Hello, It's Me

by Wendy Markham

  “My ring.”

  “Yes.”

  She just stares at it for a moment, before taking it from him. She slips it onto her finger, a gesture so melancholy, so wrong, that it’s all Thom can do not to tell her to take it off again, because she isn’t married. She doesn’t belong to . . .

  To somebody else.

  But she doesn’t belong to you, either.

  Thom finds himself resenting the man whose shoes he unwittingly stepped into for a few precious hours. Resenting him, and pitying the poor soul because he couldn’t stay here forever.

  Well, neither can you.

  “I have to go,” he says again, as if repeating it will make the option more appealing.

  “I know.” She’s staring down at her ring now, obviously having retreated to some other realm, well beyond his reach.

  “Maybe I’ll call you sometime,” he suggests. “Just . . . you know. To check in on you. And see how Milo is doing with the shoe-tying.”

  “Did you teach him?” she asks, looking up.

  “I tried. He doesn’t really get it, though.”

  “No. He never did. Andre tried, too.”

  Andre.

  Her husband.

  The man who had everything . . . until his luck ran out.

  Thom wants to ask her what happened to him, but he doesn’t dare. Maybe he’ll never know.

  Why does it matter? It’s none of his business, really.

  “Good night, Annie,” he says, heading for the door.

  She makes a move to follow him, but he can tell that she doesn’t really want to.

  “You stay,” he says. “I’ll say good-bye to the kids.”

  “All right. Thanks again.”

  “You’re welcome. See you.”

  But he won’t.

  As much as he wants to, he won’t.

  And that, Thom tells himself as he walks out of her house, out of her life, is that.

  Chapter 7

  Thank goodness you’re back! I have never been so glad to see anyone in my entire life.”

  “Talk about a warm welcome . . .” Ebony-haired, ebony-complected Erika Bauer steps onto the porch and hugs Annie. She has to bend over to do so, being a full head taller.

  Annie, in yesterday’s shorts and a rumpled T-shirt, with dabs of dried hot glue in her hair and on her hands, returns her former college roommate’s embrace a bit gingerly, feeling as though she’s going to leave smudges all over Erika’s fresh-from-a-day-in-the-office pristine white linen pantsuit. And her friend’s tidy cornrows are a blatant reminder that Annie hasn’t combed her hair since last night’s quick bedtime shower.

  Well, that’s par for the course of their decade-old friendship these days.

  Erika is an upscale, childless, city-dwelling professional with a full-time psychiatric practice. Annie is a single mom with two kids to support and a fixer-upper that’s pretty much falling down around her.

  “I missed you. It seems like you’ve been gone forever.”

  “It does,” Erika agrees. “What’s new around here?”

  “Not a darned thing,” Annie lies.

  “Working on a new project?” Erika gestures at the array of rocks and seashells scattered on newspapers all over the porch floor, gleaned from an afternoon beach-combing outing with the kids.

  “Yes. I’m making paperweights,” Annie says half-heartedly. She’s had more inspired ideas, that’s for sure. But none in the past year. No wonder the gallery owners she’s been trying to reach haven’t returned her calls.

  “How’s business?”

  “Don’t ask.” Reaching toward the bedraggled flowers in a terra-cotta planter that Merlin brought her on Memorial Day, Annie quickly deadheads a couple of faded pink blossoms and makes a mental note to water them later.

  “That bad?”

  “Kind of.”

  “Well, it’s not even the season yet. City people will be swarming the Hamptons in about two seconds. It’ll pick up.”

  Not to the tune of thousands of dollars, Annie thinks grimly. That’s basically what she needs to bring in if she’s going to keep her tiny household in groceries and utilities.

  Aloud, she says to Erika, “Come on inside so I can keep an eye on the kids while we catch up.”

  “Where are they?”

  “Eating chocolate chip ice cream for dessert in the kitchen. You want some? There might be a teaspoonful left in the carton.” Annie stifles a yawn behind her hand.

  “No, thanks.”

