Neither a borrower nor a lender be.
— Shakespeare
Pennsylvania in September could be a thing of beauty, and this day was even better than most. The greener-than-green countryside around Peevers Mansion was lush after the rain that had fallen sometime after midnight, so that the dark macadam of the winding country road still shone wetly in the sunlight that had broken through the clouds only an hour earlier.
A person could really enjoy being a passenger in a car like Grady’s, because of the scenery, and because Grady was a competent driver, not a lead foot trying to take each corner at the greatest speed possible.
Annie had time to admire the huge homes that seemed so at home half-hidden behind tall trees that it was as if they had grown up along with those trees, as much a part of the land as the rocks and flowers and small streams that seemed to meander everywhere.
Then they were on a more heavily traveled roadway leading to Route 22, known locally only as “the thru-way,” although the increase in traffic over the years made many want to rename it “the parkway” during the morning and evening rush hours. Annie knew this, because she’d had to stop to ask directions the first time she’d driven to Peevers Mansion, and the thought had tickled her enough to commit it to memory.
The thruway wasn’t at all crowded at the moment, however, as the rush hour was long over and it was still too early for the evening rush. There were trucks, making their way to New York for new loads, or heading out from New York to parts south and west to deliver their cargos. Annie also knew from her reading that Pennsylvania was supposed to have more interstate truck traffic than almost any state, and nearly the worst interstate highways in any state.
Not that she had to be told that one, because even Grady’s luxury sedan couldn’t hide all the bumps in the road as they traveled along, not speaking to one another.
They had spoken, for the first few minutes after leaving Peevers Mansion. She’d talked about the cold silence and deadly stares she’d gotten at the breakfast table, and he’d made her laugh with his rendition of “the interrogation” that had gone on in Archie’s rooms.
Annie really enjoyed being in Grady’s company. Because he smiled a lot. Because he was easy to talk to. Because she felt safe. And because, if she got lucky, really lucky, he might even kiss her again sometime soon.
Yes, Annie had been feeling pretty happy, or as upbeat as anyone could feel while residing in the Peevers Asylum for the Weird and Wacky. She was, in fact, so glad to be out of the place for a while, that she doubted her mood could get any better.
She’d been right. Because, just moments ago, Grady had made it worse. Much worse.
She was silent for a few moments, doing what she was pretty sure was a slow burn, then announced: “No. Absolutely, positively no.”
“Yes, Annie. I insist.”
“You can’t insist, because I refuse to be... to be insisted. And I said no. I can do that, Grady. No. No, no, no. See? I can do it all day. No, no, no, no, no.”
“Damn it, Annie. What’s the matter with you? Or do you think I plan to take it out in trade later?”
Annie turned on the front seat of the car and glared at Grady, pretending the idea hadn’t held just a teeny bit of appeal. “You wish,” she said, then looked forward again, folding her arms across her stomach. “Take me back. Now.”
Yes, she needed an entire new wardrobe. No, she didn’t want to live the next month in the clothes she had on now, had worn yesterday. But if he thought, for even one minute, that she was going to let him buy those clothes for her? Ha!
“Then you have enough money?” Grady asked, taking his eyes off the road to look at her just as if she was ready to lie to him again.
“I have plenty of money. Enough to buy anything I want.”
“I’ll just bet,” Grady said, shaking his head.
“Maybe you would. Me, I don’t ever gamble. That’s why I have enough money,” Annie shot back at him, and watched as his knuckles got white as he held on to the steering wheel. Big deal, he was angry. So was she, gosh darn it.
The fact that she had a whopping $74.23 in her wallet until her job for Archie was over and he paid her the rest of the money he’d promised only made her angrier. Not that she cared. Not that she cared one bit!
She would rather walk around naked than have Grady think she needed money, would accept his charity.
Well, maybe not naked. But she’d think of something.
Archie had been generous with her, giving her enough money up front to put a hefty down payment on her new car and to outfit herself for the role of long-lost granddaughter. She could not, would not go to him for more money. Nor would she go to Poppy. He was also too “new” in her life for her to let him believe she couldn’t stand on her own two feet, without his help.
