16. Annie
Sixteen
Annie
By the time Ellie called, I had been ready for forty-three minutes.
This was not because I was nervous.
The tour had trained me to arrive early. Anxiety had trained me to rename itself.
I sat on the sofa in my hotel suite wearing jeans, a black T-shirt, and no makeup. The television was off. The curtains were closed. A bottle of water stood on the coffee table beside a yellow legal pad.
Rachel had brought the pad earlier.
“Write down anything you don’t want to forget.”
I had written:
Apologize without explaining the apology.
Listen.
Do not offer transportation.
Do not mention pie unless relevant.
Claire?
Then I crossed out number five.
Then circled it.
Then covered the circle with the water bottle.
The page beneath held three attempted opening statements.
I deeply regret—
Too corporate.
I never meant to hurt you—
True and entirely beside the point.
Please understand—
A threatening beginning to almost any sentence.
I tore off the page and folded it into a square small enough to deny under questioning.
My phone rang at seven-oh-two.
Ellie’s name appeared on the screen.
I waited two rings so she would not know I had been holding the phone.
Then I answered too quickly and dropped it.
It hit my knee, bounced once, and landed facedown on the rug.
“Excellent.”
Ellie’s voice came through the carpet.
“Should I call someone?”
“No.”
“Are you injured?”
“Only professionally.”
I picked up the phone.
The call was video.
I had not prepared for video.
Ellie’s face filled the screen, slightly too close. She adjusted the phone against something on her desk, and the frame widened.
Pale green bedroom.
Swimming medals on the wall.
A photograph on the dresser.
And Ellie wearing my T-shirt.
I noticed the shirt first.
Then tried to look as though I had noticed the medals.
“One of those says participation.”
Ellie followed my gaze.
“That one was political.”
“You were eleven.”
“Corruption starts early.”
The shirt slipped toward one shoulder when she moved.
I studied the participation medal with renewed concentration.
“You’re staring,” she said.
“At your athletic history.”
“You’ve never been this interested in youth swimming.”
“I contain multitudes.”
“You dropped your phone before saying hello.”
“Multitudes with poor coordination.”
She smiled.
I smiled back.
Then the reason for the call returned and settled between us.
Ellie folded one leg beneath her.
“How are you?”
“Good.”
Her eyebrows rose.
“Too fast?”
“Suspiciously.”
“I’m functioning.”
“That I believe.”
“How are you?”
“At my parents’ house wearing stolen clothing.”
“It wasn’t stolen.”
“Possession remains disputed.”
“You can keep it.”
“That sounds like you’re giving me something before the difficult part.”
“It was already yours.”
Ellie touched the hem.
“I haven’t decided what to do with it.”
I wanted to tell her to keep it forever.
That seemed ambitious for the first minute.
“My father made a file about you,” she said.
“I remain deeply unsettled.”
“He has categories.”
“Legal categories?”
“Worse. Personal observations.”
“Did he assign a risk level?”
“Not yet.”
“Am I doing well?”
“Your posture scored highly.”
I sat straighter.
Ellie noticed.
“That won’t improve the overall assessment.”
“What were the weaknesses?”
“Avoids direct answers. Probably overscheduled. Retirement planning unknown.”
“I have a retirement plan.”
“Keep your voice down.”
I lowered it.
“I have an excellent retirement plan.”
A laugh escaped her.
Quiet.
Real.
It loosened something inside me.
Then Ellie looked down at her hands.
“I don’t want us to joke until the call ends and neither of us has said anything difficult.”
“Okay.”
“That wasn’t an accusation.”
“It was accurate.”
She looked at me again.
“I also don’t want this treated like a meeting.”
My eyes moved toward the legal pad.
Hers followed.
“Is that a list?”
“No.”
“There is a pen on top of it.”
“It’s decorative.”
“Annie.”
I shifted the water bottle.
The list became visible.
Ellie leaned toward the screen.
“Does that say, ‘Do not offer transportation’?”
“It felt important.”
“What transportation were you considering?”
“None.”
“Private plane?”
“No.”
“Helicopter?”
“No.”
“Car with dark windows?”
I pushed the pad onto the floor.
“There is no list.”
“The evidence remains visible.”
“I’m listening now.”
“That was also on the list.”
“It was a good list.”
Her mouth curved, but the smile did not stay.
“I need to say this once,” she said. “I don’t want us repeating the same argument every time we speak.”
I nodded.
“You knew enough about me to decide whether you wanted to get involved.”
I stayed quiet.
“You knew my name. Where I worked. Where I lived. You met Hank. You knew what my life looked like.”
“Yes.”
“I knew you liked cheese.”
“That was significant.”
“Annie.”
“Sorry.”
She rubbed her thumb over the bracelet around her wrist.
Still there.
“I was making choices without the information you had,” she said. “That is what I can’t get past.”
“I understand.”
“No. You understand the sentence.”
