Inglath Cooper - A Woman Like Annie

He folded his arms across his chest, leaned against the kitchen counter, and put that realization back in the drawer labeled inappropriate where it belonged. “Seems like I’d be the last person they’d want there.”

“Seems that way,” she agreed. “But they might surprise you. And it would give you a chance to put faces to the process.”

That last part was thrown out as a challenge. He’d expected the sister to be the one coming at him with a few sharp knives, but so far she was letting Annie do the job. He didn’t miss the underlying accusation. If you’re going to take away the livelihood of all those people, you could at least know who they are.

And he wouldn’t back down. She was right. He had no problem standing behind his decision, especially in front of the people who worked at Corbin Manufacturing. This was a business decision, and as far as they were concerned, nothing personal about it.

“When does it start?”

“Five-thirty.” Clarice now. “We could swing by and pick you up if you like.”

Surprise flickered across Annie’s face and then disappeared behind a veil of casual agreement. She would not have issued that invitation, Jack knew. “Thanks, but I’ve got my car,” he said, sparing her.

Her relief was visible, and he found himself vaguely unsettled by the realization that Annie didn’t care to spend any more time with him than she had to.

“Okay, then,” she said, in a let’s-go-now tone of voice. “We’ll look for you on Tuesday.”

“What should I bring?”

“Just yourself would be fine,” Clarice said, the surface of the reply nothing more than a polite answer, but if Jack wasn’t mistaken, there was subtle flirtatiousness beneath.

“Whatever you’d like,” Annie said, a strait-laced reply that made her sister’s stand out in stark contrast.

“I’ll see what I can rustle up.”

“I. WANT. HIM.”

Clarice made her dazed declaration with Glenn Hall still framed in the rearview mirror of Annie’s Tahoe.

Annie accelerated, and a cloud of dust kicked up behind them on the gravel driveway. “Clarice,” she said in her best you-know-better voice.

“I know. I’m not supposed to like him.”

“I didn’t say that,” Annie objected. “It’s just that a lot is riding on whether or not he changes his mind.”

“Agreed. Point being?”

“Point being that needs to be our focus.”

“You afraid that steering wheel’s going somewhere?”

“What?” Annie looked down at her own white-knuckled grip, immediately loosened it. “I guess I feel a lot of pressure on this, Clarice. It’s important.”

“Well, I know that. But what harm can come from me showing a little interest in him?”

“I don’t know. Just that maybe it’s not a good time to distract him.”

“There are distractions, and there are distractions.”

It was pointless to argue. Annie knew her sister well enough to recognize immediate infatuation when it struck.

Clarice popped on a pair of black Armani sunglasses, slid down in her seat and blew out a sigh. “Sorry I was zero help in there. But mercy, I have never in my life seen a man that good-looking.”

“You think?” Annie shot some deliberate neutrality into her response. Clarice hardly needed encouragement.

“Think? You’re kidding, right?” Disbelief reverberated through the Tahoe’s interior. “Annie, surely J.D. didn’t do that much damage to your eligible man antennae.”

“Mine’s on temporary hiatus in the hall closet.”

Clarice laughed. “At least you can joke about it now.”

“They call that progress in therapy circles.”

“Well, it is, actually. For a long time, I couldn’t bring myself to say his name because it hurt too much to see the pain on your face.”

The mood in the Tahoe had gone suddenly somber. Annie heard the love in her sister’s voice and was grateful for it. Clarice had indeed seen her on the down side of disillusion. Not a pretty sight. “I have a feeling J.D. and Jack Corbin have a lot in common.”

Clarice’s perfectly arched eyebrows shot toward the roof. “How so?”

“Self-interest being their number one priority.”

“Well, I won’t deny it where J.D. is concerned. But isn’t it jumping the gun to hang that sign in Jack Corbin’s window just yet?”

Annie kept her gaze on the road, maneuvered around a brown bag in the middle of her lane that had fallen off the A&E Seed truck in front of them. Guilt needled at her. Maybe it was a tad unfair. She was going on surface impressions, after all. Hadn’t she been the one defending him to Clarice just a couple of hours ago? And now she was ready to put him in the same box with J.D. and toss the key in Lake Heron. “I just wish he would give the company a chance to get on its feet. That’s all.”

“Maybe he will. Party’s not over yet. And even though I talked a big game before going over there this morning, I wimped. But I’ve got all the googly-eyed stuff out of the way now, so maybe I’ll actually be able to string together a few coherent sentences at the picnic.”

Annie smiled.

“You aren’t interested in him, are you?” Clarice asked, failing to hide her worry.

“Oh, Clarice, of course not,” Annie said. As sisters, they’d had this conversation numerous times in their lives. And Annie always said the same thing because if Clarice really wanted the guy, she didn’t stand a chance, anyway. Not that she was interested in Jack Corbin. Or any other man at the moment. “I know you’ll find this hard to believe, but I am very, no, extremely, happy with things the way they are in my life. I’ve finally proved to myself I don’t need a man to be complete.”

Clarice shot her an exaggeratedly appalled look over the rim of her sunglasses. “Heresy.”

“No, if I ever start looking again, it’ll be the flip side of J.D. The kind of man who drives a nice ordinary Buick or Chevrolet. A man with roots. Feet on the ground. Steady. Dependable.”

“Boorrring!”

Annie laughed. “Boring can have its selling points.”

“Not if you’re talking about men. You’ve got to be willing to get burned a time or two to ferret out a good one.”

“Then they ought to come with warning labels.”

Clarice laughed now. “Oh, Annie, most of the time they do, we just choose to ignore them.”

NO DENYING IT. Jack was having his share of serious misgivings by the time he pulled into the C.M. parking lot just after five o’clock on Tuesday afternoon.

Who, of all the employees at this picnic, would be glad to see him coming? No one. He, after all, was the guy in the black cape, the one with villain scrawled across his back in big bold letters. Had he secretly hoped they might understand that everything ran its course, had its time? That the glory days of C.M. were over, and he was merely the one taking the steps to put it out of its misery.

No, he didn’t expect them to understand that. Probably should never have said he’d come to the thing in the first place, but Annie had flung the invitation at him as a challenge. And he wasn’t a man to ignore a challenge.

He parked his car at the back of the lot, got out, and reached in the back seat for the basket of fried chicken he and Essie had spent the past two hours making. He’d been more hindrance than help, he was sure, but Essie had been so thrilled to hear that he was attending the picnic, she had practically floated around the kitchen fixing his mistakes, two of which had included a dozen eggs splattered on the brick floor and a measuring cup of flour upended on the countertop.

The parking lot was full. The factory itself sat on twenty acres of what had once been prime farmland. Its owners had sold out and moved back to Ohio some twenty-five years ago. Jack’s father had bought the property for its flatness and the fact that it was surrounded by Virginia mountains, the trees lit up every fall with colors only nature could blend. Now, in September, they hugged the level piece of land on which C.M. sat in an embrace of green.