“I can’t help it,” Annie sighed. “You’d be whining, too, if I was the one who was dead and you were left to figure out how to do stuff on your own.” She’d said it half-jokingly, so she was more than surprised when Murphy replied,No kidding. My life would have been a disaster without you.
Though intellectually, Annie supposed she knew that Murphy’s words always came from Annie’s imagination (or did they?), she chose to believe that her stalwart best buddy was still with her, would be with her to the end. And who could argue with that when Annie was the only one who Murphy talked to? Smiling now, somehow comforted, somehow having gained the will and the strength to start layering the contents of her bureau into another tub, Annie kept enough things out to put into a suitcase to take to Earl and Claire’s.
Then Earl’s trademark three short knocks on the screen door interrupted.
“Hey,” she said, peeking from the bedroom and quickly whisking away the remnants of her emotions.
He went into the cottage and took a seat at Annie’s compact table. “Hey, yourself. You packed?”
“Pretty much. I locked my valuables—what there are of them—in the Louis Vuitton. You don’t suppose he’ll pick the lock, do you?” Donna, Annie’s birth mother, had gifted the pricey antique trunk to Annie; it wasn’t until Donna died that Annie found secrets hidden inside.
“I have the impression you’re not excited about this.”
“I’m fine. I think it will be okay. And, by the way, I tacked on a little extra revenue for the cottage, so maybe Kevin will be impressed.” Tired of her chore, she dumped the contents of the bottom bureau drawer into the last tub and snapped the lid closed. Then she pushed it into the living room. “It’s strange, though, isn’t it? Things had been going so smoothly. And now look at us. Francine and Bella are going to move into Jonas’s. I’m moving to your house. And you’re going to camp out in a sleeping bag on a plywood floor.”
He rubbed his chin, as he’d done earlier. “For starters, I don’t think Francine has a real problem moving in with Jonas, do you?”
Annie couldn’t argue with that.
“And a change of scenery might be good for you, too. Like maybe staying with Claire will not only give her a rest from me, but will give you one from this place.” He chuckled. “And after nearly fifty years marriage, I’m not above admitting I’m happy to get away from my dear wife.” Of course, he was devoted to Claire, and she to him, and everyone on the Vineyard knew it. “Still,” he liked to say, “fifty years is fifty years.” Point taken.
She plunked down on the chair across from him. “You want a cinnamon roll? A cookie or something?”
“Nope. Leave ’em in the freezer for our celebrity guest.”
She uttered a small groan. “I hope we haven’t been too hasty. I can’t stop feeling that this is exactly what we agreed we never would do: chase the money. It’s as if we’re saying, ‘Honestly, we’re full, but if you need a room, no problem. We’ll hang from the rafters because we want your cash.’ Yuck. Sure, the Inn is a business, Earl, but we all agreed we wouldn’t be greedy.” She didn’t mention that she’d also up-charged their standard rate to give Simon’s assistant Francine and Bella’s room.
“We did. But I’ve been thinking about this, too, and if I were a betting man, I’d say that having Simon Anderson at The Vineyard Inn will be so good for our image it outweighs the rest. Who knows? Maybe he’ll want to get married here.”
“He’s not married?” Annie asked, then hated that she’d stooped to that kind of natter. “Never mind. The fact is, I don’t want this to be a precedent. We only rent three rooms in summer because we didn’t build the Inn to have it become a big money business but to help out with the island housing crisis, including mine. The money from summer rentals is supposed to help us get through the winter and so we can keep the rentals affordable for islanders.”
He nodded six or seven times; they had discussed those goals and objectives over and over since he and Kevin had come up with the plan a year ago.
“But there’s another upside you haven’t mentioned, Annie. Simon will be here for, what, ten days? I don’t think there’s any question that during his visit he’ll be pumping big bucks into the local restaurants and the shops.”
“Are you implying they don’t get enough in August?”
Earl stood up. “If I were you, I wouldn’t ask any of them that. Now, if you’re finished, let’s get those buckets stored in the workshop, and I’ll pick out a prime spot for my old sleeping bag.”
* * *
After they’d finished moving Annie’s things, Earl went home. Annie went back to the cottage and stretched out on her bed, trying not to think about the fact that, once again, someone other than her would be occupying it.
The next thing she knew, it was six o’clock.
She bounded out of bed as if she’d been caught dawdling by one of the nuns at the Catholic elementary school that her mom, Ellen Sutton, had made sure Annie attended.
“It’s nineteen seventy-four, Bob,” Annie had overheard her mom say to her dad. “This isn’t the fifties. The world is scary now, and Annie will need a proper education or she’ll turn into one of those hippie girls in a psychedelic miniskirt.”
“She’s only six,” her dad had replied.
But her mom had stood her ground.
So Annie ran a comb through her hair now, brushed her teeth, and smoothed her jersey and her jeans as if Sister Catherine Aloysius was waiting in the living room to conduct the mandatory grooming inspection.
Moving into the kitchen, Annie poured a glass of wine and pondered where she would have gone to school if Donna MacNeish had raised her, if Donna hadn’t given Annie up for adoption. As she retreated outside to the porch, Annie didn’t think she was feeling sorry for herself; she was merely sad that she was going to have to leave her comfy nest, her writer’s room, and the silence she cherished more than she felt she should admit.
There was, she knew, a fine line between wanting, needing to be alone, and wanting, needing to be with another, who in this case was John. And though she’d accepted that her living arrangements would change once she and John married, Annie had imagined that though she’d move into his place, she would return to her cottage every morning to fulfill her duties at the Inn and to write. It had made perfect sense in Annie’s world of make-believe, which was a good place for her brain to be when she was writing fiction, but wasn’t always in sync with real life.
