Buch lesen: «Finding Mr. Perfect»

1

HANNAH ROSS HAD NEVER SEEN such a long table in all her life. At the head of its glassy expanse sat Randall Pollard, the jowly and robust CEO of Granny’s Grains Cereal, Inc. On one side sat the CFO, a thin fierce-looking man, and on the other the impeccably dressed, bored-looking brand-new head of the marketing department. Hannah, in a tailored pantsuit that had cost more than she could afford even though it was on clearance, had the other end of the table all to herself. Plenty of room. But under her new suit jacket she was sweating as though she was in the middle of a crowded elevator stuck between floors.

Pollard had been on his cell phone ever since they’d sat down in the fifth-floor boardroom of the home office on Chicago’s south side. The wait was making Hannah more nervous by the minute. She focused her attention on the banner behind Pollard’s head. Printed in a font that mimicked cross-stitch, on paper that tried to look gingham, was Granny’s Grains new slogan: Granny is bringing America’s families back to the breakfast table.

A good slogan, but definitely problematic, thought Hannah. Chiefly because it was just as faux as the cross-stitch and gingham. The last three business quarters had been so dismal that Granny was in real danger of losing her ruffled apron.

It had been decided that the company’s flagship product, Super Korny Krunchies, needed a new image. Unfortunately, the advertising firm that had been hired to provide it had determined that Granny’s squeaky-clean image was at fault. They were sure the numbers would improve considerably if the box was adorned with a girl barely into puberty wearing a push-up bra and a shrunken T-shirt. The ensuing ad campaign, pushed through when Pollard was in Europe tracking dead ancestors so he could join some posh country club in the suburbs, had gotten Krunchies kicked off the shelves of several Midwest grocery chains and had yielded bags of mail from scandalized customers. Nobody wanted to buy cereal that had to be wrapped in a plain brown wrapper before they could bring it home to the kids.

When Pollard returned from Europe, the old box quickly replaced the new one on store shelves across America. Along with a few department heads, the advertising firm had gotten the ax and Hannah, a research sociologist, had been brought on board to help marketing find a new direction. Trying to figure out what kind of image would put Super Korny Krunchies on top once again wasn’t exactly what Hannah had planned to do with her master’s degree.

Less than a year ago, she’d been perfectly happy analyzing whether the new single suburbanites impacted the economy in the entertainment sector of urban areas (yes, nobody wanted to drive all the way back downtown once they were home). Although she’d been working on a very interesting theory that the findings could be an early sign that an entire generation would eventually lack all spontaneity, the funding for the project became a fatality of the new economy.

Jobs in sociological research weren’t exactly clogging the want ads. But consultants were in vogue for everything from jury selection to shopping for birthday presents. So when a friend from college contacted her about a consortium of consultants he was putting together, Hannah decided she’d been unemployed long enough. Granny’s Grains was her first client as a sociological consultant.

Pollard ended his call. His chair creaked ominously as he leaned back in it and folded his hands over his protruding belly. “Well, Miss Ross,” he said, “I hope you have something for us.”

“Something we can actually use,” the new head of marketing added cynically. It was no secret that he’d been against bringing in a scientist.

“I think you’ll be pleased with my results,” Hannah said as she opened her briefcase, took out a small stack of spiral-bound reports, and stood to hand them out. “The good news,” she said as the men opened their reports, “is that the new slogan is right on the money. If you’ll turn to page three you’ll see that my research numbers show that Americans really do want to come back to the breakfast table. The cocooning that started in the nineties has spilled into the new century. On page five, you’ll see that polls show a conservative shift in the nation and—”

Hannah spouted statistics and quoted studies until she noticed the CFO checking his watch. She decided it was time to lighten things up a bit. “So, in many ways, your new slogan is right in the ballpark.” She smiled brightly. “Or maybe I should say backyard.”

Nobody laughed at her little joke. Not even a tiny smile out of any of them. Which was a shame because it was the only joke in her entire presentation. Instead, Pollard threw his copy of the report on the table in front of him. Hannah winced as it slithered off the glossy surface and onto the floor. “These numbers mean nothing to me,” he said. “What I want to know, Miss Ross, is why aren’t the boxes moving off the shelves?”

