In Like Flynn

by Dorien Kelly

  Annie turned sideways and examined herself in the mirror by her walk-in closet.

  “Not bad,” she murmured.

  If she could survive this evening’s cocktail party without fainting from hunger, she had it made. And if she did pass out, with luck Sasha would be at her side. Others among her co-workers would roll her inert body beneath a potted palm and rejoice. Being chairman’s pet was no more socially beneficial than it had been back in fifth grade when she’d been teacher’s pet. Still, it paid better than the teacher’s pet gig.

  Annie applied her makeup, crammed her cell phone and lipstick into a tiny excuse for a purse and hit the road. As she traveled toward the sunset, Ann Arbor proper gave way to suburb, which quickly thinned to farmland. The drive was familiar. As part of upper management, she’d been to the Washtenaw Open Hunt Club for company gatherings many times before.

  Annie hadn’t led a sheltered life. With professors for parents, she and her siblings had lived in Japan and traveled throughout Europe as extra baggage during their parents’ countless guest lecturer stints. Still, for all she had seen, something about the Hunt Club’s bizarre mock antebellum opulence always left her feeling edgy. And that was the last thing she wanted right now. She needed to be on, hot, dynamic…in sum, not your standard Annie.

  She pulled her car to the peak of the circular drive in front of the ersatz Tara’s broad steps. The valet opened her car door, and Annie exited as smoothly as she could, given the constrictor-grip of her dress. Once standing, she wriggled the garment to its intended level and ignored the valet’s grin. She ascended the stairs, did her best to shake off her case of the creeps, then readied to seize her future.

  Sasha stood just inside the open French doors to the ballroom. She handed Annie a glass of white wine. “It’s a decent chardonnay. Drink up so we can get another in before Gramps has the bar haul out the cheap stuff.”

  Annie wasn’t surprised at her friend’s party-down attitude, which was totally at odds with her appearance. Sasha was small, ivory-skinned, black-haired and incredibly slender—almost a pen-and-ink of a woman. Yet beneath that ascetic exterior lurked a metabolism in overdrive. As Donovan’s head of community relations, she recreated with more enthusiasm and slept less than anyone Annie had ever known. Annie was content to draft behind her like the second-place driver in a grand prix.

  “Here’s to good news,” Sasha said, raising her glass.

  They toasted each other, downed healthy swallows, then pinned on matching corporate smiles and made their way into the throng.

  Beneath the soft piano music, an undercurrent of anticipation hummed through the room. Then again, it might have been only in Annie’s head. She took another nervous sip of wine. The chilly liquid hit the bottom of her empty stomach.

  As she glanced around, she noticed that a screen had been set up at the far end of the room. On it flashed photographs of crumbling stone towers, towering gray cliffs and whitewashed cottages, all set in a green and rocky landscape. Photos from Hal Donovan’s vacation, no doubt. Annie frowned. Sure, Hal could be a little odd, but he’d never held his employees hostage for a travelogue before. She took another swallow of smooth chardonnay as insulation against any upcoming lectures on leprechauns.

  Hal stood nearly straight ahead, deep in conversation with Richard and Duane, two of his four sons involved in the family business, neither of whom looked happy. Of course, Donovans generally looked unhappy when in one another’s company. Not a whole lot of conversation took place. Mostly, Hal ordered his sons around, and they silently seethed with resentment, all of which made for some peachy management meetings.

  As though they sensed her watching, Richard and Duane shot stern looks her way. She told herself that it wasn’t about the franchise deal, that she shouldn’t overanalyze what she saw, but that was pretty much like telling herself that a chocolate bar didn’t help PMS. She gulped the rest of her wine and thought nothing of it when Sasha handed her another.

  One drink usually smoothed the edge off her nerves, but already Annie surfed a serious buzz. Food was necessary. While Sasha and she made nice to the guys on the corporate legal staff—who were people you didn’t want to cross—Annie tracked the progress of a scarlet-coated waiter headed in her direction. Whatever this guy was serving smelled like heaven, Annie-style—lots of garlic and butter. Ignoring the conversation buzzing around her, she willed him closer.

  Annie and the waiter made eye contact. Just two steps more, buddy, and you’re mine.

