ANNA

Chapter One

I woke up earlier than I wanted on Saturday morning because my rescue dog, Johnny, a dachshund-chihuahua mix, was making a commotion because my mother, Lucianna, an Italian-American mix, was standing at the foot of my bed in her pool house where I lived, making kissy noises and saying, “There’s my beautiful baby!”

She was talking to the dog, of course.

I grabbed my fave red catseye glasses from the kitchen counter behind my bed—it’s an efficiency pool house, everything is close—to see Johnny making a happy fuss because, even though my mother had been adamant six months ago about me not getting a dog—“awful, yappy, dirty sonsabitches”—the first time she saw Johnny’s long, pale, tan little body with its random puffs of white fur and his bat-like ears and curly tail—he’s a chihuahua-dachshunt-rat-terrier mix–she fell hard, and now she and Johnny were devoted to each other, in no small part because she carried treats for him at all times and told him that he was the best boy who ever lived.

Johnny was easy.

I let my head fall back on my pillow and once again contemplated moving somewhere else, only not really. My mother’s pool house is close to my work, I can live here for free, and there’s a pool outside my front door.

“Get up, Annie,” my mother said as she scratched Johnny behind the ears and made him close his big dark eyes in ecstasy.

I took off my glasses and rolled over onto my side. “I’m going to sleep in and work late tonight to make up for it.” I did not say, “I had an awful date last night,” because my mother would hunt Jason down, and I really didn’t want to deal with that.

And yes, it was a Saturday.  I worked weekends because that’s when we get most of our foot traffic, scant as it is at the Keppler Museum. I spend most of my life at the Keppler, which suits me just fine, no worries.

My mother huffed. “You can’t stay late at work tonight. You have a date.”

“No, I don’t.”

I did not explain that I did not have a date because Jason, my boyfriend, and I had had a big argument last night.  That wasn’t like me, I try to be agreeable, but he’d told me that I had to be more professional at the museum (he was the general manager), like telling me to get rid of my large collection of catseye glasses—lots of pearls and rhinestones–for more appropriate eyewear, and to dye and straighten my admittedly flaming curly red hair into something more sedate, and then he’d gone too far and told me I had to get rid of my dog.

Johnny was a rescue, so leaving him alone all day was not kind, especially since I worked six days a week and usually stayed late, and he was a very good boy, so I’d been bringing him to work with me for the past six months, and he was now the museum mascot. People who came to the museum knew him by name. They couldn’t remember my name, but Johnny they knew. And Jason actually wanted me to get rid of this darling dog permanently. It finally culminated in him saying, “You have to choose, Anna. It’s me or the dog,” and me saying, “It’s the dog.”

He’d looked surprised.

Well, I could see why, I don’t say no a lot. It upsets people. But he was upsetting me. I did a good job at the museum, the education department was the most popular (and lucrative) part of the place, and he knew it, so he couldn’t fire me, but he could try to pressure me into fitting his idea of the perfect museum-employee/girlfriend, and usually I went along, but my hair was none of his business.  And my dog?  Jason was usually very practical and calm and restful, so maybe he was just having a bad night.

“Oliver Olivero,” my mother was saying. “I talked to your Aunt Paulina, and he’s picking you up at eight.”

“Mama, no,” I said, which again was unusual for me, but I was not going to date my cousin.

“Annie,” my mother began, looking surprised.

“One,” I said, “Oliver is my cousin and a man who has shown no interest in me.”

“Second cousin,” my mother said.

“Two,” I said. “I’m not sure what the state of my relationship is with Jason.”

“Jason is a loser who will never marry you,” my mother said.

“Three,” I finished. “Oliver tells everyone he meets that he’s so good in bed that every woman he sleeps with shouts out his initials.”

“That’s possible,” my mother said, looking unsure for the first time. “You like him. You should at least give him a chance.”

“Why?” I said, since my mother had never favored Oliver above any of my other cousins of various distances.

“You should be married,” my mother said. “It’s time you got serious about life. Have somebody to take care of you. Give me grandkids. I won’t be here forever, you know.”