This was the part that Hannah dreaded most. She was a good researcher and she was confident in her findings. But she didn’t feel at all confident in how the client would react to her findings—or in her ability to deal with the reaction.

Hannah had never pictured herself in the corporate world. In the movie of her life that had played in her head, she’d never been a number gatherer for middle-aged corporate types who were going to use her findings for advertising. In the rarefied theater of her mind, her work not only had purer motives but she’d also been wearing yoga pants and cross-trainers, not confining tailoring and pumps that pinched. But it was more than just her yoga pants she missed. Face it, analyzing the cereal-buying habits of Middle America hadn’t been anywhere at all on the preview reel.

But this was real life and the corporate types weren’t expecting an intermission. She took a deep breath and gave them what they paid for. “I’m afraid it’s partly because of the box itself.” Hannah nervously gestured toward the oversized rotating cereal box hanging from the ceiling, hoping that no one would ask her what the other part was. She’d hate to have to totally alienate her first consulting client by telling him that his product tasted more like the cob than the corn. “The current box,” she went on, “depicts an ear of corn wearing a superhero cape.”

“We know that, Miss Ross,” Marketing assured her with a long-suffering air. “Except for a brief period, it’s been on the box since the early sixties.”

“A classic, true,” she said, quite pleased with the diplomacy of her ad lib. “But in today’s world, your flying ear of corn isn’t the image the consumer wants in a product.”

“If you’re talking about modernizing it,” said the CFO, “that’s been tried. To disastrous results.”

“That’s because the consumer group you need to target wants to buy a product that speaks of stability. They want a product that makes them think that if they use it their family will become what they wish them to be.”

Mr. Pollard frowned, sending his jowls to a new low. “And what do they wish their families to be, Miss Ross?”

“Normal, Mr. Pollard.”

“Normal?” The head of marketing spat out the word as if it tasted bad.

“Yes,” Hannah said emphatically. “Normal. Simply, perfectly normal.”

The three men at the table looked confused. Fortunately, Hannah was not confused. She knew all about what normal was supposed to be.

“Today’s parents are older, more educated, more sophisticated than ever before. But society is coming full circle, gentlemen.” This was more like it, thought Hannah. She was beginning to sound as though she knew what she was talking about. “What they want is really very simple. It used to be referred to as the American Dream. Picture, if you will,” she said, pacing the length of the conference table, “front porch swings and backyards full of toys and rosebushes. Pies cooling on the windowsill in summer and jack-o’-lanterns glowing from front porches in the autumn. Snowmen in front yards in the winter and Christmas trees winking in frosted windows.” As she paced, Hannah rhapsodized about tree forts and vegetable gardens, neighborly neighbors and Sunday picnics, painting the kind of picture that might be found in a 1950s magazine ad. And painting it well because, although she usually talked in statistics and averages, this was a subject close to Hannah’s heart.

As a girl, Hannah had wished for normal on stars like some girls wished for boyfriends. She’d pined for pastel painted houses with ruffled curtains in the windows. Craved cozy family meals and story time before lights-out.

“Women today—and my statistics show that women still do the majority of the family grocery shopping—want a safe, happy home and family. And if they thought there was a cereal on the shelves that could inch them any closer to that image, you wouldn’t be able to restock the shelves fast enough.”

Hannah took her seat again while Marketing rolled his eyes and the CFO checked his watch again. Reluctantly, Hannah looked down the table at Mr. Pollard, expecting to see his jowls hanging an inch or two lower in disappointment. Instead, he was rubbing his pudgy hands together with relish.

“Yes, yes,” he said. “I see what you mean. Splendid idea. Really splendid. My grandmother made this company a success on just such family values. She always said that the family was the backbone of America. So why not put the great American family on our box of cereal? We’ll base a whole ad campaign on it. We could even do seasonal boxes. All featuring the same family.” He turned to the head of marketing. “Call the modeling agency. We need to start searching for the perfect models immediately.”

“No!” Hannah said with perhaps a little too much urgency.

“No?” Pollard said with the kind of tone that made her think the simple word was seldom said to him.

“What I meant to say was, models would be a mistake. Today’s consumer is too savvy to fall for a cardboard retread of Norman Rockwell. They want the real thing. This is, after all, the age of reality television. I think the only way this idea will hit home with consumers is if you put a real family on the box.”

