Summer at Willow Lake

“Oh, now you’re being melodramatic.”

“He’s all wrong for you, sweetheart.”

“You know what?” she said. “I don’t need this.

You’re fired.”

“You can’t fire me. You didn’t hire me in the first place.”

She tapped her foot. “In case you haven’t noticed, I’m trying to get you to leave.”

“In case you haven’t noticed, I’m trying to get you to dump Rand.”

They glared at each other, and the strain on their friendship thrummed between them. They’d met as seniors at Columbia, and had been best friends ever since. They’d even gotten matching tattoos one night before graduation, sipping liquid courage from a bottle of Southern Comfort while Jorge, the tattoo artist, created a butterfly in the small of each of their backs, a blue one for Freddy and a pink one for Olivia. Freddy had never known the old, fat, miserable Olivia. He believed she had always been fabulous. It was one of her favorite things about him.

Muttering warnings and dire predictions under his breath, he handed over his apron and duster and left. Olivia stowed the cleaning supplies, took out her cell phone and checked her messages. The least Rand could do was let her know if he was going to be late. Of course, if he was on a plane, he couldn’t very well do that, could he?

She could always call the airline, check his flight status, but she didn’t know his airline or flight number. What kind of girlfriend doesn’t know her boyfriend’s flight number? A busy one, she thought. One who’s used to having a boyfriend who travels half the time. He’d be here any minute, she told herself. She slipped a hand into her pocket and fingered the silly earrings Freddy had given her. What did Freddy know? This was right. She was ready to settle down with Rand, to make a life, have babies. The urge was so palpable that her stomach clenched.

Turning in a slow circle to survey the apartment, she felt a surge of pride and satisfaction. It was remarkable, she mused, the way minor details could matter so much, the way a shade of color or angle of light could set a mood. These things had a huge impact on buyers. A property that had been skillfully staged nearly always fetched a higher price.

Many people scratched their heads, claiming they didn’t know why there should be a pair of flip-flops haphazardly parked by the shower, or why a well-thumbed paperback copy of A Man In Full should be open and placed facedown on a nightstand. Olivia did, though. It had nothing to do with aesthetics and everything to do with human nature.

People liked to think of themselves as living a certain way, being surrounded by certain things. Creature comforts, signs of sophistication, evidence of success and, probably most important and least tangible, that sense of home, of safety and belonging. And even though what she did was all smoke and mirrors, the feelings her best work produced were real.

In her business, the key question was, When I walk into this place, do I feel like taking off my shoes, pouring a glass of sherry at the sideboard, then settling into a cushy chair with a good book and sighing, “I’m home”?

Forty-five minutes later, she was trying out the cushy chair and struggling to stave off a yawn. She tried Rand’s cell phone and his voice mail picked up on the first ring, indicating that his was still turned off. He was probably still in the air.

She waited another thirty-one minutes before heading into the kitchen. This was also beautifully arranged, right down to the retro apple design on the tea towels from a vintage-linens shop she frequented. One of the keys to staging was to find authentic things that had lost that artificial sheen of newness. The tea towels, faded but not shabby, perfectly fit the bill.

Olivia headed for the pantry, stocked with imported pasta from Dean & DeLuca, cold-pressed olive oil, pomegranate juice and dolphin-safe tuna. The stuff Rand usually ate, like Lucky Charms and canned ravioli, now lay hidden in covered wicker baskets that looked as though they wanted to go on a picnic.

She pulled out a basket and grabbed a bag of Cheetos. One of the many nutritionists she’d been sent to as a chubby teenager had counseled her about mood eating.

Screw that, she thought, ripping into the bag of Cheetos, which opened with a cheese-flavored sigh. Screw everything.

For good measure, she grabbed an Alsatian beer—another contrivance; he usually drank Bud—from the stainless-steel Sub-Zero fridge. She took a long, defiant swig and belched aloud.