  “How about a glass of wine?” Annie offers, remembering that she has a bottle of white chilling in the fridge, courtesy of Merlin’s last visit. He doesn’t like to arrive empty-handed.

  “No, thanks,” Erika says again. “But you go ahead. Maybe you can use a drink.”

  “A drink would probably knock me out right now.”

  Erika nods. “You look as wilted as those pansies, Annie.”

  “They’re petunias,” she informs the botanically challenged Erika. “And I’m just tired. Trixie was up a few times last night, as usual.”

  Erika doesn’t seem satisfied with that explanation. “Are you really okay?”

  “Sure. I’m fine.” Yeah. Sure she’s fine.

  “No, you aren’t. Of course you aren’t. Stupid question, huh?”

  “Erika—”

  “No, really, I’m sorry. Sometimes I forget.”

  “It’s okay,” Annie says, wishing that she could.

  How merciful it would be if the Widow Harlowe could just forget, even for a moment.

  “The anniversary is in a few days,” she tells Erika. “I guess it’s just harder than usual because of that.”

  “Milestones are difficult. This one in particular.”

  “I know, and I thought I was ready to face it. But I guess I’m not. Not that it matters. It’s coming, either way. The longest day of the year.” She sighs . . . then starts as a sudden gust stirs the windchimes hanging from a rafter above the porch and flaps the edges of the rock-weighted newspapers at her feet.

  “Breezy this evening, isn’t it?” Erika shivers a little. “It feels good, though. Especially after the heat in Florida. And at least it’s not raining. It rained every day down there.”

  “Come on inside.” Annie opens the screen door with a deafening creak.

  WD-40. Andre, she thinks wearily.

  “Oh, hey, here, I brought you something.” Erika hands over the gift-wrapped box and shopping bag she’s been holding.

  “What is it?” Annie moves aside so that her friend can step past her into the house. The door groans closed.

  WD-40. Andre.

  “It’s just something I bought in Florida. I saw it and thought of you. And in the bag is some stuff I got for the kids at Disney World.”

  “I thought you were there on business.”

  “I was. But the conference was in Orlando and so is Disney, so . . .”

  “So Aunt Erika decided to make a pit stop and spoil the children. You shouldn’t have. They love you even when you don’t shower them with gifts.”

  “Does Trixie still love Pooh Bear?”

  “Yup.” Annie sits beside Erika on the couch.

  “And Milo hasn’t outgrown Buzz Lightyear yet?”

  “Nope. Erika, I mean it, you really shouldn’t have—”

  “Relax. It’s just T-shirts and beach towels.”

  “Well, I’ll call them in to see when they’re done with their ice cream,” Annie says, needing to savor the few precious moments of childfree time with her friend.

  “Open your box, Annie.”

  Protesting, she nonetheless rips into the seashell-stamped parchment paper.

  How long has it been since somebody got her an unexpected present?

  Andre used to do it all the time. Nothing fancy; just CDs and books and an occasional trinket. But he always wrapped them. He said presents were more fun when they came in pretty packaging, and when they came for no occasion at all.

  Shoving aside the sharp p
ang of regret irrevocably soldered to her marital memories, Annie lifts the lid on the plain white box. Inside, in a nest of tissue, is a delicate heart-shaped wooden picture frame with intricate scrollwork.

  “The guy who hand-carves those frames was selling them at a street fair and I thought of you,” Erika says, leaning over Annie’s shoulder to look at it. “Plus, he was so fine I had to have a reason to flirt with him.”

  Annie laughs. “Oh, sure, use me as an excuse to hit on some unsuspecting street artist. Did he ask you out?”

  “No, but at least I got this great frame out of it. I thought you’d like it.”

  “I love it.”

  But what am I going to do with it? Annie wonders, swallowing past a rising lump in her throat. A year ago, had somebody presented her with a heart-shaped frame, she would have popped in a recent photo of herself and Andre.

  Now what?