  As was the case with Annie and most guys, his attention strayed. He wandered to her left. She concentrated harder.

  This way. R-i-i-i-ght here.

  Time was seriously of the essence since his tray was nearly empty. She reached out a hand. Her mouth began to water. Just then, Sasha stepped in and took the last item.

  “Shrimp scampi,” she said to Annie over a full mouth. “Primo.”

  “Great.”

  The waiter retreated. Annie felt a tragic emptiness second only to her brief New Year’s try at a carb-free diet. Well, hell, at least she had her wine to tide her over.

  After another swig she said to Sasha, “I’ll be back. It’s time to stalk a waiter.”

  She was about to turn away when a rusty-with-hard-living-and-whiskey voice came over the sound system.

  “Glad you could all make it,” Hal Donovan said. Annie spotted the stocky older man at a podium near the grand piano.

  “Better hang on,” Sasha murmured, briefly closing her fingers around Annie’s wrist.

  Annie stilled. At least, that’s how it looked from the outside. Inside was another jangled, stressed reality altogether.

  “I’m sure some of you thought that I’d brought you here tonight so I could announce my retirement. A few of you were probably even praying for it,” he added with a disgruntled glance at his sons standing in a row. “Earlier this year, you might have been right. Then about a month ago, I had a visit from our vice president of long-range planning.”

  Sasha elbowed Annie. Had her glass not been nearly empty, she would have been wearing its contents.

  “This is it,” Sasha whispered.

  Annie noted in an abstract sort of way that the vice president of long-range planning had suddenly begun to feel a little dizzy. She focused on Hal, ignoring the daggers coming from nearby, where Rachel, her main competition at Donovan Enterprises, stood.

  “Annie’s enthusiasm was contagious. She urged me to look at our business in a new way…not to rest on past successes. As you all know, I’m not much for listening to anybody, but I’ve begun to think she has a point. It’s time for Donovan Enterprises to become vital…hungry…”

  Annie’s heart began to dance double-time. This wasn’t dizziness—she was giddy.

  “We’re going to expand…reach for new horizons…”

  She grabbed hold of Sasha’s hand and shot a lip curl toward Rachel, who was already sending Annie a pretty good one, too. For once, life was happening exactly as Annie had scripted it. Rachel was yesterday’s news.

  “Breathe!” Sasha hissed.

  “Donovan is a name that will soon be known…”

  Throughout Europe, Annie silently prompted, gripping tighter to Sasha.

  “…for its chain of Irish pubs across the country.”

  Holy crap. Somebody had seriously jacked with Hal’s copy of the script. The one breath that Annie had managed to draw slowly hissed out, leaving her deflated.

  Hal raised his whiskey glass and said, “To Annie Rutherford, for reminding me that there are still mountains to climb.”

  Close, but no big, fat, stinkin’ Hal-type cigar. She’d meant the Alps, not the Rockies.

  Sasha again planted her elbow in Annie’s ribs. “Raise your glass,” she ordered out of the side of her mouth. “Now.”

  Annie did. At least, she was pretty sure she did.

  “If she agrees,” Hal said, then gave a brief and-how-could-she-not? chuckle, “Annie will be spearheading this new venture. Let�
�s cheer her on!”

  On cue, the pianist began to play something that sounded vaguely Riverdanceish. Annie watched in utter, dry-mouthed disbelief as a bunch of kids in blindingly loud embroidered velvet dresses danced their way into the room.

  Sasha took her empty wineglass. “Let me get you a refill. You’re going to need it.”

  Sasha might as well bring a damn case of wine. While putting together her proposal, Annie had survived six months of no movies, no fun, no friends and definitely no dates worth mentioning, and what did she have to show for it? Zip. And Hal was about to gamble a whole lot of money—not to mention her career—that he could succeed in a corner of the industry that was notorious for making bankruptcy attorneys fat, happy and well paid.

  Annie shook hands and chatted with well-wishers and some clearly not-so well-wishers. Her face began to ache from her manufactured isn’t-life-wonderful? expression. She also had the eerie sensation that somebody other than she was making her lips move and platitudes come out. She hoped her responses sounded a whole lot more polite than “I’m so totally screwed,” which was reeling in her head. Her script had tanked, but a lot of these guys would kill for the opportunity she’d just been handed.

