Annie's Rainbow - Fern Michaels [32]
“Annie, do you mind telling me what the hell you’re doing washing clothes in the middle of the night? What’s the machine doing in the middle of the floor?”
“It’s okay, Tom. Go back to bed. Rosie threw up on Mom’s old quilt, and I decided to wash it. It lumped to the side and made the machine go off center. It’s okay, I can handle it.” I’m really getting good at this lying business, she thought miserably.
“I’m up now, so I might as well help you.”
Annie almost choked. “Let’s let it go till morning. How about a sandwich?”
“Sure. Do we have any cold beer?”
“Sure we do. I have something to tell you, Tom,” she said as she ushered him toward the kitchen. She talked as she sliced turkey onto a plate. “Daniel Evans, that professor I told you about stopped by and brought me these. What do you think?”
“They’re pretty.”
. “They’re sand dollars, and one of the students at the college painted them. It’s the Daisy Shop and this house. She can take Jane’s place if I like her and she wants the job. Basically it would be the same deal I had with Jane.”
Tom chewed with enthusiasm. “This stuff just falls in your lap, doesn’t it, sis?”
“Seems that way sometimes. Jane’s postcards and her paintings are part of the shop. Kind of like salt and pepper going together. This girl works full-time and goes to school at night. Don’t ask me when she studies. Maybe she’s a quick learner. Daniel said she sells shoes at Bob Ellis. I’m going to hire her. Do you agree?”
“Of course.”
“He also thinks I should go to Hawaii to talk to his friend Parker Grayson, who has a coffee plantation. He seems to think we can get a better deal on the coffee from him and he might roast it for us, too. Eliminates the middleman. If both shops are successful at Clemson we’ll be ordering about five hundred pounds of coffee a week. We need to get the best deal possible.”
“I agree.”
“There’s something else, Tom. With Jane and Bob moving to San Francisco, I don’t think I want him doing our accounting. I just don’t know how to bring it up tactfully without causing hard feelings with Jane. I don’t want to have to rely on the mail and worry about will it get there on time. He’s been picking up the stuff on a weekly basis. I’m more comfortable with a local firm. What’s your feeling?”
“I agree with you on that, too. I can talk to Bob. If it looks like it’s getting dicey, I’ll say I’m taking it over. Business is business, Annie. When friendship gets involved there’s always trouble. I’ll be the bad guy and take the hit so your friendship with Jane stays intact. Boy, that was a good sandwich. How about a chunk of that stuffing? Do you remember, Annie, how Mom always made extra because we liked to eat it cold between two slices of bread? We ate that stuff for weeks.”
“I remember.”
“Do you still write in that diary I gave you on your sixteenth birthday?”
“Every day of my life. All my memories are in there, or as many of them as three lines can hold. Someday when we’re both home with the flu or a bad cold, I’ll read some of it to you. How come you went to bed so early?”
“I was kind of down. I miss the kids. Seeing Mom and knowing it isn’t going to get any better, realizing what a jerk I was where you were concerned. It all kind of piled up on me.”
“There’s more, isn’t there?”
Tom’s face closed up tight. “Yes, but I don’t want to talk about it.”
“That’s why you should talk about it. Let’s have another beer and sit by the tree and talk it out. We used to do that in high school. Then when we went to bed it all seemed bearable.”
“That was a long time ago, Annie. We aren’t kids anymore.”
“That’s exactly my point, Tom. We’re