The Perfect Deception (The Perfect Match #3)

Chapter Twenty-Three

Chap-ter Twenty-Three

B y the next morn-ing, Dina still hadn’t fig-ured out what Adam was afraid of, but she’d re-ceived two more phone calls from the un-known num-ber that had called her while she was with Tracy. Who-ever it was hadn’t left a mes-sage, which meant it was a tele-mar-keter. A very an-noy-ing one.

When the phone rang a third time, Dina grabbed it and barked, “What?” as she walked from her park-ing spot to-ward the li-brary.

“Dina? Oh I’m so glad I caught you,” the fe-male voice on the other end said.

“Who is this?”

“It’s Cheryl McAdams. From high school. We were at the re-union to-gether.”

“How did you get my num-ber?”

“I asked the re-union chair. Lis-ten, I re-ally need to talk to you and Adam.”

Fat chance. “I’m sorry, I’m on my way into work.”

“Are you free tonight? We could meet for din-ner.”

“I re-ally don’t think…”

“Please, it’s su-per im-por-tant. It’s about Ash-ley.”

No way. “I have no de-sire to waste any-more time on her, Cheryl. Please stop call-ing me.”

“Even if she lied?”

Dina caught her breath so hard she choked. Tears flooded her eyes and her nose ran and she dropped her phone into her bag as she rum-maged for a tis-sue. Ash-ley lied?

Wip-ing her eyes and nose one last time, she put the phone back to her ear. “What are you talk-ing about?”

“Oh good, you’re still there. I heard this hor-ren-dous noise and I called and called your name and you didn’t an-swer and—”

“Cheryl!”

“What?”

“Ash-ley lied? How do you know?”

“Oh, right. Sorry. Yes, but this is too im-por-tant to dis-cuss over the phone. Please meet me for din-ner tonight.”

Dina’s glance shifted from the li-brary door to her car and back again. If she had to meet Cheryl in per-son, she wanted to do so now, so she didn’t have to spend the en-tire day won-der-ing about their con-ver-sa-tion. Be-cause even if she and Adam were no longer to-gether, her cu-rios-ity was too strong for her not to pur-sue this.

“Okay.”

They fine-tuned the de-tails and Dina went into work, con-fi-dent she’d get noth-ing done to-day. She was right. In spades. By lunchtime, she’d filed three books in the wrong place, had looked up the wrong in-for-ma-tion for her re-search project and had repacked the books she was sup-posed to un-pack.

Brian, her boss, came up to her as she was search-ing for her lunch in her bag. “Dina, ev-ery-thing okay to-day?”

“I’m sorry, Brian. I’m dis-tracted to-day. I’ll get a grip, I prom-ise.”

“Ev-ery-one has an off day once in a while, but you’ve been off now more than usual. I’m con-cerned about you.”

She ran a hand through her hair and it caught in her frizz. Winc-ing, she un-tan-gled her fin-gers and mas-saged her scalp. “I know. I’m sorry.”

As he walked away, she shook her head. She had to find a way to get over Adam. Maybe her con-ver-sa-tion tonight with Cheryl would help. She paused, her sand-wich half-way to her mouth. Cheryl had in-vited her and Adam to din-ner. Should she call him and ask him if he wanted to go?

No, she’d sound des-per-ate.

But it was about Ash-ley, who had ru-ined his life.

Ex-cept she didn’t know specif-i-cally what, other than she lied, which, if she were hon-est with her-self, didn’t mean much. She could have lied about any-thing.

It was prob-a-bly bet-ter to wait un-til af-ter she met with Cheryl and lis-tened to what she had to say be-fore de-cid-ing whether or not to tell Adam. For all she knew, it might not be im-por-tant, and it was silly to in-volve him for noth-ing.

That evening, af-ter an even less pro-duc-tive af-ter-noon than morn-ing, Dina walked into the sushi restau-rant where she was meet-ing Cheryl. It was a fa-vorite of hers, and when Cheryl had ex-pressed a will-ing-ness to come to Mor-ris-town, Dina had given her the name and lo-ca-tion of the restau-rant. She was about to give her name to the host-ess when move-ment caught the cor-ner of her eye. Cheryl sat in a cor-ner booth and was wav-ing her arms, try-ing to flag her down. Grit-ting her teeth, Dina thanked the host-ess and walked over.