  Hal stopped by long enough to issue marching orders. “Meet me at the office tomorrow morning at eight. And smile, Annie. This is supposed to be fun.”

  Fun?

  She took it all back, every kind word, every charitable thought. Hal Donovan was quite possibly insane. But she also owed him her loyalty, which meant that on a Saturday morning when she intended to be vilely hungover, she would be there for him.

  She worked up a feeble smile. “Okay, Hal.”

  He laughed. “See if you can produce something a little more convincing before tomorrow.”

  And then he left her standing alone in a sea of people, none of whom, she was sure, could feel any more miserable than she. All was not lost, though. Her faithless waiter had reappeared. Annie took the offered cocktail fork and plate, then speared a bacon-wrapped scallop from the tray. The waiter readied to move on, but Annie had serious plans to blow out the seams of her sister’s cursed cocktail dress.

  “Settle in, Ned,” she said, reading the name on the guy’s black plastic name tag. “You and I aren’t going anywhere.”

  2

  IN AN IDEAL WORLD, a woman would never have to go to the office on a Saturday. Of course, in an ideal world, neither would she have ended Friday night depressed and overdressed at Fraser’s Pub—which, thank God, had nothing Irish about it. There, Annie had swilled beer to top off the two pounds of scallops and bacon she’d already inhaled.

  Sasha had humored her right up until the Jell-O shot challenge she’d issued to a women’s softball team. Annie had been certain she and Sasha could take them, but then again, she’d also been certain that today she’d be mapping out a franchise time line. Her judgment was clearly suspect.

  After taking Annie back to her car this morning, Sasha had followed her downtown to headquarters. She was now perched on Annie’s desk, trying to provide moral support and additional calories.

  “Come on, just one little bite,” Sasha wheedled, waving a doughnut under Annie’s nose. “It’s cream-filled.”

  Annie took the doughnut, sucked out the guts, then handed her friend the carcass. “Happy?”

  Sasha dropped it into the wastebasket beside Annie’s desk. “Now I am.”

  At least someone was.

  Annie settled forehead-down on her desk, her arms cradling her head. The wood felt cool and soothing—a scallop, beer and emotion overdose wasn’t easily overcome.

  “This isn’t like you,” Sasha said. “You need to get a grip. Just because Gramps is distracted doesn’t mean your proposal’s dead.”

  “I know.”

  “Then don’t take this so hard, okay? You’re making me want to cry.”

  “I’m not crying.”

  “Yeah, but you have been.”

  Annie turned her head just enough to peer at her friend out of one eye.

  “Only in the shower and that doesn’t count. It’s like eating over the sink.”

  Sasha frowned, obviously trying to work her way through Annie’s twisted logic. Annie was pleased for the distraction. She had never discussed her endgame—leaving the Donovan fold—with Sasha. It didn’t seem right to place her best friend in a position where she’d be pulled between competing loyalties.

  The phone rang. Annie sent one hand venturing for it, but then heard Sasha’s crisp voice saying, “Ms. Rtherford’s office. Oh, hi, Gramps. Sure, I’ll tell her you’re ready.”

  As Sasha hung up, Annie rose from her workplace version of the fetal position. Sasha stood, too, and gave her a brief hug, which seemed to draw at least some of the dejection from her bones.

  “I’d better get this over with,” she said.

  “Want me to stay?” Sasha offered.

  “Nah… I’m fine.”

  Sasha, smart girl that she was, took Annie at her word and walked her to the elevator. Annie pushed the up button and Sasha the Down, which felt ass-backward to Annie.

  Before she was ready, Annie was exiting at the top floor. At the end of the thickly carpeted reception area, the door to Hal’s office was open, yet not exactly accessible. Even on a Saturday, his secretary, Mrs. D’Onfrio, sat at her post, silver hair perfectly coiffed and guardian-of-the-nest expression sharply in place. Annie knew it was improbable that Mrs. D’Onfrio lacked a first name, but she’d also never met anyone who knew it. She’d never even heard Hal use it.

