“Holy crap.” Margot sighed, and Katharine laughed. “When do we start?”
“When can you quit the library?”
“I need to give two weeks’ notice. It will take me that long to train someone up and get the new person oriented.” This time her sigh was smaller. “I love that library.”
“I know. And I’m really grateful.”
This time Margot looked at her dead-on. “You don’t know me well enough to give me half of your multimillion-dollar corporation.” “It’s just money. And, yes, I do.”
For maybe the first time ever, she reached out to hug someone for no other purpose. It wasn’t a quick pat on the back or a loose-armed, go-to-bed-now social expectation. It wasn’t romantic or sexual or leading to anything else. And she didn’t even once think that it would be rejected.
She simply draped her arm around Margot’s shoulders and pulled her friend close. Margot hugged her back, and they sat there, heads touching as though they might be transferring thoughts, staring out at the calm waves rolling up, and grinning like loons.
The soft sounds of the ocean were periodically punctuated by Margot saying, “Holy crap.”
• • •
It took Katharine two weeks to sell her condo. She hadn’t yet started the company.
But she had already filed the initial paperwork, and she kept a running tally of her thoughts for what she believed the company should do. Where they should start. What they needed to avoid.
She’d asked Margot to write down her ideas too. Three days after Margot had come in from her lunch break and handed in her resignation, they had sat down to compare notes. Liam had been hanging around and had laughed that Katharine came in with a laptop and spreadsheets, while Margot appeared with a yellow legal pad and a handwritten but truly elegant mission statement.
Katharine shrugged at him. “It’s why she’s my partner. A mission statement hadn’t even occurred to me. And mine would have had bad grammar anyway.”
They created homework assignments, Margot found an artist to design the logo for Green Sea Investments, and Katharine found a web designer.
She worked harder than she ever had before. Uncle Toran had called several times to let her know how disappointed he was that she was starting her own company instead of reopening her father’s. He also saw fit to let her know that her father would be disappointed in her too.
She tried to let it go, but the barbs burrowed deep and stuck. And they hurt. But they didn’t change her course. Nothing was strong enough to get her to change her course.
She got other calls asking her to vacate the condo so the agent could show it. After one such visit where she’d been too engrossed in her spreadsheets to remember to leave, she decided to stay for all the walkthroughs.
She didn’t like the people that had come to see the place. And she realized after sitting through several more walkthroughs that those were the only kind of people her unit seemed to attract. After one particularly snotty couple came by and complained about everything from the color of the walls (too garish a beige) to the quality of the bathroom tiles (clearly not handmade), Katharine cornered the agent. “How do we get nice, decent people to come look at it?”
“Is that what you want? I was wondering why you kept turning down good offers.” The agent had offered a soothing hand on Katharine’s arm. “You know, you won’t live here after you sell. You don’t have to like these people. You won’t know them.”
“But I want to like them. What do I have to do to get someone good in here?”
The agent practically snorted. “Drop the price by about two hundred grand!”
The woman had looked at her, horrified, when Katharine said, “Okay, do it.”
It had taken three days and the promise of a commission on the original asking price before the new listing went into effect. Katharine saw four young couples, a single lawyer, a junior businessman, and an older couple in the space of the next four days.
She sold the unit to a family who came through with a little boy. He wanted a dog, and the mother said they didn’t have enough to redo the carpet. She had noticed the incredibly faint soot stains that had never quite come out. The blood had entirely disappeared, but the gray stayed, just a bit.
They offered twenty thousand less than the asking price and Katharine took it. She then left them an envelope with a check for another twenty thousand to get a puppy and paint or retile or whatever. Writing that check had felt better than most anything she’d ever done.
So she took the money from the unit and gave it to Margot–who promptly told her to stuff it. Then she tried to say it in a nicer way. She ended with “I’ll buy my own house, thank you.”
Well, she’d overstepped. Luckily, Margot didn’t hold it against her.
Katharine had already bought herself one of the little houses on the walks up from the beach. It was small and homey and had the smell of sea air in every room. Though it was in Santa Monica rather than Venice, it reminded her of Allistair’s house. Well, it reminded her of the house where he’d taken her while he’d been here.
She painted her walls in bright colors, gave her old furniture to Goodwill, and bought new pieces. When she looked at her new living room set and realized it looked amazing but was too uncomfortable to sit in, she discovered she hadn’t been paying enough attention.
Instead, she put a mattress on the floor in her bedroom, telling herself she’d wait to find just the right things. Most people took time to acquire their homes. She should too.
She spent her first night in the new place sitting on her hard sofa and wondering if she could keep up this pace indefinitely, if she could stay one step ahead of the heartbreak that dogged her heels even as she ran from it.
And she knew she couldn’t.
Why had she even thought she could?
She’d been too slow all along. Too slow to see. Too slow to choose.
And her inability to see what was in front of her had killed someone who had twice told her, “I’m sorry, but I love you.” Who told her to choose herself, even though it would mean the end of him and all that he was. Someone whose last words to her Margot had translated as “You’re safe now.”
