Twenty-Three
“Mom,” Annie whispered. She hadn’t slept. The glowing digital alarm by her side told her it was a little after three. There was a strip of light under the door from the hallway, but except for that and the clock, the room was dark. Grandma Hamlin snored softly in the other bed.
“Hmm?” her mother returned groggily.
“Are you awake?”
“I am now,” Bethanne said, and rolled onto her back.
Annie stared at the ceiling. “Are you mad at me?”
Her mother sat up, leaning against the pillows, and studied Annie. “Why would I be mad at you?”
“Because of what I said about Max,” she whispered. “The thing is, I think I might really like him if it wasn’t for Dad.” Annie had lain awake, examining her feelings, and realized that Max and Rooster were good guys, kind and helpful. She had no idea what would’ve happened at the lake if they hadn’t come by when they did.
“You really care about him, don’t you?” Annie sighed. Her father could have put an end to this romance and he hadn’t. More than that, he’d actually insisted they leave Bethanne alone to make her own decision. Annie admired his attitude, which she viewed as brave and selfless, but she wanted to shout at him to do something and fast. He wouldn’t listen, though. Both her parents were such complicated people.
“I do care about Max.” Her mother’s voice was tender.
“It’s kind of weird watching my mother fall in love with someone other than my father.”
“I can’t say I’m in love with him, Annie. It’s too soon for that. I’m...infatuated with Max, but we haven’t faced any real difficulties yet. I think it would be easy to fall in love with him one day. I like Max a lot, and I hope things work out so we can be together, but they might not.”
“But you love Dad, too, right?” She felt as if the dream she held of seeing her parents reconcile was crumbling at her feet.
“I do care a great deal for your father. I can’t dismiss our years together because of an error in judgment he made.” Her mother lay down again. “However, I doubt that you woke me up to chat about your father and me. What’s up, sweetie?”
Annie sighed, unsure where to start. “I heard from Vance again.” She made it sound like he’d only emailed her a couple of times. The fact was, Vance had contacted her nearly every day since he’d left for Europe with Matt and Jessie. She hadn’t answered most of his emails.
“You mentioned that he’s homesick and wants to come back to Seattle.”
“He can’t. His ticket home isn’t good until next year. When he tried to change it, the airlines wanted to charge him for a whole new ticket. He doesn’t have that kind of money and he can’t ask his parents. He says the airline’s being unreasonable and I agree with him.”
“He must have known that when he booked his flights.”
“But he already paid for his return ticket!”
“He’s had a pretty quick change of heart, hasn’t he?” Bethanne commented. “He’s only been in Europe a couple of weeks.”
“Yes...”
“What aren’t you telling me, Annie?”
That was the problem with her mother, Annie thought. She read between the lines far too easily.
“Okay.” She closed her eyes tightly. “Vance wants me to meet him in France at the end of the month.” There, she’d said it, and held her breath while she waited for her mother’s reaction.
“What do you think about that?”
Annie should’ve known. Her mother always did this. She turned everything into a question. “I’m not sure,” she admitted. “That’s why I wanted to talk to you. I need advice.”
“All right,” her mother said. “Obviously, this is bothering you. Otherwise, you’d be fast asleep.”
“And so would you,” Annie added, smiling.
“True.”
Her mother didn’t sound upset, though, and that was reassuring.
“First, how do you feel about Vance?”
“Now or before we left?”
“Now.”
“Well... I miss him. Before he decided to go to Europe, we talked practically every day. We were almost always together, which is one reason I was so upset when I found out he was going to Europe with Matt and Jessie.”
“He kept it a secret.”
“He wanted to tell me, or so he said, but Matt told him not to.”
“And he listened to his friend instead of doing what he knew was right.”
“Yeah.”
“Did he say why he wants you to meet him in France?”
Annie folded her hands behind her head and stared up at the ceiling some more. “He said he’s tired of being a third wheel. Matt and Jessie are having all these arguments and he’s afraid he doesn’t have enough money to last a year and—”
“In other words, nothing is turning out the way he thought it would,” her mother finished for her. “And that’s why he invited you to fly over and join him?”
Just the way her mother asked told Annie she thought it was a pretty selfish reason. “That’s what he said, but you have to remember Vance isn’t exactly a great communicator.”
Annie wanted to believe he was lost and lonely without her and that he regretted everything. He hadn’t said so, but she knew that was what he really meant. Or what she hoped he meant...
“Well, you’ll have to decide if he’s sincere,” her mother whispered. “If he’s asking because he wants to be with you or he just doesn’t want to be alone.”
Annie lowered her voice, too, not wanting to wake her grandmother. “He does want to be with me!”
“That’s not what he said, though, is it?”
“Well, no, but it’s what he meant.”
Her mother was silent for several minutes. “It sounds to me like you want to be with Vance, too.”
That was true, although Annie hated admitting it. “He really hurt me, Mom.”
“I know, honey.”
“I think he needs to work harder for me to put this behind us, don’t you?”
