Be My Neat-Heart (5 page)

“Hey!” I called from the doorway. “Anybody here?”

“Just us mice.” Ben appeared from his bedroom with a book under one arm. He was wearing gray sweatpants, a “Scientists Make Connections” T-shirt and a hairdo created by a tornado. “What are you doing here?”

“I'm on my way to meet a client and I thought I'd stop to say hello.”

“Is she cute?” Ben inquired.

“No date for this weekend, huh?”

“Just thought I'd ask. Want coffee?” Ben looked around dazedly as if he were trying to remember where he had put the coffeepot. “I've also got chocolate.”

Ben knows me too well.

“Maybe some for later. I can't stay.”

He turned around and headed for the kitchen. Shortly he came back with a bag of chocolate chips, an Oreo and a large package of assorted miniature candy bars. “What's your fancy?”

“Candy bars, I think.”

He thrust the entire bag into my hands. “Enjoy.”

“I can't take all your candy.”

“You won't. I'm working late all of next week so I bought five bags to tide me over until I can get dinner.”

“You should weigh four hundred pounds.”

He face broke into a boyish grin. “And I have trouble staying at one eighty.”

“I know women who'd give anything for your metabolism.”

His eyes shifted from side to side. “That reminds me. I was going to talk to my brother about my ideas on increasing the metabolic rate in humans. Do you have a deposit slip in your purse? I need to write this down….”

After leaving Ben's house, I was sure that nothing else in the way of disorganization could surprise me.

I should have been warned, however, that I was up for something special by the “Quarantined” sign on one of the doors beyond Hamilton and Hamilton's elegant reception area and front office. If that didn't do it, the skull and crossbones right next to it should have.

T
he receptionist followed my gaze and shuddered slightly. “Ms. Hamilton has a quirky sense of humor. Pay no attention.”

It was difficult not to pay attention, considering the skull and crossbones were neon orange.

Before I could inquire further, Jared Hamilton strode out of another office on the far side of the reception area.

He was as imposing and handsome as the last time we'd met, maybe even more so in his own environment. Was that a Bible, I wondered, on the credenza behind the desk? This office, other than the quarantine sign and skull and crossbones, was exactly how I'd imagined it might be, satisfyingly perfect—especially with the Bible in it.

He seemed to read my mind and glanced at the offending door. A grimace marred his face for an instant. Then it became smooth and unreadable again.

Granted, the door to what was obviously his sister's office was idiosyncratic, but there was no law against that. My biggest challenge in this business is being nonjudgmental. I'm flexing that muscle all the time. God's helping me. It's a good thing He's patient because I'm not His best student in this
area. Some people can only think straight when there's no mess around them. Others are more creative in chaos. I'm one of the former and remind myself often that one isn't better than the other, just different. I think people are born with certain inclinations that lean one way or the other.

When my mother read
Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs
to me when I was a child, I always wondered why Snow White wanted all those dwarfs like Sleepy, Grumpy and Dopey around. If it were me, I remember thinking, I'd just have one—Spotless.

I'm teaching myself to relax in a mess. Sometimes I consciously drop my junk mail on the floor and don't pick it up all day—just to see how long I can stand it. I practice leaving dishes in my sink and not making my bed in the morning immediately upon getting up. I suffer, but I am determined not to become annoying about cleanliness. My grandmother never greeted me at her door without a paper towel in hand to wipe away any dust or mud that might have clung to my shoes. She insisted I eat my cookies over a plate at the kitchen table and acted as though spilling cookie crumbs on the floor was a premeditated criminal act, like blowing up Fort Knox.

“You are right on time,” Jared said approvingly, and I felt as if I'd just been patted on the head. Hamilton
is
actually physically capable of patting me on the head, being taller than me by at least five or six inches. That, at least, is a pleasant change.

Maybe there isn't an overabundance of short men in the world, but some days it feels that way to me. Still, I've never let it scare me out of my high heels and into flats. If God's got someone for me in my size, he'll be along when the time is right.

“Please, come into my office.” He gestured toward his door. Beyond it was a room with a vast mahogany desk, a black leather chair and so many windows that for a moment I thought
the office might be open to the elements. The bookcases along the side walls were ordered and tidy, each book carefully positioned with its spine even with the front of the shelf.

“Very nice,” I commented as my heart did cartwheels. This place was perfect! Even I couldn't dream of more. I took the chair Hamilton offered me. A gentleman, a tidy gentleman. Finally, something we had in common. Things were looking up.

