Finding Mr. Perfect

Luckily, Kate was easily distracted.

“Oh, yes! Always.”

“Did you ever have a problem getting everyone to the breakfast table?”

“Why, no, I never did.” Kate thought for a moment. “I think it was my meal system that did it.”

“Your meal system?”

Kate nodded. “Pancakes on Monday, over easy on Tuesday, waffles on Wednesday, scrambled on Thursday and French toast on Friday.”

Hannah frowned. Kate hadn’t mentioned cereal. “But, didn’t you—?”

“Oh, no, dear. I never varied it. That was the whole point, don’t you see?”

Hannah forgot about cereal for the moment. “No, I’m afraid I don’t see.”

“Well, if you knew that you had to wait a whole week for another waffle Wednesday, wouldn’t you eat them when they were put in front of you?”

It made a wacky kind of sense, Hannah had to admit. But where did cereal, particularly Super Korny Krunchies, fit in?

“Kate, when did you serve cereal?”

“Oh, I never served cereal when my kids were growing up. I always insisted they eat a cooked breakfast because everyone knows that—” Kate broke off, her hand flying out of the water to her mouth, sending little puffs of soap suds into the air around her head like a housewife’s halo. Only the halo was a little crooked. “Oh, dear,” Kate said.

Oh crap, thought Hannah. Another glitch. A huge one this time. Big. Very big.

“Got a problem, professor?”

She didn’t have to look to know that Danny Walker would be leaning in the doorway, hip cocked, mouth quirked, wry twinkle in his eyes. With all the twists and turns this day had taken, one thing she could be sure of. If she had a problem, Danny would be sexily draped somewhere nearby, ready to give her a hard time.

“You don’t look so good. Meat loaf upset your tummy—or is it the taste of failure? Didn’t I tell you that studies and surveys were bogus?”

Hannah glared at him. “As I said earlier, there is a margin for error in every research study. But if a subject is going to lie—”

“Watch it,” Danny warned as he came away from the doorway. “Lie is a strong word.”

“But it’s the right word,” she retorted. “I could go upstairs right now and produce the original entry form that states that your entire family eats Super Korny Krunchies. And that’s not the only problem with that entry form, either. Several answers are definitely misleading.”

“Or maybe you just asked the wrong questions,” Danny said.

Hannah threw her hands into the air. “What difference does it make what the question is if the entrant is going to lie?”

“Uh—excuse me, professor, but I think that’s an argument for my side. How can you possibly know what is and what isn’t a lie when you read those forms of yours?”

“Oh—” Kate cut in “—I’m sure Uncle Tuffy didn’t think he was lying.”

Hannah forgot the insult she’d been about to hurl at Danny. She swung around to face Kate. “Are you saying that Uncle Tuffy filled out the original entry form?”

Kate nodded. “Tuffy is Henry’s brother—not the—um—brightest in the family. So he might have gotten some things wrong. He’s always needed someone around to take care of him. But he’s got a kind heart and he really does love your cereal and he eats it every day,” Kate assured her eagerly. “And he wanted so badly to win. It’s just that the rest of us don’t eat it. But when Tuffy figured out that he ate enough for a family of four, why he thought—”

Hannah held up her hand. “Wait—let me get this straight. No one else in the family eats Super Korny Krunchies?”

“Have you tasted it?” Danny asked.

“Of course, I’ve tasted it,” Hannah answered impatiently.

“Then don’t ask stupid questions.”

Hannah thrust her hands into the pockets of her pants. “You know I’ve about had it with you getting a laugh at my expense, Walker. This isn’t very funny to me. First I find out that no one is really quite like they’re supposed to be. You’re like a family picture taken out of focus. And now I find out that nobody but Uncle Tuffy even eats the cereal you’ve been chosen to represent. And you stand there, with that mocking look in your eyes and—”

“Wait!” Kate cried. “Susie and Andy eat it!”

Hannah jerked her focus away from those mocking eyes and back to Kate. “Sissy’s children?” she asked.

Kate nodded. “Whenever they’re here they always eat it with Uncle Tuffy. Every morning and then again before bed. I try to get them to put fruit on it, but—”

“That’s wonderful!” Hannah interrupted. She was desperate and could care less if the kids put crushed candy bars on it, just as long as they could eat a bowl of it in front of Mr. Pollard without gagging.

