Eliza
“So, tell me. What’s it like driving to your own funeral?”
Kitty is on one. She’s gone delirious from dehydration, ate too much candy on the trail, or tangoed with a bear and now, in her second chance at life, has decided to throw away her filter.
Because there’s no other reason she’d be making a joke like this when I am, in fact, delivering myself to my own demise.
Or maybe I’m being too sensitive and overblowing her attempt to make light of my predicament, because I’m stressed out of my mind.
Yep. That’s probably it.
“I just hope you’re planning a good eulogy for me,” I reply, trying to lean into her humor.
I’m currently on my way to my little brother’s commencement ceremony.
James Attleburn is about to be a fancy Manhattan lawyer.
I’ll stand beside him, sun-tanned from the small-town oyster farm I’ve relegated myself to, and Mom and Dad will have ample opportunities to remind me of my layoff and criticize my decision to escape the city for the summer.
It’s going to be oh-so-amusing.
Not.
At least I’m meeting up with Jane tomorrow. A bright spot in my weekend away.
“Who do you want invited to the after-party?” Kitty’s voice isn’t jumbled by poor service, for once.
“Jane, Sami, some of the other girls from college. Maybe some old high school friends,” I throw out. It isn’t a long list, but as long as Kitty’s there, it’s complete.
“Anyone from Garnet Shores?”
I huff out a laugh. “Well, Grayson might be pretty sad if he missed the best day of his life.”
“I’m assuming Grayson’s the dickhead oyster farmer.”
My mouth opens to confirm, and that’s as far as I get. Because it doesn’t feel fair to make “dickhead” a permanent addendum to his name any more.
In fact, it feels dead wrong.
So I gently correct, “He’s the oyster farmer.”
“Either this backwoods California service is warping your voice, or you just said his name like you like him.”
“I didn’t say his name. I said he’s the oyster farmer.”
“Don’t use semantics to get out of this.” There’s a quick intake of breath on the line. “And you didn’t deny it. Oh my god. How the tables have turned.”
“Okay. Slow down.” I thought her ex-husband drained the hopeless romantic out of her, but apparently it’s back. At my expense. “All I did was remove the ‘dickhead.’”
“Mm-hmmm.”
I want to be annoyed, but I feel my cheeks pulling up instead. “Kit, you’re jumping to conclusions.”
“I hear a smile in your tone,” she sing-songs, like she can see me through this phone screen. “You guys hook up?”
My hands slip on the wheel, and the car jerks in the middle lane. Oh my god. Righting the sedan, I calmly say, “No.”
But he looked at me like he wanted to.
And I wanted him to keep looking at me like that.
I’ve revisited that moment in the office more times than I’m proud to admit in the last three days.
Analyzing it inside and out, inspecting it like an FBI detective, searching for indications that my brain and hormones blew it out of proportions.
But then I think about his cocky little smirk and that backwards hat and those muscles when he caught me watching him in the warehouse.
And the way he worked with his hands on our ride-along.
And him taking care of me when I sliced my palm.
And how thinking of a downtown finance man no longer does anything for my libido.
That’s when I land on my libido as the cause. Sex with Kyle had been rare and dissatisfying in the last few months of our dying relationship. Heck, it’d never been satisfying. I’m probably just starved for an orgasm.
Case closed.
“You haven’t hooked up with him, but you want to,” Kitty concludes. Or she’s taking a shot in the dark and hoping I slip and confirm it.
“I do not want to hook up with Grayson Gold,” I state, like it’s a journal entry that I’m trying to manifest. “He’s too—”
Dirty. Unrefined.
Those are the adjectives I should say, but I don’t, because like the word “dickhead,” they aren’t entirely honest.
“Hot? Sexy? Scrumptious?” Kitty supplies oh-so-helpfully.
“Kit, you don’t even know what the man looks like.”
“Well, I’m about to when I have reliable internet and can look him up.” Of course. Maybe it’s a blessing she’s decided to extend her hike another six weeks. “And in the meantime, you now have the perfect distraction for the weekend.”
“What’s that?”
Kitty sounds way too delighted as she answers, “Figuring out Grayson Gold’s new adjectives.”
The bleachers are a sea of styled hair, proud smiles, sundresses, and ties, everything cast in the dead, grayish hue that indoor stadium lights have down to a science. Or maybe it only appears that way because I’ve gotten too accustomed to the warm tones of sunshine.
It’s easier than it should be to spot my parents in the bleachers. They’re the only couple wearing formal black, mom’s white-blonde hair an abrupt contrast with her tailored dress.
I used to want hair just like hers—a short bob, always curled, bleached to such an unnatural shade it demands attention. Thank goodness Kitty told me about color theory. I scoot my way down the row, and Mom’s perfectly done-up face tracks my progress.
“Eliza.” She stands up for a stiff side-hug when I arrive.
Dad glances up from his phone. “Good to see you.” You’d never think that from how he goes right back to analyzing his stocks.
“It is good to see you,” Mom says, giving me a once-over as she sits. “What happened to your hand?”
“Cooking accident. It’s fine.”
She harrumphs. “You look…tan.”
