"Do you mean to tell me that there isn't another room in this place for you people to meet?" she asked in disbelief.
"Yes, ma'am, there is. But we've divided into groups—budgeting, marketing, production, and management, you see?" a wiry little man in his middle fifties told her.
"No. I'm sorry. I don't understand what that has to do with my office space."
"Well, the other committees are meeting in the other rooms, you see." The man could probably tell that this didn't mean much to Anne. "We're the smallest group, ma'am. Production. We thought you might not mind if we used one corner of this room. Well try not to disturb . . . what you're doin’.”
Anne looked around the large room, and except for the small table on the far side that she was using as her desk, the place was empty. How could she say no?
"All right. But don't anyone talk to me," she said, her pride making her sound self-inflated and immature. "I'm going to be very busy here."
The workers didn't talk to her, but they talked among themselves, and she repeatedly found herself listening to them.
Buck had told her the truth when he'd said that they weren't going into this project with their eyes closed. And it was beginning to sound as though they'd been thinking about taking this step for self-control long before Harriman decided to close them down.
Something in Anne was very pleased with the way they were thinking and making their plans. Things were discussed in slow, methodical steps— nothing rash or outrageous. She marveled at their knowledge of the textile industry, until it occurred to her to wonder who would know the textile industry better than textile workers?
That was on one hand. On the other, there was Buck. They were both very careful not to work later than four-thirty, which was when most of the other mill workers went home. They were very careful not to discuss the mill once they were alone together. And once they were alone together . . .
Well, Anne thought she'd discovered the meaning of the words pure unadulterated bliss. She truly couldn't recall being happier or more content. She felt wanted, desirable, and understood. They had long serious talks, they teased each other, they made love. Better yet, Buck became more than just a lover, he was her friend. She'd never had both in one person before, but she found that it made everything so much better.
Buck seemed to know things about her that could never be put into words. For instance he sensed that on the days she talked to Calvin Schwab it was best to leave her alone until she settled the turmoil the man stirred up in her. He knew that when she was calm again, she would come looking for him. He knew where to rub the kinks from her neck and where to touch to excite her the most. He felt her need to be loved madly and when she wanted to be cherished. There were many words exchanged between them, but there were also times when words weren't enough and when words weren't necessary.
Which reminded Anne of something else where the three conflicting emotions of pleasure, confusion, and pain came into play. This part of her life was as intangible as tomorrow, as oblique as right and wrong, and as formidable as pride and self-respect. They churned within her constantly, like bat wings and lizard tongues in a witch's caldron.
Anne may have thought she was as tough as nails when her plane landed in Kentucky. She may have thought that closing down a mill and putting thousands of people out of work was men's play when she'd rented the car and started driving toward Webster. But everything had changed for her since then.
With each passing day a layer of corporate blindness was removed from her eyes, and she saw the people of Webster, Kentucky, for who they really were: simple, hard-working people who asked for nothing more than to keep their homes and make a decent living. She felt sure that someone in authority would call them the backbone of America. And yet, there she was, Anne Hunnicut, in a position to break that back? Somehow, it just didn't seem right. She liked these people. They were a close-knit community of kind, generous men and women. She couldn't make her heart do what it had to do to destroy them.
Day after day she listened to the production committee toil over the question of which fabrics to specialize in. This was an important dilemma because the mill couldn't produce enough material for a large, varied market, but it could produce plenty of yardage for a small, specific one.
Eventually it became necessary for the marketing and the production committees to join forces, and, of course, the larger group needed the larger room—Anne's. Buck, who had been working with budgeting and management, joined the group to lend a hand.
"I was halfway hopin' something like this would crop up," he whispered to her under the pretext of saying a friendly good morning beside her desk. "Now we can see each other all day long."
"I'm Harriman's from eight to four-thirty," she whispered back, a strained smile on her lips, her gaze darting around the room to see if anyone was watching them.
"We've been through this before, Annie. There's no law in Kentucky against lookin' at a pretty woman." He grinned at her. "And you don't have to be so nervous. Everybody knows we're livin' together."
Anne gasped and looked mortified.
"Well, hell, Annie. Wha'dya think? This is a small town. And Bryce hasn't been home for days."
"Buck. What if Calvin or Harriman get wind of it?"
He was silent as a strange look crossed his face and then disappeared without a trace. "They won't get wind of it, Annie. It's none of their business."
That had hurt. She'd known instantly that she'd shamed Buck and sullied their relationship by fearing it would be discovered. But all she'd really been worried about was keeping her job. And that was puzzling. Because she hated her job. She hadn't been particularly fond of it in the first place. She'd stayed on with Harriman to prove a point. And now that point seemed superfluous when compared to what she had to do to accomplish it, which was close down the mill. It sure was a mess.
But that was only the half of it. Anne knew as well as she knew her own name that it would take only four small words from Buck to get her to quit her job flat. The words were: Stay. I love you. Not one of them was over five letters long.
It was crazy. It was foolhardy. It was irresponsible. It was very, very risky. But with all her heart, it was what she wanted.
