by Jae
Oh God. She covered her eyes with her hands. Had she really shouted at Drew and gone off on her like a manic woman about life not being Noah’s ark? Part of last night’s anger returned. Why hadn’t Drew stopped asking so many personal questions? Yeah, and why didn’t you stop answering them? She couldn’t help feeling that she had said too much, revealed too much. That damned wine. She vowed to never drink a drop of alcohol again. At least not around Drew and her constant questions.
The doorbell rang, making Annie clutch her head. The sudden movement increased the pain. Barefoot, she trudged to the door and glanced through the peephole.
As if last night’s humiliation hadn’t been enough, Drew’s brown eyes, not bloodshot at all, looked back at her. Oh, great. Of course she looks like the picture of sobriety, while I probably look like something Amadeus dragged in.
Was she ready to face Drew after embarrassing herself like a teenager who had never had alcohol before? She wanted to go back to bed and hide, but letting Drew stand in front of the door like an unwelcome visitor was not the way to thank her for getting her home.
When Annie opened the door, Drew held up a pot. “I brought breakfast.”
“Oh, God.” The thought of food made Annie’s stomach revolt.
“It’s just vegetable soup,” Drew said. “Completely vegetarian. I had a feeling that you wouldn’t feel up to having eggs and—”
Annie pressed one hand to her stomach while she tried to cover Drew’s mouth with the other—then withdrew quickly.
Drew laughed. “Okay, okay. I’ll stop talking about food. Go take a shower, and I’ll heat up the soup.”
A shower sounded heavenly, but Annie didn’t want Drew rooting around in her apartment while she was taking a shower. “No, thanks, I can do it.” She took the pot from Drew and nearly dropped it at its unexpected weight.
“Careful.” Drew grabbed the pot. “Come on. Get washed up. I promise I won’t steal your silverware while you’re in the bathroom.”
Reluctantly, Annie let go of the pot and rushed to the bathroom for the quickest shower in the history of humankind.
* * *
When Annie stepped out of the bathroom, feeling halfway human again, the smells of vegetable soup and chamomile tea drifted through the apartment.
Hesitantly, she entered the kitchen.
“Hey,” Drew said. “Are you feeling any better?”
“I’m fine.” Annie’s gaze wandered over a bowl of soup, a cup of tea, and a plate with crackers Drew had placed on the breakfast bar. Obviously, Drew felt quite at home in her kitchen. Annie furrowed her brow. She knew Drew meant well, but she was still irritated at this casual invasion. After living alone all of her adult life, she was used to fending for herself. “You didn’t need to do all that.” Since she had moved out of her parents’ home when she was eighteen, no one had ever cooked for her, not even soup. Certainly no one had ever seen Annie so vulnerable and out of control.
“I know. But I feel bad about letting you drink so much last night.”
“Letting me?” Annie squinted at her. What was that supposed to mean?
Drew rubbed her neck. “Not that you need my permission or anything. But I should have warned you about how potent our Cabernet is, especially after you tried all the other wines. If you’re not much of a drinker, it can hit you hard.”
Now you tell me. Annie rubbed her temples.
“Sit and eat. You’ll feel better once you get something in your stomach.”
Drew pulled back the chair for her, and Annie sat. There was no polite way of saying no after Drew had gone to all that trouble to bring her food. She nibbled on a cracker and then tried a spoonful of soup. “This is good.” Another spoonful landed in her mouth. “Did you make this?”
“Yes. It’s my mother’s recipe. She made this soup for me whenever I was sick. It always made me feel special and cared for.”
With the spoon halfway to her mouth, Annie stopped and stared at Drew. Was Drew saying she wanted her to feel special and cared for too? She shook her head at herself. They were barely more than acquaintances. Drew was just feeling guilty because it had been her wine that had gotten Annie drunk. “Thanks for the soup,” Annie finally said.
A tiny smile appeared on Drew’s lips. “You’re very welcome. Oh, by the way, we parked your car across the street. Two of my seasonal helpers drove over with me and dropped it off.”
