The Misadventures of Anna Cabbot

Pearl Street

[Jamie M.]

Will you have linner with me tomorrow?

[Anna]

Linner?

[Jamie M.]

Late lunch/early dinner.

[Jamie M.]

I'm taking the night shift tomorrow into Sunday and want to officially take you out out.

[Jamie M.]

If that's okay with you.

"Anna?"

She looked up at Stevie and nodded to indicate she would indeed like a top up on her wine glass, thanks. The words, "Jamie wants to take me to dinner," more or less fell out of her mouth.

Stevie pushed the pint of lo mein across the kitchen island. "This is the guy who's in the Magical Mafia?"

"Yeah." She tipped her head to the side. "He's nerdy and funny. And really cute." She piled some food on her plate. "I think...he has a good heart, I think."

"Do you want to have a sit down dinner with him?"

Leave it to Stevie to get right to it.

"Yeah," Anna said slowly. "I do."

[Anna]

That's very okay with me. Where are we going?

[Jamie M.]

Have you ever been to Pearl Street?

She looked up from her phone. "Have you been to Pearl Street?"

"He wants to take you there?" Stevie fished for a wanton. "It's good. They have good beer. A good atmosphere. You'll like it."

Stevie's recommendation was more than enough for Anna.

She and Jamie hashed out details — they'd meet there, at 4 pm — and Anna was unable to keep the smile off her face.

Anna tapped the toe of her wedge bootie against the bus floor to the same rhythm as the cello melody she still hadn't been able to name. She wouldn't classify the shiver in her hands as nerves, but...a spade was a spade, wasn't it?

She liked Jamie. She enjoyed spending time with him and, if she was reading the signs right — which, Lord knew she sometimes didn't — the feeling was mutual.

He'd looked like he'd wanted to kiss her the last time they'd had coffee. He'd been grinning, leaned against the side of her car, and he'd dropped his eyes to her mouth repeatedly.

Anna would have let him, she realized with a start. If he had asked, she would have let him.

A little wobbly, she stepped off the bus at the downtown transportation center and started up toward Main Street to the MetroRail. It wasn't until she was walking up Seneca Street that her nerves beat soft like butterflies behind her patched-together sternum.

"Each day is different. Each story can have a different ending," she murmured. A friend had told her that when she was in the more repetitive days of her recovery, and Anna had found it sound advice.