“Yes, we should have. I’ll be in the back if you need my help,” Annie said.
Annie walked back to her stool behind the counter. She shuffled sales booklets and pencils, stacked the charge slips next to the machine. Soooo helpful, such nice manners. “Hrumph,” she snorted. “If this were mine I’d be ever soooo helpful and chock full of manners too,” she muttered.
Annie reached for a slip of paper. She started to add a column of figures. She had her student loans, rent to pay back in Boston, and a utility bill to pay. Not to mention her car loan and charge accounts. She’d literally walked out on her job, and didn’t know if she could go back when things were finished here. Pete hadn’t said anything about how much he was paying her, and she hated to ask. He should have said something by now. She wondered exactly what the words “worth your while” meant, and when a check would be forthcoming.
Annie looked up to see the woman approaching the register, her arms full. She forced a smile.
“Make sure you wrap them pretty the way that other young lady did.”
“I beg your pardon?” Annie said.
“You know, put those shiny strings of paper in among the colored tissue and add some of those rose petals. I just love the way everything smells when I get it home. The first time I was in here, people actually stopped me on the street to admire your shopping bags. I think that’s a wonderful compliment, don’t you?”
“Oh, yes. Yes, it is. I’m sorry, you see I’m new here and no one told me how to ... wrap things. If you’ll just be patient with me and help me as I go along . . .”
“Well, first you ring everything up, fold it, and then you layer the shopping bags with that rainbow tissue paper. Then you put the outfits in the bottom, crunch up more tissue, and throw in a handful of rose petals.” The woman waited while Annie did as she’d suggested. “That’s right, now you put the streamers in. They kind of fall over the sides. See how colorful it is? When you hand me my receipt you tie a purple velvet ribbon onto the handles of the shopping bag.... Oh, it’s just lovely.” The woman giggled.
Annie had to admit the woman was right. The few cents it cost, per bag, to decorate it with tissue paper, rose petals, and then colorful streamers was worth it. The bags were attractive. Packaging, she was finding out, was all-important. She also had to admit that if this store was hers, she never would have come up with the packaging idea. She was too analytical. Her mind would have been on costs, sales items, rent, and all that it took to operate a store. Frills and froufrous would have been the last thing she would have thought of. “And there goes one happy shopper,” she muttered.
Maddie Stern was a businesswoman.
Annie Gabriel was a lawyer.
“And I’m jealous as hell of you, Maddie Stern.”
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
Pete walked into his apartment, grateful he’d left the air-conditioning on. He was soaked to the skin with his own sweat. He opened a bottle of Gatorade, guzzling until the bottle was empty. He let out a belch that could be heard in the hallway.
In his bedroom he pressed the message button on his answering machine as he stripped off his sodden clothes. He listened to five full minutes of calls from friends and colleagues while he padded around naked, opening drawers for clean, dry clothes. He was about to enter the bathroom when he heard his uncle Leo’s voice tell him a meeting was scheduled for September sixth at ten o’clock. He stuck his middle finger in the air before he turned on the shower. He was about to step into the shower when he heard Maddie’s voice. He bolted from the bathroom, stubbing his toe on the marble doorsill. He listened, his eyes wide and disbelieving. He pressed Save, then Rewind, and listened to all the messages again until he heard Maddie’s voice. He pressed Save again until he could repeat the message verbatim. He looked at the small digital calendar that not only recorded the date, but the time as well. August 29, 1983. The time was five forty-five.
Pete pressed Save one more time and dialed Fairy Tales.
“Pete, where have you been?” Annie said. “I’ve been waiting for you to call in all afternoon. Maddie called again. She said she needs to talk to you. She’s safe, Pete. She said she was in Florida.”
“Why didn’t you call me?” Pete barked.
“Call you where? You said you were going to call in. You didn’t tell me to call you. Those were your exact words, Pete, you said you would check in. You didn’t. Neither did Jakes.”
