She tilted her head. “This must be very hard for you.”
Mr. Pender reached up to his tie and loosened it. “I’m sorry. It’s difficult all the way around, I know. I can’t begin to imagine what it must be like for you. Worth didn’t say anything to you about where he might have been going?”
She’d been asked that same question so many times in the days since he’d left, in so many different variations. At some point they were all going to have to accept that being Worth’s wife did not make her privy to his interior life. His thoughts. His plans.
When she didn’t answer, he reached for a folder and tapped it against the desk, then laid his hand on top and met her gaze. “Bottom line is I have to hire someone else to fill this position and I need to do it quickly. I have two guys interested, one who can start next week. I’m leaning in his direction.” He paused and took a breath. “I’ve held off on this in the hopes that Worth would show up, but . . . I’m afraid I can only give you through the weekend to make living arrangements.”
“Living arrangements?” Her mind spun into top gear. “What do you mean?”
“The house, in Pelican Cove? The new guy will live there. That’s what the house is for. For quick starts, just until new hires can have a chance to look around and find a place that fits them.”
“But that’s— We rented that house. I know it’s just temporary, but we were doing just what you said—living there until we found something else. I haven’t had a chance to look around, but surely . . .”
She stopped when Mr. Pender propped his elbows on the desk. With one hand he took off his glasses, and with the other he pinched the bridge of his nose. Sweat pricked at Lily’s hairline and under her arms as realization dawned on her.
“Mrs. Bishop—”
“Please stop calling me Mrs. Bishop.” The words came out sharper than she intended. “That’s my mother-in-law,” she said, softer now. “I’m Lily. And the house is yours, isn’t it?”
He sighed. “Lily, your home belongs to Pender Properties. It was a corporate lease, month-to-month, with the agreement that if Worth did not fulfill his job duties for whatever reason, the lease would be terminated. Unfortunately, that’s the situation we’re now in.”
She thought back to the evening Worth signed the papers at their carved cherry dining table in their stately Tudor home in Atlanta. He’d even bought a small cake and stuck a candle in it, his attempt to make the move six hours south seem celebratory and exciting. Signing papers on a house! Starting a new job! At the beach! It was going to be great.
She knew the house was temporary, but she’d known nothing about a company lease with strings attached. She wracked her brain trying to remember his words, what that piece of paper looked like, but as usual he’d taken care of it all and she’d gone along with it. Why hadn’t she asked more questions?
Lily stood abruptly. Mr. Pender looked up in expectation. His face was so hopeful, as if waiting for her to say something to take away his guilt at being the one chasing her out of her house. But she had nothing to say. He wasn’t the guilty party, and she had no attachment to their house anyway. It would be easy to leave.
“Thank you, Mr. Pender.” Lily stuck out her hand and waited for him to take it. They shook as if closing a deal, which, when she looked back on it, they kind of were.
He stood and rested his fingertips on the desk. “So . . .” He shoved his hands in his pockets, then pulled them out again.
“If you can give me a few days to make arrangements, I’ll be out as soon as I can.” She turned and moved toward the door.
Before she opened it, he spoke again. “I don’t mean to pry, but I just want to make sure you’re going to be okay. I assume you’ll go back to Atlanta? I know Mertha will want to help.” His eyes were softer now. “If you need any assistance with the move, you just let Debbie know and she’ll make arrangements for you.”
Lily nodded. “I’ll be fine.”
Outside the air was warm and thick against the unusual chill on her skin. She turned the corner, and when she was sure she couldn’t be seen by anyone who might have been watching her through the office windows, she paused and inhaled, then blew the air out slowly.
In the week and a half since Worth had been gone, she’d made phone calls, taken pointless drives in the car, and paced back and forth, front door to window, expecting to see his car drive up.
Expecting it and fearing it at the same time.
She’d stayed up late into the nights, considering the unanswerable questions swelling up within her. Where was he? Would he change his mind? Did she want him to? What would she do now? His note was at the very back of the drawer in her bedside table, and she’d pulled it out and read it so many times its edges were becoming soft.
I can’t do this anymore.
Thank you, Worth. Neither can I.
Standing on the sidewalk in front of Worth’s office—his former office—with a closed door behind her and a hazy, unrecognizable path in front of her, Lily closed her eyes and thought of her mother.
You be brave now, her mother had whispered to her toward the end, her grip still strong and sure. She wished she could talk to her mom again, wished she could hear her soothing words and soak up her wisdom like dry desert sand.
Instead, she opened her eyes and found her car, climbed inside. She lifted her hands to the steering wheel. Through the windshield, she noticed a V of seagulls soaring overhead. A bird at the back of the V trailed off the end, separated from the bunch. As she watched, the gap between the lone bird and the group widened until the bird was alone in the sky, his wings flapping lazily, seemingly unconcerned by his solitude.
Lily tightened her fingers around the steering wheel as truths solidified in her tired mind, one by one.
She was not going back to Georgia. She had three days, at most, to find a new place to live. And she needed a job.
Three
When she walked into Rouses Market, the aisles of the tiny store were jammed with ladies sporting faintly purple hairdos and clip-on earrings. Everywhere she looked, small clusters of folks were comparing coupons and newspaper circulars. Near the front door, two women peered at a display of Pyrex dishes.
Lily eyed her quickly scrawled grocery list and started down the first aisle. A few minutes later her cart held buttermilk, flour, eggs, butter, and a package of bacon as she pulled into the produce section to grab some fresh fruit. She added a handful of kiwis to her cart, but as she turned toward the front of the store, she bumped into someone kneeling on the ground. Before she realized what had happened, lemons tumbled around her feet and clear across the tile floor. Lily peered around her cart and saw a broad woman dressed in a starched white apron staring back at her. The woman wore a hairnet pulled firmly over tight black curls.
“I’m so sorry,” Lily said as she bent down to grab the runaway lemons. Just as she reached for one that had skittered under the apple display, a pair of purple tennis shoes with silver Velcro across the top paused in her field of vision.
“Don’t you worry a thing about it,” said the woman attached to the purple shoes.
Lily straightened. This woman was petite and wearing a jogging suit as purple as her shoes. In her ears were tiny silver earrings in the shape of airplanes. “Roberta’s just in a hurry, and she gets clumsy when she goes too fast.”