Getting Even Read online

  In the meantime, there was her hair to deal with. Annie stared at herself in the mirror and considered chopping it all off. In the long run that made sense, something short and easy to take care of. But it wasn’t practical to do it herself, and she hardly had time to make an appointment to get it cut right then. Hair stylists almost never made emergency house calls.

  She pulled her hair back, lifted it up, and decided cute was going to have to suffice. So she braided her hair in a single thick braid and tied it together first with a rubber band, and then with a piece of ribbon that she found tucked away in one of her dresser drawers. It wasn’t exactly the Image look, but then again, there were no photographers to immortalize her.

  She could hear the bell ring, just as she was giving herself a final check in the mirror, and her heart leaped. He had remembered. Why had she ever doubted him? She listened carefully, and sure enough the murmuring voices were definitely those of her father and Chris. She heard her mother’s after a moment, and then her father called up to her.

  Annie gave herself one last look and then, as she started to rush out of her bedroom, spotted her Boston Red Sox cap, purchased, she realized with a start, at Yankee Stadium that summer. She plopped it on her head, and scurried downstairs. Sliding down the banister was a temptation, but she wasn’t that sure of Chris that she wanted to greet him backside first.

  “It’s Carl Yastrzemski,” her father declared upon seeing her. “You’re a vision of radiance, Carl.”

  “Thanks, Dad,” Annie said. “Hi, Chris.”

  “Hi, Yaz,” Chris said. Annie hoped he remembered her name. She knew she wouldn’t be able to relax until he’d called her Annie at least once. “Ready for the not-so-big ballgame?”

  “Who are the Sox playing?” Annie’s mother asked.

  “The Rangers,” Chris replied. “Not exactly a classic matchup.”

  “It should be fun anyway,” Annie’s mother said. “I love going to ballgames. You know, Steve, we should get another game in before the season’s over.”

  “Fair enough,” Annie’s father said. “But not this afternoon.”

  “Sit down for a moment,” Annie’s mother said. “You have time, don’t you?”

  “Oh, sure,” Chris said, smiling politely. Annie marveled at his teeth once again. She could see her parents were impressed as well, or at least she hoped she could see that. Her parents weren’t exactly teeth-obsessed, but she knew her mother was a sucker for a good smile.

  The four of them walked into the livingroom, sat down, and promptly looked uncomfortable. Four hollow smiles popped out, followed by coughs, and a couple of getting-to-know-you words from two different mouths.

  “Annie tells us you go to Harvard,” her mother finally said.

  “I’m a freshman there,” Chris replied.

  “Have you selected a major?” Annie’s father asked.

  “Mathematics,” Chris said.

  “Isn’t that interesting,” Annie’s mother said. “Steve teaches philosophy, and I teach French literature. Neither of us knows a thing about mathematics.”

  “I know some math,” Annie’s father said. “There’s a certain connection between philosophy and math. They’re both dependent on logic, for example.”

  “Do you know what you plan to do with your math?” Annie’s mother asked.

  “Something theoretical and esoteric,” Chris said. “At least that’s my first choice. I’m hoping to do research work, but of course grant money is tight these days. It’ll be a few years before I get my doctorate anyway, and maybe by then things will have loosened up.”

  “Annie does very well in math,” her mother declared. “Heaven only knows why. For all Steve’s speeches about philosophy and math, he’s lost without his calculator. And frankly, I’m lost even with it.”

  “I like math,” Annie said, and felt like a fool. It wasn’t that she didn’t like math. It was just such a silly thing to say. As if she wanted Chris to like her because she liked math. “Not enough to want to be a mathematician though.” That didn’t sound much better.

  “So what do your parents do, Chris?” Annie’s father asked. “It is Chris, isn’t it?”

  “Yes, sir,” Chris said. Annie took a little swat at her father, but he smiled at her innocently. “I suppose you could say my mother is a housewife.”

  “What does that mean?” Annie’s father asked. “You could say she’s a housewife. What else could you say?”