Whew. Close call with disaster, thought Hannah as she slumped against the counter. But just to be on the safe side, she had better ask a few follow-up questions.

“Is there anything else I should know? Any other information that might not be entirely correct?” she asked. “Sissy is a stay-at-home mother, right?”

“Yup,” said Danny, his eyes twinkling. “In fact she never stops talking about it.”

Hannah ignored the twinkling and asked, “And she has a traditional husband?”

Danny seemed to find this even more amusing. “Traditional is the perfect word for Sissy’s husband Chuck.”

So far, so good, thought Hannah. “When am I going to meet them?” she asked.

Danny nodded toward the windows. “Any second now.”

Hannah looked out the window. Two children, a boy and a girl, were dashing across the yard, while a young woman carrying a huge tote bag was just coming down the alley behind the Walker house. She was followed by a young man who looked enough like Elvis to be the ghost of the King of Rock and Roll. He was talking urgently and gesturing a little wildly with his hands as he walked but the woman didn’t bother to turn around. When she came through the gate to the backyard, she locked it behind her, leaving the Elvis look-alike on the other side, still pleading his case.

The children clattered up the steps and across the back porch. The screen door slammed against the wall as they tumbled into the kitchen. They were both towheaded and as golden-brown as their uncle.

“Children!” Kate exclaimed. “What are you doing here?”

“Mommy left Daddy again,” the little girl said as if she’d announced nothing more important than what she’d just watched on television. Then, barely missing a beat, she asked, “Can we have some cereal?”

4

“MA DON’T YOU DARE give them any of that sugary junk. They’ve already had dinner,” said the young woman who’d slammed in the back door with just as much force as her children.

“Sissy,” Kate said, her hands on her hips, “what are you thinking?”

Sissy looked taken aback. “What? All of a sudden I’m not welcome in my own parents’ house?”

“Sissy, this is Hannah Ross,” Kate said pointedly. “From Granny’s Grains.”

It took a few moments for it to register on Sissy’s face. When she finally got it, her hand went to her mouth much the same as Kate’s had earlier. “Oh my gosh! I forgot all about Uncle Tuffy’s contest. I guess I picked a lousy time to leave Chuck again, huh?”

Again? The word leapt out at Hannah and said boo! How could this be happening? Sissy and Chuck had looked perfect on paper. They’d been so absolutely—right. Now it looked like they were just another thing that was absolutely wrong.

“I think you better sit down, professor,” Danny said.

Hannah automatically sat down on the chair Danny had pulled out for her. She was too dazed to even bother being irritated when Danny sat right down next to her.

“Does this happen often?” she asked him.

“So often the kids keep a second wardrobe upstairs in Sissy’s old room. ’Course old room isn’t really the correct term. The bed hardly ever has a chance to get cold before Sissy shows up at the back gate again in yet another skirmish in the employment wars.”

“Employment wars?”

“Remember you asked if Sissy’s husband was traditional?”

Hannah nodded.

“Chuck is so traditional that he won’t hear of Sissy working. While Sissy, who can cook up a storm, is on a constant crusade to transform the kitchen of the Belway family tavern. Make it like some bistro in Paris she read about. So every time Sissy sneaks something onto the menu, Chuck sneaks it back off again. And Sissy comes home.”

Hannah leaned her elbows on the table and shoved her hands into her hair. “How long does she stay?”

Danny shrugged. “Varies. Anywhere from two days to two months.”

Her head jerked up. “Two months!” The situation had gone from bad to worse with just those two words. If Sissy and Chuck weren’t back together before Pollard and the rest of the crew showed up, Hannah was going to have a lot more to worry about than a taunting blue-eyed devil and a bunch of plants you could take out for a burger.

“We’re not exactly what you planned on, are we, professor?” Danny asked softly.

Oh, fine. Danny Walker had picked a great time to talk nicely to her. And wasn’t his smile just a little sweet, as well? The back of her throat started to ache, just like it always had when she was a little girl, forcing back tears. She’d be damned if she was going to cry in front of Danny Walker. She sat up straighter. “A few minor glitches,” she said with a shrug. “Nothing I can’t handle,” she added nonchalantly, then turned to look out the window just in time to see Chuck finish climbing the fence.

“Time to play the helpful uncle,” Danny said as he stood up. “Hey kids, I’ve got to run something over to the shop. Want to ride in the truck?”

The kids immediately lost interest in cereal. “Can we, Mom?” Susie asked.