She might be seen by the world as a con artist or some other bottom-feeding scum, but she did have her principles. And her pride. Besides, she concluded, pulling a face, Archie would be so happy she had to come to him that he’d probably never let her forget for a moment that she was as silly and shiftless as his children. She couldn’t stand that!
“What if we consider it a loan?” Grady asked as he steered the car onto the exit ramp. “You already told me what Archie’s paying you, so I know you’re good for it.”
“A loan,” Annie repeated. Okay. That seemed sensible. And she was in a bind. Maybe she could swallow just a little of her pride. If nothing else, it would teach her never to be reckless with her money. She’d had so little of it in her life that she’d kind of gone nuts, throwing down cash for every purchase, then topping it off by falling in love with a twenty-pound two-hundred-dollar stuffed rabbit.
But, then, she’d never before had a pet.
“Yes, Annie, a loan,” Grady said, pulling the car into a parking space near the main entrance to the mall. “That means I give you money and then you give it back. It’s fairly simple, actually.”
“I know what it means,” Annie said, bristling as she got out, slammed the door. This guy really could get under her skin. Then she saw the sign, and smiled. “Look, there’s a bank in there,” she told Grady, pointing to the sign just in case he hadn’t seen it. “Let’s go.”
He followed her. She hadn’t left him much choice, she knew, but he did seem to be in an obedient mood this morning, which was nice. She walked into the bank and stepped right up to the receptionist’s desk. “Hi, I have a favor to ask. Would it be possible for you to sell me a blank note?”
“Um... I’ll get the manager, miss.”
“I don’t believe this.” Grady had caught up to her and was now standing beside her, shaking his head. “You want to sign a note?”
“A promissory note, unsecured, of course,” Annie informed him. “Ninety days, and with interest. I don’t know what interest that should be, but I’m sure the manager can tell me.”
“You’re scary, do you know that?” Grady said as the receptionist motioned for them to follow her to the manager’s desk. Fifteen minutes later—the manager had actually given her a blank unsecured note, without charge, had even helped her fill it out—Annie was in Macy’s poring over the sale racks. “Isn’t it great that all the summer clothing is on sale? I should be able to go straight through September in summer clothes. No white shoes, though, because it’s after Labor Day, right?” she asked Grady as he leaned against a post, still looking at her as if she might have grown a second head.
“A 1099, and now she signs a note for five hundred dollars, at a pretty nice interest, too,” he said, addressing a smiling mannequin. “Do you believe this?”
Annie grinned. “Careful, Grady. I read somewhere that sometimes stores put cameras in the eyes of those mannequins, to watch for shoplifters. Right now some guy could be looking at one of the screens in front of him, seeing you talking to him. I mean, there may be a man, a big white net, and a padded room in your future.”
Grady eyed the mannequin for a moment, then pushed himself away from the post. “Here, try this on,” he said, pulling a sleeveless pink V-neck sweater off the rack.
Annie looked at the sweater consideringly, then shook her head. “I don’t think so. See how short it is? It’s one of those bare-midriff sweaters. I don’t wear those.”
Grady looked at the sweater. “Yeah, I can see the problem, what with that huge spare tire you’re carrying around. How about a muumuu?”
“Gimme that,” Annie said angrily, ripping the hanger out of his hand. “Now go away. You’re making me nervous, hovering over me like this.”
“Is there a problem, miss? We’ve been watching, you understand. Is this person bothering you?”
Annie turned to see a short, compact, fireplug of a man wearing a blazer with Security written on the pocket. He was looking at Grady as if deciding whether to climb him, grab him in a headlock, or just pull out the stun gun and take him down.
“Well... actually...” she said, looking at Grady with an “I told you so” look and trying not to giggle.
“Annie...” he gritted back at her. That little tic was working near his temple again. What fun! Then she remembered she still needed a ride home.
What the hell, she then thought, smiling, she had five hundred dollars in her purse, right? She could take a cab.
