Good for You: A Novel (72)

He’d be honest, she realized.

And so would she.

“The guy in there?” she said to Jon. “The one who’s working on the boat with the kids?”

“Wyatt Goldstein?” said Jon, looking at her quizzically. “We just promoted him to assistant director. He’s here all the time—he even runs evening workshops with some of the teens, since they tend to be night owls. We’re big fans of Wyatt. Do you know him?”

Know him? She knew that corny jokes made his eyes crinkle at the corners, and that he squirmed whenever she touched his wrists. She knew that he’d lived through the loss of a sibling, too, and that he was perhaps the only person in her life who understood what she was going through.

And she knew that her brother—who had nothing if not exquisite taste in human beings—had chosen Wyatt to be his best friend . . . and to share the beach house with her.

I’m in love with him.

The thought sent an electric current through her core. She had been in love with him all along, even if she had fought tooth and nail to deny it and push him away.

And oh, how she’d pushed him away.

“Yes, I . . . I live with him,” said Aly softly, well aware that this would probably confuse Jon; after all, why would she hide from the person she lived with? And wouldn’t she already know he worked there?

But there was a relatively simple way to explain it. “And the sailboat he’s working on with those kids?” she said. “It belonged to my brother, Luke. He was sailing it when he died last September.”





THIRTY-EIGHT


Simply asking Wyatt to forgive her wouldn’t be enough. Aly needed to do something bigger, something to demonstrate how sorry she was.

And yes, show him that she loved him.

Even if he didn’t change his mind and come home—and she wouldn’t blame him if he didn’t—she wanted him to see that her heart was finally in the right place.

The entire time Aly was volunteering, she wondered if Wyatt would walk by and see her, but he never did. Afterward, Aly walked back to the beach house slowly, waiting for the right idea to surface. She could write him a letter, or maybe etch an oversized apology in the sand. She could hire a plane to fly a banner over the lake, but that was just more words, not to mention a waste of money.

For once, carefully crafted sentences wouldn’t be the answer to her problems.

What, then?

She’d reached the end of the driveway, but instead of continuing toward the house, she stood there admiring the cedar shakes, the boxwoods that Wyatt had kept trimmed, the brass bell she’d polished herself just the week before, and beyond the house, the beach they both loved to walk along.

The house would always be Luke’s. But it was Wyatt’s, now, too.

And hers, she realized.

She would give him the place if he couldn’t bear to share it with her. Maybe even legally, although she’d have to talk to Roger to figure out how that would work. In the meantime, she could and would leave if that’s what Wyatt wanted.

But as she walked around to the back of the house and sat in one of the chairs on the patio, she knew she didn’t want to do that.

Before she could talk herself out of it, she pulled her phone out of her bag and called James.

“Aly?” he answered. “Everything okay?”

“Yes.” She stared out at the water, which was gray and calm. “Actually, no.”

“You heard Meagan left,” he said. “Don’t be worried about the transition—we have a meeting on the books for Tuesday to talk through what this will look like for you, and our team is already looking for someone to fill in as interim editor in chief.”

Days earlier, she would have been incensed that he wasn’t telling her she could have her job back. Now she didn’t care. “That’s not it, James,” she said. “I saw the video. You probably were unaware of this, but I couldn’t remember what I’d said in the heat of the moment—apparently forgetting conflict is a symptom of PTSD.”

“I see.”

“Now, before you run to Linda to tell her that I have PTSD so she can make sure you have all your legal i’s dotted and t’s crossed, that’s not what I’m calling about.”

James laughed nervously. “What is it, then?”

“I’m not returning to the magazine. I’m not returning to Innovate, either. I quit.” She exhaled the breath she hadn’t even realized she was holding.

“You don’t mean that, Aly. I’ve nurtured your career for twelve years. I’ve mentored you and given you every tool available to help you succeed. And we need you now more than ever.”

“Not so much that you’re going to give me my job back. It floors me that you’re more concerned about the company’s image than honoring the work I’ve put in. You had to have known that I didn’t want to be shuffled offstage even as you expected me to handle the entire production.”

He cleared his throat. “I have to tell you, I’m really taken aback by what you’re saying.”

“I understand that, and I don’t blame you. But James—the two tools you didn’t give me were transparency and a fair wage. Even after my title change, I’m making less than the Sporty senior editors.” She’d looked up the other magazine’s salaries on an anonymous message board for people working in the media. “To be entirely clear, we both know that making me editorial director isn’t a promotion; it’s a demotion. And I’m not willing to let you continue to use my talent without fairly compensating or crediting me.”