“Are you saying you don’t think he’s suffered enough?”
Annie snickered in the dark. “You’re funny, Mom.”
“You do want him to suffer, though, right?”
“Well, he should. He went behind my back and planned this whole trip without telling me anything. I’m supposed to be his girlfriend—wouldn’t you assume he’d want me to know? I shared everything with him. I thought I wanted to marry him and I believed he felt the same about me.”
“I know.”
“Not only does he hit me with the news that he’s going to Europe with his two friends, but then he insults my intelligence by asking me to drive him to the airport.”
“That does take gall,” her mother agreed.
“Wouldn’t you want him to suffer?”
“I’m afraid I would.”
Annie knew she could count on her mother to be on her side.
“But when is it enough? It’s hard to know when I should forgive and forget.”
“True,” her mother murmured.
“I can forgive him...in time.”
“In time,” her mother echoed. “Eventually, you’ll be able to look past his behavior—if you choose to. Men can be completely oblivious to what matters most. When you think about it, Vance must’ve known how upset you’d be, and yet he wanted you to send him off with hugs and kisses.”
Annie felt better talking this over with her mother. Everything was starting to seem a little clearer. “I heard from Jason, too. He called me the day I spent alone in Branson. We’ve kept in touch since Vegas.”
“So, what do you think?”
“Well, to be honest, it felt good to have someone interested in me after Vance was such a jerk.”
“Do you like Jason?”
Annie shrugged. “He’s okay.”
“That’s not a glowing endorsement.”
“I know. I tried to figure out why I feel this way. He’s really nice and fun and we had a great time together. Another girl would be over the moon about meeting someone like him. Then I realized what’s wrong. Jason didn’t act like Vance. I’m so used to being with Vance that it felt sort of...wrong to be with someone else.”
Her mother shifted onto her side. “I remember when Paul—Tiffany’s ex—and I went to dinner after your father moved out.”
“Yeah?” Annie didn’t like to remember that. Her father and the lovely Tiffany had hurt and betrayed two people. Well, four, including her and Andrew.
“I hadn’t been out with another man for so many years that I started to shake. I didn’t know how to act or what to say, and when I did find my tongue, I was convinced I sounded like a nutcase.”
This wasn’t a fair comparison to her situation with Jason. Her mother had been close to a nervous collapse the first few weeks after Annie’s father moved out. Those days had been dreadful for all of them.
Annie had been furious with both her parents, but especially Bethanne. If her father fell in love with another woman, it had to be her mother’s fault. Bethanne was boring, Annie decided. Her mother’s whole world revolved around the house and the family and those dinner parties she put on for her father’s business associates. She’d let herself go, too. Her hair was too long and she didn’t shop for herself often enough.
In the weeks that followed, Annie had done her utmost to bring her father home. She’d cried and pleaded and told him she’d make sure Bethanne did whatever was necessary to make him happy. In retrospect, Annie was embarrassed by her behavior. She understood now that nothing she’d said had put a dent in his determination.
What hurt the most was discovering that he didn’t even want to talk to her anymore, although they’d always been so close. Annie was convinced it was all lovely Tiffany’s fault.
After she’d finished blaming her mother, Annie had turned her anger on the new woman in her father’s life. The divorce was completely her fault, and if Annie could show her dad the truth about Tiffany, Grant would change his mind and come back to the family.
Annie had pulled some nasty tricks on the lovely Tiffany, but they’d backfired. The only thing her efforts had accomplished was to upset her father and widen the rift between them.
With her mother a weakling and her father refusing to have anything to do with her, Annie had nearly self-destructed. Fortunately, Andrew had stepped in and, with Courtney’s help, gotten her away from the dangerous path she’d chosen.
“You’re quiet all of a sudden,” her mother whispered.
Not wanting to confess where her mind had wandered, Annie said, “I had a thought.”
“Don’t let it go to your head.”
“Funny one, Mom.” Annie smiled into the dark.
“And? Want to share that thought?”
“Jason’s actually really nice.” Jason was more than nice; she’d probably try to keep this going, see where it went, although he lived in California and long-distance relationships were a drag.
“Do you know what you’re going to tell Vance?” her mother asked.
“I think so.” She paused. “Vance should’ve thought about being a third wheel when he agreed to go to Europe with Matt and Jessie,” she began. “I’ve got more to do with my life than give up a whole month just so he doesn’t feel lonely while he’s away. He had his chance and he blew it.”
“But you’d still like to be with him, wouldn’t you?”
“Yes, but for all the wrong reasons.”
“Oh?”
“I want to be with him because we’re comfortable together. Familiar. But that isn’t a good enough basis for uprooting my whole life.” The more Annie verbalized her thoughts, the more convinced she was that she’d made the right decision. And the more she felt that pursuing a relationship with Jason made sense. The very reason she’d had doubts about him—the fact that he wasn’t Vance—was now why she wanted to see where a connection between them might lead.
“Can we go back to sleep now?”
“Okay,” Annie said, but she didn’t think she would.