Daddy By Design? & Her Perfect Wife

by Cheryl Anne Porter

  The man actually looked distraught. And Mel felt an inexplicable and totally inappropriate urge to fly across the room into his arms to comfort him.

  Comfort, my—

  The microwave dinged.

  Desperate to distract her mind from its obsession with matters they’d agreed to ignore, Mel sought her purse. “Let me reimburse you for the groceries.” She extracted her checkbook, still babbling. “Two-thirty-nine-seventeen, right? My, you must have bought a lot of food.”

  Jack shrugged as he pulled the plastic cover off the formerly frozen dinner, releasing a cloud of steam. Groceries, yes.

  But food? He looked at the geometrically shaped blobs in the tray’s compartments. He wasn’t so sure. Maybe they’d look better on some nice china?

  Sometime between his first and second trips up and down the wide, friendly aisles, he’d realized that he didn’t know squat about real cooking.

  As a result, he’d practically kissed the stove when it refused to work. Thanking God, he’d gone back to the supermarket to stock up on microwavable stuff.

  Deciding that the bubbling globs would look even less like real food on an actual plate, Jack plunked the tray down on the table. “Other than restocking your kitchen, I didn’t get much done today,” he said, changing the subject since he couldn’t manage “Bon appetit.”

  Not that an army of experienced hotel maids would have made much of a dent. Ordinary swiping and sweeping weren’t even on the event horizon yet.

  The den looked like a college fraternity of geeks had held a rave in there. The formal living and dining rooms were world-class museums of fossilized dust. Run, it appeared, by a colony of confirmed pack rats.

  And the yard…Jack shuddered. The grass needed cutting again, the shrubbery qualified as a small rain forest and the pool was only two-thirds full. Of greenish swamp water.

  Yeah, Halloran, the place is a disaster. But for the next six months, it’s your disaster.

  “No rush,” Mel said quickly, then cleared her throat. “You, um, you didn’t get a chance to do any laundry, I guess.” She sounded crestfallen.

  Nailed. Hell. “Yeah, I did a load,” he admitted grudgingly.

  “Oh, that’s wonderful!”

  Jack stared. Costello glasses and a shapeless dress didn’t hide Mel’s beauty now. Not while that beaming smile lit the room like a solar flare. And her green eyes danced.

  Which, of course, reminded him of that enticing back and the intoxicating wedding kiss they’d shared. He only kept from grabbing her and going in for Round Two by remembering what he’d done to her laundry.

  “Ah…you might want to hold that thought,” he cautioned. “There, was, uh, a slight hiccup in the process.”

  “Oh, dear. Did the washing machine break, too?”

  He should be so lucky! “No, it works fine,” he said heavily. “The clothes got clean. They’re dry.”

  Oh, be a man, Halloran. Confess. “They’re just—pink. I turned a whole load of your…your things pink.” Jack braced himself for an explosion. That would be the good reaction. He wondered if she could sue him for misrepresentation of domestic skills?

  Mel reached up and touched his forearm. Some sort of electric current arced from her hand straight to his personal power tool.

  “I don’t care what color they are,” she said softly, and it grew even more electrified. “Thank you.”

  “You’re welcome, I guess,” Jack choked out, fighting off visions of those minuscule remnants of silk and lace. Of Mel in them.

  Or not.

  Releasing Jack’s arm, which continued to conduct phantom electric tingles directly to his gender-specific appendage, Mel jabbed her fork into the brownish blob in the center. “Oh! I asked about the health plan. I’ll pick up the forms tomorrow before surgery.”

  Jack sank into the chair across from Mel. He’d have bet his 401(k) that there wasn’t a woman on earth who wouldn’t freak out if some moron redyed her underwear. Then again, he’d never imagined one who’d just toss her silk-chocolate hair over her shoulder and consume unrecognizable food squares with apparent pleasure.

  Melinda Burke was like no other woman he’d ever…married.

  For business reasons. Which didn’t include monkey business—that obviously only interested him.

  “Dr. Bowen has a committee meeting at the med school tomorrow.” After that non sequitur, Mel slid her tongue along the tines of the fork.