“Go ahead,” Sissy answered, then mouthed a thank you to her brother over the children’s heads.

Danny shepherded the two children out of the kitchen just as Chuck appeared at the screen door and started rattling the knob.

“Come on, honeybunch, unlock the door,” Chuck cooed, his face pressed against the screen.

“Don’t you honeybunch me, Chuckie Belway.”

“You can’t call it quits over a couple of artichokes. Come on, sugar, admit it was a dumb idea, anyway.”

“Dumb idea!” Sissy put her hands on her hips and stalked over to the door where her husband was clinging to the screen like a moth seeking a lightbulb. “Restaurants everywhere are putting gourmet pizzas on their menus. And if you hadn’t been so all fired stubborn about tasting it you would have seen why.”

“Well, this isn’t everywhere. Most of Timber Bay has probably never even tasted an artichoke. They sure as hell don’t want one on their pizza.”

“You’re impossible, Chuckie Belway,” Sissy yelled before she slammed the kitchen door in her husband’s face. Her bottom lip quivered as she turned to Kate. “Ma, I—I’m sorry if I’m messing things up for Uncle Tuffy, but I—I just can’t stay married to a man who doesn’t appreciate and nur—nurture my—my creativity.” She sniffed and dashed at a tear slipping down her cheek. “H—How can you build a life with a man who won’t even consider artichokes? I deserve artichokes, Ma.”

“Of course you do, dear,” Kate said as she took Sissy into her arms to console her.

Hannah was having a hard time picturing this tender scene on a cereal box. A Moving Back in With Mother edition? She was pretty sure Norman Rockwell never put that one on a magazine cover. She groaned and stood up.

“I can see you could use some time alone and I’ve got some paperwork to do so I think I’ll just go on up to my room.”

Nobody paid any attention so Hannah slipped out and went upstairs to the back bedroom Kate had shown her to earlier.

The room was sweet, with a flowered quilt on the bed and ruffled curtains at the window. The furniture was light oak and there was an old wooden rocker painted white. Soft and simple and feminine. Like a daughter’s room. Hannah should be lying on the bed, staring at the ceiling and dreaming or sitting in the rocker at the window and watching as the soft, summer evening unfolded in the yard below. Instead, she sat down at the little oak desk, opened her notebook computer, and tried to compose her first daily e-mail report to Mr. Pollard. The task seemed to require the kind of fictional skills she couldn’t quite summon at the moment.

She considered calling Lissa. But Lissa had been so upbeat about the whole thing Hannah hated to have to tell her that her inner child was on the verge of having a panic attack.

She closed the mail screen and opened a new document in the computer file on the Walkers. Okay, she thought as she thrust her hands into her hair and stared at the empty screen, no need to panic. Think it through. What exactly are the problems re: The Great American Family?

A fly buzzed around her head and she swished it away while typing meat eaters in the greenhouse. She stared at the line on the screen for a couple of seconds, tempted to delete it. The Venus flytraps seemed almost like a nonissue considering that the second generation Great American Family had been torn asunder over an artichoke pizza. On the other hand, she was pretty sure that Pollard didn’t like weird—in any form. The flytraps stayed on the list of the day’s debacles.

Next, she typed Danny the Devil. He could prove to be worse than the flytraps, since there was no way at all, Hannah was sure, to contain that bad boy persona he was so fond of displaying. She wasn’t going to fool herself that the few glimmers of kindness he’d shown were going to grow into the image Pollard was expecting in the Great American son. She’d just have to try to stay out of his way and hope that he’d lose interest in tormenting her soon. There had to be a girlfriend somewhere—or possibly several—that would eventually occupy his time.

Debacle number three, Sissy and Chuck. She typed and their names appeared on the screen. She stared at the letters, wondering if she could possibly find the money to send them all to Disney World for the duration. Unfortunately, until she got that bonus, she could barely afford to send them all out for an ice-cream cone.

Danny had said that sometimes the split only lasted a few days. So the Sissy/Chuckie problem might very well fix itself in time. But there would be consequences—from this split and from the earlier ones. She’d have to make it a point to spend some time with Susie and Andy so that she could see what kind of negative effects the parents’ problems had on them. There were loads of statistics that showed that there would be some. When she found out what she was up against, she could then develop a strategy to work around any behavior that was less than perfect. They seemed like bright children. Maybe if she coached them a little and—

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