by Sheila Walsh
“My suggestion”—Ann stopped herself from the retort she really wanted to give—“is to combine Swiss pear cabinetry with anodized aluminum. The horizontal lines of the long-grain forms could work well. Natural quartz countertops would make a nice juxtaposition.”
He smiled broadly, then turned to Margaret. “I’m not one to lead from a distance. I like looking at all these things and keeping my fingers in the pie, so to speak. But . . . I think with Ann here, I might be able to relax a little. She’s been simply amazing so far.”
Margaret nodded. “I told you she wouldn’t disappoint you.”
“I sure hope she doesn’t.” He winked at Ann, then pulled a piece of paper out of his coat pocket and handed it to Margaret. “I took the liberty of writing down some of the model numbers of the pieces at Blazes I particularly like. Would you do me a favor and call them up, make certain that those pieces will be available? I like to know exactly what I’m getting into when I sign with a new partner.”
“Of course. I’ll give them a call this afternoon.”
“I really hate to ask, but would you mind calling now? Just so we know?” He looked from Margaret to Ann and back to Margaret, his expression so painstakingly embarrassed that Ann knew it was an act. “In fact, I’d really like it if we could go ahead and get some of the major pieces in stock. I’m a visual person. I like to see what I’ve got to work with.”
He nodded toward Ann and smiled. “Don’t worry about leaving me alone to make the call; with Ann here I’m sure I’ll be in the best of hands.” Once again Ann reminded herself that she needed to proceed with extreme caution where he was concerned. Proceed, definitely—but with both eyes open.
“Of course. I’ll call right now.” Margaret pulled her phone from her purse and walked to the far end of the aisle.
Patrick put his hand on Ann’s elbow to lead her forward. “So, I’m thinking maybe next week we might take in a show and some dinner? Maybe a weekend in the Hamptons in the near future? You’ve been working so hard lately, and I don’t want you to burn out and quit on me. I want to see you get out and have some fun.”
“Oh, I have plenty of fun; don’t you worry. I am looking forward to spending more time with you; it’s just that I’m leaving the last part of next week and heading back to Charleston for the weekend.” Another surprise Charleston trip planned spur of the moment, thanks to Patrick Stinson.
“With all these trips to Charleston, I’m starting to feel a little neglected.”
Ann shrugged. “Taking care of business.”
“What if I meet you down there for the weekend? I think the Spoleto Festival is still going; we could take in a concert. Even though my mother retired there a couple decades ago, I’ve never really spent much time there. You could show me around like a real native, hmm?”
Ann could picture the scene if Patrick Stinson showed up when Tammy and Keith were around. The thought made her want to laugh and cry at the same time. “I’m doing a lot of manual labor while I’m there. I really don’t have time for fun, and I wouldn’t make a very good tour guide because I haven’t done much around Charleston for a long time.” Except for Angel Oak, and she wouldn’t take him there. It was special.
“If I didn’t know better, I’d say you were trying to avoid me, Ann Fletcher. It’s a good thing I know better, because I don’t like to work with people who avoid me.”
Proceed, but with caution. She smiled up at him. “I must say, Mr. Stinson, I am surprised by just how sensitive your feelings are. Who would have guessed as much, underneath that tough business exterior?” She said it in what she knew was, quite frankly, a flirtatious tone.
He smiled and took a step closer to her. “I think you’re bringing out a whole new side in me.”
“Well, I’ll just have to try and see if I can avoid that in the future, now, won’t I?” She kept her tone light and teasing, although it didn’t quite feel that way.
“Okay, I’m back. I talked to the manager, and he assures me we can have all the pieces by the end of next week.” Margaret walked up between the two of them, oblivious to the undertones of the encounter. Or . . . perhaps not.
“I’m so happy to be working with a company that knows how to come through. So you submitted the order?”
“Yes, I did.” Margaret’s fingers were twitching against the clipboard. “Have I shown you our light fixtures yet? They’re right this way.”
