7. Annie
Seven
Annie
By six forty-five, I had arranged the cheese board four times.
The first version looked too formal.
The second looked like I had thrown groceries onto a piece of wood during an evacuation.
The third included twelve crackers, six olives, three kinds of cheese, and a bowl of almonds positioned with such precision that Rachel would have assumed I was launching a lifestyle brand.
The fourth looked exactly like the third, but I had moved the almonds.
Progress.
I stood at the kitchen counter of my rental cottage and examined the result.
“This is normal,” I told the empty room.
The empty room declined to confirm it.
The problem was not the food.
I had enough food.
Far too much food.
The refrigerator contained two bottles of wine, three desserts, four kinds of cheese, vegetables I had purchased during a brief attempt to appear responsible, and an entire roasted chicken I had bought because the woman at the grocery store called me sweetheart and I panicked.
The problem was Ellie.
More specifically, Ellie arriving in fifteen minutes.
Ellie entering the cottage.
Ellie sitting on the sofa.
Ellie drinking wine in a private space containing a bed, several horizontal surfaces, and no dogs available to report us to management.
I had been on dates before.
Hundreds, if interviews counted, though they generally ended with someone asking me to describe my sound in three words and did not involve kissing.
I had invited women to hotel rooms. I had been invited to theirs. I knew how to flirt, how to create privacy, how to move through desire without appearing uncertain.
Savannah knew.
Savannah had access to suites, drivers, security, room-service menus, and people whose job was to prevent awkward logistics.
Annie had purchased too much cheese and was currently wondering whether the rental’s decorative bowl of seashells made the bedroom look less sexually promising.
My phone buzzed on the counter.
Rachel: I’m going to ask one question, and I would like one truthful answer.
I stared at the screen.
Another message appeared.
Rachel: Are you having dinner with Ellie?
I typed:
Yes.
The three dots appeared immediately.
Rachel: Thank you.
Then:
Rachel: At a restaurant?
I turned the phone facedown.
Truth had limits.
The cottage looked harmless from the outside: white siding, blue shutters, and a tiny porch facing a narrow strip of beach. Inside, it had pale furniture, woven lamps, and enough decorative rope to suggest the owner did not trust guests to remember they were near the ocean.
I had cleaned.
Not that it had been dirty.
But I had folded the blanket on the sofa, hidden the magazines with my face on the cover beneath a stack of travel brochures, and moved my suitcase into the bedroom closet.
Then I had moved it out again because putting it in the closet made the bedroom look deliberate.
Then back in because leaving it beside the bed made the room look like I might flee overnight.
I had spent eight years performing in front of crowds large enough to fill small towns.
None of that had prepared me for a doorbell.
It rang at exactly seven.
I inhaled.
Then opened the door.
Ellie stood on the porch holding a bottle of wine in one hand and a paper bag in the other.
She wore black shorts and a soft blue button-down with the sleeves rolled to her elbows. Her hair was loose, still slightly damp at the ends, and she had made enough of an effort to make my stomach tighten without looking like she had made any effort at all.
“Hi,” she said.
“Hi.”
We stared at each other for one second too long.
Then Ellie lifted the bottle.
“I brought wine.”
“I already have wine.”
“I remember. You panicked.”
“I’m prepared.”
“Do prepared people usually look that frightened?”
“I’m not frightened.”
“Your cheese board is visible from the porch.”
I glanced over my shoulder.
“That proves nothing.”
“It has symmetry.”
“I like symmetry.”
“You moved the almonds, didn’t you?”
I stared at her.
“How could you possibly know that?”
“They have nervous energy.”
She stepped inside, smiling, and kissed me before I could defend the almonds.
It was brief.
Warm.
Casual enough to feel more intimate than the kisses at the pier or behind the dive shop.
Like arriving and kissing me was already something she did.
When she pulled back, she held up the paper bag.
“I brought emergency bread.”
“I have bread.”
“Of course you do.”
“And crackers.”
“I saw.”
“And a roasted chicken.”
Ellie blinked.
“For the two of us?”
“The woman at the store was persuasive.”
“What did she say?”
“Sweetheart.”
“Brutal.”
“I didn’t stand a chance.”
She walked into the kitchen and placed the bag on the counter.
Her gaze moved over the cheese board.
“Wow.”
“That sounded judgmental.”
“No. I’m impressed.”
“You’re lying.”
“You’ve created a small dairy monument.”
“I didn’t know what you liked.”
“So you bought everything?”
“That seemed safest.”
Ellie picked up an olive.
“You know dinner didn’t need to be impressive.”
“It isn’t.”
“There are folded napkins.”
“They came like that.”
“They’re cloth.”
“The cottage is very aggressive about hospitality.”
She ate the olive.
I watched her mouth.
This was a mistake because Ellie noticed things, and now Ellie noticed me noticing her.
Her eyebrows lifted slightly.