The trouble was, Buck had never once said he loved her. And aside from that one morning when, in jest, he had suggested she stay in Kentucky, he never spoke of the future. How could she tell him she didn't want to go home, that she never wanted to see New York again? How could she tell him that she wanted to stay with him, where she was happy and safe and life made sense. How could she tell him that she needed him to point out the simple, important things in life for her, that she wanted him close to her always or that . . . she loved him.
Lord, she did love him. From the very first, she'd loved him. She knew that things like this never happened in real life, that she was cruising for a bruising, but she couldn't help herself. She was in love with Buck.
But if he didn't have any plans for her in his future, what then? Back to New York and Harriman, she decided. It was the only way she could save face. And there would be the pleasure of going back to the office and thumbing her nose at the men, showing them that Anne Hunnicut could do anything she set her mind to, except fix her own car. But would it be worth the anguish of having to live with what she'd done to the people of the town of Webster?
It was a week to the day when Anne's kettle of emotional chaos finally boiled over. She made a decision.
"May I get you a cup of coffee or a soda from the machine, Ms. Hunnicut?" Buck asked in an overloud and obvious voice as he came to stand beside her desk.
In a like manner, she replied, "Why, thank you, Mr. LaSalle. A soda would be nice."
As was their custom, she would offer to pay for the drink, and he would refuse her money. She would pretend to go back to work, and he would leave the room. She would wait until she could stand it no longer, and then she'd look up to see him standing in the hallway. Out of sight of the others in the room h
e would mouth the words, "Let's go home. I want you." Or he'd tap the imaginary watch on his wrist and silently say, "Thirty minutes and you're mine." On this particular day, it was "Wanna go fishin'?" and then that grin of his.
Anne's cheeks never failed to grow warm, and she'd want to giggle like a teenager. This particular day was no exception. Her heart danced a jig, her body quickened in anticipation, and she quickly looked down at the papers in front of her, trying to regain some control of herself.
"Who's gonna tell him?" someone in the group of employees was asking the others. The tone was deadly serious. Tell who what? Anne wanted to know as she tuned back in to their conversation. She hadn't missed much of the workers' strategy planning over the past few days. She knew they had whittled their production market down to four or five possibilities and that they had been debating over the best options. They had two good ones that she was mutely rooting for, but they hadn't yet voiced an opinion on her personal favorite, the one she would have chosen if it were up to her.
"Not me," another man said. "I don't think he's wrong. If we stick to a local distribution, we'll cut the cost of transportation, and that'll make up for our limited sales."
This was true, Anne concurred.
"But with a cutback on our overhead, we can cover the cost of shipping the stuff to New York and sell twice as much," someone else offered.
This was true but risky, she told them in her mind, as she shuffled through the papers on her desk, looking for a specific contract.
"Not one of these is gonna work," the first man said. "Harriman can get twice as much to all of 'em twice as fast and at half the cost. We don't stand a chance. It's time to fold."
No! No, don't fold, her brain called in disbelief and alarm. You can do it
"Buck thinks we still have a chance. I’ll stand by him."
Good for you.
"I can't waste any more time. I gotta start lookin' for a job. I got kids to feed."
"We all do," a woman agreed. "I'm just not sure what to do anymore. I want to believe Buck, but I'm scared."
That was understandable to Anne. She was scared too. But in her hands she held the solution to their problems: a long-term, multimillion-dollar government contract for the fire-retardant material that the Webster mill specialized in. It would be a good foundation to keep the company open with and to build on later. Add to that the likelihood of loyal, local trade, which Buck was sure of, and . . . anything was possible.
The question now was should she, could she betray Harriman Industries? If anyone ever found out, it would mean her job. If it was the last link needed for the employees to pull the chain on the closure, she'd have to go home in disgrace. She'd have to swallow her pride and admit that she hadn't been able to close the mill down. She debated with herself right down to the wire, but when all was said and done, could she live with herself for the rest of her life, knowing that she could have helped these people to save the mill but didn't?
There were definitely times when having three older brothers had proved to be convenient. Anne knew six different ways to make a paper airplane. The cover letter attached to the government contract was of crisp military paper and folded into a fine fighter jet at Anne's insistence.
Without batting an eye or giving it yet another thought, she checked her target area to make sure no one saw her, then she lifted the plane into the air and sent it sailing. It touched down on the table, a four-point landing, gliding smack into the center of the perplexed committee.
A hush fell over the room. Using only her peripheral vision, Anne stared at her desk while the employees turned to stare at her. Read it, she shouted at them, even though her lips never moved. Read it and please, please trust me.
One by one she saw them turn their heads to the paper airplane. One of them reached out and picked it up. Don't send it back to me. Read it. She heard the sound of paper unfolding and breathed a sigh of relief. With a sense of a job well done, she went back to reviewing the retirement and disability benefits she'd been working on.
