Secrets of the Lost Summer (25 page)

“She’s a very good designer. She’s hot right now.”

“And you’re…what?”

“Established but not that hot,” Olivia whispered, then jerked her chin up as if he wasn’t supposed to hear. “I don’t feel sorry for myself.”

“What did you do, take a victory lap and let things slide?”

“No! I’ve always worked hard. Marilyn and I had been friends for several years and her career was floundering. Nothing she was doing was working the way she wanted it to. She asked me what I’d do in her position. We put our heads together and mapped out a strategy. She took my advice and added her own talents, ambition and willingness to roll up her sleeves and get the job done.”

“That was decent of you. So, what happened? She steal your clients?”

“One client,” Olivia said, her voice almost inaudible.

“Your biggest client?”

She nodded. “I think he was restless, anyway. It happens. I hadn’t seen or heard much from Marilyn in months, so it wasn’t the slap in the face you might think.”

“It could have been worse, you mean. It was bad enough.”

“Yes,” she said. “I was doing a good job for this particular client but I wasn’t…as cutting edge and unique as he apparently thought I should be.”

“And there Marilyn was. She called him?”

“That’s right. I’m not jealous, Dylan. That’s not how I operate.”

He stood up from the counter. “What did she do, dump you as a friend once her career took off?”

“That sounds like first grade, I know.”

“Nah. Sixth grade.”

She managed a small laugh and reached for a towel on the island. “I wanted to celebrate her success and wish her well, but she disappeared. I got over that, more or less, and then in mid-March I stopped at my favorite restaurant…” Olivia looked down at her hands as she dried them. “Marilyn was there having lunch with my biggest client.”

“What did you do?”

“Got out of there. Then I looked at my life and what I wanted and decided to get this place off the ground. I never expected Marilyn to do what she did. Or Roger Bailey, for that matter—”

“The snake-in-the-grass client.”

Olivia set the towel back on the island, a spark of humor in her eyes. “He’s not a bad guy. He just—”

“Relax. People can be jerks. Even good people. It’s not a sign of weakness or pettiness to say so. We’re not all that evolved. Maybe Roger was just looking after his business and didn’t know the rules of yours. This Marilyn woman used you, dumped you and stabbed you in the back.”

“That’s a little blunt.”

“Is it accurate?”

“I let her—”

“Not what I asked.”

“I put her in the freezer,” Olivia said abruptly.

Dylan angled a look at her. “You what?”

“I was drinking wine alone one night, which is never good, and I let everything get to me. So I wrote Marilyn’s name on a slip of paper and stuck her in the freezer.” Olivia pointed at the refrigerator on the other side of the island. “She’s still in there. I feel like a four-year-old.”

Dylan couldn’t help himself. He grinned. “Wait, what? You put her in your freezer to freeze her career?”

Olivia reddened and turned back to the sink. “It was meant as a ritual to help me. I don’t mean her any harm.”

“Why not? If you’d been in her shoes, what would you have done if a friend went out of her way to help you turn your career around?”

“I didn’t go out of my way. Not really. She was a friend. It was fun. We had a good time. I didn’t expect her to disappear and steal my biggest client. When I didn’t hear from her, at first I told myself she was just busy.”

“Then you ran into her and this Roger character having lunch together.” Dylan pictured the scene. “Ouch. Tough way to figure out what was really going on.”

Olivia took in a deep breath and shifted back to him. “That was difficult and painful, but I’m here because of it. I’ve reevaluated, and I don’t blame Marilyn, or myself. I have no regrets about our friendship.”

“Easier with her in your freezer. It’s okay to get mad, Olivia. It’s okay to be hurt. No one likes to be a victim, but sometimes we pick the wrong damn friends, or friends go their separate ways.”

“I know I don’t have to like everyone and everyone doesn’t have to like me, but this was tough. Anyway, Marilyn and I aren’t like you and Noah Kendrick.”

“No. Not at all. I have no idea how Noah’s brain works and he and I aren’t competitors.”

“I don’t see myself as Marilyn’s competitor.”

“How do you think she sees you? You’re both designers. Noah and I are business partners, not business rivals. You and Marilyn weren’t after the same guys, too, were you?”

“Guys?”

“Not clients. Guys. Men. Romance.”

Olivia yanked open a small drawer and pulled out a folded white towel. “No, never.”

Dylan tilted his head back. Now, this was interesting. “But there was a guy?”

“He’s gone. I don’t know that he ever—we ever—” She sighed and unfolded the towel. “We were never serious.”

“Where’d he go?”

“He’s in Seattle.” She laid the towel over a plate of tiny tarts obviously left over from the mother-daughter tea.

