Privacy means intimacy, and intimacy means the threatened resurrection of old feelings, which is the last thing I can afford right now. I need to be clearheaded.
We come to a filigreed gate set inside an imposing hedge. Reginald swipes a keycard to gain access and ushers me toward a glassed-in, two-story house surrounded by a large lawn and mango trees. As we advance, the sound of the ocean grows louder. Does Finn have his own private sliver of beach?
As settings or circumstances go, this couldn’t be more different than my first encounter with Finn ten years ago, except, I suppose, that I had been exhausted then, too.
I’d come home from a babysitting job where two of my three charges had spent the night puking. I had four hours to crash before I was due at the diner, and all I wanted was to change into a clean T-shirt and crawl into bed.
Out of habit, as I walked up the gravel driveway to our sloping bungalow, I counted the dogs in the kennel. There was a new face in the wan light of that Ohio dawn. It belonged to a collarless mutt that whined and pawed at the fence upon seeing me.
Mama had been out prowling again.
But there had been more afoot than the acquisition of stray number six. When I eased into the house, I narrowly avoided stepping on my mama. Ada was lying under her quilt in the tunnel which led from the front door to my room.
“Why aren’t you in your bed?” I asked.
Her smile was beatific as she held a grimy finger to her lips in an exaggerated shushing motion. “I brought you something,” she said, her voice barely audible.
“I saw.” And how are we going to feed him? I wanted to add. But from long experience I knew how pointless that would be. Worse than pointless—self-defeating.
Recriminations only made Mama feel guilty, which led to more prowling when I wasn’t around to calm her. Since I was working three part-time jobs for the summer, that was practically always. So while indulging in sharp words might make me feel temporarily better, they would only hasten the appearance of stray number seven.
“Not the Pekingese mix, silly.” My mother pointed. “Go. Look. He’s in my bed.”
As tired as I was, it was rare for her to display this much urgency. So I had stepped up onto a pile of bound calendars, used that to climb onto a pile of yellowing Tribunes, then crawled my way over to the far side of the living room, where a depression in the chaos housed my mother’s mattress and afforded her a measure of privacy. I pulled myself to the lip and looked down.
I’d been expecting to find a creature of the canine variety. Something exotic and inbred that would need surgery so it could breathe, or actually operate its eyeballs. Instead, I found a boy.
He looked a few years older than me—twenty-two, maybe twenty-three.
He wasn’t from around here, that was obvious. The local men favored flannels and work boots, whereas he wore an expensive-looking sweater and runners. His haircut was fancy, too. He looked like a rich city boy who’d been jumped and rolled. Or a bruised, fallen angel with a clean-cut aesthetic.
Then the angel woke up and looked down my blouse.
Eventually his gaze made it up to my eyes and he swallowed. “Hello.” His voice was rusty and emerged from a mouth that wanted to smile, and that would have drawn my interest even without the split lower lip.
A runaway, then. Someone desperate for a meal and a place to sleep.
As armament against him, I batted a quick question his way. “Do you smoke?”
His smile dimmed at my hostility, but I couldn’t apologize. One spark and the crammed bungalow would turn into a deathtrap.
“No.”
“Well, don’t start.” We stared at one another before I thought to ask, “What’s your name?”
“Finn. And you are…?”
“Finn who?”
He was lying in a cave composed of Mama’s magazine collection, circa 1987 onward. There was an imperceptible hesitation as his eyes darted and found inspiration. “Finn Goodhouse.”
“Mmm-hmmm,” I said. “I would have gone with Finn Geographic, myself.”
But he wasn’t giving off serial-killer vibes, and I now had three hours and fifty minutes to sleep, so I turned my back on him. I slid across the piles, ignored my mama’s hopeful smile, and reached the sanctuary of my bedroom. Though tiny, it was the one place in the house that wasn’t overrun with Ada’s possessions.
