When she glanced at her friend, she saw that
Lisa's green eyes were bright with anger, her wide mouth held tight, her shoulders rigid when Jack slung one arm around them. With affection or for support? Anne wondered, aware of a panicky little knot forming in the pit of her stomach.
She had no idea what was said in the minute or two that the other couple lingered by the table and could only assume that she'd made the appropriate responses. She refused to watch them walk away, not wanting to see if her brother's steps were less than steady.
Just because he'd had too much to drink tonight, that didn't mean he had a drinking problem, she told herself fiercely. But what if he did? What if Lisa was right? Shouldn't she do something? Say something? Wasn't it her duty as his sister to talk to him? Help him? Her mind boggled at the idea. She loved her brother, but she realized suddenly that she didn't really know him. They'd never talked, never shared more than the most commonplace of conversations. She didn't know what was in his heart any more than he could know what was in hers.
She thought suddenly of Neill's comment that his family's frequent moves had never bothered them because, no matter what, they had each other, and she tried to imagine feeling that way about her own family; tried to imagine them sitting down to plan where they should live; tried to imagine her parents agreeing to move to Denver for no better reason than that a thirteen-year-old boy wanted to be a cowboy. The picture wouldn't come clear, not simply because there had never been any question of them living anywhere but here in Loving, but because she couldn't imagine that it would occur to either of her parents to consult their children on anything as fundamentally important as moving across country. She didn't have to know Neill's family to picture them sitting around a table, a map spread out in front of them, arguing about their next move. So easy to remember the affection in his voice when he talked about them. And, in the reflection of that, so easy to see the distance that separated her own family, one from another.
"Anne?"
She started, suddenly aware that it wasn't the first time he'd said her name. Their waitress was standing next to the table, her expression politely inquiring.
"Sorry. What did you say?"
"I was just asking if you'd like dessert."
"No, not tonight, thank you. Actually, I have a bit of a headache!" she added quickly before he could order his usual slice of apple pie, slightly warmed, with a single scoop of vanilla ice cream-in a separate bowl rather than on the pie. She just couldn't sit here and watch him eat his dessert, alternating bites of pie and ice cream and, in some way she'd never been able to understand, always managing to end up with exactly the right amount of each.
"I knew you didn't seem quite yourself," Frank said, looking almost pleased to have a simple explanation for her behavior.
He didn't say anything else as he paid the bill and they left the restaurant. The short drive to her cottage was equally quiet. Anne didn't know whether it was in deference to her supposed headache or just because this was Frank, who rarely had much to say, but, whatever the reason, she was too grateful for the silence to feel much guilt over the small he.
When they got to the cottage, Frank walked her to the door, just as he always did. He never asked to come in, never lingered in anticipation that she might invite him in. He waited while she took the key from her purse and opened the door. Following the pattern that had been set, Anne turned and lifted her face for his kiss. When it came, it was as quiet and undemanding as it always was. He didn't seem to expect much by way of response and, though she tried to block it from her mind, Anne couldn't help but remember how she'd felt when Neill kissed her—the way her knees weakened and her skin seemed to heat beneath his hands.
She sighed softly when Frank lifted his head and looked down at her with a faint smile.
"Good night, Anne. A good night's sleep is the best thing for a headache."
"Thank you for dinner, Frank. It was lovely."
Her smile faded as she slipped inside and closed the door behind her, leaning back against it as she listened to Frank's footsteps receding down the path and then the polite hum of his car's engine as it backed out into the street. The last time, she admitted with a sigh. No more Friday nights spent trying to convince herself that the fact that she and Frank had grown up in the same town created some sort of lasting bond between them.
A week ago, she'd actually wondered what she might do if Frank ever asked her to marry him, had half thought she might say yes. She wanted a home, a family, and she had no doubt that he would make a dependable husband and father. For someone else. Because now she knew beyond the shadow of a doubt that she couldn't marry him. Not ever.