Cheryl gave her two air kisses be-fore sit-ting back down and point-ing to the empty seat across from her. Stash-ing her purse next to her, Dina sat and took the menu from the wait-ress who ap-peared at the ta-ble, even though she al-ready knew what she was go-ing to or-der. It gave her hands some-thing to do, if noth-ing else.

“Oh, you re-ally do look like a li-brar-ian,” Cheryl said. “It’s adorable.”

Not quite sure what to make of that state-ment, Dina nod-ded. “Did you know Casanova was a li-brar-ian?”

“Uh…wasn’t he some sort of lover?”

“He was also a scam artist, al-chemist, spy and church cleric.”

Cheryl looked at her askance and Dina could feel a flush creep up from her chest to her face. Why was she try-ing to have a con-ver-sa-tion with this woman? She had no de-sire to be friends with her—they were com-pletely dif-fer-ent types of peo-ple. If she were smart, she’d keep her mouth shut—ex-cept to eat—and let Cheryl say her piece so she could leave and be done with this ridicu-lous din-ner.

“I guess be-ing a li-brar-ian gives you ac-cess to all kinds of in-for-ma-tion,” Cheryl said af-ter a few mo-ments had passed with ag-o-niz-ing slow-ness.

“Pretty much ev-ery-thing is good here,” Dina said. “My fa-vorites are the dragon roll and the spi-der roll.”

“I don’t re-ally like eel—too rub-bery. Oh, they have Cal-i-for-nia rolls! My fa-vorite!”

And now she knew ex-actly what kind of sushi “lover” Cheryl was. As soon as they’d or-dered, Dina sat back and waited for Cheryl to tell her why they were here. She tried not to fid-get, but she couldn’t stop her foot from swing-ing like a clock pen-du-lum on steroids. When the toe of her shoe made con-tact with some-thing solid, she hoped, for a nanosec-ond, it was the ta-ble leg.

“Ouch!”

Oops. “I’m sorry,” she said. “I guess I’m anx-ious to find out what you wanted to tell me.”

Cheryl gri-maced as she rubbed her leg through her black wool trousers. “That’s okay. Yeah. So, you know how Ash-ley ac-cused Adam Man-del of not ac-tu-ally giv-ing her the forms she needed?”

“You mean the mo-tion.”

Cheryl waved her hands. “Yeah, what-ever, the mo-tion.”

“Yes.”

“Well, she made it up. All of it.”

“Why?” Dina leaned for-ward. “Why would she do that?”

“Ap-par-ently, Adam is com-pet-ing with some-one else at the firm for ju-nior part-ner. The guy—I don’t know his name—is ner-vous be-cause Adam’s dad is the head of the firm. And Ash-ley has a thing for him. So she de-cided to help the guy by mess-ing up Adam’s cases. I guess this isn’t the first one she didn’t file on time. She men-tioned do-ing it a cou-ple months ago and then again this time.”

“Oh my god, I can’t be-lieve she’d play with some-one’s rep-u-ta-tion and ca-reer like that! You know he got fired, right? From his Dad’s firm!”

“She’s a witch and she cares only about her-self and her own in-ter-ests. Well, and the other guy, al-though know-ing her, it prob-a-bly won’t last.”

Dina sat back as the waiter de-liv-ered their sushi, but she couldn’t bring her-self to eat. Her stom-ach roiled at the de-struc-tion Ash-ley had caused.

She squinted at Cheryl. “Why are you telling me this?” Her heart-beat in-creased as she waited for her an-swer.

Cheryl’s ex-pres-sion hard-ened and Dina caught a glimpse of the mean girl she re-mem-bered from high school. “She tried to steal my boyfriend.”

“But I thought she was into the other guy at the firm?”

Cheryl shrugged. “With Ash-ley, there’s al-ways some-one.”

If this was the big league, Dina wanted no part of it. She wanted to stay in her own world, where peo-ple acted like adults, where girl-friends trusted their boyfriends and vice versa, where com-mu-ni-ca-tion and not de-cep-tion solved prob-lems. But she couldn’t say that to Cheryl.