She was about ten minutes into the Cheetos-and-beer-fest when she heard the front door open and close.

“Hey?” called a voice from the entryway.

Uh-oh. She looked at the orange dust clinging to her fingertips. It was probably crusted around her mouth, too.

“I’m back,” Rand called unnecessarily. Then: “Wow. Hey, this place looks awesome.”

Olivia threw the Cheetos bag and the beer bottle in the trash and rushed to the sink to wash her hands. “In the kitchen,” she answered, her voice a tad shrill. “I’ll be right out.”

She was bent over the sink, her hair falling to one side as she rinsed her mouth, when he walked in.

“Olivia, you’re a freaking genius,” he said, opening his arms.

She hastily wiped her mouth with a tea towel. “I am, aren’t I,” she said and walked into his arms.

He held her for a moment, then kissed her forehead. “You need to bill my real-estate agent for everything you’ve done here.”

Olivia froze. Her heart knew, even before her mind caught on. The awareness prickled up her spine and over her scalp. There was something in the way a man held a woman when he was about to let her go. The knowledge was in his frame and in his muscles—a tangible stiff reluctance. The air of discomfiture hovering around him was unmistakable.

She stepped back, stared up at his handsome face. “Oh, my God,” she said. “You’re breaking up with me.”

“What?” Her blunt observation clearly took him by surprise. “Hey, listen, babe. I have no idea what you’re talking about.”

The protest only underscored her conviction. She was right, and they both knew it. Many women with more powerful denial mechanisms than Olivia were able to shut out the warning sign. Not Olivia, not with her sensitive radar, not after two previous failures had left her bleeding. She was like one of those dogs trained to an electric fence. She only had to be popped twice, and then she got it.

The Cheetos and beer formed a cold, unpleasant knot in her stomach. It isn’t going to happen again, she thought. Not even if I have to do it first. “I completely misread you,” she said. “God, what an idiot.” She took another step away from him.

“Slow down,” he said, and the hand he laid on her arm was gentle and made her want to cry.

“Do it fast,” she snapped at him. “Like ripping off a Band-Aid. Get it over with quick.”

“You’re jumping to the wrong conclusion.”

“Am I?” She folded her arms across her middle. Don’t cry, she told herself, blinking away the tears that boiled behind her contact lenses. Save the crying for later. “All right. How about telling me exactly what you intend to do after selling this apartment?”

His gaze flirted ever so briefly with the light fixture on the ceiling, the one she’d replaced at two o’clock this afternoon. That was another symptom of man-on-the-run. He didn’t want to meet her eyes. “Something came up while I was in L.A.,” he told her, and despite his obvious discomfort with her, his face lit with enthusiasm. “They want me there, Liv.”

She held her breath. He was supposed to say, I told them I couldn’t make a decision until I talked to you. She already knew, though. With a dry laugh of disbelief, she said, “You told them yes, didn’t you?”

He didn’t deny it. “The firm’s going to create a new position for me.”

“What, asshole-in-residence?”

“Olivia, I know we talked about a future together. I’m not ruling that out. You could come with me.”

“And do what?”

“It’s L.A., Liv. You can do anything you want.”

Marry you? Have your babies? She knew that wasn’t what he meant.

“My whole life, my family, my home, my business, everything is here in New York. I put the last five years of myself into Transformations,” she said. “I built it. I’m not going to just walk away.”

“L.A. needs a company that does what you do,” he claimed. “The market’s just as hot there as it is here.

Hotter.” She thought about starting over from scratch, all over again. Networking, cultivating contacts, doing public relations, getting out the word of mouth. The idea exhausted her. She had finally whittled her work hours down to a manageable number, but it had taken years to get there. Starting over in L.A. would be even harder. There, her name and connections wouldn’t open any doors for her as they had in Manhattan. This can’t be happening, she thought. Not again.

“Say you love me,” she challenged him. “Say you can’t live without me. And mean it.”