“Finn” must be pretty desperate to stay overnight—even Tucker couldn’t manage it after he’d hit his teens. Given the state of our pantry, hopefully his desperation didn’t extend to hunger.
But I wouldn’t have to worry about him long. Best case scenario, he’d be gone in the morning, hopefully without having helped himself to the few useful items we possessed. Though, ha, good luck to you, Finn, in finding them, I’d thought. Then I tried to fall asleep. I tried but my mind kept jerking back to the runaway. To his mouth…
I came up with a few rules for myself, then, a few platitudes to shove in his face if he decided to follow his interested eyes with his interested hands. A man with no last name doesn’t get to first base with me.
But the next day, when I came home from the diner to change into my Ready Mart uniform, he was there, making my mama laugh while he hosed down the kennel. And he was still there when I arrived home for dinner with a loaf of expired bread and a sack of dented canned goods.
He stayed, he treated Mama with a dignity and kindness few had before, and my promise to myself hadn’t lasted any longer than one of Ada’s tidying spells.
I drag myself out of the past, though, because we’ve passed the villa now, and are rounding a curve, clearly coming to the end of our journey.
And there at last, seated on a wicker chair with a roller bag and briefcase stacked beside him, is Finn. He has one foot propped on the other knee and a phone pressed to his ear. He makes quite a picture—a striking man with dark hair and dark eyes on a patio surrounded by palm trees and bougainvillea—all this set against the backdrop of a private beach.
When he sees us, he puts the caller on hold with a few words. I manage a brief smile but he doesn’t return it as his eyes skim over me.
He addresses Reginald as I stand there, feeling awkward. “My luggage can go to the car.”
Reginald inclines his head. “Very good, sir. I’ll take them myself rather than have your meeting interrupted by a bellman. Will you be wanting a pickup in the golf cart?”
“No, I’ll walk.”
Reginald nods at me. “My lady.” Then he seizes the luggage and disappears around the corner, leaving us alone.
“Olivia, good to see you,” Finn says, his eyes distinctly cool. “Have a seat. I’ll be a minute.” He returns the phone to his ear.
When picturing our reunion, I hadn’t anticipated that we would coo over one another or he’d exclaim over how well I had aged. That hadn’t been our way when we were together, and in any case, I certainly don’t deserve that kind of treatment. Not after the way we parted.
But this—this distance, the deliberate use of my full name and his icy detachment—they hurt. I’ve been lying to myself. Since Friday, I’ve been telling myself to hope for professional treatment while my heart, apparently, has been yearning for more.
At least his departure looks imminent. No matter how painful or humiliating this gets, I won’t have to endure it long.
I choose a chair that will allow me to hide my shoes behind the glass-topped patio table and smooth my skirt. Then I fold my hands in my lap and pretend interest in the antics of a windsurfer who has come into view. But out of the corner of my eye, I take Finn’s inventory.
In person, he is handsomer than his photo and looks remarkably fit. His teeth are an even white against his tan. In Stonybrook, after he ditched the sweater as impractical, I’d never seen him in anything other than jeans and T-shirts, or jeans and work shirts. He managed to look amazing then. But if possible, business wear suits him even better.
And his voice has grown deeper, more assured, though his laugh
still contains an edge of dirtiness, darn it. That combination of a clean-cut vibe and sex has always stirred my blood.
Right about the time the windsurfer takes a dunk in the sea, Finn hangs up.
I turn what I hope is a bland, professional face toward him, then have to work to maintain it. He has a small bandage on his ear and the breeze has lifted his hair to expose a nasty bruise on his forehead.
What happened there? I want to ask, not that it’s any of my business.
“Olivia,” he says, jerking me back to matters at hand. “Thanks for coming. I thought this might be better than meeting for the first time in public.”
And I hoped for the opposite, I think. Especially now that my summons is bound to stimulate office gossip. I smile politely. “My pleasure. I’m surprised you knew to look for me. I expected you’d be here, obviously, and planned to come say hello. But I didn’t think you’d have noticed my name on the roster.”
