Her Winning Ways by J.M. Bronston (31)

 

A couple of hours’ rest, a shower, and a change of clothes, and Annie was restored to her usual, sober self. Sober enough to remember that Bart’s feelings were hurt and somehow he thought it was her fault, and they hadn’t parted on friendly terms. Again.

Facing the bathroom mirror, she had a little talk with herself.

“You’ve known him for only a few days. You’re making too much of this. He’s just another guy, with an ego that gets in the way of—oh, I don’t know—whatever it is.”

She had to pause and try to figure out what she was trying to tell herself.

“Okay,” she said finally. “Okay, he’s cute, and strong, and protective. And every man looks good in a uniform. And even more so on a horse. And for a while there, you thought maybe you’d found someone you had a special feeling for.”

The mirror looked back at her. She felt as though she didn’t even know herself anymore. She decided to leave off the makeup. She’d had enough of that, after all the gussying up of the last week. She looked deep into her reflection, deep into her own eyes.

“Maybe it’s like those shipboard romances in old movies. Fun while it lasts, but then you come home to reality. No more magic. That’s probably what this was. Like a fever. A cold shower, a little penicillin, and you’ll be fine. Go home to Laramie, get back to work, put all the craziness and fuss of this last week behind you, and be a normal human being again.”

She took a deep breath. Then a second one. And went into the living room to join Liz, who was waiting to leave for dinner.

“I’m ready,” she said. “Feeling fine. What do you want to do this evening?”

“Dinner and a movie. There’s a new George Clooney movie out. You know how I am about George Clooney.”

“Who isn’t?” Annie said. “Okay. Whatever you want. You’ve been such a sweetie, Liz. This whole trip, you’ve let me hog the spotlight. Tonight is all for you. ”

“Much appreciated. I’ll just get my bag.”

On the way down to the lobby, she said, “The concierge told me about a good place for dinner. Not far from here.”

“Lead on,” Annie said. But when Liz led her to Charlie Wu’s, she said, “Oh, no!”

“What’s the matter?”

“Nothing. Nothing at all. This is your evening. This will be fine. Looks very nice.”

They were led to a table in the middle of the room, so Annie was at least spared the grief of winding up at the same spot she and Bart had shared. But she wasn’t spared the embarrassing arrival of Charlie Wu himself, who came to the table, told her how glad he was to see her, and to tell her he was honored that New York’s heroine chose his restaurant for dinner. She introduced Liz, he said their dinner would be comped, of course, and he sent over a bottle of wine.

“That’s for you, Liz. I think I’ve had my quota for the day.” That’s all I need, after my performance this afternoon. “But nice of him to do that.”

“Might as well face it, Annie. You’re the toast of the town and you ought to enjoy it.”

“Right. Until the next ‘toast of the town’ shows up. Good thing we’re leaving soon.”

“Plenty of girls would give a lot to have the adventure you’re having here.”

“I know it. Of course I know it. It’s just—well, I guess this whole thing now with Bart has made it sort of like ashes in the wine. Know what I mean?”

“So what did happen? Do you want to talk about it?”

“Not really. We’d had a couple of drinks. He got mad. I got mad. He feels I showed him up and I guess his male ego can’t take it. I felt unappreciated, and I guess my ego can’t take it. I said he was stupid. Well, not that, exactly, but I guess it sort of came out that way.” She picked up her menu. “I’ll just add the whole episode as a postscript to my New York adventure. You win some, you lose some. I won a contest, I lost a guy. No big deal. Just think of all the clothes I’m going home with.”

Liz gave her a funny look but said nothing. They ordered. They ate. They left. With Charlie himself escorting them to the door and saying he hoped he’d see them again soon—any time they were in New York. A great honor to his restaurant.

Liz had the movie theater’s address in her bag and she gave it to the cab driver.

“The movie starts at 8:30, so we have time. But I can’t get over how everything stays open so late. Did you know the movies are still going after midnight? Don’t people sleep here?”

Annie laughed. She was getting used to New York’s round-the-clock pace. But she stopped laughing when the cab stopped and she saw that they were in Times Square.

“I have to leave you off here,” the driver said. “The street is closed. Some work crews down there.” He pointed to a couple of temporary sawhorses. “You can walk it, easy. Just down the street here.”

So Annie paid the driver (“It’s your night, my treat,” she said), they got out—and to Annie’s dismay, a couple of mounted cops were not more than a hundred feet away, in the midst of a bunch of tourists who were taking their pictures and stroking the horses. And of course, Lindy was one of them, and of course, it was Bart riding him. She hoped, in the midst of Times Square’s crowd, he wouldn’t see her, and she hurried Liz around the corner toward the movie theater down the street.

But of course Bart had seen her. Maybe a hundred times, he’d imagined he’d seen her, and now, when she actually appeared and he saw that flash of bright blond hair out of the corner of his eye, he knew he’d seen the real thing. He signaled to Max, who was up on Hip Hop, that he was going to move on down to the corner, and when he got there, he saw Annie and Liz going into the movie theater.