CHAPTER 29
Katharine sat back, a wide smile on her face and a silly hat on her head.
The world outside Margot’s windows had gone dark for the night, but at this time of year that didn’t mean it was late yet. The dark, barely held at bay by the thin panes of glass, was more than made up for by the birthday cake that sat in front of her, the top of it a little sloped and the writing close to illegible. She was pretty sure that Margot had written “Happy Birthday, Katharine.” Or she had meant to. The loops hadn’t fallen where they were intended to, and it looked more like “Haggy Bidhclay, Kathanne.” However, to Margot’s credit, and due to her considerable drive for proper grammar, there was both a comma and a period for Kathanne’s Bidhclay.
Katharine just said thank you and left it to Liam to point out that cake decorating might not be Margot’s strong suit. Everyone else at the little get-together had kept their mouths shut about the cake too. No one wanted to hurt Margot’s feelings. For a few of them, Margot was their boss, and so the cake drew no comments other than that it tasted great and was colorful. Both statements were true.
Katharine had grinned at that. She was happy again. Mostly.
She had watched Margot and Liam together for several seasons now. Margot was happy too–only her happiness went all the way down.
Katharine tried not to be jealous of her friend, but some days that took more effort than others, and it didn’t always work.
Margot and Liam would get married soon. They hadn’t said anything, but it was there for everyone to see if they looked. It was in the casual affection that made it seem they’d been together much longer than they actually had. The simple way they communicated. The fact that they sometimes fought, and though Margot complained to Katharine about the fights themselves, she never once complained ab
out Liam. Never called him an idiot or an ass or any of the other things she could have called him, given the disagreements. Katharine had no doubt that Liam afforded Margot the same respect. He loved her; it was as complicated and as simple as that.
She watched as the two of them met up in the kitchen and talked about something. She didn’t know what, and she decided not to listen in. Instead she checked out the lopsided birthday cake.
It was probably the saddest-looking baked good she’d ever seen. And certainly the ugliest she’d ever been given. But it was by far the most beautiful, too. Margot had made it for her–for Katharine, who had been raised to believe that appearances were everything and perfection was important. That anything and everything should be made by a professional if possible, and that it could all be bought for a price.
She hadn’t even had a cake in years. Grown-ups didn’t have cakes. Her eighteenth birthday had been the last. That cake, like all the others, had been ordered from whatever bakery was de rigueur that year. Those birthday cakes had been tiered and themed and lavish, and looking back, they had been laughable in their pointlessness.
It didn’t matter what this cake looked like, or even if it had tasted like cardboard. This year, someone had cared enough to do it themselves.
In addition to being presented with an imperfect cake, Katharine didn’t think she’d ever worn a pointed grocery-store birthday hat either. But here she was, with Liam and Margot and a handful of others, all of whom had been in her life since the earthquake, and they were celebrating. These were her coworkers and a small handful of real friends. She didn’t have many, not like when she and her mother had ruled the social scene, but these friends were real. One was even the daughter of one of her mother’s friends, and she too had gotten out of the game her parents lived in. So much had changed since the earthquake.
And that was how she had thought of it–just as “the earthquake,” because she couldn’t withstand the pain that came when she thought of the other things that had happened that day.
In the end, only the Light & Geryon building had fallen; everything else in the city, even the things right around the building, had stayed upright. In fact, it had later been determined that the structure had collapsed not so much due to poor construction but because it had been at the exact epicenter of the quake. It seemed her father had built on a small fault line that no one had seen before, running right through Marina del Rey.
Katharine still wondered sometimes whether Zachary had caused it, whether in his anger he had done more than roar his fury and had actually destroyed something. She probably wouldn’t ever know, and wasn’t sure she wanted to.
It had been a long year, and she really had nothing by which to mark where she’d been at the beginning of it. She hadn’t even celebrated her last birthday. But in that time things had changed so drastically.
She’d lost Light & Geryon, both the building that had stood as an icon in her life and the people who had made up the company. And she’d lost her father; she’d somehow thought he’d always be there as stalwart and unchanging as the brick. She was glad she had told him that she loved him.
There had been a handful of fights she’d had with Uncle Toran about her business this last year. And even more that she hadn’t. She had bitten her tongue so many times knowing that telling him what she thought was a waste of her breath. But he started some of the arguments anyway. Each time he learned more about what she was doing, what she was trying to build, he told her in no uncertain terms how stupid an endeavor it was, and how it would never work. People wanted money. But she had stood her ground, sad that she had to fight so hard for it, and glad that it was hers to hold. And still, she had fought to push all the arguments and hurtful words aside and told him, as often as she could, that she loved him.
He had only offered a nod at that. But it was the best he had to give, and Katharine had come to accept it. He wasn’t going to pick her up and swing her around and tell her he was proud of her. Aunt Lydia had stood by his side, clearly showing her support of her husband’s opinion, but at least she’d stayed silent, neither berating Katharine nor lauding her. And later, Aunt Lydia had stood still and proud at Uncle Toran’s funeral, then sold their stately home and moved back east with her sister. Katharine hadn’t seen or heard from her since.