Randall Pollard slammed his doughy hand on the table. “By George! That’s it!” he yelled, his jowls quivering in excitement. “We’ll put a real American family on the box. From a real American town. The most perfectly normal family from the most perfectly normal town,” Pollard gushed like an old-time politician. “We’ll make it a contest. Yes, a contest! And you, Miss Ross, will run it.”

“Me? But—” Hannah’s mind reeled. She’d never run a contest before. She’d never even entered one. She didn’t have a clue. “Surely there is someone else who—”

“Nonsense,” Mr. Pollard cut in. “Who better to choose our perfect family than a sociologist? We’ll continue to pay your consulting fee, of course,” he added, “plus, there would be a hefty bonus for you after the project was completed successfully. Shall we say—”

The figure made Hannah gulp. It would be enough to support her while she looked for another job in research. Maybe she’d never have to enter a boardroom again!

She could figure out how to run a contest, couldn’t she? It couldn’t be that different from doing a research study, could it? She’d merely gather data, analyze it, and—

“Miss Ross? We’re waiting. Are you with us or not?”

“Of course, Mr. Pollard,” Hannah said enthusiastically. “I’d love to run your contest.”

“IT’S LIKE YOU’VE FALLEN into the absolute perfect job. Practically custom-made just for you,” Lissa Hamilton enthused before she took a huge bite of her feta burger.

“Running a contest for a cereal company is the perfect job for me? You’re going to have to elaborate on that, Lissa. And make it good,” Hannah warned, “because otherwise I think I’ve just been insulted.”

They were sitting in a booth at their usual Greek restaurant in the Lincoln Park section of Chicago, where Lissa, a freelance photographer, had a small loft. Outside the dirty plate-glass windows, the March wind was crisp and the trees were still bare as the Midwest experienced the usual slice of unpredictable weather that kept winter from becoming spring.

Across the booth, Lissa waved her manicured fingers around in the air, trying to express something as she chewed. Lissa was never very still for long, but she never talked with her mouth full, either. After she’d swallowed, she said, “Hey, don’t get me wrong. I know it’s not the research you want to be doing, but I’m the right-brained one in this twosome, remember? Believe me, you’ll feel better about this whole thing if you look at this consulting job as the perfect opportunity to develop your creative side—not to mention that it will be an awesome playground for your inner child.”

Lissa leaned forward, waving a French fry, thick with catsup, as she talked. “Think about it. You get to find the kind of family you always wanted—and you get to live with them for—oh, maybe a month?” she asked before she popped the fry in her mouth.

“Right. I’ll have a month to do some advance work before Pollard and the marketing and advertising people arrive for the photo shoot.”

“What kind of advance work?” Lissa asked.

“Gathering data for press releases, conducting in-field interviews, recording observations. Basically, I’ll be compiling as much information as possible and evaluating it so I can assist the marketing department in building the family’s image in the media.”

Lissa smiled. “In other words, you have to get to know them.”

“Yes. I guess you could say that. Certainly, anecdotal information would be beneficial to the—”

Lissa waved her fingers again. “No, no, no. That’s the scientist talking. You’ll be good at all that stuff—goes without saying. But this is what is exciting about this whole thing—you get to find your ideal family and give them to yourself for a present. And you get paid to do it.”

Hannah stopped playing with her Greek salad. “Wow. I never thought of it that way.”

“That’s why we’ve been friends all these years, girl. We never think of anything the same way.”

It was true. They were nothing alike. Lissa was an artist. A little wild. With clothes to match. While Hannah was a scientist. A little conservative. With clothes to match. One of the things they differed on was how they perceived Lissa’s family.

“If I could pick the perfect family, I’d pick yours,” Hannah said.

“Spoken like someone who never had to actually live with them.”

“How is Aunt Alice, by the way?” Hannah asked.

“Still boring.”

“Oh, she is not. You don’t know how lucky you were to have so much family living together in that big old house. I would give anything if—”

Lissa laughed and shook her head. “That’s my point. Here’s your chance, girlfriend. Go find that family you’ve always wanted.”

BY THE MIDDLE OF June, Hannah found herself driving a company station wagon loaded down with cartons of Super Korny Krunchies along a two-lane highway in Michigan’s Upper Peninsula, squinting at directions taped to the dash and hoping fervently that she wasn’t lost. But, no. There it was. As promised.

