Without another word, I terminate the call. When my phone immediately starts ringing, I hit Decline. I repeat this for the next seven calls—all from her, of course—before I power it down entirely. I keep waiting for panic to hit me, but it’s not happening. What I’m feeling right now is free.
I’m not sure what will come after this, but I know that whatever it is, the choice will be based on making the most of this life. Curling back up under my comforter, I close my eyes and fall into a deep sleep.
CHAPTER TWO
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ASHLEY
Two weeks later
THE FIRST THREE days after the holdup, I chose to stay home and do nothing at all. It was a privilege I hadn’t indulged in for so long that it felt like a vacation. I ate a lot of delivery food, peanut butter cups, and chocolate ice cream while I watched the first season of Gossip Girl.
The fourth day, I sat at the kitchen table with my manifesting books and my iPad, which was open to the manifestation app. Since I was free of the job from hell, it was time for me to take the next steps. One by one, I wrote out my list.
Move out of Los Angeles.
Find a job that involves working with other people.
I was a people person, which was one of the reasons working with only Hadley had been stifling. When I interviewed, there’d been a lot of talk of events and coordinating projects with sponsors. What she’d failed to mention was that she was almost never going to allow me to accompany her to events and the sponsors were generally as harried and overworked as I was.
Live to be happy, not to work.
Be open to new adventures.
Set down roots.
Find a man who makes me weak in the knees.
Create a family.
The first item on my list was easy. My grandfather left a cottage to me in Charlotte’s Cove when he passed. Aside from utilities, homeowners insurance, and a yearly property tax bill, everything else was covered. I also had an untouched nest egg from selling my grandparents’ home in Sherman Oaks. I’d crunched the numbers a few times, and each time, I grew more confident that moving to Charlotte’s Cove permanently was really possible. Not only could I live in my favorite place in the world, but I could do it without going broke.
Located forty minutes outside of Seattle, Charlotte’s Cove is a little slice of heaven on earth. From the rocky beaches to the never-too-hot climate, everything about it is perfect. The community is strong and people take the time to get involved. Weddings, births, christenings, sickness, funerals, good times or bad, the people of the cove celebrate, laugh, and even cry together.
Unlike Los Angeles, where you’ll only meet a small handful of your neighbors, in the Cove, you know everyone. On any given day, you might open your door and find that a neighbor has left homemade jam, freshly laid eggs, or a recipe they cut out of a magazine for you, for no other reason than that’s what people there do. The pace is slower, so you get to enjoy the life you’re living instead of watching it pass you by.
When I put in a call to Millie Andover, the woman who lived next door to my grandparents’ Cove house, and filled her in on my plans, she declared that my timing was impeccable. Another of our neighbors, Felicity Falls, was retiring from her job running the front desk at the police station, and they were looking for a replacement.
Only in Charlotte’s Cove could a person get a job, sight unseen. The fact that I’m what the island folk consider a local—even though I’ve never lived there year round—made the hiring process a breeze. Chief Perry was the man in charge since before I could walk, but since he retired last year, there’s a new chief now. I worried that Chief Jameson would push back against the fact that I was being shoved down his throat, but Felicity said he was relieved that out of all the applicants someone that had computer skills wanted the job.
I bit back a chuckle at that. With the exception of the teenagers, the majority of people living in Charlotte’s Cove don’t care about computers. It’s not like there’s a Best Buy on the corner, so most everyone is working with old equipment. Heck, they only got high-speed internet four years ago, and that was a battle in the town council for almost five years. In the end, they wound up giving in, because summer renters were threatening to go elsewhere and the island relies on the revenue the summer crowd brings.
I couldn’t be happier that my knowledge of computers is going to come in handy for something real. My primary job with Hadley had revolved around scheduling posts on Instagram, uploading videos to YouTube, and responding to all comments on all her social media accounts. If I never have to respond to another question or comment about shoe organizers, weight loss teas, exercise balls, or sweetened vitamins, it will be too soon.