Secrets of the Lost Summer

The cold, wet wind followed her inside as the door shut behind her. Then again, maybe she’d just never mind her high-stress, competitive career for an hour and think about her herb garden and the color scheme for her house in Knights Bridge. She had never been one to stay in a rotten mood for long. Even if she wasn’t as super-hot as she’d been two years ago, she was still an established, respected designer. Designers and studios lost clients all the time. It was the nature of the business. Why should she be exempt?

She unbuttoned her coat and pulled off her scarf. She was looking forward to warming up with a pasta sampler plate and salving her wounded ego with a glass of Chianti.

The bartender, a slender, black-haired man, waved to her as he filled three glasses in front of him with red wine. The restaurant was narrow, with small tables lined up along a brick wall on one side and a dark-red painted plaster wall on the other, both walls decorated with inviting black-framed prints of Tuscany. Five years ago, Olivia had celebrated her first night in Boston at a table in the far corner. She hadn’t known if she would last six months in her graphic design job, but she was still there, still working.

She noticed that the far-corner table was open, but as she started to take off her coat, her gaze fell on a man and a woman seated across from each other halfway down the brick wall.

Olivia didn’t need to look twice. The woman had her back to the entrance, but Olivia recognized Marilyn Bryson from her glistening pale hair and the way her hands moved when she was animated and trying to make a point. The man was even easier. He faced the entrance where Olivia was standing, coat and scarf half off. She only needed a glimpse to recognize stocky, gray-haired Roger Bailey.

She was positive that Roger and Marilyn hadn’t seen her.

They couldn’t see her.

Olivia had never been good at the small social lie and knew she couldn’t come up with one now, under pressure. Instead, she mumbled something unintelligible to the bartender, then fled, pushing past a couple coming through the door. Ignoring the icy conditions, she raced up the steps back out to the street.

Out of sight of anyone in the restaurant, she adjusted her scarf and debated her options. Just go back to work? How could she? She’d have to tell Jacqui what she’d just witnessed.

Unless Jacqui already knew.

Olivia headed up Newbury Street, not slackening her pace until she reached the corner. She paused to catch her breath and button her coat. Wind whipped sleet into her face and onto the clothes she’d carefully chosen for the meeting that had never happened. She shivered, blaming the tears in her eyes on the sharp wind and cold, even as a sudden sense of dejection and demoralization sank over her. Losing a major client to a stranger would be bad enough…but to a friend?

“Olivia!”

She pretended not to hear Marilyn behind her. The light changed, and she crossed the street at her normal pace, not wanting to look as if she were upset or fleeing from anything.

Marilyn caught up with her on the opposite corner. She hadn’t grabbed her coat and already looked cold. “I thought that was you.” She reached out a hand but didn’t quite touch Olivia. “Are you okay? You ran out so fast—”

“I got a text message from a client,” Olivia said quickly, hating to lie, suspecting she sounded phony. “It’s nice to see you. I have to run, though.” She faked a smile. “Just as well with this weather. Enjoy your lunch.”

“It’s with Roger Bailey, Liv. I should have told you but I didn’t know what to say.”

“He called you?”

Marilyn lowered her hand, and her eyes, their vivid blue enhanced by contact lenses, shifted back toward the restaurant, then focused again on Olivia. “We agreed to have lunch. This was the only place I could think of on short notice.”

It was an evasive answer. Olivia forced herself to nod. “Tell Roger I said hi.”

“I’ll do that. It’s good to see you, Liv. Everything’s going so well for me right now that I just haven’t had time—”

“I understand. I’m glad you’re doing well, Marilyn. I have to go.”

“Call me anytime.”

Olivia didn’t respond as she continued down the street. After half a block, she glanced back, but Marilyn was already out of view, in the restaurant that she knew was Olivia’s personal favorite. Had Marilyn chosen it, risking that her friend might walk in, or just figuring she wouldn’t?

Why had Marilyn chosen the restaurant and not Roger?

Did it even matter?

