Perfect on Paper by Janet Goss Read Free Book Online

have rendered Hannah just a little
too
eccentric.
    Vivian handed me a check. I reached for it, but she wouldn’t release her grasp. I tugged for a moment, then finally looked down to discover I couldn’t see her hand. Well, most of her hand. It was nearly obliterated by a massive diamond.
    “Chad finally proposed!” she squealed. “Last night at La Grenouille!”
    With anyone else I knew, such an announcement would constitute a momentous event, but in Vivian’s case, engagements occurred more frequently than one-day sales at Macy’s. Chad was a hedge fund manager Vivian had been dating for a grand total of five and a half weeks. In fact, he was her third hedge fund manager in as many years, and, improbably, her second Chad.
    “That’s—wonderful,” I finally managed. “Congratulations.”
    “We haven’t set a date, but—”
    My stomach growled loudly enough to be audible in Midtown. “Listen, I’m really happy for you,” I said, “but if I’m not seated in a restaurant within the next five minutes, I’m going to pass out. How about a late celebratory lunch? On me, of course.”
    “Are you out of your mind? Didn’t you hear me tell you I was at La Grenouille last night? I’m not eating a fucking thing until Tuesday.”
    “Okay, well—thanks for the check. I’ll get started on some new Hannahs in the morning. And congratulations again.”
    In response, she flashed her ring, fingers waggling. “Six carats!”

CHAPTER FIVE

SPEAK OF THE DEVIL
    I t was hard to muster much enthusiasm for Vivian’s news. Two to three weeks seemed to be the average shelf life of her engagements. Eventually her suitor would commit an act so blasphemous that he’d be banished permanently from her zip code. The last one had been sent packing for the unforgiveable sin of being lowborn.
    “What are you, eleventh in line to the throne?” I’d asked at the time. “Didn’t you tell me you were from Ypsilanti, Michigan?”
    “I am. But
he
claimed to be from Philadelphia’s Main Line. Turns out his parents own a pizza joint in Paoli. Which is hardly a pedigree that’s going to get my unborn twin daughters into Brearley, is it?”
    It won’t be long before Chad meets the same fate,
I thought, making my way down First Avenue en route to lunch. But before his engagement ring was back in Cartier’s display case, she’d find someone new who would not only meet her rigid standards of genealogical and physical perfection, but also have enough purchasing power to corner the market on the world’s platinum reserves. Plus he’d enjoy gourmet cooking and bestowing expert, lengthy foot massages in his spare time.
    The cliché was true: All the good ones were indeed taken. By Vivian.
    Then again, I reminded myself as I made a left onto Seventh Street,she was interested in only the high-net-worth good ones. Therefore, it was still open season on the butcher, the baker, the candlestick maker.…
    Or whoever drove that Dodge.
    Parked in front of a boarded-up brownstone just east of the avenue sat a vintage panel truck that stopped me in my tracks. It had been restored to perfection, with rechromed bumpers and a two-tone paint job of cream and sea-foam green.
    Hmm,
I thought.
I would happily forgo foot massages and
ragoût de lapin braisé aux chanterelles
for a few spins around town in this baby.
    On the windowless rear sides of the truck,
J. H. Wheeler and Son
was painted in brush script, with three lines of smaller block capitals underneath reading RESTORERS OF FINE HOMES, WOODWORKING AND PLASTER , and MASTER ELECTRICIANS .
    Hmm,
I thought.
The light switch in my bathroom could really stand to be rewired.
Come to think of it, it was probably a major fire hazard in dire need of immediate professional attention.
    This wouldn’t be the first time I’d experienced love at first sight—of a vehicle. In college, I’d spent the better part of senior year attempting to determine the identity of the owner of a classic Falcon, parking