Annie's Answer

by Hanson, Pam Andrews

  “That’s so sad,” Annie said. “It must be a way of hanging onto her past.”

  “I guess,” Nathan said, walking over and sitting on one of the lower steps. “Since she doesn’t have children, I guess I’ll have to deal with her hoard some day. My father doesn’t have the patience and my mother—let’s just say sorting and cleaning isn’t her thing.”

  “My grandfather mostly hangs onto books. He built floor-to-ceiling bookcases in his bedroom and sitting room. I think he intends to leave his collection to the church, but meanwhile he spends a lot of time organizing and cataloguing them. Guess you could call it his hobby.”

  “Come sit down,” Nathan said, patting the step beside him. “I take it you’ve already worked your shift at the pancake place.”

  “Yes, on Saturday I work in the morning. It gives me time off from noon now until Monday evening.”

  “And what do you do with your free time?” Nathan asked, sounding more interested than patronizing.

  “Volunteer at the church, sell ads for the newspaper. Today I promised my mother to go shopping with her. She loves to browse at the mall.”

  “And you don’t?” He raised one eyebrow and gestured at the space on the step beside him. “Sit.”

  Was he ordering her to sit? She slowly walked to the stairs and took her time about finding space beside him. The step was wide, but she made sure there was space between them by pressing her side against the banister.

  “There’s nothing much I need.” In fact, her wardrobe was in tatters, and she hadn’t bought a really nice dress since her senior prom. Nathan didn’t need to know that. “Should I go help your aunt find her watch?”

  “No, she’s pretty touchy about anyone touching her stuff. I had a hard time convincing her to let the cleaning crew vacuum and clean her bathroom.”

  Annie couldn’t help smiling. “My grandfather is that way about his books. Mom started dusting them once. It was the only time they had an argument.”

  “Tell me about your flower shop,” he said, abruptly changing the subject.

  “It’s not mine yet.”

  “But you have hopes?”

  “If I can get together the down payment by Labor Day, the Polks will sell their shop to me and carry the financing.”

  “And if you can’t?” He was starting to sound like an attorney.

  “No sale.” She didn’t want to talk about it, not with a man who’d been blessed with wealth and a lucrative career. How could he possibly understand what a struggle it was when there was never quite enough money?

  “I see.”

  He said the words, but she doubted he had a clue. Anyway, it didn’t matter. As long as she could hold onto the job as Mattie’s companion, the flower shop was as good as hers.

  “Maybe I could get her battery another time,” she suggested, glancing at her own watch. “My mother will be getting antsy.”

  “I’ll see what’s holding her up,” Nathan said, standing and towering over her as she sat.

  “Nothing is holding me up,” Mattie snapped as she swung along on the crutches.

  She pulled a velvet box out of a pocket sewn into the side of her dress and held it out for Annie.

  “If it’s something more than a battery, you can leave it at the jewelry store to be cleaned and repaired. Nathan can always run over and get it for me. And this should be enough for the battery. If there’s any change, you can treat your mother to lunch.”

  “It’s too much,” Annie said, her jaw dropping when Mattie handed her a hundred dollar bill.

  “Nonsense, old Ben Franklin needs to get out of my purse. They should make dollar bills washable, as filthy as they get going through who knows how many hands.”

  Nathan laughed, but Annie didn’t know how to react. She’d never met anyone who wanted to get rid of a big bill because it was dirty. Of course, Mattie was no doubt making it easier for her to accept it, but she didn’t want charity from anyone in the Sawyer family.

  “Take it.” Mattie had already established who was boss, so Annie reluctantly tucked it into her uniform pocket along with the box. She was going to get change, like it or not.

  “I have to get going,” she said. “Mom is waiting.”

  “I’ll walk you to your car,” Nathan said.

  Annie wanted to tell him she could get there on her own, but that was no way to keep a badly needed job. She thanked Mattie and said good-bye, moving toward the door so quickly Nathan had to hustle to keep up.

  “I didn’t come here so your aunt would tip me for running an errand,” she said, reaching her door handle before he could open it.

  “I know that,” he said. “Please, indulge her. You’re doing it for me, not her. My schedule is so full the next few weeks, I can’t possibly spend much time with her. I think you know how it is to have more work than hours to do it.”

  “I’ll do my best,” she said, sliding behind the wheel and turning the key.

  The VW was uncooperative—no surprise—but on the fourth try the motor sputtered to life. Nathan was still holding the door open, and she knew he was about to offer to look under the hood. Her car was so old it still had the motor in the back, and only one mechanic in town could coax it into performing anymore. She said a prayer of thanks that she wouldn’t be stuck there with Nathan fiddling with the motor.

  “This is a classic,” he said, still holding open the scratched and dented dull blue door.

  “That’s one thing you can call it,” she said, signaling she wanted to leave by pulling on the inside handle.

  “Thanks again for taking my aunt’s watch. There’s nothing she loves more than giving people assignments. Has she told you she taught elementary school before she was married? Of course, that was a long time ago, but sometimes she still sounds like she’s talking to little kids.”

  “My mom is waiting for me,” Annie said, foot on the gas to keep the motor from stalling.