“You should have had enough sense to call here and leave a message. I came in here to change.” He was being unreasonable, and there didn’t seem to be anything he could do to stop his rambling tongue.
“What’s the big deal, Pete? You weren’t home, you weren’t here. Maddie did leave a message and said she would call back. You should have stayed home and waited for her phone call if that’s the way you feel about it. Don’t take your hostility out on me. If I had known where to find you, I would have called you immediately. Is there anything else, Pete? If not, I have to close up.”
“Annie—”
“I know, you’re sorry. You know what, Pete, I am too. Sorry for you, I mean.”
The click on the other end of the phone sounded ominous in Pete’s ears. He’d pissed Annie off again. Jesus, couldn’t he do anything right?
The displeasure he felt with himself, however, was short-lived. Maddie had called. She was still alive and well. Now all he had to do was hang around and wait for her call. He was light-headed when he showered under the ice-cold needle spray.
He managed to shower, dress, and comb his hair in seven minutes. He spent the rest of the time listening to Maddie’s voice until Jakes and Annie arrived for dinner.
The hostility at the dinner table was thick as mush. Pete repeated Maddie’s message for the benefit of Jakes and Annie. Annie repeated hers, reading from a slip of paper.
“That explains why no one from the department is talking,” Jakes said. “Cops are touchy about the feds.”
“What about all those friends you have in high places?” Pete grated.
“What about your friends in high places?” Jakes shot back.
“They’re all sitting on lofty perches the same as yours. I’m having a hard time dealing with this,” Pete said, slamming his fist on the kitchen table. The salt shaker skittered to the edge, teetered, and then fell on the floor, the top shaking loose, allowing the millions of minuscule granules to shower down onto the floor. Three sets of eyes stared at the gray and black tile. No one made a move to clean it up.
Annie bit into her pepperoni pizza while Jakes popped a can of Budweiser beer. Pete scuffed at the salt-littered floor with his foot. “This shit is for the birds,” he grated.
“I agree,” Jakes said. He drained the last of his beer in one long swallow. He aligned his bottle alongside the other five in the center of the table. “I have here,” he said, opening his briefcase, “every article, every word, that has ever been written about the program. I have the address of the agency. We can take the shuttle to Washington tomorrow and from there rent a car and drive to Arlington, Virginia, and do some talking. I skimmed through most of it, and the one thing that sticks out in my mind is you can write a letter and the marshals will forward it to the person in the program, though since Maddie said she escaped . . .” Jakes shrugged and left the thought hanging.
Annie laid her pizza down on the paper plate in front of her. “I did some research today too. I called the library today and had the reference desk check out a few things. If I understood everything correctly, once you’re in the program, you’re in. You can, of course, leave, but the program can no longer protect you. To date, no one who is in the program has been harmed. Maddie must be in very grave danger for her to have been put in the program so quickly. Now . . . if she left, what does it mean? To me it’s the only thing that makes sense. She didn’t give you up, your wedding, or the store because she wanted to,” she said to Pete. “She gave it up because she was petrified and afraid she would be killed. Self-preservation is right up there a
t the top of the list. I don’t see that she had any choice. And from what you told me about Maddie, she wouldn’t have wanted to place you in danger either.”
“What she says makes sense,” Jakes said.
“Pete, you need to give some thought to something else. If Maddie was in the program, she was safe. Now ... it could be dangerous for her. As far as the librarian knew, no one has ever penetrated the program. The odds of you finding her on your own are about nil,” Annie said glumly.
“She’s right about that too. It’s all in there,” Jakes said as he pushed a stack of photocopied papers across the table to Pete. “By the way, what did the Attorney General have to say?”
“Nothing but bullshit,” Pete snarled.
“Whose turn is it to clean up?” Jakes asked.
“Not mine. I have the day’s receipts to go over, and I need to make a list of ... not mine,” Annie said, getting up from the table. Pete waved the printed matter Jakes had turned over to him.
“Guess that leaves me,” Jakes grumbled.
