Love Finds You in Carmel by-the-Sea, California

by Sandra D. Bricker

  “You’re laughing?”

  “Oh, come on, Annie. She thought it was adorable. You probably made her whole day.”

  “And yet she made my whole month! Isn’t that what you said? A month?”

  Annie looked out the window for a moment before glancing again at Merideth, who looked like a total innocent and inspired Annie to laugh right out loud.

  “It’s such a pleasure to meet you, Miss Day,” she mocked herself. “Oh, Miss Day, you’re just my complete and total idol. Me? Oh, I’m just a dewy-eyed, Cobb salad–eating, running-off-at-the-mouth, idiot granddaughter of Dorothy Gray.”

  “It wasn’t that bad,” Merideth promised. She held up her cell phone to display the photo of Doris Day, timeless and beautiful, and Annie, who looked very much like she might toss her entire lunch to the floor.

  Annie shook her head and buried her face in her hands as they both got a good, hearty laugh out of it all. A passerby leaned over to look in at them as he made his way down the street, causing them to laugh all the harder.

  They needed to post a sign, Annie decided. BEWARE OF CAR. LUNATICS ONBOARD.

  Rather than heading straight back to the office, Annie popped in on Zoey first, confident that her close encounter with Doris Day would bring at least a giggle or two. When she arrived at the house, she saw Zoey through the slatted window of her office, on the telephone and massaging her forehead.

  Walking around to the front door, Annie tried the knob. Surprised when it slipped open, she let herself in.

  “Yes,” she heard Zoey state as Annie made her way down the hallway. “I’m well aware of that, Bobby, and we’ll have it to you before the end of the week. Okay. Yes, okay.”

  Zoey hung up the phone and leaned back hard into the chair with her eyes tightly closed.

  “Zo?”

  She jumped to her feet, startled. “Annie! Don’t scare me like that.”

  “I’m sorry. I saw that you were tied up, so I let myself in.”

  “Oh.” Zoey slumped down into the chair again with a sigh. “I don’t have time for lunch today.”

  “I’m not here for lunch. I just stopped by to chat.”

  The phone rang, and Zoey pursed her lips at Annie and shrugged as she picked it up. “Canyon Restaurant Supply.”

  She pulled up a screen on the computer and began verifying a list of numbers with the caller as Annie folded into one of the chairs around the conference table in the corner. The maple table-top could scarcely be seen beneath the pile of invoices, file folders, and unopened mail.

  “Okay,” Zoey said. “I’ll run them again and get back to you in an hour.”

  She hung up the phone, releasing a long sigh as she did. Turning toward Annie, Zoey opened her mouth to speak, but the phone rang again and sliced her words at the tip.

  “Sorry,” she groaned. “Canyon Restaurant Supply. Yes, Angela, how are you?”

  As Zoey answered a barrage of questions that made no real sense to Annie, Annie floated back to thoughts of Nick Benchley’s Auburn Beauty once again.

  Then came the familiar acid chaser.

  She’d told him she might join Evan at the theater that night but had decided instead to make it an early night. When he’d rushed her out the door so she could do just that, Annie had believed it was motivated by uncharacteristic sweetness.

  I should have known better.

  The truth was, she’d given him a great idea about how to spend his evening with another woman. And all the while, she’d been warming up to Nick in the time that they’d been working together for Deke, thinking she saw something special in him—something compelling and rather magnetic that drew her to him.

  “I’m sorry, Annie,” Zoey said, interrupting her stream of thought. “I just don’t have time for a chat today. Can I call you later?”

  “Sure.”

  Annie tried to maintain the smile until she reached the front door then let it lapse as she made her way toward Taurie. Looking back through the window, she spotted Zoey tapping at the computer frantically, the phone to her ear once again.

  She tried to remember if she ever knew what Zoey’s days were like, running the administrative end of her husband’s business, and she decided that she couldn’t have known. No wonder she seemed more on edge each time Annie had seen her lately.

  What kind of best friend hasn’t figured this out until now?

