EXCERPT

Chapter 1

An earwig crawled out of the withered peace lily sitting on the corner of the desk Brock Studson had been staring at for the better part of the morning. He slammed his hand on the tiny intruder, ending the life of the bug and the tranquility of the office-turned-refuge, all in one blow. Lenora Peters dropped her empty lipstick tube in a scattering of powdered sugar on the edge of the desk she occupied, and ran over to lean across Brock's desk and pummel his chest with both fists.

“Damn it, Lenora.” Brock grabbed her wrists. “It's nice to see you come out of your stupor. However, violence does not become you, my dear. Calm down.”

Lenora muttered a sequence of incoherent expressions, recognizable as profane even without the benefit of articulation or prior experience with Lenora's vocabulary. She draped her body across the desk, and gave up the fight without a struggle. That would have been my cue that something was terribly wrong. Evidently, Brock Studson needed more.

After he released her wrists, Lenora continued to lie across the desk. She rolled her had back and forth, slapping her mater hair against his arms. Brock cringed and turned away from the scabby bald spots that divided what had once been thick, auburn curls, streaked with gray.

Lenora to squirmed on the desk and whimpered a few minutes before he intervened.

“Keep it up, Lenora,” he said. “If you slide around long enough, you'll wipe the dust off this desk and accomplish something for a change. Maybe you can roll on that sugar mess over there after you finish here. How long has it been there, three months now?”

She tried to speak again. Something close to a growl escaped, along with a torrent of drool. Most of the drool landed on Brock's cuff. A few drops hit the front of his shirt. He pulled a notepad and pen from is shirt pocket and put them into Lenora's hands before he rolled away from the desk and wiped his sleeve on the back of the chair.

“Write it down, Lenora. For Christ's sake, this is my last clean shirt and it doesn't even belong to me. Please don't spit all over it.” He glanced at the doorknob, where the blue horseshoe tie Doris had given to him for their last anniversary hung. “Lucky I wasn't wearing my tie, since the dry-cleaning doesn't get picked up any more.”

Lenora pushed herself up from the desk and scribbled her message on the notepad, using her now familiar abbreviations.

Brilliant move, DH. U just f'd R last chance to get out of this mess. I had a lawsuit against the florist with that f'n bug and U smashed it. AH.

She slapped the note down on top of what was left of the bug, and he picked it up, careful not to touch the back where the squished bug was stuck to the paper. He deciphered the message and dropped it back on the desk.

“Lenora, I wish you would reconsider speech therapy. Your notes are harder to read every day.” He closed his eyes and massaged his temples.

“It was an earwig. A tiny bug that crawled out of this dead plant Carla left behind. Earwigs thrive on decay. That shows how disgusting this place is. What do you mean that was our last chance out of this mess?”

Lenora went back to the other desk and picked up the empty lipstick tube. She rolled it between her hands and stared at him in silence.

He changed his tone, most likely hoping she would forget the bug. In her prime, Lenora successfully controlled most of us. Brock Studson, however, mastered the art of manipulation a stage further than she had, so she didn't stand a chance with him. Genetics played a big role in his ability to manipulate; he doesn't deserve all of the credit for this talent.

Brock Studson had other things to do the day I interviewed with Lenora and Dr. Samuals for my position as Risk Manager at Doctrinaire, P.S.C., an internal medicine practice owned by Brock Studson and five other physicians. I didn't meet him until the company picnic, two weeks after I started the job.

At first sight, he stopped my heart, and I was a happily married mother of four who hadn't looked at another man in over twenty years. Alice Murphy told me to give him five minutes and I would change my mind. Her prediction was close; within ten minutes of actually meeting him, my initial enchantment vanished.

Those first few minutes, when I was completely overwhelmed, were good for me. They made me understand why so many women submit to his manipulation.

Studson's Horse Farm, Brock's first love, hosted the company picnic. Doug and I walked in just before Brock Studson welcomed everyone from a microphone in the center of the racetrack. The weather assisted Brock as much as genetics that day.

The sun was intense for May, yet there was a crisp breeze coming off the trees surrounding the track. His skin glistened in the sunlight, tanned far darker than was possible in Kentucky in early May. The tan exaggerated his extremely white teeth. I imagined him glazed with oil on an exotic beach, but soon learned that he maintained his color with regular appointments at a tanning bed. He wore white shorts and a mint green polo shirt, and was as muscular as any racehorse on the track.

His deep voice captivated me almost as much as his appearance. “Welcome to Studson's. It is my pleasure to have you here today. There's food in the tents and pony rides for the children in the fenced area behind the red barn. Please make yourselves at home and have a wonderful time.”

