A Fine Mess

by Kristy K. James

  “I’m so glad, Sweetie. All I’ve ever wanted is for you to be happy. And you are, aren’t you?”

  “You have no idea,” was all Annie could think to say. But she was. Happy her father would stay safely out of jail.

  “And was your wedding night all you’d ever hoped it would be?”

  Oh now there was a question she hadn’t been expecting! She sought for a way to answer it without giving away the true state of her marriage.

  “I- Mom, all I can say,” she finally managed, “is that I have absolutely no complaints!”

  Chapter 4

  “You make a lousy thief, Paul,” Ian said casually, lounging in a chair in the corner of Paul’s small office. As always, he found that he felt very at home here, whereas the rest of the office was rather cold and impersonal, Paul had pictures of his wife and daughter on the walls, a ceramic-something on the desk that Annie had made in grade school, along with a few other things Maddie had sent in to ’spruce’ things up a bit. “I doubt that many of them keep step-by-step records of what they did.”

  “They do if they plan on putting it back,” his new father-in-law mumbled absently, working furiously on his computer. As he had been for the past three quarters of an hour. A few moments later the sound of the computer shutting down filled the air and Paul looked up and sighed. “It’s all there. Well, in the computer anyway.”

  “And it’ll all be in the bank before noon on Tuesday.” Just as soon as he had the release of funds in his hands.

  “You do know that if they call in the auditor anyway, and he really looks at everything, he’ll find the discrepancies.”

  “I can pretty much guarantee the auditor won’t be coming now. Everyone knows you’ve been under massive amounts of stress. Once I ‘figure everything out‘ and find where the mistakes were made, it’ll be fine. Especially now that I’m married to your daughter and you’re family. Do you really think anyone is going to question my authority?”

  “Your father wouldn’t hesitate if he thought he’d been stolen from.”

  “But if I find that it was just a mistake, he won’t say anything. He likes to maintain the appearance of being a doting father. He’ll pretend he trusts my judgment, even if he doesn’t believe it. But in this instance, as I said before, no one would blame you if your mind wasn’t entirely on the job, not with everything your family has been going through.”

  “Well see. It would be a crying shame if you and Annie did all of this for nothing.” Ian had never known Paul to be so pessimistic.

  “Trust me, Paul. My father might not hesitate to press charges against you, but he’d cut his own throat before he’d see me in jail.” Paul’s head snapped up and he stared at him in stunned surprise.

  “You?In jail? Why?”

  “I think I would now be considered an accessory to embezzlement. And don’t even start beating yourself up over it,” he said quickly, seeing where things were headed just by the look of horror on the other man‘s face. “I knew exactly what I was doing so it was my choice, not your fault. Now let‘s get out of here. Our wives are expecting us for supper.”

  Though he didn’t feel like he had a wife, the word came as easily to him as if they’d been married for years rather than for less than a day.

  “Did Annie explain to you about the house and other things?” Paul asked once they were back in the car and headed toward the Blake house.

  “It’s been a long couple of days. I can’t recall.”

  “I’ll be selling the house, and cashing in some CD’s when we know what’s going to happen with Maddie. As I explained to her, the money should be enough to pay everything back and then some. If you’d like, we can draw up some sort of agreement. We probably should have done that before you married Annie I guess.”

