Chapter Thirty-four
Sean feels the sun warm againsthis face and fights the urge to give in to sleep. Instead he holds up his left arm and opens one eye to check his watch, gratified to note that it’s barely three o’clock. There’s still plenty of time for a nap. It wouldn’t do to get home too early.
Not on the first day of his new job.
He almost laughs, and might have, had there been anything even remotely funny about the predicament he finds himself in.
It wasn’t supposed to be this way. He was supposed to have found something by now. He wasn’t supposed to still be lying to his wife, to be getting up early and shaving and putting on a freshly washed shirt and silk tie and that goddamn linen jacket—“You’ve got it; you might as well wear it,”Olivia had volunteered cheerily, looking as happy as he’d seen her in months—and pretending to go off to work.
How long can he keep this up?
As long as I have to,he decides as he flips onto his stomach, allowing the soothing sun to settle on his bare back. He already has a deep tan. A little more sun won’t make a noticeable difference. Although he has to be careful not to burn. Good thing he thought to pack sunscreen along with the bathing suit in his briefcase, not to mention the beach towels in the trunk of his car, towels he’d put there after he and Olivia came back from driving the kids to the airport on Saturday. Thankfully, his offspring would be spending the next month with Olivia’s parents up in Nantucket, so that was one good thing.
Three fewer people to lie to.
He should have asked for help from Olivia’s parents when he had the chance. They’d offered to loan them money until he was back on his feet, but his pride—and his father’s voice in his ear reciting Shakespeare’s famous advice fromHamlet:Neither a borrower nor a lender be—had prevented him from accepting.
Now it was too late.
Too late to ask for help.
Too late to stop the lies.
“Good luck, sweetheart,” Olivia said this morning as they were climbing into their respective cars. “Knock ’em dead.”
“Will do.”
“Call me as soon as you get the chance. Let me know how it’s going.”
“Will do,” he’d said again.
Except he hadn’t.
And he wouldn’t.
Sorry, hon. I was just so busy. First day back. You know how it is.
His cellphone rings.
Sean pushes himself into a sitting position and extricates his phone from the pocket of his old, ill-fitting blue bathing suit, praying it’s the headhunter he hasn’t heard from in weeks, calling with news of a job interview.
But no, caller ID reveals it’s Olivia. “Goddamn it,” he says, debating whether to answer it. Except that if he doesn’t, she’s liable to call the main switchboard and ask to be put through to Sean Grant, and then where would he be? Up the proverbial shit creek without the proverbial paddle, that’s where. He holds the phone close to his ear and swipes right.
“Sean?” Olivia says immediately.
“Hi, sweetheart.”
“I’ve been waiting for you to call me all day.”
“Sorry. I meant to. Things just got away from me, I guess.”
“Does that mean it’s going well?”
“Going great.”
“Tell me.”
“Tell you what?”