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“I used to count the days until my next issue arrived in the mail,” said a woman in a raincoat. “Had some articles laminated, so they would stay in mint condition.”

  Rachel felt Len’s eyes on her again. She glanced toward him. Sure enough, he was staring straight at her, eyes laughing. How was it possible? X-ray contacts? She started clicking her pen.

  A slender woman, in her mid-twenties at the most, held up a finger. “You might want to think about changing the title. Perfect Parent? It’s somewhat prehistoric, don’t you think?”

  Linda Haas looked at Rachel and grunted. “I’ve been saying that for years.”

  “I’m well aware it isn’t hip or edgy,” said Rachel. “But my grandfather named the magazine. The title has history. You don’t just walk away from sixty years of brand recognition. Look at Honey Nut Cheerios—everyone’s heard of it, but very few people realize it contains nuts. They just know they love it. That’s a successful brand.”

  Paula stared through the window. “Or an unsuccessful one.”

  In the boardroom, Len leaned back in his chair, clasping his hands behind his head. “I just found it offered very little to parents of special-needs children, that’s all. I bought a subscription to Parenting Now.” Looking back toward the mirror, Len blushed and mouthed, “Sorry.”

  What was he, some kind of philanthropist? His child had the fashion sense of a toddler, but clearly Olivia was brilliant.

  Paula nudged Rachel from behind, as if to say, “See?” Paula had long argued the magazine was limiting itself with its strict focus on everyday parenting. That today’s children have needs the magazine was flat-out ignoring.

  “I found the same thing,” said another young woman. “My boys have ADD and I needed more.”

  “My daughter was diagnosed with Tourette’s,” said another. “Perfect Parent became useless to me. I wanted my needs addressed, at least periodically.”

  Jamie muttered, “Not a bad idea.”

  Rachel tensed. “It’s not our niche. Life is crazy enough with average kids. We’re strictly average parenting for average kids.”

  Frowning, Linda peered at Rachel over the top of her glasses. “Maybe that’s why our numbers are so average.”

  By the time Rachel filed out of the secret room with the others, Len was gone. She headed toward her office, unable to account for the heaviness in her mood. It certainly couldn’t be the results of the focus group, which, in Rachel’s mind, had been a big waste of $50 bills. As she pulled on her coat, it hit her. Barring any further roadside rescues or upcoming focus groups, she had no chance of ever bumping into Len again.

  Probably a good thing, considering her reaction to Olivia that morning.

  She pulled her purse from her desk drawer and spotted a torn, oily piece of cardboard on her desk. Curled up on one side and reeking of fries. On it, in smudged blue ink, was scrawled, “International Summit of Rat Researchers to be held at Minnie’s Bistro. Friday night. 8:00. RSVP 555-9305.”

  Her mouth twitching into a smile, she slipped it into her pocket and turned off the lights.

  CHAPTER 7

  “Anxious Boy”

  —CIRCLE JERKS

  The game was called Million Trillion and it always began the same way. Locked in Janie’s closet; Dustin on the right side, squatting on his sister’s shoes, Janie on the left, leaning against a balled-up sleeping bag. Old ski suits, dresses, and a thick robe hung from hangers, dropping low enough to create separate rooms within the closet, preventing them from actually seeing each other. Between them, on the shoe rack, stood the plastic troll doll, the Seer of All Truths. But for a tiny thread of light cast from a penlight taped to the Seer’s back, illuminating his lime-green Albert Einstein hair, the game was always played in the dark.

  It started after their father left, when Dustin took a passionate dislike to Rachel’s occasional night out. Particularly if said excursion was in the company of a man. His father living with Babe-chick Cheryl was revolting enough, but the idea of his mother sitting at a sushi bar, laughing at the feeble jokes of some guy whose main goal was to keep her attention away from her kids, where her focus belonged—she was a mother, after all—was something Dustin could only liken to familial treason.

  Unwilling to interact with babysitters, the moment his mother pulled out of the driveway, Dustin usually parked himself on Janie’s window seat, cocooned in his duvet—teary face pressed against the glass, exhausted—until Rachel’s car’s headlights lit up Janie’s walls. Then he tore back to his own bed and fell asleep before his mother’s key jiggled in the front door, worn out with relief.