Olivia shoved her hands into her pockets, wishing now she’d worn gloves. She could see sleet collecting on the sidewalk and car windshields. She turned stiffly off Newbury toward Commonwealth Avenue.

Think about spring wildflowers. Trillium and lady’s slippers, jack-in-the-pulpit, wild geraniums....

She lost her footing in a slick spot, dispelling any image of wildflowers trying to take form. She and Marilyn had developed a pattern in their friendship of focusing on Marilyn—her work, her problems, her accomplishments. Olivia hadn’t felt any great need to talk about herself or break out champagne over her own accomplishments, but it was more than that. She saw that now, if too late.

Intellectually, she knew that her own situation had nothing to do with the turnaround in Marilyn’s career. Every career, Olivia told herself, went through downturns and she would get through whatever was coming at her. She rarely discussed her career with Marilyn. She tended to be more private, and Marilyn was busy, caught up in her newfound success and focused on herself and her own career. She had said repeatedly that she couldn’t allow distractions. It was easy to think she had pulled back from their friendship once Olivia was no longer of use, but Olivia doubted it was that simple.

Until just now. Seeing Marilyn with Roger Bailey had Olivia reeling. Had Marilyn actually targeted a friend’s major client?

The wind eased as Olivia came to Commonwealth, one of her favorite streets in Boston. She waited for the light, then crossed the wide avenue in front of a line of stopped cars, their headlights glowing in the gray, their windshield wipers grinding steadily against the unrelenting rain and sleet. Only the buds on Commonwealth’s dozens of magnolias suggested that spring had, indeed, arrived and was just having a setback.

Olivia smiled to herself. “I can identify.”

She had seldom taken time to celebrate when she was Boston’s hot designer. Now she couldn’t help but wonder if she would ever have another reason to break out the champagne.

Well, she thought, she would just have to make up a reason—like getting parsley, rosemary and dill to grow in pots in her city window. Wasn’t that reason enough to open a bottle of bubbly?

The attempt at boosting her mood failed. She’d just walked into a restaurant and caught her biggest client blowing her off to have lunch with another designer—who happened to be one of her closest friends.

Not happened to be. Marilyn knew about Roger because of her friendship with Olivia.

Marilyn knew that what she was doing was unethical.

If Roger Bailey was in her orbit, who was next?

Olivia couldn’t deny the reality of her situation. It wouldn’t take many more Roger Baileys for her career to spiral into an outright tailspin.

She reminded herself that how she felt about today was for her to decide. Roger was making a business decision. The meaning she gave it was her choice. She was a professional, right? A positive person, right?

A dog walker, a graduate student who lived in her building, breezed past her with five tongue-wagging dogs of various sizes and breeds. He smiled in greeting but didn’t pause as he and the dogs barreled toward Commonwealth, all of them looking unperturbed by the weather.

Olivia laughed as she watched them retreat.

Nothing like a quintet of happy dogs to lift the spirits. Her family had always had golden retrievers back in Knights Bridge.

Her father had warned her about Marilyn when he’d met her on one of his rare visits to Boston. “She’s using you, Liv,” he’d said, cutting right to the chase.

That was Randy Frost. He denied he was cynical, instead insisting he had a realistic view of human nature. Olivia hadn’t listened. She was the one who knew Marilyn. Marilyn was driven and ambitious, but those weren’t offenses in their world.

When Olivia reached her apartment, she shed her coat and scarf and left them in a heap by the door and walked in her stocking feet to her galley kitchen. She had pulled wool socks on over her black tights, but no one else could see them. She had wanted her lunch with Roger Bailey to go well. She had worked on fresh concepts and was ready to listen, get his thoughts on what he was looking for.

Instead, their lunch hadn’t happened at all.

No, she amended. It had happened with Marilyn.

Olivia opened her refrigerator. She didn’t have a bottle of champagne chilling, or anything she wanted to eat, either.

She wasn’t hungry, anyway, she thought, shutting the refrigerator again. Her herbs looked cold on the windowsill. She raked one hand through her hair, damp from the sleet and rain. How could she go back to work and tell Jacqui Ackerman what had just happened?