Perfect People

I don’t like perfect people.

Their pristine looks and manners. Fastidious eye to fashion. Not a hair out of place, nor a wayward word or expression. They are, well, perfectly boring.

Hamilton Hanover was just such a person. His golden curls always just so, as if he had just stepped off some Greek god’s pedestal and come to life. An artist once told me that everyone has asymmetrical faces, but I had not been able to discern the imperfections in Ham. (He hates it when I call him Ham. I suppose he’s not quite perfect if he has minor peeves, but it’s still not enough to make him interesting.) Not that I have spent much time studying him; he simply doesn’t interest me, as I have mentioned. Nor do I interest him.

Ham is pleasingly tall, which allows him to look down benignly on most ladies. At times I expect to see him spread his fingers in that odd way you see saints do in ancient paintings, hear a heavenly host begin to sing behind him, and a halo appear as he blesses his latest lady love with his beatific smile. As society required, he was pleasant to me and occasionally danced with me; we traveled in the same social circles after all. To his great relief, I had a beau and so neither his family nor mine pushed any romantic attachments as under other circumstances we might have been considered a good match. Some even commented what statuesque children we might have had since I was nearly as tall as Ham. Little did they know how much that bothered him to not be able to look down on me but rather to have to look levelly in my eyes as we danced or conversed. He didn’t realize I often wore heeled slippers when he was going to be at an event to further irk him.

No one ever claimed I was perfect, nor even close to having a pleasant personality. My sister complained about my choice of beau, saying she wouldn’t be surprised to see that hot-blooded Irishman’s face on a wanted poster someday. I replied, “I hope they at least get it right then. I would hate to have to tell someone they have made his nose too long in the drawing or the scar bisecting his eyebrow goes the wrong way.”

He acquired that scar when he got into a knife fight with someone trying to steal his horse. I asked why he didn’t use a sword or pistol. He replied he had been swimming and the knife was the closest weapon to hand as he dashed out of the water. There were a great many cries to cease his description of the fight due to subject matter and circumstances, but I also noticed several ladies looking at him with renewed interest as they envisioned the battle and he in his very well-built all togethers. Colin Kennedy was far from perfect, but he was a nice specimen of manhood.

Whereas Colin looked like a beautiful, but worldly alley cat at times with his knicks and knocks and tufts of auburn hair that never seemed to lay just right, Ham was a sleek indoor lap cat with ne’er a whisker out of place.

Until tonight.

Ham’s parents were honoring Senator Grimsley and all of the important families of Atlanta would be in attendance as well as a few not so important, but well-heeled donors. I was expected to attend as my family had been friends with Ham’s as well as the Grimsley’s for years. Colin would be tolerated since he was my escort. For once there were no cuts, scrapes, or black eyes. Those belonged to Ham.

Usually the center of attention, as a Greek god should be, I saw Ham slinking in a corner trying to avoid notice. So, of course, I had to say hello. He stood, reluctantly, when Colin and I approached.

“Ham! What are you doing all by yourself in the dark?” I exclaimed. “You remember Colin Kennedy?”

“Yes, thank you Miss Constance.” He kept his head low and held out his hand to Colin. “I’m just not feeling well.”

I stooped to peer up into his face. “Why, Hamilton Hanover! What happened to your face? Did you get into a fight with someone?”

He motioned to the chairs next to him in the alcove miserably. His lean dancer body shrank even more into itself until he looked like a mere whisper of the man women swooned over. “I went to poetry reading last night.”

I gasped. “You got into a fight at a poetry recital!”

“No! Melissa Thurmond was reading a selection of her poems which were absolutely abominable. She was, of course, thrilled with them and came to ask my opinion since I have published poetry with some success.”

I nodded. Ham was a renaissance man. Not only was he flesh perfected, but he also sang like a siren, danced, played piano, and wrote love poems to make the hardest heart swoon, except mine which proves, apparently, I have no heart. Regardless, he was highly regarded in literary circles.

“I didn’t know what to say,” he continued. “I couldn’t tell her, ‘Your poetry is abysmal. Paper should flee in terror should you ever pick up a quill again.’ So, I said, ‘It’s the most vecordious thing I have ever heard,’ and I smiled sweetly at her. She smiled back, but there was a frown on her brow, and I knew she didn’t understand. All good. I knew the muttonhead would never remember the word to search it out later. Alas, a friend of hers leaned in and whispered in her ear.”

Colin smiled knowingly, winked mischievously at me, and sipped his drink. “Her friend knew what it meant.”

Ham nodded at him. “Yes, and then Melissa flew into a rage. She called me all manner of vile things. The words that spewed out of that young lady’s mouth. Let me tell you, I understood every one of them. Then she started beating on my chest. Cursing me and damning me to the pits of hell. Well, I am a man, I can take a little fluff of a woman whaling on me, but then Senator Grimsley hobbled over on his gutta-percha cane, and she grabbed it from him and started beating me with that. That was too much to bear and I cried for help.” He pointed to the side of his face that was the color of ravaged plums and his poor swollen eye. Even the one normally sapphire-blue eye that wasn’t swollen shut was now surrounded in a sea of ruby red. There was no white to be seen.

“She shattered the cane over my head.” He pointed to a knot on his head.

“How remarkable,” I said. “I’m very sorry to hear this, Ham.”

We sat in silence for a while, contemplating life and poetry, and perhaps, I suppose, a bit of violence.

“Will you be critiquing more poetry do you think?” I asked.

He looked at me with abject horror. “Miss Constance, I never knew you could be so cruel. I think your sister is right. You’re definitely adopted and have no civility.”

He hove himself up with some difficulty and limped away. I noticed as he did so, his right hip was slightly higher than his left, marring his perfection. Perhaps he was marginally more interesting than milk toast.

Marginally.