“It’s all right, thank you,” she said, smiling at the security guy. “Grady just hates shopping, don’t you, Grady, sweetie?”
She took a step toward the security guy, her back to Grady, and spoke to him quietly, confidentially. “Honest, everything’s just fine. He’s my brother. It makes him so mad when I buy these size sixes for myself before we head for the mature woman’s department to buy for him. He mostly wears Mother’s things. Mother was a fairly large woman, you understand, but she’s been gone now for a few years and Grady wanted so badly to update his wardrobe. He doesn’t come in here anymore in drag because one of your salespeople noticed his Adam’s apple last time, and laughed so hard Grady nearly hit her with his purse. That’s why I come along now. Could you tell us if there are any sales in the women’s department?”
“I’m going to kill you,” Grady said a few moments later, dragging Annie by the elbow as they walked away from the security guy. “I’m going to kill you slowly and very painfully and in highly inventive ways, and there’s not a jury in the world that would convict me.”
“We’re going the wrong way,” Annie said when she could stop laughing, catch her breath. “The security guy said the women’s department is back there. Oh, and I think he thought you were cute.” She broke away from him and took a step back toward the junior department. “You want me to fix you up?”
“An-nnie,” he growled, then stopped, smiled. Laughed. “I can’t believe you did that!” he said between chuckles. “And did you see the look on that guy’s face?”
“He couldn’t get out of there fast enough, could he?” Annie said, slipping her arm through Grady’s and marveling at how good it felt, how natural, to be walking close beside him this way. “He’ll probably have nightmares for a week, imagining you in lipstick and high heels.”
“That makes two of us,” Grady told her, drawing to a halt. “Look, I can see we’re getting nowhere fast, and there’s no way in hell I’m going with you to the lingerie department, so what do you say we split up? I can meet you right here in an hour.”
She tipped her head to one side. “I would have thought you’d be very much at home in the lingerie department.”
“Joke’s over, Annie,” he said, no longer smiling.
“No, no, I’m not talking about before. I just meant that you didn’t seem to be the type who’d feel out of place surrounded by all that silk and satin.”
“Which only goes to show how little you know me,” Grady said, then had them synchronize their watches so they’d be sure to meet each other in an hour.
As he walked away, Annie stared after him, considering his words. He was right. She really did know very little about him. She knew what he did for a living. She was pretty sure he did it well, because his clothes were expensive and he drove an expensive car. Maisie had told her last night that he was a real big winner with the ladies, although he never dated one for more than a few months.
And he kissed really well. She certainly knew that one.
He kissed so well that Annie had thought more than once about where those kisses might lead, and if she just might want to go along for the ride.
Which was stupid, as well as ridiculous. She had enough going on without complicating things by crawling into bed with Grady Sullivan.
She took a deep breath, let it out slowly, and went back to shopping. But it wasn’t any fun anymore. She’d had a ball the first time she’d walked into a store with a bundle of cash in her pocket. She’d been having fun with Grady. But now it was just a job, something that had to be done.
Although she did smile when she finally staggered to the checkout counter under her load of new clothing, to find that Macy’s was marking everything down another twenty-five percent that day. Maybe she was in for a run of good luck. That would be nice....
* * *
Grady looked at his watch for the third time in two minutes, and began to wonder if he’d made a mistake. How could he have forgotten his own rule, that he and Annie were to stick to each other like glue?
What if someone had come up to her, stuck a gun in her back, and told her to leave with him without making a fuss? What if she wasn’t even in the mall anymore, but instead tied up in the trunk of some Peevers car, being driven to some lonely spot and then tossed headfirst into a water-filled abandoned quarry or something?
Did Mercedes have an inside handle in their trunks?
Had he developed a nonprofessional overactive imagination in the past couple of days?
It was just that she was so helpless. No, not helpless. That was the wrong word. Annie wasn’t helpless. She was too independent, that’s what she was, and with that overactive imagination he’d just accused himself of harboring. And honest. Annie was also honest, almost to a fault.