“I can’t wait to see them.” The expression on his face was a bit too smug to just be about getting the furniture he wanted. His iPhone vibrated in his pocket. He looked at the caller ID. “Excuse me. I need to take this one.”
As soon as he was at a safe distance and engrossed in his call, Ann whispered to Margaret, “How much?”
“Two hundred twenty thousand. Nonrefundable.”
“Two hundred twenty thousand?” Ann tried not to screech but wasn’t certain she succeeded. “Is there any possible way we can afford that?”
Margaret looked at her face, hard. “Just make certain you don’t do anything to mess up this contract. If you do . . . well, Beka will see lots of familiar faces in the unemployment line, because each and every one of us will be joining her.”
That furniture would never pay for itself. Especially if Ann went to work for Patrick Stinson, effectively taking away their most high-end client. “Margaret—”
“Shh. Here he comes.”
Patrick Stinson sashayed up beside them, smiling broadly. “Now, ladies, where were we? Lunch maybe?”
Chapter 26
The aisles of the market were crowded with exhausted, overwhelmed, and downright cranky people. People like Ann.
“Watch your kid,” a heavyset, balding man snapped as a toddler ran in front of him.
The mother, thin, pale, and sickly looking, didn’t acknowledge the comment at all. She grabbed her son’s chubby hand a split second before he reached the bag of M&M’s he’d been aiming for. “Jonah, stay with Mama.”
It seemed to have been a long and hard day for everyone. Ann selected only the things that were absolutely necessary to get her through the week. She wanted to get out of here as soon as possible.
When she got to the aisle that displayed the peanut butter jars, she thought about the homeless man. Why it made her think of him, she wasn’t sure. Perhaps it was because she’d heard once that peanut butter or granola bars made good things to give to the homeless, something about high protein and portability.
On impulse, she bought a couple of small jars of creamy, a box of honey-oat granola bars, and a pack of brown paper lunch sacks.
After she’d paid, and before she made her way out of the store, she stopped to load up one of the lunch sacks. She put in one jar of peanut butter and two granola bars, then placed it at the top of her grocery bag, just in case she saw him on the way home. And she was planning to be on the lookout. She wanted some answers, some logical answers. Maybe if she could find out the name of that song, prove that it was just an ordinary song, then she could forget about all this craziness. Surely a man who was homeless on the streets of New York would not spout nonsense about angels.
As she approached her building, she could see a figure in the shadows, leaning against the wall. She couldn’t tell if it was him or not, but she took a deep breath and moved forward. She could feel her heart starting to pound as she got close enough to see him clearly. Except . . . it wasn’t him. In fact, it wasn’t even a man; it was a disheveled woman, a brown bag in her hand wrapped around a bottle of some sort. “What do you want?” she asked.
“I . . . Sorry, I thought you were someone else.”
“Baby, I’m sure you did.” The woman sort of laughed as she took a sip from the bottle.
A thought flashed through Ann’s mind of her mother, always needing the next drink in spite of what it cost her. For the first time in a long time, the picture stirred a hint of compassion. “I just went to the store. Would you like something to eat?”
The woman looked at the sack i
n Ann’s hand, then reached forward and snatched it. “Thanks.” She peered inside. “How’m I s’posed to eat that peanut butter? With my hands?”
Now Ann remembered why she didn’t do things like this very often. “You’ll just have to figure that out by yourself . . . And by the way, you’re welcome.”
The woman laughed. “You got a ’tude, don’t you?” She put the bag under her arm and pulled her body to an upright position. “He was right about you. You are changing,” she said as she began to shuffle away.
“Who was right?” Ann said, her anger dissolving.
“Uri,” the woman said over her shoulder.
“Who’s Uri?”
The woman kept walking.
“Who’s Uri?” Several people on the street turned toward Ann after she’d shouted the question, but the woman just kept walking. Ann shook her head in frustration. It was stupid really. What exactly had she been hoping to find out? How much more ridiculous was she going to become before she simply let this go?
