Chapter Three
From his usual positionat the living room window, Sean Grant watches the school bus pull away from the curb in front of the house next door, taking with it the privileged offspring of the eminent Doctors Wilson. He wonders, not for the first time, why two successful professionals would choose to live on this simple cul-de-sac when they could be living in one of the more upscale gated communities nearby. They had to have a combined yearly income of close to half a million dollars, if not more. Hell, as one of the top cancer specialists in the area, Nick Wilson probably earned that all by himself. Sean knows that if he were making that kind of money, he’d be living in Palm Beach proper, or maybe he’d buy a house at the Bear Club, Jack Nicklaus’s exclusive golf and country club over on Donald Ross Road. He used to be a pretty good golfer. Of course, it’s been a while since he golfed, golf being an expensive habit to maintain.
One he can no longer afford.
“Sean!” his wife calls, her high heels clicking against the beige ceramic tile that runs throughout the downstairs rooms. “Where are you?”
He reluctantly leaves the window, joining his wife in the small center hall at the foot of the stairs before she can ask again. He finds the layout of the house awkward—the combined living-dining room to the right of the stairs and virtually everything else to the left. Who designed these houses anyway?Shouldn’t the kitchen and dining rooms be closer together?he thinks silently, although this sort of thing never bothered him before he became the family’s chief cook and bottle washer.
All kinds of things bother him now, things that never used to annoy him, too many things to dwell on, not if he wants to start the day off on the right foot. One of those things is standing right in front of him, he realizes, trying to mask his irritation at his wife with a smile. She’s dressed in a perfectly tailored suit that shows off her equally perfect figure, and grinning her big Cheshire-cat-that-swallowed-the-canary grin, her full lips emphasized by the bright coral lipstick she’s taken to wearing since she returned to work. Her long dark hair is pulled into a neat bun—she refers to it as a chignon—at the nape of her neck. At thirty-nine, Olivia Grant looks even better than the twenty-three-year-old he married, back in the days when he was a successful marketing executive and she was a lowly account manager with a neighboring advertising firm he sometimes did business with. She considered it a job back then, not the career she calls it now, and she’d been only too happy to give it up after the birth of their twins, Zane and Quentin, now twelve, and then Katie, two years after that.
Sean didn’t object to his wife choosing to be a stay-at-home mom. His career was thriving, and it was a source of great pride that he could support his growing family on his income alone. Over the years, he continued his steady climb up the corporate ladder, becoming one of five vice presidents of the mid-level firm that employed him and was confidently on track to becoming a full partner.
And then two years ago—ironically, just as they were considering a move to a larger house—he was handed his walking papers. Business was down, way down. The company could no longer afford the luxury of five vice presidents, something he’d suspected for months, but never thought would apply to him.
Once he got over the shock of losing his job—the idea that he was dispensable hurting even more than his abrupt dismissal—he relished the time off to relax and reassess what he wanted out of life. And what he wanted, he decided during those first few weeks, was more. More money, more power, more respect. He was certain that a man with his experience and credentials would have no trouble securing another job. Plus, he could afford to wait. His severance package was excellent and, combined with a small inheritance from his father, ensured that he wouldn’t have to settle. He could hold out for the perfect position.
“We’ll be fine,” he assured Olivia.
“I’m not worried in the slightest,” she said.
It took several months for his optimism to fade, a year for it to disappear altogether. It seemed that, even with an upturn in the economy, no business wanted to hire a man on the cusp of fifty, regardless of his experience or credentials. Not when they could employ someone half his age at half his salary. Sean reluctantly lowered his sights, tried for positions he’d initially refused to consider.
And was turned down for all of them.
“Too qualified,” they said. Too old, they meant.
He grew increasingly depressed. He stopped wearing the neatly pressed shirts and silk ties he’d been known to wear even on weekends. He went days without shaving. He stopped exercising. He put on weight. What was the point in maintaining appearances when nobody gave a damn whether he appeared or not?
His wife—ever-supportive, relentlessly optimistic Olivia—urged him to see a therapist. When he argued that therapists were expensive, she offered to pay for his visits with the money she’d been saving to buy a new car, which, of course, only made him more depressed. He didn’t want his wife sacrificing for him. It was a man’s duty to support his family, to be the breadwinner, to “bring home the bacon,” as his father used to say.
His father had been full of such sayings. “Bringing home the bacon” was one. “Never send a boy to do a man’s job” was another.
Now it seemed that all employerswantedwere boys.
Or women.
How else to explain the ease with which Olivia found a job? Eight months ago, his wife, who hadn’t worked in over ten years, walked through their front door and proudly announced that, on a lark, she’d driven up to Jupiter to see her old boss, and he’d hired her on the spot. Why shouldn’t she go back to work? she’d asked when he objected. Now that all three kids were in school, she was getting bored sitting at home, doing nothing but laundry and preparing meals. Besides, they’d almost eaten through both his inheritance and his severance, and his unemployment benefits would soon be discontinued. Simply put, they needed the money.
He couldn’t argue with that.
But now he’s the one sitting home all day, doing nothing but laundry and preparing meals, while she’s out there, making money and having a grand old time. Dressing up. Wearing four-inch heels. Looking better than she has in years. Taking meetings. Batting those long eyelashes at her superiors. Hell, she was promoted to account supervisor after barely six months on the job. How does that happen without some serious flirting?
Not that Sean doesn’t trust his wife. He does. Olivia has never been anything but loving, loyal, and supportive. “You’ll find something else,” she’d said when he told her he’d been let go. “You’ve got this one,” she said whenever he went for an interview. “Remember what your father used to say—‘When one door closes, another one opens.’ ”
Except that when another door opened, she was the one who’d walked through.
She tries to hide it, but he knows he’s become a thorn in her side. He can see the disappointment in her eyes. It makes it difficult to look at her.
“You smell so pretty,” he tells her now, forcing himself to do just that. “Is that a new perfume?”
“Yes, and it’s called So Pretty.” She laughs. “Great nose,” she says, kissing the tip of his. The high heels that have become part of her daily uniform add inches to her height, making her taller than he is. A daily reminder of how their situations have reversed. Why can’t she wear flats like she used to?
Why can’t anything be like it used to be?
“So, what’s on tap for this morning?” She’s stopped asking him if he has any interviews.
He shrugs, looks toward the back of the house, where his three children are getting their things ready for the day. In a few minutes, Olivia will drive them to school on her way to work. It will be his job to pick them up when school ends at two-thirty. How is he supposed to make plans when he has to be back by the middle of the afternoon?