Читать книгу The Bachelor and the Babies - HEATHER MACALLISTER, Heather Macallister - Страница 7

CHAPTER ONE

“BUT I have to see Harrison Rothwell. Now’s a good time for me. It’ll just take a minute.”

The insistent female voice vibrating through the closed door to Harrison’s office sounded vaguely familiar, but not familiar enough for him to break off his telephone call.

Renewing his concentration, he closed his eyes and swiveled his office chair so that he faced the windows overlooking the flat vista of Houston, Texas.

“Now, Harrison, if we do take your Rules of Time Management back for a fifth printing, we’d like to tell marketing that a sequel is in the works.”

“Felicia, I said all I have to say about corporate time management in that book. I already tweaked the chapter on fax machines and cellular phones and until we get widespread video phones, there’s nothing further to add.”

“Then how about something different?”

“What have you got in mind?”

His publisher drew a breath and Harrison visualized her gearing up for her sales pitch.

“Three words—domestic time management.” Felicia waited, obviously expecting a reaction.

Yes. Harrison had already toyed with the idea of expanding into the domestic market. Even now, clones of his time-management programs were cutting into his company’s seminar and training business, however, it strengthened his negotiating position if Felicia thought he was reluctant. He waited, letting the silence work for him.

“I can’t make an appointment for later. I’ll be sleeping later,” sounded clearly outside his door. “Our schedules aren’t meshing, here.”

So much for working the silence. Harrison winced and covered the telephone mouthpiece hoping that Felicia hadn’t heard.

What was that woman still doing out in his reception area? He was surprised that his assistant hadn’t been able to evict the unwanted visitor. Sharon was usually very efficient in guarding Harrison’s time from salespeople and the like. This person didn’t have an appointment, Harrison knew, because he’d allocated ten more minutes to his current phone call, fifteen minutes to return more calls, then ten minutes to review notes before the Friday staff meeting. No appointments until after lunch.

“Don’t you have anything to say?” Felicia prompted.

“Domestic time management?” he repeated, trying to ignore the arguing going on outside his door.

“Yes,” she insisted. “You’ve helped corporations desperate to increase efficiency with fewer personnel. How about some help on the home front? People are horribly overscheduled. Stress is king. Everyone is doing more and enjoying it less. They need downtime, Harrison. And you’re the man to help them get it.”

“It’s a very tempting idea,” he said slowly, as if he needed more persuasion. “Let me draw up some notes and—”

He was interrupted by a. pounding on his door. “Harrison, tell your secretary to let me in!”

“Harrison? Is everything all right?” his publisher asked.

“Ah, let me get back to you, Felicia.”

Disconnecting the call, he strode toward the door and flung it open. A woman with dark curls backed against him. He inhaled an unfamiliar perfume mingled with traces of cigarette smoke before setting her on her feet.

She whirled around, her hair flying. “Hey, Harry, how’s it going?”

Harrison found himself staring into the defiant brown eyes of Carrie Brent, the nemesis of the White Oak Bayou Condominium Residents’ Board—the same board of which he was a member. “What’s this all about, Carrie?”

“I want to talk with you.”

“Haven’t you heard of the telephone?”

“I want to be able to see your face. It’s harder to brush off someone when you see them in person. I learned that when I was a psychology major.”

Harrison didn’t want to hear about it. Psychology was the major Carrie quoted most often in her runins with the condo board. “Then you’ll have to make an appointment.”

“Well, I would if you had any openings when I’m awake.”

He blinked. “You’re awake now.”

“That’s what I was telling her.” Carrie hooked a thumb over her shoulder, and shot a disgusted look at Harrison’s secretary.

“Sharon knows that I have a very tight morning schedule, and you aren’t on it, either awake, or asleep.”

“This will only take a minute, unless you plan on being pigheaded and unreasonable.”

Absolute silence was punctuated by the distant warbling of office telephones. Everyone within earshot of Carrie’s voice was ignoring work to stare.

How often had Harrison preached keeping business and personal life separate? And standing in front of him, looking like an escapee from a gypsy camp, was Personal with a capital P.

“If you wish to discuss time-management techniques, then please make an appointment,” he enunciated clearly for his employees’ benefit. “If you wish to discuss anything not related to my business, then please contact me during evening hours.”

“I work during evening hours!”