“Guess so,” Pete said, already devouring the articles Jakes had given him.
“Pete, I won’t be coming back tonight,” Jakes said. “If you need me to do anything else give me a call. Stay close and wait for Maddie to call.”
In the living room, in order to take advantage of the television and read at the same time, Annie sat on the opposite end of the sofa so she wouldn’t disturb Pete, who was poring through the material Jakes had given him, the portable phone on the middle cushion of the seat.
A Mickey Mouse calculator that she brought home from the store was in Annie’s lap. She punched in numbers, tried not to show emotion as the numbers mounted. Fairy Tales was indeed a gold mine. She set aside bank receipts and started on the one-of-a-kind merchandise she’d ordered. She mentally subtracted the running totals from the bank receipts. Merchandise was to be paid on delivery, even though the bills said payment due in thirty days. Maddie’s way of doing business. The day you took delivery, you paid, if the merchandise was up to par. She shrugged, set aside those bills.
Annie rummaged in her briefcase for a brochure a salesman had dropped off earlier in the day. His pitch had been professional, and she’d agreed to display his line of herbal teas in colorful tins. A straw basket with a lace-trimmed doily that draped over the side would look extremely attractive and in no way take away from the decor of the store. The line of flavored coffee was just as tantalizing, and she did love the smell of coffee. The salesman had left two of the decorative baskets, and by the end of the day she’d sold seven of the tins of tea and five tins of southern pecan coffee beans.
Now she was having second thoughts about the decision she’d made. Even though the money was kept separate, was it hers or was it Maddie’s? Should she tell Pete or keep the sideline to herself? Maybe splitting the profit with Fairy Tales would be more fair. Damn, now she was getting a headache and she could feel the tension start to mount between her shoulder blades. It was going to be a migraine, and there wasn’t anything she could do about it. Stress always brought them on.
Small, old-fashioned coffee grinders. The profit was outrageous. The salesman had left two of them, and when she had a break, she’d tried it out in the kitchen. The coffee was delicious, but it was the aroma that sold the grinders. She’d explained to the last customer of the day that she’d used the grinder once, and the woman said she didn’t care, just wrap it up. She immediately placed a call to the salesman and ordered a dozen, three-dozen tins of tea and a like amount of coffee. Damn, should she tell Pete?
The coffee and tea business wasn’t really what was bothering her. Pete’s insensitivity to her financial situation was starting to nag her. She needed to say something now before she let her feelings get out of hand. Maybe the headache would dissipate if she aired her unhappiness.
“Pete?”
“Hmm?”
“I need to talk to you about something.” She hated the look of annoyance on her friend’s face. She tried to bolster her courage when Pete finally met her gaze.
“Is something wrong?” The annoyance was in his voice too.
“Not really wrong, but there is something bothering me. When you asked me to come here, you said you would make it worth my while. My rent is due back in Boston. I have bills and insurance payments, my loans to make. I do have a savings account, but I promised myself I wouldn’t dip into it. I did buy two plane tickets on my charge card, and that bill is coming due too. I feel terrible asking you, with everything you have on your mind....” she finished lamely.
“My God, Annie, I’m sorry. You should have said something sooner. I did forget and I’m sorry. Is this what’s been bothering you?”
“Not really. I guess it’s the newness of everything and seeing you so uptight. Right now I feel a migraine coming on....”
“Don’t move, Annie, I’ll be right back.” Pete was as good as his word. He handed her a check for five thousand dollars. For some reason, she’d expected more; “worth your while” meant more. She didn’t try to hide her dismay.
Annie laid the check on the coffee table. “What does this cover?” she asked bluntly.
“Well . . . it covers your plane tickets, working at the store. You are managerial, and if you were a regular employee you’d be getting a commission. I guess it’s for running the store.”
“Well, for what time period?” Annie persisted.
“Jesus, I hadn’t thought about it, Annie. This is important to you and I screwed up. Did you have a figure in mind?”