  “Have a nice time,” Nathan said, backing away so she could close the door.

  She didn’t tell him her idea of a good time was a nice warm shower and a long nap. There was nothing like a dose of irritation to nip romantic notions in the bud.

  As she drove away, she saw him in her slightly off-kilter driver’s side mirror. Why was he watching her leave? Did he think her car would conk out for good in his circular drive?

  Much to her surprise, he waved. She pressed down on her tinny-sounding horn, hoping it startled him as much as it did pedestrians who tried to cross in front of her when her car was stuttering.

  “I must have scrambled eggs for brains,” she said to herself when she was well away from the mansion. Going to see Mattie had been a fiasco. Her pride wouldn’t let the Sawyers patronize her, but the more she saw Nathan, the more firmly he was lodged in her consciousness.

  Labor Day was ten weeks away. How was she going to avoid him when she needed his job so badly? More importantly, did she really want to?

  Chapter 7

  Nathan stared at Annie’s ancient VW until it was out of sight. He hated the thought of it breaking down on her. Of course, it was none of his business.

  Returning to the job of polishing his car, he smiled to himself. Surprisingly she was cute in her uniform from the pancake house, even when it was rumpled from a hard morning’s work. He still couldn’t believe he’d sat in church countless times without noticing her.

  “Nathan!”

  He turned reluctantly but couldn’t ignore his aunt’s high-volume call. On the farm she’d often summoned Uncle Tom in the same tone, her voice carrying across their acres.

  Walking toward her, he saw she was carrying something small, waving it at him as she balanced on her crutches just outside the front door.

  “I wanted to give this to Annie,” she said, showing him a small plastic bag with a ring inside. “I haven’t had my engagement ring cleaned or the setting checked in ages. I thought she could take it to the jeweler’s along with my watch.”

  “Sorry, you’re too la
te. She’s already left,” he said.

  “I can see that,” Aunt Mattie said a bit impatiently. “I thought you could go after her. As long as she’s going to a mall anyway, she might as well take my ring.”

  “Aunt Mattie, I’m in the middle of cleaning my car. Can’t it wait until another time?”

  “At my age, you have to get things done when you think of them,” she said in a matter-of-fact voice. “How long would it take to run it over to her house? She can’t have left yet.”

  He groaned inwardly, afraid this was how the whole weekend would go: Aunt Mattie thinking of things for him to do when he badly wanted to escape to his office and catch up on some work.

  “Tell you what,” he said. “Let me finish the car, and I’ll run your ring over to the mall myself.”

  “What about lunch? I’ve made egg salad for sandwiches. I always put in a touch of mustard. Gives them a little—what’s that new word when you liven things up a bit?”

  Nathan shook his head.

  “Bling! That’s it.”

  “I’m not hungry yet,” he said, trying to think of a way to avoid his least favorite food in the world.

  If Aunt Mattie’s egg salad was as bad as his mother’s, he’d rather skip eating. When his parents sent him to a private school at age twelve, he was probably the only kid there who thought the cafeteria food was a big improvement over home cooking.

  “I can pick up something in the food court,” he said hopefully. “And if you don’t mind, I’ll stop at the office on my way back. Work has piled up since Dad left on his vacation.”

  “I guess that would be okay.” Mattie sounded mildly disappointed, but he knew he couldn’t keep her entertained all day.

  He toyed with the idea of asking Annie to come on Saturday too. If she was willing to give up her pancake job, he could more than make it worthwhile. But no, she’d have her hands full being with Mattie on weekdays. He couldn’t impose on her by asking more.

  “Leave your ring on the foyer table, Aunt Mattie. I’ll head to the mall as soon as I finish the car and clean up. Do you need help with your lunch?”

  “I certainly do not,” she informed him, executing a fancy turn on her crutches and going back inside.

  He’d intended to polish the car and clean the inside, but he settled for wiping it dry. Now that he knew he had to go to the mall, he was eager to do it. He told himself it had nothing to do with the possibility of seeing Annie there, but she was on his mind while he finished up and hurriedly showered and dressed.

  “I’m leaving now,” he said when he found his aunt at the kitchen table.

  “I may take a little nap this afternoon,” she said. “So don’t hurry home. Spend as much time at the mall as you like. No need to wake me when you get back.”

  He frowned, wondering what his great aunt was up to. She thought naps were signs of laziness, and no one could ever accuse her of slacking off in the middle of the afternoon. And why worry about cleaning a ring she’d been wearing since long before he was born?

  If he had her on the witness stand in court, he’d ask whether she was trying to play matchmaker between him and Annie. But since she was his aunt, not a hostile witness, he kissed her forehead and hurried out of the house.

  If there was one thing he didn’t need, it was a matchmaking female in his life. He’d finally convinced his mother to stop inviting her friends’ daughters to visit. Linda Sawyer had an eye for beauty but no idea whatsoever about the things her son admired in a woman: kindness, consideration, creativity, independence, and a deep faith she would pass on to any children they might have.

  Was he asking too much? At least he’d finally convinced his mother to halt the parade of beautiful but brittle and shallow candidates for his attention.

