Finding Mr. Perfect

2

BY THE TIME HANNAH HAD met Kate Walker, her husband Henry, and Henry’s older brother, Tuffy, who lived with the Walkers, she was starting to recover from the shock of finding out that her beefcake hood ornament, aka Danny Walker, was a member of Granny’s Grains Great American Family. It helped that he’d disappeared right after introductions. She knew it was probably very un-Great American Family of her, but Hannah fervently hoped Danny was having lunch elsewhere.

Mrs. Walker led her through a bright, charming living room and a dining room with crystal candlesticks and real flowers on the table to the kitchen at the back of the house.

It couldn’t have been better if Hannah had dreamed it up herself. The cupboards were painted white and the walls were papered in tiny blue flowers. There were blue gingham curtains at the windows and needlepoint on the walls of a spacious alcove that held a big oak table already set for lunch. Something was bubbling merrily in a pot on the stove and the aroma was enticing enough to make her mouth water.

“This place is for you, Miss Ross,” Uncle Tuffy said as he pulled out a chair for her then bowed in a courtly fashion.

“Thank you, Mr. Walker,” she said as she took it.

Tuffy chuckled delightedly. “I’m not Mr. Walker,” he said. “Henry there—he’s Mr. Walker. I’m Uncle Tuffy.”

“Then, thank you, Uncle Tuffy,” she said.

He grinned and Hannah tried not to think of lawn ornaments. He was short, slightly built and wiry, except for a rather large potbelly that strained the buttons of his red plaid shirt. With round cheeks above a whiskered chin and white hair that stood out in wispy tufts from his pink scalp, he looked like a gnome. All he needed was a stocking cap.

From her seat Hannah could see out the windows to the backyard where a lilac bush was in full bloom and a swing hung from an old oak tree.

“I see you have a greenhouse.”

“Kate raises her babies out there,” Uncle Tuffy said.

“Her babies?”

“That’s what I call my plants, dear,” Kate Walker answered from the stove where she was dishing out plates of food.

How sweet, Hannah thought. Calling her plants her babies. Kate came over and put a plate of food down in front of Hannah. Creamed chicken on popovers. How classic was that? Served on china that was edged with blue forget-me-nots, it looked like a picture from the pages of a woman’s magazine. Hannah raised a forkful to her mouth. Heaven.

“Mrs. Walker, this is delicious. But I hope you didn’t go to all this trouble because of me. We do want you to just be yourselves, you know. I mean, that’s the point, isn’t it?”

“Why, I didn’t go through any trouble at all, dear. Just creamed Sunday’s leftover chicken, as usual,” she said as she sat down to join them. “And please call me Kate.”

Leftovers. The word brought back memories. Until she’d started hanging around at Lissa’s house, the only leftovers Hannah had been familiar with were cold pizza or congealed Chinese. But at Lissa’s the leftovers morphed into what Mr. Hamilton called surprise pie. He loved to joke that you never knew what would be under the crust. Hannah had made it a point to eat at Lissa’s house whenever they had leftovers.

She took another forkful of food. It was so yummy that she wondered why the Walker family would want to eat the bland, oversugared cereal they would soon be representing. But eat it they did, and, according to Hannah’s data, they ate it in very large quantities.

“How long has your family been eating Super Korny Krunchies, Kate?”

“Well—um—let me see.” Kate seemed a little flustered suddenly.

Uncle Tuffy beamed. “I been eatin’ it since they been makin’ it,” he said proudly.

“And how long have you been hawking it?” Danny Walker asked as he came into the room and started to fill his plate at the stove.

“I do not hawk cereal,” she answered. “I am a research sociologist, working as an independent consultant.” It wasn’t Hannah’s style to sound so haughty, but Danny Walker seemed to bring it out in her.

“What’s a consultant?” Uncle Tuffy asked.

“That’s what some people do, Uncle Tuffy,” Danny said as he slid into a chair right across from her, “when they can’t find a real job.”

Kate looked up from her plate. “Oh, you poor dear. Have you been out of work long?”

Hannah gave Danny a look she hoped would freeze his mouth shut. “I am not out of work, Kate. I feel very privileged to be working with a company modern enough to hire a sociologist for this project.”

“Contest, you mean,” Danny said as he poured himself iced tea from the glass pitcher on the table.