The interior of the theater was like a mall. There was a food court and escalators in all directions. And the aroma of popcorn and hot dogs and nachos.

“Twenty-five screens!” Liz marveled.

“I can’t get over it,” Annie said. “I remember when they opened the Fox Theater in Laramie and five screens was such a big deal.”

“We are such country hicks,” Liz said.

“I know,” Annie agreed. “Thank God. I couldn’t live in these crowds. I mean, it’s fun for a few days, but the noise and the speed of everything and all the people. I’ll be so glad to get back to big sky country.”

“Me, too.”

“On the other hand, look at all the movies here. And all the restaurants and the museums and the concerts and even on the street—it’s like theater wherever you go. That’s something we don’t see back home.”

“True. No way to have everything.”

And with those words of wisdom, they arrived at the top of the escalator, several stories up, and went into the dark to spend a couple of hours with George Clooney.

 

It was almost eleven o’clock when the movie ended and there were streams of people arriving for the next show. In the midst of the human swirl, they paused on the sidewalk outside to study Liz’s map and to get their bearings. There was plenty of street light to see by, and the crews that had been working earlier were gone. The two blond heads were bent over the map, concentrating.

And Annie felt something against her neck. Something soft and familiar. Lindy had his muzzle up against her cheek, giving her a warm greeting.

She turned and looked up into Bart’s blue, blue eyes.

“Sorry about that,” Bart said. “He wanted to say hello. I didn’t mean to bother you.”

A little crowd was gathering around them. Annie was so tired of crowds. What devil turned her pleasure in Bart’s—and Lindy’s—ap-pearance into a stubbornly contrary need to make a sarcastic jab?

“You sure you aren’t afraid I’ll upstage you? I mean, you put on such a great show out here, with your glamorous uniform and your gorgeous animal.”

Even Lindy look startled.

And Bart’s face went grim. His jaw clenched and his eyes went cold.

“Well, folks,” he said, addressing the tourist onlookers, “we have a real celebrity here. Meet Annie Cornell, New York City’s current heroine of the week. You can ask her all the questions you want. Take a bunch of selfies with her. She just loves the attention.”

And he wheeled Lindy away and they disappeared into Times Square’s nighttime crowd.

Liz pulled her quickly out of the crush of descending gawkers and into the street, where she quickly hailed a passing cab and stuffed the stunned Annie into it.

“What in the world got into you? That was so rude.”

“Well, he was rude, too.”

“Annie, you two are acting like twelve-year-olds.”

“I know.”

And she began to cry.

“I don’t know what’s the matter with me.” She dropped her head and covered her face with her hands. “I’m so confused. Everything had been so fabulous, and I was feeling so lucky. I thought the whole world was smiling at me. There was the shopping spree and being on TV and oh, just all the fun of being here in this great city. And then, out of the blue, along came Bart—”

Just saying his name produced a new flow of tears, and Liz dug a tissue out of her bag and handed it to her.

“I know,” Liz said. She was stroking Annie’s hair. “I know. I never thought it would turn out this way. Not at all. I really didn’t.”

“Oh, Liz, I thought he was someone special. Someone really special. And I thought, maybe, together, we had something special. We were having fun together—in the park and eating hot dogs, and—and—shepherd’s pie—I even met his mother and I walked around the neighborhood where he grew up.” With the memory of Bart’s mother, the home he grew up in, his willingness to share that with her, she cried still more. “And when Lindy went missing, I felt I knew him well enough, and knew enough about his family, what Lindy meant to them, that I thought I did, really truly understand what he was going through, how he was suffering. So I tried to do whatever I could to help. And I thought it was a precious gift I was giving him when I actually found Lindy. I thought he’d be so pleased. And I thought my good luck that had been with me every minute of this trip, was still with me. Like a good angel was dancing me along every step of this fabulous week. I expected he’d be so happy, and so pleased.”

Liz handed her another tissue and she blew her nose, hard. “And instead, he was mad at you.” Liz picked the wet tissues out of Annie’s hand and stuck them deep into a corner of her bag. “Sometimes, I think the male of the species makes no sense at all.”

“Where did it all go so dreadfully—so disastrously—wrong?” Annie wasn’t really talking to Liz. She was her own audience. “How could he get it all so—so—unbalanced!?” Liz handed her another tissue. “I did him this great favor, I was practically a hero, and he acts like he just can’t stand the sight of me. Oh, Liz, what a terrible way to end this adventure. All the air has gone out of my bubble and now I just want to go home.”

“Oh, my poor Annie. It’s all the excitement. This city and the excitement. It’s good we’re leaving tomorrow. We’ll get you back to the real world and everything will settle into its proper place. You just have to make it through tonight.”

“I know. I know.” She raked her hands through her hair. “But oh, Liz, I’m so miserable.”