Remember When

recipes that had been handed down in her family from mother to daughter for generations. Every recipe had a name that conjured up friendly ancestors and bygone events along with wonderful tastes and delicious smells. There was Grandma Sarah's three-bean salad and Great-grandmother Cornelia's cherry cinnamon pie.

There was harvest-moon cake and wheat-threshers ham biscuits.'

Ruefully, she admitted, 'Until my first trip to Long Valley, I actually thought strawberries grew on trees and that 'canned goods' meant tin cans with labels on them that said Libby and Green Giant, and that the cans belonged out of sight in a pantry. You can imagine, then, how I reacted to the sight of bright yellow peaches in a glass jar with a label on it depicting a peach tree with a baby sitting beneath it on a blanket, framed in a border of peach blossoms and leaves. To me, it was more than wonderful, it was positively exotic.'

He eyed her with amused fascination. 'Did you really believe strawberries grew on trees?'

'Why wouldn't I?' she replied, batting her lashes in a comic imitation of a dopey femme fatale. 'I thought chicken was created in a carton with plastic wrap. Actually,' she admitted sheepishly, 'I still prefer to think of it that way'; then she finished her tale: 'I thought my grandparents' house was magical. When they came to live with us in Houston, our house began to change in the same wonderful ways, from the back lawn, which had only had a swimming pool and some palm trees when they got there, to the rooms in the house.'

Finished, she lifted her hands and offered the flower to him, cradling it in her palms as if it were a priceless treasure. 'It's exquisite, isn't it?' she said softly.

You're exquisite, Cole thought, and he shoved his hands into his pockets to avoid the temptation to cradle her hands in his and lift the flower to his face, and then see how her fingers would taste against his lips. Lack of control over his sexual urges had never been a problem for him. Neither had sentimentality, lack of concentration, or the urge to protect a member of the opposite sex beneath the age of sixty. Annoyed with himself for his unprecedented failings in all three of those areas in the last twenty-four hours, he said curtly, 'And so you managed to create a market for their talent and philosophy. You were very clever.'

She looked a little taken aback by his brusque tone, but she shook her head and her voice remained soft yet firm. Like her body, Cole decided, and glowered at the tree trunk in self-disgust for the direction of his thoughts. 'I didn't need to create a market; it was already there and growing bigger each year, though no one seemed to recognize it at the time.'

'What do you mean the market was there and growing?'

'We live in a time when Americans are feeling more and more rootless and more separated from each other and their natural surroundings. We live in an impersonal world; we come home to huge subdivisions filled with near-identical houses that are filled with mass-produced everything, from furniture to accessories. Nothing seems to give us a sense of timelessness, of stability, of roots, of real self-expression. People feel a desire to personalize their immediate surroundings, even though they can't personalize the world beyond. The Foster Ideal is about rediscovering the pleasure of, and depth of, one's own creativity.'

'I thought women were more interested these days in discovering how high they can climb on the corporate ladder.'

'We are, but unlike men, we're learning early that we can't define ourselves by our success or lack of it at work. We want more from life than that, and we have more to give than that.'

Cole frowned in confusion. 'Are you implying that career-oriented women make up a significant part of your magazine's readership?'

She nodded, clearly enjoying his misguided notions. 'The demographics are going to surprise you. Based on our market surveys, sixty-five percent of our readers are college-educated women who have, or have had, successful careers. There's been a growing trend among American career women to postpone having children until they're in their thirties, then to take a hiatus and stay home during their children's formative years. Once they stay home, they throw themselves into raising children with the same dedication and zeal they brought to their former careers. They're high achievers, used to taking charge and making a difference. Some of them worked in creative areas, others in business and finance. They bring all that creative and organizational ability with them to their new roles, except they don't have any outlet for it—other than their homes. They start looking at ways to improve on their homes, to personalize them, and make them more functional or more beautiful. Their need for self-expression combines with a natural desire to conserve money, and presto—they discover Foster's Beautiful Living. And through us, they discover themselves.'

'That's a pretty tall order for one magazine,' Cole said, annoyed with himself for noticing how beautifully she spoke. And moved. And looked.

'Foster Enterprises does much more than publish a monthly magazine. We also publish coffee-table books and market a line of environment-friendly, all-natural cleaning products. We also market do-it-yourself 'kits'—those usually are created either by my grandfather or under his supervision. We started out doing seasonal television specials around the holidays on CBS, and the ratings were so high that CBS wanted to sign us to an exclusive contract for six specials a year. I turned it down because I think we're better off financially, and from an exposure standpoint, doing a weekly program and syndicating it. Our production costs are relatively low, so CBS's offer to underwrite them in return for an exclusive contract didn't appeal as much to me as it would to someone with a more costly show, such as a sitcom or even a talk show.'

'It sounds like you've got it made.'

'That's how it sounds, but that's not how it is. The truth is, we're under tremendous pressure all the time, not only because competitors have been springing up everywhere, trying to carve out a piece of our reputation and our profits for themselves, but because the public seems to hold us to higher standards than our competition, and we have to live up to that. The pressure is intense to constantly come up with newer and better ideas for every issue, every book, every television program than we've done before. We have to look better, be fresher, and offer more than everyone else. That was a lot easier to do before, when we were virtually the only game in town, than it is now. We've actually fired two 'spies' who were planted by competitors.'

Cole stared at her in shock. 'Somehow, I always associate corporate spying with the areas of electronics or defense.'

'I know, so did I—until that happened. The other problem is our public image,' Diana said, bringing up Dan without actually referring to him, 'and keeping that intact can be a public relations nightmare, not just for me, but for all of us. We have to be careful about everything we say and do, no matter where we are or who we're with.'

'All of you?' Cole repeated. 'I thought you had the biggest problem in that area because you're primarily identified with the magazine.'

'I gave you that impression in the living room, but it wasn't completely accurate. We're all identified with it. The thing that made Foster's Beautiful Living unique from the very beginning is that it was, and is, a family endeavor, and the public has always been attracted by that. So, unfortunately, has the press, which means we can't even disagree on some minor point when we're filming a program without later reading in some gossip column that There's trouble in the Foster paradise' or some other idiotic catchphrase.

'My mother writes a column for the magazine that's one of its most popular features. In it, she reminisces about her girlhood recollections of holidays at her grandparents' homes, the things her mother taught her, and jokes about some of her fears when she gave early parties. She tells stories about Grandma and Grandpa and Corey and me when we were young. All of us have appeared in the photo layouts from time to time, and our readership has come to feel that they know us. The public who buys our magazine, regards all of us as friends. When Corey married Spence, handmade congratulatory cards arrived by the truckload. When the twins were born, readers sent thousands of baby gifts, all handmade. We ended up featuring some of them in a baby issue. When Grandpa broke his leg, more gifts and get-well cards arrived. To the public, we have to remain one big, happy family, living the good life that we expound upon in our issues.'

While he listened, Cole was reassessing the extent of her achievements. It truly bothered him that someone who'd accomplished what she had, with very little help, and not much money behind her, thought so little of her accomplishments.

Cole moved forward and braced his hand on the tree trunk above her head. 'Tell me something,' he said sternly. 'Why do you think your mistakes are so enormous that they override your incredible success? In the living room, you downplayed all your own talent and achievements and made your successes seem like nothing more than dumb luck.'