Her own beach house now had all the rooms painted. She had a better couch, soft and comfy and even a little worn-looking. Sunk into the corner of the soft pillows, she had a nightly habit of curling up and reading, and all too often falling asleep there.
Though she had found the perfect headboard and frame for her bed some time ago, she often didn’t crawl into it until three or four in the morning, and she rarely slept the night through. She was plagued by nightmares, and it seemed for a brief time each night that things were worse than they ever had been during the waking horror she had lived.
She watched Allistair get pulled from the air over and over in her dreams. Each night she lost him again. Sometimes she was in his arms when he would be ripped away. Sometimes she smelled singed flesh and watched as he screamed. Sometimes she did.
In one version she plunged a long sharp knife into his chest while Zachary looked on and smiled. No therapist was required to figure out what that was all about.
After a while, Katharine had finally learned how to make her own friends, as evidenced by the small but true turnout to her first real birthday party. The first one she’d had where people were invited only because they liked her and wanted to celebrate the year. But even so, there was no boyfriend. No one she was even interested in.
Katharine had not yet figured out how to make that connection. And she wasn’t sure she would figure it out either. Margot had held back and not pushed her, seeming to sense just how painful that would be.
But the year had brought other interesting changes. This house was Margot and Liam’s. As of a month ago, they jointly held the mortgage. Green Sea was not making money hand over fist, nor were investors lining up and beating down the door. But each month brought a few more. Each advertisement or drive they did found a few more people with a few extra dollars who thought those dollars were worthless unless they did something good.
Green Sea had propped up a work-study college that had started to fail. The students and graduates had rallied, but so many were liberal arts majors and employed as social workers that the alumni alone had not been able to save the school that had saved them. Green Sea had done it. And a handful of the grads and professors had in turn joined the investment pool.
The company had poured money into an inventor who had developed a disaster setup that he planned to sell to every fire station, ambulance owner, and hospital around the country. Green Sea had gone all in, because his invention not only sped up triage setups and saved lives, but his business plan had provided for a free kit donated to an impoverished area in another country for every ten units sold. They were still putting money into production, but Katharine had hopes that when it went on the market in two months, they would see the predicted turnaround. And maybe even more investors. It was now a game of wait and see.
Some of the people at the party worked for her and Margot. Jeff had leaned over and wished her a happy birthday, regardless of what Margot’s cake said, as he put it. Then they had all sung to her. It was the first time the song had been performed for her by amateurs rather than a hired band. Well, she thought the song was for her even though they had all warbled, “Haaaappy Biiiirthday, Kaaathannnne.”
Over her laughter and the last line of the song she thought she heard Margot protesting. “It says ‘Katharine’! Katharine!”
The candles were lit in front of her, and they all cheered and catcalled, and a voice somewhere in the back shouted out, “Make a wish!”
For a moment, while the candles flickered in front of her, she thought about what to wish for.
She wanted to sleep at night.
She wanted to not feel guilty.
She wanted to not miss him, and no
t miss what she hadn’t seen clearly enough until it was far too late. She wanted …
So, just as Allistair had told her it would work, just as Margot had found that spells were often powered on a burst of human breath, Katharine closed her eyes, held tightly to her thoughts, and blew.
• • •
It hadn’t worked.
The thought had passed through her mind as Katharine stood there in the coffee shop in the middle of fifteen people, all more alert than she was. It seemed she had that thought about once or twice a day.
She had never slept well after the earthquake, and the well-meant but apparently poorly executed birthday wish had done nothing to help. In fact, if she had to pinpoint a time when things had changed, it had been just after her birthday party when the dreams had escalated. Now, each night she saved Allistair. She chose him. She grabbed at him and pulled, knowing that he was about to be yanked out of her world and fighting to keep him with her. Each night, in her dreams, she did something that prevented the wailing that had ended with the end of his life.
But as soon as they shared a sigh of relief that he was safe, she would kill him. Sometimes by stabbing him, sometimes by burning him at the stake, or shooting him, and worst, by recanting and choosing Zachary.
She had never lied to herself about that–that she had been less than three seconds from choosing Zachary. She might be her own person, but her own person had spent the past year not sleeping well.
Hearing her name called out, she absently reached up to grab the coffee. She’d gone for the brewed stuff rather than the blended throughout the winter. This morning, the weather had changed. It was nearly eighty at 8:00 a.m. and hot coffee wasn’t going to wake her up. This past week, the dreams had gotten even more persistent; so many times, even during a single night, she would see Zachary. He would come up to her, his beautiful face changing, his breath going fetid as he closed the distance. She never could really run or even back up in the dreams. She always cringed, with his sharp teeth threatening just inches from her cheek or mouth. He never said anything other than the same three words: You killed him. Most of the time, in the dream, he laughed.
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