A Soft Place to Fall (5 page)

"Susan's done enough," Annie said before
Susan had a chance to respond. She wished she didn't sound quite so
edgy and irritable. Claudia was only trying to help. They all were.
She took a deep breath and regrouped. "You've all done enough for
me today. The least I can do is keep you in beer and soda."

It wasn't their fault she suddenly hated
everything and everybody. The town. Her new house. The way her life
was playing out. When she went to bed last night she had been
reasonably sure she was doing the right thing. Now, less than
twenty-four hours later, she felt like grabbing George and Gracie
and running away from home.

Wherever home was these days.

#

Hall Talbot was running late. The Preston
baby had decided to surprise everyone, her obstetrician most of
all, with her early arrival and it was nearly seven o'clock by the
time he finished his office appointments and made his rounds.

"Don't forget you have an eight a.m.
Cesarean," his partner Ellen called out to him as he headed for the
exit.

"The Noonan baby," he said, stopping in the
doorway of her office, "unless we lose the room." Saturdays were
always dicey.

Ellen stifled a yawn and leaned back in her
chair. She was a tall, lanky redhead with strong features and a
soft heart. "Feel like stopping at Cappy's for some chowder and
blueberry pie? My treat."

"Sounds great," he said, "but --"

"Hey, no problem." She straightened up, all
angles and sharp lines. "Another time."

"Any other night," he said, feeling
off-center and slightly defensive. "Annie Galloway's moving into
her new place and --"

Ellen pushed back her chair and stood up. Her
serious expression gave way momentarily to a smile. "You don't have
to explain anything to me."

"It's no big deal," he said, thereby making
it a much bigger deal than it had any right to be. "Susan mentioned
they were getting together at the new place and --"

"Really," she said. "We're business partners,
Hall, not life partners. If you want to spend your life sitting on
Annie Galloway's front porch waiting for her to give you the time
of day, that's your business. Me? I keep out of other people's
lives."

"Damn New Yorker," he said, softening his
words with a smile of his own. "I should've found myself a Mainer
for a partner. At least New Englanders know when to keep their
mouths shut."

At that Ellen threw back her head and
laughed. "I might have believed that malarkey about taciturn New
Englanders before I moved up here, but not anymore. When it comes
to gossip, Shelter Rock Cove is ground zero."

Ellen was right, as usual, about both the
town and his feelings. You couldn't hide much from your partner
when you ran a small practice in an even smaller town. Ellen had
been in Shelter Rock Cove for less than a year but already she had
a better grasp on the town's history, both social and cultural,
than most of the born-and-bred townies. She had an instinctive
understanding for family dynamics and she could sniff out a budding
romance from six blocks away.

She pitied him. Didn't that beat all? He was
a highly-respected member of the community, a doctor who loved his
patients and dedicated himself to their care. Hell, he gave out his
home phone number to nervous expectant parents so when the big
moment came they knew they would be able to find him. Even his
ex-wives sent him Christmas and birthday cards every year. He had a
great car, a big house, a fat bank account, two healthy and happy
college-age daughters and two more barely out of pre-school. Not
exactly the kind of guy most people would pity but, damn it, that
didn't stop Ellen Markowitz, M.D. from doing exactly that. He saw
it every time she leveled those big grey eyes in his direction or
wrinkled her brow at the mention of Annie Galloway's name.

You're right, Markowitz,
he thought as
he climbed behind the wheel of his Land Rover and started the
engine.
I've been in love with Annie Lacy Galloway since high
school and she doesn't know I'm alive, not the way I want her
to.

She was the standard by which he judged all
women and found them wanting. He'd loved her when he was a senior
in high school and she was a painfully young freshman with eyes for
only Kevin Galloway. He and Kevin's sister Susan ran with the same
crowd and most nights they all ended up on the front porch of the
Galloway house, laughing and talking while the The Knack and
Blondie provided the soundtrack to their lives. He remembered the
day Annie moved in with the Galloways. She was a senior by then,
more lovely than ever before and even more out of his reach.

He was the Kindly Family Friend, comfortable
and dependable as an old pair of Birks and about as exciting.