She gave Buck a distracted, half-smile of thanks for the soda when he returned several minutes later. She didn't want him to know what she'd done. Too late, she figured that he'd find out anyway from the workers, but she didn't want it to look as if she wanted his appreciation. Because she didn't. What she'd done, she'd done for herself, to ease her own mind by doing what she felt was the right thing to do, not because of her feelings for Buck.
"Where'd this come from?" she heard him ask minutes later. "How come we haven't seen this before?"
Anne wasn't sure if the committee shrugged in unison or if they all turned to stare at her pointedly. She kept her nose pointed at her desk and hardly breathed until she heard Buck speak again.
"Well, let's find the rest of this contract and get busy on it," Buck said. "This’ll do it, but we've still got a lot of work ahead."
Someone left the room, and a few minutes later, Lily came to Anne looking for a particular file, one that contained a government contract for their flame-retardant fabric. Did Anne, by any chance, have it?
~*~
In all her life, Anne had never been so glad to see a Friday night roll around. All day long the committee members had gnawed and chewed on their government contract like sharks in a feeding frenzy. By the end of the day they all seemed well satisfied, but just watching them had worn Anne out.
She'd also done some very good work of her own. There were but a few final details left to take care of, and her job would be finished, she could go home. The thought was extremely depressing. And the only solution her weary, overworked mind had been able to come up with was going to sleep. It wanted to shut down and close out her disheveled thoughts and the mishmash of her emotions. Like a survival mechanism, it wanted to block out the war going on within her, until the crisis was over.
Buck, however, made even something as simple as sleep seem impossible.
"I can't believe you exist with only one TV channel," she said, her expression revealing that she thought it was almost uncivilized. Admittedly she was feeling a little testy and unsettled about everything in general, but she was accustomed to having a broader range of television entertainment to choose from than I Love Lucy reruns and static.
"I told you," he said, walking into the living room with a cola for her and a beer for him, "we don't pick up the other channels because the mountains interfere with the reception. And I'd have to sell Bryce to be able to afford runnin' cable clear around the mountain from town. Luckily, this is the station that has Monday-night football."
What more could you ask for, Anne wondered sarcastically, then asked, "What about movies? Why don't you buy a VCR?"
Buck frowned and shrugged. "If we rented movies and watched them all at home, where would we take our dates on Saturday night?" He paused to give his own question some consideration. "Bowlin', I suppose, but it's not nearly as . . . romantic. Know what I mean?"
Dear Lord. She hadn't even left town and he was already talking about the dates he'd be having with other women. Anne's heart sank into her stomach and throbbed so hard, it made her sick. "Yes. I know what you mean. I'm going to bed."
She stood and looked down at him. He was staring back at her, concern and speculation etched in his expression.
"What's the matter, Annie? I asked you to go to a movie with me earlier, but you wanted to stay in." A small, wistful smile crossed his lips. "I even tried to get you to turn in early—with me—but you wanted to watch TV. Now you want to go bed. But I have a feelin' you don't want me to come with you. Am I right?"
Anne shrugged one shoulder indecisively but didn't answer him. She could hardly look at him.
"What's the matter, Annie? What have I done?"
"Nothing. You haven't done anything and nothing's wrong." She could tell by the look in his eyes that he wasn't buying this. "It's been a long week, Buck. I'm just tired."
He seemed reluctant to accept this, too, but didn't push it.
"I heard somethin'
real interestin' today," he said. He was watching Lucy on TV, but his tone was baiting her to ask about it.
"What?" She never could pass up perfectly good bait.
"Liddy Evans was tellin' everybody at the mill how this nice lady from Philadelphia called and asked her a bunch of questions about her middle boy, Teddy. The one that has diabetes?"
"Yes."
"Well, I guess this lady said that she thought little Teddy was eligible for some special funding from the Diabetes Foundation. Liddy was pretty excited."
"That's wonderful. I'm glad for them both."
"You want to hear the interestin' part?" he asked, turning to look at her.
"No." She turned and took the first step up the stairs. She could feel him watching her and couldn't stop the warm, self-conscious flush that crept into her cheeks. This just wasn't her day.
"The woman from the foundation was named Grace Hunnicut.
"Dammit all to hell," Anne muttered under her breath, her shoulders sagging fatalistically. Aunt Gracie had promised to have someone else call so that there would be no link to Anne. Now the cat was out of the bag.
"You're gettin' quite a reputation down at the mill, you know, Annie. First the government contract and now this. People are startin' to think you're pretty terrific for a Yankee-type management person."
She sighed. "They told you about the contract." It was a statement not a question. Anne always hated this part about doing something nice for someone. She wasn't sure why, but it embarrassed her to death to have someone thank her for something she thought to be basic and human. But they invariably felt it had to be done. "My aunt wasn't supposed to reveal herself," she said in a soft voice.
Buck got up and walked across the room to her.
"Why do you feel so badly that I know the truth about you? Huh?" He bent to look into her face. "Is it so hard to have people knowin' that you're not as tough as you let on to be?"
Lovin' a Good Ol' Boy Page 12