  Jack’s throat went dry. That other, electrified part—far south of his throat—went titanium rigid.

  “If you can meet me at the hospital around eleven, I’ll put you on my checking account so you can pay all our expenses out of there.”

  What a woman! Gorgeous, easygoing and generous.

  If he ever changed his mind about falling in love, Jack mused, he ought to look for someone like Melinda to do it with.

  Sanity reasserted itself as he recalled his sister’s lingering unhappiness. Love’s too painful. But for the next six months, he’d get to play house, no strings attached.

  No sex, either.

  That wasn’t carved in stone, Jack reminded himself. No reason he couldn’t, ahem, raise the issue at some future date.

  In fact, once the stove was fixed, laying the groundwork would be easy.

  She’d come home, he’d have dinner ready, maybe open some wine. They’d talk while they ate, get to know each other—

  “Just…” A little furrow peeped above the bridge of Mel’s glasses. “Don’t wait up for me anymore, okay?”

  Nodding reluctantly, Jack told himself to buck up. His CFP courses had taught him there was more than one way to build a nest egg.

  He’d just have to come up with Plan B. “Okay, then.”

  She didn’t even look up.

  “Well, good night.”

  “Good night, Jack.”

  THEY TIPTOED around each other for the next ten days.

  The appliance repair service—who turned out to be a guy named Lenny—didn’t show up until Thursday. An expensive fifteen minutes later, he left, claiming he’d have to order a part.

  From Afghanistan, apparently. Lenny couldn’t say when he’d be back and Jack wasn’t convinced the damned range would operate properly even after the Second Coming.

  Sherry gave him a list of good take-out places and Tess—the one time he managed to get hold of her—stayed on the phone only long enough to offer nutrition advice—something about vegetables and no fries. When he asked how she was doing, his sister hung up. Hard.

  Taking Tess’s advice, Jack brought home salads piled high with grilled chicken and cheese, and ordered pizzas with weird gourmet toppings like tuna and fruit.

  Mel got to sleep on clean, if crumpled, sheets and wear her own clothes again—most of the time they were the right color and had all their buttons—while Jack absorbed the latest changes in estate tax laws. Conversations were so limited, they could have been texted. Morning. Bye. Drive safe. Don’t wait u—I know, I won’t.

  Ten days married and it was working out as expected. Each knew they should be happy. Both would insist—if asked—that they were.

  Liars, both of them. They weren’t happy. For reasons neither could grasp, they were both miserable.

  And damned if either of them knew what to do about it.

  ONCE AGAIN, Mel dragged herself out of her car and into the silent house. She dropped her bag on the breakfast table, then dropped herself into one of the chairs surrounding it.

  Wouldn’t it be nice if— Mel chopped off the fantasy that had dogged her constantly the past ten days: Jack meeting her, feeding her, listening to her, touching her…

  Stop acting like such a girl, Burke! It was almost two and she was beat. And frustrated. The endoscopy had taken longer than it should have, and Bowen had let her know it.

  Worse, he’d let everyone in the OR know it.

  And had she ever performed an endoscopy before?

  Didn’t matter to Bowen, she reflected glumly.

 
; Simmons could lacerate a kid’s liver without receiving any criticism harsher or more public than a hissed “You imbecile! Step back before you kill somebody.”

  Bowen’s treatment of her in the OR had been outrageous. Which wasn’t news and didn’t bother her except at times like this, when she was hungry, angry, lonely and tired.

  So, h-a-l-t, goofball.

  Taking her own advice, Mel pulled a box from the freezer and carefully read the instructions, since last night she’d just punched numbers and turned the sofa chicken—no, divan, chicken divan—into a desiccated block of rock.

  While the meal heated, she wandered into the den to look at her brother’s portrait. To remember why she put up with the extreme pressure and the incredibly long hours and the constant, often unearned criticism.

  As always, Mel’s chest tightened and her eyes filled with tears as she studied the smiling boy on the tricycle. To this day, she missed Harry. Since she couldn’t bring him back, she’d do everything in her power to save other little kids.

  Even put up with Bowen’s constant ragging and a personal non-life that was beginning to feel…unsatisfying.

