AllFreeNovel
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Being three hours outside the city, I’d thought there would have at least been a Starbucks or something, but I haven’t seen a chain store since we arrived. How does anyone stand it? Where do you go for the comfort of a predictable, consistent cup of coffee? The whole town is something off of a postcard from the sixties but with upscale boutiques.
Wide sidewalks line the streets, and bright yellow and blue flowers sit next to them, while orange butterflies dance in the sea breeze. People smile with recognition at each other when they walk past. Not just the detection of another human, but they appear to know each other. Each brick storefront varies from the one next to it in some way, but they have the same feel as the other one, giving the town a homogenous feeling. Like everyone has been here forever, and they have no intention of leaving.
My nightmare.
I huff. “I still cannot believe I let you talk me into bringing you on a work trip.”
She giggles. “I’m very persuasive when I want to be.”
“The woman, who has gotten backstage for free at more concerts and plays than I’ve ever even been to, is persuasive? You don’t say.”
“Clearly, my powers need some tuning up, though. Otherwise, we’d be in that convertible.”
“Your powers are not enough for me to deal with a tangled mass of hair before the most important meeting of my life. Sorry, Savannah.”
“Tell me again why your boss is making you do this. I thought it was all settled.”
I huff and hope I don’t run anyone over while explaining. Driving and talking has never been my strong suit. “In all fairness to Walter, I could have handled the conversation better—"
“Huh?”
“I didn’t exactly jump at the chance to be booted from the Apple job to work in this godforsaken hellhole—"
Her laughter is light. “What? This place is precious. I might need to buy a vacation house here. How can you call it that?”
“Don’t you have four vacation houses already?”
“You can’t have too many.”
I roll my eyes and allow myself to dream of her semi-charmed life for a moment. Savannah Wilborn has never had to work a day in her life, and I’d hate her for it, if she weren’t also one of the nicest people I have ever met. She understands how fortunate she is, and I have never seen her take that for granted.
In college, I’d once asked her why she even bothered to get a degree in library sciences, since she doesn’t need a career. She said she had to have a degree to keep her parents happy, and she liked to read, so it was a nice way of securing her degree while doing that. When her parents died in a car crash a few days after our graduation, they left her as an only child, which meant their hundreds of millions in timber money went to a young Savannah.
Wisely, she immediately went to a financial advisor instead of blowing the fortune by partying for the rest of her life. She’d read many accounts of people who had won the lottery and lost their money in a year, so she had no interest in such a thing. Savannah wants a family and a legacy of charity, not a lifetime of nights she couldn’t remember.
It is that savviness that has kept us friends all these years. She sees the world in ways I don’t, and she’s thoughtful in ways that never occur to me. I’m grateful for her friendship and her company on this trip.
But she is so damned sunshiny about Somerset Harbor that I might need to strangle her a tiny bit.
“I gave Walter a hard time about coming off that account, and when we met with Beau MacMillan—that’s the client—I was less than impressed by the drawings he gave us. There’s the distinct possibility that I called them prosaic—"
“Elsie!”
“But they were the drawings from his last firm. It’s not like he drew them himself. Anyway, he seemed fine with it. I don’t think he took it personally, but I might be wrong about that, because a minute later, he asked to speak to Walter in the hallway, and the next thing I know, Walter comes back and he’s pissed. He said I let my mouth run away with me and Beau was already put off because he wasn’t getting Pavel, so I just made it worse.” I huff. “I don’t know. Maybe this whole thing is my fault. I’m not good at handling people—"
She laughs once.
“What?”
“Do you remember what happened when that TA asked you out?”
“Ugh.” I do. All too well. “Darren, thefriendlyTA, who liked to trade grades for dates? How can I forget?”
“He was a piece of work.”
“That’s putting it mildly. At least I put a stop to that nonsense.”
“And ended up getting lightly stalked in the process.”