  “Good morning, Mrs. D.,” Annie offered.

  Mrs. D. looked her up and down from over the tops of her reading glasses, and then gave a rueful shake of her head. “You go on in. I’ll bring coffee.”

  Annie stepped inside. “Good morning, Hal.” He was dressed in riding garb, as if he was channeling Scarlett O’Hara’s dad. A brown-and-yellow houndstooth jacket was possibly not the best fashion statement on a man wider than he was tall, but who was she to comment?

  “Annie, take a look at these.”

  He rounded his desk and handed her a stack of photographs. Annie thumbed through them. Pub…pub…donkey in field…flowers…pub with old dude behind the bar…castle…pub…pub… Okay, she could see the genesis of Hal’s current fixation.

  When she was done checking out the snapshots, she looked up to find Mrs. D., who took the pics, handed Annie a mug of coffee with two teaspoons of sugar, exactly as Annie liked, then disappeared.

  “You’ve had a night to think about my offer,” Hal said, then eased his bulk into his worn leather chair. “What do you say?”

  She sat opposite him and cupped her mug in both hands. “I was pretty sure that no wasn’t an option.”

  “And if it were?”

  Annie sighed. How could she explain to the man that he was offering her up for career suicide? She knew nothing about the mechanics of restaurant start-ups. “I’m grateful for everything you’ve taught me. You’ve given me huge opportunities, and—”

  “I’ve given you opportunities because you’re smart. It was as much to my advantage as yours. And now I’m giving you something new to try. You’ve been in a rut, Annie, not at all yourself.”

  Annie couldn’t disagree. She’d been sleepless and stressed from trying to do her day job plus find time to work on her poor, dead franchise proposal, but that wasn’t her boss’s problem.

  “Hal, your idea is dangerous. Half of all restaurants fail within the first year, and very few ever hit the five-year mark. The odds get even worse when you pick a specialized niche like Irish pubs.”

  He grinned. “Lies, damn lies and statistics. I’m a gambler and I know what I’m doing. Look at the years of experience we have here at Donovan’s.”

  “The pizza business is different. Your restaurants get a boost off your carry-out business. There’s no synergy with a pub concept.”

  Hal snorted. “Synergy. That’s one hell of a word. Save it for a fancier audience, huh?”


  Annie took a diplomatic sip of her coffee. It didn’t sit well atop the doughnut guts.

  “Annie, I’m not doing this blind. I have a secret weapon. He’ll be at the airport in just a few hours.”

  The knot in her stomach grew tighter. “He?”

  Hal pulled a cigar from his mahogany desktop humidor. As he rolled it between his fingers, he said, “His name is Daniel Flynn. He’s been in the pub business for decades.”

  Great. Some old Irish coot.

  “You’ll like him…everybody does. I’ve hired him on a sixty-day consulting contract. He’ll give us the authentic touch those bullsh—those, uh, other places don’t have.”

  Like a drunk in every corner.

  Hal’s bark of laughter rang through the posh office. “Did you just roll your eyes, Annie Rutherford?”

  “No.” Something about the way he treated her seemed to bring out childish behavior, including this lie.

  “I know you wanted to run with the overseas idea, and once you’ve launched my pub chain, we’ll really hash it over.”

  That, at least, was a reprieve.

  “I’m not asking for a lifetime,” Hal continued. “Give me three months. And in those three months, I want action, Annie. I want the first pub here in Ann Arbor and I want it open in time for the start of football season.”

  If wanting to barf counted as action, she was seriously there. His schedule would have made sense if they’d begun six months earlier. Thanks to the tradition of University of Michigan football, on home game Saturdays Ann Arbor’s streets teemed with one hundred thousand additional people, all thirsty, hungry and out to have too good of a time. But it was already early June and they had no site or plan. In fact they had nothing but Hal’s faith-and-begorra fantasy. She was determined to be a one-woman intervention.

  “What about a liquor license?” she asked, thankfully aware that months might pass before one would be granted.

  “We’ll convert the State Street Donovan’s.”

  “What?” The central campus landmark had been his first sit-down restaurant and still ranked among the company’s best performers.