  Chris pursed his lips. “She’s more a society matron, you know,” he replied. “She does lots of volunteer work. She lives in Baltimore with my stepfather, and she’s very active in local restoration societies. She does docent work, and she gives lots of talks to organizations about how to restore historical buildings, that sort of thing. She’s very highly thought of.”

  “That sounds very interesting,” Annie’s mother declared. “Our house isn’t exactly an historical landmark, but it is Victorian, and I fantasize about restoring it someday. No Victorian furniture, though. It’s far too uncomfortable.”

  “And your father?” Annie’s father asked. “What does he do?”

  “He’s a divorce lawyer,” Chris said.

  Annie let out a yelp of laughter, followed by choking sounds.

  “You’ll have to forgive Annie,” her father said. “She always gets hysterical at the mention of divorce lawyers. Some genetic problem, no doubt, inherited from her mother’s side of the family.”

  “I think I understand, sir,” Chris said. “Annie is aware that my father is remarrying. She probably thinks it’s funny that a man who’s been divorced himself handles divorces for other people.”

  “Oh, I can understand that,” Annie’s father declared. “The very idea of it cracks me up as well.” He smiled feebly.

  “It’s a private joke,” Annie said, regaining her composure. “I was just surprised.”

  “My father is a surprising man,” Chris said. “But basically I come from fairly average stock.”

  “So what’s keeping you kids anyway? Don’t you have a lunch date?” Annie’s father asked, seeming content with the information he had received from Chris.

  “We sure do,” Chris said, getting up. “It’s been very nice meeting you, Mr. and Mrs. Powell.”

  “The same,” Annie’s father said. Annie breathed a sigh of relief that he hadn’t given Chris the Doctor and Doctor Powell speech. Then she realized that Chris remembered her last name, and she was even more grateful. If Chris had called them Lowell, her father would probably have insisted on fingerprinting him.

  “Enjoy the game,” Annie’s mother said. “And catch a foul for me.”

  “We’ll try,” Annie promised, and gave her parents a smile. The cross-examination hadn’t been a disaster, and for that she was grateful.

  “I like your parents,” Chris told her, as he showed her to a car. “They seem to care.”

  “They do care,” Annie said. “I’m sorry you had to go through that. I couldn’t avoid it. Is the car yours?”

  “It belongs to a friend. He rents it to guys for their dates. Don’t break anything,” Chris teased.

  “I’ll try not to,” Annie said, hardly daring to sit down.

  “I have a car at home,” Chris said. “But as long as I live on campus, there’s no real need for me to have it up here. Except I guess it would come in handy for our dates.”

  “Dates?” Annie asked. “Don’t you think we should see how this one goes first, before you drag your poor car up here?”

  “Right,” Chris said, and began driving. “Except I know this date is going to go just fine. And you know it too.”

  Annie did know it, but she didn’t think she should tell him so. Her Image confidence was really working. “I got a job,” she said instead. “From an ad in Real Boston.”

  “That’s great,” Chris said. “What kind of job?”

  “I’m not sure yet,” Annie said. “I’ll find out more on Monday. It’s part-time work at a public-relations firm, but I don
’t think I’ll be doing anything too important there. It’s just to keep me from going crazy with boredom.”

  Chris smiled. “So the book helped,” he said.

  “It sure did,” Annie said. “How’s your book going?”

  “Well, it doesn’t provide all the answers,” Chris said. “It has some stuff about remarriage, but it’s more like how to incorporate a stepparent into your life, and I find it a little hard to think of all of Dad’s wives as stepmothers. Their shelf life is too short.”

  “I’m sorry I got so hysterical,” Annie said.

  “That’s all right,” Chris said. “I have my hysterical moments too. Dad handles his own divorces. He’s very good at it.”

  “I’ll bet,” Annie said. “Why didn’t you tell my parents about him?”

  “You noticed I didn’t,” Chris said. “I was hoping to slip that one past you.”

  “You didn’t,” Annie said. “Is it something I’m not supposed to tell them?”

