That evening after work, Annie went home and threw a few things in the wash so that she could pack for her trip. She felt both excited and apprehensive about seeing Taylor North again after all these years. Annie had called the winery back around four, but Taylor had been at a meeting, and Annie was put through to the winemaker, a man named Galen Rockwell. He had insisted that Taylor wanted to see Annie urgently, that she had to come right away. There was harassment involved, an estranged husband, he had said. He made it sound like the business could be in jeopardy if she didn’t get some legal help right away. The man had sounded so desperate, and her calendar was clear for a couple of weeks, so Annie agreed to leave the next morning.
Lost in her thoughts, Annie was startled when the intercom buzzed. “Who is it?” she answered tentatively. She wasn’t in the mood for surprises.
“Hey, Annie, open up. It’s me.” Annie recognized the voice of her friend, Ellen O’Neill. “Didn’t you get my message about dinner tonight?”
“Sorry. Come on up.” Annie buzzed her in.
Ellen made it up the stairs to Annie’s second-floor apartment in a matter of seconds. The tiny woman, whose hobby was running marathons, made a practice of going up stairs three at a time. When she knocked on Annie’s door, she wasn’t even winded.
“I knew you’d forget. That’s why I left you a message reminding you,” Ellen said with a smile. Annie often got so frazzled by the endless details at work that she forgot she had a personal life.
“I know, it’s a long story. I got your message, but completely spaced it out. You want to grab a bite somewhere? I don’t feel like cooking tonight.”
“What do you mean, you don’t feel like cooking tonight? Annie, the entire time I’ve known you, you’ve never felt like cooking. I’m not even sure you know how to cook.”
“I know how to cook perfectly well. It’s just that I choose not to.”
“Right. Whatever you say. You look exhausted.”
Annie told her about that afternoon’s call, and her decision to spend a few days in eastern Washington. “I had to rush like crazy to get everything finished up at work, and I still have to pack.”
“Well, then let’s do take-out. I can go get it while you finish up here.”
“Sounds great.” They agreed on Chinese food from Tai Tung. Half an hour later, the two women were seated on Annie’s living room floor by the coffee table, dishing up orange beef, cashew chicken, mu shu pork, and something with tomatoes and eggplant that Annie didn’t recognize. “My God, Ellen,” Annie said when she saw all the containers. “Are you sure you got enough? I didn’t know we were inviting the neighborhood army battalion.”
“So, there might be leftovers.” Annie knew that was unlikely. Long-distance running was Ellen’s second favorite hobby; her favorite pastime was eating.
Before Annie could taste a bite, the intercom buzzed again. “Don’t answer it,” said Ellen as she speared a piece of orange beef with her chopstick. “It’s probably just some kid selling magazines.”
The buzzer rang again, more insistently. Annie got up and answered it. “Yes?”
“Annie, it’s Jed. I’m glad you’re home. I desperately need solace and comfort.”
Annie buzzed him in. Coming in the door, he took a deep breath and said, “Yes, I’d love to stay for dinner, and thanks for asking. What is this, a party I wasn’t invited to?”
“No, just us. You know Ellen, right?”
“Yeah, hi.”
“Have a seat, I’ll get you a plate. So, what are you doing on Capitol Hill?”
Grabbing a mu shu pancake and spilling pork onto the carpet, Jed replied somberly, “I had a date.”
Ellen looked at her watch. “Had a date? But it’s only seven-thirty.”
“I didn’t say I had a successful date.”
Annie returned with a plate, some silverware, and a roll of paper towels. She brought out two beers for herself and Ellen, and a diet Pepsi for Jed.
“You wouldn’t happen to have the caffeine-free kind, would you?” Jed asked with a smirk.
“No,” Annie responded with a glare. “So, the bachelorette of the week didn’t work out, huh?”
He sighed. “I wasn’t going to tell you, because I knew you would never let me live it down. I’ve turned over a new leaf. No more Barbie dates. I’ve decided from now on only to go out with intelligent women.”
Annie almost choked. “That is a change. And just how are you going to accomplish this amazing reformation?”
Jed mumbled into his rice.
“What was that?”
“I said, I placed a personal ad in the Weekly. I’ve had three dates so far.”
Annie tried not to snicker through a mouthful of mu shu.