“Yolanda handles most of the day-to-day operations, but I try to stay on top of things.”
“Of course.”
“I looked for you in the audience this morning. Did I miss you somehow?”
“No—I—I had a problem with my alarm.” I force myself to relax my posture, to slow my speech. This is a business meeting, Liv. Act accordingly. “Normally I’m a stickler for punctuality, but I set my alarm volume too low and the time-zone change got me. It won’t happen again.”
He nods and stretches one arm over the back of his chair, the picture of a wealthy executive at ease. “How’s your mother?”
“She’s…” I can feel my cheeks heating and shrug. “You know.”
His eyes say that he does.
“She’s still in Stonybrook, in her house. But she’s in therapy now. And you’d be impressed—she’s down to two dogs.”
“Only two? That’s quite an improvement.”
I search his face, long accustomed to seeing sarcasm when it comes to my mama. But I can’t see a trace of anything other than compassion. That was one of the best things about the old Finn. He didn’t have a cruel bone in his body.
Not that I should be thinking about anything to do with Finn and bones…
“She says hi, actually,” I say brightly.
“Please give her my best.”
“I will.” I gesture to our surroundings. “This is utterly gorgeous—not that it’s a hardship to stay in any part of the resort—but you’ve done well for yourself. I’m glad.”
And I’m even gladder to find that I mean it.
When the suits showed up at our door with the news his father was ill, Finn left without a moment’s hesitation or any perceptible regret. Over time, when he didn’t return as promised, I’d grown bitter at what I perceived as his desertion. In many ways, that bitterness had been more painful to endure than my loneliness. After all, I’d already had years of managing the latter.
But I am happy for him if he’s happy, and discovering that I have it in me to be this generous comes as a huge relief. I really don’t like being an asshole.
“Thanks,” Finn says. “It’s been a lot of hard work.”
“I’m sure.”
“Let me give you a quick tour.”
It seems an odd suggestion, especially when he’s leaving. I have the feeling he’s building to something in this visit and would rather get to the point of my summons.
But our foray into the personal has left me feeling emotional, and I notice Finn swallowing, too, which used to be his tell. Maybe a timeout is wise for us both.
So I follow him inside and make appropriate noises over the villa’s high-end kitchen, and the master bath with the clawfoot tub. Especially the rooftop pool which is surrounded by palm tree foliage on three sides and a killer view of the Caribbean on the fourth.
All along I’m wondering if he’s trying to send me a message. This is what you almost had. Or, Our worlds were never meant to meet.
It’s exhausting to think this way. I hate head games. I hate living in regret, and by the time we have returned to the patio, I’m ready for some plain-speaking.
I remain standing when he offers me a seat. “Before we get to why you brought me here—because I assume you had a plan—can I say something?”
I’ve surprised him, but he nods. “Go on.”
I knit my hands but keep my gaze steady. “I want to apologize for how I behaved the last time we saw each other. I had some justification for feeling hurt, but I should have had the courage—” I take a deep breath “—and the maturity to confront you directly.”
“You sound sincere.”
I am caught by the funny note in his voice, and his emphasis on the word sound. “That’s because I am.”
“And yet you didn’t stop.”
What is he saying? His eyes have an intensity that is almost frightening, so I duck my head to regain my composure and try to process the words. But he is already talking again. I blink and try to catch up.
“—not one to dig up the past, but I can’t have a saboteur in my company,” Finn says.
“Saboteur”? And now this meeting, this choice of venue, that he’s summoned me with such formality and made a point of establishing our different statuses—it all makes perfect sense. I’ve been worried about reclaiming pride when I should have been fearing for my job.
“Are you firing me?” I ready all the reasons he can’t: that I need my job to pay for Mama’s therapy; that without a reference I’ll be unlikely to secure another position; that he would be virtually guaranteeing my return to the circumstances in which he found me; that he’s condemning me for actions taken a decade ago.