  “Look, Paul. I think we’ve got enough on our plates for the moment. Let’s just keep the status quo for awhile, okay?”

  ~~~~

  “I have to warn you,” Annie said, as they got out of the car at the grocery store, “this first trip may cost more than you imagined. But if I do all of the cooking so you don’t have to buy restaurant meals, it will save you money in the long run.”

  “Get whatever you need, Annie,” Ian told her, taking hold of her hand. She looked at him questioningly and he said, “We’re out in public. When we’re out where people can see us, we’re happily married, remember?”

  “Even at the store?”

  “You never know who might see us. I have no intention of losing the other half of my inheritance.”

  “Oh. Okay,” she murmured, feeling chastised. Getting used to all this pretense was going to take time. A lot of time.

  “Don’t worry,” he assured her, squeezing her hand in comfort, “it will get easier the longer we practice. Now what, exactly are we shopping for today?”

  “Pretty much everything. You have no baking supplies or spices. No canned goods or produce. Hmm. Actually you have no groceries, if you want the truth.”

  “I could have told you that, Einstein. In fact, I think I did,” he said with a facetious grin. He pulled a cart out for her. “Lead the way.”

  While Annie certainly didn’t hate shopping, she couldn’t ever remember actually enjoying it either. Until today. Shopping with Ian was like shopping with a child as he questioned, with distrust, every questionable purchase. Like kiwi, fresh spinach and smoked turkey sausage.

  He wrinkled his nose at the reduced fat cottage cheese and sour cream that made their way into the cart, as well as at the whole wheat crackers and long cooking oatmeal.

  “You’re not one of those health food nuts, are you?” he demanded at one point.

  “Absolutely not.”

  “Then what is all this stuff for?”

  “Meals, Ian. Healthy meals.”

  “Then you are a health food nut!” he accused with a scowl. “Hey, wait a minute!”

  Quicker than she’d have believed possible, he snatched the bottle of Italian dressing she’d just taken off the shelf from her hand, then grabbed a box of macaroni from the cart and shook them in her face.

  “What is this?”

  “It’s bad grammar, Ian,” she said, calmly taking the items from him, tossing them in with the rest of the groceries. “You should have said, ‘what are these?’ But just to ease your mind, you don’t have to worry. I promise I’m not going to try and sneak any pasta salad in on you.”

  ~~~~

  While Annie was putting the clothes and other personal things she’d brought with her from her parents house away, Ian couldn’t help wandering around his newly stocked kitchen.

  He kept opening one cupboard door after another, feeling a sense of unease now that the previously empty shelves were filled to overflowing.

  Marrying someone he barely knew hadn’t shaken him nearly as much as having food in his apartment that required cooking, and even he had to admit that it was more than a little strange.

  He opened the freezer, scowling at numerous packages of raw meat. Given that he wasn’t into sushi, he doubted that any uncooked meat had ever made its way into his apartment. He might even go so far as to say that he probably hadn’t ever set eyes on any that wasn’t wrapped in cellophane and sitting in a meat counter.

  “This is really freaking you out, isn’t it?” Annie asked from the doorway, smiling in sympathy at him.

  “Well,” Ian said, swinging the door shut with more force than necessary, “I did warn you.”

  “I know, I know. You don’t cook. At all.” She wandered over to the very cupboards he’d just been checking out and began pulling some things from them.

  “What are you doing?” He heard her sigh as she said,

  “We’re going to need supper tonight since we ate so early at my folk's house. And I need to make the potato salad and brownies for the barbeque tomorrow.”

  “You know how to make potato salad?” he asked incredulously. He’d never known anyone who didn’t buy a carton of it and then put it in a bowl. Some of them
even tried to pass it off as their own, but he could tell. It all tasted the same.

  “A lot of people do.”

  “Would it be okay if I watch?” She looked at him queerly, and he supposed it sounded like an odd request to someone who was so obviously at home in a kitchen.

  “If you like.”

  “So what are we having tonight?”

  “Is pizza okay?”

  “I thought you were going to make something,” he said, hoping it didn’t sound too much like the accusations he’d flung at her in the store.

  “I am.”

  She pulled a contraption she called a bread machine out of one of the lower cupboards. Her father had hauled it out to the car before they’d left to come home. Pizza. Out of one of those things? Yeah, right!