That made me sit up. “You’re fifty-two. You’re not going to die any time soon unless there’s something you’re not telling me. Are you sick? Is something wrong?”

My mother pulled back. “No. Why? Do I look bad?” She picked up Johnny and went to check out her perfect self in the mirror I had on the back wall over my desk. “What? What do you see?”

I put my head in my hands. “Mama, I’m thirty-three, I’m healthy, and I’m employed, so I’m not a child who’s dependent on other people. What is this sudden need to get rid of me?”

“It’s time,” she said, peering in the mirror to make sure every hair was in place and her make-up was flawless, which, of course, it was. Johnny peered with her, probably wondering who that handsome dog looking back at him was. “Oliver is a good boy, steady, good income, nice-looking—”

“I’m not ready for marriage.” I got out of bed, too awake now to fall back asleep. “I may never be ready for marriage. Also, Oliver runs a chop shop.”

“He runs a car repair business,” my mother said. “Very profitable.”

I gave up. “I’m going to get ready for work now. Could you walk Johnny for me while I dress?”

“Of course, anything for my little angel,” my mother said, making more kissy noises at my dog, which was all a sham because the most Johnny was going to get was a swift stroll to the gate and back.

She and Johnny left, and I brushed my teeth and dealt with the frizz in my hair and ignored make-up because it wasn’t like I was going to be seeing people. Of course, I was going to be seeing some people, but they were my museum people. I saw them six days a week. They were used to the real me.

I finished dressing in what I considered my work clothes: a sweater set that had seen some action—children are notorious for being sloppy with art—and a pencil skirt that gave the impression of conservative business wear, even if Jason wasn’t impressed. Today’s armor was a green merino cardigan and tank with plain red edging and a tasteful blotch of India ink on the hem where Noah Sanderson had turned around just as I looked over his shoulder to see if he was painting boobs again and hit me with his brush.

You teach art, these things happen.

I corralled my hair and picked up my grandma’s purse, another point of contention between Mama and me. “Why are you still carrying that old thing,” she’d say almost daily. “I’ll buy you a new one.” And I’d tell her it was vintage leather and a very good bag—it was Prada—and did not tell her that I loved it, in part because it still had many of the things my grandmother had kept in it, like her tin of Altoids from 2005, and her small hairbrush, and her beaded coin purse with quarters, and her hammerless snub-nose .38 caliber revolver with the specially made blue contoured grip Grandpa had given her on their one year anniversary. . . I still missed my grandma a lot.

I met my mother and Johnny outside by my sixteen-year-old Prius, another vintage possession of mine that made my mother nuts. “Please tell Oliver I cannot go out with him, I have to work tonight,” I told her, put Johnny in his car seat and my bag on the floor, shut the door on my mother’s usual good-bye—“Be a good girl today, Annie!”— pulled around to the front of the house, hit the button on my phone to open the gates, and escaped into the outside world, in this case the lovely little river town of Keppler, New Jersey.

So, first Jason Lassiter being anti-dog, then Oliver Olivero asking me out on instructions from his mother, and then my mother fixating on marriage (for me, not her).

And people wonder why I play it safe.

Because everybody else is taking chances for me, that’s why.

#

Ten minutes later, I parked behind the big old blue Victorian mansion that housed the Keppler Museum, a three-story insane blue beauty (four if you counted the cupola on top, five if you count the climate-controlled basement) of frantic painted woodwork; wide gingerbread porches; miscellaneous balconies, weathervanes, and lightning rods; and the odd bit of muffle glass just to confuse the eye. It was all set on a two-acre lot that sloped down to the river that had once contained an English garden and now featured two parking lots, one in front for the visitors and one in the lower back at basement level for the serfs who worked there.

I, of course, parked in back.

I got Johnny out of his car seat to his great relief—he prefers to ride in my lap but I prefer not to wreck my car—lured him away from the river that ran behind the museum—such interesting smells and things to roll in—and walked him in through the back basement door—the museum is built on a slope so the back part is completely above ground–so our building maintenance goddess, Bridget the Valkyrie, could say hi to him. Bridget is a very good person who is extremely competent, does not suffer fools gladly, and loves my dog, three of the many reasons she’s one of my favorite people.