  She doesn’t even have current pictures of the kids. Her fancy Nikon—the one Andre bought her after she dropped their camera into the Caribbean taking pictures of dolphins on their honeymoon cruise—has sat, untouched, on her closet shelf for a year now, presumably with a half-shot roll of film inside. She can’t bring herself to finish shooting it, or to have the pictures developed. Maybe someday she’ll be able to face the last captured images of family life before everything fell apart.

  But not yet. Not for a long time.

  Turning the new picture frame over and over, telling Erika how much she loves it, Annie silently reminds herself that she can always put in an old snapshot of Andre alone.

  But the mantel and her bureau top have already turned into virtual shrines to her husband. Maybe it isn’t healthy to keep doing that.

  “I’m an idiot.”

  Startled, Annie looks up at Erika. “What?”

  “I said I’m an idiot. Why did I get you that frame? I’m sorry, Annie.”

  “What are you talking about?”

  “It made you think of Andre, right? I can tell by the look on your face.”

  “Everything makes me think of Andre, Erika. It’s no big deal. I love the frame and it’s perfect for a picture of the kids.” As soon as I can get my life together and take one, she adds silently.

  Why does it have to be so hard?

  Damn Thom Brannock and his kisses.

  Okay, maybe not everything is his fault, but his barging in here the other day and kissing her did nothing to expedite her grief process. If anything, she now has the added burden of guilt.

  She hasn’t kissed anybody but Andre since . . .

  Well, since kissing somebody meant you were a couple and you wound up wearing their class ring entwined with yarn.

  Then again, is this so different?

  One kiss from her high school sweetheart, and Annie was envisioning a future as Mrs. Colin Albertson.

  One kiss from Thom Brannock, and for a split second, Annie almost believed she might fall in love again . . . and, even more preposterously, that a man like Thom might fall in love with her.

  “Annie, something’s different. What’s going on with you?”

  Startled out of her reverie, Annie looks up to see her friend watching her. Erika’s Hershey chocolate-colored eyes seem to see right inside of her. There’s no use trying to hide anything, she realizes.

  She blurts, “I kissed somebody.”

  Wishing she could take the incriminating statement back the second it’s out, Annie braces herself for shocked reproach.

  “What?” Erika looks shocked, all right . . . shocked, and delighted. “Who is he?”

  “He’s . . . nobody.”

  Nobody who happens to be a major somebody—at least, in the Hamptons and Manhattan.

  Annie rushes on, before Erika can insert another question, “It was a huge mistake and it’s never going to happen again, so it isn’t a big deal, not to him, anyway, but it is to me because . . . well, not because I’m interested in him but because . . .”

  “Because you feel guilty.”

  “Of course I feel guilty,” she says in a near whisper, lest her children, chattering and giggling over ice cream in the kitchen, overhear. “Andre hasn’t even been gone a year, and here I am . . .”

  “Living? Living without him?” Erika touches her arm gently. “What else are you supposed to do, Annie?”

  “Not this. Not kiss somebody else. I’m not ready.”

  “Okay. Maybe you’re not. But someday—”

  “No, Erika. I won’t be ready someday. Not ever.”

  Who, Annie wonders, am I trying to convince? Erika? Or myself?

  “I know you think that now,” Erika tells her in a soothing tone, “but—”

  “You don’t understand,” Annie interrupts with a tear-choked laugh. “It isn’t just what I think. It’s . . .”

  “What is it, Annie? What’s holding you back?”

  “It’s . . . it’s Andre. He told me that if anything ever happened to him, I’d better not find somebody else.”

  “Oh, Annie, that’s not—”

  “Erika, he really said it.”

  “But he didn’t mean it. People say things.”

  “He meant it.”

  “Are you sure you’re not just using Andre as an excuse? Some kind of twisted rationalization for your reluctance to get involved with somebody new?”

  Annie just shakes her head, running her thumb along the inside of her wedding band, wound with yarn that, irony of ironies, obliterates the engraving.

  One love, one lifetime.

  Andre Harlowe was the love of her life.

  Thom Brannock could never take his place . . . even if he wanted to. Which he doesn’t.

  Why would he?

