Chapter Nine
NINE
Annie
“Sorry to cut this short, but I have to go in and scarf down my breakfast before Cal comes down from his upstairs lair and scolds me,” I tell my sister as I approach Virtu Wednesday morning.
The shop is closed on Tuesdays, which gave me the opportunity to do some exploring yesterday.
After going to the grocery store and doing laundry, I spent the afternoon wandering through Hampden, popping in and out of open shops and galleries while taking in yarn-bombed utility poles, elaborate murals, stoops collaged with pieces of mirror, and iron railings made to look like lizards.
I wound up getting lost for about an hour and a half after taking a wrong turn somewhere, but it only gave me more time to meet people, take in the local charm, and wonder how this eccentric neighborhood could be home to someone as devoid of whimsy as Callahan Leitner.
A real mystery, but one I hope to solve now that he has no choice but to let me push him outside of his comfort zone.
“But I didn’t even get to the part where Eduardo told me to ‘calm down.’ I mean, calm down, Annie. Can you imagine a worse thing for a husband to say to his wife in that situation?”
“Are you sure this isn’t a pregnancy hormone thing?”
“Oh. Yeah, that would definitely have been worse. But—”
“No, I am genuinely asking,” I mutter as I search my pockets to discover which one holds my keys. “Like when I joked about your baby becoming an astronaut when she grows up and you cried for twenty minutes because ‘space is so far away.’ ”
A glint catches my eye as I approach the shop.
I take an extra few steps forward, past the door, and stare at the display window.
There are still the three chairs that Cal thinks are so great, but now my gilt-edged porcelain pieces are suspended behind them on their fishing line strings as if caught in a freeze-frame of a slow explosion.
He was right; it’s certainly kitschy. But it’s also undeniably eye-catching.
Interesting. Even more beautiful than I imagined, especially when the gold paint catches the morning sun as the pieces almost imperceptibly sway in response to the gently blowing air vent beneath.
I barely register Bridget’s admission that okay, fine, maybe she is a tiny bit extra sensitive lately, my brain busy doing the (rather easy) math of how my decor wound up there. Did Cal spend his day off yesterday working on this? What enticed him to do it at all?
Oh, right. Probably the blackmail.
A strange little door opens in my heart and an even stranger little person pops out and whispers, Or maybe just because he wanted to.
Nah. Definitely the blackmail.
“Look, Bridge,” I say, “regrettably, I am your sister, and that means I’ll always endeavor to support you in everything. But I personally don’t think Eduardo finishing off the bag of trail mix before you could raid it for M&Ms is enough to warrant a divorce.”
“I guess not,” she admits with a sigh.
“I really do have to go. Talk later.”
“If you’re lucky.”
I end the call and continue staring at the window for long enough that the heat of my sub manages to transfer through its foil wrapping and the bandage on my palm to become uncomfortably hot to hold. Right. If I go in now, I can probably eat atop the counter without getting fussed at.
I like sitting there. Since it’s higher up, it’s like getting to see Virtu from a whole new angle.
It’s nice to have a different view of the place and all its treasures, see some of the things I might have missed at ground level.
And it’s much more interesting than the fancy oversized wooden desk in the back office that must have been previously owned by a tycoon or mogul or other one-word Gilded Age synonym for “obscenely rich guy.”
Cal may have capitulated on the window decorations, but I take that as a gesture of goodwill, something to show me that he intends to uphold his side of our bargain.
I don’t anticipate him rolling over that easily on everything else.
Just because we worked well together last night, moving his secret goose into the storage room (ha, His Secret Goose sounds a bit like one of the mass-market paperbacks my grandmother used to keep on her nightstand) and he so kindly offered to walk me home when he noticed it was late doesn’t mean I should expect Cal to suddenly be nice to me.
A kind of rude leopard might be able to hide its kind of rude spots beneath a blanket of congeniality, but can it change them? Probably not overnight.
I have every intention of immediately hoisting myself atop the counter and making short work of my sub before he comes downstairs.
But when I walk into Virtu, my eyes are immediately drawn to the window again.
I go over to inspect it from behind. From this perspective, I can appreciate that he took great care with the placement of each shard on the fishing line, ensuring variations in color and pattern.
