Chapter Eight #2
“It is,” I confirm, though “important” feels like an incredible understatement.
She can’t possibly understand what this place means to me.
How can she, when Graham was the only one who knew the full story behind how I came to be here?
As far as Harold was concerned, I simply walked in as a pimply fourteen-year-old and asked if they needed someone to do odd jobs.
Even now, he has no idea the extent to which Graham changed my life by becoming my mentor and giving me a second home here at the shop.
Annie might sense my strong affection for this business, but she can’t know how much of myself I owe to it.
“So I’ll help you, and in exchange you’ll try to trust me?” she says.
“I don’t exactly have a choice, do I?”
“You do not,” she confirms, looking utterly delighted by these circumstances.
I take a deep breath and sigh it out. “Okay,” I say. Maybe this won’t be so bad, after all; things already feel a bit lighter with this ridiculous secret off my chest.
Who knew being blackmailed by a beautiful, bright menace of a woman would feel so…freeing?
Annie holds out her hand—the bandaged right one first, then she switches it out for the uninjured left.
It takes an awkward amount of time for me to realize she wants me to shake it, and when I finally do, the reversal from the usual right-to-right contact and the unexpected heat that transfers between our palms makes it feel like a completely alien gesture.
“A pleasure doing business with you,” she says. “Now, first thing’s first: let’s find our new colleague a much better hiding place.”
—
Despite her only having one usable hand, Annie insists on helping haul the goose from my apartment down to Virtu’s storage room, where she very reasonably pointed out that the quilt-covered display case will be much less conspicuous, tucked among furniture and paintings and crates filled with assorted objets d’art awaiting minor repairs and their future debuts on the sales floor, than in the corner of my living room.
By the time we get it settled in its new location and reemerge into the showroom, the clock beside the counter chimes seven.
“I can walk you to Harold’s so you aren’t alone in the dark,” I offer.
“Nah, I’m fine,” she says, swooping a rainbow-plaid scarf around her neck. The yellow in it matches the mustard color of her wool peacoat. In a word association game, if someone said “Annie O’Neill,” I would immediately respond with “bright.” Because she is, in every sense of the word.
She must take the frustrated awe on my face as concern, because she adds, “Would it make you feel better if I text you when I get in?”
It would, actually, come to think of it.
Before I respond, Annie reaches for the pencil from behind my ear that I must have absently put there a minute ago as we passed the counter.
Something about the movement, the feeling of the cool, thin metal separating the painted body from its eraser slowly brushing over the sensitive skin there as it slides through my hair, becomes direct competition for her meatball sub aria atop the counter in the category of Things I Did Not Know Would Turn Me On.
Completely oblivious or indifferent to what she’s done to me, she tears off a corner of the top page of the legal pad and jots down her number on it.
“Uncle Harold gave me your number before he left. But here’s mine,” she says, holding it out to me. “In case I forget to text you. Which I probably will, to be honest. I’m bad about that. So just…you can text me if you don’t hear anything. Or, um…whenever. If you want. About business.”
“About business,” I repeat.
“Because we’re temporary partners. In that.”
“In business.”
“Yes,” she says. “So, uh, thanks again for your assistance.” Annie holds up her bandaged hand.
I’m relieved not to find any evidence of new blood there from her helping me carry the goose downstairs.
“And I’m sorry about the blackmail,” she adds.
“But I do really think it will be mutually beneficial.”
“Sure,” I say.
We exchange an awkward good night as I unlock the front door to let her out and relock it behind her. Then I press my back against it and let out a massive exhale through my mouth while pinching the bridge of my nose.
What a fucking day.
What a fucking week.
The results of Annie’s earlier run-in with the Murano pitcher remain strewn over the rug and buried in the crevices of the old hardwood beyond.
I grab an old microfiber rag and use it to pick up the large pieces before trading it out for our ancient but trusty Shop-Vac.
And as I watch the tiny slivers disappear into the tube, I remember being fourteen and walking into Virtu for the first time—the cool air-conditioning against my sunburned face; the sweet but musty scent of aged wood and paper mingling with citrus; and the subsequent shattering crash of the entire set of Royal Albert teacups and saucers I was attempting to steal as they tumbled out of my backpack and onto the floor right as I was about to open the door and make my escape.
It was the end of my incredibly short-lived life of crime, but the beginning of my life as I now know it. And it was all thanks to a bespectacled and bearded shopkeeper with a huge heart and a knack for spotting things that might be worth more than they initially appear on the surface.
I turn off the vacuum and am met with such an abrupt silence that it makes me recoil. It’s times like this when I miss Graham most—in the hours after we close, when things are still and too quiet, his incessant humming of Haydn conspicuously absent.
It’s been long enough to check up on Annie, so I do. I receive a quick confirmation that she’s made it safely to Harold’s house. Good. That’s one less thing to worry about tonight.
The smart thing to do now would be to go back up to my apartment, get some food into my poor body, and sleep for at least ten hours.
Instead, I start humming the opening notes of the “Sunrise” quartet myself as I reach for some fishing line and the box of porcelain shards tucked beneath the counter.