“Welcome to Timber Bay,” Hannah read out loud as she drove past the sign made of rough-hewn logs. She glanced at the directions again and turned right at Ludington Avenue. The heart of the town lay before her, pretty as a picture from an old calendar.

She drove past a red brick courthouse with green benches scattering its lawns and sweet william lining the long walk that led to its doors. In the next block there was a barbershop, with an old-fashioned striped barber pole out front, alongside a grocery store that looked like the only thing that had changed about it in the last fifty years were the prices posted in the window. She turned right at Sheridan Road where a corner drugstore that advertised a lunch counter and a stately bank with a four-faced clock anchored the town square. Farther down Sheridan she passed a library with wide granite steps and a movie theater with an old-fashioned marquee jutting across the sidewalk.

“Perfect,” Hannah murmured reverentially. It all looked so perfect. It all looked so normal. Which, according to the data Hannah had gathered, is exactly what Timber Bay, Michigan, was supposed to be. Okay, maybe not normal by today’s standards. The town didn’t appear to run on the same clock as the rest of the country. Timber Bay, no matter what the calendars in the town’s kitchens read, was marching to the beat of a drum from 1952. From its unemployment rate to its crime rate, from its abundance of stay-at-home moms to its low number of high-school dropouts, Timber Bay was a town that could have stepped out of time. Exactly the image Super Korny Krunchies was looking for.

If the Henry Walker family, the family Hannah had chosen as Granny’s Grains Great American Family, looked as good as the town they lived in, Hannah was going to be adding that bonus Mr. Pollard promised to her bank account in no time.

The sound of children drifted through the open car windows as Hannah drove past a park. Mothers sat on benches watching children play on swings and teeter-totters. An old-fashioned wooden band shell, painted white, graced the edge of a boardwalk. Beyond it, the body of water that bore the same name as the town spread out toward the horizon, glittering bright blue in the sunshine.

She pulled up to a Stop sign across the street from an old hotel. It had probably been the pride of the town back in the days of logging and lumberjacks, but now it was abandoned, its windows boarded up, its front steps crumbling. A shame since the little coffee shop on the other side of the hotel looked as if it had been refurbished. Cute café curtains in the windows, a wreath on the door, and—

“Oh, my,” Hannah murmured when she noticed the man in front of the coffee shop.

He was sitting on a plain wood chair, tilted back far enough to raise the front legs off the sidewalk. His arms were up, elbows out, hands linked behind his head, eyes closed, his face tilted skyward, soaking up the afternoon sun. Above him was a sign that said Sweet Buns. And quite a delicacy he was, too. True, she couldn’t see his backside so she had no idea if his buns were sweet, but what she could see was pretty yummy. His muscles did a nice job of filling out his simple white T-shirt and battered, faded jeans. His brown hair, brushed back from his face, was a little long and attractively tousled. He had a square chin, a strong jaw, and a wide, full mouth.

Beefcake. Right out there on the main street of town. But sweetly meaty specimen that he was, what made him even more compelling was the look of pure, obvious pleasure on his face. Hannah was still staring when he lowered his head, opened his eyes, and looked straight at her.

She’d never seen eyes that blue before. She wasn’t sure how long she’d been staring but when she caught his mouth lifting into a wry little grin, Hannah decided she’d been looking too long already.

She jerked her gaze back to the road and started to ease her foot off the brake just as an elderly man with a cane stepped off the curb. She hesitated seconds too long and ended up having no choice but to wait for him to cross the street. Hannah concentrated on his shuffling feet, steadfastly ignoring the urge to look over at the coffee shop. She ran her hands through her windblown chin-length brown hair, trying to comb out the knots with her fingers, then took her time picking a piece of lint off her black suit jacket. But the pull from those blue eyes was stronger than the will to not embarrass herself again.

She gave in and turned her head—and found herself nose to nose with the beefcake in denim.

Oh, those eyes. They were enough to make a girl shiver.

“Lost?” he asked.

“Of course not,” she said, using haughtiness to keep the shivers away.

The beefcake leaned his head farther into the car to look at the slip of paper taped to her dash. “That the address you’re looking for?” he asked.