“Thank you. Please tell them thanks too.” Annie couldn’t remember when she had last needed to say thank you so often in a row. She wasn’t sure she liked owing Drew so many favors.
Amadeus sauntered into the kitchen and shifted his weight on his hindquarters as if preparing to jump on the kitchen counter.
“Don’t you dare, Mister!” Annie glared and waved the spoon at him. Then her gaze softened. “Oh, God. Poor Amadeus! I forgot to feed him when I got home last night. He’s probably starved.”
When Annie pushed back the chair to stand, Drew stopped her with a touch to her shoulder. “You finish your soup. I can feed him if you want.”
Making me breakfast, feeding my cat ... what next? Drew’s casual intrusion into her well-ordered life left Annie uncomfortable. “No. That’s not necessary. I can do it.” She jumped up.
White spots danced before her eyes. The kitchen floor seemed to shift beneath her feet.
Drew grabbed her arm and kept her upright. “Whoa. Annie, please, sit down and let me feed the cat. It’s not a sin to let someone help you once in a while.”
Holding on to the kitchen counter, Annie slid back onto the chair. “All right. There’s a box of kibble in the—”
“I know,” Drew said. Without hesitation, she opened the correct kitchen cupboard and reached for the box. With Amadeus weaving around her legs, she picked up the empty bowl and filled it. “Amadeus already told me last night.”
“Oh?” As her vision cleared, Annie sank against the back of the chair, took a sip of tea, and allowed herself to relax a little. Even hungover and irritated, she couldn’t help liking Drew’s sense of humor. “What else did he tell you?”
Drew scratched the cat behind one ear, set the bowl on the floor, and straightened. She leaned against the kitchen counter and flashed her dimples at Annie. “He said he’s glad that you decided to convert to lesbianism because he wants to be the only man in your life.”
Annie nearly choked on her tea. When she could breathe normally again, she rasped, “About that ...”
“Your conversion?” Drew grinned.
“Our plan to teach Jake a lesson,” Annie said and gave her the same stern glance that had stopped Amadeus from jumping on the counter. “I had an idea last night, but I forgot to tell you.”
The twinkle now gone from her brown eyes, Drew regarded her with interest. “So what is it?”
“I was thinking about the best moment to tell Jake that we’re dating. I’ll probably never manage to play a prank on Jake again, so I want to do this right and choose the moment that has maximum impact.”
Drew nodded. “So what’s your idea?”
Annie set down her mug and folded her hands in her lap. “I want to take you home for Thanksgiving and introduce you as my girlfriend.”
* * *
Now it was Drew’s turn to cough and gasp for breath. “Wow, that’s ... Jake will choke on his turkey, that’s for sure.” The thought made her grin, but then she remembered that Jake wouldn’t be the only one choking. She imagined herself sitting through dinner with Annie’s parents staring daggers at her for turning their daughter gay. I had better watch her father doesn’t turn that carving knife on me!
“Unless, of course, you have other plans for Thanksgiving,” Annie said in response to Drew’s silence.
“No, it’s not that.” Drew was quiet for a moment. “Now that my parents are gone, I won’t be celebrating Thanksgiving anyway.” A few friends had invited her over to their houses, but she had declined. She wasn’t in the mood for a big celebration.
Annie looked
up from her soup. Her tired green eyes were full of compassion. “I’m sorry. If you’d rather not spend your first Thanksgiving without your parents with me and—”
“No,” Drew said. “I’d like to spend Thanksgiving with you. It’ll be good for me not to sit at home and brood. But what about your parents? They’ll be there too, right?”
Annie finished her soup and nodded.
“But, sweetheart, isn’t it a bit too soon in our relationship to meet the in-laws already?”
“You!” Annie threatened her with the spoon.
Grinning, Drew dove for cover behind the kitchen counter. Then she sobered and looked at Annie across the counter. “Seriously, I don’t want this to turn into a big family drama for you. Don’t you think your parents will panic when you bring home a woman?”
Instead of becoming flustered, as Drew had expected, Annie just shrugged. “If it doesn’t have to do with art or music, it won’t register on my parents’ radar.”
