PERI: SIZE (EIGHT) MATTERS

"It's like this," said Maeve. "As long as you're neurotic and crazy, he's great. But once he solves all your problems, he becomes the problem." "He gets incredibly mean," said one woman. The others nodded. "Once," said Jackie, "when I said I was a size eight, Peri said, 'There's no way you're a size eight. You're a size ten, at least. I know what a size eight looks like, and believe me, you're no size eight. "

"He was always telling me to lose fifteen pounds," said Sarah, "and when I went out with him, that was the thinnest I'd been in years."

"I think when men tell women to lose weight, it's a diversion from their own lack of size in certain areas," one of the women added dryly.

Maeve remembered a ski trip to Sun Valley. "Peri did everything right. He bought the tickets, he booked the condo. It was going to be great." But they started fighting in the limo to the airport—they wanted to sit on the same side. By

the time they got on the plane, the stewardess had to separate them. ("By that time, we were arguing about who got to breathe more air," Maeve said.) They fought on the slopes. On the second day, Maeve began packing her bags. "He said, 'Ha ha ha, there's a blizzard outside, you can't leave, " Maeve recalled. "I said, 'Ha ha ha, I'm going to take a bus. "

A month later, Maeve went back to her husband. Her situation was not unusual—many of the women ended up dumping Peri, only to go back to the men they had broken up with.

But that didn't mean that Peri went away. "There were faxes, letters, and hundreds of phone calls," said Sapphire. "It was sort of awful. He does have a huge heart, and he's going to be a great guy someday."

"I kept all his letters," Sarah said. "They were so touching. You could practically see the streaks of his tears on the pages." She left the room and returned seconds later holding a letter. She read aloud: " 'You don't owe me your love, but I hope you'll have the courage to step forward and embrace mine. I don't send you flowers because I don't want to share or demean your love with objects not of my creation. " Sarah smiled.