Backup: E-P-ist Millionaire Seeking Wife! ch. 3

[JMR20190612: Backup of https://joelrees-novels.blogspot.com/2019/05/jdz-millionaire-03.html.]

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"What is Millicent doing here?" Mildred Alfreda Zukiger stood in front of her son's big chair in one corner of the partners' office. She turned toward her son, who was standing in front of his desk. Today, she was the business-savy socialite mother, not-quite-platinum hair coiffed in a mature style, but not too mature, nicely made-up, but not overdone, faux business suit with slacks instead of skirt, business heels, just enough natural jewelry to show she had money to back up her opinions.

JD turned and stared out the corner office windows at the roofs of the neighboring buildings. The sun had cleared the horizon, and the city was brought into sharp relief in the post-dawn light. "Ah, that. Sherry hired her as her personal secretary yesterday. Don't know if I'd call this view beautiful or not, but I guess it's impressive."

"You don't need the work ...," Mildred turned towards Millie, seated in the stenographer's chair between the two partners' desks.

JD reflected a moment on Millie's carefully crafted appearance. She had done herself over, too, auburn hair in a tight bun, severe, trim makeup, conservative business suit with knee-length skirt. She looked every inch the part of a professional secretary.

And it was not just appearance. She was in fact quite overqualified. She had left a good job for the courting.

If the arrangement were a normal hire, they'd be getting an excellent deal. But she was here for reasons other than money.

Millie broke role with a grin and a nod. "True, but I think I need the job." And then she returned to role.

Well-placed misdirection. If he wanted to learn how to manipulate people, Millie would be a good teacher.

"JD's mother furrowed her brow and tilted her head inquisitively. "So what is Sherry doing here?"

"Sherry is my business partner, and this billboard thing is not likely to leave the business unscathed. She has a right to veto any plans that could damage the business." He turned to face his mother. "Oh, and thank you for having covers put over those three billboards you put up yesterday without consulting the rest of the team. Where's Dad?"

Mildred was taken even more aback. "Your father?" She shook her head. "Oh, he wouldn't be interested."

JD got his phone out of his pocket and pulled up his father's page in the contacts. Karl Mulhaus Zukiger answered almost as soon as he pressed the contact button.

"Good morning, Dad."  He looked at the wall.

"Not much, yet. Yes she is." He looked at his mother, whose expression showed growing disbelief.

"Just having a meeting of the team in Sherry's office." He looked at Jenny, seated with the rest of the team that his mother had assembled at the portable table they had brought in for the conference, and raised his eyebrows. "Yeah, that team."

Jenny shrugged. "Go for it," she mouthed silently.

"Not really. No, wait." He nodded at Sheliah. "I guess I should be more appreciative of Sheliah's efforts. The billboard thing."

"E-P-ist Millionaire seeking wife." He looked out the window, then back at his mother. "Yeah, that's us. Didn't Mom tell you?"

Mildred's expression turned dark. "I tell him what he needs to know."

JD rolled his eyes toward the ceiling and smiled sardonically. "Haven't heard the full plan yet. " He blinked slowly. "Yeah, something about having a contest to marry me off." He started chuckling. "Uh huh, you heard that right. And she didn't seem to think I needed to know, either."

He looked over at Sherry, who seemed to be enjoying the drama from her vantage point perched on her desk. "Yeah, I sure would like you to be here, Dad." Sherry and JD exchanged a grin.

Sherry was her usual self, as much a female software geek as he was a male software geek. Comfortably round, dishwater blonde hair, ordinary features, no makeup, comfortably dressed in slacks. She was probably the one person on the planet he figured he would always be comfortable with. And the one person he would never expect his mother to be comfortable with, although that was also somewhat beside the point.

He glanced at Millie, who nodded in encouragement. "Okay, we'll wait until you get here." And he closed the connection.

"Well, are you going to invite the whole neighborhood?"

"Mom? Dad is family."

"And what about Ron?"

Ronnie looked up from her seat at the second stenographer's desk near the door, tablet terminal at the ready for notes and research.

"I wanted my personal lawyer, and the company legal staff, too, checking our plans. George couldn't make it this early on the short notice, but Ronnie is here representing company legal. Thanks, Ronnie."

"Sure."

"And George will be coming within an hour."

"Well of course I'll have my lawyer check the plans." JD's mother stopped short of sniffing.

"So our legal staff can discuss their concerns with Hank on an informed basis. Where is he, by the way?"

"I think he's busy. But ... we don't need to be taking their very valuable time just to listen to us haggle over details, do we?"

Ronnie tilted her head and raised her eyebrows. "Well, Mildred, I would agree about the use of time, but it can often help when starting a new project, especially an unusual one like this, to have some legal oversight. It will probably save time later."

JD's mother gave Ronnie an icy stare.

He reflected for a moment on his mother's unwillingness to be on the losing side of an argument, and on the significant wisdom of bringing legal in early.

"Well, since we're waiting for Dad, maybe we should wait for Hank and George, too. How about we postpone this meeting until six o'clock, and call Hank to see if he can make it?"

