Desperate Measures (9 page)

Annie ordered potato skins stuffed with cheese and bacon bits. He knew he'd eat four of the six that would be brought out.

“So, out with it,” she said testily.

“With what?”

“With whatever it is Dennis is going to throw at me. I like to be prepared. What did you do?”

Not what did Dennis do, what did
he
do? “I realized this afternoon that I don't like Dennis. I don't think I ever liked him. You asked for it, so I'm telling you the truth. He had the gall to ask me what I do and what I plan to do with all the money I earn. His envy was palpable. There seems to be a lot of scuttlebutt going around about the kind of money I earn. And he was on his way to getting sloshed over lunch. What kind of attorney gets drunk at lunch?”

“When you aren't in the big leagues, it's easy to fall into that jealousy trap. God, Pete, you know the kind of hours we put in, the billable hours hanging over our heads. There's no excuse for Dennis drinking at lunch, though. I think this is a first. This is just my opinion, but I think he's jealous of you.”

“So, I'm jealous of him. He has you.”

“You had your chance, Pete, you turned me down,” Annie said lightly.

“Bad timing,” Pete said just as lightly. It wasn't right, didn't
feel
right.

“I'm curious about something, though. Friend to friend, and I feel comfortable asking you, what
are
you going to do with all that money you earn? I can't even begin to comprehend the numbers that buzz and abound.”

“You really want to know?”

“That's why I asked.”

“Provide for my future. For the future of the children I hope to have someday, and for their children and their grandchildren. I want to know I've provided for generations of my blood for years to come. I don't ever want what happened to me to happen to them. I want a family, Annie. Lots of children. I want everything I never had. But first I want to earn it. Me. I don't want someone giving it to me. Why do you think I'm busting my ass?”

“You need a life, Pete. You know those proverbial roses everyone talks about? You need to stop and smell them from time to time. What good is all that going to do you if you drop dead at forty-five?”

“Five more years, Annie, and it will all be locked into place. I have the trusts all set up, and the insurance is in place to pay death taxes—not that I plan on dropping dead, but it's needed. Then I'm going to Bell's Beach. I'm going to be a beach bum.”

“What about the wife and kiddies?” Annie asked sourly.

“They'll be with me, living off the land and going bare-assed naked, no shoes.”

“You're nuts. You can't live off the land ... beach. Nothing grows on the beach.”

“I'm a city boy. So I need a few lessons on how to survive and become a beach bum. I'm gonna do it, Annie. You wait and see.”

“When I come to visit you, should I wear leaves and burlap or a string bikini? What will the little woman say?”

“She'll say, ‘Did you bring the latest issue of
Cosmo
?'” Pete guffawed. Annie doubled over, laughing.

They paused while the food was placed on the table. Then Pete asked, “How about you, Annie, has your game plan changed?”

“Nope. Sometimes,” she said, leaning over the table, her eyes dreamy, “I think ... dreams are just that, dreams. I want a house with a nice kitchen, you know, the stuff all in a row with a window over the sink. I'm gonna put little red pots on the sill full of herbs, and when I cook, I'll just pick off a stem. I want shiny pots with copper bottoms. What I'd
really
like is to have a fireplace in the kitchen, and a rocking chair with a thick, padded seat cover. I can't decide if I want a cat or a dog to cuddle with. Maybe two rocking chairs for my ... for ... you know, when I get married. He probably won't have a lot of time to sit and rock with me. Maybe Sunday mornings. Sunday mornings are good. I could live with that. That's in the beginning, until I have kids. I'd like four, but the chances of that are about slim to none. I'd like two boys and two girls. A boy first, so the others can have an older brother. I think that's important. You've heard this a hundred times, Pete, why am I telling you again?”

“Because I love hearing it. Go on,” Pete said, digging into Annie's potato skins.

