Annie Houghton

*"I am not infatuated with Rachel. Why do you ask? Did she ask about me?" - Annie Houghton*

**Annie Houghton** is a resident of Ashford Falls, New York. She has worked at the Patio Cafe and as a maid at the Hedison Mansion. She most recently worked at Ashford Falls Community General Hospital.

Not much is known about Annie's life. It is known she was born in Woodsboro, Illinois, later moving to Ashford Falls where she attended Ashford Falls High School with Rachel Hedison, Caitlin Featherstone and Samantha Strickland. According to Rachel, Annie was responsible for some event that publicly embarrassed Rachel for years; the full details of this spectacle was never fully revealed.

At Rachel's Engagement Party to Dr. Paul Kirkwood in 1991, it was believed that Annie was the crazy blonde cheerleader that crashed the party and confessed to being in love with Jack Gable, posing as businessman Jack Gates. However, this accusation was later proven incorrect as Annie was living in Connecticut at the time.

It is known that Annie once worked as a waitress at the Patio Cafe during high school and later moved to Westport, Connecticut where another unrevealed incident forced her to move in with her sister in their parent's home in Ashford Falls. She eventually found employment at the Hedison Mansion under the tutelage of butler Edward Ashworth which granted her free room and board in the mansion's servant's wing. Although her responsibility was to assist Edward in the housekeeping, her desire was to replace Marie Tisdale as Rachel's personal aide. This choice was largely driven by Annie's long infatuation with Rachel, a fact that shed some light on their personal altercation in high school. In her drive to be closer to Rachel, Annie managed that Marie take a fall down the stairs in the mansion that resulted in her breaking her leg and allowing her to take over her position in the house, and for several weeks, Annie served Rachel closely without incident while mooning over her from afar. In Rachel's absences, she was also dressing up in Rachel's clothes and sleeping in her bedroom beyond the knowledge of anyone in the house. On several incidents, Rachel's father, Carter Hedison, and her brother, Blake Hedison, even confused Annie for Rachel while in moments of distraction.

This obsession only lasted for a few months until Annie finally broke down and kissed Rachel as she was preparing for a date with Dr. Kirkwood. The shock of the impropriety left Rachel locked up in her bedroom for over a week. When she finally emerged, she had Edward dismiss Annie from her duties.

Never knowing the full details of Annie's dismissal, Carter Hedison arranged for Annie to get a job at Ashford Falls Community General Hospital. However, after a few days there, Nurse Helen Caldwell, her supervisor, realized that Annie had a lesbian crush on Rachel and started manipulating her in order to get Paul to leave Rachel for herself. In convincing Annie that Rachel was in love with her as well, Helen started relaying falsehoods about Rachel's personal orientations as well as gifts from "Rachel."

In short time, Annie believed she had a secret torrid love affair with Rachel. However, after Rachel's car accident with Danny Featherstone, Annie's obsession was no longer a secret and had become a full blown rumor through the hospital that reached several people, such as William Coleman, Bobbi Pierce, Diana Freeling and Melissa Strickland. According to Melissa, Annie was sleeping alongside Rachel's comatose body at night waiting for her to wake up. After Rachel was moved to convalesce at the Duffy Medical Center in Albany, it was believed Annie went with her.

By 1995, Melissa was found guilty of spreading the rumor that Rachel and Annie were living together as a couple in Rhode Island. In actually, after coming out of her coma, Rachel had signed a restraining order against her, but that did little to restrain her infatuation. Annie eventually ended up collecting objects that had belonged to Rachel and ended up using them to build a shrine to her in her home.