Dina picked at her food as Cheryl went into all the evil ways Ash-ley had tried to steal Cheryl’s boyfriend. Dina nod-ded and made sym-pa-thetic noises, but wasn’t re-quired to do more, which was good since Cheryl left her lit-tle time to speak. Fi-nally, when she took a break to breathe and pop the last piece of the Cal-i-for-nia roll in her mouth, Dina turned the sub-ject back to-ward Ash-ley’s ac-cu-sa-tion.

“But why are you telling me this? Why not go to the law firm or even Adam?”

“He’s your boyfriend. You should be the one who gets to do it.”

Cheryl was be-ing her ver-sion of nice to her? Dina wasn’t sure if she should be thank-ful or wary.

“But they’re never go-ing to be-lieve me. It’s hearsay.”

Cheryl grabbed her phone and tapped the screen a few times. “Give me your num-ber again.”

“Why?” She bit her lip. She didn’t mean to sound as if she didn’t want to give it out…well, she didn’t want to give it to Cheryl, but she should have hid-den her feel-ings bet-ter. Ex-cept, Cheryl didn’t seem to care.

“Be-cause I’m go-ing to send you a screen-shot of a text Ash-ley sent me.”

Dina gave her the num-ber and a mo-ment later, her phone binged. When she opened the text, she gasped.

Don’t for-get, ladies, ly-ing and ma-nip-u-la-tion are the norm in the law pro-fes-sion—I should know!

There was more, but red spots ap-peared in Dina’s vi-sion and pre-vented her from read-ing any fur-ther. Her anger at Ash-ley’s care-less dis-re-gard for the truth and for Adam threat-ened to over-whelm her.

“Hey, re-lax,” Cheryl said, reach-ing for her hand. “We’ll pay her back, don’t worry.”

Cheryl spent the rest of din-ner dis-cussing all the ways she’d paid back dif-fer-ent peo-ple who had wronged her—her mother for be-ing un-in-volved in her life and whom she now re-fused to visit; her ex-boyfriend who’d cheated on her and whose cur-rent girl-friend she mailed old pho-tos to; her old boss, for whom she’d moved around all kinds of files when he’d let her go; and of course, Ash-ley.

By the time Dina left, she was in des-per-ate need of a shower. She didn’t want to be as spite-ful as Cheryl and she had no de-sire to con-tinue any kind of a re-la-tion-ship with her. But if she passed along this in-for-ma-tion, she’d prob-a-bly have to see Cheryl again to ob-tain proof or some-thing. And would she seem like she couldn’t let Adam go by bring-ing this in-for-ma-tion to his at-ten-tion? Would she be show-ing him how much his ac-cu-sa-tions hurt her and would that be the as-sumed mo-ti-va-tion?

What-ever Dina had ex-pected her rabbi’s of-fice to look like, it wasn’t this. Pale grey walls with bright white trim, a large win-dow with multi-col-ored beads in-stead of cur-tains, and a glass topped chrome ta-ble in-stead of a desk. White book-shelves cov-ered two of the four walls and were filled with Ju-daica books, mod-ern text-books and a va-ri-ety of other books Dina was itch-ing to ex-plore. In-ter-spersed with the books were mod-ern art paint-ings and black and white pho-to-graphs of Is-rael. The one free wall fea-tured col-or-ful Jew-ish prints and her rab-bini-cal or-di-na-tion cer-tifi-cates. The over-all ef-fect was one of friend-li-ness and ap-proach-a-bil-ity, which shouldn’t have sur-prised her at all. Be-cause the rabbi was friendly and ap-proach-able, which was why Dina had re-quested a meet-ing with her.

Only now, with the prospect of hav-ing to dis-cuss the sit-u-a-tion, Dina was hav-ing sec-ond thoughts. She sat on one of the two rasp-berry col-ored leather chairs and clasped her hands to-gether to keep them from trem-bling.

“It’s so nice to see you, Dina,” Rabbi Ack-er-man said, lean-ing for-ward and smil-ing at her. “And I wanted to thank you for the book rec-om-men-da-tion you gave me Fri-day night. I or-dered it on Sun-day and started read-ing it yes-ter-day. It’s ex-cel-lent!”