“I want maple trees that give off a lot of shade. I'm gonna hang a tire from one of the limbs. A little boy on the street I lived on had one. I wanted to swing on that tire so bad, but my mother wouldn't let me. She said it was a dirty old thing and my clothes would get all dirty. As if I cared. Then she got sick and was in bed with a really bad cold. It was in the winter. After I took up her tea, I put on my coat and ran down the street, and man, I played on that old tire for over an hour. I only went home because I was freezing. I didn't get dirty either. I never told my mother. It was one of the best days of my life.

“Raking leaves, planting spring flowers, mowing the lawn, those are all going to be family projects,” she continued. “We're going to carve the pumpkins together, cook Thanksgiving dinners together, and go out for the Christmas tree together. We're going to be a family and do everything together. The day I get married is the day I'm going to start saving for college for the kids.

“I'm never going to give up my career. I don't mind putting it on hold while I have babies, but after that I think I might open up a little family practice and do it out of the garage I remodel into an office.

“I'm going to love my husband to death. Not really, but I am going to ... make sure he never falls out of love with me, because I simply do not believe in divorce. Maybe that's not realistic of me, but it's how I feel. Like you, Pete, I want to belong, to have my very own family. I want us to get dressed up on Sundays and go to church. I want to teach my kids about values, honesty, and caring about the other person. I want them to love me so that when it's my turn to go to that ... that place at the end of our lives, there's someone to grieve for me. For a little while. I want them to remember me and say things like, ‘Do you remember when Mom did this or that or Mom said this or that?' I want to be someone's mom and someone's wife. Do you think I want too much, Pete?”

“Hell no. Will you make chicken soup for your husband if he's sick? What if you're working, will you take a day off?”

“Absolutely. My husband won't be helpless, but if he's sick, then it will be my job to take care of him. I'd expect him to do the same.”

“You didn't say anything about your budget,” Pete said fretfully.

Annie laughed. “You know all this. You can probably tell me all about my budget, and stop eating all my skins.”

“So tell me about your budget.”

Suddenly, Annie wanted to cry. She didn't want to share all her dreams with Pete. It was Pete she wanted to marry, Pete she wanted to grow old with, Pete she wanted to take care of, Pete she wanted to be part of her life, Pete's kids she wanted.

“You look like you're gonna cry, Annie. I only ate four. I saved two for you. You never eat more than two. Don't tell me, I know, it must be that time of the month. So what about the budget?”

Annie stuck out her tongue and made a face. Men were so ... “I'm going to have a budget. So much for groceries, so much for clothing, so much for utilities. I'm going to keep envelopes like my mother did. Each envelope was for something, and she kept them in the kitchen cabinet by the telephone. I'm going to start out that way, but it's going to require a lot of trips to the bank. My mother dealt in cash, whereas I'll be writing checks. I just want to see what that's like. I'm even going to have an envelope for the paper boy. Then, at the end of the month, if I've managed to save some money, it will go into a separate bank account for when the kids start college. I'm going to have a water bottle for change too. I'm going to keep it in my closet. My mother did that and saved for years. She managed to save twenty-two hundred dollars, and she gave it all to me when I left for college. I didn't want to take it, but I did. I was so careful, too, of what I spent it on. It took them so long to save it.

“If I work, I'd like us to live off my salary if we can, and bank my husband's money. This is all so far out in left field, Pete. It's probably never gonna happen.”

“Sum it up, Annie,” Pete said gruffly.

Annie leaned back in her chair. He looked so intense, unlike the way he usually looked when they did the budget thing. She felt something prick at her heart. She felt the urge to cry again, to pound him to a pulp. She wanted to scream,
Tell me what you think, tell me if you care for me, tell me if there's even a remote chance that someday we'll be together.

“Well?”

“Sharing and caring. That's all I want out of a marriage. If I can have that, the rest will fall into place.”

“Listen, if I can't find someone to ... you know, go to Bell's Beach with, will you ... you know, give it all up and go with me?”

She grimaced. “Well, sure, Pete. Every girl likes to be second best. In a heartbeat.”

“Is that the truth or a lie? I need to know.”

“It's whatever you want it to be, Pete.”

