Annie's Answer (7 page)

Nathan shook
his head.

“Bling! That’s
it.”

“I’m not
hungry yet,” he said, trying to think of a way to avoid his least favorite food
in the world.

If Aunt
Mattie’s egg salad was as bad as his mother’s, he’d rather skip eating. When
his parents sent him to a private school at age twelve, he was probably the
only kid there who thought the cafeteria food was a big improvement over home
cooking.

“I can pick up
something in the food court,” he said hopefully. “And if you don’t mind, I’ll
stop at the office on my way back. Work has piled up since Dad left on his
vacation.”

“I guess that
would be okay.” Mattie sounded mildly disappointed, but he knew he couldn’t
keep her entertained all day.

He toyed with
the idea of asking Annie to come on Saturday too. If she was willing to give up
her pancake job, he could more than make it worthwhile. But no, she’d have her
hands full being with Mattie on weekdays. He couldn’t impose on her by asking
more.

“Leave your
ring on the foyer table, Aunt Mattie. I’ll head to the mall as soon as I finish
the car and clean up. Do you need help with your lunch?”

“I certainly
do not,” she informed him, executing a fancy turn on her crutches and going
back inside.

He’d intended
to polish the car and clean the inside, but he settled for wiping it dry. Now
that he knew he had to go to the mall, he was eager to do it. He told himself
it had nothing to do with the possibility of seeing Annie there, but she was on
his mind while he finished up and hurriedly showered and dressed.

“I’m leaving
now,” he said when he found his aunt at the kitchen table.

 “I may
take a little nap this afternoon,” she said. “So don’t hurry home. Spend as
much time at the mall as you like. No need to wake me when you get back.”

He frowned,
wondering what his great aunt was up to. She thought naps were signs of
laziness, and no one could ever accuse her of slacking off in the middle of the
afternoon. And why worry about cleaning a ring she’d been wearing since long
before he was born?

If he had her
on the witness stand in court, he’d ask whether she was trying to play
matchmaker between him and Annie. But since she was his aunt, not a hostile
witness, he kissed her forehead and hurried out of the house.

If there was
one thing he didn’t need, it was a matchmaking female in his life. He’d finally
convinced his mother to stop inviting her friends’ daughters to visit. Linda
Sawyer had an eye for beauty but no idea whatsoever about the things her son
admired in a woman: kindness, consideration, creativity, independence, and a
deep faith she would pass on to any children they might have.

Was he asking
too much? At least he’d finally convinced his mother to halt the parade of
beautiful but brittle and shallow candidates for his attention.

As he drove,
he wondered whether he would see Annie. It was a modest-sized mall, but he
didn’t know when she planned to be there. More importantly, why was he hoping
he would bump into her?

He tried to
concentrate on a problem that had come up in the embezzlement trial, but he
kept envisioning Annie inside that wretched little car. Hopefully she never
took it out on the highway.

“You haven’t
said much about your latest job,” Laura said as she parked her car in space at
the mall. “What exactly do you do?”

Annie roused
herself from the catnap she’d taken while her mother drove. “Whatever Nathan’s
great aunt wants me to.”

“I feel bad
you’re at the beck and call of an old woman,” her mother said, undoing her seat
belt. “Maybe if I took out a second mortgage….”

“Absolutely
not,” Annie said. It was an old argument, but her mother still felt bad because
she couldn’t help. Annie had to remind her mother from time to time that the
last of her husband’s insurance money had gone to pay Annie’s tuition at the
community college. “Now what would you like to do first?”

“Oh, lunch, I
think. I’ve been looking forward to getting out. What was it I had last time we
were here?”

Annie was too
tired to remember what she’d had for breakfast—whoops, she hadn’t had
breakfast. No wonder she was running on low.

“Was it sweet
and sour chicken?” she asked, wondering if one of the places in the food court
still served breakfast. On second thought, it would distress her mother if she
knew Annie had slept too late that morning to eat before work.

The small town
mall was busy but not overly crowded. Annie spotted several open tables in the
food court, and her mother hurried to put her straw hat on one of them to
reserve it. It was pleasant to be able to choose what kind of food she wanted
while her mother stood in the short line for a Chinese lunch.

