Jane Doe(5)

Regardless, I know from experience that suburban churches are the most boring and least generous. We’d always been looking for generosity. We had no use for pull-yourself-up-by-your-bootstraps Christianity. If there wasn’t a big potluck after services, what was the point of going? My mom always stayed late, putting on a show of helping clean up. I liked that part. There were lots of leftovers, and she usually smuggled out a couple of free serving bowls.

“Thank you for lunch,” I say for the third time.

“It’s nothing. I couldn’t bear to watch you eat another of those microwave meals.”

Way to make me feel shitty about myself, Steven.

“I’d love to take you out for dinner sometime,” he adds.

I act flustered. I squirm and take too long to chew my food before answering.

“Steven, I . . . I just started at this job. Aren’t there rules about dating subordinates?”

He waves a dismissive hand. “They wouldn’t know.”

“Someone might see us.”

“Then come to my place and I’ll make something.”

“I couldn’t come over to your place! On a first date? I’m not . . . I’m not like that!”

“Shit.” He reaches out for my wrist to stop my flailing hand. “I’m sorry. Of course you’re not. I didn’t mean it like that. At all. Okay?”

I nod but let him see that I’m shaken by the very idea of putting out. A woman shouldn’t have her own sexual needs. My role is to resist. That makes me a nice girl.

“Jane, I’m serious. That’s not what I was thinking. I was just trying to protect you from prying eyes.”

“I know.”

“How about if I take you to a little hole-in-the-wall? Someplace we won’t be seen. Then would you go to dinner with me?” He ducks his head a little, trying to meet my gaze. He raises his brows like a begging puppy, showing me his harmless brown eyes. “Please?”

I giggle. “I shouldn’t be dating again so soon.”

“We won’t call it a date, then. Just two colleagues having dinner.”

“You’re a manager and I’m a data entry clerk. We’re hardly colleagues.”

“Then I’ll be your mentor.”

Laughing, I shake my head. “You’re bad.”

“Technically you don’t even report to me. No conflict of interest.”

Ridiculous, of course. He could still have me fired. I simper a little more. “Why do you even want to go out with me? You hardly know me.”

“Come on. You’re gorgeous.”

I’m not gorgeous. I’m just a vulnerable girl who wears lacy bras. But I get it. Even a sociopath likes to hear that she’s beautiful. “I’m not,” I protest quietly, but I’m smiling.

“How about tomorrow?” he presses.

“All right. But only if you promise to mentor me.”

He grins like a cat with too many teeth. “I’ll teach you everything you need to know.” Ha. Not everything he knows, but everything I need to know. Nice touch.

After lunch he walks me back to the building and rides up the elevator with me, so I don’t have a chance to run to a newsstand and grab a protein bar. I hope to God there’s a birthday on the floor today, or I might pass out from hunger.





CHAPTER 7

No birthday cake appears. I’m starving by the time I leave the office, so I hurry home and change into something more comfortable. Tight jeans, ankle boots, a black sweater. I wash off my colorful eye shadow and replace it with a few simple black lines, then pull back my hair into a tight bun. I’ve lightened my hair and I hate it. It’s too soft-looking. I like it dark and straight, no highlights.

I want a meal, and I want a drink too. But, more than food and alcohol, I crave an end to my boredom, so I walk a few blocks into downtown and head into a high-end business hotel. I sit at the bar and order steak frites and a gin and tonic. Both are perfect.

There are several businessmen at the bar with me, all separated by at least one empty chair. Half of them watch me in the mirror above the bar. I watch the news channel behind the bartender’s head.

As soothing as my easy new work is, my brain is starting to crave exercise. Business stories slide across the crawler, and it’s news I haven’t heard before. That never happened in Kuala Lumpur. I heard about most international trade news before it ever hit the business channels.

I finish my first drink, and before I set it down, a man in a suit approaches. “Buy you another?” he asks. I turn to look straight into his face. He’s well over fifty and his cheeks and nose are already pink from alcohol. His suit is expensive and he’s not bad-looking, but I imagine his face turning beet red as he pumps furiously above me.

I don’t pretend to be insulted, nor am I flattered by his attention. This has nothing to do with me. I could be anyone. I am a woman with a hole he can fill. He might have a chance to screw me, so he may as well try. It’s that simple. He didn’t even bother slipping off his wedding ring.

“No.” I turn back to the television and raise a hand to signal the bartender.

“Same?” the bartender asks. I nod. The man in the suit walks away.

“In town for work?” the barkeep asks as he makes my drink. It’s nice of him to make conversation with a woman being bothered by men at his bar. He has the jaded air of a man who’s been serving drinks for a long time, but he’s still young. Twenty-eight, maybe, though he could have a baby face under that beard.