival.

      She paused at the door to the office to brace herself for the inevitable cracks from the Morning Madness fans at B&V who, she’d bet, included Georgia, the receptionist. Prepared, she took a deep breath and marched inside, head up, chest out, heels stinging, sweat dripping, but looking successful. Or at least dressed that way.

      Luckily, Georgia wasn’t at the front desk. That wasn’t unusual, since she deserted her post whenever the spirit moved her. But at least Claire got through reception without a jab.

      Needing coffee, she made a beeline for the tiny kitchen…where she hit a K-BUZ listener jackpot—Georgia and her friend Mimi, the bookkeeper. Claire attempted a backward slink, hoping to escape unnoticed, but Georgia spoke. “Moonlighting on the radio, are you now?” she asked in her smoke-roughened voice.

      “You heard?” Blush washed over Claire.

      “Was that staged?” Mimi asked. “The call and all?”

      “No, it was real,” she said. Vividly, excruciatingly real.

      Georgia looked her dead-on. “They bleeped out what you called him. Was it ‘prick’ or ‘dick’?”

      “Prick.”

      “Yeah, I’d say that’s the best word for him.”

      “You look bad, girl,” Mimi said, looking her up and down. “Kinda like you dropped your vibrator in the bathtub—all shocked and jittery.”

      Georgia cackled and snorted smoke. This was a no-smoking office, but Georgia didn’t let anyone push her around. “Good one,” she said, then narrowed her gaze at Claire. “How you doin’ with it?”

      “Hide the razor blades,” Claire said with a lopsided smile.

      “Don’t sell yourself short, honey. You deserve better than that putz.”

      Georgia and Mimi were both forty, divorced and okay with being single. Claire envied them their self-sufficiency.

      “At least you have a great story to tell,” Mimi said. “I learned my husband was cheating by finding Victoria’s Secret receipts in his suit coat. So cliché.”

      “Good point,” Claire said, comforting herself with three sugars and real cream in her coffee. She turned to face the women, resting her backside against the counter.

      “Those mechanicals are on your chair to copy,” Georgia said.

      “Great. Just what I need—a visit with Leroy the Letch.” The man lurked in the copy room and lived for a pat, brush or slide against some female part.

      Georgia cackled again. “If that man gropes me one more time, I think I’ll have to…I’ll have to…”

      “What?” Mimi said. “Sleep with him?”

      The three women burst into laughter. It felt good to Claire—kind of like a mini Game Night.

      “Nah,” Georgia said. “I can’t sleep with him. Mouth breathers snore.”

      They laughed again.

      “Thanks for the pep talk,” Claire said, raising her doctored brew in a toast to the two women. She turned to go.

      “One more thing,” Georgia said.

      “Yeah?” She turned, expecting something motherly.

      “Lose the suit. You look like a stewardess.”

      Just the image she was going for. “Honey-roasted nuts, anyone?” she said. Actually, she could think of a pair of nuts she’d love to roast. With no honey involved…unless the nuts were suspended over an ant-hill. Hmm…

      “Don’t feel bad,” Mimi said, shrugging. “If you don’t try things on for size, you can’t learn what works.”

      “Right,” she said. The advice was good for life, as well as clothes. Except everything Claire tried on was either too tight, too loose or made her butt look big. She set off for her office.

      Low on the account exec totem pole, she’d been squeezed into the cubicle between the copy room and the mechanical room that used to be a janitor’s closet. Now and then, when the breeze was right, she caught a whiff of cleaning supplies. She’d grown to love the smell of Comet in the morning.

      She picked up the ads from her chair and began her foray into Leroy the Letch Land. Moving quickly, she escaped with barely a breast brush.

      The minute she sat at her desk, the phone rang. “Claire Quinn,” she said into it.

      “Don’t hang up!” Jared.

      She took in a quick breath, knowing she should do just that, but the phone felt Velcroed to her ear.

      “I wanted to tell you a million times,” Jared said, “but I knew it would hurt you and I’d rather die than hurt you.”

      She could hear tears in his voice. Tears. She couldn’t help but be touched. And a little weirded out. “How long have you been…?”

      “Married?”

      No, a cheating creep. “Yeah.”

      “Three years. We just sort of ended up together.”

      A thought chilled her. “Do you have kids?”

      “No, no kids. And we’ve grown apart. I didn’t realize how much until I met you and fell in love.”

      “Right.” She tried to sound sarcastic, but the word love softened her like a VCR case on a dashboard in summer.

      “It’s a relief that you know the truth. You have no idea how this was haunting me.”

      “You poor, poor dear.”

      “I know, I know. Of course you’re hurting more than me right now. We can talk this all through on Saturday.”

      “Saturday?”

      “When I move in.”

      “You can’t move in. You keep forgetting—you’re married.”

      “We need to be together, Claire. This thing between us is big. Just give me time to talk to Lindi.” His words were as sweet and soothing as warm honey on Claire’s sore throat.

      “We’ll work it out,” he continued. “I know we will. And on Saturday we can buy that futon, and a lamp—even an area rug—just like we planned. Anything you want, baby.”

      Anything she wanted. Baby. She loved it when he called her that. She fought down the throb of hope that tightened her throat. Hold it right there, you lying sack of pig parts. She decided on a more civilized approach.

      “How can I trust you?” she said. “You lied to me. Our whole relationship is a lie.”

      “No. My marriage is the lie. Our love is the one true thing I have. You have every reason to hate me, Claire, but please don’t stop loving me. Please.”

      She was touched, of course, but she couldn’t help noticing he sounded like bad daytime TV. Plus, the picture of roasting his nuts kept floating in her head.

      “I want to hold you,” he said. “I need you in my arms to feel okay in the world.”

      Now that line was perfect and she felt herself melt right into her pumps, blisters and all. Maybe it would be okay. Men had to get shocked into change, didn’t they?

      “I don’t know, Jared. I have to think.”

      “Take a day or two, but never forget that I love you. We’ll find a way to make this work. We have to.