Finders Keepers Read online

  Dear Mom:

  Thank you again for the generous gift of a week-long cruise in Tahiti. It’s not your fault the ship sank. Instead of all those years of computer science courses, I wish I had paid more attention to reality TV shows about turning bugs into breakfast.

  I’m sure I’ll be fine, and when I get home you can bet I’ll listen to the rest of your advice about what I ought to do with my life, since this has worked out so well.

  Love, Marissa

  P.S. I don’t think I’ll make it home in time for the club’s summer ball.

  P.P.S. Please make my apologies to the blind date I’m sure you arranged.

  P.P.P.S. I’m a lesbian.

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  WRITING AS KARIN KALLMAKER:

  Just Like That

  Sugar

  One Degree of Separation

  Maybe Next Time

  Substitute for Love

  Frosting on the Cake

  Unforgettable

  Watermark

  Making Up for Lost Time

  Embrace in Motion

  Wild Things

  Painted Moon

  Car Pool

  Paperback Romance

  Touchwood

  In Every Port

  WRITING FOR BELLA AFTER DARK:

  18th & Castro

  All the Wrong Places

  Stake through the Heart: New Exploits of Twilight Lesbians Bell, Book and Dyke: New Exploits of Magical Lesbians Once Upon a Dyke: New Exploits of Fairy Tale Lesbians WRITING AS LAURA ADAMS:

  The Tunnel of Light Trilogy:

  Sleight of Hand

  Seeds of Fire

  Feel free to visit www.kallmaker.com.

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  Copyright© 2006 by Karin Kallmaker

  Bella Books, Inc.

  P.O. Box 10543

  Tallahassee, FL 32302

  All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, without permission in writing from the publisher.

  Printed in the United States of America on acid-free paper First Edition

  Editor: Anna Chinappi

  Cover designer: LA Callaghan

  ISBN 1-59493-072-4

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  For Maria, who watched me inflate and deflate, and pointed out the efficacy of sweatbands.

  Dedicated to all the women who struggle, and those who encourage, especially MJ, Reese and Romy for their examples of determination, and the denizens of Thud, where seldom is heard a discouraging word.

  Nineteen, on the edge

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  About the Author

  Karin Kallmaker, the author of more than twenty romances and fantasy-science fiction novels, began her writing career with the venerable Naiad Press and continues with Bella Books. Her works include the award-winning Just Like That, Maybe Next Time and Sugar. Short stories have appeared in anthologies from publishers like Alyson, Bold Strokes, Circlet and Haworth, as well as novellas and short stories with Bella Books.

  All of Karin’s work can now be found at Bella Books. Details and background about her novels and her other pen name, Laura Adams, can be found at www.kallmaker.com.

  She and her partner are the mothers of two and live in the San Francisco Bay Area. She is descended from Lady Godiva, a fact which she’ll share with anyone who will listen. She likes her Internet fast, her iPod loud and her chocolate real.

  For more information about the health, fitness and nutrition resources used while researching this novel, go to Kallmaker.com and visit the page for Finders Keepers.

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  Part One

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  Chapter 1

  “This is our manifesto: there is someone perfect for you out there.”

  Marissa Chabot paused to tuck a stray lock of streaky blond hair behind her ear. The crowd filling the meeting room was thoroughly mixed, with over-fifties and under-thirties, skin colors ranging from ebony to hothouse mushroom and hair styles screaming “het soccer mom” and “baby butch.” The all-female audience was Marissa’s favorite kind.

  “That someone isn’t at the coffeehouse. Not hanging out at the library. Not at your job or just down the street. That someone is on the Internet. Like you, works long hours. Like you, has no time to go hunting for a date who could turn out to be the worst mistake of their life.”

  She didn’t really need the note cards she’d arranged on the lectern. She’d given this speech so often in the last two months she knew it by heart.

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  “Your perfect someone is there. Like anything in life, your perfect someone is worth looking for. Why not look smart? Why not let technology help? Antony found Cleopatra in a social circle of less than a hundred—and that didn’t turn out that well, did it?

  Today you’re meeting and considering possibilities with thousands of potentially compatible people. Your lives are busy, your jobs take energy and who has the time to figure out if that intriguing person is genuine?” She clicked the first slide of her PowerPoint deck and watched as their company name formed out of a splash of shooting stars.

  “At Finders Keepers, we believe in love. We believe in romance. We believe in first meetings, second dates, third anniversaries and relationships that can last a lifetime. In the next ten minutes I’m going to explain why our questionnaire and statistical analysis has resulted in a three-out-of-four chance that the match we find for you will still be in your life in the best possible way three years from now.”

  She clicked steadily through the slides, pausing briefly when she realized her dangling earring was making contact with the microphone boom.

  “Ninety-seven percent of our clients will match up with a high degree of compatibility with four to seven other clients. That means most of our clients complete their questionnaire and get a profile back that looks like this.”