Sherry pulled her lips slightly to the right, before speaking with a wry grin. "We're here. Call them up, but we can go back over anything important when they get here. Let's hear what your team has done and what they have in mind."

"Surprisingly, Sherry and I are in agreement on getting started."

JD looked from Sherry to his mother, then shrugged. "Okay, Mom."

He stepped to the window again, thumbed through the directory and made connection. "Ah, Hank, good morning. Yeah, my Mom should be the one calling." He paused, listening. "Well, I have a favor I'd like to ask. Mom and Sheliah came up with a rather odd-ball scheme to have a bunch of women apply to be my wife." Another pause. "Yes, Sheliah the matchmaker. Uh huh, those billboards." He grinned and chuckled. "We are in a meeting to talk about it now."

He looked over at Sheliah and winked with the eye his mother wouldn't see. She smiled back and nodded.

"Oh, thank you. We all appreciate the sacrifice." He turned to his mother and gave her a thumbs-up. She frowned in reply.

"Yeah, we're waiting to get into the deep nitty-gritty until my dad makes it. Mmm hmm. Yeah. Thanks. Dressed for golf is fine, and give my apologies to your other client. See you in a few." And he hung up.

"Okay, he should arrive within a half-hour."

General murmurs of approval could be heard, with the noticeable exception of his mother.

"So, Sheliah, can you outline your plan? Then we can hear how my mom wants to change it." He went to one wall and pulled back a curtain, revealing a whiteboard covered with data flow diagrams and module relationship charts. "Ah. We took a picture of this, right, Sherry?"

"Yeah."

"Good." He picked up an eraser from the chalk tray.

Millie jumped up and took the eraser from his hand and started clearing the whiteboard. Sherry started to stand, but JD looked at his empty hand and took the other eraser from the tray and worked from the other end, so she sat back down.

His mother watched with an expression of disapproval, but said nothing.

Sheliah stood. "I should be doing that."

"Almost done. Thanks, Millie."

Millie nodded, put the eraser back, and sat back down as Sheliah moved to the whiteboard.

JD handed her a marker and eraser and stepped back. "I think you were saying to someone that it wasn't a contest."

"Right. I was brainstorming with Jenny and the rest of the team a couple of days ago, and Mark said he thought one at a time was a little slow. And things just kind of went from there to comparing finding you a wife to filling a job opening." She raised her hand. "Now, wait, I know you won't appreciate that."

"Got that right."

"But if you're going to be searching for a needle in a very large haystack, you could have the haystack come to you."

"If the king won't go to the haystack, the haystack should come to the king. Not one of my favorite sayings, but go on."

"Not really much. We started with the idea of a classified ad, but Jessie pointed out that we'd miss at least half of the sort of women we are looking for with that."

"I can see that."

"So we were thinking of a large ad on a business magazine site and in news aggregators that cater to the financial industry and software industries, as well as E-P-oriented academic journal sites. But we weren't thinking about billboards."

"No."

Mildred defended herself. "Of course I want to reach the E-P-ist population more than any other. Billboards in this state should help."

"That's actually reasonable, Mom."

"Thank you." There was ice in her voice.

"So," Sheliah continued, "I had something like this in mind."

She wrote on the board,

Well-off E-P-ist male CEO seeking wife.
Interested parties, send us a short personal history without name or identification, and a paragraph describing your reasons for interest at <ep.ceo@epmatchmakers.com.uis>.
We will contact you with results within 5 days.
E-P-Matchmakers is committed to protecting the privacy of all inquiries.

"Nice." Sherry voiced her approval.

JD pursed his lips and nodded agreement. "Low-key, not asking too much information, keeping it as anonymous as possible."

Millie took a picture of the board.

JD looked around at her. "Thanks, Millie."

Sheliah began erasing the board.

"Well, I think it's completely too low-key."

"Hang on, Mom. So what was the plan from there, Sheliah?"

Sheliah wrote more on the board.

1. Matchmakers review.
2. More complete information about JD, still no identification.
3. On submitter's agreement, give it to JD to review.
4. If JD agrees, reveal identities.
5. If both agree, arrange a first date.

"We'd review what we get. If it didn't pass, we'd give a polite refusal. If it did, we'd tell them a little more about you, and if they were interested, we'd pass it on to you. If you were interested, then we could tell them who you are and tell you who they are. From there, negotiation on dating could begin."

"No reason to involve JD at any ... until step 5, really. I can do the pre-scanning and initial negotiation."

"Thank you for volunteering, Mom, but I would prefer to handle that myself under this scenario."

Millie took another picture, and Sheliah thanked her.

"I want you to be happy, Joe Dear. I would not choose anyone wrong for you."

JD glanced from Sherry, who just raised her eyebrows, to Millie, who blinked slowly without revealing her thoughts, to Jenny, who also raised her eyebrows, then tilted her head. Not getting any direction, he continuing to look around the room for a moment, then focused on a corner of the ceiling.

"Well, it definitely won't happen that way, Mom."

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