Page 46 of Beautiful Place By the Sea

He stops walking. “Something else like what?”

Damn it, Ivy, I berate myself. I shouldn’t be telling him this. I stop, too, and turn around to face him. “Maybe another librarian job. Or something like this.” I point in the direction of the bookstore, which is only a couple of blocks away.

Oliver sits down on a wrought iron bench shockingly devoid of tourists and gestures for me to follow. I hesitate, both because I don’t want to leave Maisie hanging, and because I’m not sure I want to go into more detail with him about my vocational woes.

But he’s looking up at me like he’s actually invested in this conversation, and my feet are feeling a little sore from all the walking, so I drop down beside him, being careful to leave several inches between us. Because of his eyes, and all.

I break the silence. “I haven’t been happy at work.” How insane is it that Oliver, whom I just met, is the first person aside from Laurel I’ve bothered to discuss this with?

He offers a measured nod. “I’m sorry to hear that.”

“Thanks. It’s been…a tough year. And even beyond that, I’ve had a lot of downtime at work, and I think I might want something a little more…challenging.”

I don’t think I was fully aware that I was craving a challenge until I said it. But now that it’s out there, it does make a lot of sense. How many days last year did I sit idly at my desk, or read books I smuggled in from home, just to make the hours pass?

I’d gone to administration a number of times asking if I could start book clubs, literacy programs, and computer classes, but they shot down all of my ideas. No funding, they’d said. No time. No resources. And my insides slowly shriveled up with nothing to ignite my passions. To make me feel like I'm moving the needle forward, both for the kids at school and for myself.

“You do seem like you’d thrive on a challenge.” Oliver turns his gaze my way, and my heart dashes through my chest like the stones my dad used to skip across the Ogunquit River.

I smile, looking down in an attempt to stop whatever’s happening in my body right now. Whenever he looks at me, actually. “I’ve been applying to jobs. Well, I’ve just started, really. We’ll see what happens.” I dare to make eye contact. “What about you?”

He seems startled. “What about me?”

“Do you plan on working at Shoreline indefinitely?” I’m curious, both because I want to learn more about Oliver, who is becoming more interesting to me with every passing moment, and because I’m dying to know what’s going to happen to the store, since Maisie’s itching to retire.

Oliver shrugs. “Might be stuck here for a while.”

Before I can ask what he means, my phone buzzes in my pocket. I grab it and see it’s my mom calling. Low-level rage starts to simmer in my belly. We haven’t really talked much since my parents’ separation. I’ve been finding it hard not to let the way she dropped everything and ran color every interaction we have.

“Do you need to take that?” Oliver’s looking at me questioningly.

I click the button on the side of my phone to turn the screen off. “Nah. I’ll call her back later.”

“It’s your mom?” He must have seen the caller ID.

“Affirmative.”

“Huh,” he says, running his finger over the scrollwork on the bench seat between us.

“What?”

His hand brushes against the side of my leg. We both tense up, and he pulls away like he’s been stung by a jellyfish. Oliver clears his throat. “You just seem like the kind of woman who would always answer a call from her mom.”

A sharp laugh forces its way out of the base of my throat. Not because he’d been joking, but because of the cruel twist of fate that made me this kind of daughter. I swish my head back and forth. “I think I was that person, once upon a time.”

“But not anymore?”

“Not anymore.” I swallow down my grief. “Are you close with your mom?”

Now it’s his turn to scoff. “Not even a little bit.”

He doesn’t offer additional information, and I decide I don’t want to press him. “So, what are you going to wear later?”

Oliver wrinkles his nose. “I don’t know, a sport coat and some saddle shoes? Maybe a bowler hat?”

“Oliver.”

He snorts. “I’m not sure. This?” He gestures up and down at his current outfit.