That probably bothered him more than anything. Her honesty. It just didn’t jibe with what she was doing, who she was pretending to be. He really hated it when things weren’t logical, when people didn’t fit neatly into the slots they should fit into according to what he knew about them. Not that he knew much about Annie.
He had Maisie working the Internet for information on the Peeverses, even on the family doctor. But what about Annie? What had he done about Annie Kendall other than to kiss her in the moonlight?
Stupid! Stupid, stupid, stupid!
He looked around again, hunting for a sight of her curly black hair.
Nothing. She wasn’t anywhere. She could be anywhere. He only knew she wasn’t here, with him.
He felt a small shove in his back and wheeled around in a near crouch, ready to attack. “Hi,” Annie said, barely visible behind a pile of beige plastic bags that looked as if she hadn’t taken out the trash in weeks and now was trying to do it all in one trip. “You could help, you know, instead of standing there trying to look menacing.”
He was so glad to see her, so damn glad to see her! So, naturally, he yelled at her.
“You’re late!” he said, grabbing some of the bags out of her arms, leaving her still holding two huge bags in each hand.
“I’m”—she transferred the two bags in her left hand to her right and lifted her arm to look at her wristwatch— “... five minutes late. Shame, shame on me.”
“You bought all this with five hundred dollars?” he asked, feeling just a little bit lame, like some overprotective father waiting at the door for his daughter to come home from her first date. And he didn’t feel anything like her father!
“I’m a great shopper,” Annie told him. “Some people knit, some are good with flowers. I shop great. It’s a gift. Oh, and speaking of gifts...” She started opening bag after bag, peering inside, finally grabbing one from him before saying, “Aha! Got it. Here you go,” she said, handing him the smaller bag that had been stuffed inside the big one.
He took it with the same caution he’d use if someone handed him the front end of a rattlesnake, reached inside, and pulled out a square, flat box with a designer name on the lid. “You bought me a gift?” His eyelids narrowed. “Why?”
Annie shrugged. “A small peace offering after that little joke I played on you earlier, I suppose. Relax, it was on sale; I just had the clerk remove the price tag. Go on, open it.”
It was a wallet. The most beautiful wallet he’d ever seen, unless he was overreacting, and he probably was, he admitted to himself. He turned it over in his hands, opened it, admired the many pockets for his credit cards. “It’s... thank you, Annie.”
“You’re welcome. Oh, and take this, too. I forgot to put it in earlier.” She held up a nickel. “I don’t know why, but I’m pretty sure you should never give a wallet or purse as a gift without putting some money in it. Are you sure you like it? There was the loveliest shoulder bag that was big enough not to look out of proportion on you—kidding, just kidding!” she exclaimed as he narrowed his eyelids and growled. She made him take the nickel. “Don’t spend it all in one place, okay?”
“Okay,” he said, then motioned with his head toward the bag sitting beside him on the floor. It was a big plastic bag, tied shut at the handles. “I got something for you, too.”
“You did?” Annie’s eyes lit up as if it were Christmas morning and she’d just spied the new two-wheeler she’d asked Santa to bring her. “You didn’t have to—what is it?”
Grady grinned. “Why don’t you open it and see. There was this shop out in the mall. They didn’t have any pink ones left, only had one left at all, as a matter of fact. I had to tell this big sob story about my little sister being sick with the chicken pox before the clerk would sell me the display one, and... hey! What are you doing?” He felt his heart stop, skip a beat, then start up again. “Oh, Annie, don’t do that. Come on, honey, don’t do that. Please.”
But she was doing that. Annie Kendall was standing smack in the middle of the main aisle in Macy’s, right next to a girl spraying perfume on everyone who passed by, hugging a three-foot-high blue plush bunny rabbit to her and crying like a baby.
Grady stood there for a few moments, feeling helpless, then dragged girl and bunny into his arms, holding Annie tightly, kissing the top of her head and trying to comfort her with words that made no sense, especially to him.
What he didn’t say was, “I think I might just be falling in love with you, Annie Kendall.” But he heard the words just the same, inside his head.