  Aw, quit griping, she told herself.

  But dammit, clean clothes and hot meals notwithstanding, the few minutes she saw Jack in the morning only seemed to fuel a desire for more.

  Which wasn’t mutual. Mel could tell that their brief moments together had a very different effect on him than on her.

  He popped in to deliver the coffee, which tasted way better now than that first morning. Probably she’d just gotten used to it.

  He sat through breakfast, even microwaved eggs, which yesterday he’d called the stupidest food ever. But maybe that was because they were crunchy. He stuck around for housekeeping requests, then vanished the minute she stood to leave.

  Who could blame him? He certainly saw her at her worst: bed-headed, heavy lidded, likely sporting dried drool at the corner of her mouth.

  Her spouse, on the other hand, always looked great. Sexy beard stubble, shirttails hanging loose, barefoot…

  Face it, Burke. Five minutes of exposure to Jack contained the maximum dose of male sensuality safe for a woman with her underdeveloped resistance levels.

  The timer on the microwave emitted its high-pitched summons, but Mel didn’t respond in her usual Pavlovian manner. Food could wait a sec while she searched for Jack’s note.

  Tonight she really needed one. Contact with the normal world. With him.

  Where was it?

  Usually she found it under the salt shaker on the table in the breakfast nook. Or taped to the microwave. Or stuck to the refrigerator with a magnet that looked like a hamburger.

  Not that they were love notes or anything. Just pragmatic questions or brief status reports on the apparently still incapacitated stove.

  Stamps?

  In the desk in the study.

  Where’s the vacuum?

  She’d guessed on that one.

  Repairman didn’t show. That was last Tuesday.

  The stove guy finally came—at 4:00! Needs to order a part!

  How pathetic was she? Notes about dysfunctional cooking equipment were the major highlight of her day. As for her relationship with her spouse—they didn’t have one. Except as pen pals.

  Poor baby! Break out the violins. Mel collected her dinner, carried it into the family room and deposited it on the coffee table.

  Thirty seconds after collapsing onto the sofa, she shot upright. Performing a perfect half-gainer double take.

  Because her gluey lasagna was actually resting on the coffee table.

  Mel looked around frantically. What had he done with the journals that had covered the thing like a California rockslide on Highway 101 since the week she’d moved back into her parents’ home?

  “Whew.”—rnal of Pediatric Medi—peeked coyly past her lasagna from the lower shelf of the coffee table. It lay there with its buddies, all fanned out like a deck of cards.

  Awestruck, she gazed admiringly at the rest of the room. The man must work like a dog. The place was looking like a decorator’s showroom.

  Jack’s study materials, a neat pile of booklets, manuals and notebooks featuring the word “Financial” in their titles, sat beside her dad’s recliner.

  No note in here, either. Jack had nothing to say to her today.

  Ignoring another of those little pangs of arrested femininity or whatever thoughts of the man caused, Mel powered on the TV and ate her dinner to the soothing accompaniment of a forensic science docudrama.

  When she went upstairs, she stood in the hallway for a long minute, looking at the closed door at the end of the hall.

  Forget it. Who needed a life or personal relationships when they could have clean clothes?

  Mel went into her room and hit the sack.

  RECEIVER PRESSED TO HIS EAR and his aching back pressed against the cool door of the refrigerator, Jack felt his patience ebbing as fast as most dotcoms had.

  Unbelievable. He was listening to the radio. On the phone.

  An obvious ploy to discourage customers.

  Won’t work this time, Jack vowed. No way he was giving up just because he’d burned twenty minutes on hold again. This time he’d outwait them. He’d listen to this infuriating “soft rock” crock until he got an answer to the question he’d been trying to ask for a week now.

  When was Lenny the repairman bringing over the bleepin’ part to fix the stove?

  Finally, Torquemada’s—aka Lenny’s—receptionist came on the line. Jack asked. She put him back on hold while she “checked.” Seventeen more minutes later, she gave him Lenny’s decision.

  “Another week!” He was supposed to keep letting Melinda survive on tired takeout and frozen junk chunks for seven more days?

