The Four Corners of the Sky_ A Novel - Michael Malone [37]
Annie was not much of a consumer (preferring to build a retirement fund for the rainy day that would inevitably come) but the few things she did buy were of the best quality, like her entertainment system. Trevor preferred to spend his money on fine wines and restaurants. So there were many occasions, late at night, when he would knock on Annie’s door, holding out a bottle of Montrachet and a DVD and they’d sit together watching a classic film on Annie’s large state-of-the-art flat-screen. Or they would play poker. Annie almost always won. She’d played poker since she was four years old. They both looked forward to their evenings although they told each other they should be out dating instead.
“This is awful,” Annie told Georgette on the phone after one of her evenings with Trevor. “I could end up like Sam and Clark.”
“Well, you could end up like Sam or Clark but unless you were really schizophrenic—”
“You know what I mean. Why is it only in chick flicks that good friends fall in love? In real life, we keep falling in love with people like Trevor’s ex-girlfriend—”
“You’re in love with Trevor’s ex-girlfriend?”
“People like Brad! People that, if we were totally honest, we didn’t even really like!”
Georgette argued that there was something sort of appealing about Brad, so Annie should forgive herself for making such a stupid mistake.
“I’ll forgive myself the day I sign our divorce papers.”
“And when will that day be, Annie?”
“Why do you keep asking me? Because you want to marry him? Remember when you threw up at my wedding?”
“Obviously you do,” grumbled Georgette.
“Well, you were onto something when you puked. You had the right idea.”
Georgette agreed that she often did.
***
At Pilgrim’s Rest, Annie idly tapped her birthday balloons while waiting for Georgette’s voice mail. “Call me,” she said. “My dad’s dying.”
She glanced at the storm clouds through the hall window when her cell phone rang. “Georgette?”
But it was Brad again. “A? I’m a little delayed here in Charleston; air traffic gets so freaked. I’ll be there in a couple of hours. Got you a great present.”
“Brad, don’t give me a present. I’m divorcing you.”
“For better for worse.”
“You should have spelled out how ‘for worse’ would be me seeing you screwing Melody Wirsh.”
“That’s gross.”
To Annie’s relief, she found this remark so bizarre that she laughed.
Brad sighed at her unfairness in referring to that ancient “misunderstanding.”
“What?”
“I’ll make it up to you, A. I’m on my way.”
“Don’t bother—” But he’d hung up.
“Maybe,” said Annie aloud, “Brad ought to try slowing down.”
Standing silently in the hallway, eating a saucy chicken wing, Clark nodded at her. “Good. Now you’re getting nowhere.”
Chapter 12
Make Me a Star
Only two weeks after leaving Brad, Annie was teaching her first squadron of Navy pilots how to land fighter jets on the decks of pitching aircraft carriers so that the tailhooks would stop their planes from rolling into the sea. She knew she was good at her job. But she worried she was a failure at love. As she lamented to Georgette, she had a fatal weakness for loving men who couldn’t stay true to her. “If it’s fatal, get over it,” advised her friend, sitting beside her on the porch at Pilgrim’s Rest. “Here, I’ll write you a prescription.”
Annie studied the script. “This is for sunblock.”
“Right. You need to get out more. Get on a ship and go to South America.”
Annie said that she got on a ship every morning.
Georgette grabbed Annie’s knee to stop her from pushing the swing faster. “A cruise ship. You need a relaxing cruise ship. I’m thinking like what’s her face? In that movie Sam loves?”
“Bette Davis, Now, Voyager?”
“Yeah. You need more facials and salsa contests and less landing Super Hornets on an aircraft carrier. Not that life-and-death’s not a blast too.”
Annie decided to see a therapist. She found the wrong one in Annapolis. Her analysis lasted only one session, which