And it had nothing to do with Neill Devlin—not directly anyway. But talking with him, laughing with him, had made her see how completely impossible it would be for her to marry a man who rarely strung more than two sentences together at a time and who thought the world began and ended at the city-limit sign.
Sighing again, Anne pushed herself away from the door. It was more than a little frightening to realize that her brief acquaintance with Neill had actually changed her life in such a fundamental way. Whether he stayed around for a while or disappeared tomorrow, he'd shown her that she could never settle for the sort of lukewarm affection that was all she could feel for Frank Miller.
She wanted more. Needed more. Maybe— though it was a revolutionary thought—she even deserved more.
The five-day work week must have been invented by the Puritans, Anne thought as she pulled a load of wet clothes out of the washer and threw them in the dryer. Five days of work, one day to catch up on all the things you couldn't fit in during the rest of week, and one day left for worship. If idle hands were the devil's playground, he must really hate the typical nine-to-five schedule.
She punched the button to start the dryer and reached up to smooth back a strand of hair that had escaped from her ponytail.
How did single parents manage?
she wondered as she went to the broom closet and pulled the vacuum out. Or double parents, for that matter? She couldn't really complain. Living in a small town meant that she could do most of her errands during the week, either during her lunch hour or after work. That left Saturday morning for cleaning house and most of Saturday afternoons free for doing anything or nothing at all. That was a luxury a woman with a family wouldn't have.
But there would be compensations. Anne leaned on the vacuum and allowed herself to dream a little. Leisurely bubble baths would give way to rubber duckies and babies splashing in the tub. Reading Dr. Seuss instead of Robert Parker. Planning trips to Disney World amusement park rather than creating elaborate itineraries for exotic vacations she would never take. Sharing her bed with someone more exciting than her childhood stuffed toys.
There would definitely be compensations.
Sighing, she bent to unwind the vacuum cleaner's cord from where it looped around the handle. If she wanted a home and a family of her own, she could always marry good old Frank. It was pretty clear he was headed in that direction, and she could probably nudge him along a bit. Then she could have the rubber duckies and Dr. Seuss and the trip to Disney World amusement park. She wouldn't be surprised if the stuffed toys won out over Frank in the excitement department, though.
Wincing a little at the bitchiness of that thought, Anne went to plug the vacuum in, only to be brought up short when someone knocked on the front door. A glance through the frosted glass window pane showed a familiar, trim figure and her brows rose in surprise. Though the cottage was barely a hundred yards from her childhood home, her mother rarely visited. Olivia had disapproved of the whole idea of Anne living on her own. When Anne had refused to give in to either rational arguments or tears, Olivia had dealt with the situation in her own way. By keeping her distance, she could, in a sense, refuse to acknowledge that it had happened at all.
On those occasions when she did visit, she had no hesitation about expressing her displeasure about anything and everything, so Anne was hardly surprised when her mother's first words were a complaint
"I don't know what you were thinking of when you came up with this ridiculous color scheme," She looked at the narrow porch with obvious distaste. "Yellow with pink trim. It's absurd."
"Good morning, Mom." Anne stepped back to allow her mother to enter, trying not to sigh with envy over the casual elegance of her mother's clothing. Putty-colored cotton slacks and a simple rose-colored blouse won with canvas espadrilles, and just a few discreet touches of gold at ears and wrist. Next to her, the pink shorts and tank top that Anne had thought looked cheery when she put them on suddenly became annoyingly perky. Well, she'd figured out a long time ago that, when it came time to hand out the gene for elegance, she'd obviously been somewhere else.
"The whole place is absurd," she said, responding to her mother's comment. "It seemed to call for a paint job to match."
"You might have been able to tone it down a bit with a more conservative color scheme. Not that anything could make it look anything but what it is, which is a ridiculous little building with Victorian pretensions. All that gingerbread and carved moldings."
"Ummm." Anne had heard this particular speech often enough to tune it out.