“And I work during daytime hours. You are interfering with that work.” He turned to walk back into his office.

“Then I’ll sit right here and wait until you take a break.” She sank onto the floor outside his office, her skirt billowing around her.

She was making a scene. Carrie Brent was deliberately making a scene at his place of work.

She was wasting time. His time. His employees’ time.

It was obvious that Carrie Brent was not familiar with effective time-management techniques. Harrison pointed to his office.

Carrie got to her feet and sauntered inside.

“Show’s over,” Harrison announced to the room at large, then firmly shut his office door. “You may have the six minutes left of the phone call you interrupted, which is five more minutes than you deserve,” he snapped at her.

“How generous of you.” Bracelets clanked as she dug into a shapeless sack that was apparently serving as her purse. She pulled out a crumpled, folded piece of paper. “That’s where it went. Receipt,” she told Harrison and continued babbling while she searched. “I bought these great hip-hugger jeans, but I was in a hurry and didn’t try them on. They didn’t fit. I couldn’t believe it. I’ve been a size eight hoping to be a size six for as long as I can remember and the jeans don’t fit! Then I realized they were from the petite department.” She looked up at him. “I was so relieved when I saw the tag, you know?”

No, Harrison didn’t know and he didn’t want to know. He had to restrain himself from yanking the bag from her and dumping the contents on the floor. “You should have made an appointment. I don’t allocate time to deal with disorganized malcontents.”

“But you have time to cite me for—” she whipped out a folded piece of paper “—displaying hanging plants in unapproved containers?”

“Is that what this is about?” He didn’t want to hear it. Carrie lived a lifestyle continually at odds with the conservative community at the condos. He didn’t know why she insisted on living there, but she did, and the result was continual friction. “Make an appointment for an appeal to the board. I do not conduct personal business—”

“You and your appointments!” She waved the citation in front of his face. “By the time the board agrees to listen to me, the plants will be dead from lack of sunlight!”

“Not if you transfer them to approved containers.”

“And approved would be white or green plastic?” She grimaced. “You people would prefer plastic to original pieces of Mexican pottery? We’re talking art here!”

“White and green preserve the integrity of the outside appearance.”

She crossed her arms over her chest. “Plastic integrity. I knew it.”

“Carrie...” Shaking his head, Harrison shoved his hands into his pockets and leaned against the credenza. “Those are the rules.”

“The people who wrote those rules have no soul. I’m trying to...to...” She threw up her hands in frustration.

But Harrison knew exactly what she was trying to say. Carrie had lived in the complex longer than he had. He remembered the first time he’d met her. She’d arrived at his door with a pan of hot, vegetarian lasagna and a bottle of cheap chianti.

Since she lived on a downstairs corner, she’d watched the movers unload the few possessions that had survived the flooding at his former home. When she saw the secondhand couch and chairs, and the water-stained table legs, she’d apparently decided a soul mate was at last moving to White Oak Bayou Condominiums.

Harrison had enjoyed the evening too much to correct her impression.

But she figured out her mistake when Harrison had tried to repay her hospitality by inviting her to dinner after the decorator had finished replacing the furniture and changing the curtains in his new home.

Carrie had stepped inside the door, gazed around the room, then wordlessly stared at him with an expression he interpreted as betrayal. She’d handed him another straw-wrapped bottle, then left.

He’d never opened the wine, but he still had it. He didn’t know why. Maybe as emergency fuel if his car ever ran out of gas.

“I didn’t think my pots would bother anybody. Nobody can see them from the street.”

“They are not approved containers.”

“Pottery is better for the plants, anyway. Didn’t anyone notice how healthy mine look and how anemic everyone else’s look? Wait!” She smacked her forehead with the palm of her hand. “Plastic flowers! Of course. Has the board thought of that?”

“Carrie, this isn’t the proper venue for your complaints.” How could she think that coming here today and wasting his time would win his sympathies? Again, Harrison wondered why Carrie Brent wanted to live in a place where she so obviously didn’t fit in. He made a show of consulting his watch. “Since I can’t act without the rest of the board—”

“Can’t, or won’t?”

“Both.”

They locked gazes. “In other words, I’ll have to miss work if I want to challenge this citation,” she said.

“If you’re working at seven o’clock on the third Thursday of the month, then yes.”

“And if I don’t challenge it, then it goes into my file with all the other citations, until they reach critical mass, also determined by the board, and I’m evicted. Do I understand the plan correctly?”