“It’s summer.” I lower into the seat they left open between them.
“It is summer, but you’re also working hard in your free time to find another job, yes?”
And so it begins.
“I am. I finished two more applications for Suzanne last night.” One of them had involved a test assignment that took me three hours to complete—which should honestly be illegal. It’s free work from people that company will never have to pay.
“Only two?”
“I would do more this weekend, but James is graduating and I’m here with you.”
She’s not impressed with that retort, but before she can respond, an announcement is made and the ceremony begins.
Speeches, names, and awards go on for the next three hours, and I might be the only person here who wishes it was even longer. Fortunately, it takes another thirty minutes to find James after the event, and even longer for him to take photos with all his freshly minted lawyer friends.
He’s a chatterbox in the car as we head to dinner, buzzing with excitement, and I’m reminded this weekend isn’t about me; it’s about celebrating my nerdy little brother, who’s worked his butt off since elementary school and just fulfilled his dream at an incredibly competitive program.
I’m proud of him.
It doesn’t matter that our parents have always held our successes over the other’s head, or that he and I aren’t as close as I’d like. This is a huge deal.
I elbow him as my parents take a corner. “You realize I’m calling you for any and all legal trouble.”
He’s the spitting image of my father, all dark hair, Roman nose, and intelligent brown eyes. “Don’t know if you can afford me, sis.”
“The sibling discount’s one-hundred-percent off.”
“It’s subject to change.” He’s only half-kidding, which doesn’t surprise me. We’ve never been the type to trade heart-to-hearts or take pictures with each other.
Besides, a bit of snobbishness is probably necessary for the environment he’s about to be in.
The dinner conversation is mostly about James. How much he’s already prepared for the Bar Exam. If he’s excited to move into his new apartment. Which of his friends are working for equally prestigious practices in the city.
I think I might be getting off scot-free when the bill comes and the conversation unfortunately turns to me.
“Mom said you’re working at a clam place?” James asks, leaning into the table.
Clam place? “It’s an oyster farm,” I correct. “And I’m the Social Media Director. It’s a contract job.”
He waves me off. “Clams. Oysters. Same thing.”
“Aren’t details supposed to matter in your profession?”
A cocky grin he never used to have in high school pops up. “The important ones.”
Mom swirls the remainder of her wine. “Well, the good thing about contract gigs is that they’re easy to get out of when a better opportunity comes along.”
“They’re legally binding, Mom. The word contract is in the name.” I look to James for support.
My brother simply shrugs. “But who’s really going to sue if you leave a few weeks early?”
So much for support.
“If there’s someone capable of suing in Garnet Shores, it’s my employer.” Anson Gold’s wrath is the last thing I ever wish to encounter.
“Well, as soon as James passes the Bar, we’ll have a lawyer who’ll put him in his place,” Mom replies, unbothered.
I glance between the two of them, struck silent.
They really expect me to up and leave the farm the second an opportunity from Suzanne comes through. Never mind all the other reasons I left the city, or the commitment I’ve made to the Gold brothers, or my rental contract for that boat.
Then again, why am I surprised?
“I’m not leaving until my contract is up,” I state.
“Now that would be foolish.” Mom sets down her wine glass. “An employer might need you to start within days of your hiring, two weeks at most.”
“I’ll inform them I can’t start until late August.”
Dad watches me from their side as Mom scoffs. “Honey, I understand why you might think you can do that, but that’s silly. Impressions matter, and that sets a bad one.”
“Commitment matters, too.”
She drops all pretense then, voice turning stern as she says, “What you’re doing? Right now? That is not the real world, Eliza. You need to get back there as soon as you can, or you’ll be left behind.”
As if I haven’t already thought that. That blame, the feelings that I’m not doing enough, that I’m falling behind, have been a constant undercurrent since I fled the city.
It only just started to fade. Probably because I’ve finally accepted my current circumstances, and my social strategy is driving genuine growth at Gold’s. Or maybe it’s that, for the first time in my career, I’m…enjoying my days.
There’s the sunrises and swims. The pride of achieving results all on my own.
The fact that I can wear an old sweatshirt to work and don’t have to be so stiffly professional all the time.
The man who spars with me like no colleague ever would and trapped me against a desk in the most unprofessional way.
Unprofessional. There’s one of Grayson’s new adjectives.
Mom’s criticism is still unanswered, and she takes that as an invitation to drive her point home.
“All the time and energy you’ve invested in yourself, all the hard work you put in at school—it deserves more than this.
” The hard edge in her tone buffs out, and it sounds like loving concern when she says, “You’re experiencing a hiccup.
Don’t let it derail everything you’ve worked toward. ”
She’s being overdramatic.
That’s what I want to think.
But instead, the truth in her words slithers into my eager doubts. I might be in Garnet Shores for the summer, but I’m still Eliza Attleburn.
“It won’t,” I say confidently, and she settles back in her chair. “It’s only temporary.”
The affirmation should make me feel better.
But all it does is weave a knot in my stomach.
And when I get a text message from Jane an hour later, canceling our lunch date because of a family event she forgot about, that knot tightens.