“Thank you.” He adjusted his pen so it lined up with the edge of his calendar.

“That's your sister's office across the hall, I take it.”

He winced. “Yes. Molly will join us shortly. It seems she's caught in traffic.”

“It was bad today,” I commiserated. “Roadwork.”

“Not traffic on the street, in the coffee shop. Molly can make an ordeal out of anything. She called to say that her ‘half-caf, half-decaf sugar-free Irish crème latte' had arrived as a decaf vanilla cappuccino or something like that. No doubt she wasn't paying attention when she ordered.” He ran his finger around the inside of his pristine white shirt as if he were a living illustration of the term “hot under the collar.”

For once, I had no idea what to say in response. It was a much more creative excuse than “the dog ate my homework.”

“Maybe it's for the best. I didn't do a good job of explaining exactly
why
I want you to work with my sister. Perhaps I could clarify myself.”

I doubt it, but you can try.

“Just remember that it is
her
decision whether she wants to work with me or not,” I pointed out. “She is the one who will ultimately have to make the changes and do the work. No matter how much you want help for her, I can't be on retainer for life.”

Although you're cute enough for me to consider it
…said a naughty but familiar little voice in my head. It was as if Wendy were sitting on my shoulder ready and willing to do a play-
by-play of the action. Granted, Hamilton was handsome, but he was obviously a misogynist. Wendy has no common sense whatsoever so I banished her from my thoughts.

Shaking off impending schizophrenia and brushing the shoulder of my suit as if to sweep troubling thoughts—and Wendy—off my back, I lifted my chin. “And if she doesn't want to be helped, I'd be wasting your time and mine to try.”

He looked tired, as if just thinking about his sister was a chore. For the first time I noticed a hint of vulnerability in his eyes. I was suddenly insatiably curious and wanted to meet Molly myself and figure out how she could so thoroughly bollix up this obviously competent man's life. I felt a twinge of admiration for a personality that strong. She must be quite a woman.

He took the chair behind the desk, leaned back in it and tented his fingers beneath his chin. He could have been posing for a portrait of the quintessential CEO hatching new ideas for the company.

“Maybe a little history is in order,” he said finally, as though telling it would be no simpler than having one's appendix removed through one's nostrils.

“Please.”

“I'm seven and a half years older than my sister, who is thirty-one. My parents are highly successful in their own right. Mother is an educator. She's an administrator for a large school district. My father is a banker who has turned a small, privately owned bank into a thriving lending center.”

“Impressive.”

“It's in part due to their abilities to organize and delegate,” Jared said. “They are both brilliant in that area.”

“As are you, I imagine.”

He nodded. “Unfortunately, Molly didn't get the gift.”

I was beginning to see a picture come into focus.

“I'm a great deal like my parents,” Jared said frankly. “Am
bitious, goal-oriented and focused. Even as a child, I knew that someday I wanted to create my own business. I built Hamilton Financial from the ground up.”

“I thought it was Hamilton
and Hamilton.
”

He frowned. “Two years ago, my sister came to me with the idea that she join my company. Molly is smart as a whip when she chooses to be. She has a degree in finance but has worked only in tightly structured banking systems. I was considering taking on a partner anyway and I thought, despite my reservations, I could make it work.”

Now we were at the meat of the story. “‘Reservations'?”

His eyes glazed and I thought for a moment I'd lost him but he rallied and continued. “Molly and my mother have never seen eye-to-eye about my mother's insistence on order and method. Mother thinks that there should be a system for everything.”

I knew by the way he said it that he agreed wholeheartedly.

“But your sister works on the theory that everything will sort itself out in the end?” I guessed. I can't even remember how many times I've heard this story.

He raised an eyebrow in surprise. “You might say that.”

“She accuses the entire family of being nagging, anal retentive, nitpicking and overly fussy.”

“Apparently you've been at our family dinners.”

“And she's made it her life's duty to rebel against everything your parents tried to teach her?”

“That's how it appears, especially where system, structure, organization and orderliness are concerned.” He gave a small, rueful laugh. “Of course, you won't get Molly to admit that. She simply says she has to be true to herself and she
can't
make sense of her stuff so there's no use trying. Hence, the quarantine sign on her office door.”

“She must have a good sense of humor to have put it there.”