  His mother was his again.

  As he grew older and became aware that huddling under a blanket until your mommy came home was the ultimate in dorkiness, Dustin learned to swallow his jealousy, and Janie, finally old enough to be left without a babysitter, devised other ways to keep him busy.

  Million Trillion was born.

  “I go first,” Janie said now. “It’s my closet.”

  “No fair,” said Dustin. “Let’s play in my closet, then.”

  “Are you kidding? We’d suffocate from the smell.” The penlight’s batteries were fading fast. “Okay. It’s time,” she said. “What would you rather do? Give Kirstie Lee mouth-to-mouth for a million trillion seconds, after a month at summer camp when she forgot her toothbrush again…”

  “Ugh, sick,” said Dustin, his head banging against the wall. “Big yellow fangs—”

  “Or,” Janie continued, kicking her brother for the interruption, “or stand up at assembly and tell the whole school you have wet dreams?”

  “That wasn’t a wet dream, shithead! My thermos leaked chicken soup on my bed.”

  “Whatever. Answer.”

  “Then change the dream part.”

  “No changes when it comes to bodily functions. You know the rules.”

  She couldn’t see his face, but could make out his legs flopping to the side in exasperation. After a few grunts, he mumbled, “Kiss Yellow Fangs.”

  They both groaned in disgust.

  “Now, my turn,” said Dustin. “What would you rather do? Be walking along the river, in the dark, and find Cody Donovan sitting on a rock wearing nothing but a Timex and a smile, or be locked in a tent, starving to death, with nothing but a mad cow and a barbecue filled with a million trillion black widows? Cook the cow if you dare.”

  “Ugh. Donovan’s such an asshole. Yesterday, he whipped an eraser at a substitute when she turned around to write on the board. The whole class had to stay after school.”

  Dustin grunted. “That’s actually kind of cool.”

  “Is not! Give me a Cody-less question.”

  “Rules. It’s Cody fighting you off or death by arachnid venom. Choose.”

  “You’re such a jerk.” Janie exhaled hard and shook her leg, which had fallen asleep. “Whatever,” she said. “Cow, barbecue, spiders.”

  “Wait, that was too easy! I’ve got another one—”

  “No, my turn. What would you rather do—kiss a dead body, dug up from the grave and crawling with a million trillion maggots, or tell the whole school you’re scared of Mom going out?”

  “I’m not scared of her going out!”

  “Whatever. Mom’s date nights.”

  “It’s not Mom’s date nights! I just hate the guys. But only when I’m awake. When I’m asleep, I’m fine.”

  Janie laughed. “Okay, in front of the Mighty Seer, I hereby qualify my challenge. Change it to a million trillion maggots or tell the whole school you hate the guys Mom dates. When you’re awake. Choose.”

  The closet was silent.

  “Dustin?”

  “I’m thinking!” He thumped his knee against the wall. “How long has the body been buried?”

  “Two years.”

  “Mine was way easier…”

  Janie rolled her eyes. “The Seer is waiting.”

  “You’re so dead.”

  “Answer.”

  “Whatever,” Dustin
said. “Kiss the body. After two years, how much could be left?” He shuffled around in the dark and cried out in pain. “Aww, crap! Hangers under my butt…”

  Janie snickered.

  “Okay. You ready?” he asked.

  “Yup.”

  “What would you rather do—fall into a tank full of a million trillion jellyfish or tell the whole school the real reason you’re not at the eighth-grade dance right now?”

  Janie shrieked, “I’m not there because dances are like totalitarian states! I don’t need a regime of zipped-up school officials telling me which moments of my life will be special.”

  “Methinks not,” Dustin laughed. “Methinks you got pissed that no one asked you.”

  “How would you know?”

  “I’ve heard things.”

  Janie restacked a pile of dented shoe boxes that had spilled over onto her feet.

  One of the boxes felt prickly, rough. Janie didn’t need to turn the lights on to know it was her My Little Pony art project from second grade. “What things?”