She walked into the lobby, ready to escape to the sanctuary of her apartment. Just before the door closed behind her, she thought she heard a familiar male voice say, “Yep, you sure are changing.” She jerked around and stuck her head outside the door, looking for him.
He was nowhere in sight.
Chapter 27
Everything about Sarah’s house felt wrong. The beige countertop stood stark and empty—not overflowing with the usual fruit and flowers, textbooks and cookie crumbs. The sound of laughter had been replaced by the hollow ringing of the hammer.
It also just felt strange to Tammy, being in Sarah’s house—Annie’s house—while neither of them was home. But Ethan seemed so at home here, and Keith had insisted that they come over and help. So she ignored the uneasiness and went back to work with the broom. “You sure do know how to make a mess.”
Ethan laughed. “Tearing out the old, icky stuff is hard, it’s messy—ouch!” He dropped the hammer from his right hand and shook his left. “Ouch!” He danced around for a minute before regaining his composure, picking up the hammer and nail again, then looked at her straight-faced. “And at times it’s downright painful. But you’ve got to be willing to go through the process if you really want to see a true change. Anything less is just a cover-up.”
“You talking building now, or theology?”
He shrugged and grinned. “Both, I guess. I was thinking about Ann, really, like I do all the time. She’s got so much hurt bottled up inside her. I wish she’d deal with it, instead of just pretending it doesn’t exist.”
“I know what you mean.”
“Me too.” Keith looked up from his current drawing. “Ray Meal knows too.”
“Who?” Tammy and Ethan asked the question at the same time.
“He’s an angel. He wants to help her.”
Tammy looked at Ethan and motioned toward the outside with her head. “Hey, Ethan, you want to help me carry some of this stuff out to the trash can?”
“Sure.”
They both picked up enough trash bags to look believable, then walked outside and far enough from the house so they could whisper without being overheard. “Ethan, I’m scared. You know he’s always talked about seeing angels, but lately he’s getting more and more insistent about them, talking about them all the time. You heard him—he just called one by some name. I’m afraid his mind is starting to slip.”
Ethan shook his head. “Nope. That kid has always been so much more spiritually aware than the rest of us. I’ve always believed that. It just seems logical to me that right now, with the heartbreak of losing Sarah, they would be that much more a part of his life.”
“I guess you’re right.”
“I always am.” He kissed her lightly on the forehead.
“Yeah, right.” Tammy put her arm around his waist and walked back inside. Keith was drawing intently on his paper, but his eyes looked tired. “Come on, Keith, we’ve got to get you to bed, young man.”
“Okay. Bye, Ethan.”
“Bye, buddy, see you tomorrow.”
Later that night, with Keith tucked securely in bed, Tammy went to the sewing room and picked up the smallest of six identical blue strapless gowns. A bunch of giggling bridesmaids would be in tomorrow morning, each expecting her dress to fit perfectly. So much to do before then. Why had she let Keith talk her into going over to help Ethan instead of staying home and working on these? This was going to take hours, and all she wanted to do was collapse into bed.
The phone jangled from atop the workbench. “Hello.”
“It’s Ethan. Hey, I was thinking about what Keith said, and what you said, and what I said, and I just couldn’t quit thinking about it, so I did a little checking. Guess what I found?”
“What?”
“The name Ray Meal, that Keith called his angel? It sounds a lot like Rahmiel. Right?”
“Yeah.”
“And I was thinking about the names of angels we know from the Bible. There’s Michael and Gabriel. The name Rahmiel sounds similar, doesn’t it?”
“Yeah, I guess so.” She tried to stifle a yawn.
“Do you know what ‘Rahmiel’ means?”
“No, but I’m sure you’re about to tell me.”
“’Course I am. That’s why I called. I looked it up. It’s Hebrew, and in English it means ‘God is love and mercy.’ Now, doesn’t that just sound like the kind of angel God would be sending around to both Keith and Ann right now? I can’t think of anything better. Can you?”