  “They don’t know me,” Chris said. “You don’t know me, for that matter, not really. And it’s this massive background of instability. I figured they could get to know me better before they discovered what my father’s hobby is.”

  “Fair enough,” Annie said. “I won’t discuss it with them until you give me the go-ahead.”

  “Do you discuss things a lot with your parents?” Chris asked.

  “I guess so,” Annie said. “I never really thought about it that way, but I’m not one for keeping secrets, so I guess that I do.”

  “That must be nice,” Chris said. “To get to be open about things.”

  “You’re open with me,” Annie pointed out. “Are you open with your friends?”

  “I don’t usually go around pouring my heart out,” Chris said. “Larry, my roommate, he knows a lot of stuff about me, but he’d almost have to. We were friends at prep school, before we came to Harvard. My father calls me a lot when he’s in the midst of a romantic crisis, and before he met Mariel he was involved with this other woman, Georgie something or other, and he was just about ready to marry her when Mariel stepped in. That was good for two or three calls a week for most of last spring.”

  “Your father confides in you,” Annie said. “That’s kind of nice.”

  “I suppose,” Chris said. “At least it keeps us in touch, which wasn’t true for a lot of the kids at prep school. An awful lot of fathers disappear for most of the year, then pop up around Christmas.”

  “Sometimes I wish my father was like that,” Annie said.

  “No you don’t,” Chris declared. “You’re very happy to have a father who’s around and who cares. And you know it.”

  “You’re right,” Annie replied. “I am lucky and I do know it more often than not.”

  “Fine,” Chris said. “End of lecture. So now that you’re a big shot in public relations, do you think you’ll do that after college? Or do you want to be a professor, like your parents?”

  “I guess I’ll choose my career knowing that as soon as I get my bachelors, that’s it. No post-graduate degrees for me,” Annie replied. “I certainly intend to have a job, but I don’t want anything even remotely associated with university life. I had too much fun last summer, helping put a magazine together, to be satisfied with teaching classes and fighting to get tenure.”

  “Fair enough,” Chris said. “How does this place look for lunch?”

  Annie looked out the window and saw Chris was parking next to a vegetarian restaurant. “Are you a vegetarian?” she asked, suddenly aware of how little she knew about him. For all she knew, he had a girlfriend at home, and another one at Harvard.

  “No,” he said. “But if we’re going to pig out on hot dogs later, then I figured we should start with something light and vegetably.”

  “Good idea,” Annie said, getting out of the car. She locked her door and met Chris by the restaurant door.

  “I’m very practical,” Chris informed her, as they walked in together. “It’s the mathematical side of my brain. I can handle any sort of problem that logic can solve.”

  “And what about the kinds of problems logic can’t solve?” Annie asked.

  “Those problems drive me crazy,” Chris admitted. “Here, Annie. There’s a free booth.”

  He remembered her name! Annie laughed silently at the sense of relief she felt.

  “You’re logical, and you eat meat,” Annie said. “And you’re a math major and your roommate is named Larry. Oh, and you own a car, and you’re from Baltimore.”

  “There’s more to me than that,” Chris said. “I don’t have a steady girlfriend. I love baseball and chess and I could work my way through college playing poker if I had to, which I don’t, thank goodness.”

  “I was just listing the things I’ve learned about you today,” Annie told him, delighted beyond belief by his lack of a girlfriend. “I never thought it was a complete rundown.”

  “There’s plenty left to learn,” Chris assured her. “And I hope you stick around long enough to learn the rest.”

  “I’ll give it my best shot,” Annie replied with a smile.

  “Great,” Chris said. “Just as long as you teach me about yourself too. I’ll be a good student, I promise.”

  And he and Annie grinned.

  Chapter 6

  “Murray Levine Associates,” Annie said, in her best grown-up voice. “May I help you?”

  “Very good,” Murray Levine declared. “If you can manage a little smile in your voice, that’s even better. But the important thing is you enunciate. I hired a kid once, brilliant girl, but she slurred her syllables. She made my name sound like Murder Inc. Broke my heart to fire her, but what could I do?”