 Annie
soon had a large lemonade in one hand and a paper-wrapped sub in the other, but
she was so focused on locating the table with her mother’s hat, she nearly
collided with a man who got in her way.

“Annie!”

She looked up
at the person she’d least expected to see. 

“Nathan, what
are you doing here?” She knew it was none of her business as soon as the words
were out of her mouth.

“Aunt Mattie,”
he said, as though that explained his presence.

“Did she
change her mind about the watch?”

“No, she
remembered her ring needs cleaning. It was easier to bring it myself than to
convince her to wait until another time.” He looked a bit sheepish.

“You’re
awfully good to her,” Annie said.

“My only
living grandparents retired to Hawaii when I was still a kid, so she sort of
filled a gap in my life. I spent time on her farm every summer until I was
twelve.”

“Why stop
then?” she asked.

“My parents
sent me to a private school in Maryland. After that my vacation time seemed to
fill up with other things.”

“I’m about to
have lunch with my mother. Would you like to sit with us?” She wasn’t sure she
should invite an employer to join her, especially since she could feel her
mother’s curiosity radiating across the food court, but the invitation slipped
out of her mouth before she thought it over.

“Thanks, I’d
like that,” he said, surprising her with his enthusiasm. “Let me grab a hot
pretzel, and I’ll join you.”

When he came
to the table, he emptied a sack with not one but three freshly baked pretzels.
“I didn’t know what you might like, so I got cinnamon sugar, parmesan ,and
plain with honey walnut cream cheese dip.”

“You really
didn’t need to,” Annie said, a bit flustered by his contribution to their
lunch. “Nathan, this is my mother, Laura Williams.”

“I’ve seen you
at church,” her mother said, “but it’s nice to be formally introduced.”

Her appetite
waned as Nathan and her mom made small talk. She’d had boyfriends who didn’t
put this much effort into charming her mother.

“Your daughter
is a lifesaver,” he said. “I don’t know how I’d get through the summer with my
aunt without her help.”

“She’s always
been a hard worker,” her mother said, beaming at Nathan.

I’m right
here, she wanted to remind them. Don’t talk about me as I weren’t.

In the
interest of not fainting, Annie managed to finish half of her sub. She was
embarrassed when her mother rewrapped the other half and accepted Nathan’s
leftover pretzels, putting the remains of the lunch in his paper bag to take
home with her. Did he think they were so hard up they needed food
contributions?

“I’m going to
the jewelry store now,” she announced, standing to leave.

“I’ll pick up
the book your grandfather ordered and meet you back here,” her mother said.
“There’s no hurry. I’ll probably browse a while.”

As often as
she’d been to the mall, she had a moment of confusion, forgetting whether to go
right or left. Her sense of direction was never very good, and the cozy
conversation between her mother and Nathan had thrown her off balance. He was
an employer, not a personal friend. She didn’t want to forget that.

“I think the
jewelry store is this way,” he said, coming up beside her and gesturing at
sporting goods store on the left.

Biting back a
response, she fell into step beside him. The sooner she completed Mattie’s
request, the sooner she could go home.

The jewelry
store was empty except for a bored looking middle-aged man standing behind the
counter, staring out at the people passing by. He perked up when Annie and
Nathan come up to him.

“How can I
help you folks today?” he asked, adjusting the  lime green bow tie he was
wearing with a pale blue dress shirt and a gray plaid jacket.

Taking out
Mattie’s box, Annie showed him the watch. “I’d like a new battery for this.”

“Did you buy
it here?” he asked with an expectant smile.

“No, I’m
bringing it here for a friend,” Annie said.

“I’m sorry,”
he said, his smile fading. “We only install new batteries in watches we sell.”

“Why is that?”
Nathan asked.

“It’s store
policy,” the clerk said with a smug expression.

“I’d like to
speak to the manager,” Nathan said.

“I am the
manager. Installing batteries is too time consuming. Our first priority is to
help customers with their purchases.”

