Chapter Four
At his doctor’s insistence, Sam had been weaned off his emergency-Xanax habit and put on a high-dose SSRI.
The doctor said she would reassess the dosage in a few months, but after what had happened, she didn’t want to risk starting too low.
The new meds made Sam feel more even-keeled and less like he was moving underwater.
He stood at the drugstore counter, waiting as Mr. Willis, the pharmacist, measured his prescription behind the glass.
Mr. Willis had doled out the little blue inhalers Sam had used as a kid, and Sam might have even gone to one of his son’s birthday parties in middle school.
He wondered what Mr. Willis thought now as he bagged Sam’s Lexapro.
In a town like Oakdale, everyone knew each other’s business.
Sam was just relieved his early sexual experimentation had taken place far from the watchful gaze of the town’s only pharmacist. He could only imagine the look on Mr. Willis’s face if he’d sidled up to the counter with condoms, lube, and a multipack of enemas.
“There you go, Samuel,” Mr. Willis said, handing him the paper bag. “Take care, now.”
“Thanks, Mr. Willis,” he replied, not sure if the man’s parting sentiment was as benign as it seemed.
As Sam pushed open the door to leave, he felt something brush against his leg. He looked down to see a kid of three or four about to toddle outside with him. He grabbed the boy’s hand. “Hold on, buddy. Let’s go find Mom.”
“Or Dad,” someone said behind him, sounding out of breath.
Sam turned to find a man with a baby strapped to his chest, clutching an empty shopping basket. His face was white with panic.
“Thanks. They’re slippery little creatures. This dude here is a champion escape artist.”
Thwarted, the kid slunk back to his dad’s side, his mouth puckered in a pout.
“No problem,” Sam said.
The man narrowed his eyes, and then his face lit up. “Whoa, Sammy? Samuel Bryant? I didn’t know you were back in town!”
Sam did a double take. Behind the beard and large round glasses, the man looked familiar. “Spielman?”
Brian Spielman laughed and stepped over to pull Sam into an awkward hug, the baby sandwiched between them. “Kind of hard to recognize with the dad bod. I swear, I put on more weight during both pregnancies than my wife.”
Sam chuckled. “I was going to say the beard. You only managed lone whiskers back in the day. But look at you—two kids. Congrats.”
Brian gripped his shoulder and grinned. “This is crazy. I haven’t heard from you in forever.”
Sam felt a churn of embarrassment. He and Brian had spent summers painting sets for a local theater group.
They’d shared a mutual love of cinema and had many a fanatic discussion about dirty framing and symbolic match cuts.
To this day, several of his favorite films were ones Brian had recommended.
Sam had lost contact with him over the years, happy enough to leave everything about Oakdale in the past.
“Yeah, I kind of fell off the map there.”
“Are you back for good?” Brian asked.
Sam smiled hollowly. He’d been asked variations of the question since returning home and still struggled with the answer. “Not really. Just taking some time to regroup, catch up with the folks.”
“I get it, man. It’s rough out there.”
The prescription bag crinkled in his hand, and Sam wished he was anywhere else. He turned toward the door. “Nice running into you.”
“Likewise. Hey, we should get together sometime. I want to hear what you’ve been up to.” Brian’s son was pulling on his arm as if he were a human seesaw.
“Definitely,” Sam said noncommittally.
“How about Thursday?” Brian said, swinging the boy back and forth and eliciting a peal of giggles. “A couple of friends and I do trivia over at the inn. We could always use the extra brainpower. Let me grab your number. I’ll text you the info.”
“Ah, sure.”
After exchanging numbers, Sam left Brian to his errands and walked back to his car. He tossed the meds onto the seat beside him and slumped against the headrest. It had been a pleasant enough interaction, but Sam couldn’t shake the feeling of having been exposed.
A melodic chime burst forth from his pocket, and he pulled out his phone to see his sister was calling. He thumbed the red button and dropped the call. Seconds later, a message popped up on his lock screen.
Call me. We need to talk next steps.
Sam scoffed. Nope. Georgia worked as a contract lawyer in Chicago, and they hadn’t spoken once since his return home.
His parents had filled her in on all the gory details, but instead of supportive check-ins asking how he was feeling, she’d been sending him links to job openings and passive-aggressive hints that a flameout could be fatal to his career.
As if he needed the reminder.
Sam was staring at the booking tool on the office computer, unsure why something so simple was proving so damn difficult, when Connor appeared in the doorway to the workshop.
It was Sam’s first day at Finnegan’s Electrical, and Connor had given him a brief tour when he’d arrived that morning.
The workshop was as disorganized as the reception area.
There was a large workbench stacked with boxes of random parts, and what little free space remained was littered with tools and coils of wire.
“I was just going through the job sheet,” Connor said, holding up the piece of paper Sam had printed earlier. “And I’m seeing a few duplicates.”
Sam sighed, embarrassed. “Yeah, sorry. I can’t seem to get the hang of this program.”
“Let me walk you through it again. It can be a little glitchy.” Connor came around to stand beside him at the desk and leaned over to grab the mouse. He smelled of soap and coffee.
Sam had noticed this morning how patient he was.
