A young woman meets a man in the City. She’s twenty-five, a graduate of a private college, now working as an assistant acquisitions editor at a publisher, a career she loves despite low pay and slow advancement. He’s three years older and a science-minded creative director at an ad agency.
They meet in a bar, each accompanied by two friends; their physical attraction is immediate and intense. Later, instead of going directly to the group’s fourth weekend get-together, he invites her to swing by his apartment before they go to the bar, so he can get her opinion on a piece of art he has purchased but is thinking of returning—and the deadline for getting a refund is imminent. They never leave for the bar and only later that day do they get around to focusing on the art object, a key element in the story.
The novel focuses on the eight hours they spend alone together. If you’ve ever wondered what two virtual strangers lying in bed for the first time might find to talk about over that spell of time, A Perfect Woman provides this couple’s answer.
A thread in the story, aside from art in its many forms, is her attraction to a concept that has seized her imagination by way of Zelda Fitzgerald. This 25-year-old has faith that she can make the concept work—if only she can find the right man. In her view, finding a man who could share her vision of long-term romance would provide the greatest fulfilment across a lifetime.
In fact, sharing this idea is what she wants from a partner and she communicates her reluctance to go forward with anyone unless she gets it. He pays attention, because he thinks it may be time for him to settle down, assuming he can find the right woman. So the stage is set for the action that unfolds.
After spending the day together, each returns to his/her circle of friends, who all feel slighted and concerned by the couple’s skipping out on the weekly get-together. Each must cope with their friends’ and her mother’s troubled reactions to their stolen day. In a midnight phone conversation, the pair bonds.