Hannah preferred to think of it as a project. “As I was saying—this project—”

“But, Miss Ross, it was a contest, wasn’t it?” Tuffy asked, worry puckering his forehead. “We won, didn’t we? We get the year’s supply of cereal, don’t we? I’m gonna be on the box, aren’t I?”

“Yes, of course, you won—”

“Then it was a contest,” Danny said, his blue eyes mocking her like the devil. “So what did we have to do to win? Send in the most box tops?” he asked as he raised a glass of iced tea to his mouth.

“No, Danny,” Tuffy answered enthusiastically. “We won for being normal.”

Danny nearly spit out his iced tea. “Normal? Sweetheart, do you have any idea what normal is?”

Why couldn’t the man have an addiction to fast food, thought Hannah with a sigh. Why couldn’t he be out somewhere supersizing instead of sitting across from her, being super-irritating? “Your family was chosen, Mr. Walker, because they embody standards and values that Granny’s Grains wants to project.”

“So basically, sweetheart, this is just an advertising gimmick.”

“No. Of course not. And I would thank you not to call me sweetheart. I have a master’s degree in sociology. This contest—I mean project—was conducted in the same manner a scientific study would be.”

He gave a short laugh. “Well, that explains it then, professor. I always knew those studies weren’t worth the price of a two-penny nail.”

Hannah wished she’d taken her suit jacket off. It was feeling a little tight what with all the bristling she was doing. “Exactly what does that mean?”

“It means, professor, that if you think you’re going to find normal around here you’ve definitely taken another wrong turn.”

Forget mocking like the devil. Danny Walker was the devil. Her own personal devil. Just what she needed. How on earth had he slipped through the cracks of the carefully prepared questionnaires the finalists had had to complete? He’d taunted and ridiculed her from the moment his blue eyes had first locked on hers. He was cocky and obviously irresponsible. Jumping on her car like he was some kind of teenager, Hannah scoffed inwardly.

According to her data, Danny Walker was thirty years old. He owned his own building company but still lived at home with his parents, which was one of the reasons she’d chosen the Walker family. Multiple generations of a family living together was a trait that Hannah’s research determined a large number of Americans approved of today and looked to as an ideal worth upholding—and one of the reasons Hannah had always envied Lissa’s hodgepodge of a family. So Danny had definitely been a deciding factor when she chose the Walkers as Granny’s Grains Great American Family. But Hannah was beginning to wonder if she should have looked more closely at the family in Boise, Idaho, that had four children under the age of five. The fact that only one of the children could talk was definitely beginning to look like a plus.

Hannah decided to ignore Danny’s last remark and turned pointedly to his father.

“Mr. Walker, I believe you always come home for lunch. Is that right?”

“Yup. Always do. Nothin’ better than the wife’s cookin’,” said Henry before shoving another forkful of food into his mouth.

Henry Walker was a man of few words, apparently. Still, compared to her own father, he was almost glib. He didn’t exactly look like what she’d envisioned a steel company owner would, but his flannel shirt might play well to their target group. They’d have to get rid of the coveralls, though. They were a little greasy and just a tad more blue collar than the image they were going for. Though Hannah could see that he had once been a handsome man. It was clear that Danny got his eyes from his mother because Mr. Walker’s were brown, but the interesting angles of Danny’s face he owed to his father.

A slurping noise from the other end of the table brought her attention to Uncle Tuffy, who was noisily enjoying his iced tea. Although Uncle Tuffy also figured in Hannah’s choice, he was somewhat problematic, as well. But maybe his childlike demeanor would be endearing to middle America. The old, simple bachelor uncle. And they could always do something with his hair before the photo shoot.

But Kate Walker was the real find. She was perfect just as she was. In a pale yellow cotton dress and a flowered apron tied around her waist, her champagne blond hair worn softly around her kind face, Hannah could easily see her picture making a box of cereal more attractive to a harried working mother. Betty Crocker come to life.

She couldn’t wait to meet Sissy, the married daughter who lived close enough to take a walk over for a cup of coffee in the afternoon, and her husband and two children. Sissy was a stay-at-home mom. A rarity these days. And the Walkers were very much “hands-on” grandparents.

