The Not-So-Perfect Man Read Online Free PDF

fully appreciate another person’s intuitive and analytical…”
    “Just ask your question,” she said, cutting him off.
    “Do you think my wife’s behavior toward me has changed?”
    “Yes.” Jane did not hesitate.
    “How?” Peter asked to clarify.
    She shifted in her chair, trying to get comfortable. It must be a torture to sit on a hard plastic seat, hour after hour, on her bony ass. This was a benign observation, not meant as a criticism. Peter preferred an ass that had some flesh. A rump. Ilene’s ass had a nice shape. Curvy, slappable. He recalled one of the mental snapshots of Ilene that had burned themselves into his corneas over the years. He’d returned from the bathroom to find her sleeping nude on her belly, her tush round and sleek in the moonlight. She looked so supernaturally beautiful, he thought she’d disappear in a cloud of smoke if he took one more step toward her.
    Jane said, “It’s been a gradual change. Over the last year, I guess. She made me swear not to tell you, but she wants me to e-mail her whenever you have something to eat.”
    He was outraged. “Do you?” he asked.
    “I tell her you have a salad every day for lunch, and an afternoon snack of yogurt and strawberries.”
    Peter said, “She believes that?”
    “She wants to,” said Jane.
    He sighed. Deeply. Hungrily. “I am starving to death.”
    “Since you value my opinion so highly, I’m going to give it to you straight, Peter,” said Jane. “You don’t have enough sex.”
    He laughed. “You’re telling me?”
    Jane shook her head. “You need to seduce her, romance her.”
    “I do try to romance her,” he said lamely. “I guess I could buy some candles or something.”
    “Oh, man, have you got a lot to learn. Most women wouldn’t care if you bought out the candle department at Pier One. They want oral sex,” said Jane. “When’s the last time you went down on your wife?”
    Peter stammered, flummoxed. The honest answer: He wasn’t sure. “As usual, your thoughts are as precise as they are valuable,” he said.
    She shook her head and said, “Conversation over?”
    “And then some,” he said. Then, “Take a peek out there.” Bruce’s desk was only ten feet from Peter’s office. He could hear the staff, milling, murmuring. There was a conspiratorial, muffled lowness to their voices.
    Jane cracked Peter’s office door and peered out. She closed it immediately. “They all looked up when they heard the door open.”
    Peter sighed. “Let’s go with Big City Deli. Pastrami on rye. Fries extra crispy, gravy on the side. Lemon meringue pie. And a diet Coke.”
    “I’ll have the same,” said Jane.

Chapter 7
    Wednesday, October 9
8:30 A . M .
    “Just coffee, thanks,” said Betty to Frieda. Her sister loved to push a big breakfast on her, but Betty refused every time. She just couldn’t eat in the morning. She’d read a million times that having a solid morning meal would prevent excessive afternoon snacking and/or 10 P . M . pig-outs. Betty once calculated that she consumed 50 percent of her daily calories in the two hours before bedtime: the absolute worst eating pattern. If one cared about that sort of thing.
    Betty had spent the night in Brooklyn Heights to help Frieda with Justin. She spent a night a week at her sister’s. Made her feel useful. Frieda clearly enjoyed the company and the extra pair of hands for cooking and picking up toys. Betty didn’t know how Frieda got through her days as a single working mother. With all the life insurance money, Frieda could afford to hire a regular baby-sitter. She refused, saying that the last thing Justin needed right now was to be foisted off on some stranger who didn’t love him, and that he liked hanging out at the framing studio after school. Betty thought both mother and son needed play dates with like-aged friends. Their family of two was already too small, too isolated.
    Betty would never voice her concerns to Frieda. It was not her business.