How anxious he looks, Annie thought. “Well, I was making eighty thousand a year. Actually, we should have discussed this prior to my coming here. I hate diddling over money. We’re friends. It shouldn’t be like this.”
“No it shouldn’t, and you’re right, we should have discussed it. I took advantage of you and I’m sorry. Give me a number, Annie.”
“I was making eighty thousand a year. To me, the words ‘worth my while’ have to mean a great deal more than my salary. I wouldn’t have taken the job for less than $150,000. You don’t go down, you go up. We both know that. And there’s the sign-on bonus. I think you did take advantage of me. That’s why I’m getting this migraine headache. This check,” she said pointing to the blue rectangle on the coffee table, “should be a quarterly payment of around $28,250, and that counts for the extra month. You know, September, October, November, and December. I’m not even counting the sign-on bonus. If you want a number, then I think this check should be seventy thousand, and that includes the sign-on. If you have any trouble with the numbers, you should tell me now.”
“Hell no, Annie. If that’s what you want, then that’s what you’re going to get.” Pete ripped up the check on the coffee table and scrawled a second one. “Now will you smile? I miss that, you know. We’ve been like snarling cats this past week. Now, what else is bothering you, besides your headache? And I’m going to remedy that in a minute. If you remember, I’m the guy that gave you middle-of-the-night shoulder rubs while we were cramming for exams. You said I was the best shoulder rubber you ever met.”
“That’s true. And yes, something else is bothering me.” She told him about the coffee and tea. “How do you feel about me keeping the profits?”
“Jesus, Annie, like I really care. Do what you want. I’m leaving it up to you.”
“Then what I propose is to give Fairy Tales ten percent of the profits. Are you sure it’s okay?”
“Yes, it’s okay. Tell me now all this crap is behind us.”
“It’s behind us, Pete.”
“Good. Pin your hair up and I’ll do your neck and shoulders. Thirty minutes of bliss. If your headache goes away, will you do mine?” he asked wistfully.
“Your neck rubs always put me to sleep. That’s what makes the headache go away. I’ll get the quilt.”
Pete could see the pain in her eyes when she returned to the living room. He thanked God he’d never been cursed with migraine headaches. She’d changed from
her work clothes to a lightweight sweat suit. Her hair was piled on top of her head, giving him free access to her slender neck. He watched her spread the quilt and then lie down.
“You might as well give me a back rub too,” she said. “If I don’t fall asleep, you get one too. Deal?”
“Deal,” Pete said.
“Did you find anything in the material you were reading?” Annie mumbled as Pete’s fingers started their magic.
Pete spoke slowly, his voice a low monotone as he kneaded, rubbed, and massaged Annie’s shoulders and neck. He could feel the tension start to leave her body.
“Hmmm, that feels so good. More, more, more.”
Thirty minutes later Pete said, “I’m tired.”
“You’re whining, Pete,” Annie replied, rolling over.
She wanted it to happen, but hadn’t expected it ever would.
One minute they were friends who were antsy with one another, and now . . . this. She wanted to tear her gaze from him, but she couldn’t. She’d waited so long, hungered forever, it seemed, for this moment when Pete would look at her with . . . desire. She wouldn’t give up. A hundred reasons raced through her mind. All one hundred reasons were named Maddie Stern. She had to do something now before it was too late. If she didn’t, Pete wouldn’t be able to live with himself. Love meant putting the other person first.
Annie sat up and looked away. The simple head turn took every ounce of willpower she possessed.
“I had no idea it was so late,” she said. Lord, was that her voice sounding so normal, so nonchalant? Of course it was, she was the only female in the room. Her legs almost failed her when she got to her feet, but she managed to walk away. She called over her shoulder. “My headache’s gone. You give a good neck rub, Pete Sorenson.”
Then, blessedly, she was in the guest room with her back to the door, her hands fumbling for the lock. Her knees gave way and she slid to the floor. Tears spilled from her eyes.
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