And now I’m back, over two decades later, and I’ve still never jumped in the lake. In some ways, this is the first time in my life I’ve actually been free.
So jump, says a voice in my head. A crazy, illogical voice. I’m a grown woman with two children asleep inside. I don’t even have a towel. But already I’m shedding my robe.
I bend my knees and spring off the balls of my feet.
This will be my clean break, my fresh start, and—
Fuck, fuck, fuck.
I’m gasping as I reach the water’s surface, flailing in my frantic attempt to get to the ladder.
The water is so fucking cold, and if I’d hoped this would help, would prove to be transcendent, I could not have been more wrong. I’m an idiot who somehow forgot a lake in northern California would be cold in late March, and there’s nothing transcendent about that at all.
I scramble up the ladder in panties and a camisole that are soaking wet, wishing I’d at least considered bringing a towel for this fresh start of mine. I blot my eyes with my robe, but as I straighten to wrap it around myself…there’s movement.
Someone or some thing is standing behind the kitchen window inside Caleb’s abandoned house.
I could have imagined it, but no. There it is again, shifting shadows behind the glass doors. And whatever it is just watched me climbing semi-nude from the lake.
My new beginning was already off to a rough start. Now it’s the opening scene of a horror movie.
JEREMY
Don’t know who the hell will hire you. Turning on the TV and putting chicken nuggets in the oven seem to be your only talents.
HE’S DELIVERED a near-constant stream of insults since Saturday night. You’d think he’d be too busy sleeping with our teenage babysitter to find the time, but he’s good at multitasking.
Unlike Jeremy, I don’t have the luxury of crafting pointlessly cruel texts. I had two kindergartners to get to school one town over, before hustling fifteen minutes down the highway to Technology Solutions Group, my new employer.
The massive brick building a bit north of Santa Cruz looks a lot more impersonal than it did when I came for my interview, but I doubt I looked at it all that carefully. Back then, I was more worried about Jeremy finding out I was job hunting than anything else.
Wiping damp hands on my pencil skirt, I walk to the front doors and head into the lobby, where a receptionist actively ignores me until she’s done taking pictures of her coffee.
“Hi—I’m Lucie Monroe, the new hire. I was told to ask for Mark Spencer?” She stares at me as if I’m still speaking, still boring her, and hits a button. “Mark, someone’s here to see you.” She returns to photographing her coffee without missing a beat.
I’ve been hired to improve morale—a job I convinced myself I was perfectly suited for, because if you spend your days trying to persuade young children to bathe, eat vegetables and go to bed, you’ve got more experience enhancing morale than anyone alive.
If this girl is a typical TSG employee, it may be more of an uphill battle than I anticipated.
“Lucie, welcome,” Mark says, walking toward me. “Looks like you’ve met Kayleigh already. Let’s find you an office.”
He turns down the hall opposite the one he came from, and I follow.
“I know you’ve just arrived,” he says as we walk, “but the board is excited to hear your ideas and we happen to have a meeting tomorrow. I’d love it if you could swing by and tell them where you’ll be starting.”
My nod of agreement is weak. I came in for my interview spouting research about employee programs I’d found online, but that hardly means I’m ready to present a plan to the board.
He comes to a stop in a large room full of empty, silent cubicles. “You’ve obviously got your pick of offices.” He winces as he laughs at his own joke. “With all the staff turnover, we consolidated most of the teams and put them on the next few floors.”
“Turnover?” I repeat.
He shrugs. “I think I mentioned in the interview that a number of our employees have gone to competitors. Everyone wants to work from home since the pandemic, and the CEO is avidly against it. That’s where you come in…We’re hoping you can stem the tide.”
Mark never mentioned even once that they were losing employees. He said, ‘We want to be a place where people love their jobs,’ which is pretty different, and the insanity of what I’ve done is becoming clearer by the second.
He gestures to the nearest cubicle, and I step inside. My first office. It’s three felt walls—probably an eighth the size of the offices my half-siblings have, working for my father—but it’s mine.