Hannah loved the whole Walker family setup. Sort of like a buffet of all-you-can-eat relatives. So there was one questionable dish on the buffet table? At least he was a gorgeous dish, she thought as she looked at him through her lashes while she dabbed her mouth with her napkin. His skin was tanned a warm, golden brown and there were streaks of pale blond in his hair. The sun that had browned his skin and bleached his hair had etched lines at the corners of his eyes—those striking blue eyes—that deepened when he smiled or when he laughed. Of course, he was mostly laughing at her. But still, Danny Walker, irritating as he was, was going to sell a lot of cereal.

The thought made her remember that she had business to discuss.

“I’ll need to set up interviews for all of you and for Sissy and her family, as well. I also intend to meet with the mayor, the chief of police, and the high-school principal.”

Henry grunted and Kate looked a little baffled. “Such a lot of work, dear. Is it really necessary?”

“I’m afraid so. One of my jobs is to supply the company with information they can use to create press releases. We expect there to be plenty of media interest in our Great American Family.”

“That’s us, isn’t it?” Tuffy asked anxiously. “We get the year’s supply of cereal, right?”

“Yes, of course. But, even better, in a month, Mr. Pollard, CEO of Granny’s Grains, will be arriving with an advertising crew for a photo shoot. The entire family will be featured on a whole series of cereal boxes to coincide with our Bringing America Back to the Breakfast Table campaign.”

“Sounds like advertising to me,” muttered Danny.

“Mr. Walker,” she said reasonably but firmly, “the results of my work will be used in an advertising campaign but that doesn’t take away from the fact that the process used to select your family as Granny’s Grains Great American Family was a scientific one. Now,” she said, turning back to Kate, “these interviews will be informal so there is nothing to worry about. It’s important that you just go about your regular daily lives so that I can get the flavor for how you live.”

“Ma, you should take the professor out to the greenhouse for feeding hour,” Danny suggested.

Well, thought Hannah with satisfaction, her tone had obviously worked. Danny had decided to be helpful. Still, he did have that twinkle in his eye—

“Are you interested in tropical plants, Hannah?” Kate asked.

“I’m interested in anything you do, Kate. I’d love to watch you feed your plants. In fact, the greenhouse should probably go on the list of possible sites I’m compiling to give the photographer when he gets here.”

“You mean he might want to take a picture of my babies?”

“Oh, absolutely. The company has gotten whisperings of interest from a few women’s magazines. The fact that you’re a gardener will, I’m sure, add to their interest.”

“You mean a picture of me and my babies in Gardening Today?”

“Possibly, Kate. If we get the press we want with this, you might even make the afternoon talk shows.”

“You could take your babies with you, Ma,” Danny put in. “Let ’em perform on the air.”

Hannah frowned. “Perform?”

Kate laughed and flapped her hand. “Oh, Danny is just being silly, Hannah. My babies can’t perform. Although it can be very entertaining to watch them eat.”

Hannah opened her mouth to ask another question, but decided it was just Kate Walker’s rather singular way of speaking. Watching her plants eat, of course, merely meant watching liquid fertilizer sink into the soil.

“Come along, my dear. I’ll introduce you to all my little darlings. You can even help me feed them!”

Hannah forgot all about the mocking devil sitting at the table watching her. She felt positively glowy inside. She barely remembered her own mother. She’d certainly never gardened with her. It seemed like such a mother/daughter thing to be doing. So sweet. So wholesome. So—well, so Great American Family.

She’d better take notes. It wouldn’t do to forget what she was really there for.

“I’ll just run and get my notebook and tape recorder out of the car.”

“Don’t be silly, dear, they don’t chew loud enough to record,” Kate said sweetly before she sailed out the back door.

Chew? “What did she mean chew?” Hannah asked Danny.

“You’re the intrepid researcher, professor. Shouldn’t you find out for yourself?”

Hannah opened her mouth to take the bait then thought better of it. Ignoring him, she left the kitchen and headed out to the station wagon for her things. When she came back through the kitchen with her notebook and recorder, Danny was, thankfully, gone.

Out in the backyard Hannah could hear Kate humming in the greenhouse as she made her way down the little brick walk lined with shrub roses that were just starting to bud. The song of birds and the scent of lilacs filled the air. This, thought Hannah with satisfaction, was just as it was supposed to be. Perfectly normal. Even better, it was perfectly perfect.