Before answering, Harrison drew two deep breaths. It was a technique he found useful to keep from engaging in useless arguments. “I know of no plan to evict you.”

Carrie looked at him as though he was as dumb as dirt. “You know...” She held up the citation. “For anybody else, one of you would have knocked on my door, or left me a note telling me to take down the pots. But no. Because it was me, the board issues a formal citation.” She jammed it back into her purse.

She was right, he had to admit. The board seemed to enjoy catching her in minor violations, such as when a car with her visitor tags parked in the covered area instead of the visitors’ lot.

Or the fact that she’d set her recycling bin out too early because she didn’t get home until after the morning pickup. When she’d petitioned the board, they’d refused to consider the fact that Carrie worked nights. Decent women shouldn’t work nights unless they were nurses, one woman had said.

Harrison hadn’t been on the board then, but they’d told him all about Carrie Brent when he’d been elected earlier this year.

Without Carrie, they probably wouldn’t have anything to do, or anyone to discuss.

“Why do you keep fighting? Why not just move?” he asked.

“It’s my home,” she said simply. “I feel safe there and it’s a great location. I used to live in a unit like yours with a roommate, but she got married. When the new owners converted the apartments to condominiums, I couldn’t afford to buy the unit—I could barely make the rent as it was. Then they ended up with leftover space under the stairs and they offered to turn it into a one-room studio if I’d sign a five-year lease. So I did.”

Harrison knew all about her lease. Why the condo board didn’t just wait her out, he didn’t know.

He held out his hand. “Give me the citation. I’ll tell the board I spoke with you, and that you will keep your plants inside.”

“But how will they get any sunlight? Can’t I just set them outside the door—”

“Carrie.” He leveled a look at her and opened his office door.

She grinned. “Okay. Can’t blame a girl for trying.”

Actually he could, but he wasn’t going to.

She sauntered—apparently her top walking speed—past him. “See ya around, Harry.”

Harrison watched her stroll down the hall. “Don’t call me Harry,” he murmured under his breath.

Did she always have to make a huge issue out of everything? All the residents who lived at the White Oak Bayou Condominiums wanted was to maintain the property value of their investment. Was that such a bad thing?

“Was that business, or pleasure?”

Harrison glanced to his left, where his brother stood in the doorway to the office next to his. “That was trouble.” He took the copies of the agenda for this morning’s meeting out of Sharon’s in-basket.

“Pity.” Jon Rothwell watched Carrie’s progress.

She’d passed through the glass outer doors, and was waiting for the elevator. When it arrived, she stepped inside and waggled her fingers at Harrison as the door closed.

“Can you make her business or pleasure?” Jon asked.

“That was Carrie Brent,” Harrison said, irritated that she’d caught him watching her. He handed his brother a copy of the agenda. “It gives me pleasure not to have to deal with her.”

“Oh, come on, you like her. You know you do.”

“She’s an irritating, disorganized flake.”

Jon chuckled as he scanned the agenda. “Did it ever occur to you that she’s causing all the trouble in order to have an excuse to see you?”

“I—” Harrison broke off. No, the thought hadn’t occurred to him. He didn’t want the thought occurring to him. He was sure the thought hadn’t occurred to her, either. Pretty sure. “No.”

Jon glanced at him assessingly and mercifully dropped the subject. “Under the vice president’s report, do you want me to mention Felicia’s idea for expanding into the domestic arena?”

“Felicia’s already talked to you about it?”

“I’m marketing—of course she’s talked to me about it, and I think it’s right in line with our goals for the company.”

Harrison didn’t like being bypassed. “Domestic time management isn’t that different from corporate time management. We have to consider the possibility that this venture will flop. People might feel ripped off.”

Jon grinned at him. “You’re a single man living in a condo with total outside maintenance, a maid and plenty of money. You have a five-minute commute. Try a wife, two kids, a dog and a huge mortgage on a house in the suburbs with an hour commute, and then tell me domestic and corporate are similar.”

“It’s a matter of—”

Jon held up his hand and disappeared into his office. “We’ve had this discussion before. In fact, I should write the book, not you.”

“Be my guest,” Harrison called after him.

“I would if I had any solutions.”

Domestic time management. How hard could it be? But Harrison had thought corporate efficiency was self-evident, too. The success of his company, Rothwell Time Management Consultants, proved otherwise.