He handed the microphone to a young girl in riding clothes, and made his way to where Doug and I stood with Alice.

“You must be, Carla.” He shook my hand, holding it too long. “Welcome to Doctrinaire. We are honored to have you on board and I hope you will be happy with us.”

I thanked him and tried to introduce him to Doug, but he excused himself and walked away before the introduction was complete.

Doug shrugged his shoulders. “He must be busy.”

I watched Brock Studson. He passed a group of men without looking at them, nodded as he quickly ran past Joni and Cissy from the office, and made his way to a group of young girls. He kissed each of the girls and openly reveled in their delight. I squeezed Doug's hand and suggested we find the food.

“You've seen the real Brock Studson in action,” Alice whispered. “Still think he looks good?”

“How could he be so insensitive?” I asked Alice. He lost my respect that day, and my opinion of him went downhill from that point on.

Doug went to the stables with some of the husbands. Alice and I sat on the bleachers and she told me the story of Brock Studson's life.

His parents, Margaret and William, tried for fifteen years to have a baby. She spent two months hospitalized for depression, but wouldn't consider adoption. She believed genetics were important, and people of their class and genetic make-up didn't give their babies up for adoption. She wouldn't chance ending up with the child of a murderer or some other riffraff.

At thirty-eight, Margaret conceived her only child, Brock. William started a college fund for the baby the day he learned that he as going to be a father. Margaret and three friends from the country club flew to New York, where they spent a week shopping for the nursery. Brock Studson was born owning the best of everything a child could have, and his parents made sure that never changed.

William discussed the facts of life with Brock. He handed him a box of condoms and said 'don't do anything I wouldn't do'. Margaret contributed by teaching him the power of genetics. She told him it was important to keep that in mind when choosing a wife. “You don't want to get stuck with riffraff, and listen to your father so you don't mess up with the wrong girl and sire riffraff.”

Brock considered his mother's feelings. The girls he brought home had perfect genetics. However, he preferred riffraff when he was anywhere else. He had at least two women in his life at all times – one for mother and one for himself.

Brock met Doris Jennings in the campus health department, where he worked ten hours a week to satisfy his pre-med requirements. He nearly ran over her coming around a corner. He caught her before she fell, and she said 'no problem' and walked away. The rest of the day he complained about the little bitch being so rude.

Alice said she was sure he was infatuated immediately, because Doris was a beauty and she didn't fawn all over him. A crowd of guys followed in her tracks, so she didn't need Brock's attention. Eventually he won her over by paying off two guys she dated, and by securing the assistance of her girlfriends through invitations to private parties at the country club and promises to introduce them to rich guys.

Doris and Brock married during his second year of residency. It was the most expensive wedding reception ever held at Willowrun Country Club, therefore a success by Margaret's standards. Margaret couldn't have been happier. Brock could have been, but he didn't let it show.

Alice pointed Doris out to me at that picnic. She was still a beautiful woman, at fifty-six. She barely passed the five-foot mark and weighed less than a hundred pounds. Her hair was the color of the sun, a yellow that chemicals can't duplicate. Her round, wide-opened hazel eyes gave her the look of an innocent child. A sad innocent child in this case. She looked lost at her own party.

Alice said she wouldn't put up with Brock Studson's constant flirting, no matter how much money he had or how handsome he was, and Doris was a saint for not cutting his balls off in his sleep. The only thing she could figure that evened the score in the least was that Brock had to put up with Lenora Peters at work. She made a good point; one was as difficult to put up with as the other was.

Brock knew which topics would divert Lenora's attention. Mentioning my name was usually one sure way to distract her. He tried it.

“I don't understand why Carla replaced her computer monitor with this ugly plant, do you Lenora? She was cute, but she sure caused a lot of trouble, didn't she? I still can't believe she was responsible for that whole mess with President Clayman and the sliding scale policy. Did you ever file that law suit against her?”

Lenora refused the bait. Her kept her attention on the bug, forfeiting an opportunity to blame me, once again, for the demolition of her life. If I had to guess, I'd say she spare me only because it would take to long to write everything she wanted to say about me on her little notepad.

She grabbed the note from the desk, turned it over, and secured the bug remains to the back of the paper with a strip of tape. She placed the carcass in an envelope, put the envelope in her purse, and walked out the door.

Brock blew at a cobweb that bridged the lowest stem of the plant to the dry saucer under the flowerpot. It took three blows to detach it completely.

He shivered, and went to the lobby to get his stolen blanket from the chair where he slept the night before. He wrapped the blanket around his shoulders and returned to his original head-in-hand position where he stared at the empty desktop, rubbing his temples harder than before.