  Annie felt around in her bag as she drove until she produced her cell phone. Unfolding it, she pressed number eight on the speed dial, and Nick answered promptly.

  “Benchley.”

  “Nick, it’s Annie. I’m headed in to the office from lunch. I wanted to see how the meeting went with NorCal.”

  “Great. I’m just pulling in myself. I’ll fill you in when you get here. What time is the new client meeting? Is it three thirty?”

  “Yep. I should be there in ten.”

  “See you in ten.”

  A very civilized conversation, considering.

  As she pulled into the parking lot alongside his Jeep, Annie wondered how to bring up Nick’s date night at the movies. Once inside, she found him sprawled in Deke’s big chair, a broad grin on his face as if he had nothing more important to do than wait on her arrival.

  “Afternoon, Annie Gray.”

  Annie decided then and there, in that single instant, that Nick’s date was none of her concern.

  If he wants me to know, he’ll tell me.

  That grin he flashed, however—that unbelievable, dimpled smile, right there and right then—that was just for Annie. And no Auburn Beauty could take that away from her.

  “Afternoon, Nick.” She slid a chair up to the edge of the desk. “Tell me how it went.”

  Chapter Twelve

  “As Miss Golightly was saying before she was so rudely interrupted…”

  Audrey Hepburn, Breakfast at Tiffany’s, 1961

  Nick had sat across the desk from Annie for several hours that day and spent most of them wishing he could invite her to join him that night. One of the guys at the station had hit him up to buy a couple of tickets to the charity thing at the Cherry, and he couldn’t shake the thought that it might be something Annie would enjoy.

  For the umpteenth time, however, he reminded himself that he’d already invited Jenny to join him. And if he’d learned any one thing about women over the years, he was certain that a guy didn’t go around breaking a date at the last minute, especially with the shallow notion of taking someone else. Besides, with Jenny staying at the house for the next few weeks, he couldn’t get away with such a thing even if he could find the justification.

  Or could he?

  No, not cool, he decided as he picked up the remote to set the DVR.

  As if things weren’t bad enough already, now he had to miss the Lakers game and watch a recorded version later.

  “I’ll bet the Staples Center is packed to the rafters tonight,” Annie muttered to Zoey.

  “Will you forget the Lakers game? You can watch it tomorrow. This is why God made TiVo.”

  “It’s not the same.”

  Annie sighed and pushed up a smile as she rounded the car and offered her arm to her grandmother.

  “I’m so excited,” Dot beamed as they headed into the Carl Cherry Center for the Arts. “I’ve been looking forward to this for weeks. I’m happy you could come with us, Zoey. I think you’re going to really enjoy the show.”

  Annie had been a patron-by-default of the center for years, accompanying her grandmother to art exhibits, lectures, and small stage productions. The artistic hideaway, an established entity in Carmel’s eclectic cultural scene, revolved around a commitment to providing accessible interaction between the arts and the local community. It was only natural that Dorothy Gray would become a regular patron soon after moving to the village. For all her elegance and dignified grace, Gram also possessed a certain bohemian quality that fit right in with the Cherry.

  Annie perused the program for the musical revue dedicated to the Golden
Age of Movies, taking her seat between Gram and Zoey once inside the intimate theater.

  “Look, Dot,” Zoey said, waving the program. “They included a song from Devonshire Pass. Weren’t you in that movie?”

  Gram chuckled and squeezed Annie’s arm. “I was ‘Girl on Train.’ I had three lines.”

  “Three pivotal lines,” Annie told Zoey. “Gram set up the whole plot.”

  “That’s why Annie’s my favorite granddaughter. She sees the significance of being ‘Girl on Train.’”

  “You sound just like Aunt Henri.”

  “Well, I raised her.”

  Turning to Zoey, Annie reminded her, “I was Henri’s favorite niece because I like to wear hats.”

  The theater filled up quickly, and several of the patrons stopped to greet Dot. Just before the lights dimmed, Zoey leaned over toward Annie and poked her in the side with her elbow.

  “Hey. Isn’t that Nick Benchley?”

  His name brought her surroundings to a screeching halt. Annie followed Zoey’s nod down to the end of the second row.

