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“Nothing remains perfect, Katherine. Nothing. Now I’ll tape mine back up, and it’ll look just like yours. Minus Emmitt’s big, dumb footprint.”
She let out a shocked laugh. “I don’t understand.”
“I just wanted to make my point clear. Look.” I took the tape dispenser, taped the page back together on the front and the back and showed her. “Can I still teach effectively with this?”
She nodded.
“Am I going to do a less than brilliant job lecturing on Jane and Rochester with this book now?”
She shook her head.
“It’s okay if things get screwed up sometimes, but what’s in here”—I tapped on her forehead—“and in here”—I tapped on my heart—“will still be perfect. And by perfect, I mean intelligent and kind and giving. Perfection is unattainable. For humans or anything else in life. Nothing and no one can ever be flawless.”
She nodded, her smile wider and genuine. Grateful, even.
“I have an extra assignment for you tonight when you finish your essay. You can think of it as your penalty for not finishing in class if it makes you feel better.” Because she was the kind of student who might feel she deserved an extra assignment for having the privilege of finishing her essay at home. “Research the Ruins of the Glastonbury Cathedral in England and write a short, one-paragraph explanation of why these ruins are more beautiful now than they were when the cathedral was built.”
I’d had the chance to visit Glastonbury years ago when I traveled to England one summer. It was the most beautiful place I’d ever been, the way the sunlight filtered through the broken arches stretching toward the sky. It was old and tarnished with age, crumbling into ruins, yet it was magnificently beautiful. More so with the natural light of the sun streaming onto every stone.
“Not all things need to be fresh and new andperfectto be beautiful,” I told her.
“Thank you, Ms. B.” She leaned forward and hugged me, which I wasn’t ready for.
I settled back at my desk and heaved a sigh at how I’d once been so much like Katherine. I’d even had sessions with a therapist while at LSU. Her words floated back to me from one of our last sessions. It had brought me both a heavy dose of self-actualization and bitter heartache.
“Perfectionism is innate, Betty. There is nothing wrong or bad at all with this part of your personality. It’s what gives you drive and tenacity.”
“Then why do I allow it to take over and cause me harm?”
“That part is from another source. It can be a fear of judgment or disapproval of others. Something from earlier in life. Do you think that your father’s abandonment may cause you to strive for perfection so that no one has cause to abandon you again?”
I sucked in a breath, watching a drop of water fall to the essay on my desk. Not water. A tear. Wiping the back of my hand across my face, my mind drifted to the memory of my father walking down the driveway with a suitcase, not even looking back as I cried at the window, calling for him to come back.
Wiping my face with a tissue, I shoved that memory to the back of my mind, determined to forget my father.
Rehearsal was tonight. If anyone could cheer me up, it was Bennett.
Chapter Nineteen
~BENNETT~
I loved my family.I truly did. But sometimes, they could drive me batshit crazy.
Mom had asked me to stop by this afternoon after work to pick up some of the leftover gumbo from the cookoff so I could freeze it.
What she really wanted was to interrogate me about Betty, then chastise me for not introducing her to the family sooner.
I definitely wasn’t going to tell her that I was waiting as long as possible to put her in front of the Broussard welcome wagon. Because my family wasn’t exactly welcoming. They were more like a league of scientists inspecting a foreign organism to determine if it was allowed to mingle with its host. And I wasn’t ready to terrify the living shit out of Betty.
Then there was my brother, who also happened to stop by our parents’ house this afternoon.
“Ben, you’ve got that constipated look again.”
My loving, supportive brother.
Then again, Betty held her own with Hale just fine. Maybe it wouldn’t be such a nightmare for her to meet the family.
Pop walked into the kitchen. “Who the hell took my Imodium?”