People needed help managing their lives, and Harrison was delighted to provide that help. He felt a deep satisfaction when he received letters of gratitude from clients—and he always received letters of gratitude. Effusive letters.

He treated his talent as a calling and felt he was fortunate to earn a living at what he felt compelled to do.

His brother, Jon, didn’t share that talent, but was an expert at selling others on it. Together he and Harrison were a great team. A profitable team.

Harrison didn’t want them to become a stagnant team.

With that realization, Harrison knew he’d made his decision. Typically, he didn’t waste time dwelling on it. Felicia had stewed enough waiting for him to call her back, anyway.

Harrison smiled to himself. Carrie Brent might have done him a favor by interrupting the call. Imagine that.

He returned to his desk, dumped the agendas beside the telephone and hit the redial. “Felicia,” he said when he was connected with his publisher. “I’ve thought it over and I’ve already got ideas for adapting Rothwell’s Rules for the home.”

Though he didn’t return any more phone calls before the staff meeting, Harrison felt the morning was well spent. Felicia made an offer on the project and Harrison would let her haggle details with the company lawyer while he ran the staff meeting.

The only blot on the day was the disconcerting lingering of Carrie Brent’s perfume.

He stepped out of his office, leaving the door open in hopes that the room would air out, and stopped when he saw his assistant. “Sharon? You’re not in the conference room?”

She sent him a tight-lipped look. “I’m sorry, Harrison. I’m waiting for a call from my daughter’s teacher. It’s a midterm telephone conference. I requested a telephone conference so I wouldn’t have to take time off work.”

“What do you call this?” Everyone who worked at Rothwell knew his position on conducting personal business during work hours.

“It’s only for ten minutes. I arrived ten minutes early this morning. The teacher is obviously running late.”

“But why should you and I have to be inconvenienced because she can’t keep to her own schedule?”

“Some people are better at schedules than others.”

It was an oblique reference to Carrie Brent. With her visit fresh on everyone’s mind, he couldn’t very well chastise Sharon, could he?

“Cecilia is covering the meeting for me until I can get there,” she added.

“Join us when you can.” With a curt nod, Harrison proceeded to the conference room, mentally plotting a chapter dealing with domestic responsibilities and how to plan for the unexpected.

Harrison didn’t think his policies were unreasonable. In fact, they were the cornerstone of a successful business.

To him, it made sense that work should be completed during work hours and not at home. Home life should not interfere with, nor be discussed, at work. He felt just as strongly about the reverse—he didn’t want company business interfering with his employees’ family life.

Each employee received a copy of the company philosophy, which essentially maintained that if one worked efficiently and kept interoffice socializing down to a minimum, then all work should be able to be completed during a regular forty-hour week. If, due to unavoidable personal business, work was pending at the end of the week, then the employee could come in on the occasional Saturday. Never on Sunday. However, if the employee found that he or she was working most Saturdays, then that employee was encouraged to reevaluate his or her personal time-management skills.

Personal time-management skills. He’d assumed his employees would know how to translate the practices of the company to their personal lives. That’s what he did. Obviously the moment had come for a book on personal time management. He knew others were out in the market, but they weren’t based on Rothwell’s Rules.

With a sense of mission lightening his mood, Harrison approached the conference room. People everywhere would be happier and more productive once he—

Jon stopped him in the doorway. “Hey, Hare, you got a minute?”

“No.” Only Harrison’s brother was allowed to call him “Hare,” and not because Harrison liked it, either. If he let Jon get the occasional “Hare” out of his system, then he’d refer to Harrison by his full name in public.

“Let me put this another way, take the minute now and save time later, or I’ll bring this up in my report and throw off the whole meeting schedule.”

Harrison laughed. “Since you put it that way, what is it?”

Jon pointed to the seminars chart. “You’ve got me lined up to start the Chicago Manufacturing training next week. I can’t go. You need to send somebody else.”

Harrison’s good mood evaporated. “What do you mean, you can’t go?”

“Remember Stephanie’s retreat?”

“Vaguely.”

“She’s leaving this afternoon, hooking up with some college buddies, then they’re all going to tramp around the wilderness and prove they’re Amazon women, or something.”

Harrison tried to envision his sister-in-law going native and couldn’t. This was a woman who thought “roughing it” was drinking beer out of the can instead of a glass. “I don’t see the connection.”