The distinction landed.
“I respected what you asked,” she continued. “I didn’t search. I didn’t push. Then a stranger said your name, and suddenly I was the only person there who didn’t know who I was holding hands with.”
My stomach tightened.
“I’m sorry.”
“I believe you.”
“That doesn’t sound like forgiveness.”
“It isn’t.”
Clear.
No cruelty.
No rescue either.
“I didn’t call because everything is fine,” she said.
“I didn’t expect that.”
“Good.”
She looked down again.
“I called because I don’t want the last honest conversation we have to be in a dive-shop office while your publicist texts about a relationship angle.”
“That seems reasonable.”
“And because I miss you.”
The words came quickly, as though she wanted them gone before they could become dangerous.
My entire body reacted.
Ellie saw it.
“Don’t make that face.”
“What face?”
“The one where you turn one sentence into a future.”
“I’m not.”
“You are.”
“I’m trying not to.”
“Try harder.”
I looked down at my hands.
“I miss you too.”
Neither of us smiled.
Missing someone did not remove the reason they were gone.
Ellie glanced toward the dresser.
“I watched the concert.”
“Rosa?”
“She put her phone beside my lunch and pretended that didn’t count as interference.”
“That sounds like Rosa.”
“You looked happy.”
“I was.”
“I thought Savannah might be something you endured because other people expected it.”
“No.”
“I see that now.”
She met my eyes.
“You looked like yourself.”
The words hit harder than any review.
“I am myself onstage.”
“Then why do you talk about Savannah like she keeps ruining things for Annie?”
I opened my mouth.
Closed it.
“Because blaming her is convenient.”
“For what?”
“The attention. The schedule. The people who decide what I should say.”
“But you like the stage.”
“Yes.”
“You like being successful.”
“Yes.”
“You like people knowing the songs.”
“Yes.”
“Then Savannah doesn’t happen to you.”
“No.”
The admission was uncomfortable.
It was also true.
“I think I’ve spent years pretending Annie is innocent,” I said. “Savannah makes the compromises, Annie suffers them, and somehow neither one is responsible.”
“And now?”
“Now that sounds as convenient as it is.”
“Good.”
It was not warm.
It was not meant to be.
“I don’t want you to give up singing,” Ellie said.
“I won’t.”
“I’ve known you less than a week. Asking you to abandon an international career would be unhinged.”
“Some people find it romantic.”
“Some people should lose access to movies.”
I smiled.
Her expression remained serious.
“If we keep talking, your career cannot automatically become the most important thing in every room.”
“That may be difficult.”
Her face hardened.
I continued before she could answer.
“Not because it should be. Because some days two hundred people are waiting for me to walk onto a stage at a specific time.”
“I understand schedules.”
“What you don’t understand is whether there will always be another tour or interview that means the truth has to wait.”
“Yes.”
“That is exactly what I don’t understand.”
“There will always be another commitment,” I said. “There shouldn’t always be another excuse.”
Ellie watched me.
“Can you stop using them?”
“I want to.”
“That isn’t a guarantee.”
“No.”
Her jaw tightened.
“I can’t give you one tonight.”
The silence that followed was not friendly.
I wanted to fill it with promises.
That I would never choose work over her.
That I would never be frightened again.
That I would always know the right thing before the wrong one left my mouth.
Beautiful promises with no useful relationship to reality.
“I don’t want to promise something I haven’t learned how to do,” I said.
Ellie looked away.
For a second, I thought honesty had been the wrong choice.
Then she nodded.
“That is at least honest.”
“It isn’t reassuring.”
“No.”
“I could say something more reassuring.”
“Please don’t.”
I leaned back.
The call no longer felt like an opening.
It felt like standing beside a door neither of us had agreed to touch.
Ellie’s fingers moved over the bracelet.
“Has this happened before?”
I knew what she meant.
“Yes.”
“With another woman?”
“Yes.”
“What was her name?”
“Claire.”
Ellie waited.
“Were you together long?”
“Almost three years.”
Her expression shifted.
Not jealousy.
Calculation.
“You hid her too.”
“Yes.”
“Did you love her?”
“Yes.”
The word hurt.
It deserved to.
“What happened?”
“I kept waiting for the right time to change things.”
“And the right time never came.”
“No.”
“That sounds familiar.”
“It is.”
“Did she leave because you wouldn’t tell people?”
“Not only because of that.”
“But partly.”
“Yes.”
Ellie stood and went to the window. The phone remained on the desk, showing me half the room and the edge of her shoulder.
“Why would you do the same thing again?”
“I didn’t think I was.”
She turned.
“That may be worse.”
“I thought Pelican Key was temporary. A few days as Annie, and then I would tell you before it mattered.”
“It mattered to me before you decided it did.”
“You’re right.”
“That still isn’t an explanation.”
I looked at the legal pad on the floor.
Claire’s name beneath the bottle.