  “I promise I’ll enunciate,” Annie told him, hanging the phone up. She only hoped she’d remember to enunciate when the phone actually rang. It was easy enough to sound professional when she was just practicing. She had to be a success, she told herself. If she wanted to convince everybody at school that she was a grownup, she had to succeed at the job. It would look great on her college applications too, every bit as good as the newspaper editorship would have. Probably even better.

  The phone rang, interrupting her reverie. After Annie finished being startled by the noise, she picked it up, and said, “Murray Levine Associates may I help you,” all in a rush so it came out as one long, well-enunciated word.

  “It’s Mr. Clark,” she whispered to Murray, clasping her hand over the phone. “Do you want to speak to him?”

  “Hal Clark?” Murray asked. “Sure. I’ll take it in my office.” He got up from the receptionist’s desk, and left Annie holding the phone.

  “Mr. Levine will be right with you,” Annie said, figuring that was what she was supposed to say. Fortunately she’d seen enough people answering phones at Image that the stock phrases came fairly easily to her.

  She waited until she heard Murray pick his phone up, and then she hung up. But before she had a chance to look at the files she was supposed to put away, the phone rang again.

  “Murray Levine Associates,” Annie said grandly. “May I help you?”

  “Mr. Levine please,” the voice said back. “This is Dr. Irvin Weinstock.”

  “Mr. Levine is on another line, Dr. Weinstock,” Annie said. “Can you hold?”

  “All right,” Dr. Weinstock replied, and Annie put him on hold. She debated whether to break into Murray’s conversation to tell him about Dr. Weinstock, and decided to. Murray seemed to be the sort of person who got upset if you didn’t do things, rather than if you did something a little too much.

  So she buzzed him on the intercom and told him about the second phone call and was thanked. In a moment, she saw Murray had hung up from Mr. Clark and gone to Dr. Weinstock. Annie silently patted herself on her back.

  She’d only been at the office for fifteen minutes, but already she was starting to feel a part of what went on there. To satisfy her curiosity, she checked out Mr. Clark’s and Dr. Weinstock’s files. Mr. Clark tur
ned out to be president of a local chamber of commerce. Dr. Weinstock was a dentist and author of Gum Disease—The Silent Killer. Annie automatically ran her tongue over her gums, then hoped licking them wasn’t how they killed you.

  She then put away the files that Murray had handed her as soon as she’d walked in that afternoon. The filing system was simple enough, and Annie enjoyed putting them back. She was an organized person, which was one reason why she was such a good editor, and she like having things in their proper place.

  The phone rang again, and Annie answered it as though she’d done nothing in her life other than say, “Murray Levine Associates. May I help you?” with a smile in her voice.

  “Annie, is that you?”

  “Mom?” Annie said. “What are you doing calling?”

  “I don’t mean to bother you, honey,” her mother said, but then the phone rang again, and Annie told her mother she was about to go on hold. She took a deep breath and pressed what she hoped was the right button.

  “Murray Levine Associates,” she said. “May I help you?”

  “Mr. Levine please,” the voice said. “This is Charlie Dare.”

  “Charlie Dare?” Annie said. She only knew one Charlie Dare, and he was the host of an important local radio talk show. Annie listened to him sometimes.

  “Yes, honey,” Charlie Dare replied. “I’m Charlie Dare.” Annie could have lived without the “honey” but she put him through right away to Murray. She then returned to her mother, who, miraculously, was right where she left her.

  “I hope I never have to call you in a real emergency,” her mother said with a sigh. “Don’t you know mothers are never happy being put on hold?”

  “I’ll keep it in mind,” Annie said. “Look, Mom, maybe you’d better make this fast. The phone rings a lot here.”

  “Stacy Livingston from Boston Morning called to see if you could be on tomorrow,” her mother said all in a rush. “I said I was sure it would be fine. It is, isn’t it?”