And that's all he was going to get from Annie Gabriel.

“You louse, you ate five of those. You said you didn't want any.” She snatched the last one from his fingers and popped it in her mouth. “So there,” she mumbled around the potato skin.

“You free this evening?”

“I have to go over today's testimony. If you have nothing to do, you can come back to the apartment and I'll fix some dinner around nine or so, if you can hold out that long.”

“What will you fix?” Pete asked craftily.

“Pepper steak with sun-dried tomatoes, and those freeze-dried Japanese mushrooms you like. Wild rice. Banana cream pie. Frozen, of course.”

“Of course. I accept. What about Dennis?”

“What about him?”

“Will he be there?”

“Pete, Dennis has his own apartment, I have mine. We do not share. He has his life, I have mine. I do not ask permission to do anything, nor does he ask my permission. It's not as though we're engaged, for heaven's sake.”

“Do you think you might?”

“What? Get engaged?”

“Yes.”

“I don't know.”

And that was the end of that.

Rain slashed against the apartment windows. It sounded
ominous and ugly to Annie's ear. She moved, and Dennis stirred slightly. She wanted to get up and go into the living room where she could think, but she was afraid Dennis would wake up and the discussion they'd had after a very satisfying round of lovemaking would continue. Maybe if she did it in degrees and then kind of slid off the bed he wouldn't notice. He
looked
dead, but Dennis had a way of sleeping with one eye and ear open.

Annie strained to see the digital clock on the night table on her side of the bed. Now, though, because of their bedroom calisthenics, she was on the opposite side of the bed. She sighed wearily. Suddenly her life was a mess. She moved, waited, moved again. She looked at her bed partner. Where Pete had dark hair and dark eyes, Dennis was blond and blue-eyed. He was as tall as Pete, thinner, though. Dennis didn't have time for squash and jogging, he was too busy trying to fatten his bank account. He worked eighteen hours a day, sometimes more. His bank account was healthy, but not robust. She moved again, waited, moved again. Dennis wanted to move in with her, had talked about nothing else since they'd seen Pete, nearly a year ago now. He argued that they could share the rent and utilities and they'd both save that way. She'd said no. He'd grumbled and brought up Pete. Dennis always brought up Pete in moments when things didn't go his way.

Dennis moved, mumbled something in his sleep that sounded like he was arguing with a judge. An ugly look pasted itself on his face. Annie sucked in her breath.

“Why don't we make this legal?” he'd said when they finished making love. “Why don't we get married?” She almost jumped out of her skin. Marriage to Dennis wasn't something she ever thought about, and it wasn't on her horizon either. She didn't love Dennis. She was more than fond of him, and their sexual encounters were wild and healthy; often they made love for hours on end. He was snoring now, lightly. She moved, waited, moved again, until she was at the edge of the bed. He looked vulnerable, like a little boy. She couldn't begin to imagine Dennis as a little boy. She thought of him as born grown-up, shrewd and calculating. He had a small measure of ethics, but not anywhere near what she had. She was honest, he was semihonest. She wouldn't ever, under any circumstances, sell a client short. Dennis, on the other hand, was only interested in the retainer, the billable hours he could pad, and what was in it for him in the end. He was not above coercing a grateful client into giving him a bonus.

So, what was she doing in bed with someone she didn't really even like? Would she
consider
marrying Dennis? Not in a million years. Time to tell Dennis it had been nice while it lasted, and thanks but no thanks. It would be different if she hadn't made her feelings known from the beginning. Dennis had agreed, and now he was breaking the rules. Time to move on.

She was on the floor now, looking up at Dennis, who was still snoring, louder than before. That meant he was in a deep sleep and it was okay to move out into the living room.

