“With the neighbors? Outside on the street? We’ll barbecue some hot dogs and hamburgers?” she asks, as if she isn’t sure. “I told you.”
“Oh. Right. Guess I forgot.” Sean has no memory of being told any such thing. But the truth is that he barely listens to his wife these days.
“So, do you know who you’ll be working with? Have they assigned you to a particular client?”
“Nothing definite yet.”
“Really? You’d think they’d be more organized than that. I mean, they must have had someone in mind when they hired you.”
Shit.Shit. Shit.“Well, thereistalk of putting me on the Burger King account.”
“Burger King?” Olivia asks. “Aren’t they with one of the big New York firms?”
“They are. But apparently they’ve been very impressed with the work Advert-X has been doing, and they’re thinking of shaking things up…. Look. It’s all very preliminary, and I probably shouldn’t be talking about it. It’s highly confidential.”
“Oh my God. Burger King! That would be so fabulous!”
“It would,” he agrees. “But even if it’s a go, it’s going to take a while for all the details to get worked out, and you have to promise me that you won’t say anything to anyone.”
“My lips are sealed.”
“Good. Look. This isn’t a great connection…” Sean begins, desperate to get off the line.
“I know. You sound like you’re in the middle of a washing machine.”
More like the Atlantic Ocean,Sean thinks. “It’s my phone. It’s been giving me problems lately.”
“Do you have a private line? I should get the number.”
“Yeah, I’ll give it to you later. Look, honey, I’m afraid I’m going to have to cut this short. Someone’s here to see me.”
“Of course. I’m sorry. I’m just so excited. We’ll talk when we get home. And remember—I want to know everything.”
“You got it.” He clicks off the phone before she can say another word. “Shit!” he yells, throwing his phone into the sand, then immediately scooping it up again and shaking the sand from its face. “Goddamn, son of a bitch,fuck!”
“Excuse me!” a woman on a nearby towel proclaims, her face twisted in anger, her hands over the ears of her wide-eyed toddler. “In case you hadn’t noticed, there are children present.”
“I’m sorry.”
“You should be.”
“Yeah, well, fuck you,” Sean says, gathering up his towel as he scrambles to his feet.
He plods through the sand with as much speed as he can manage toward the wooden steps, his bare feet burning. He has to wait on the landing for a couple of teenagers to finish using the foot showers before he can wash the sand from his feet, then waits another five minutes for the tram to chauffeur him across the one-third mile of boardwalk to where his car is parked in the first of a series of small, adjoining lots.
He reaches inside the trunk of his car for his clothes, putting on his shirt and socks, pulling his pants up over his bathing suit, and finally, pushing his feet into his tan-colored loafers. The goddamn jacket can stay in the trunk, at least till he gets home, he thinks, then thinks better of it and throws it into the front seat. Just his luck, Olivia will have left work early and be waiting in the driveway when he pulls up. He has enough to worry about without having to come up with a plausible explanation for what his three-thousand-dollar jacket is doing in the trunk of his car next to a beach towel spotted with sand and smelling of the ocean.
He checks his watch again, noting that it’s still too early to go home. He can’t risk one of his neighbors spotting him and unintentionally giving him away to Olivia. That’s the main reason he chose this place. Not too many people come here, at least in comparison to the public beaches of Riviera Beach and Juno. Probably because they’re too damn cheap to pay the five-dollar entrance fee.
Which means he can’t afford to come here more than a few times a week himself.
Sean climbs into his car, musing about how much friendlier his neighbors have become since that impromptu little game of catch a few weeks back. Hell, they’re even planning a neighborhood barbecue to celebrate the Fourth of July!
Which means that everyone will be congratulating him and asking about his new job.
Which means he better have something to tell them.
He exits the sprawling park grounds and drives west along PGA Boulevard till he spots a seedy-looking bar at the end of a strip mall at the corner of A1A.Perfect,he thinks, pulling into the parking lot. No chance of running into anyone he knows here. He’ll sit in a darkened corner and nurse a beer, maybe two, while he combs the Internet for any fun information he can glean about Advert-X and its founder.
No one will be interested in the actual details of his job.
No one, of course, except Olivia.
“Shit,” he mutters as he pulls open the bar’s heavy front door. He could really use a drink.