Frankly, it’s exactly how I would have done it myself.
As if, despite his reluctance, he could clearly see my vision.
“Is it how you wanted it?”
I spin on my heel to find Cal standing a few feet away, hands shoved into his pockets.
“Oh. Hi. I didn’t hear you come down,” I say, trying not to sound as befuddled as I’m feeling.
“I’ve been down here since seven, actually,” he says, then nods toward the window. “I finished stringing the pieces yesterday and spent the morning hanging them. So?”
“Huh?”
“I asked you if it’s how you wanted. Was this how you imagined it?”
“Oh. Yes. It’s…it’s perfect. Truly. Thank you.”
He shrugs and a delivery truck outside pulls away from where it was parked, taking the shadow over Cal’s face with it.
Now, light streaming in, I catch him in all of his splendor.
I don’t know if it’s because the dark purple crescents under his eyes are gone and the wrinkle at his brow has smoothed, or if I’m just seeing him anew, but this morning, the separation between the man I’ve been dealing with and the one I saw on television doesn’t seem as stark.
“You’ve been sleeping better?” I guess.
“Better,” he confirms. “Not great. But still…better.”
“Good.”
“How’s your hand doing?” he asks.
“Good,” I say again.
“That’s…good.”
Well, with that exciting exchange complete, I smile politely and move past him to grab my breakfast from where I left it on the counter.
I suppose with my plans for innocuous meatball-based rebellion foiled, I’ll need to take it into the office after all and hope Mr. Rockefeller doesn’t return to demand his desk back.
But as I pick up my sub, Cal’s voice comes from directly behind me again.
“I actually have to run to the bank this morning to deposit last week’s checks,” he says. “Since I forgot to go yesterday. Do you think you’d be okay here on your own for an hour or two?”
The sub lands back on the wooden surface with a squish-tinted thud. “You’re leaving me alone?”
“If you’re okay with it. If not, I can figure out another time to go.”
“No, I’m fine. I can handle it. It’s just, well, Monday morning you didn’t even want me talking to customers and now…” I trail off, my hands gesturing expansively in a motion that I suppose means, you’re trusting me with what is clearly the most important thing in your life.
He shrugs again, but his eyes practically bore into mine.
“Well, things have changed since Monday morning, haven’t they?
If you’ll recall, I now have an incentive.
” His voice definitely emphasizes the word that is clearly a stand-in for “woman threatening to contact the authorities about the illicit bird in my possession,” but the bitterness that might be there is missing.
Again, I study his face and see a more well-rested, less troubled man than the one I left here the other night.
I did intend this whole arrangement to be mutually beneficial. I just thought I’d have to do a lot more to prove said benefits to him before we started seeing results.
“Okay,” I say. “Go run your errand. I’ve got it under control here.”
Do I really, though? My wandering around Uncle Harold’s house trying to convince his spider plant to buy the eighteenth-century portrait of a minor royal he has in his dining room isn’t exactly the same as what I’ll need to do here if someone comes in while Cal’s out.
But what I lack in direct knowledge, I’m sure I can make up for in charisma.
That does a great deal to mask inexperience, as eighteen-year-old Annie learned quite well.
It got her a year-long relationship with the handsome middle-aged architect who frequented the restaurant where she worked.
Then ten months with a divorce lawyer who was also, ironically, in the midst of his own divorce.
A short stint with a violinist who was looking to distract himself from his worsening tendonitis with a pretty young thing who’d insist his fingers worked just fine for her.
And it got her in bed with lots of other men who thought she was perfect for a time and then decided she was too young and that it was time they move on to someone more their equal.
I may have learned my lesson about dating men old enough to be my father, but I still know how to play the game, how to draw upon those stores of confidence and charm.
Surely my past experiences wielding them are transferable to, um, selling antiques.
“Call or text if anything comes up,” Cal says. He hesitates at the entrance to the back hallway. I wave at him, smiling as big as I can, until he disappears.
Everything will be great. Having the place to myself will be fun. I can do whatever I want, including eating my breakfast—
“No sitting on the counter!” he calls before the heavy back door slams shut.
Well, whatever. He’s not the boss of me. Or, rather, I guess he technically sort of is. Temporarily. But it doesn’t mean I’m going to listen to him.
—