Jennifer Warren carried the box of hot pizza into the house. After a week of work, the majority of their possessions had been unpacked and put into place. The pizza was her way of celebrating moving into her first house. She put the box of pizza on the table and said, "I bought a pizza."
Looking at the box, her husband, Ben, walked over to the table. He said, "I see you bought a Parker's Perfect Pizza."
"I know it is your favorite," Jennifer said smiling at him. She had ordered it with pepperoni on half and black olives on the other half.
"I was so glad to see that they had one of those in the neighborhood," Ben said. He had been worried when Derkins had bought out Parker's Perfect Pizza the year before, but there hadn't been any change in quality.
Walking over to the cabinet to get some paper plates, Jennifer said, "I ran into our neighbor there."
"Who?"
"Dan — the guy that lives next door. He works there," Jennifer answered. She had been surprised to see someone from this neighborhood working in a pizzeria. It was kind of hard to believe that the manager of a store like that could afford a house in this area.
"Really?" Ben asked surprised. He took a seat at the table.
"Yeah. I guess he's the manager or something," Jennifer said shrugging her shoulders. He had looked like he was having a very good time. She put a paper plate in front of Ben.
Ben shook his head. His opinion of the neighbors wasn't all that positive. It didn't seem right for one man, three women and six kids to live in one house like that. It didn't matter that it was a big house; that was just too many people living together. He asked, "So which one of those three women is he married to?"
"I talked to one of the women who live over there the other day. I think she said her name was Alison. She said that all three of them are married to him," Jennifer answered. It was rather difficult to hold a conversation because the woman was busy with all of the kids. That many kids would have driven her crazy, but Alison seemed to be having a good time.
"That's wrong," Ben said shaking his head in disgust.
Opening the box of pizza, Jennifer said, "I don't understand why any woman would settle for a third of a husband."
Shaking his head, he said, "I'm beginning to think that we made a mistake moving into this neighborhood."
"Why?"
Ben answered, "I was talking to another guy who lives up the street. He said his name was Tom. He's a chemist. He told me that he's got two wives."
"Did we move into a Mormon neighborhood or something?" Jennifer asked. She'd never heard of such a thing as a man having multiple wives like that. As far as she knew, it was against the law.
"I don't know. It must be some strange cult or something," Ben answered with a sigh. It wasn't natural for people to smile all of the time like that. For all he knew, they'd be trying to convert him and his wife. He said, "I'm half tempted to get on the phone and give that real estate agent a piece of my mind. She should have warned us about this."
Jennifer patted her stomach and said, "We moved here for the schools. This school district is one of the best in the state."
Grinning at Jennifer's swollen belly, Ben said, "I guess we can put up with some strange neighbors for the sake of little Ben."
"Or little Jennifer," she commented with a smile. She knew that Ben was convinced that she was going to have a boy.
Ben said, "Or little Jennifer."
Taking a slice of pizza covered with black olives, Jennifer said, "Let's eat before the pizza gets cold."
Ben and Jennifer sat around the table eating their slices of pizza. Each of them was lost in their thoughts. After his second slice, Ben said, "This is a great pizza. Who ever started that company deserves to be a very rich man."
"It is a great pizza," Jennifer said.
Ben ate his slice of pepperoni covered pizza thoughtfully. He didn't understand how someone who worked as manager of a chain restaurant could live the lifestyle suggested by the neighborhood in which they lived. He said, "They must pay well if the manager of one of their stores can live in this neighborhood. Either that or he lives off what those women earn."
Shaking her head, Jennifer said, "They can't make that much. One of the women doesn't work. She stays home and takes care of all of those kids. I heard that the other woman is some sort of nurse and the third woman is an artist. Nurses don't get paid squat and there's no money in art."
"You're right," Ben said. He shook his head as he thought about how their parents had provided them with some money to help make the down payment on the house. He said, "They must have a rich relative who is supporting them. You can't live in a house like that and raise so many kids on the kind of money they must make."
"You're right, honey," Jennifer said. She looked at the nearly empty box and sighed. It was hard to believe that the two of them could polish off a pizza like that. She grabbed the last slice of pizza.
Ben sat back in his chair and smiled. He said, "As far as I'm concerned, a Parker's pizza is a perfect pizza."
