Naugatuck Valley Community College
The Perfect Life
2nd Place - Short Fiction Robert Andreotta*
Emma Lacroix had a perfect life. She was young, in her late twenties at the oldest. Hair the color of burnished copper fell in effortless curls to her narrow waist. Piercing blue eyes hid behind black spectacles that rested on an infuriatingly cute button nose. The whiteness and straightness of her teeth were too much to be natural, but their perfection only added to her already ethereal beauty. Her eyebrows were drawn on, but in a subtle and elegant way. Occasionally she went too heavy on the foundation, but otherwise her makeup was as perfectly crafted as the rest of her. Her coworkers would look at her appraisingly when she stepped out of her Lexus in the morning. No one would ever guess, and they wouldn’t dare to ask, but she had grown up on a farm in Hemingford Home, Nebraska. Every October her family would drive down to Omaha for the state fair, cattle pleasantly sedated in a trailer hitched to their truck.The Lacroix’s didn’t have money, but her daddy did have an eye for livestock, and they won the blue ribbon every year to show it. The female teachers eyed her up and down before saying hello much the same way that the other farmers looked at her family’s sheep. Instead of looking for structure, wool quality, and size, they looked at her hair, shoes, and car. Ultimately judging her for her parking spot in the back of the lot. She was the newest union member and got the furthest spot. In this they felt superior, so in this they judged.The males judged her too, but as buyers not competition. Emma Lacroix smiled and waved, eyes beaming even at six o’clock on a Monday morning. She came in at 6:00 a.m. sharp every day to grade papers and prepare her lesson plan.The other teachers did this after school and stayed late. They’d drink coffee, relive their days, grade assignments, and delay going home to their families. Emma on the other hand left at 3:30 p.m. every day. She needed to be home at 4:00 to start dinner for her husband, and make sure it was on the table for him and ready at 6:00. Emma Lacroix was the perfect wife. She wasn’t always a perfect wife, but her coworkers didn’t know that. They saw her grab the new Gucci bag out of her car, but they didn’t notice her wince when she put it on. All they saw was a perfect gift from her perfect husband for being the perfect wife. They didn’t see how she earned her gift. Her students loved her unanimously, and the teachers hated her for that 37