  The geezer across the street, Old Bob, had warned him between WWII stories: guys like No-Show Lenny who wore their names on their shirts thought they were God.

  Jack hadn’t believed him. Not until he’d called a dozen other repair services and they’d given him the same runaround.

  “Fine,” he sighed into the phone, then hung up.

  His spirit momentarily as broken as his back felt, Jack schlepped into the den to slump in the leather chair he’d commandeered. For studying. Because of its ergonomics, of course.

  Still too shocked by Lenny’s arrogance to focus on work at the moment, he thumbed on the tube and surfed absently until he hit the Chef Channel or whatever it was called.

  Jack’s thumb left the remote. He hated this channel but found himself watching it like car-wreck videos.

  There was nothing but cooking programs on it. 24/7.

  Hosted, of course, by chefs. Ninety percent of whom were male, just to rub it in a little deeper.

  They cooked alone, in groups, indoors, outdoors, on location. They barbecued, they baked, they demoed regional dishes. Created whole meals for niche special occasions like Icelandic Eruption Day or Easter. The weirdest show he’d seen so far featured chefs competing in a frenzied timed contest. Complete with instant replay and sideline color announcers!

  He’d learned one thing from his viewing: it didn’t much matter whether Lenny fixed Mel’s stove or not. ’Cuz he couldn’t cook worth beans.

  Jack slid deeper into the overstuffed leather. He especially disliked the bozo on now. He had curly red hair and a weird name. Something like Jewels, which only reminded Jack of Mel’s emerald eyes.

  And he didn’t need any reminders. The woman totally haunted his thoughts as it was.

  Ol’ Red expounded on today’s creation. Looked like flour water in a dirty pan but he called it rue.

  “I know all about rue,” Jack muttered. He was full of it.

  The bottom line was that he owed ol’ Deb—and every other woman who “just stayed home”—an apology.

  Because in the past ten days, he’d learned a sheetload about housewifery.

  Prime example, Jack thought as Chef Jewels broke away for commercials and he flipped to a
golf rerun—it had taken him days but he’d cleaned and straightened and dusted the den. Then he’d walked in here today and—poof! There it was again, microscopic fluff all over the place. And Mel’s magazines were rioting again, too.

  Nothing was working as he’d expected. Not even the dust!

  Or helping his sister rebuild her life. Tess continued to refuse his invitations, pretending she was busy. Doing what? Sitting alone in her apartment night after night he was sure.

  And what sadist had designed the vacuum cleaner? Jack wondered, flipping back to watch the cooking genius chop onions with debonair flair. Hours of pushing the thing back and forth, dragging it upstairs, stopping to release every throw rug, curtain hem and loose sock it sucked up, winding and unwinding the stupid cord—no wonder his back hurt.

  Laundry? That never seemed to go away. And once you keyed into reading the labels—and quit fantasizing about where they’d been and what he could do there—bo-ring! The only parts he hadn’t quite mastered yet were ironing and sewing on missing buttons. Mrs. Bob had agreed to tutor him if he ever mastered sticking the floppy thread end through the needle hole.

  Broodingly, Jack watched the redheaded kahuna shout accolades to himself while the audience clapped and oohed.

  Even if Lenny ever did heal the stove, nobody’d ooh over his cooking.

  And Mel wouldn’t come home to eat it even if he could give Chef Gemstone or whatever-his-name-was a run for his money.

  “Want some snacks with your whine?” he asked himself, climbing out of the recliner to pace the room. He had to get out of this mood. He hadn’t quit work to sit around feeling lousy about himself.

  Maybe he was just tired of being cooped up.

  He had plenty to do outdoors, but every time he went outside, either Geezer Bob or the ancient mariner next door, Preston Something, showed up. They’d offer to help. And start chatting. And giving him unsolicited advice. And chatting.

  Jack extended his pacing path to the formal living room, which was still serving as a federal repository for native airborne particulates. He’d start on that tomorrow. Hopefully, he’d remember not to use the polishing spray on the lampshades in there.

  Not that Mel would care. Or even know.

  The routine they’d developed since their little discussion that first Sunday could be summed up in three little words.