  Using the laser pointer she highlighted the paragraph that summarized their personality and then the list of fictitious names grouped by their compatibility match scores, starting with the 98s.

  “Ninety-nine percent matches are rare, so most people get one or two names in the ninety-eights, several more in the ninety-sevens or sixes, and a few more in the ninety-fives. The report stops at ten names maximum, as we’ve found more than that can leave clients feeling overwhelmed.”

  The audience was engaged and she fielded cautiously excited questions when she concluded her ten-minute spiel. She made a note in her mental Palm Pilot about the size and time of the pres-4

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  entation. She wasn’t used to being on commission like the other sales people. Even though she and Ocky argued about money all the time, it was only fair that she was compensated the same way everyone else was for doing direct sales work.

  After the last question, she stepped back with an inclusive gesture. “Thank you, everyone, for your attention and kindness, and many thanks to the organizers of today’s Women’s Forum. I’ve got business cards galore here at the front, with a note on how to get a discount on your set-up fee. Thanks again.”

  The applause was polite but abbreviated as women gathered up their belongings. Marissa lingered near the podium, first slipping her earring back on, then packing up her laptop as she chatted with women who came to the front to get business cards. It was a low-key sell because that was their style. Finders
Keepers wasn’t about pressure. One of the first things they told clients to do was simply relax.

  The next sessions got under way and Marissa escaped to the parking lot with her laptop case slung over one shoulder. Dappled sunshine warmed her face and for just a moment she heard the hiss of surf spreading on hot sand. She shook the sound out of her head. It was just as quickly replaced by the low question, “Is this what you wanted, Marissa?”

  She made herself think about the unusually warm winter weather, about her shoes, about statistical regression—anything to silence that memory. She was enjoying the record high tempera-tures for January, she told herself cheerily. San Francisco, over the hills and on the water, was also setting records.

  The San Ramon Ranch Conference Center was not far from the FK office and she had elected to walk for the exercise. It was only five minutes and she wasn’t going to get in a run until tomorrow, after all. Sunny, beautiful day. Who needed a tropical paradise when the Amador Valley would soon be green with spring while the rest of the country still froze?

  “It went great,” she told Heather as she collected her messages at the reception desk. “There were probably two dozen cards taken, so we’ll see six contacts or so and might sign three.”

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  “Good work.” Heather brushed back her hair with a long hand.

  “Octavia left for that marketing association thing and said the servers are slow again.”

  “She thinks lightning is slow. Your hair looks great, by the way.”

  “Thanks.” She brushed it back again. “I think I need a clip or something, though.”

  “The price of fashion,” Marissa quipped. “My underwire is piercing my armpit right now.” She took her leave as Heather laughed in sympathy.

  The soft, deep purple carpet of the reception area gave way to a more durable gray as she punched in the code and passed through the double doors to the main farm. Cubicles occupied the center of the large space. She dropped off her laptop case at the overflowing desk in her office and removed her rings and the chunky gold necklace and earrings that matched. Another set of codes gained her entrance into the server room and she gratefully sank down at the administrative workstation. She’d always found the chilled air and steady hum calming.

  Her fingernails clicked the keyboard as she typed in the first diagnostic command. Time for a trim, she realized, then pouted as she added the To Do to her mental Palm Pilot. As the diagnostic tallied service statistics she expanded on the note in her head.

  Dear Self,

  Don’t forget to record the presentation code for your commission and trim your nails.While it’s depressing that the nail trim is for the keyboard and not because you’re avoiding giving someone an ouch in bed, there’s no need to whine.This week is a No Whining Zone.

  Love, Marissa

  As usual, the service stats were fine. She printed the report to silence Ocky’s complaints and went back to her desk where a stack of questionnaires waited to be entered manually. She was going to personally find and dismember the guy who sold them that piece-6

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  of-garbage optical scanner. Maybe she could get a temp. Maybe the temp would do it right. Maybe California and Hawaii could become their own country. Right.

  She pushed aside last night’s empty take-out salad container and a large pile of accounting reports joined their predecessors on the floor. Ocky had left several yellow squares stuck to her monitor.

  Dear Octavia M. Zant,

  Put another sticky note on my screen and I will personally bad sector your writing hand.

  Love, Marissa

  One of these days she’d really tap that message out and send it.

  The office had stilled when she finished the last questionnaire.

  So much for the prestige of being part owner of the fastest growing Internet matchmaking service in California. Her arms were cramped and all she could think about was some dinner and maybe a trip to the gym. A door slammed and she heard a familiar rustle combined with the rhythmic crackle of headphones. Ocky was back.

  From a nonchalant pose at Ocky’s office door, she watched her business partner put her notebook back in the slot where it belonged, stow her briefcase and set her phone and Mp3 player on their chargers. She waited until Ocky looked up before saying,

  “How’d it go?”

  “Great. You look tired.”