Annie knew she wasn't going to sleep anymore, so she went into the kitchen and fixed herself a cup of herbal tea. While it steeped she fired up a cigarette. Life was a bitch, and then you died. She thought about Pete then because he was never far from her thoughts. She hadn't seen him in almost a year. She couldn't believe it. She talked to him regularly, though. All he did was travel, living out of a suitcase and banking his money. It had to be a very unsatisfactory life. She felt the need to stroll down Memory Lane, but Memory Lane had a way of making her cry. She wouldn't cry over Pete Sorenson or Dennis or any other man. She gulped at the tea, burned her tongue, said, “Oh shit!” just as the phone rang. She reached for it and caught it on the first ring. “Yes,” she whispered around her burned tongue.

“Annie, it's Pete. Whataya doin'?”

Annie stood up and closed the kitchen door. “What do you think I'm doing at three o'clock in the morning?” By God, she wouldn't tell him she was thinking about him, she just wouldn't. “I just burned my tongue.”

“At three o'clock in the morning?”

“Yes, at three o'clock in the morning,” Annie mumbled. “I couldn't sleep. Where are you?”

“Bangkok. I want to marry you, Annie.”

Annie's eyes started to water. He was drunk, she could hear it in his voice. She said so.

“Maybe a little bit,” he said. “Jesus, I hate this country.”

“You hate everything, Pete,” Annie snapped. “You hate the law, you hate traveling, you hate foreign countries. Is there anything you
like
?” She carried it a step further and said, “I hate it when you call me in the middle of the night with a snootful.”

“I like you. I really like you. I don't like that ... Dennis.”

“Ask me if I care, Pete. What time is it over there?”

“My watch says it's three o'clock. Twelve-hour difference. You should know that, Annie.”

“I should know a lot of things, but I don't. Why are you drunk at three in the afternoon?”

“It's my day off, and sightseeing is no fun alone. Remember when Leo sent us to Paris? We had fun, didn't we, Annie?”

Annie relented. “Yes, we did,” she said softly. “For the most part we always had fun. I miss that.”

“Don't you and Dennis have fun?” Pete asked craftily.

“That's none of your business, Pete.” This was like a bad romance novel.

“Are you going to marry me, Annie? I asked you, but you didn't answer me. Why didn't you answer me?”

“Because you're drunk. Ask me when you're sober and in person. Down on one knee. The whole nine yards, flowers in one hand and gumdrops in the other.”

“Why? I had to get drunk so I could ask you now.”

“Why do you want to marry me?” Annie said, holding her breath for his reply.

“Because I do. I want a family, lots of kids to love. You said you wanted the same things. We go together. It was always you and me, me and you. Well?”

“Dennis asked me to marry him this evening, Pete.” There was silence on the other end of the line for so long, Annie thought he'd hung up.

“Oh yeah. Tell him to kiss your ass. He's not good enough for you. He doesn't have an ethical bone in his body, and I know you don't love him.” He was slurring his words so badly Annie could only make out half of what he said. “You gonna do it?”

“Do what? Get married?”

Pete roared with laughter. “No. Tell him to kiss your ass. It's a great feeling when you tell some crud to do that. Barney taught me that. When should we get married?”

“When you're sober and you ask me.”

There was another silence, this one longer. “If I'm sober and ask you, will you?”

“When you ask me, you'll know my answer. I hate it when you get drunk, Pete.”

“I hate it too. There's nothing else to do.”

“Soak up some local culture,” Annie said.

“I want a family so bad. I want to belong, Annie. I want the house, the kids, the ball games, the swimming meets, the dog shit, the dog, sitting up all night when one of the kids is sick, barbecues—I want that, Annie. Time is going by too fast. I think that's what made me ... I want that, Annie.”

She wanted exactly the same things.

“I'd never stop you if you wanted to keep on working, have a career.... Well?”

“Ask me when you're sober, Pete.”

“Damn right I will. Will tomorrow be soon enough?”

“Yeah, tomorrow will be fine, Pete.”

“Are you still my best girl, my buddy? Do you think about me when I'm away, Annie? Wha'd you have for dinner tonight? Jesus, I miss seeing you! How about coming over here? You'd love Thailand. The shopping is great.”

