Chapter 9
CHAPTER NINE
The logo was wrong. Completely wrong.
Meg had been staring at the San Clemente rebrand for two hours and the sea glass green was still too cool.
She adjusted the hex value, previewed it, adjusted it again.
Margaret Cassidy wanted the full presentation by Friday.
The resort’s corporate retreat was three weeks out and the marketing package wasn’t half done.
Her desk had four sticky notes on the monitor, two on the keyboard, and one on her coffee cup that said CALL FLORIST which she had written three days ago and not done.
She picked up the sticky note, looked at it, and stuck it back on the cup.
Her phone buzzed. Luke.
Family meeting Saturday?
Anna set it up. Michael’s presenting the full numbers. Everyone needs to be there.
Even Margo?
Especially Margo.
She’s not going to like it.
Nobody’s going to like it. That’s kind of the point of an audit.
Meg set the phone down and went back to the logo.
The green needed warmth. She bumped it two degrees toward gold, previewed it against the neutrals, and sat back.
Better. Margaret would want to see options—Margaret always wanted to see options, even when the first one was right, because Margaret believed that the process of choosing made people confident in what they’d chosen.
She wasn’t wrong about that. She was rarely wrong about anything, which was both why she loved working for her and why she sometimes wanted to throw her laptop into the ocean.
The phone buzzed again. Luke.
Do you want me to bring anything Saturday?
Meg stared at the text. Bring anything. To a meeting where they were going to learn that the family business couldn’t sustain itself. What would someone bring to that?
She answered.
Just yourself. And maybe don’t mention the chairs.
The chairs are resolved. You ordered white ones.
The chairs are ordered. They are not resolved. Nothing about this wedding is resolved.
The groom is resolved.
What does that mean?
It means I’m resolved. I’m very resolved. I’m the most resolved part of this whole operation.
She pressed her fingers against her eyes and smiled at the same time, which was a thing Luke made her do at least twice a day.
The man had waited twenty years and proposed in a marine biology shirt and never once made her feel like the waiting had cost him anything.
She didn’t know how he did that. She suspected it had something to do with kelp—years of studying organisms that grew slowly and never rushed had given him a patience she would never have and could never quite believe was real.
Her phone rang. Not Luke—Brad.
“Meg, the Montage wants to move their event up two weeks. Can you adjust the venue package by Monday?”
“I can adjust it by Monday.”
“And the San Clemente presentation?”
“Friday. On track.”
“And the retreat marketing?”
“I’m working on it.”
“All three at once?”
“That’s what consultants do, Brad.”
“That’s what good consultants do. Bad ones drop things.” A pause. “Don’t drop things.”
“I never drop things.”
“I know. That’s why I’m giving you three things.” He hung up.
Meg looked at her screen. The logo, the venue package, the retreat marketing. The family meeting Saturday. The florist she hadn’t called. The chairs she’d ordered and not confirmed. Luke, resolved. Anna, handling it. Michael Torres in the back office with a thirty percent gap and no solution.
She picked up the CALL FLORIST sticky note, moved it from the coffee cup to the center of her monitor where she couldn’t ignore it, and went back to the green.
At five-thirty she looked up from her computer and out into the hallway of the small bungalow. The bungalow sat three blocks from the water, small and salt-weathered, porch light on. She could smell something cooking before she reached the kitchen—not salad. Something with garlic and heat.
Luke was at the stove, stirring something in a cast iron pan, apron on. The apron said WORLD’S BEST MARINE BIOLOGIST which Meg had bought him as a joke and he now wore without irony.
“You’re cooking,” she said, dropping her laptop on the table.
“Shrimp. Garlic. That recipe my grandmother gave me.” He held out the wooden spoon. “Taste.”
She tasted. It was good. It was actually good. “When did you learn to do this?”
“I’ve been practicing.” He went back to stirring. “I figured if we’re getting married, I should be able to feed you something that isn’t lettuce.”
Meg opened the fridge. The kelp samples were still on the top shelf, labeled by date. The second shelf had actual groceries—more than usual. Organized. She closed the fridge and looked at him.
“Saturday’s going to be hard,” she said.
Luke turned down the heat. “The meeting?”
“Anna already told me the numbers. Scholarship or salaries. Not both.” Meg sat at the table and pulled the salt shaker toward her, turning it in her hands. “I keep wanting to fix it. Pull up the spreadsheets, build a model, drive down and take over. That’s what I do.”
“That’s what you used to do.”
“It’s what I’m good at.”
“You’re good at a lot of things.” Luke plated the shrimp, set it in front of her, sat down across the table. “Anna’s good at this one.”
“I know.” Meg picked up her fork. “It’s just hard to watch someone carry something you used to carry and not reach for it.”
“Yeah.” Luke looked at her across the table. “But that’s what trust looks like. Letting someone carry it their way.”
They ate. The shrimp was good. The kitchen was warm. Through the window the last light was going orange over the rooftops, and somewhere out there the Shack was closed and dark and waiting for Monday, when everything was going to change.
“Luke.”
“Mm.”
“About the wedding.”
He set down his fork. “What about it?”
“The chairs are wrong. I ordered white but the rental company doesn’t do beach delivery. The caterer doesn’t do outdoor events. The florist hasn’t called me back. And I still don’t have an officiant.” She set her own fork down. “How did ‘beach and sand’ turn into fourteen spreadsheets?”
“Because you’re you.” He reached across the table and took the salt shaker out of her hands, which she’d been turning without realizing it. “The beach part is still simple. The rest is just logistics.”
“Logistics matter.”
“Not as much as you think.”
Meg looked at his hand on the salt shaker. At the kitchen, warm and garlic-scented and his. At the man who’d waited and never once complained about the waiting.
“Saturday,” she said. “We figure out the Shack. And then we figure out the wedding.”
“Deal.”
She picked up her fork and ate his shrimp and didn’t check her phone for the rest of the night, which was either growth or exhaustion.