  Dustin fake-yawned. “I really don’t see the point in picking apart the mind-numbing facts of your day-to-day existence…”

  “What things?”

  He sat forward. “Okay. I heard that you’re the clown. You’re the funny girl. You can burp the teacher’s math equations. And the guys in your class were saying that when a girl goofs around too much, she becomes…” His shrug was barely perceptible in what remained of the Seer’s light.

  “What? Funny?”

  “Un-date-able.”

  As much as her every nerve was begging her to retaliate, Janie said nothing. It was true. She did play the clown at school, but not for the reason Dustin suspected.

  Before junior high, Janie Berman had been the quiet one. She’d had one or two friends she didn’t particularly care for—Lindy Axler, who expressed every other thought in song, typically with one eye cast on the nearest reflective surface; and Sabina Krug, who was so much smaller than Janie she never felt like a real friend, though Janie knew better than to ever admit it.

  The way things changed was involuntary. With the rush of her adolescent hormones came a nervy, uninhibited persona. This new Janie could do something the old Janie could never do—make kids laugh. Like last Halloween, when all the other girls dressed as sexy black cats or brainy scientists, and Janie showed up in a child-size, drugstore Batman costume, complete with plastic face mask and a way-too-small nylon body suit. She had to wear the suit backward as the breastplate—molded plastic heroic abs and pecs—wouldn’t fit over her chest. She didn’t get the admiring looks the other girls got, but she never found herself pretending to do homework at an empty lunch table again. Janie never quite became one of the popular kids, but she finally had their seal of approval.

  That the boys thought of her as undate-able was a gift. Now, no one would suspect the truth. The real problem lay with the girls—one girl anyway.

  “I’m not playing anymore.” Janie stood up, hit her head on a shelf, and tumbled out of the closet into the bright lights of her bedroom. “I don’t feel like it.”

  “Come on,” Dustin whined. “We’re even.”

  “We’re not. Yours is a personal humiliation. Mine is public.”

  “Same difference.”

  “No. You play too dirty.”

  Dustin squeaked in indignation. “Me? You started it.” He came crashing out with a clatter of wire hangers, troll in one hand. “Fine, I’m going but I’m keeping him in my room until next time. Insanie.”

  “Don’t call me Insanie, Dustbag!” She gave him a tiny shove.

  “Hey!” His hands flew up to his head. “A little respect for the hair, please?”

  “Just go!”

  After Dustin left, Janie stared into her mirrored closet doors, motionless. Slowly, she pulled off her zippered sweatshirt, and turned sideways. She sucked in her stomach, checking out her reflection. If she didn’t breathe, she looked okay in her tank top and yoga pants. It was her lungs that got in the way.

  She exhaled and watched her body slump back into position. Whatever. Maybe later she’d do some sit-ups. Maybe not. Last week she’d tried sticking her finger down her throat after dinner—it seemed to be the perfect answer—but it didn’t work. It only left her with a scratchy throat and a bad headache.

  Wrapping herself in an old shirt of her father’s, she flopped down on her bed and flipped open the latest issue of Seventeen magazine. Photo after depressing photo of gorgeous girls. She stopped to read about applying lip gloss over lipstick, and noticed an article titled “How to Snare the Guy Next Door.” Janie rolled her eyes. Why couldn’t there ever be articles about liking girls? Where was the Idiot’s Guide to Fourteen-Year-Old Female Outcasts Flirting with Goddesses Next Door?

  Her eyes drifted back to the article. She smiled. If this advice worked on boys, why shouldn’t it work on girls? She reached a black marker and crossed out the word “Guy,” replacing it with “Goddess.” Then she went through the article doing the same all the way through, starting with “Be an expert listener” and ending with “Leave him her wanting more.”

  With great care, inch by inch, she ripped out the article so the tear wouldn’t obliterate any precious words—if she stood any chance at all of snaring this particular goddess next door, she’d need every single one of them.

  CHAPTER 8

  Digesting Magenta Crayons

  Communicate. It’s vital that you speak to your child with the same respect you’d give to your coworker. Children need to feel their needs, wants, and opinions are heard. Valued. Cherished.