Not exactly the way a man wanted the woman of
his dreams to think of him.

Susan had been on his back for months now,
urging him to step out of the shadows and into Annie's life but
after twenty-five years of playing background music, he wasn't sure
he knew how to solo. "What are you waiting for?" she demanded.
"You're alone and so is she. You've known each since forever. Don't
you think it's time you made your move?"

He stopped for a red light where the hospital
parking lot fed into Harbor Road, the town's main thoroughfare. He
watched, mesmerized, as the young couple in the lime-green VW
behind him, fell into a tangled embrace the second their car rolled
to a stop. Over the years he had imagined Annie Lacy Galloway in
just about every situation a man could invent, but he couldn't
imagine her going at it at a stoplight. Annie was too self-assured,
too dignified for that. He had no doubt she was a warm and
passionate woman but she was the kind of woman who kept those
passions private.

The couple behind him untangled themselves.
The driver beeped his horn twice and gestured toward the green
light swinging overhead. Red-faced, Hall gunned the engine and sped
away, feeling like a middle-aged pervert.

"What are you dragging your feet for,
Talbot?" Susan had asked him. "An engraved invitation from
Annie?"

What was wrong with picking up a stack of
pizzas and running them by her new house? He'd grab a couple of
six-packs, a few sodas, maybe a half-gallon of ice cream and a
dozen roses, and take his chances. He wasn't entirely sure he was
doing the right thing but so far doing the right thing hadn't
helped him win the fair lady's heart. Maybe it was time to step out
on a limb and take a chance.

It wasn't like he had anything to worry
about. Annie's manners were impeccable. She would never embarrass
him. If she thought he'd gone too far, she would never say so. She
would greet him warmly, hand him something cold to drink, then
drift away into the crowd, leaving the family friend to fend for
himself.

#

Ceil had been packing groceries at The Yankee
Shopper for as long as Annie could remember. Each morning she took
her place at register one and watched the people of Shelter Rock
Cove come and go. If you wanted to know what was happening in town,
all you had to do was ask Ceil. She had been the first one to know
that the Liccardis had broken up. Ceil claimed if Angie hadn't
wanted the world to know her business, she shouldn't have bought
the single lamb chop and one sorry little baking potato then waited
five minutes for Ceil's line to move when Dave at register three
was standing there, twiddling his thumbs.

It wasn't Ceil's fault that she was a
natural-born detective who had every episode of
Murder She
Wrote
on tape. Besides, what woman worth her salt wouldn't have
noticed that Frankie Carll was drowning his sorrows in Oreos and
Heavenly Hash and growing jowls like a basset hound. When a
middle-aged man buzzed through the express lane twice a day, you
knew things weren't going well at home.

So it was no surprise to Annie when Ceil
glanced at the bags of potato chips and pretzels, the popcorn, and
the four dozen cans of soda on the conveyor belt and said, "Moving
day, honey?"

Annie smiled at the older woman and nodded.
"Afraid I misjudged my helpers' appetites. I'm always amazed at how
much food teenagers can consume." Not to mention their parents and
friends.

Ceil slid a bag of chips across the scanner
with a world-weary sigh. "You wouldn't say that if you had a tribe
of your own. When my boys were young, I swore they were going to
eat us out of house and home. Why my milk bill alone would have set
a grown man to weeping." She peered at Annie with curious dark
eyes. "Not meaning any offense, honey. No, you have it easy, all
things considered. At least you're not a single mother, struggling
to make ends meet without a husband."

Years ago Ceil's innocent words about her
childless state would have cut Annie to the quick, but she had long
ago learned how to deflect these little unintentional hand
grenades. All you had to do was smile, nod, and keep your mouth
shut. It was easy, really, once you got the knack of it, especially
if you had bigger secrets to keep.