Olivia's description was accurate enough. Rose Cottage had been built by Anne's great-grandfather, back in the 1920s. The family had been quite well-to-do at that time, and he'd considered himself something of an architectural buff. The main house had been designed with Tudor pretensions that would have looked perfectly at home hunched over some English moor. The fact that it hardly suited Indiana farm country hadn't bothered Hiram Moore in the least. Nor had he hesitated to jump an ocean and several centuries when it came to choosing a style for the cottage he built to serve as a studio for his wife's painting hobby.
Rose Cottage was all Victorian gingerbread and beveled glass outside, oak floors, crown moldings and a hideously impractical but charming curved staircase inside. Anne could remember a time when the cottage had been pressed into service as a guesthouse two or three times a year. Her mother's friends would come up from Atlanta, all soft drawls, pastel dresses and big hair. But that had changed fifteen years ago, just like so many other things, Anne thought, and was caught off guard by the sharp nip of resentment.
"Can I get you a cup of coffee?" she asked when Olivia had run out of negative things to say about her home.
Olivia hesitated and then nodded. "Thank you." She followed Anne into the small, sunny kitchen. "Bacon and eggs for breakfast?" she asked, looking at the pan left to cool on the stove.
"Yes." Opening a cupboard, Anne went up on her toes to reach a bone china floral cup and saucer. She generally used a mug but knew that her mother would prefer something more delicate.
"I hope you're watching your diet," Olivia said behind her. ''You know how easily you tend to put on weight." Anne set the cup down with exaggerated care and closed her eyes. "At your age, a few extra pounds probably don't seem like much of a problem, but it's very easy to let it get away from you. Look at your grandmother—she went from being a plump girl to downright obese by the time she hit her forties. And you're short, just the way she was. If you were a little taller, you wouldn't have to worry about it quite so much."
Anne dug her fingers into the edge of the counter and let the words roll over her, trying not to listen. Determined not to care. She'd heard it all before, starting when she was an adolescent. Underlying everything her mother said was the unspoken thought that it was a shame she wasn't more like her sister had been. Brooke had never gone through an awkward puppy fat stage. Brooke had been tall and slim and beautiful.
With a skill born of years of practice, Anne shoved the hurt and resentment into a dark comer of her mind and slammed a door on them. Her mother meant well, she told herself as she moved to pour Olivia's coffee. She was pleased to see that her hand was steady when she lifted the cup. There had been a time when her mother's not-so-veiled criticisms would have left her shaken and trembling.
"I hardly think that an occasional breakfast of bacon and eggs is going to send me to a fat farm," she said lightly. "Why don't you tell me why you're here? I know you didn't walk down here just to tell me that I have lousy taste in paint and to warn me against the evils of excess fat."
Olivia's mouth tightened as she took the cup from her daughter. She hadn't intended to set Anne's back up about irrelevant issues. Not that she regretted anything she'd said. The paint was absurd, and it was certainly her right—even her duty— as a mother to warn her daughter of potential future dangers, which was exactly why she was here. Except that the reason she'd come had nothing to do with nutrition, and she was mildly annoyed that she'd let herself get distracted. Even more annoyed that Anne had bluntly asked why she was here, making it impossible to approach the subject with any delicacy.
"I was talking to Betty Hardeman yesterday. She's heading the committee to try to fund a restoration of the old courthouse, and she wondered if I'd be interested in participating."
"I'd heard someone was looking into it."
To give herself something to do with her hands, Anne poured coffee into a mug decorated with a whimsical scene of mice having a picnic. She was fairly sure she knew what was behind her mother's visit now. Betty Hardeman just happened to be DeDe Carmichael's aunt. The two of them didn't have much to do with one another, since Betty made no secret of thinking that her niece was no better than she ought to be, but DeDe was sure to have told her mother that Anne Moore had had lunch with a stranger at Luanne's. Lissy Rayboume wouldn't have let her shirttail hit her skinny butt before she picked up the phone to call Betty.