  As he drove, he wondered whether he would see Annie. It was a modest-sized mall, but he didn’t know when she planned to be there. More importantly, why was he hoping he would bump into her?

  He tried to concentrate on a problem that had come up in the embezzlement trial, but he kept envisioning Annie inside that wretched little car. Hopefully she never took it out on the highway.

  “You haven’t said much about your latest job,” Laura said as she parked her car in space at the mall. “What exactly do you do?”

  Annie roused herself from the catnap she’d taken while her mother drove. “Whatever Nathan’s great aunt wants me to.”

  “I feel bad you’re at the beck and call of an old woman,” her mother said, undoing her seat belt. “Maybe if I took out a second mortgage….”

  “Absolutely not,” Annie said. It was an old argument, but her mother still felt bad because she couldn’t help. Annie had to remind her mother from time to time that the last of her husband’s insurance money had gone to pay Annie’s tuition at the community college. “Now what would you like to do first?”

  “Oh, lunch, I think. I’ve been looking forward to getting out. What was it I had last time we were here?”

  Annie was too tired to remember what she’d had for breakfast—whoops, she hadn’t had breakfast. No wonder she was running on low.

  “Was it sweet and sour chicken?” she asked, wondering if one of the places in the food court still served breakfast. On second thought, it would distress her mother if she knew Annie had slept too late that morning to eat before work.

  The small town mall was busy but not overly crowded. Annie spotted several open tables in the food court, and her mother hurried to put her straw hat on one of them to reserve it. It was pleasant to be able to choose what kind of food she wanted while her mother stood in the short line for a Chinese lunch.

  Annie soon had a large lemonade in one hand and a paper-wrapped sub in the other, but she was so focused on locating the table with her mother’s hat, she nearly collided with a man who got in her way.

  “Annie!”

  She looked up at the person she’d least expected to see.

  “Nathan, what are you doing here?” She knew it was none of her business as soon as the words were out of her mouth.

  “Aunt Mattie,” he said, as though that explained his presence.

  “Did she change her mind about the watch?”

  “No, she remembered her ring needs cleaning. It was easier to bring it myself than to convince her to wait until another time.” He looked a bit sheepish.

  “You’re awfully good to her,” Annie said.

  “My only living grandparents retired to Hawaii when I was still a kid, so she sort of filled a gap in my life. I spent time on her farm every summer until I was twelve.”

  “Why stop then?” she asked.

  “My parents sent me to a private school in Maryland. After that my vacation time seemed to fill up with other things.”

  “I’m about to have lunch with my mother. Would you like to sit with us?” She wasn’t sure she should invite an employer to join her, especially since she could feel her mother’s curiosity radiating across the food court, but the invitation slipped out of her mouth before she thought it over.

  “Thanks, I’d like that,” he said, surprising her with his enthusiasm. “Let me grab a hot pretzel, and I’ll join you.”

  When he came to the table, he emptied a sack with not one but three freshly baked pretzels. “I didn’t know what you might like, so I got cinnamon sugar, parmesan ,and plain with honey walnut cream cheese dip.”

  “You really didn’t need to,” Annie said, a bit flustered by his contribution to their lunch. “Nathan, this is my mother, Laura Williams.”

  “I’ve seen you at church,” her mother said, “but it’s nice to be formally introduced.”

  Her appetite waned as Nathan and her mom made small talk. She’d had boyfriends who didn’t put this much effort into charming her mother.

  “Your daughter is a lifesaver,” he said. “I don’t know how I’d get through the summer with my aunt without her help.”

  “She’s always been a hard worker,” her mother said, beaming at Nathan.

 
I’m right here, she wanted to remind them. Don’t talk about me as I weren’t.

  In the interest of not fainting, Annie managed to finish half of her sub. She was embarrassed when her mother rewrapped the other half and accepted Nathan’s leftover pretzels, putting the remains of the lunch in his paper bag to take home with her. Did he think they were so hard up they needed food contributions?

  “I’m going to the jewelry store now,” she announced, standing to leave.

  “I’ll pick up the book your grandfather ordered and meet you back here,” her mother said. “There’s no hurry. I’ll probably browse a while.”

  As often as she’d been to the mall, she had a moment of confusion, forgetting whether to go right or left. Her sense of direction was never very good, and the cozy conversation between her mother and Nathan had thrown her off balance. He was an employer, not a personal friend. She didn’t want to forget that.

  “I think the jewelry store is this way,” he said, coming up beside her and gesturing at sporting goods store on the left.

  Biting back a response, she fell into step beside him. The sooner she completed Mattie’s request, the sooner she could go home.

  The jewelry store was empty except for a bored looking middle-aged man standing behind the counter, staring out at the people passing by. He perked up when Annie and Nathan come up to him.

  “How can I help you folks today?” he asked, adjusting the lime green bow tie he was wearing with a pale blue dress shirt and a gray plaid jacket.

  Taking out Mattie’s box, Annie showed him the watch. “I’d like a new battery for this.”

  “Did you buy it here?” he asked with an expectant smile.

  “No, I’m bringing it here for a friend,” Annie said.

  “I’m sorry,” he said, his smile fading. “We only install new batteries in watches we sell.”

  “Why is that?” Nathan asked.