Mom Over Miami - By Annie Jones Page 0,52
ask him if I can use this for my next costume?”
“Shepherds didn’t wear ties,” she shouted after him. Unable to dash to the closet to hang it up, and glad for the comfort of something of Payt’s around her, she shrugged the robe over her then she reached for the receiver.
“I’m working on a wise-guy costume now.”
“Wise men,” she corrected. “And I’ll ask him, but he may not be in a very good mood.”
“Aww, you can cheer him up. You cheer everyone up.”
Her hand froze over the phone. That was the nicest thing anyone had said to her today. Today? She could hardly remember the last time anyone had taken time to share a kind word about her efforts. Just: Here you go, Hannah. We know you won’t mind, and off they go.
How corny did it make her feel that a simple You can cheer him up. You cheer everyone up got to her?
Cornier than a whole case of nacho chips. But she didn’t care.
Hannah swallowed to push down the emotion welling up from her chest. Now all she had to do was live up to the compliment. Cheery.
Right.
R-r-r-r-ring.
Oh, why not? It probably was Payt. They’d waited for him to return her call all afternoon long. She gave her hair a shake, inched her chin up and answered the phone at last. “Nacho Mama’s house, the big cheese speaking.”
“Hannah? Is that you?”
“Um, Jacqui?”
“And Cydney—patched from my line. Just like a real-live big-business conference call!” the other sister piped in. “Have you got a minute?”
A howl of utter frustration rose from Tessa in the other room. But before Hannah could beg off to go and see about her child, Sam’s helpfulness genes kicked in full force. Helpfulness with a little self-serving-brownie-point-grabbing-ness thrown in for good measure.
“I’ll take this freezing cold teething thing—carried in my own bare hands, which are also freezing now, but I don’t mind—to Tessa, so you can keep talking on the phone!” He went up on tiptoe as he passed, to aim his booming voice directly at the mouthpiece.
Hannah shut her eyes, but not before she glimpsed the grin that all but screamed—Now Payt can’t help but say yes to my borrowing his tie.
She moved her lips into what she hoped looked more smile than grimace and motioned for the boy to hurry on.
“Guess we have our answer right there.” Jacqui laughed.
One beat later Cydney joined in.
Hannah mustered up a weak chuckle, then cleared her throat. “How can I help you ladies today?”
“Wrong question,” Jacqui chirped.
Cydney made a grating “you lose” sound like an annoying game show buzzer.
If Cydney had more to contribute than obnoxious sound effects, Jacqui didn’t wait for it. “You want to know what you should be asking, Hannah?”
“I…uh…” Hannah shivered. Not from cold, though it had turned cool and cloudy this October afternoon. “Hold on a second, Jacqui.”
For good measure, she decided to steel herself against the chill, real or perceived, and wrap herself in Payt’s robe. The metaphorical arms of the man poised to whisk her away from all this.
Shifting the receiver from her left ear to her right as she fumbled to slide her arms into the wide sleeves, she got it on and crammed the dog toy into the deep pockets.
There. Ready. Ready as she’d ever be. “Okay, Jacqui, what question should I be asking?”
“Not ‘What can I do for you?’ Oh, no.”
“No, no, no, no.” Cydney’s voice took up where Jacqui’s left off. “You should be asking—”
“I started all this, Cyd.” Jacqui did a quick verbal nudge to push Cydney out of the way and conclude by herself. “What you should be asking, Hannah, is ‘What can you do for me?’”
Heat rose in Hannah’s cheeks. She tried to speak, but her mind and mouth betrayed her. She stammered for a moment before managing to blurt out a vaguely benign version of what she really wanted to yell into the phone, “I…I…don’t know what I ever could have done to deserve this.”
“Oh, no, no. You mustn’t think that.” Jacqui showed no sign she picked up on Hannah’s dismay. “You deserve any and everything we can throw at you.”
“I do?”
“Of course you do!” Silly. She didn’t say it. But then Jacqui was the kind of person who often said way too much, even on those rare occasions when she had her mouth closed. “Why, we feel so awful about the dreadful way we acted.”
“Dreadful,” Cydney reiterated. “Just awful.”
“We have no choice but to do everything in our power to make it up