The Lies They Tell(60)
He shrugged, half smiling. “We’re going to give it a shot. Never know until you try, right?”
She was supposed to laugh here, to agree and turn the conversation onto lighter things, but she couldn’t. Couldn’t force another word from her mouth as she sat there, feeling sucker punched, tasting a memory of rum eggnog and humiliation, hearing the whisper everything you hoped for, sweetie? as her eyes burned with tears.
He still held the keys. Pearl took them back, grabbed her bag. “I better get home. Dad will be wondering.” And now she’d just told a lie to Reese, who knew better and made a soft sound.
“Pearl, come on. Don’t run off.”
“I’m not. Thanks. For tonight.” Her voice broke at the end, but she was halfway out the door and hoped he hadn’t caught it. She got into her car, keeping her face averted as she started the engine. She was glad when he left first, so she could sit for a minute and let her vision blur, feel some release before making the drive home through the rows of quiet, sleeping houses.
Twenty-One
IT WAS A relief when they weren’t on the next afternoon, Reese and Indigo. Pearl didn’t mind the solitude in a crowd this time, spending most of her shift in her head—so long as she didn’t have to see them together.
She’d lost him. No wonder Indigo had been so willing to help with Marilyn, had even spoken a few words to Pearl in the kitchen the other day. Not hard to be magnanimous when you knew you’d won. Pearl had known frustration and jealousy during this cold war, but never grief like this. It dragged her around by the collar all day, catching her up, jerking her back whenever her mind strayed too far from the nagging ache that was Reese belonging to Indigo, no longer being the person Pearl could call, day or night, no matter what. Because he’d be sharing a bed, making a home.
There were the keys, of course. Pearl had those. She kept expecting Meriwether to call an emergency staff meeting and announce that there’d been a break-in and a case of dollhouse molestation, but nothing happened. Apparently, the little club had become a part of the scenery already, and no one was looking closely at the rooms anymore.
On her lunch break, Pearl took the keys from where she’d stashed them—the coin purse in her wallet—and went through the lobby as though she were on official business, keeping her gaze trained away from the front desk in case Meriwether was lurking.
The fitness center was packed, the room filled with hard breathing, the sound of bodies pounding against machines. Pearl went past the desk with a smile at the attendant and headed straight for the women’s locker room, hoping she looked like she knew what she was doing. They’d all gotten the lecture about using member facilities without a guest pass, so this had better be in-and-out—sooner or later, somebody would put a bug in management’s ear, and Pearl would be the one getting a write-up.
The showers were all in use, women changing and stretching in the locker area, giving her a few glances as she picked a locker at random and, hoping the owner wasn’t around to see, tried the key in the padlock hanging from the hasp. The key was too small, all the wrong shape. She looked down the line, saw a row of identical padlocks, standard Yales distributed by the club.
Next was the cabana house, poolside. She walked down the line of sunbathers, keeping her eyes on the concrete, hoping Quinn wouldn’t appear and rip into her about the cave and Hadley, as if Pearl were the boys’ keeper or something.
The cabana snack stand had a line around the corner, and Pearl ducked between members to get into the changing area, trying to see around the traffic coming and going from the stalls to where the lockers were. More Yale locks. Strike two.
Her phone vibrated as she let herself out into the sunshine. Incoming text: I can c u. Bridges.
She glanced around, spotted him sitting in a chaise lounge across the pool from her, shirtless, wearing board shorts and sunglasses. Akil sat beside him, eyes closed, earbuds in. She went over, aware that she was sweating through her uniform blouse, that every other girl nearby wore a bikini or a skimpy cover-up.
Bridges drew himself up, taking off his sunglasses. “I called you last night.”
“I know. Sorry. I fell asleep really early.” She’d stayed awake until one, eyes swollen and red, checking her phone now and then to see if a new text might pop up from Tristan. None had. “How’s the water?”
“Awesome. Can you stay? It’s too nice out to be stuck inside.”
“You should tell my supervisor. I’m sure she’ll go for it.”
“Listen. When’s your next day off?”
“Tomorrow.”
“Come by the cottage. I can show you our beach, take you around the place. The estate’s a lot bigger than it looks from the road.”
“Okay. I’ll be there.” She could see a hint of a smirk playing around Akil’s lips as he pretended not to listen, probably thinking that she was clueless about what it really meant for a girl to go to Bridges’s cottage. At least Tristan had been up front with her about it; she wanted to ask where he was today, but she didn’t trust her own poker face, didn’t want Bridges reading too much into the question. It worried her, the thought of Tristan alone, nothing to distract him from whatever heat-warped film reel played in his head as night approached.
She walked across the golf course to meet Dad at the end of the day. They’d rode in together earlier, but this time she didn’t have to hunt him down. He was with the other groundskeepers, locking up the outbuildings for the night. He squeezed her around the shoulders as she came up beside him.