  He was afraid he might have just wasted a staggering amount of money on groceries for a woman who only knew how to make hot fudge cake!

  ~~~~

  Annie felt wrung out. All afternoon Ian had kept her company in the kitchen, sometimes sitting at the table, sometimes standing over her shoulder. But always, always asking questions.

  Watching her peel potatoes, he kept predicting that he’d have to run her to an emergency room for stitches in her thumb, sounding genuinely concerned for her well-being. She suspected that he might also have an issue with the sight of blood, but didn’t think she ought to mention it.

  Ian seemed particularly curious when she took the pizza dough from the bread machine and started rolling it out and flipping it across the backs of her hands. Of course he demanded to know how she’d learned to do that and was surprised when she told him she’d worked in a pizza parlor when she was in high school.

  “Can you toss it in the air?” he wanted to know.

  “No. And even if I could, I wouldn’t do it.”

  “Why not?”

  “Because some of the hot shots I worked with could spin the dough like a pro. The only problem is, when you spin the dough, you get flour all over the kitchen. Which is exactly what would happen if I tried it now. I’m guessing you wouldn’t be first in line to clean it up.”

  “You’ve got that right.”

  By that time she knew he was going to want to know why she prepared the pizza on a thin mesh circle before sliding it onto a pizza stone that had been heating in the oven.

  “Because it tastes better and the bottom crust is crispier.”

  Satisfied with her answer, he settled back and watched her clean up the mess while the pizza baked. Silently. In fact, he hadn’t said a word since, not even when they sat down to eat.

  “So. What do you think?” she finally asked, after his third bite. He’d left it up to her when she wanted to know what he’d like on it, so she opted for ham and extra cheese.

  “It tastes like real pizza,” he said slowly, seemingly amazed. Annie laughed.

  “It is real pizza.”

  “Yes, but- It’s really quite good.”

  “Thank you. I think.” Given the way he’d said it, she supposed it could be taken as an insult as well as a compliment.

  “You’re welcome. This is definitely going to have to go on the acceptable list. So is that meatloaf we had at your folk's house. Do you know how to make that, too?”

  “I did make that.”

  “Good. What else can you make?”

  For a man who claimed to not be very interested in food, Ian was certainly giving it a lot of attention at the moment. Maybe he would get something out of this forced marriage after all. Like an appreciation for home cooked meals.

  “Are all of those brownies for tomorrow?” he asked, after polishing off his fourth slice of pizza. Annie hid a grin.

  “No. I figured I’d take about half of them. Would you like some?”

  “I suppose I could eat a couple, if you’re going to insist.”

  ~~~~

  Ian lay in the dark staring up at the ceiling, and wanted to cringe at his behavior for most of the afternoon. In his opinion he hadn’t acted much better than a kid. But, in his defense, he’d never actually seen food prepared before.

  When he was growing up, the cook handled it. And he didn’t like anyone in his kitchen. At the boarding schools his father had shipped him to, cooked foods were already waiting under glass enclosures by the time he got to the cafeteria. His only experience in those kitchens had been washing dishes two days a month. And to wear those stupid paper hats, aprons and gloves to serve once in awhile.

  Neither of those were experiences he wanted to repeat. Ever. Especially washing dishes.

  Which probably explained why he always brought something home with him. Take-out always came in something disposable. Things that could be tossed in the trash when he was finished.

  He wondered how Annie knew so much about cooking. And why she looked so at ease while she did it. Whatever the reason, he found himself glad that she was. Because, for the first time in his life, he truly enjoyed the things he’d eaten.

  Maybe before they were divorced she would teach him to make a few things. Not a lot. Just some of his favorites. Like meatloaf, pizza and brownies. And hot fudge cake. Definitely hot fudge cake.

  It occurred to him that the items on that list consisted of the only things she’d made that he’d eaten thus far. If all of her offerings were anywhere near as good, he was in trouble.