Pointedly
looking around the empty store, Nathan took his billfold from the back pocket
of his jeans.

“No,” Annie
said, quickly realizing he was going to offer the man extra money for performing
the simple task. “Sir, I don’t know about store policy, but this watch belongs
to an elderly woman who recently lost her home in a tornado in Iowa. She was
only able to salvage a small number of her possessions. This watch is one of
them, a gift from her late husband. Can you imagine how your mother would feel
if she lost almost everything she owned?”

“Well, that is
unfortunate.” The man stammered but didn’t reach for the watch lying on the
counter.

“I work in the
advertising department of the Westover Weekly News, so I know how important a
good reputation is to a business like yours.”

“Is that a
threat?” He didn’t sound very sure of himself.

“No, but this
is. If you can’t do this simple thing to ease an older person’s pain, I plan to
spend the rest of the afternoon in front of your store, telling everyone who
even approaches the entrance how you treat people.”

“That really
isn’t necessary,” he said, angry but defeated. He took the watch to the back
part of the store.

“The kitten
has claws,” Nathan said so softly she barely made out the words.

“No wonder his
store is empty,” Annie said, choosing to ignore Nathan’s comment.

Apparently
changing a watch battery did take a little time, but Annie stood her ground by
a counter filled with gold chains and gemstone rings. She wished Nathan would
stop glancing over at her as though she’d just grown an extra head.

“Well done,”
he said at last. “Aunt Mattie would be proud of you.”

Did that mean
he approved of her tactics? Or had she embarrassed him by insisting on a small
service from the uncooperative clerk? After what seemed like ages but was
probably only five minutes or so, the jeweler returned and placed the watch on
the glass-topped counter in front of her. She’d forgotten all about having it
cleaned if it didn’t work, so she picked it up, hoping to hear a tick-tock
sound.

“Battery
watches are silent,” he said in a voice that would have embarrassed her if he
hadn’t proved to be a jerk. “It’s working just fine.”

“Thank you,”
she said for lack of anything else to say. “How much do I owe you?”

The battery
was more expensive than she’d expected, but she handed over Mattie’s
hundred-dollar bill without comment.

“Don’t you
have anything smaller?” the clerk asked.

This from a
man who sold things worth hundreds and thousands of dollars.

“No.”

When he handed
her the change, not counting it out the way she’d been taught when she worked
the cash register at the pancake house, she immediately handed it to Nathan.

“For your
aunt.”

“She wanted
you to keep it,” he said in a mild sounding voice.

“Thank you,
but no. I only accept tips when I wait tables. Now I’d better find my mother.
She’ll be wondering where I am.”

She didn’t
wait to see whether Nathan managed to get his aunt’s ring cleaned and
inspected. The whole trip to the mall had been a fiasco. Now her mother would
ask her a million unanswerable questions about Nathan. Worse, she dreaded
seeing him again. Did he secretly resent the way she handled the jewelry store
manager instead of letting him persuade the man with money?

It bothered
her how much she wanted his good opinion, although she didn’t even want to
think about why it mattered.

“Don’t try to
get out by yourself, Aunt Mattie,” Nathan said as he stopped his car as close
as possible to the church entrance. If there was one thing he didn’t want, it
was his aunt falling down and injuring herself even more.

“I’m perfectly
capable of standing outside while you get my crutches from the back seat.” She
wouldn’t be his aunt if she didn’t argue, but at least she waited with the door
open while he rushed to help her.

“I’m not used
to such a big church,” she commented. “I love our little wooden church in Iowa.
The steeple reaches up to heaven, reminding us of why we’re there. How old did
you say this building is?”

“I didn’t,”
Nathan said, handing her the crutches. “It was built while I was in college.”

“The tan brick
looks more like a bank than a church,” she said, “although I do like the
stained glass windows. I recognize our savior with the sheep, but some of them
are too modern to make out.”

“The windows
on the right as you go in are scenes from the New Testament. Those on the left
are Old Testament.” Nathan remembered having the same conversation when he’d
brought her to church last week. “I’ll walk you to the door, then park the
car.”