style="font-size:15px;"> “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