“I miss you too, Pete. And no, I can't fly to Thailand, no matter how great the shopping is.”

“Why, Annie?”

“Because.”

“I hate because answers. I always answer you. Because why?”

“Because I said so,” Annie snapped.

“Are you going to call up Dennis now and tell him? I want you to do it now, Annie. Soon as we hang up.”

Something snapped in Annie. “Kiss my ass, Pete.” It was the worst thing in the world to say, especially to Pete. She'd never uttered his end-all solution to everything. She replaced the phone and then she cried, sniffling into the sleeve of her old, comfortable robe. It seemed to her she'd waited all her life to hear Pete ask her to marry him, but he was asking her for all the wrong reasons. Tomorrow, today actually, he said he would call her and propose all over again. “Yeah, yeah, and they got ice water in hell,” she muttered. Sober, Pete would never call. Would he even remember this call? She doubted it. It was funny, Pete rarely had more than two drinks when they were out. He always said he didn't like the feeling of being out of control.

She finished the herbal tea, cold now. Why today? Why did Dennis propose today? She wished she'd kept a diary so she could write in it. Two proposals, one from a drunk and one from a man who wanted to ride on her coattails, a man with little or no ethics. Love and happy ever after were for other people, not the Annie Gabriels of the world.

She waited all day, glued to the phone, willing it to ring, snapping at Dennis when his physical presence blocked the phone. Not a single person called her. She sent Dennis home at dusk, telling him she was getting a migraine. It wasn't a lie, it was something she'd wished on herself for thinking Pete meant what he'd said. She sat up all night, and still the phone didn't ring. And on Monday she didn't stray from her office, and checked hourly with the receptionist to make sure no overseas calls had come in for her. She did the same thing on Tuesday and Wednesday.

“Kiss my ass, Pete Sorenson,” she blubbered in the lavatory as she reapplied her makeup for the seventh or was it the eighth time.

Finally, on Wednesday evening, Annie knew for certain Pete was not going to call.

She was so devastated with the realization, she stumbled and almost fell on her way to her bedroom. She sobbed, great racking sounds that made her shoulders shake while her knees turned to mush.

When the hard, gasping sounds died down to whimpers and she was exhausted, Annie murmured into her pillow, “I just wanted to belong to you, Pete. I know people shouldn't belong to one another, but it's how I feel, how I wanted you to feel.”

It seemed to Annie as she closed her weary, heavy eyes that it was the end of the world.

 

Pete Sorenson woke with the Queen Mother of all hangovers. Now he knew what Annie felt like when she got one of her migraines. How the hell did she stand it? She was Annie, that's how.

The phone call to Annie rode to the surface of his mind. He groaned. Pete Sorenson, last one out of the gate. One stinking, fucking day too late. Dennis, the bastard, had beat him to it. “Call me when you're sober and ask me,” Annie had said. Well, not likely, toots, he thought. He didn't need to have his nose rubbed into her lover Dennis's proposal. If she wanted Dennis, he was all hers. Dennis wasn't going to fit into that life and that goddamn budget of hers.

“You know what, Annie, kiss my ass,” Pete bellowed at the top of his lungs.

“And another thing, don't ask me to file your divorce papers a year from now when he ends up in jail.”

Goddamn it, how could Annie accept Dennis's proposal? Or did she accept it? She'd said he asked her. He wished he could remember everything she'd said. All he could
really
remember was she hadn't said yes to
him.
If she
really
loved him, she would have said yes as soon as he'd asked her.

He felt alone. He wished he was little again so he could cry. He wished for Barney, the way he always did when things went awry.

The years loomed ahead of him. He grieved and didn't know what or who he was grieving for. Probably himself, he thought as he made his way to the bathroom.

“All I want,” he bellowed under the needle-sharp spray of the shower, “is to have a family and belong to someone. Is that too goddamn much to ask?” Hell yes it was, otherwise Annie would have said yes.

“You just broke my heart, Annie Gabriel. I don't know if I can ever forgive that.

“I just don't know.”