  —RACHEL BERMAN, Perfect Parent magazine

  With great flourish, the waiter set a white plate in front of Rachel, then Len. He bowed and vanished. Lit only by flickering votives, Minnie’s Bistro smoldered with intimacy—its walls, painted black, wrapped Len and Rachel in velvety shadows.

  Agreeing to see Len again had not been an easy decision. With this very appealing male came a girl whose gaze, for Rachel, was thick with memories. She’d reasoned with herself that if she saw more of this man, she’d eventually grow accustomed to looking at his daughter. What did they call it? Desensitization.

  Rachel flashed a smile before looking down at her plate and wondering where the rest of her meal might be. Five open mussels lay artfully arranged in a wine and garlic broth, which smelled heavenly, but wasn’t going to do much to satisfy her hunger.

  Len looked equally disappointed. Four squares of ravioli on a painterly puddle of mushroom sauce. He shook his head. “You’d better keep all appendages away from me. I’ll gnaw off your hand to survive if it comes down to it.”

  “Hm, cannibalism. I’ve had worse first dates.” She pulled a strand of flesh from a yawning black shell. “I haven’t had a smaller meal, though. Trade you a mussel for a ravioli square?”

  “I don’t do mussels. Or any type of shellfish.”

  “Religious?”

  “Just intelligent. Shellfish are the bottom feeders of the ocean, the filters.” He pointed toward her plate. “What you’re eating there is the oceanic equivalent to the strainer in your kitchen sink.” He winked. “Enjoy.”

  A wave of horror washed over her. How could this knowledge have escaped her? She’d researched all the popular food-borne gastrointestinal microorganisms, hadn’t she? Clostridium botulinum, salmonella, E. coli, even the dreaded entamoeba parasite. Clearly, she’d overlooked an entire genus of underwater pathogens.

  She pushed her plate away.

  Forcing a smile, she watched him eat. His white shirtsleeves were rolled up to the elbow, exposing forearms that looked deceivingly like they’d jacked up more than a few cars, in spite of all evidence to the contrary. When he leaned his elbow on the table, she noticed a smear of blue paint on his wrist.

  “Were you painting today?” she asked.

  He nodded, swallowing. “Dinosaur tails. My daughter’s art project.”

  “Just the tails—no bodies, heads, necks, ears?�
�

  Len smiled. “It was a study of tails. Though Olivia lost interest after about two or three, so I conceptualized the last thirty or forty tails on my own.”

  Her ex-husband wouldn’t have been caught dead smeared with his children’s paint. He didn’t paint. David preened, David signed checks, David entertained clients. And in between, he diddled telemarketers. There was something inherently sexy about a man as unstudied as Len. It might have been the polarity between he and David, but then again, it might have been the way he looked in faded jeans.

  “Very impressive. Especially for a lawyer. Would I be correct in assuming, with your burgeoning passion for disconnected body parts, that you’re a criminal lawyer?”

  “I do family law,” he said. “You know, divorce, separation agreements, wills…”

  “Prenups?”

  “Yes.”

  “Mm. Where were you fifteen years ago?”

  He smiled. The waiter drifted closer and tried to remove the bread basket. Len motioned for him to leave it. “That’s the bulk of what I handle,” Len said. “Most days I’m trying to negotiate which party keeps the theater seats, but on occasion I handle custody cases. And adoption.”

  Rachel choked a bit and reached for her water glass. “What sort of adoption cases?”

  “Mainly representing adoptive families against birth mothers, that sort of thing. It’s a small part of what I do.”

  Rachel said nothing. With her fork, she pushed a mussel shell around her plate.

  “I think that’s enough about me—what about you? Who’s watching your kids tonight?”

  She looked up quickly and forced a smile. “Janie. She’s fourteen, old enough to sit, but Dustin tends to get anxious when I’m out. So sometimes I’ll call my mother in—if I think I’ll be late.”

  “So tonight was meant to be an early night.” He winced and sat back in his chair. “Ouch.”

  “No.” She laughed. “My mom had a date.”

  “Hmm.” Len didn’t take his eyes off her, just chewed on his lower lip and stared.

  “Hmm, yourself. What about Olivia?”