Chapter 6 #2
“So then my assistant called 911 because she thought I was actually having a heart attack. Paramedics came. They put me on a stretcher and wheeled me through the office while my coworkers just stood there gawking at me. Nobody said a word. My boss sent me home with a look that was half concerned and half annoyed that I disrupted the meeting.”
She exhaled.
“I quit the next morning. I didn’t even go in.
I just sent an email like a coward. And now I’ve been pretending it didn’t happen ever since then.
” She stared at the flame of the candle.
“The bad part is my mom thinks I left voluntarily. She thinks I’m strategically pivoting in my career.
That’s the version I sold her anyway. But the truth is I fell apart in front of everyone, and then I ran away. ”
“That’s not running away. That’s surviving.”
She looked at him.
His voice was steady. He didn’t sound like he was pitying her. He just sounded firm and certain.
“I’m thirty-two years old, and I have no idea what I’m supposed to be,” she said.
“I used to have an answer for that, you know? Like when people asked me what I wanted to do, I had a title, a salary and a five-year plan. And now I have a beanbag chair and a children’s section that’s still not finished. ”
He was quiet for a moment. Then he spoke.
“Well, maybe you’re not supposed to be doing anything right now.”
She frowned.
“Okay, either that’s a very Zen thing to say or very depressing.”
“I mean, maybe you’re not supposed to be something. Maybe you just are. And whatever you do next comes from that instead of the other way around.”
She rolled the words around in her head.
It was the kind of thing she would have thought sounded empty coming from someone who didn’t mean it.
But Grant Whitmore didn’t say things he didn’t mean.
That was the one thing she was absolutely sure of about him.
“When did you get so wise?”
“Oh, I’m not wise. I’m just familiar with running away.”
“Well, we’re a pair, aren’t we?”
“Apparently.”
Earlier that day, before the storm had rolled in, Julie found Francine in the inn’s supply closet, reorganizing their cleaning products by category.
“You don’t have to do that, you know,” Julie said.
“Oh, I know. It was just bothering me.” Francine straightened a few of the spray bottles without looking up. “You know, you have three different brands of glass cleaner in here. You only need one.”
Julie leaned against the doorframe.
She had been watching Francine for most of the week now, looking for cracks, looking for that moment when the polished competence would slip and reveal somebody who didn’t actually have a clue what they were doing.
The moment never came.
“Where did you work before this?” Julie asked.
She had asked before in a more general way and gotten a more general answer, but this time she wanted specifics.
Francine closed the closet door and looked at her.
“I managed the Whitfield Grand in Savannah for fourteen years.”
Julie blinked. The Whitfield Grand was one of the most respected boutique hotels in the Southeast. She’d seen it in magazines.
“So why did you leave?”
Francine’s expression softened, not into sadness, but something a little more honest.
“Well, I was good at taking care of everyone else, but I forgot to take care of myself. I worked through my divorce, two surgeries, and the death of my best friend without ever taking a single day off. And one morning I woke up and realized I didn’t know who I was when I left that building.
” She looked at Julie. “Sound familiar?”
Julie didn’t respond, but she heard it.
She heard it in the way that you hear something you’ve been thinking about, but you aren’t brave enough to say out loud.
Francine touched her arm as she passed.
“The inn will survive without you for an afternoon, Julie. The question is really more about whether you’ll survive without it.”
The power finally came back on at 11:14.
The overhead lights snapped on all at once, sudden and harsh after hours of soft candlelight.
Liza winced and covered her eyes.
Grant reached over and turned off the nearest lamp.
“Better,” she said.
“Yeah.”
They were still sitting on the floor, side by side, with their backs against the bookshelf.
At some point during the storm, and she couldn’t say when, they had shifted closer. Her shoulder was now touching his.
His hand was resting on the floor between them, close enough to hers that she could feel the warmth of it without touching.
The rain had now softened, and the worst of the storm had passed, leaving behind that clean, electric smell.
“I should probably go,” Grant said, although he didn’t move.
“Yeah, probably,” she said.
She didn’t move either.
They sat there for another long minute, listening to the rain as the world came back to itself.
The candles were still burning. The soup containers were long since empty, and the clue cards were spread across the floor, forgotten by both of them hours ago.
He stood up first and offered his hand.
She took it, his grip warm and steady as he pulled her to her feet.
They stood close for a moment, closer than necessary.
He walked her to the bottom of the stairs that led up to the apartment. The stairwell was narrow, and the light was dim.
Liza turned on the second step so they were nearly the same height.
“Thank you,” she said, “for the soup and, well, all the rest of it.”
He nodded, his hands at his sides. She could see him thinking, that careful, meticulous brain of his, turning something over, weighing it, calculating the risks. He almost reached for her hand.
She saw it, just the slightest movement of his fingers, the little shift of his weight.
But then he didn’t.
“Good night, Liza.”
“Good night, Grant.”
She went upstairs. Liza stood at the top of the stairs for a moment, her hand on the railing.
Outside, the rain had stopped, and through the balcony door she could see the fairy lights between the shops.
They had somehow survived the storm. They were still glowing, swaying gently in what was left of the wind.
She went to bed and lay in the dark, listening to the water drip from the eaves, and thought about the way Grant had said he would have loved you, like it cost him something.
She thought about the way he’d said maybe you just are, and about the way he had almost reached for her hand and then didn’t.
For the first time since arriving in Seagrove, she felt like two weeks would never be enough.