Bridget was talking to my least favorite person, our security guard, Chad Slade, an off brand Keppler (his mother, a Keppler cousin, had married a Slade) who put the I in incel. He stopped me at the bottom of the stairs that led to my office three flights up, blocking me in between the lockers and Bridget’s weight bench, looking ridiculous in a white shirt with epaulets he wore too tight so he could show off his muscles.

Chad looked down at Johnny, who was running happy circles around Bridget, and said, “That is one weird looking dog.”

I did not say, “Better looking than you” because I am polite and non-confrontational, but for the record, Johnny is adorable.

Instead, I said, “Excuse me,” to Chad, who stayed blocking my way to the stairs.

Johnny barked at him, clearly an order to move.

“I just want you to know that I’m here for you,” he said, leering at me, which did not make him more attractive.

Johnny appeared disgusted.

I looked at Bridget, looming behind me. “What did I miss?”

“Did you read your e-mail this morning?” Bridget bent down to pet Johnny and tell him he was a good boy. “Jason dumped you.”

I jerked back. “In an email?” Then I stopped. “Wait, how do you know?”

“He hit Reply All on the last staff meeting summary, which no one reads,” Bridget said, straightening. “Everybody read this one.”

“He did you a favor,” Chad said. “Teresa had a real edge in the betting pool. You know what you need? Revenge sex.” He leered again.

I looked at him. “Teresa? What does his secretary have to do with this?”

“Jason’s been doing her,” Chad said.

I just stood there, dumbfounded for a moment. Teresa was a sweetheart. I liked Teresa.

And, evidently, so did Jason.

Then I realized I didn’t doubt for a moment it was true. It was so like Jason. He always planned ahead, so of course he had a replacement in the wings in case I’d refused to give up my dog. I’d always considered all his forethought admirable, but now I was . . . . Actually, I wasn’t sure what I was. Not heart-broken, definitely, but still . . . annoyed. Possibly enraged. In an e-mail???? The rat bastard.

I picked up Johnny, detoured around Chad, and started up the steps to cope in private with the Reply All.

Teresa was really nice. This was confusing.

I smiled and said hello to Janice, our volunteer coordinator who was behind the welcome desk on the first floor. She stared back tensely under her dead-black, helmet hair—Janice does everything tensely—and said, “I’m so sorry Jason ended your relationship so publicly.”  And then she smiled. Nobody should have to look at Janice smiling in the morning, so I climbed two more flights up and stopped in my office to check my e-mail—yep, Jason had Replied All—grabbed two Tootsie Roll Pops from the big jar on my desk, and went next door to Gracie Kim’s office to find her peering into her computer screen and scowling, Miley Cyrus loud in the background, rasping that she could buy herself flowers.

Gracie is my best friend and our entire IT department, which is why she has a poster on her door that says, (1) Is it plugged in? (2) Have you tried turning it off and on again? (3) No, I don’t know what your password is. Then under that in red marker, she’d written No, Chad, I will not have sex with you.

“Johnny!” Gracie’s dark eyes lit up, and I put him down so he could scramble up into her lap and lick her face, avoiding her nose ring from practice. I gave her a Tootsie Roll Pop, and she looked up at me as she unwrapped it. “Do I offer my sympathy on your loss or my congratulations on you finally escaping that ass, Jason?”

“I’m good,” I said, not sure I was, but positive my heart was in one piece, so all I needed was time to absorb everything.

She stuck her chin out, prepared to make a statement, and her black silky hair did that silky-hair thing where it fell back from her face like a shiny curtain. I’d been struggling with my insanely curly mop all my life, and I’d envied Gracie her hair ever since I’d met her twenty-eight years ago when we were five. She’d had the best hair in kindergarten.

“This is a good thing, Annie,” she said, fixing me with the stare I’d been bending to for most of my life.

Well, she was usually right.