“I put it there,” Jared said grimly, no humor in his voice whatsoever.

He must have seen my shocked expression. I quickly gathered my face into a smooth, professional appearance. Cool as a cucumber, that was the impression I liked to portray.

“And I have no more tolerance for Molly's messes, especially not when they involve my business and my financial future.”

This was a new twist.

“Molly's carelessness and her ‘it will all work out' attitude recently cost the company two influential clients whose portfolios were mismanaged due to my sister's disorganization. She didn't get the correct information into her files. She no doubt laid important material on her desk and buried it under an accumulation of papers, junk mail and Big Mac wrappers. We lost two clients we couldn't afford to lose.”

Hamilton's eyes were icy and his voice hard as he concluded, “Either you get my sister shaped up or I'll ship her out, Ms. Smith. I'm sorry it's come to this but I don't care anymore what it will do to our relationship or our family. I've spent my life bailing her out and now she's forced me to resign as her keeper.”

There was an inexplicable sadness in his eyes. Then he steeled himself and continued. “I wish you all the success in the world, because I'm afraid that without this business, her lifestyle and our relationship will alter radically.”

Shocked, I started to stammer “But you can't…”
Oh, but he could.
“What about your parents?”

His eyes turned cold. “Washed their hands of her messes long ago. No one knows what to do with her. We all love her, but Molly is yours now. Good luck.” Then he pushed a check across the desk to me.

I stared at the handsome, chiseled face and the determined set of his jaw. He wasn't kidding. Suddenly this helpful,
hopeful little business of mine was the only thing between a woman and financial doom.

Then the goofy neon skull and crossbones flickered into my mind. Somebody in this mess had a sense of humor. And, although I believed Jared Hamilton would fire his sister without compunction, he
was
willing to put out good money to stop it from happening first.

It was a start, at least.

We stared at each other across his massive desk until he made a vain attempt to roll the tension out of his shoulders, and pulled his fingers through his dark hair in a gesture of frustration. I could tell that he felt at least partially to blame for Molly's carelessness and inattention to detail. He'd admitted that he'd doted on her from the day she came home from the hospital, taking the blame for any childhood infractions she might commit and protecting her from anyone who tried to curb her free-spirited tendencies. He'd adored his little sister and it nearly killed him to make her unhappy, and now…

“I only hope it isn't too late to pull Molly together.”

We both started when the telephone rang.

“It's Molly, sir. Shall I put her through?” his secretary said.

“I suppose that now is as good a time as any.”

Although he didn't have the speakerphone on, I could make up much of what his sister was saying.

“Jared, it's Mol. Listen, I'm sorry I couldn't make it to the meeting. I know you haven't wanted to talk to me before now. I understand that you needed time to cool off, but you and I have never gone this long being upset with each other.” Molly's voice choked. “I know I blew it! I realize that I didn't live up to your expectations, but you know me, I have a little trouble with organization. It seems so unimportant in the scheme of things….”

“You call what happened ‘unimportant'?”

“You offered me another chance, Jared, and I'm taking it. It won't happen again, you'll see.”

“You're right, Molly, it won't happen again. I'll make sure of it. You're going to need help. Your good intentions haven't gotten you anywhere in the past. It's time to take action.”

“Anything, Jared. Just tell me what I need to do. I won't disappoint you again. I couldn't bear it.”

“I've hired someone to work with you on these issues. Her name is Samantha Smith. Ethan believes that she can help you.”

“I love you, Jared. You are so good to me. I'll be a trouper, I promise.”

“One chance to change,” he finally said through gritted teeth. “
One.
And then you're out, Molly. It's as you've often pointed out, we aren't brother and sister in this, we're business partners, and if you don't get your act together there will be a hostile takeover very soon.”

 

“What kind of guy would throw his sister out onto the street? And you think this guy is a Christian?” Theresa chewed and snapped her gum so loud and fast that it sounded like she was popping bubbles in plastic packing material. “What a jerk!”

“She was irresponsible, Theresa,” I ventured. “We don't know enough about the situation to draw any conclusions. She does need to be accountable for her own actions, just like the rest of us.”

“Yes, but at what cost? She's his sister, after all!” Her hands, bloodred nails and all, clenched into fists. “If he comes in here again, I think I'll pop him!”

“Then you and Molly can look for jobs together,” I said calmly. Mrs. Fulbright and her excess plastic seemed more and more like a walk in the park.