Jon gave him an impatient look. “The kids? Your nephews? I’ve got to be home to take care of them.”

“That’s what baby-sitters are for!”

“I’m not leaving them with a stranger for a week!”

“And when were you planning to tell me you were taking the entire week off?” The tone in Harrison’s voice hushed the murmuring of the department heads gathered for the meeting.

“I’m not taking the whole week off. I’d planned to work at home. Make phone calls, reports, that sort of stuff. The kids have a play group thing that meets a couple of mornings and I’ll stop by here then. And when I pick up and drop paperwork off, I’ll bring them with me, or hire a sitter. I didn’t see that it would a problem.”

This wasn’t a problem. This was a disaster. Harrison lowered his voice. “Chicago is a huge client. The contract was contingent upon you conducting the initial training.”

Jon shook his head. “Postpone it, then.”

“Impossible. They’ve had to rearrange the schedules of their top management to clear that week.”

“Okay, offer them a discount and send somebody else.”

“This is Chicago Manufacturing, Jon. They don’t want discounts, they want you.”

Jon glanced to his left and Harrison realized that everyone in the room was straining to hear each and every syllable they uttered. Here were the Rothwells, themselves, involved in a schedule conflict. How they handled it would demonstrate Harrison’s methods better than any pamphlet printed with the corporate philosophy.

Trying to communicate all this, he stared into his brother’s eyes. “What about Stephanie’s parents? Can’t they watch the boys?”

“They live in California.”

“What about our parents?” Harrison didn’t like the tinge of desperation in his voice.

Jon’s face turned hard. “They live in Florida. I can take care of my own sons.”

Harrison felt Jon was being deliberately difficult. “I know that. I only thought...well, whatever happened to doting grandparents? Wouldn’t they like to visit their only grandchildren for a week?”

“I’m not asking them. Steph wants me to take care of the kids, and I’m going to. She’s been at home with them ever since Nathan was born and she needs the break.”

“A break from what?” Harrison had been surprised when Stephanie hadn’t returned to work. He was even more surprised that his brother hadn’t objected. “They’re two little kids. What does she do all day?”

Jon raised his eyebrows.

Murmurings from the female members of their audience told Harrison he’d erred.

He held up his hands, palms outward. “Sorry. I shouldn’t have said that.”

“You shouldn’t have thought that,” Sharon commented, slipping past them and finding her seat in the room. “But we all know you do.”

Women were neither efficient, nor reasonable when it came to children. Harrison vowed to devote as many chapters to children as necessary in the Rothwell Domestic Primer. Ah, a title. That was a good sign.

Harrison carefully chose his next words. “What I think, Sharon, is that parents are reluctant to encourage efficiency in their children, and in the people who deal with children.”

“Harrison, raising children is not like running a corporation.”

Murmurings of agreement signaled mutiny in the ranks.

He forced a smile and casual body language. “Ah, but you see, running a household, even a household that includes children, is exactly like running a corporation.”

“Uh, Hare?”

But anything his brother had been about to say was drowned out by the eruption of disagreement from the department heads—male and female.

Ah, skeptics. Harrison liked converting skeptics to his way of thinking almost as much as reading their subsequent letters of gratitude.

With a confident smile, he took his place at the conference table.

People quieted—except Sharon.

“You know how to run a corporation, but you don’t know anything about living with children.” Sharon had experienced more than her share of domestic crises lately. That must account for her inclination to challenge him today.

“You are correct,” he said. The room hushed. “You all are also aware that Jon and I have been working out a schedule conflict. What we have here, are two problems with one solution. Backup plans are a key to avoiding delays. Jon, what’s your childcare backup plan, say, for a family emergency?”

“I’m Stephanie’s backup, then either of our folks.”

“And after that?”

“Well...you, I guess.”

Harrison smiled. “Exactly. Therefore, you’ll go on to Chicago, and I’ll take care of Nathan and Matthew.”

“You?” Jon hooted.

“Yes. You’ll keep the Chicago account, and I’ll gain practical experience with children.” Harrison addressed Sharon. “Do you think a week will be enough time for me to understand living with children?”

Sharon smiled. “A week will be more than enough time.”

“Problem solved, then.” Harrison felt a sense of satisfaction. “Shall we begin the meeting?”