Part One

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.

“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 presentation. 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.