“Don’t laugh,” said Ellen. “I placed an ad once, and met some nice guys. Three Boeing engineers, an insurance salesman, and an MBA student. Not a single serial killer in the bunch. No married serial killers either, now that I think of it. How’s your luck been, Jed?”
“Absolutely disastrous. Date Number One on Friday was a radical feminist. I mean, I’m a sensitive-new-age-guy and all that, but she was something else. I should have made my escape the moment I saw her. She wanted to meet at the Gravity Bar on Broadway, and when I got there, she was reading a copy of Backlash by Susan Faludi, ferociously underlining her favorite passages with a yellow highlighter. She spent the next hour telling me why all men are scum, and how in the next world order, women will hold the positions of power and men will be the housekeepers and slaves.”
“I like this woman,” said Ellen, smiling.
“Hey, I barely got out of there with my anatomy intact.”
“So, what about Number Two?” Annie asked.
“It started out okay. I met her in the afternoon at Green Lake—she said she wanted to roller skate. And I have to admit, I was impressed when I saw her—tall, brunette, gorgeous beyond belief.”
“I thought you were turning over a new leaf?”
“I didn’t say they can’t be beautiful as well as intelligent.”
“Okay, go on.”
“We get to the lake, and she strips down to nothing but a string bikini and knee pads, and proceeds to do this little dirty-dancing number on skates. I guess I was just there to be an audience, along with every other red-blooded male at the lake. She got asked out six times before we made it back to where we started.” Jed picked up the eggplant dish and started eating out of the container. “This stuff’s really great. What is it?”
“Eggplant,” said Ellen. Jed set it down.
“I guess I’m kind of full, after all.”
“So, what happened tonight?” Ellen asked.
Jed put his head in his hands. “The worst. It was Cyndi—the new receptionist from the office!”
“Jed, she’s only eighteen.”
“Believe me, I know. Ever since she started work, it’s been real clear that she had a crush on me. Not that I’m not flattered, but even I have my limits. I made the mistake of showing her the ad when it appeared in the paper. She answered, using a fake name so I wouldn’t know it was her. I met her up on Broadway—we were supposed to see a movie at the Harvard Exit. So, I bought her a movie ticket, told her to enjoy herself, and that I was never, repeat never, going to go out with her. The last thing I need is to be charged with sexual harassment. I’ve almost decided it would be easier to be celibate.” He saw Ellen raise one eyebrow. “I said, ‘almost.’ Hey, can I have the rest of this?”
Jed helped himself to the last of the cashew chicken. Seeing Annie’s overnight bag in the corner, he asked, “You going somewhere? Is this anything to do with that mystery phone call you got today?”
Annie nodded. “Eastern Washington. This woman I used to be friends with in high school owns a winery over there in the Yakima Valley.”
“This, after Joel gave me such a hard time about taking a vacation?”
“This is business. She needs legal help dealing with her estranged husband. He’s harassing her, causing all kinds of trouble for the winery.”
“Right. The wine country at harvest time. Really tough assignment, Annie. But I thought you said you weren’t speaking to this woman.”
Annie tried to think of the best way to explain her complex connection to Taylor North and her husband, Stephen Vick. “Taylor and I were best friends in high school. We were transfer students at Queen Anne High, both with divorced parents, and we lived in the same neighborhood. To tell you the truth, I idolized Taylor. She was attractive, popular, outgoing—all the things I thought I wasn’t. For three years, we were practically inseparable.”
“And the guy?” Jed asked. “Did you know him, too?”
Annie moved the food around on her plate, her appetite suddenly gone. “Yeah. Taylor started going out with Steven Vick halfway through our senior year, really spending a lot of time with him. He and I didn’t hit it off.”
“Jealousy?” Ellen asked.
“Oh, it was a lot more than jealousy. We literally hated each other. It was like vinegar and baking soda—a combustible reaction if we were even in the same room together. I couldn’t imagine what she saw in him. He was loud, obnoxious, went out of his way to insult everyone she cared about—not just me. And he had a terrible temper. You know the type—if someone cuts him off in his car, he’s likely to get out and start a fight. The slightest thing could set him off. It was a horrible situation.”
“So, you stopped speaking to her because her boyfriend was a jerk?”
She took a deep breath. “There was… more to it than that.” Annie stood up and began clearing away the plates. Her silence made it clear that the subject was closed.