“Good olive?” I asked.
“Excellent.”
“That’s all?”
“What else would it be?”
“Nothing.”
“Very convincing.”
She came around the counter.
I held my ground, though the edge of the counter was behind me and retreat would have been physically complicated.
“You’re nervous,” she said.
“I’m not nervous.”
“You alphabetized the cheese.”
“I did not.”
Ellie looked at the board.
“Brie. Cheddar. Gouda.”
“That’s a coincidence.”
“Annie.”
I laughed, finally giving up.
“A little.”
“About dinner?”
“About the entire situation.”
“What situation?”
“You being here.”
Her expression softened.
“We can just eat.”
“I know.”
“And drink wine.”
“I know.”
“And discuss your deeply troubling relationship with vacation grocery stores.”
“I would prefer not to.”
“We can watch a movie.”
“I don’t know what movies you like.”
“I like most movies.”
“That is not useful.”
“I dislike movies where a dog dies, where a horse dies, or where a dog has to watch a horse die.”
“That last one seems unusually specific.”
“I’ve been hurt before.”
I smiled.
Ellie rested one hand lightly on my waist.
“We don’t have to decide what tonight is before it happens.”
The knot inside me loosened.
“That sounded emotionally mature.”
“I have occasional episodes.”
“Should I be concerned?”
“They usually pass.”
I leaned forward and kissed her.
Not because I needed to avoid answering.
Mostly.
She kissed me back slowly, one hand still at my waist, the other touching my jaw.
For several seconds, the kitchen became very quiet.
Then the refrigerator made a violent cracking sound.
I jumped.
Ellie pulled back.
“What was that?”
“I don’t know.”
“Is your food fighting?”
“It’s possible. There are territorial cheeses.”
She opened the refrigerator.
Cold light spilled across her face.
“Annie.”
“What?”
“There are three pies.”
“They’re different.”
“One of them is chocolate.”
“That’s how chocolate pie works.”
“That’s not panic. That’s infrastructure.”
“I like options.”
“You have options for twelve people.”
“You’re very critical for someone who brought emergency bread to a house containing two loaves.”
She closed the door.
“Fine. We’re both prepared for a minor siege.”
“Thank you.”
“Do we eat first?”
I looked at her mouth again.
“Yes.”
“Your face says no.”
“My face remains uncooperative.”
“Your face is extremely clear.”
“It’s rude to interpret people.”
“It’s one of my hobbies.”
We ate on the porch because the sun had dropped low enough to soften the heat and because sitting outside gave me something to look at other than Ellie’s legs.
It did not work particularly well.
We took the chicken apart with our fingers, ignored most of the vegetables, and made a respectable attempt at the cheese.
Ellie claimed the gouda tasted expensive.
I told her I had no idea what it cost because Rachel usually sent someone else into grocery stores when we were touring.
“That is the least relatable thing you’ve said so far,” Ellie told me.
“I’m trying to be vulnerable.”
“You’re very brave.”
“I once went four months without buying toothpaste.”
Her hand stopped halfway to the bread.
“You didn’t brush your teeth?”
“Someone bought it for me.”
“Oh.”
“Wardrobe coordinated toiletries.”
Ellie looked horrified.
“That’s not a job.”
“It became one after I used blue toothpaste before a television performance.”
“What was wrong with blue toothpaste?”
“It stained my tongue.”
She started laughing.
“It wasn’t funny.”
“Were you singing?”
“I was singing a romantic ballad.”
“With a blue tongue?”
“It was a difficult evening.”
“How blue?”
“Very.”
Ellie laughed harder.
I put down my wine.
“You’re enjoying this too much.”
“I’m imagining thousands of people wondering whether you’d eaten a popsicle backstage.”
“That was the official explanation.”
“No.”
“Yes.”
“Did they believe it?”
“The internet believes whatever it finds most entertaining.”
Her smile faded only slightly.
The shift was subtle, but I noticed it.
“What?”
“Nothing.”
“Specific nothing?”
She tore a piece of bread.
“I was thinking about what you said. About people having opinions on how you’re supposed to exist.”
I looked toward the water.
The last sunlight moved across it in long gold lines.
“I shouldn’t have made it sound so dramatic.”
“You didn’t.”
“It feels dramatic when I say it out loud.”
“Most true things do.”
I turned back to her.
Ellie was watching me with the same patient attention she had given me underwater.
No pressure.
Just presence.
“What do you think I do?” I asked.
She considered it.
“You said music.”
“I did.”
“You sing and write.”
“Yes.”
“You have a manager who has threatened the Coast Guard.”
“She hasn’t threatened them yet.”
“You have professionally coordinated toothpaste.”
“That was one incident.”
“And you own a shirt that costs more than Hank’s boat.”
“You don’t know that.”
“I know boats.”
I smiled despite myself.
“So?”
“So I think you’re successful.”