A Man to Die for by Eileen Dreyer

until a couple nights later when she was sitting in the lounge eating her dinner. There had been Hunsacker sightings earlier in the evening, and Millie and Barb had been fighting for time at the bathroom mirror. Casey watched and wondered why she seemed to be the only one in the entire building who didn’t want Dr. Hunsacker’s manicured fingers on her arm.
    It might have been as simple as the fact that Casey didn’t trust beautiful people. There was something about a man who just assumed that everyone would find him attractive that put her off. She had to work like a dog for every one of her advances. She had to try twice as hard to be noticed, and took none of her gains for granted. People like Hunsacker considered their looks not so much a gift as a right, and assumed that their fortune would naturally correspond. And, unfortunately, the world around them usually complied.
    Growing up with the onus of coppery red hair and freckles, Casey knew that she was intimidated by physical beauty. She had never really had it, and never really would. In time the red had become fashionable and the freckles dimmed, but the gawky, shy girl in Casey had never died. She had gained a certain presence over the years, but she’d never know that effortless poise, that natural ease when dealing with her body or anybody else’s.
    Casey envied Hunsacker the swirl of attention, remembering all too painfully what it felt like to be invisible in a crowd. She resented him because a man with less talent than she thrived when she still struggled.
    She hoped, though, that she had a less selfish reason for not liking him.
    Hunsacker strolled into the lounge just after dinnertime. Casey was slouched in one of the swivel chairs, her feet up on an end table, reading a book and munching on moo goo gai pan, relishing the rare isolation.
    Which meant that it was inevitable that he’d join her. He was in scrubs, somehow making those look as upscale as his chinos. Tonight, instead of fascinating her, it irritated her.
    “Hey, babe,” he greeted her smoothly. “Good to see you.”
    She’d had just about enough of that, too. Setting down the book, Casey eyed him as levelly as she could. “Casey,” she said evenly.
    He pretended not to understand. Affecting a wonderful expression of confusion, he settled into the next chair. “Pardon?”
    Casey. smiled. “My name. If you can’t remember it, then ‘hey you’ is just fine.”
    On clicked the old electricity. He whipped out that smile faster than a sleight-of-hand trick and displayed it with just a modicum of hurt. “That’s just the way I am,” he protested, reaching out.
    Casey backed away and returned his smile with a more cost-effective variety. “I’d also prefer not to be stroked unless we’re formally engaged. Call me frigid, I’m just funny that way.”
    He tried one more time. And that was when Casey saw the disparity. The intangible she hadn’t been able to put her finger on the other night.
    It was his eyes. No matter what the rest of his face did, no matter how much energy or empathy or delight he radiated, his eyes just didn’t match it.
    They glittered, like flat stones, a completely separate entity from the rest of him. It was as if while his body acted, his eyes watched. Unaccountably, Casey remembered her mother’s words from a few nights earlier. “Not everybody is kind.”
    “Oh, Casey.” He sighed, settling back into his chair and automatically recreasing his pants as he crossed his legs. “You obviously don’t know me well yet. When you do, you’ll get used to me.”
    Casey shrugged with a deprecating smile, intrigued by her instinctive reaction. She quelled the urge to move to a chair farther away. He was just too facile, too readily intimate. He was crowding her space, as Poppi would say. “I just don’t like being called babe,” she explained. “You understand.”
    He said the only thing he could without being considered a jerk. “Of course.”
    “You have