  “Questionnaires. The service guy is here tomorrow morning.

  There’s nothing wrong with the servers, by the way.” Marissa wished she hadn’t taken off her earrings. “You look tired too.”

  “Late night. And not a great one.” Ocky kicked off her sandals and curled back into her desk chair, legs tucked under her. “Tell me one more time why I don’t fill out my own questionnaire and get myself a real lover?”

  7

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  I could run a thousand miles a day, Marissa thought, and not have her slender, toned legs. “Because you can’t afford to tell the truth should you end up the one-in-four who doesn’t find a good match through our system.” She didn’t want to admit at that very moment that she herself was now a Finders Keepers client. It wasn’t the right time to break that news to Ocky.

  “So I’m stuck with mismatch after mismatch using my own hunter-gatherer skills. At least the sex is great. Well, it wasn’t last night but it usually is.”

  Marissa didn’t let herself think too much about what did and didn’t work with Ocky’s long string of short-lived girlfriends.

  Octavia liked them tall, blonde, lithesome and temporary, all things Marissa would never be. Not that her own dating record had any more success. Accidents and twisted fate had played too large a role in her love life. She was hoping her future, with guided assistance from statistical analysis and algorithms she’d written herself, would improve.

  As they chatted about finances, Marissa again heard the hiss of distant surf on warm sand and the quiet but intense question, “Is this what you wanted, Marissa?” Maybe the memory persisted because of the sunshine today. Just nostalgia.

  Tomorrow would be one year to the day but who was counting?

  A vacation romance was an unreliable thing. Passion at the time but no real connection. Tears at parting, a promise she would be in touch as soon as possible—Marissa told herself she’d been a fool to believe any of it. She was over it, just as she was over her crush on Ocky. Fussing about Ocky’s girlfriends and how she looked when Ocky was around was a habit she was trying to break.

  “So when your next trust payout comes along, I think we’ll be able to expand the office site and roll out some national advertising.” Ocky tapped at her keyboard, rapidly reading and responding to messages. “Those cash infusions have been great for the business.”

  “It’s the last one,” Marissa said slowly, “since I’m turning thirty-8

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  five this summer. We need to talk about it because I really should get myself out of renting and into a condo or something.”

  “We should be in for some big withdrawals as partner bonuses within five years,” Ocky said. She glanced up with one of her confident smiles.

  Marissa didn’t want to give in, not this time. They’d had this discussion five years ago. She’d invested a lot in the business and things were really going to start paying off, it was true, but she didn’t want to be forty and still paying rent in one of the most expensive real estate markets in the country. “We’re going to need to talk about it. There may be other ways to finance what we need to do.”

  “Let’s go have a hot fudge sundae or something. I could use the pick-me-up.”

  Thinking longingly of the gym, Marissa said, “I can’t be that indulgent today.”

  Ocky frowned. “Still dieting?”

  “This isn’t temporary. Our ancestors spawned in different oceans and I got the ov
ersized genes.”

  “I can’t even get you to split a pizza these days.”

  Marissa didn’t say, “Splitting a pizza means I eat two-thirds, gain three pounds overnight while you have the metabolism of an atom bomb.” Instead she said, with a gesture at her tummy, “I’m trying to make up for twenty years of indulgence here. Maybe we could have coffee instead of ice cream? You can always get one of those brownie things you like.”

  Ocky agreed with poor grace and they went about locking down the office. A few minutes later they pulled into adjoining parking spaces close to the door of the Village Roaster.

  Though the desserts were arranged in the display case as seduc-tively as possible, Marissa knew the calories, fat and carbs for each item. Knowledge was power and she was inured to their charms.

  She ordered her coffee iced with skim, no cream and stirred in nocal sweetener and a dash of cocoa powder while she waited for 9

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  Ocky to join her. Even though she didn’t want the large brownie and the whipped mocha with real sugar that Ocky was going to consume, she still felt a pang of resentment over the matter of genetics. It wasn’t fair but whining didn’t burn calories.

  “So I really think we’re going to be able to pull out a quarter of our capital each by the end of the next five years. Plus increase our partners’ draw. Finally make a real living after all our hard work and investment.” Ocky bit off a substantial chunk of the brownie and licked chocolate sprinkles off her lip.

  “Thing is, in five years condos are going to cost that much more, Ocky. You already have a place.”

  “With a second mortgage on it for the business.”

  “I know,” Marissa conceded. If she had to, she would point out that Ocky’s condo had appreciated double in the ten years she’d owned it. Patiently, she said, “If I use my trust payout this time I can get into one of the complexes about three miles from work. I could run to work, in fact.” The idea of being able to combine her need for regular, consistent exercise with her commute suited Marissa’s sense of symmetry.

  She took a large swallow of her iced coffee before adding, “It’s ideal. The mortgage payment will be more than rent but I’d get the interest deduction and come out ahead. It makes such good financial sense for me right now.”