Unhurried, relaxed. He knew Connor had at least half a dozen jobs to get to, but he acted as if bringing Sam up to speed was his number-one priority.
It made Sam oddly nervous. He had expected what he’d always experienced starting out at a new job: to be thrown into the deep end and expected to swim.
The agency he worked for in Austin had been especially ruthless.
His boss, Darren, had pulled him into a presentation on his first day to stand in for the assistant, who was out sick.
Sam had barely skimmed the proposal before the client arrived, a midsize real estate firm that was looking to take on a bigger chunk of the local market.
Sam’s job was to set the scene, outline the firm’s current pain points, and provide an opening for Darren to swoop in with the solution.
He was only three slides into the pitch when it became clear the client wasn’t happy.
“There’s no way our market share compares with those figures,” the company rep said, interrupting Sam. “Where are you getting your numbers?”
Sam swallowed and glanced across the conference table at Darren, hoping his boss would save him. Darren’s assistant had put the deck together; surely, he knew where she’d sourced them from.
But Darren frowned and looked at Sam. “I’m curious as well, Sam. We want to make sure we’re presenting an accurate picture.”
Sam’s heart thundered in panic. Darren had no idea where the numbers had come from. He was throwing Sam under the bus. “Sorry,” Sam said, the word ashen in his mouth. “I’ll have to, uh, double-check the source on these.”
Darren clicked his tongue and gave a dismissive shake of his head.
“That’s on me, folks. What can I say? He’s new.
” The company rep snickered, looking vindicated.
After the client had left and Sam and Darren were packing up the conference room, his boss turned to him with a grin.
“No hard feelings, right, champ? Can’t have the big dog lose face.
” Sam had nodded as though it made perfect sense.
As if humiliation was just part of the job description.
“See how that brings the entry into the main calendar?” Connor was saying, scrolling down to show Sam how the jobs populated by date. “And then I can mark it done on my end.”
Sam saw where he’d gone wrong. “Got it. Thanks. By the way, Mrs. Gingham called earlier about a busted fuse box. She said she wouldn’t be home until after six, so I scheduled it for tomorrow. Five’s the cutoff for new jobs, right?”
“Usually, yeah,” Connor said, shrugging into the arms of his overalls. “But I can swing by later and give her a hand. She used to babysit me as a kid, so it’s only fair I atone for past torment.”
“I’ll let her know,” Sam said with a smile, scribbling a note to himself on his yellow legal pad. “And I’ve been looking at the price guide you gave me for the quoting system. What’s the difference between a socket fit-out and a replacement?”
“I was thinking maybe it would help if you rode along with me next week,” Connor said. “See how things work in practice.”
The bell above the door jingled, and a man with salt-and-pepper hair pushed the door open with his walker.
He didn’t look that old, but he shuddered when he walked, as if it took considerable effort.
His face was curled into a scowl. “It’s almost ten; why are you still at the office?
” he barked. “The work ain’t gonna do itself. ”
The easy smile slipped from Connor’s face. “You checking on me, Dad? And if we’re asking questions, where’s your chair? You’re not supposed to be using the walker anymore.”
“Think I don’t get enough of that from your mother?” Mr. Finnegan tilted his head at Sam. “Who’s this?”
Sam stiffened under his disapproving gaze.
“This is Sam, Sheryl’s replacement,” Connor said.
The man’s eyebrows shot to his forehead as if his son had declared Sam a talking cat.
“Nice to meet you, Mr. Finnegan,” Sam said, getting to his feet.
“Sam’s background is in marketing,” Connor continued, ignoring his father’s reaction. “He studied commerce at UNL.”
Mr. Finnegan snorted. “You don’t need a degree to answer phones.”
Connor slipped his hands into the pockets of his overalls. “How can I help, Dad? Or did you just come here to kick up trouble?”
“I was going through the books last night. You’ve got fifteen percent of accounts past ninety days. You should never let it get over ten.”
“Things are tough for folks right now,” Connor said. “I’ve got a few customers on installment plans.”
His father pointed a thick finger in Connor’s direction. “Well, there’s your problem right there. You keep saying you’ve got this, but from where I’m sitting, you haven’t got shit.”
Connor’s jaw clenched, but he said nothing in reply. Instead, he walked over to his father and steered him by the shoulder toward the door. “Let’s get you back to the car, Dad,” he said in a low voice. “Is Mom outside? Don’t tell me you drove here.”
When Connor returned, looking sheepish, Sam pretended to study something on his notepad.
“Well, that’s my old man,” Connor announced.
Sam looked at him for a moment, choosing his next words. “You’ve been doing this—quotes, invoicing, accounting—all on your own?”
Connor ran a hand through his hair. “Yeah. I take it home with me in the evenings. Life as a small business owner—what can you do?”
Sam could only imagine how much pressure he was under. “I can help when I get on top of everything else.”
“Let’s just start with the scheduling,” Connor said kindly, “and see where we go from there.”
“Okay.”
“I should probably get out of here.” Connor stepped over to pick up his tool bag and swung it over his shoulder. “The work ain’t gonna do itself,” he repeated grimly, heading for the door.