Jane Doe by Victoria Helen Stone
CHAPTER 1
I see the moment he first notices me. The slight double take as he spots the new girl in the office. I don’t notice him in return. I make sure of it.
He’s a man who likes to think he’s in charge. He’s afraid of women who come on strong. How could you ever control a girl that bold? So I only watch through my lashes and keep my face turned toward my work.
My job doesn’t require much concentration. There’s no evidence of my true history on the résumé I submitted to this office, but I’m one law degree and six years of experience too qualified for this kind of work. Still, data entry is soothing. It’s satisfying in a way that legal work isn’t. I settle back into the rhythm of it and ignore him completely.
He isn’t the boss. Steven Hepsworth is a classic middle manager. He shows respect to the bigwigs. He’s decent at his job. He has an MBA and is Caucasian and classically good-looking, so he’ll do fine in life. A great catch.
I noted his easy good looks during my orientation tour of the office yesterday. He uses too much gel in his hair, but he smiles a lot and the smiles feel genuine. The warmth of his brown eyes invites you closer. They distract from the weakness in his chin. People like him. The other women in the office flirt when he speaks to them. He’s a nice guy.
Someone brings me a stack of records for input, and I put Steven Hepsworth out of my mind for the rest of the day.
I’ll flirt with him like the other women do. But not yet.
CHAPTER 2
He finds me in the break room at lunchtime on my third day. It’s possible he came upon me accidentally, but most of the managers use the break room upstairs, or so I’ve been told. Then again, Steven likely prefers being the big man in the room, so maybe he’d rather dine with us peons.
“Hi!” he says brightly. “I’m Steven.”
“I’m Jane,” I respond with a smile, offering my hand.
He shakes it gently, his fingers barely pressing mine. I despise men who shake a woman’s hand as if their masculine power might crush her inferior bones, but I beam up at him.
“New girl in the office?”
“That’s me!” I’m inclined to let my hand flop lifelessly onto the table when he lets it go, but instead I cross my arms beneath my breasts. His eyes flicker to my cleavage only briefly. He’s interested but discreet.
The dress is soft and flowery, like all of my recent purchases. It could be demure, but I’ve unbuttoned one too many buttons. He’s a breast man, our Steven. Mine aren’t large, but they are there, and I’ve pushed them up to make them look more C than B. He likes the result. If he ever sees me naked, he’ll be disappointed, but that will only work in my favor.
“What brings you to our little office?” he asks.
“Oh, you know. Same old story. I moved back to town a few weeks ago, and I heard you guys were always hiring for data entry. So here I am.”
“Just finished college?”
I’m thirty, so I laugh at his flattery. “More along the lines of a bad breakup.”
“I know what that’s like,” he says, settling in with a hip on the break room counter, his eyes sparking with interest. A girl coming off a bad breakup is vulnerable. He’s calculating whether he can get me into bed. “Well, welcome back to Minneapolis.”
Yes, it’s been too long. Far too long. I should have come back a year ago. Two years ago.
The microwave dings behind him. My sad lunch is ready. He moves aside, and I let him see the cheap low-calorie brand name before I pick up the box I left on the counter and toss it in the recycling. I’m not doing well financially, and I’m trying to lose those last ten pounds. That’s what he sees.
The truth is I’m almost certainly richer than he is, and my body is fine. It works, I’m fit enough, and no one needs a perfect body to get sex. Sex is the cheapest commodity, and any body at all is up for trade. I’m not interested in love, so I don’t spend time worrying what my partners think of me. My lack of shame simplifies things.
But that kind of confidence would terrify Steven, so I smile self-consciously and take my low-fat beef stroganoff from the microwave.
“Looks good,” he lies, as if I can’t see the shit-colored pile of sauce atop noodles that are half-limp and half-overcooked.
“Wanna share?” I ask.
He laughs too hard at that. “I’m going to grab a meatball sandwich downstairs.” Manly food. Meat and balls all at once. “But thank you!” he adds brightly. “Can I get you anything while I’m out? A coffee?”
“No, thanks. I brought some tea from home.” The truth is I hate tea, but I’ll drink it weak and tepid for him.
“Well, it was really nice to meet you, Jane. See you around?”
“I can almost guarantee it.” When he laughs, I grin proudly at his response. He rewards me with a wink.
Once he’s gone, I eat my low-fat beef stroganoff and open the paperback I had stashed in my purse. Reading is my favorite hobby. I don’t have to fake that.
CHAPTER 3
It’s not that I don’t have feelings. I have some emotions. I do. It’s just that I can usually choose when to feel them. More important, I choose when not to.
I don’t think I was born this way. I suspect I used to feel things too deeply until my brain rewired itself to protect me.
My parents are still alive, still together, and they love me, I suppose. But they love me the way a careless child loves a pet. Too much attention one day, absolute neglect the next. The changes in current were too much for me to survive when I was young, so my brain learned to ride above them. It’s not something I think about now. It’s natural. I observe people’s emotions, but I rarely participate.
I talk to my parents occasionally, but I only initiate contact on Christmas. If I happen to be in Oklahoma, I’ll stop in for a visit—but, really, who ever happens to be in Oklahoma? I send money on each of their birthdays. They always need it.
I don’t hate them; I just don’t understand why people feel the need to try over and over with toxic family members. I know who my parents are. They’re not the worst, but they’re still awful, and I don’t need their chaos spinning in and out of my life when I’m not expecting it. They used up all their chances to hurt me when I was very young, and they can’t hurt me now even if they want to. That’s all.
When I call them on Christmas, I listen to their tales of misadventure and bad luck, and I offer a couple of stories about living and working in Malaysia. They tell me what my brother, Ricky, is up to. I don’t speak to him. I have nothing to say to a redneck asshole who’s somehow managed to create five children with four women during his brief stints of freedom from incarceration.
That’s my family.
As for friends . . . well, Meg was my best friend from the first day we met. She’s dead now.
CHAPTER 4
A month ago I was still working as an American import-export attorney for a big Asian manufacturing conglomerate. I lived in a gorgeous apartment in a modern high-rise in Kuala Lumpur outfitted with Western luxuries. I’ve always found it funny that the expat Americans rarely cook anything but need the biggest, best kitchen appliances. I include myself in that observation. I loved my shiny six-burner stove.
I had a view of the whole city, which was rather brown and hazy during the day but sparkled like a universe at night. I went to parties. There were always parties. I bought designer dresses and shoes. I don’t need beautiful things, but I like them fine.