“You weren’t going to fly to Seattle to keep the relationship going.”

“There wasn’t much of a relationship.”

Dylan grunted and walked over to the refrigerator and pulled open the freezer. The slip of paper with the traitor friend’s name was tucked into a tray of ice cubes. Olivia wasn’t leaving anything to chance, he thought with amusement.

He took the paper into the living room.

Olivia followed him. “What are you doing?”

“Throwing Marilyn here in the fire. That’s a better ritual. She’ll be ashes. Gone.”

“That sounds so brutal.”

He grinned at her. “Freezing her doesn’t?”

“Freezing her career. This is burning her. And I wasn’t serious.”

“I’m serious. I want you to stop thinking about this woman. I want you to let her go and trust yourself again.”

“I trust myself—”

“Not the way you did before this happened. Am I right?”

Olivia sat on the chair in front of the fire, on the edge of the cushion. Buster stirred and rolled over, then heaved a sigh and went back to sleep. “I second-guess myself more than I ever used to.”

Dylan looked at the slip of paper. The name was written in thick red marker. He wondered if that had any significance, or if a red marker just was what was handy when Olivia decided to pop her friend into the ice-cube tray. He sat on the rug next to Buster. “You can’t let your experience with her undermine your confidence in your own judgment. You can’t lose faith in yourself.”

“Did Noah lose faith in himself?”

“This isn’t about Noah.”

“He did, though, didn’t he?”

“He’s never had any faith in himself when it comes to people. I’m his friend. I was his friend at six, I’m his friend now and I’ll be his friend at eighty. It’s just the way it is. It wasn’t that way with you and Marilyn Bryson.”

“Maybe so.” Olivia looked past him at the fire. “I don’t want to be too hard on her, or on myself. Sometimes friendships aren’t meant to last forever. I don’t regret ours. She’s a lot of fun, energetic, optimistic.”

“Would you ever have stolen one of her clients?”

“No, of course not. Maybe Marilyn didn’t know that she shouldn’t—”

“Yeah, right,” he said, skeptical. “Don’t start making excuses for her just because you admitted you had her in your freezer.”

“You have a poor view of human nature, don’t you?”

“Realistic.” He stood again, his eyes still on Olivia. Whatever she was telling herself now, her experience with Marilyn had eaten at her. “This woman looked after herself, and maybe she got too busy to call, but if she behaved unethically and that hurt you, then I’m glad you put her in your freezer.”

“I’m not a mean, vindictive person, Dylan. Marilyn isn’t, either. I don’t think she calculated any of this.”

“Her bad behavior will bite her in the butt, or it won’t. Not your call. Your call is to act out of your own sense of integrity and honor, and to forgive yourself your own mistakes.” He glanced again at the paper. “I bet she spreads lies about you.”

Olivia bit back a smile. “Every now and then our inner eleven-year-old does come out. I can only imagine what all you deal with in your work. People must spread nonsense about Noah from time to time.”

“Yep. Not everyone, and you start to recognize the self-absorbed, self-serving, entitled SOBs after a while. You have a good thing going here. If some bad as well as some good got you here, so be it.”

He tossed Marilyn into the fire. Olivia watched the flare of the flames as the little slip of paper quickly burned.

“It’s not her success that upset you,” Dylan said. “That has nothing to do with you. It’s the loss of her friendship. It’s misjudging her, and yourself. Maybe you were ready to shake things up.”

She nodded but was obviously on the verge of tears.

Dylan kissed her on the top of the head. “I’ll get out of here and give you some time to yourself. Your father said that fishermen can go right over the cellar hole to the Websters’ former home. I was thinking about getting a fishing license and renting a boat, seeing for myself.”

“Tomorrow’s supposed to be beautiful.”

“You could come with me.”

“I could.”

“I found a couple of old fishing poles in Grace’s shed. See you bright and early.”

She caught his arm as he started to leave. “I have one en suite bedroom if you want to stay here. That way you won’t risk running into me in the hall.”

“Just in the morning when your hair’s tousled from sleep and you’re especially irresistible.”

“I’d be sure to get dressed first.”

“No fun in that.”

She let go of him and laughed, even as her eyes filled with tears. “I’ve lost some confidence in myself the past few months. Normally I’m more fun to be around.”

“Pour yourself another glass of champagne and celebrate opening day and freeing yourself from the grip of a lost friendship. Take a hot bath. I’ll see you in the morning.” Dylan opened the main front door, hating to leave but knowing he had to. He looked back at her, saw that she was still fighting the tears. He smiled. “I’ll bring the poles. You bring some of those leftovers from your tea.”