  She groaned. “Yep, that’s Nick.”

  “Who’s that girl with him?”

  “His Auburn Beauty, no doubt.”

  The small village of Carmel-by-the-Sea just keeps shrinking by the day, Annie lamented. And Nick Benchley appeared to be everywhere!

  “What are you talking about? What Auburn Beauty?”

  “Evan said he saw them at the movies the other night. He didn’t know anything about her but that she was an auburn-haired knockout.”

  As the production opened, Auburn beamed at Nick, applauding and grinning.

  “She looks too young for him. What is she, about twelve? And she doesn’t look like such a knockout,” Zoey said with confidence. “She doesn’t hold a candle to you.”

  “You’re a good friend,” Annie whispered. Then, “Evan was certainly taken by her.”

  Trying to focus on anything except Nick and his young date, Annie peeled her eyes away and focused on the revue. After a few minutes, she actually did forget about Nick and began to enjoy the show. Even more fortuitous, the happy couple left as soon as the show concluded, while her own departure moseyed along, dictated by Dot’s social interaction.

  Zoey had left her car at the house, and she decided to stop in for a few minutes when they returned. Sherman, excited to see her, slipped on the kitchen linoleum and fell prostrate at her feet.

  “Oh, honey, be careful,” Zoey cooed at him, and she lifted his front paws while Annie lifted from the rear to get him to his feet again. He forgot the embarrassment almost instantly, and he hopped from Zoey to Annie and back again.

  Gram headed straight to bed while Annie took Sherman for a quick walk and Zoey filled two tall glasses with ice and Diet Coke. Decaffeinated. A new thing Annie had decided to try.

  “Are you feeling sad over seeing Nick with a date?” Zoey asked when they finally sat down at the kitchen table.

  “A little. But what about you?”

  “It doesn’t really bother me if Nick sees someone else,” she replied, her eyes narrowed. “Unless it bothers you.”

  “No, I mean, are you sad about something?”

  “Oh. No. I’m fine.”

  “Please don’t lie to me. We’ve known each other far too long for that.”

  “I’m fine, Annie.”

  “Zo. It’s me. Talk to me.”

  And that’s all it took.

  Zoey melted like candle wax, and before Annie knew it, she’d folded her arms and crumpled into them atop the table and begun to sob. She saw a weariness in Zoey that she’d never seen before, and Annie scuffed her chair up next to hers and enclosed her friend in an embrace.

  “Whatever it is,” she whispered, “it’s going to be okay.”

  Annie continued to tell her that, believing it for her, knowing full well that Zoey didn’t have the strength to believe it for herself. Annie had floundered in similar emotional waters a time or two; she knew the signs.

  For just a moment, she began to wonder if the unthinkable had happened. Had Mateo cheated on her? No, she decided. Not possible.

  Is the business going under? Is someone sick?

  “Please, Zoey. Tell me what’s wrong.”

  “I’m just so tired,” she told the table through her folded arms. “I can’t keep going like this.”

  “Like what?” Annie asked, nudging her to look up. “What’s going on?”

  When she lifted her head, Zoey almost looked to Annie like a watercolor painting left out in the rain. She handed her a clump of napkins, and Zoey used them to blow her nose and wipe off her face.

  “I’m sorry,” she said, the pile of rumpled napkins on the table in front of her. “I didn’t mean to do this.”

  “You had to,” Annie corrected. “You can’t just walk around like this. I’m your best friend. Would you talk to me, please? Has something happened? Is Mateo all right?”

  “Define ‘all right.’”

  “Healthy?” she articulated. “Faithful. Safe.”

  She tried to smile through the tears, and she took Annie’s hand and squeezed it.

  “Then yes. He’s all right.”

  “Are you?”

  “I don’t know,” she admitted. “I thought I was. I thought helping Mateo run his business was what I should do, so I left my job and picked up the slack. But it seems like it’s just one big sand trap, and now, instead of just him being swallowed up in it, we both are.”

  Annie gave her a nod. “Keep going.”