Jennifer had just finished throwing away the empty pizza box when there was a knock on the front door. She went to the door and opened it. She was surprised to find one of the women from next door standing there holding a large basket of fresh fruits in her hands. She said, "Hello."
"Hi, I'm Alison from next door. We met the other day."
Jennifer nodded her head and said, "I remember."
Holding out the basket, Alison said, "We just wanted to welcome you to the neighborhood. We'd have been over earlier, but you looked busy with unpacking and all that."
Accepting the basket, Jennifer said, "Thank you."
"We're having a barbecue with some friends this evening and thought you might enjoy having an evening off. We know how stressful it is to move," Alison said with a smile.
"Uh, sure," Jennifer said wondering how Ben would react to the invitation.
"Great. I hope you like ice cream," Alison said with a smile.
"Ice cream?" Jennifer asked.
It had all started with a quest by Tom to create the perfect root beer float. Dan had come to the conclusion that the weak link was the ice cream. Tom had decided that it was the root beer. Alison shrugged her shoulders as she said, "Dan is thinking about opening an old fashioned ice cream parlor. He's been experimenting with a bunch of different recipes for homemade ice cream."
"An ice cream parlor?" Jennifer asked wondering how he expected to support a family with an ice cream parlor. It was almost as hard to believe as him supporting them by working in a pizzeria.
A year after Dan had married his three wives, Tom married Amanda and Terry. Although the relationship between Tom and Terry never turned sexual, all three of them were happy with the marriage. There was love among all three. While working on her doctorate, Amanda had two children. The three of them, along with a housekeeper and a nanny, raised the children. They continued the family tradition of celebrating occasions to great excess.
Tom ended up working for the company at which he had interned. He rather liked making scents for various products. He never did save the world by throwing scented soaps at invading space aliens, but he was happy. As a joke, he did create a batch of root beer scented detergent that he gave to Dan one Christmas.
Amanda ended up working in a research hospital testing new drugs derived from plant extracts. Most of her job was maintaining and developing new tissue cultures on which the drugs could be tested. It was rewarding to know that her work demonstrated the effectiveness of several new drugs.
Terry made a name for herself in the world of finance. After the deal between Derkins and Parker's Perfect Pizza, she went on to transition another company from a local business into a national chain. As a result of her success, she became a regular on television business programs. She credited most of her success to having learned Dan's checklist of questions.
Kim Parker met and fell in love with a young man who knew how to deal with her moods and insecurities. They moved out of state after getting married. Over time he taught her that she wasn't in competition with anyone other than herself. He cheated on her twice, but she never discovered it. She cheated on him once, but he never discovered it. It wasn't a fairy tale marriage, but it wasn't a bad one by any stretch of the imagination. They did love each other. She ended up having two kids and was a very loving mother to them.
With time and distance, Kim's hatred of Dan Parker subsided to dislike. Her insecurity was never a result of any action taken by Dan. A few nasty comments to a scared little girl seeking acceptance had taken root in an only child facing her peers for the first time. For twelve years that tree of insecurity had grown establishing roots deep in her soul. Kim was a victim of those poisoned seeds as much as Dan.
Shortly after Kim married, Granny Parker died in her sleep. Dan attended the funeral, but kept his distance from Kim. It was a nice ceremony attended by several dozen young men and women who had been helped through difficult times by the elderly woman. They reminisced about her strange outfits and repeated her advice. Dan listened to their discussion thinking that one was never too old or frail to help. Sometimes one had to be old and frail to help the most.
Betty moved off to California when the Parker's Perfect Pizza expanded to that part of the country. After several years had passed, she found a woman that she could love and moved in with her. It was a good relationship, but Betty never got over the loss of Pat. There was always a slight melancholy air about Betty. Her lover accepted that she was Betty's second love and never let it bother her.
After years of loneliness, Sue finally found a young woman that she could love. Somewhat crippled by her tragic past, the relationship was very slow to develop. It didn't blossom until after Sue had met the parents of the other woman. Although the father accepted the relationship, Sue never trusted him. She always got upset when her lover went to visit her parents without taking her along. It was one irritant in an otherwise very good relationship.
Sue's art career flourished. She achieved national and international stature for her emotionally powerful paintings. Few commissioned paintings were ever sold by their owners. There wasn't enough money to wrestle one of those paintings away. Sue's painting of Kim Parker was hung in the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York City. Kim never learned that she had been the inspiration for it.