That’s so sad. Drew shook her head and sent a silent prayer upward, thanking her parents for taking an interest in everything that had to do with her. Despite Annie’s indifferent expression, Drew heard the almost imperceptible quiver in her voice.
“Besides,” Annie said, “half of their friends are gay men.”
“Yeah, but having their daughter come out—even if it turns out to be a joke—might be a whole other story. Finding out their daughter is gay is not something most parents will take lightly, so you shouldn’t either.”
Annie set down her spoon and searched Drew’s face. “Has it been that bad for you? I mean, if it’s not too personal to ask, how did your parents react when you came out to them? You mentioned that your father was very conservative.”
“He wasn’t a raging homophobe,” Drew said. She didn’t want anyone, especially not Annie, to think badly of her parents. “But my parents had me when they were already in their forties, so I was an only child and they had big dreams for me. My father thought I would grow up, marry another wine grower, and we would have half a dozen children, who would one day take over the vineyards and the winery that my grandfather started.” She sighed. “I knew by the time I was sixteen that it was never going to happen.”
“But you didn’t tell him that.”
“Not for many years. I was afraid he wouldn’t love me anymore if I shattered his dream.” Drew wiped a few drops of tea off the counter and then looked up at Annie. “I told my mother but begged her not to tell my father.”
Annie’s long fingers played with a half-eaten cracker. “How did she take it?”
“She kept hoping I was just going through a phase. She thought being gay would make my life difficult.” Drew remembered the concern in her mother’s eyes every time she looked at her.
“My mother would probably give me a painting of nude women for my next birthday and tell me where to hang it so that it would have the most advantageous lighting, but that would be the extent of our discussion,” Annie mumbled as if talking to herself.
In her youth, Drew would have wished for such a casual reaction from her parents. But the way Annie kept biting her lip told her that a lack of reaction could also mean a lack of caring. She resisted the urge to cover Annie’s hand with her own and give her a comforting squeeze. “You should let them in on the joke before you take me home for Thanksgiving.”
“Okay,” Annie said. “I’m still convinced it won’t make much of a difference, but if you think it’s best, I will.”
Drew grinned. “I bet you never thought you would need advice on coming out.” She glanced at her watch and then bit back a curse when she saw that it was already after eleven. “I’d better go. There’s a lot of work waiting for me in the fermenting barn.”
Annie slid from the chair, her movements now much steadier, and accompanied Drew to the door. “You’re working on a Sunday? You’re a worse workaholic than I am.”
“I’ll take that as a compliment.”
A smile softened Annie’s earnest features. “It was. Just don’t overdo it.”
Drew stopped the teasing remark—worried about me already?—at the tip of her tongue. She had a feeling Annie rarely expressed her concern for others openly, so she didn’t want to make fun of it. “I won’t,” she said with an appreciative nod. After opening the door, she turned and regarded Annie. “Take it easy today too, okay?”
“I will. My head’s not up for doing any paperwork anyway.” Annie took a step closer. She cleared her throat and shifted her weight from one foot to the other. “Thank you for taking such good care of me last night and today. You didn’t need to go to all this trouble to—”
“No trouble,” Drew said. “It was my pleasure.”
One skeptical eyebrow arched up Annie’s forehead, but then she finally nodded.
Drew gave herself a mental shove. Stop wasting your time with a straight woman. You’ve got work to do. Despite her admonishment, spending time with Annie didn’t feel like a waste of anything. She nodded at Annie. “Bye, then.”
“Bye.”
Whistling, Drew walked to her car. When she put on the seat belt, she glanced up to Annie’s apartment on the second floor, then shook her head at herself. “Back to work.” She started the car and pulled away from the curb.
Chapter 6
“So,” Sarah closed the novel, “which book should we discuss next time?”
A lively discussion broke out in Sarah’s living room, with Annie suggesting some of the mystery novels on her to-be-read pile.
“How about Breathing Room by Susan Elizabeth Phillips?” Mia asked.