  “Don’t get me wrong, I’m thankful for everything we have. The business is the right move for Mateo. It’s just that it’s become this huge elephant in the middle of our lives that we can’t walk around.”

  “Can you hire some help?”

  “We do. We hire drivers and administrative help, and they work out for a couple of weeks but then they leave without notice or they show up to work intoxicated or they steal from the warehouse. Annie, we just can’t catch a break. And there’s no end in sight. I can’t even remember the last time we went out for dinner together or took a weekend trip or did anything at all that was just the two of us that didn’t involve paperwork or deliveries.”

  She paused to nurse her drink for a moment, and Zoey looked up at Annie with more tears standing in her eyes.

  “He’s always out on the road or at the warehouse. And I’m at home handling the rest of it. This just isn’t the way I pictured our lives, you know? Seriously, sometimes I find myself daydreaming about just packing a bag one day, getting in the car, and disappearing.”

  “Oh, Zoey.

  “I know how awful it sounds. Believe me, I do. But I just can’t take this much longer. And I don’t know what to do about it.”

  An hour later, Annie’s best friend left Gram’s house looking wrung out but at peace for the moment.

  “Thanks for listening,” she said, and she planted a kiss on Annie’s cheek. “I really needed to let it out.”

  The smile she managed left Annie with a sense of well-being all her own. She hadn’t realized how long it had been since she’d seen that smile from Zoey, and a bitter taste of guilt rose in the back of her throat for not noticing much sooner.

  An arrangement of tulips and roses swallowed up Annie’s desk. A card bearing nothing more than a huge question mark and signed Colby sat on her calendar.

  Nick had been behind closed doors for the last twenty minutes after she’d passed a phone call to him from someone named Jenny. An auburn-haired child, no doubt, and each minute that ticked by with him still tied up on that phone call irritated her a little more.

  To divert her own attention, Annie looked up Colby’s number and dialed it.

  “Colby Barnes.”

  “Colby. It’s Annie.”

  He greeted her with a short, silent pause, followed by a sigh to punctuate it. “Annie. I’m so glad you called.”

  “Well, I’m calling to ask you not to send any more flowers, Colby.”

 
“I tossed in some tulips for your friend,” he said on a chuckle. “I hope he appreciates it.” After an awkward moment, he added, “Please, please forgive me, Annie. Let me make it up to you by taking you to dinner?”

  “I don’t want to have dinner with you, Colby. Please understand, and stop contacting me.”

  “Listen, I know I pushed too hard. I have no excuse except—Let me take you to dinner. I’ll wear a muzzle and oven mitts. I promise you’ll be perfectly safe.”

  “I’m sorry, Colby. But no.”

  “Just some linguini? Seven thirty at Casanova?”

  “Good-bye, Colby.”

  The door to Deke’s office flew open just as she hung up, and Nick stepped into the doorway.

  “I’m headed out early today. I have something to do. Will I see you in the morning?”

  “Bright and early.”

  As Nick’s Jeep zipped out of the parking lot, Annie bit her lip and shook her head.

  This is ridiculous. I’m hating a Jenny I’ve never even met.

  Deke’s eyes were bright and sharp again when Annie went to visit him the next day, and she felt a surge of relief to see him sitting upright and ready for visitors.

  “Come in here and tell me about my business,” he said by way of a greeting. “How far into the ground has Bench run it anyway?”

  “Just far enough,” she replied, and Deke let out a resonant laugh that did her heart good. “Any idea when they’ll let you go home?”

  “Another few days, I’d guess. Then another few weeks at home before I come back to work. Think you can stand him that long?”

  “Well, he is pretty hard to take,” she said with a grin. “But I think we can manage for your sake.”

  “Once I’m out of here, I expect to start getting weekly updates. No more of this ‘keeping me in the dark for the sake of my health’ bit that Bench has you both playing.”

  “Sir, yes sir,” she replied with a mock salute.

  “I mean it.”

  “He means what? What does he mean, Annie Gray?”

  For the first time since she’d known him, Nick Benchley walked into a room without making a thunderous entrance.