Dream Lake (Friday Harbor #3)(58)

“A wedding present from Chris.” She smiled. “He told me if you own a cameo for seven years, it becomes a lucky charm.”

“You’re due for some luck,” he said.

“I think people don’t always know when lucky things are happening to them. Or they only realize it later. Like the divorce from Chris. It turned out to be the best thing for both of us.”

“That wasn’t luck. That was bailing out after a mistake.”

She made a little face at him. “I try not to think of the marriage as a mistake, but more like something fate put in my path. To help me learn, and grow.”

“What did you learn?” he asked with a mocking gleam in his eyes.

“How to be better at forgiving. How to be more independent.”

“Don’t you think you could have learned that stuff without some higher power putting you through a divorce?”

“You probably don’t even believe in a higher power.”

He shrugged. “Existentialism has always made a lot more sense to me than fate, God, or chance.”

“I’ve never been sure exactly what existentialism is,” Zoë confessed.

“It’s knowing the world is crazy and meaningless, so you have to find your own truth. Your own meaning. Because nothing else makes sense. No higher power, just human beings stumbling through life.”

“But … does having no faith make you happier?” she asked doubtfully.

“To existentialists, you can only be happy if you can manage to live in a state of denial about the absurdity of human existence. So … happiness is out.”

“That’s horrible,” Zoë said, laughing. “And way too deep for me. I like things I can be sure of. Like recipes. I know that the right amount of baking powder makes a cake rise. And eggs bind the other ingredients together. And life is basically good, and so are most people, and chocolate is proof that God wants us to be happy. See? My mind works on the most superficial level possible.”

“I like how your mind works.” As he held her gaze, there was a brief, hot flicker in his eyes. “Call if you have any problems,” he said. “Otherwise I won’t see you for a couple of days.”

“I wouldn’t dream of bothering you during your time off. You’ve worked practically nonstop since the project started.”

“It’s no hardship to work,” he said, “when I’m being paid well.”

“I appreciate it anyway.”

“I’ll come to the cottage on Monday. From now on I won’t start until about ten, so your grandmother will have time to get up and have breakfast before all the noise starts.”

“Will Gavin and Isaac come with you?”

“No. Just me, that first week. I don’t want to overwhelm Emma with too many new faces all at once.”

Zoë was touched and a little surprised by the realization that Alex had considered her grandmother’s feelings so carefully. “What are you going to do this weekend?” she asked, obliging Alex to stop at the doorway.

He gave her an opaque glance. “Darcy’s visiting. She wants to stage the house to sell faster.”

“I thought you said it was already impersonal. Isn’t that the point of staging?”

“Apparently not always. Darcy’s bringing an expert in target staging. The theory is that you’re supposed to fill the house with colors and objects that make potential buyers connect emotionally with the place.”

“Do you think that will work?”

He shrugged. “Regardless of what I think, it’s Darcy’s house.”

So Alex would be spending at least part of the weekend, if not all of it, in the company of his ex-wife. Zoë remembered what he’d once told her, that he and Darcy had slept together after the divorce out of sheer convenience. It would probably happen again, she thought, while depression settled over on her. There was no reason for Alex to turn down an offer of sex if Darcy was willing.

Maybe it wasn’t depression. It felt worse than that. It felt as if she’d made a pie with poisoned fruit and eaten all of it.

No, definitely not depression. It was jealousy.

Zoë tried to smile through the feeling as if she didn’t care. The effort made her mouth hurt. “Have a good weekend,” she managed to say.

“You, too.” And he left.

He always left without looking back, Zoë thought, and jabbed another brooch into the glittering mannequin.

“What was all that crap about?” the ghost asked in a surly tone, walking beside Alex. “Existentialism … life is meaningless … you can’t really believe that.”

“I do believe it. And stop eavesdropping on me.”

“I wouldn’t have to if there was anything else to do.” The ghost scowled at him. “Look at yourself. You’re being haunted by a spirit. That’s about as unexistential as you can get. The fact that I’m with you means it doesn’t all end with death. And it also means that someone or something put me in your life for a reason.”

“Maybe you’re not a spirit,” Alex muttered. “You could be a figment of my imagination.”

“You have no imagination.”

“Maybe you’re a symptom of depression.”

“Then why don’t you take some Prozac, and see if I disappear?”