Before I Melt Away

To: John Brightman

From: Quinn Garrett

Date: December 19

Subject: Annabel

John, I looked up your sister. It was great to see her, we had breakfast yesterday morning. She does seem very work focused, but aside from that, she’s obviously healthy and sane, so I wouldn’t worry too much. I’ll see if I can drag her away for some fun while I’m here. Maybe something more sophisticated than stealing her Barbie’s underwear and outfitting her hamsters in it.

I’m hoping she’s forgotten that incident.

Quinn

To: Quinn Garrett

From: John Brightman

Date: December 19

Subject: Re: Annabel

Ralph, the panty-wearing hamster! As I recall Annabel was not amused. Didn’t she stop speaking to us for two days? I’d forgotten she even had Barbie, I’m not sure she ever really played with it. But bring the panty episode up when you see her next. If she doesn’t laugh now, I really will worry.

Thanks for the report. If business keeps you there over Christmas, see if you can tempt her into some celebration. You remember what a big deal Christmas was to my parents. I hate thinking of her holed up alone in her house every year.

(For some reason, she accuses me of being a mother hen. Can you, ahem, imagine why she’d think such a thing?)

John

QUINN PULLED his car close to the curb opposite Annabel’s house, lifted the vase of red, pink, white and yellow roses from the seat next to him, and emerged into the cold air, the smell of coming snow mingling with the delicate floral scent.

He’d called earlier to make sure Annabel would be out when he delivered the flowers. He wanted the chance to speak with her assistant, Stefanie, in person, get a better sense of what Annabel was about, how others perceived her, before he went too far with John’s “rescue” idea. After all, John lived on the other side of the country. How much could he really know about Annabel’s life and what she needed? On the other hand, he was her brother, and from what Quinn could tell, they were fairly close siblings.

Either way, he wanted to find out as much about her as possible. And if that made him sound slightly obsessed, so be it. The depth of his fascination defied logic.

She reminded him of her father, a big, no-nonsense, military man with a larger-than-life personality, impossible to please, measuring out compliments and love to his children in sparing doses so as not to spoil them. At thirteen, Annabel had had a tempestuous relationship with him, two kindred spirits butting heads, though she’d had plenty of her mother’s softer side, too. Now, if John were to be believed, it seemed her father’s genes had won out.

There were other feelings, too, beyond fascination. Feelings that had invaded him in force when she opened the door the other night and he got his first close-up look at his memorized brown-eyed, brunette, apple-cheeked adolescent image of her grown taller, softened and filled out here, slimmed and carved in there. An instant recognition, a year’s worth of good memories and brotherly affection had swarmed him. Add to that, entirely in the present, a wave of sexual attraction so strong he could barely keep from making a move on her right there.

He’d gone home that night and lain in bed, unable to sleep thanks to the fantasies his mind would not stop inventing. And the thought had come to him with the calm certainty that thoughts often came to him—as if he could predict his own future, or as if he’d already lived his life and was simply remembering—that he would experience the explosive passion of their coming together in more than just fantasy. Soon.

He climbed the steps to her front door, rang the bell and waited, glancing around at the attractive rows of bungalows and stone houses that varied by differing roof and trim colors. A nice middle-class family neighborhood. Interesting that she hadn’t chosen to live in a trendy downtown area, or in the more sophisticated neighborhoods north of the city where her cousin lived. Money had not been a problem in her childhood, as it had been chronically in his.

So what did she hunger for? Fame? Recognition? Approval? Money entirely her own? What drove her? Her father’s barely concealed disdain for women aspiring to or attaining high places? Quinn would find out. It was no accident that he’d mentioned the biography of Napoleon at breakfast the previous morning. He’d sensed that same chronic restlessness in her, a restlessness that would doom her to a lifelong search, unless she learned to find peace in the here and now. Maybe that peace was what John wanted for his sister.

The arched wooden door opened slowly to reveal a thin, pale young woman with fine, shoulder-length blond hair, who looked as if she hadn’t slept in a week. He’d expected Stefanie to be a carbon copy of Annabel, at least in energy and spirit.

“Stefanie?”

“Yes.” She extended a small, cool hand that felt as if it might break in his grasp. “Hello, Mr. Garrett.”

“Quinn, please.”

“Quinn. It’s nice to meet you. What beautiful roses. Come on in.”

He followed her into the familiar living room, tastefully if sparsely decorated in muted colors, lacking life and energy without its owner there, caught bundled in pajamas and an old robe by an unexpected nocturnal visitor. He’d sensed Annabel’s discomfort, her longing to be as sleekly and confidently put together as she’d been the next morning at breakfast. Little did she know how that first rumpled sight of her had fueled his dreams that night.

“Would you like to put the roses in Annabel’s office?” Stefanie glanced at him, then away. There was something furtive about her, something self-protective; he couldn’t quite grasp what it was yet. Was she uneasy around him? Anxious about letting him in without Annabel here? Or simply nervous by nature?

“That would be fine.”

She led him through the dining room and around the corner, into a room astoundingly devoid of color and personality. How could someone as colorful as Annabel—he’d seen her only in red so far—surround herself with so much bland professionalism?

He put the flowers on her neatly organized desk and stepped back next to Stefanie to consider them. The effect of the brilliant splash in the dull room was nearly violent. “I guess you can’t miss them.”

Stefanie laughed. “I offered to decorate for the holidays, but she refused.”

“Really.”

Stefanie shrugged, obviously unwilling to offer up the opinion of her boss he was after.

“Why do you think that is?”

“Oh. Well, she’s so busy. And the holidays are always so busy. And I guess…she’s…” Stephanie’s frantic gestures subsided as she seemed to run out of possible explanations. Or politically correct ones.

“Busy?”

“Yes.” Stefanie laughed abruptly. “Things might be going well, but they could be going better.”

He narrowed his eyes. “Is that what she says?”

“It’s her motto, she had me tape it to my computer.” Stefanie turned to walk into a room across the tiny hall. “Here.”

Quinn followed and nodded at the black-lettered sign adorning one of Holocorp’s HC-2s. More, more, better, better…as he feared. “I take it that wouldn’t have been your decorating choice?”

“Oh, I don’t mind. It’s a good motto. She certainly puts it into practice. I swear she never takes a day off. Never even an hour. When I leave every day I get the feeling she’s not even close to winding down. She’s amazing.”

Not quite the word he’d use. He pointed to the tiny tree on Stefanie’s desk, lights blinking on and off, tiny plastic presents under the green fake-needled branches. “Nice touch.”

Stefanie blushed, bringing welcome color into her pretty face. “Silly, I suppose, but I need something to remind me of Christmas. I love this time of year.”

She emphasized “I” just enough to send the message that Annabel didn’t. “Bob Cratchit working for Scrooge?”

“Oh, no, she’s not bad. I like her a lot—she’s a great person.” Stefanie stooped to turn up a space heater blasting away in the already-warm room, and put her hand protectively on her abdomen. “Sorry, but I can’t stay warm in this house.”

“Why don’t you ask Annabel to turn up the heat?”

“She teases me all the time how cold is good for me. I finally just bought a heater.”