The greenhouse had a peaked roof and one of those doors that were cut in half like in the pictures you see of old country cottages. The upper half was open. Kate, wearing a wide-brimmed straw hat, was inside talking sweetly to her plants, holding one up in a hand that was covered by a cotton gardening glove sprinkled with tiny pink roses. In her other hand, she held a jar of—Hannah squinted and leaned in over the bottom half of the door for a better look. It couldn’t be—

But it was. Kate, looking like something on a Mother’s Day greeting card, was holding a glass jar of dead flies.

“There you are, dear,” she trilled when she saw Hannah. “Come in and meet my babies.”

Hannah sincerely hoped she wasn’t talking about the flies. She pushed open the half door and went inside.

Long wooden tables on either side of the room were filled with the strangest-looking plants Hannah had ever seen. She reached out to touch the fringed leaf of one and Kate said, “Oh, no, dear. Mustn’t touch. It makes them think you’re giving them something to eat and they could never digest anything as big as your finger.”

Hannah quickly pulled her finger back. “Excuse me?”

“Why, that’s a Dionaea, dear. My favorite one, in fact. I call her Dee Dee Dionaea. She’s highly carnivorous, you know.”

Hannah gulped. “Carnivorous?”

“Why, yes. All my little babies are meat eaters. You probably know Dionaea as Venus flytrap. Those colorful ones over there are Byblis and those,” she pointed with pride at a squat plant that looked like a specimen from outer space, “those are Australian Pitcher Plants. They drown their prey before digesting them.”

Hannah looked from the weird flora to the jar of dead bugs in Kate Walker’s dainty, rosebud-covered hand. For a second she thought she was going to lose her popovers. “And you feed them—”

“Flies, my dear. The neighbors have one of those bug zappers so I just go over there every few days and sweep them up from the patio.” Kate looked around as if to make sure no one was listening, then she leaned closer to Hannah and lowered her voice. “They have a dog over there—one of those silly standard poodles—so there’s always a lot of flies available. If you know what I mean.”

Hannah knew exactly what she meant. Suddenly the greenhouse seemed awfully warm, the scent of damp rich earth nearly overpowering.

“Of course, they also eat live insects,” Kate was saying. “In fact, they prefer them. Perhaps you’d like to take one up to your room while you’re here, dear? Just to make sure you’re not bothered by flies.”

The idea of trying to sleep with Dee Dee on the bedside table slowly munching moths or whatever other creatures flew by night was enough to bring on nightmares.

“Um—no, I’m sure that won’t be necessary.” Hannah started backing toward the door. “Um, I think perhaps I’ll take a walk around town and sort of get my bearings.”

Kate looked concerned. “Are you all right, dear?”

“I’m—uh—fine.” Hannah pressed a hand to her stomach. “Just ate too much at lunch, I expect.”

“Oh, then perhaps a walk—”

Hannah didn’t wait to hear the rest.

Outside again the air was cooler. She closed her eyes, took a few deep breaths, and her popovers settled back down.

Terrific, she thought as she crossed the back porch and went into the house. Just terrific. Meat-eating plants. Not exactly normal. Okay, so maybe it was her fault for expecting nothing more exotic than an orchid or two. Obviously, there should have been a follow-up question on the entry forms. Do you garden—followed by just what the heck grows in your garden? Or even better yet, does your plant’s lunch have wings?

“Pollard isn’t going to like this,” she muttered to herself as she went through the kitchen. Maybe she could just cross the greenhouse off the list of possible sites for photo shoots. In fact, it might be better to keep the subject of gardening out of the picture entirely. “Calm down,” she told herself as she went through the lovely dining room and the inviting living room. So there was one little thing that didn’t quite fit the perfect picture. She’d just have to find a way around it, she thought as she opened the front door. Danny Walker was standing on the other side of it.

“Feeding time over already?” he asked.

Okay, thought Hannah with a groan, make that two little things that didn’t fit.

“Would you please remove yourself from the doorway so I can pass?”

“What’s the matter, professor? Did your data promise you a rose garden?”

“Very clever, Mr. Walker. Now, if you’ll excuse me, I’m going for a walk.”

“I’ll go with you.”

“No, you won’t,” she said curtly and started to step around him.

He put out his arm and braced it on the doorframe next to her, blocking her way. “But, professor, aren’t you afraid you’ll get lost again?”