"So how did your daughter-in-law's blueberry
jam turn out?" she asked and Ceil, bless her chatty heart, shifted
conversational gears and launched into a detailed critique of
Emily's canning technique that made Annie shudder inwardly. Poor
Emily used too much sugar, didn't clean up after herself, and
wouldn't know a ripe blueberry if it jumped up and bit her on the
ankle. Annie whispered a prayer of thanks that she had never had
those problems with Claudia. If anything, Claudia loved her so much
that her own daughters sometimes grew irritated. "Don't forget I'm
the one who inherited your thighs," Susan had been known to say to
her mother upon occasion. A gentle, daughterly reminder that never
failed to infuriate Claudia, who didn't think her thighs were
joke-worthy, and made Annie (who wouldn't have minded inheriting
Claudia's thighs) laugh.

"You take care now, honey," Ceil said as
Annie pocketed her change, "and don't eat too many of those potato
chips. We both know where all that grease ends up once a girl hits
that certain age." She eyed Annie's midsection and ran a plump hand
over her own size 18 hips in warning, then turned to the next
customer before she had a chance to see Annie's jaw drop open in
utter astonishment.

Okay, so maybe her jeans were a bit tighter
than they had been six months ago but since when did an extra ten
pounds merit a lecture from the nosiest woman in town? If she was
really blimping up the way Ceil suggested, you would think Susan or
Eileen or surely Claudia would have dropped a subtle hint or three.
They had all been quick enough to tell her she was skin and bones
after Kevin died. Shyness, after all, was not a Galloway family
trait.

Still, she was thirty-eight now, the age when
all of those nice friendly hormones begin to shift and move around
in preparation for some major redecorating. And it wasn't like she
spent a lot of time gazing at her body in the mirror or anything.
She couldn't remember the last time she had paid any attention to
herself at all except to take care of basic grooming.

She glanced at her reflection in the plate
glass window as she headed for the Yankee Shopper exit. Her denim
shirt was easily three sizes too large for her. Who knew what
horrors were going on under there. And what was the deal with her
hair anyway? She touched the top of her head and winced. She looked
like she'd been in a fight with a Weedwacker and lost the
battle.

To hear Ceil tell it, bad hair was the least
of her worries. She was wondering whether or not she'd be able to
maneuver her hips through the exit door this time next week when
she noticed the dog sitting behind the wheel of her car.

It wasn't so much that there was a dog in the
driver's seat that brought her up short; it was more the size of
the dog. The Labrador retriever filled the seat so completely, like
a big yellow bear, that Annie couldn't imagine how he had been able
to squeeze through the partially opened window to climb inside in
the first place.

Annie wasn't a dog person. She could pill a
cat without breaking into a sweat, trim razor-sharp feline claws,
even bathe a reluctant tabby who had had an unfortunate encounter
with a neighborhood skunk, but when it came to dogs she was
clueless. The dog behind the wheel of her SUV was so big he could
probably swallow a pot roast whole and consider it an
appetizer.

"Nice doggie," she said, wheeling her cart a
few feet closer. "Don't you have some place to go?"

The yellow Lab ignored her and kept looking
straight ahead.

She angled the cart to a stop near her right
front tire then approached the door. "Out!" She patted the side of
her leg and made a clicking sound. "Come on, pooch. It's too far
for me to walk home and I doubt if you know how to drive."

She reached for the door handle then jumped
back when the dog's upper lip lifted just enough to reveal an
impressive set of teeth.

She didn't need to be told twice that it was
time to regroup. She leaned against the shopping cart and
considered her options. She wasn't a risk-taker by nature. She had
never jumped out of an airplane, kayaked the rapids, or tried to
smuggle homemade popcorn into the Shelter Rock Cove Cinema. She
could always call home and ask Susan to come rescue her. Susan had
a houseful of dogs. She would know what to do. Dog people always
struck Annie as being very practical and down-to-earth.

She glanced around the parking lot. A white
Chevy Malibu was double-parked in front of the Kate's Laundromat
next to the Yankee Shopper. The driver was a middle-aged woman
named Marcy who Annie knew from the Annual Three Towns Firemen's
Fair Bake Sale. Marcy was one of those skinny, nervous types who
baked with applesauce instead of butter then swore she couldn't
tell the difference. Marcy caught sight of Annie and waved a
well-manicured hand in her direction.