Like many shining lights, Sue died relatively young in a tragic automobile accident. Upon her death, a collection of over a hundred paintings of Dan was found in a closet of her studio. Sue's lover gave three of those paintings to Dan. One was of Sue and Dan working together to come up with the artwork for Parker's Perfect Pizza. One of them showed Dan comforting Pat on her deathbed. The last was of Dan surrounded by his family. All three brought tears to Dan's eyes.
Eric married Linda and the couple ended up adopting three kids — two boys and a girl. Two of the kids blossomed under their care. They graduated college, married, and started families of their own. One of the boys, born of a crack addicted mother, had significant emotional problems. The boy ran away from home one night and they never heard from him again. It broke their hearts that they hadn't been able to help the young man.
The organization that Eric started to help fight breast cancer slowly morphed into a survivors support organization headed by Linda. Eric finally accepted that the established groups had a much better handle on supporting research. Not as much effort had been put into helping those who survived the disease or the families that had been left behind when a wife and mother passed away. Linda's passion and Eric's energy created a very effective network of support groups that helped hundreds of thousands of people.
Kevin married a woman and then divorced her a year later when he caught her cheating on him. After a year of hard times in which he nearly lost his job, Kevin finally got his act together and, with Dan's help, put together a detailed personal definition of happiness. It was years before he found another woman he could love. He married her and they raised a family. Despite stock options that made him a wealthy man, Kevin never left the employ of Parker's Perfect Pizza (or more accurately Derkins Restaurants) until the day he retired.
Ernie met and fell in love with a young woman who came into the pizzeria he was managing. Initially she resisted his approaches, but he pursued her with grand romantic gestures and she relented. She never regretted that she had succumbed to his charms. By the time they had married, Ernie had been promoted to division manager of Parker's Perfect Pizza. He made good money, worked in the community, and was widely respected by his neighbors. He achieved his personal definition of happiness.
Wanting to help young men who felt disenfranchised, Ernie joined a mentorship program. Over the years, he helped hundreds of young men avoid futures that might have been very bleak. He continued to search for something noble to do, but never felt that he had accomplished it. He never realized that there were households where his name was spoken with the same reverence that he used when talking about Dan Parker.
After establishing a comfortable household in Colorado, Coder spent the rest of his life happily married to Diana. His business grew when he finally released the program on which he had been working. He had been driven to write the program; not to run a business. Knowing what he wanted out of life, he retired after a large software company purchased his company in order acquire his program. He worked on a new program in his spare time, but never with the kind of dedication given to the first one.
With Coder's success, Diana didn't have to work. She became a stay at home mother after giving birth to two wonderful kids. She and Coder devoted the majority of their time to the children. Diana spent years working with the Girl Scouts while her daughter went through the program. She continued with that organization even after her daughter finished and moved on with her life. The daughter chose a life of software and the son chose a life as a professor of history.
Diana spent most of her free time researching an article she had titled 'The Nature of Man.' When she had deemed it complete, she posted it on a website along with three very old articles. The world did not come beating upon her door, but the thousands of e-mails telling her how much all four articles had helped someone get control over their life was reward enough.
Dan was a wealthy man; not because he had money, but because he was happy. Happiness is the real currency of life. Those who lead full and happy lives are millionaires even if they don't have a penny in the bank.
It is easy to think that everything went smooth in Dan's life, but that misses the point. Dan worked hard at pursuing his happiness. There is nothing easy about putting in ninety hour work weeks to build a business. It is hard to balance career and family. He planned things so that ugly problems wouldn't arise. He spent time and energy developing relationships with the people around him. Some people were mere acquaintances while others were close friends.
Not everyone that Dan helped reached for the stars. Cory became a manager of a Parker's Perfect Pizza and refused all promotions that came his way. He had found happiness the day that Dan had offered him the job at the pizzeria. He never wanted to give up the friendly atmosphere that he had found in the pizzeria.
Some people want very simple lives filled with simple pleasures. A hot cup of cocoa on a cold day can be as satisfying as a steak dinner in a fancy restaurant. An afternoon by the lake drinking root beer can be as fulfilling as a night at the opera drinking champagne. Not everyone is a doer; some people are quite content being observers. It is true that the crowd watching the game can have more fun at a sporting event than the players.
Happiness is a very personal thing.