Leslie Farquhar was born in 1983 at Advocate Trinity Hospital in Chicago, at that dewy dawn hour when widows with undisturbed wealth are disgorged from penthouse apartments to walk toy purebreds down pleasantly vacant boulevards while brokers slip soundlessly from the Murphys of their mistresses to head directly back to work in yesterday’s shirt and tie. That is, she was born in a time and place that determined her to be one of those for whom opportunities would always exceed her abilities.
Tracey and Reynold Farquhar lived in the suburbs of Hickory Hills just south of the city. They raised their daughter with middle-class means and morals and expected, as parents of an uncommonly beautiful girl do, that she eventually flourish in a world which showers reward upon people endowed with natural symmetry. Voted neither prom queen nor valedictorian, Leslie did, however, bring the football captain to graduation.
Competent at everything, expert at nothing, Leslie decided to become a dancer, which landed her in New York at twenty, but without success. She then attempted writing with similar expectations and even greater failure. This was due, in part, to her assumption that fascinating and exotic experiences, like the men in her life, would simply be attracted to her. At twenty-five, with a trail of publishers’ rejection letters and one brief, futile marriage behind her, Leslie began to feel she could no longer drift but must swim directly for decisive moments. It was about this time she adopted a tone in conversations that made the most straightforward comment sound wildly suggestive to professional men within earshot.
Let us, as our imagination allows, leap forward ten years to discover Leslie in the midst of a swarthy July downpour in Manhattan, on her way to the temporary employment office. Capable, now, of dealing with disappointment only slightly less ungraciously than in her youth. It is here

In the Company of a Lie 1