A Woman Like Annie. Inglath Cooper
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the woman to ruffle her hair and offer up an “Aren’t you cute?” to go with it. But then her attitude was no surprise. The biggest part of the town thought Annie’s stepping in as a replacement for her husband was one of those things to chuckle about over coffee and a doughnut at the Krispy Kreme.
“How are you, Charlotte?” Annie asked with a deliberately sincere smile.
“Fine. Busy. Hello, Tommy,” she said, bending down to tweak his cheek and lift his glasses from his nose. “If you’re not the spittin’ image of your daddy. Without the specs, of course.”
Tommy’s smile fell. He hated wearing glasses. The comparison to his father, however, appeared to lessen the blow, temporarily suspending Annie’s desire to pour the contents of the water pitcher sitting by the register on top of Charlotte’s set-once-a-week hairdo.
“You gonna play baseball like him when you get big?” Charlotte asked.
Tommy nodded with absolute certainty.
Annie bit back a grimace. She took Tommy’s hand and said, “I’m meeting someone for dinner. He’s probably already here.”
“Tall, dark, mysterious-looking as heck?” Before Annie could reply, Charlotte pointed toward the back and said, “That who you looking for?”
The man wasn’t facing the door. Annie had no idea what he looked like. “Maybe.”
Charlotte shook her head and said, “No wonder you didn’t mind taking over as mayor, Annie. If this is the kind of thing you get to do, I might just run myself next term.” A big wink followed the assertion.
Not trusting herself to respond, Annie put a hand on Tommy’s shoulder and steered him toward the back of the restaurant, waving at familiar faces as she wound her way through the tables.
She stopped at the booth Charlotte had pointed out. “Mr. Corbin?”
The man stood. “Mayor McCabe?”
Annie nodded, momentarily struck mute. Charlotte Turner might need sensitivity training when it came to little boys, but she was right on this. Annie would never have put a face this good-looking on a man who was about to do to Macon’s Point what this one was about to do. In her mind’s eye, she’d penciled in something much more weasel-like, sinister, even. And, yes, he did look like the kind of guy who would drive a black Porsche, or closer still, head up the ad campaign for one. He had dark brown hair and the kind of lean, high-cheekboned face that spoke of good genetics and an athletic lifestyle. “I, ah, I hope you don’t mind, but my son Tommy is joining us for dinner. Tommy, this is Mr. Corbin.”
“H’lo,” Tommy said, staring at the man with open curiosity.
“Hello, Tommy,” he said, looking, to his credit, only a little taken aback. “It’s nice to meet you.”
“We had a little emergency at home,” Annie said, “and I didn’t have time to get him to the sitter’s.”
“Nothing serious, I hope?”
She shook her head. “Oh, no. Just a St. Bernard, a chocolate cake and a trip to the vet’s.”
He nodded as if he understood, but Annie suspected she might as well have spouted off a paragraph of Greek for all he would understand of that. Her own life was an unending series of such events, and for one un-maternal moment, she wondered what it would be like to have arrived on time with her hair dry and all her buttons in place.
“May I take your coat?” he asked.
“Thank you,” she said, feeling a little awkward as she slipped her arms free of the heavy garment and then helped Tommy slip out of his. He took both coats and hung them on the rack a few feet from their table.
“Please, sit down,” he said. “I went ahead and ordered some iced tea. May I ask the waitress to bring you both something?”
His manners surprised her. J.D. had been used to having other people scurry to do things for him, open a door, “Take your coat, Mr. McCabe?” As for Annie, she’d gotten used to doing things for herself. Hanging up her own coat. Ordering her own drink.
“Your tea looks good, actually.”
“Can I have hot choc’late?” Tommy piped in.
“May you have hot chocolate,” Annie automatically corrected. “And yes, you may.”
“One iced tea and one hot chocolate coming right up,” Jack Corbin said and went off to tell the waitress. Annie helped Tommy climb onto the booth seat, waited while he scooted toward the wall, then sat down herself.
Corbin was back in less than a minute, sliding into the other side of the booth. Before Annie could say a word, Tommy raised his gaze from his Nintendo game and said, “We’re gonna talk bizness.”
Unexpected though it was, the comment served as an effective icebreaker. The man across the table smiled and said, “So we are, but why don’t we order our dinner first?” He pulled three menus from the stand next to the wall and handed one to them.
“I can’t read,” Tommy said, but appeared impressed that it had been assumed he could.
“Maybe your mom can take a look at it then.”
“Sure, honey,” Annie said, anxious to decide on something so she could focus on her speech. “Let’s find something you’ll like. How about the macaroni and cheese?”
“Uh-uh.”
Annie ran her finger down the list of tonight’s specials. “Mashed potatoes?”
Tommy shook his head again, this time with more emphasis.
“A hamburger?”
Another headshake.
“How about some soup?”
“No.”
Annie heard the dissatisfaction in her son’s voice, recognizing where it was headed. For the most part, Tommy was an angel of a child. But ever since J.D. had left, temper tantrums had become a way of life. There was no predicting them, and Tommy’s counselor had told her that she should simply let them run their course, that they were the boy’s way of punishing her for the changes since his father had left. Another notch on life’s belt of unfairness since J.D. had made that decision all by himself, without any help from her.
“Okay,” she said in a reasoning tone, praying that she could head this off, “how about a grilled cheese?”
“No,” he said, his voice growing louder.
This was not going at all as planned. Sitting across from her was the man who held the fate of this town in the palm of his hand. Annie figured she had one chance and one chance only to get him to at least consider not selling Corbin Manufacturing, and how on earth was she going to do that with Tommy throwing a fit beside her?
“You know what my favorite thing here was when I was your age, Tommy?” Corbin’s question was casual.
Tommy looked up, no doubt intrigued that a man as big as the one sitting in front of them could ever have been his age. “What?”
“Pancakes.”
“For supper?”
“For anytime. In fact, I think that’s what I’ll have tonight.”
Tommy pondered that for a moment, then looked at Annie and said, “Can I get pancakes, Mama?”
“May you have them. And yes, you may,” Annie said. In another less-than-admirable motherhood moment, she would have let him order jelly beans if that’s what it took to head off the storm about to erupt.
Tommy went back to his game, his bad mood dissipating as quickly as it had started.
Annie breathed a silent sigh of relief. “Thank you for your patience, Mr. Corbin. I realize this isn’t what—”
“It’s