Dina’s face warmed and her hands stilled. “I’m glad you’re en-joy-ing it. You know, if any-one ever wants to start a book club at the tem-ple, I’d be happy to help.”

“That would be won-der-ful. But I don’t think that’s the rea-son you wanted to talk to me to-day.”

Dina gripped her knees be-fore forc-ing her-self to re-lax. “No, it’s not. I have a dilemma I was hop-ing you might be able to help me with.” She out-lined what hap-pened with Adam, be-ing care-ful not to name names, and fin-ished with her con-ver-sa-tion with Cheryl.

“My prob-lem is I don’t know what to do with the in-for-ma-tion.”

“Why not?” the rabbi asked.

“Be-cause Adam and I aren’t to-gether any-more and hon-estly, af-ter the way he treated me, I don’t want any-thing to do with him.”

“I can un-der-stand that, Dina. But you know in-for-ma-tion that will help clear his name.”

“He’s not un-der ar-rest and be-lieve me, these women are so gos-sipy, that in-for-ma-tion will get back to him any-way.”

“Then why are you here?”

Dina shrugged. “I guess I feel guilty do-ing noth-ing. I don’t want to be spite-ful, but I don’t want to come across as this des-per-ate girl try-ing to get back to-gether with him.”

“Do you re-ally think he’d take it that way?”

“I don’t know. Women throw them-selves at him all the time.”

“Did you?”

Dina’s mouth dropped. “No. If any-thing, I tried to avoid him.”

“And yet he still went out with you.”

Her eyes filled with tears and she blinked them away. “It doesn’t mat-ter now.”

The rabbi nod-ded sym-pa-thet-i-cally. “Look, I sus-pect you have plenty of girl-friends who can give you re-la-tion-ship ad-vice. How about I give you ad-vice from a Jew-ish per-spec-tive. I am a rabbi, af-ter all.” She winked at Dina.

For the first time since she walked into the rabbi’s of-fice, Dina re-laxed.

“In Deuteron-omy, it tells us ‘Right-eous-ness, right-eous-ness you shall pur-sue.’ Be-cause the word ‘right-eous-ness’ is re-peated, some say that we may not use un-just meth-ods in pur-suit of a just cause. Kind of like the end doesn’t jus-tify the means.”

“So leav-ing it to oth-ers to al-low word to fil-ter back to Adam would be wrong?” Dina asked.

In-stead of an-swer-ing, the rabbi con-tin-ued. “There’s an-other story, in Leviti-cus, where Moses chas-tises Aaron for not fol-low-ing his in-struc-tions. Aaron sug-gests that per-haps Moses didn’t quite un-der-stand what God told him, and Moses agreed that Aaron could be right. When we study this text, Moses ad-mit-ting he might be wrong is huge, be-cause if he’s mis-in-ter-preted God’s words here, where else might he have done so? By ad-mit-ting he’s not per-fect, he’s giv-ing the He-brews an op-por-tu-nity to go against him. But Moses re-al-izes that his duty is to tell the truth.”

“So I have to tell him.”

“I think you do. And I think you knew that deep down.”

Dina sighed. “I did. I just kept hop-ing there was a way around it.”

Sit-ting back in her chair, the rabbi thought a mo-ment. “Well, there is one thing. His fa-ther is the one who fired him, right?”

Dina nod-ded.

“So could you bring the in-for-ma-tion to his fa-ther? Of course, you’d have to be sure his fa-ther would tell him; oth-er-wise you’d have to tell Adam any-way and then you’d be ex-pos-ing a fault in his fa-ther to his son, which isn’t very right-eous.”

“His fa-ther is many things, but even I can’t imag-ine he wouldn’t tell his son the truth.”

As Dina left the rabbi’s of-fice, she thought about their con-ver-sa-tion. Adam’s fa-ther wasn’t the nicest man, but he wouldn’t want his com-pany to suf-fer. He’d want to ex-pose the truth so his rep-u-ta-tion would be pris-tine. All she’d have to do is meet with him, ex-pose Ash-ley’s lies, and frame it so it was a mat-ter of honor to tell Adam. They’d both win. Adam’s fa-ther would know the truth, as would Adam, and she wouldn’t have to see him.

It was per-fect.