“No. No, I can’t.” So this was why she needed to go help Ethan tonight. God had known that she needed to hear this. Tammy hung up the phone with tears in her eyes and with that indefinable feeling of being completely loved pumping through her heart. “Thank You, Father.”
Chapter 28
As the sun retracted the last blush of evening, the Charleston suburbs took on their own glow. The humidity in the air was so thick that a slight haze hovered around the streetlamps and floated outside the well-lit windows. As Ann pulled into Sarah’s driveway, she cast a glance toward Tammy’s house.
The lights were on in the living room and the kitchen, but the rest of the house was dark. Then, somehow, Ann was walking across the lawn, pulled toward the kitchen door by a force she couldn’t seem to control. She knocked on the back door softly, not sure whether she hoped someone would hear her or not.
The curtains at the back door fluttered for a split second; then the door jerked open. “Oh, Ann, it’s so good to see you.” Tammy threw her arms around Ann and hugged tight. “Things just aren’t the same around here when you’re gone.”
Ann pulled away as soon as she thought it wouldn’t hurt Tammy’s feelings. “Well, I just thought I’d say hello to you and Keith.”
“He’ll be so excited when he wakes up in the morning and finds out you’re here. You have no idea how much he misses you when you’re gone.” She smiled then. “Well, I guess you have some idea, given the volume of mail you receive from him on a weekly basis.”
Ann thought about the stack of papers in her bedside table drawer. “He’s in bed already? Must have had a big day.”
“Every day is a big day for Keith. He doesn’t do the other kind.” Tammy sighed as she said it, but they both laughed.
“Okay, well, I just wanted to let you know I’m back. I didn’t want you to see lights on over there and wonder if there was a burglar about or anything.” Ann was already backing off the porch by the time she finished the sentence.
“There’ve been lights on over there most nights anyway. Ethan’s been about working himself to death, I think.”
Ann stopped walking. “Ethan?”
“Yeah, he brought his whole crew over a couple days, and let me tell you, there was some carrying on then. You know, the day when they were knocking that wall out. Keith, of course, thought it was the greatest thing ever.”
Ann glanced toward her house. How had she not noticed a moved wall at the side door when she pulled into the dr
iveway? It was getting dark outside, but it wasn’t that dark. “They what?”
“You know, the wall in the kitchen. He said y’all had talked about it.”
Yeah, they’d talked about it. Once. Several weeks ago. But Ann certainly never expected him to take it upon himself to do this, and without even bothering to talk to her about it. Still, she didn’t want to drag Tammy into the middle of it, so she said, “Oh yeah, I’d forgotten he was going to do that while I was gone.”
“He sure is a sweetheart. That’s all I got to say about him.”
If Ann hadn’t been so angry, she might have agreed. “Well, I’m going to get settled now. I’ll see you tomorrow, okay?”
She walked directly toward the new kitchen door—or rather, it was the same kitchen door, but it no longer resided inside a three-foot walkway. Now it was flush against the rest of the house, a couple of new sidelight windows on each side—these had obviously been added to make the door fit with the wall. They were an absolutely perfect match for the style of the house. Ann was overcome with the urge to break them both. How dare he do all this? He knew she didn’t have the money to pay for these kinds of things.
She went inside and found that the kitchen now had a small walk-in pantry. It, too, was perfect. The shelves, everything. Each piece of bedroom furniture had been returned to its original location, and Ann could walk freely through the living room again, on floors that had been redone since she was last here. There were several paint swatches propped up against various walls. Ann picked up a couple. One showed different shades of light sage green, another pale creams advancing up to taupe. All warm colors. All colors that Ann never used.
The doorbell rang and her fury reached a new peak. Tammy had already called him? This was starting to feel like an invasion of privacy the way the two of them worked. Ann walked over and slung the door open.