“Or one of Jennifer Crusie’s novels.” Tamara leaned forward on the couch, her dark eyes glowing with enthusiasm. “Her books are great.”
Annie groaned at the usual suggestions. “Oh, come on. Not another romance novel. There are other books, you know?”
Sarah poked her shoulder. “You mean other than accounting books.”
“Very funny.” Annie was glad for the reddish lighting of Sarah’s lava lamps since they hid her blush. “At least I’m not the one who got caught reading a romance novel at work.”
The other women laughed.
“What do you want to read?” Sarah asked.
“How about one of Sandra Scoppettone’s?” Annie said. She had tried for ages to get the others in the book club to read one of Scoppettone’s novels. “Her plots are captivating, and her novels have some of the best dialogue I’ve ever read.”
“They’re also out of print and very hard to find,” Sarah said. She leaned back in her orange armchair and swung one of her slippers back and forth on her foot. “Hmm. How about Tana French? You said she’s good, right?”
Annie nodded. “She is. Maybe Faithful Place? I heard it’s her best, and I haven’t read it yet.”
Mia and Tamara shrugged and scribbled it down.
“All right.” Annie rose from another of the hideous armchairs. “I need to go. I’m driving to Fresno later and I promised my neighbor that I would look in on her before I go. She broke her ankle last week, but she’s too stubborn to stay in the hospital.”
The three other women exchanged panicked glances.
“Oh, no, you can’t go just yet.” Sarah pressed her down into the armchair. “Don’t let her leave, girls.” She rushed toward the kitchen while Mia and Tamara hovered over Annie as if they wanted to bodily keep her in the chair.
Annie frowned. “What’s going on?”
Sarah came back into the living room, carrying a cake covered in burning candles. They started singing Happy Birthday, making up for their lack of vocal talent with pure volume. With a smile that was almost brighter than the candles, Sarah stopped in front of Annie. “Surprise! You didn’t think we would let you leave without cake and presents, did you?”
Tamara slid a heavy box that was wrapped in dotted paper onto Annie’s lap.
“Uh. No,” Annie said, but it wasn’t true. When no one had congratulated her, she had thought the other book club members had for
gotten about her birthday. She had been disappointed but had quickly gotten over it. After all, Tamara and Mia were more Sarah’s friends than hers, and Sarah was a busy woman.
Sarah pushed the cake toward her, nearly singeing Annie’s hair in her enthusiasm. “Blow them out and make a wish.”
Annie stared at the candles. What should she wish for? Health? Money? Love? She was almost never sick, didn’t lack for money, and had stopped believing that love was for her. Okay, then I wish that Jake will fall for our trick and believe that something he did drove me into the arms of a woman. With determination, she took a deep breath and blew out all the candles.
“Open your present,” Sarah said while she pulled out the candles and cut generous pieces of cake for everyone. “It’s from all of us.”
Annie slid one finger beneath the tape, removed the wrapping paper, and folded it.
“Sarah wanted to hire a stripper, but we convinced her that you would appreciate this present more,” Mia said.
“Thank you.” Whatever the present was, Annie was sure she would like it better than a half-naked man gyrating on her lap while her friends watched. She lifted the lid and looked at the objects in the box—five of Sandra Scoppettone’s mystery novels. “Oh, wow. How did you get them?” What Sarah had said earlier was true. The books were out of print and hard to find, at least at a reasonable price.
Sarah chuckled. “My female charms took care of that.”
“More like your credit card,” Tamara said.
“Thank you very much.” Annie gave each of the women a short hug. “I don’t want to appear ungrateful, but I really have to go.”
“Take some cake,” Sarah said.
Annie’s parents had invited her to a restaurant, and she didn’t want to spoil her appetite, but Mrs. Perez, her neighbor, would appreciate a piece of cake. She waited until Sarah had packed her some cake, then hurried to the door. She hadn’t even made it to her car when her cell phone rang. One glance at the caller ID made her smile. How nice of her mother to call her to wish her a happy birthday even though they would see each other later. “Hi, Mom.”