I sank down into the old wooden office chair at the end of her desk, unwrapped my Pop and put it in my mouth, trying to feel better as the sugar flooded my system. It didn’t help, so I crunched down on the hard candy part. Today was not a day for delayed gratification.

“Jason is an idiot.” Gracie frowned, as she patted my dog. “He’s an idiot for cheating on you, an idiot for dumping you, and an idiot for sending that e-mail reply-all, and I’m really grateful to him for doing all of that because now you can wake up and stop playing it safe and go out and find the exciting guy who’s right for you.” She put her Pop back in her mouth and cocked her head toward her computer, where Miley was finishing her song. “And buy yourself flowers.”

I was about to tell her that the last thing I needed was another damn man with an e-mail account—I had Johnny if I wanted undying love—when the door opened, and my boss, Thomas Keppler, aka TK, walked in carrying a square, brown-paper-wrapped package with a manila envelope taped to it. He looked like hell, clammy with sweat, hands trembling, which was odd because TK usually looks like an expensive liquor ad, the whole silver fox bit.

“You okay, TK?” I said around my Pop, concerned.

Johnny barked at him, annoyed to see him, speaking for everyone in the room.

“There you are, Anna,” he said.

“Yes,” I said, wondering why he was sweating. He was breathing heavy, too, and I started to worry.

“I need you to drive to Atlantic City this evening and deliver this package to a buyer at the Xanadu casino.” He shoved the package at me, and I caught it to keep it from falling. “It’s already been paid for. The instructions are in the envelope.”

I looked at him, dumbfounded. “Atlantic City?”

But TK had already turned and gone out the door as Johnny barked after him from Gracie’s lap.

“What the hell?” I said to Gracie.

She shook her head, frowning. “You know, he really doesn’t look good. Now, about your future.”

Gracie had been telling me to take more chances since kindergarten, so I knew what was coming, a lot of suggestions of how I could risk my life and limb dating the exciting.  I let her go for fifteen minutes, and then I said, “I’ll think about it.  First, there’s TK’s package,” and then I stopped as I heard a siren come screaming down the street.

“Just tell him courier work is not your job,” Gracie said, sounding exasperated at my spinelessness again. (I thought of it more as tact.) “Where exactly does he want you to go anyway?”

I gave up and opened the envelope and took out the instructions. “Atlantic City. The Xanadu Casino. I’m supposed to go in and get further instructions from the concierge at eight PM.” I frowned at the package. “I don’t want to upset him . . . .”

“So you’ll go anyway,” Gracie said, rolling her eyes. “Like there was any doubt you would. Pleaser.” Then she brightened. “No, wait, you should go. Casinos have rich guys. Maybe you’ll meet a billionaire who’ll want to cherish you. Spend the night. I’ll dog sit.” She gathered Johnny in closer and kissed his furry little head.

He looked patient about it.

I scowled at her. “Have you ever met a billionaire? Those people do not cherish . . .” and then I stopped because the siren came to a screaming halt outside.

“Maybe Teresa found out Jason was cheating with somebody else and killed him,” Gracie suggested, hope in her voice as she listened to the commotion two floors down, but that was ridiculous because Teresa would never kill anybody. She was the one we all went to for band-aids.

Then Chad stuck his head in the door. “Heads up,” he said. “Looks like TK just had a heart attack in front of Janice, who’s having hysterics. You’re missing it.”

Gracie met my eyes. “That explains the pasty face. You’re stuck meeting the billionaire now.”

“What billionaire?” Chad said. “Hey, if you’re done with Jason, it’s my turn, not some billionaire’s.”

“Go away, Chad,” Gracie said, and Johnny snarled at him, so he left.

“And this is my day so far,” I told her. “My mother wants me to marry my cousin and have children with two heads, Chad thinks his number has finally come up, and my boss who is probably being carted away by EMTs right now wants me to go to Atlantic City to deliver a dicey package where you want me to have sex with a billionaire. And it’s not even noon yet.”

“You mother wants what?” Gracie said, looking confused.

I rose, took my dog, and headed downstairs to check on TK.

At least now I had a real excuse to get out of that date with Oliver.

I had to go to Atlantic City, damn it.