  Why would New York’s most eligible bachelor take on the likes of Annie Harlowe when he could have any baggage-free, blue-blooded beauty his heart desires?

  The wind abruptly jangles the chimes outside the front door again.

  Annie flinches.

  “Hey, what else is going on?” Erika asks softly, squeezing her wrist.

  “What do you mean?”

  “You’re jumpy. And you’re exhausted. Even more than usual.”

  Annie nods. These last few days have been brutal. When she isn’t reliving the forbidden kiss with Thom Brannock and longing for another, she’s obsessing over the phantom phone call: one minute certain that it really happened, the next, absolutely positive that it didn’t.

  She has to tell somebody, she realizes, before she drives herself crazy speculating.

  But what if Erika decides she’s gone off the deep end?

  “I need to talk to you about something, Erika. But it’s kind of . . . out there.”

  “Okay,” says Erika, with a seasoned psychiatrist’s open-minded patience—or perhaps, with the open-minded patience of a loyal friend who is no stranger to Annie’s capricious past.

  “Do you believe that when a person dies,” she begins, treading cautiously, “that they’re really . . . dead?”

  Caressing her chin and wearing the intent expression Annie considers her the-doctor-is-in face, Erika asks, “What do you mean by that?”

  “I mean . . . do you believe in ghosts, Erika?”

  She waits for her friend to burst out laughing, or shake her head sadly, or whip out her cell phone and speed dial the loony bin.

  But Erika simply says, “I’m not sure. If you had asked me a few years ago, I would have definitely said no. Remember back in college when everyone in our suite got into Ouija boards that one semester? I thought you were all nutty.”

  “You thought everything we did was nutty.”

  “Wearing shorts to class in a January blizzard wasn’t nutty? Going through the Burger King drive-thru backwards for kicks wasn’t nutty?”

  Annie can’t help laughing . . . or fiercely pining for that era of uncomplicated amusement and constant companionship. Back then, her personal motto was “If it feels good, do it.”

  That motto, of course, is ancient history now.

 
“Maybe we were a little nutty,” she admits to Erika, always the voice of reason, even in the old days.

  “A little nutty?”

  “Extremely nutty,” Annie concedes. “But what you’re saying is that you’ve totally changed your mind about Ouija boards and ghosts?”

  “Not totally. But a colleague of mine in Manhattan, whom I completely respect, by the way, has done some fascinating research on parapsychological communication, and now . . .”

  “Now you believe?”

  “I wouldn’t go that far. It’s just that now I’m not so sure,” Erika concedes. “Dr. Leaver is writing a book based on his findings, but when I saw him last weekend at the conference he mentioned that he’s been ridiculed for it. Not everyone in our profession is willing to accept parapsychology as a science.”

  “Including you?”

  “I’m not ridiculing him, but I’m not exactly jumping on the bandwagon, either.” Erika shrugs. “So what’s going on, Annie?”

  “You’ll probably never believe me if I tell you. I don’t even believe me, really.”

  “Try me.”

  Annie remains silent, daunted by the prospect of vocalizing the improbable event and wishing she could figure out a way to back out of what she started.

  “Did you see Andre’s ghost?”

  “No!” Annie says quickly, as though Erika has accused her of diving naked off the Throgs Neck Bridge into the East River. “I think I might have talked to Andre’s ghost, though,” she admits after a moment.

  Once again, Erika defies her expectations by taking her seriously—or at least, appearing to. For all Annie knows, she’s mentally plotting imminent institutionalization as she asks a bit too nonchalantly, “What did Andre’s ghost say, Annie?”

  “I don’t know, exactly.”

  “You don’t know?”

  “I couldn’t hear very well.”

  Erika waits, clearly expecting elaboration.

  “There was a lot of static,” Annie says reluctantly.

  “Static?”

  Might as well spill the whole bizarre tale, Annie decides. “Okay, Erika, the thing is . . . it was over the telephone and I’d swear I imagined the whole thing, but there’s a part of me that thinks it might really have happened because I absolutely know I heard the song on the radio that night, and I couldn’t have imagined everything that happened to me that day, could I?”