Making Mr. Right

Parker looked indignant.

“I don’t mean manner manners,” she said before he could protest. “I mean...you know.” She waved toward Cindy. “The way he moves.”

“You mean mannerisms,” Cindy said, frowning herself.

“Mannerisms,” Flo agreed. “It won’t be as hard as it sounds,” she added a promise for Parker. “He’s very graceful when he’s relaxed or not being self-conscious. You’ve seen him dance,” she added as Cindy nodded. “Like a stick figure. Stick legs.”

“You think we can do something about that,” Cindy wondered aloud, adding Mannerisms to the list.

“He isn’t that bad. Just self-conscious—like he’ll be if all this comes off—he’ll get stiff and awkward. You’ll just have to figure out some way to make him relax. Take him dancing. Practice until he’s comfortable.” Flo danced around the table, holding an imaginary partner. “But not just dancing,” she warned. “You’ll have to take on all those things that make people think he’s a computer geek. Like walking across a room with his shoulders scrunched when he’s concentrating. Or squinting continually,” she pointed out as he did it again.

Cindy tapped the end of her pen at Scowling on the list. “It might help if he got the proper glasses,” she stated.

“You need to practice all of this on Cindy.” Flo snapped her fingers as if the idea had just struck her. But her expression was too smug.

Cindy felt a knot grow in the pit of her stomach. That’s all she needed, someone playing matchmaker while she was trying to fix him up for Mallory.

“Practice on Cindy,” Flo reiterated. “Call her. Take her out. Wine and dine her. Go dancing.”

“Lousy idea,” Cindy protested.

“Practice makes perfect.” Flo ignored her and directed the remark at Parker.

“It’s brilliant,” he said, sprawling back in his chair, folding his arms over his chest. His feet tangled with hers under the table.

She shifted uncomfortably and straightened the pad as if it were a stack of papers. “It’s silly. You’ve been comfortable with me forever,” she said. “So how is that going to help you with Mallory?”

Parker fixed her with those intent eyes. “I‘ll—” he searched for a word “—woo you. It would make me plenty uncomfortable and awkward. It will be great practice.”

“It would make us both ‘plenty uncomfortable and awkward.’ And what good would it do? I’m not at all like Mallory.”

He compressed his lips, studying her. “But you know what you like. What one woman likes in a man can’t be that much different from another.”

“Sure. That’s why Mallory’s been married twice and I don’t even have a boyfriend. See? We don’t think alike. Besides, how am I supposed to react to being ‘wooed’?”

“What do you mean?”

“Am I supposed to playact, too? Play like I’m falling in love with you,” she added when he scrunched his face into an incomprehensible mess.

“Just tell me what I do wrong and what I do right.” He spread his hands as if it made all the sense in the world. “That’s all you’d have to do. I learn best from experience.”

She continued to shake her head.

He covered her hand with one of his, letting the corners of his mouth turn up slowly. “If you’re concemed that I’ll get some weird, romantic notion...” He let the statement finish itself.

He’d said it in his most sincere, totally clueless way. It was the remark of the true Parker she knew and loved—the Parker Chaney she had to quit loving. And probably the best way to do that was to turn him into exactly what he wanted to be: someone Mallory would love. “Don’t worry, PC,” she said softly, disengaging her hand from his. “I’m not concerned about anything like that.”

“You don’t trust me.”

“What does trust have to do with anything?” It wasn’t him she didn’t trust. It was herself. “But you can’t experiment with people like you do one of your computer programs.”

“You’re right, Cindy.” Flo met Cindy’s gaze across the top of Parker’s head. “It was a lousy idea. I take it back,” she said, an apology in her eyes.

Cindy sighed and picked up her pen. “Now, shouldn’t we figure out how to deal with all of this realistically if we want to rescue you from geekdom?”

“I’ve done rather well with it,” he said, lifting his straight, perfect nose and showing an arrogance Cindy had seen more and more often the past couple of years. His success hadn’t gone to his head exactly, but he had slowly changed, gained an inner confidence that had been missing when he was younger. He no longer slinked into a room and lurked on the fringes as he had when faced with a crowd back in high school.

Just last week, she’d seen a clip of him on the nightly business news on TV. Some company had just signed a contract with his company and the cameras were there, witnessing the agreement. There had been a presence, a proud swagger, a tall assurance in the way he’d held his shoulders as the camera caught him shaking hands with that company’s CEO. She’d noted his easy grace at the time and felt proud for him. Other people must have seen him the same way because stock in PC, Inc. soared more than four points the next day. But business was different. Social situations tied him in knots.

“You’re right. You’ve done extremely well,” Cindy told him primly, laying the pen back down with a snap. “Anyone who isn’t impressed with who and what you are can just go to hell. Who cares what anyone thinks.”

“Except...” He looked confused.

“Mallory?” Winning the point didn’t give Cindy a bit of satisfaction. Poor Parker. And poor Mallory if she didn’t appreciate what she was getting, Cindy decided.

“She does like heads to turn when she makes an appearance on the arm of some man,” he stated after a moment. The analytical, problem-solving, stepback-and-view-things-from-a-distance side of him had returned.

“She always did that by herself,” Flo said, a touch too wryly.

“But she expects her attachments to be impressive, too.”

Cindy and Flo looked at Parker with amazement. He’d used the word “attachment.” Obviously he was aware that Mallory saw whatever man she was with as another of her accessories. He was coming along.

“Speaking of impressing people. Something else you should think about doing,” Cindy suggested.

“What?”

“You should consider hosting one of the reunion events here,” she told him. The idea had struck when she’d first stepped into his new foyer, though she’d been in too much shock to voice it then. “What better chance to impress everyone?” Including Mallory, she almost heard Parker think as he noted it with a raised eyebrow.

“You don’t think being on the Times cover is enough to impress anyone?”

“Now you’re gloating.”

“He does take extra pleasure out of all his success, doesn’t he,” Flo teased.

“I’ll admit. I look forward to observing a few people’s reactions.”

Cindy chuckled. “Bill Baxter, for one?” He’d been the star running back on the high school football team. He’d dated Mallory throughout their senior year.

“Baxter’s a start.” Parker leaned forward, propping his elbows on the table as he twisted the pen he held between both hands. “What kind of event did you have in mind?”

“A cocktail party maybe? The committee’s tentative schedule said a ‘Get Together’ on Friday evening? But it wasn’t specific. Since nothing was spelled out, I’ll bet they haven’t finalized anything yet. If you called the committee and volunteered to have their Get Together here—kind of a renew-old-acquaintances informal cocktail party—I’ll bet they’d jump on it.”

He nodded thoughtfully. “That sounds logical.”

“And that phrase you should strike from your vocabulary,” Flo said, dishing another warm roll onto each of their plates.

“That sounds logical?”