“Not that it’s any of your business, but, yes, it is.”

“Then you might not be lost yet, but you’re on your way.”

“Excuse me?”

“You made a wrong turn.”

The last thing Hannah wanted to do was ask him for help, but she was already running late. She looked at her watch. The Walkers expected her for lunch and it was after one. She sighed. “Would you mind giving me directions, please?”

“That might be kind of hard to do, considering your bad sense of direction. Tell you what, I’ll show you the way.”

She thought he was going around to get into the passenger seat and she totally panicked. “I—I don’t think that will be necessary,” she yelled out the window. “I’d really rather you didn’t get into—” she broke off when he plopped himself down on the hood of the Granny’s Grains station wagon. Apparently, he had no intention of getting into the car.

“Make a U-turn,” he yelled.

She stuck her head out the window. “Are you insane? Get off my car.”

He rapped his knuckles on the logo emblazoned on the hood. “Doesn’t look like it’s really your car. Looks like it belongs to Granny’s Grains. So unless you’re Granny—”

“Save it. I’ve heard that same joke several times in several different ways all the way up from Chicago. I’m late. So if you would please—”

Behind her a car honked. And then another. She closed her eyes and groaned. Nice entrance. Holding up traffic in a town with such a low crime rate might be transgression enough to make the front page of the local paper. Mr. Pollard would not be pleased. Behind her, the honking started again so she set her jaw, stepped on the gas and made the U-turn, all the while hoping that the beefcake would fall off in the process.

He didn’t.

Instead he’d turned into a talking hood ornament. “Full speed ahead,” he commanded loud enough for her, and probably the whole town, to hear.

Hannah slunk down in the seat and started to drive, hoping to remain as inconspicuous as possible. Fat chance with the local hero waving and yelling at just about everybody they passed. Bad enough she’d had to drive all the way from Chicago in a bright red station wagon with the company logo displayed prominently in several places, now she had to arrive to meet the Walkers with the local beefcake perched on the front of the car like it was a float in the homecoming parade. She felt like she was hanging onto the last of her professional dignity by her very short, ratty fingernails.

Luckily, they’d only gone a few blocks when he yelled for her to pull over. She checked the address taped to her dash. Yes. This was it.

The house was large, its narrow clapboard siding painted lemon-yellow. The shutters on the windows that reached nearly to the ground were painted white, as was the trim. And there was a huge porch stretched low across the front with a swing swaying gently in the early June breeze.

“Perfect,” she murmured again. Just the kind of house Hannah had always dreamed about. It was even better than the one Lissa had grown up in.

“Want me to carry your cereal for you, sweetheart?”

While she’d gaped at the house, Hannah had nearly forgotten all about him. He was leaning in the passenger window this time.

“No, thank you,” she said stiffly as she got out of the car. She was glad she’d worn the black tailored pantsuit and the gorgeously tailored white shirt she’d borrowed from Lissa. It made her feel professional enough to put the beefcake in his place. He was draped attractively against the car, showing no sign of leaving. “I don’t think I’ll get lost between the front sidewalk and the front door,” she told him. “You can go now.”

She didn’t wait to see if he did. This was too exciting a moment to let him spoil it. Okay, so maybe this wasn’t a real scientific research study, but Lissa had been so right. It was going to be quite an adventure—getting to know the family that was going to represent not only Super Korny Krunchies but also her fondest fantasy.

It wasn’t until she was standing at the Walkers’ front door, ready to ring the bell, that she realized that she wasn’t alone.

He was lounging there next to the door, his wide mouth quirked into a grin, his blue eyes glittering.

“Look, do you mind?”

“I don’t know, sweetheart,” he said while his gaze wandered suggestively down to her mouth. “That depends on what you’re asking me to consider.”

“I’m asking you to consider leaving.”

“I already considered it. I decided not to.”

Hannah groaned. This was ridiculous. The Walkers were her ideal family. She couldn’t show up at their front door with this lunatic—albeit very attractive lunatic—at her side.

“Aren’t you going to ring the bell?” he asked. Before she could stop him he reached past her and rang it himself.

Hannah was trying to decide if she could manage to disappear before anyone came to the door, when it opened.

“Hi, Ma,” the beefcake said. “What’s for lunch? I’m starved.”