  Big trouble.

  ~~~~

  Even though the top two buttons of his polo shirt weren’t fastened, it felt like the collar was choking him. It was all he could do to not reach up a finger to check.

  While Annie and her father were flitting back and forth between the kitchen and patio preparing supper and playing with Annie‘s dog, Jack, he was keeping his mother-in-law company. He was torn between wishing he was anywhere but there .and his misgivings about eventually having to bring the black lab home to live with them. That thought was actually more appealing than talking with Maddie right now.

  Ian felt trapped in the family room with this woman who, today, was sporting a bright, lemon yellow caftan and flowing fuchsia scarf. Apparently she thought nothing of discussing subjects of a personal nature. Things that Annie’s husband should know about, but that he did not.

  Like her love of candlelit bubble baths, something she’d adored since childhood. Ian nearly choked when Maddie asked if his bathtub was large enough for two.

  Or wondering if she’d yet filched his razor to shave her legs. Because she always preferred her father’s to any woman’s razor, for reasons only known to Annie. But if she hadn’t, Ian needed to be warned because his next shave could be a little rough.

  “So- What was Annie like as a little girl?” he asked, desperate for something else to talk about. Maddie didn’t seem to find anything odd in the request. Instead, she lit up instantly and pointed to some photo albums on a nearby bookshelf.

  “You can see for yourself, The first two are just baby photos. I think only Paul and I would be interested in those. But the next two are from when she was about four to eight. Would you like to look at them?”

  No, he really would not, but didn’t have a lot of choice. Not when he had brought the subject up. Dutifully he retrieved the thick, heavy albums, then pulled his chair closer to hers.

  “This is Annie’s first solo part in a Christmas program,” Maddie said with a tender smile. He wondered what the part might have been because the picture showed a small girl with her back to the camera, hands covering her ears.

  “I don’t get it.”

  “I’m not surprised,” she explained, her tone filled with pride. “The only thing Annie had to do that first year was to sing the first verse of ‘Away In a Manger.’ She did fine during all the rehearsals, sang loud and clear, but the night of the pageant, she must have gotten a case of stage fright.

  “She saw that all the pews were filled and promptly turned around so she couldn’t see them. And when a few people laughed, she covered her ears as you can see.” Ian couldn’t help but smile at the image that brought to mind.


  “I suppose she didn’t open her mouth, either.”

  “Surprisingly enough, she did. She sang the verse at the top of her lungs, with her back to the congregation, then ran off stage. It was her first, and last, performance.”

  “Poor kid,” Ian chuckled.

  “It makes me wish we’d had video recorders back then. Or at least one that you didn’t have to be rich to afford. It was so cute!”

  A few dozen pictures later and Maddie was talking about what a smart girl Annie had been.

  “When she was six or seven we were sitting at the table eating supper when she asked, ‘How come Pastor Caldwell didn‘t tell us what God is?’ Paul and I looked at each other and didn’t have a clue what she was talking about. So I asked her what she meant.

  “Apparently the only part of the sermon she’d picked up on that morning was when the pastor said that God was ‘just.’ She wanted to know why he hadn’t finished his sentence.” She laughed at the memory. “Paul was trying to hide the fact that he was laughing, so I had to explain that ‘just’ also meant righteous and fair. You know, we still lay in bed at night sometimes and giggle over that.”

  Ian was about as bored as he’d ever been but, seeing that Maddie took such pleasure in the memories, played the adoring husband and tried to make all the appropriate responses. He was thankful when, after a few more minutes, she set the albums on the end table.

  “Enough of that. As long as Paul and Annie are taking, I guess I’ll just give you this now.” She reached for something beside her chair. When it appeared she couldn’t lift it, she looked to him for assistance. “Could you, please?”

  Ian leaned over and grabbed a gift bag. An obviously wedding themed gift bag.

  “Don’t you want to give this to Annie?” he mumbled uncomfortably.

  “No, Ian. I want to give it to you. Go ahead. Open it.”

  This was probably going to be the first of many times that this charade was going to be hard to deal with. Still he reached in, parted the tissue paper, and pulled out a beautiful white-Bible. Maddie had given him a bible.