A Season for Second Chances(4)

“Yes. This one doesn’t appear to be working.”

The receptionist handed the business bank card back to Annie. Annie was flummoxed; she knew there was money in the account, quite a bit actually.

“How odd,” said Annie, and handed over the card to her and Max’s joint savings account.

The receptionist gave a hesitant little cough; her cheeks blotched darker.

“This one doesn’t seem to be working either,” she said, trying not to meet Annie’s gaze.

“That doesn’t make any sense,” Annie said, taking the card back and looking it over as if there might be a clue in the shiny plastic. “I can’t understand it.”

“Is there perhaps any reason why your cards might have been stopped?” asked the receptionist awkwardly.

A sudden dawning broke through the clouds of confusion, and Annie felt first hot and then cold as white rage consumed her. With a calmness she didn’t feel, Annie pulled out her personal credit card and handed it over.

“I’d like to use this instead, please,” she said.

As she walked back to her room, she was dizzy with anger. She called Max. He didn’t answer. When his smooth crooning voice said, “Hey, this is Max Sharpe, leave a message and I’ll get right back to you. Beep,” it was all Annie could do not to bite the phone in half. She took a deep breath.

“You froze me out of our accounts!” she yelled into the mic. “Unfreeze them now, Max, or so help me I’ll . . .” What would she do? What could she do? “I’ll make you sorry!” She hoped the threat was vague enough to be menacing.

She was livid. She wanted to throw things and smash stuff, but this wasn’t her house, and the furniture was nailed down. Instead, she lay prostrate on the bed and fantasized about what she’d do if she were at home right now; she’d empty his expensive aftershave down the toilet and replace it with pine floor cleaner, maybe scratch FUCK YOU into his vintage Smiths records with her fingernails, and very possibly fill the toes of his beloved brogues with cat food.

Annie had become pregnant with the twins at just seventeen, and she and Max had married the same year. With her parents’ support, she was still able to enroll at catering college and do her chef’s training. She got a job as a line chef in a Michelin-starred restaurant and worked her arse off to make it up through the ranks to sous chef and then head chef. It was tough, but she was driven.

Max, charming, hardworking, and everyone’s friend, had risen quickly from waiter to manager of a successful gastropub. In the moments when the couple weren’t working or dealing with the demands of raising twin toddlers—usually in the scant time between their heads hitting the pillows and sleep—they fantasized about opening their own place. They had a lot of shared dreams once.

Annie’s parents had died far too young. Although she had a family of her own, their deaths left Annie feeling like she’d been orphaned; she felt cheated by the lack of time she’d had with them. Her mum was only sixty-five when she died suddenly from an aneurysm, and her dad died soon after of a broken heart. Annie was more determined than ever to do her parents proud. She used her inheritance to buy the Pomegranate Seed building and poured her heart and her classical chef’s training into creating seasonal à la carte menus using fresh, locally sourced produce, which won Good Food Awards at the county and national level. They lived in the flat above and built up the restaurant below, with Max managing front of house and Annie running the kitchen and doing the lion’s share of the childcare.

There were times when she would cry from sheer fatigue, but then Max would steal her away to the stockroom and sweep her into a Hollywood embrace, and she would be restored. Max could do that; he could make her feel like she was his entire world and they were on an amazing adventure together. But Max’s powers worked in reverse too; just as easily as his words could build her up, so too they could knock her down, so that she felt small and worthless, and afraid of what she would be without him.

A restaurant critic for the Guardian had once described her and Max as “A Dream Team,” and in many ways they were. While Max schmoozed the patrons out front, Annie excited and delighted them on the plate. Glossy magazines ran features on them, and Annie was frequently asked to share recipes for special holiday issues. They had a lot going for them, far too much for Annie to throw it all away over a little thing like infidelity. Relationships are messy, she would tell herself. No marriage is perfect.

When the boys grew up and left home after university, Annie took on more work. They converted the upstairs rooms (their old flat) of the Pomegranate Seed into a coffee lounge. The restaurant opened for lunch and dinner, and the coffee lounge opened from breakfast till teatime. Annie was busier than ever, more successful than ever! She never had a moment to herself. All these things helped her swim against the current of self-doubt and kept her too tired to address the notion that her marriage had been failing almost from the time it began.

Annie breathed in and out, long slow to breaths to center herself, as she lay on the hotel bed, picking over the carcass of her marriage. Enough was enough. She’d spent too long running and going nowhere; she was jumping off this hamster wheel. There would be no more hiding, no more excuses, for her or Max. Her children had grown and flown, and there would be no better time to rebuild herself. Annie had ripped the blinkers off, and she was ready to face the music.