Anna Meets Her Match. Arlene James

She blinked as Dennis shook a finger in her face.

      “And don’t think you’re going to cut out at five o’clock, either. You stay until those old ladies are satisfied, or I’ll wash my hands of you!”

      “Be easier to wash me out of your hair,” Anna quipped, eyeing the thin strands covering his poor crown. The instant the words were out, she wished them back. Dennis literally snarled at her until she muttered, “Sorry. Won’t let you down. Promise.”

      Dennis turned away, leaving Anna to ponder whether Reeves would be there or if he would, as in years past, go out of his way to avoid her. He’d said he would be watching, but she didn’t take that literally, especially as he’d shown such a marked disdain for her company. It shouldn’t have bothered her so much—she had made a career, after all, of earning disapproval, especially that of her grandmother—but Reeves Leland’s attitude had always wounded her. Only when she was tweaking that handsome, aristocratic nose of his had he deigned to look her way. Even then, he had only seen “the brat.” Apparently that was all he saw now, too.

      What hurt most was that he had always seemed unfailingly polite and kind to everyone else. Indeed, Reeves Leland had a reputation for being a fine Christian man, which was why the town had been so shocked when his wife had left him.

      Pushing him out of mind, she concentrated instead on getting through the day. Howard, the dear, made sure that she got away from the office in plenty of time for her appointment. In fact, when she pulled up in front of Chatam House the dashboard clock of her old car told her that she had nearly ten minutes to spare.

      Gathering her materials, she stepped out into the cold February air, tucking her chin into the rainbow-striped muffler wound about her throat inside the collar of her bright orange corduroy coat. The instant she straightened a whirling dervish came out of nowhere and knocked her on her behind. Anna instinctively put out a hand and grabbed hold. Simultaneously Carol Petty, one of the Chatams’ household staff, huffed into view, her dark slacks and bulky sweater dusted with white powder, her light brown hair slipping free of the clasp at her nape. While Carol gasped for breath, the little tornado who had knocked Anna down screeched.

      “Gilli Leland, stop it!” Carol scolded, stomping forward across the deep gravel to take hold of the girl. “You are going to have a bath, and that’s that.”

      Anna hauled herself to her feet and picked up her portfolio, thankful she’d had the foresight to zip it closed as that was not always the case. Dusting off her jeans, she turned to take in the girl who had flattened her.

      So this was Reeves Leland’s daughter. Pretty little thing, with all that curly hair, provided one disregarded the wailing and white powder. What was that stuff covering her anyway? Talcum? Chancing a sniff, Anna leaned forward, only to draw back in surprise. The kid had coated herself in flour. Hopefully, no one planned to pan fry her, though given Carol’s exasperation, Anna wouldn’t have been surprised.

      “I wanna make cookies!” the girl sobbed.

      “Hilda is saving the cookies until you get cleaned up,” Carol told the distraught child. She cast an apologetic look at Anna. “I’m sorry, Miss Burdett. A mishap in the kitchen. The misses are expecting you.”

      “Uh-huh, and Mr. Leland?” Anna glanced around, expecting Reeves to arrive at any moment to take his wayward offspring in hand.

      Carol shook her head. “He’s not in from work yet.” Glancing at Gilli, she muttered, “Works too much, if you ask me.”

      “Hmm. Well. I’ll, uh, just ring the bell, I guess.”

      “If you don’t mind,” Carol said, dragging Gilli back the way they had come.

      Gilli stopped howling long enough to glance back at Anna, who impulsively stuck out her tongue and crossed her eyes. Gilli first looked surprised, but then she giggled, causing Carol to pause and look down at her. Grinning, Anna climbed the shallow brick steps and rang the bell. Odelia let her in, swinging black onyx chandeliers from her earlobes and chattering gaily about how excited they all were to see her designs.

      Excited they might have been, but see her designs they did not. Neither were they interested in her estimates. Instead, Hypatia presented her with a “more complete list,” of the items they would be needing: place cards, menu cards, table assignment cards, letterheads, donation forms, receipts, a spiral-bound auction catalog, name tags, item tags, signs…The list seemed endless.

      While Anna tried to take in the expanding size of the order, the sisters chatted about their various ideas for the final logo design, all three at the same time. Anna mentally tossed everything she’d done to this point and quickly jotted down ideas as the sisters shot them to her. At one point she put her hand to her hair, just trying to take it all in. Hypatia reached over then to lay her manicured hand on Anna’s shoulder.

      “How would it be,” Hypatia asked, “if you worked up designs for each of us?”

      “Using your individual ideas, you mean?” Anna raised a mental eyebrow at Miss Magnolia’s “nature” theme, Miss Odelia’s “lace and satin” and Miss Hypatia’s “biblical” motif. “I can do that.” Along with a new idea of her own, she decided, suddenly picturing the fluted, Roman Doric columns of Chatam House topped with an elegant swag of flowers intertwined with the BCBC emblem, which itself contained a Bible.

      “You just let us know when you’re ready to meet again,” Mags said. “We’ll have the teapot simmering.”

      “That’s very nice of you,” Anna returned, a thought occurring. “So you’ll be wanting me to continue coming here?”

      “Is there a problem with that?” Hypatia asked.

      “No, no. Not so far as I’m concerned. Dennis may not always go for it, though.”

      Hypatia just smiled. “Oh, he seems perfectly willing to indulge three old ladies who like their creature comforts too well.”

      Anna laughed. “Well, I certainly can’t argue that the print shop compares in any way to Chatam House.”

      “What does?” a smooth male voiced asked.

      Anna looked up as Reeves strolled into the room, dispensing kisses and smiles on everyone but her. At last, he turned a cool nod in her direction. “Anna Miranda.”

      Anna grit her teeth. She hated her full name. Hated it. Sometimes the chants of children’s voices rang in her dreams. Anna Miranda the brat. Anna Miranda the brat…

      She couldn’t blame them really. They’d had parents and siblings, and she had resented that fact greatly. Of course, as children do, they had picked up on her envy. Accordingly, they had sneered, and she had made their lives miserable in every way she could imagine. Eventually she’d learned to channel her animosity into jokes, earning herself a few friends and the designation of class clown. Reeves had never thought her the least bit funny, though. She faced him and returned his greeting in kind.

      “Reeves Kyle.”

      He lifted an eyebrow before turning his back on her. “More printing?” he asked his aunts.

      Anna bit her tongue, literally.

      While the aunts gushed about everything they had discussed, Anna secured her notes, reminding herself that this was business between her and the Chatam sisters. Reeves’s opinion did not matter, and she had been foolish to think for a moment that it did. Or that it might ever change.

      “Aunt Hypatia,” Reeves asked, having listened carefully for some minutes, “are you certain that this printer is the right one for the job?”

      He’d thought about it a lot. Actually, to be completely honest with himself, he’d thought about Anna Miranda, almost constantly. For some reason, he couldn’t seem to get her off his mind. He kept picturing her contrite face as she’d made her apology last week, and somehow he now felt in the wrong.

      She’d always done that to him. She made his life miserable and one way or another