“No,” he says. “Merely making my expectations clear. I won’t tolerate any trouble. Are we on the same page?”
I swallow and fight an annoying pressure behind my eyes. This is not the time to indulge in waterworks. I lift my chin. “From the day HMZ hired me, I have endeavored to do my best by the company. That won’t change now that you are my employer. You have my word.”
He nods. “Good. Then we understand one another.”
“We do.” On the strength of my past misdeeds, I’ve effectively been put on notice.
“I’ll walk you out.”
I retrace my steps to the gate, acutely conscious of his footsteps behind me. Only a few more minutes until I have the option of breaking down…
We reach for the gate latch at the same time, my fingers landing first, Finn’s settling over top of them. I stare at our clasped hands, effectively trapped until he moves.
“Liv… I’m sorry to have to be such a hard-ass. Will you be okay?”
I nod, not trusting my voice.
“I have no right to ask you this, but I’m going to anyway…”
“Yes?” I say numbly.
“You… Tucker… Are you together?”
There are any number of responses I can make to put us firmly back on the path of employee and employer—the route he has so painstakingly carved. I turn my head, though, and the lips that once tasted mine are but a breath away. His scent envelops me. And for a second, the vulnerable, lost boy I loved looks back from the grown man’s eyes.
I speak to the boy, knowing I had some part in hardening the man. “Never.”
Then I shake off his hand and escape down the path, past the mangoes.
CHAPTER 5
FINN
“ Yo. Mr. Fidgety Mon.” The van driver turns and looks at me over his glasses. “Don’t be worryin’ yourself. I’ll have you to the airport in no time a’tall.”
This is patently false as we are in the midst of a traffic jam in Kingston, but the man has an irrepressible grin, so I try to return it. Also, to stop jiggling my leg, which has a mind of its own when I’m stressed.
He faces forward and the van advances a few feet before the horns blare once again. “If you don’t mind me sayin’, you don’t seem very relaxed for having visited our beautiful country.” His eyes meet mine in the rearview mirror. “Lady troubles?”
“
You have no idea,” I say. Guilt troubles, too.
I can’t stop thinking about how I screwed up my meeting with Liv, and that’s without including the bone-headed move at the end, when I asked whether she and Tucker were together.
Really, Finn, really? You exposed your stupid, ancient jealousy to an employee you just put on notice?
Yolanda would kill me for that. I want to kill me for that.
I don’t even want to imagine what Liv must be thinking about her weak-kneed boss with the contradictory messages. Are you sure you’re going to be okay, Liv?
Gah! What the hell was I thinking?
I shift in my seat and realize I’m jiggling my leg again as the driver smiles.
Might as well admit I was primed to mess up long before the grand finale at the gate. I’d been steaming when I got off the cruiser, thinking of how much Liv put me through before—how I’d let it go on too long because I couldn’t bring myself to press charges, even with proof of her perfidy.
So when Liv had been a no-show at my keynote, I’d seen it as a declaration of intent—another passive-aggressive way to strike out at me, on my dime, from within my own company. In that context, it seemed like I was being beyond reasonable to remind her of our employer-employee relationship and put her on notice.
But then…then she arrived. And she had circles under her eyes, and mismatched shoes, and was so damn beautiful despite it all that it reminded me of when we met, when she peeped over the edge of Ada’s crap and rocked my world.
Then that full-throated apology, delivered in classic Liv-style with the humility and disarming sincerity I once so admired. And her openness about her mom…
And where was her crazy this afternoon? Where was the evidence of a nefarious agenda? And what was all that blushing and head-ducking when I told her I wouldn’t put up with any of her old BS?
Taken all together, I was completely thrown. Is it any wonder that by the time we were at the gate, my brain had been hijacked by a rush of sentiment and confusion?
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