The Opportunist (Love Me with Lies, #1)(54)

A month ago, I got a call from my old boss, Bernie. She wants me to come and work at her firm, says if I do well she’ll make me partner. Cammie and I drink on it all week. She’s wanted to move back to Florida for years. Cammie says that its time I face South Florida again. She says it’s where I belong. Texas is for friendly people, she tells me. I belong somewhere fast paced and rude. We decide to sell our townhouse and transplant our lives.

I have a boy, well, male friend—did I mention that? He is wonderful. He promises that we can make our long distance relationship work until he can be transferred to be with me. I believe him. He wants to marry me, he says so all the time. I believe him on that, too.

I pack my things into a U-Haul with the help of Turner, that’s my boyfriend, and we drive across three state lines listening to the best of the eighties. Cammie calls every thirty minutes to check on me. She is following in a few months, probably with three U-Hauls.

Turner massages my neck while I drive. He’s such a peach. When we arrive at my new condo, which I will not be sharing with Cammie, there are men waiting to carry my furniture into my new home. Turner hired them to help, so we wouldn’t have to do it ourselves. I wouldn’t have minded, but Turner hates to get his hands dirty. After the movers leave I wander from room to room admiring the very impressive view. From the south side windows I can see the ocean as it melts into the horizon and from the west, every rooftop in a mile radius. The condo is in Sunny Isles and it cost me more than my mother had made in her lifetime. I am a good defense attorney, I am an excellent liar. Life has turned out the way I always wanted it to. Except for…anyway…I love my condo. Turner and I will no doubt christen it tonight. Fun. Yay! He is very handsome in a conventional, clean-cut way. He is tall, olive skinned, and pretentious. He wears dress shirts all the time. No seriously—he does. He is also a lawyer, so we have lots and lots in common. Real Estate law—but still…

Oh and he hates basketball, just like me. Fabulous right?

I met him the day I took the Bar. He asked to borrow a pencil. What type of idiot comes to take the bar without a pencil? I think. When I handed it to him he just sat there and looked at me.

“What?” I said, not even trying to hide my impatience.



“I need your number, too.” He said it so ‘matter-of-factly’ that I gave it to him. I respected the gall.



I am happy.



After the movers leave, we order sushi, or I do, because Turner doesn’t eat ‘raw fish.’ I walk around my new condo in one of his t-shirts because I haven’t unpacked my things yet. We have sex. He takes me to the BMW dealership the next morning and buys me a car as a house warming present. Wowzer, right? At six o’ clock that evening, I drive him to the Ft. Lauderdale airport in my new, red sports car, and we kiss before he gets on the plane.

“This will work,” he tells me.



“How do you know?” I say, smoothing the lapels on his jacket.



“Because we’re going to get married.”



“We are?” I reply with mock surprise. He always says this, and I always say that.





“We are,” he affirms and then he gets on his knee and pulls a box out of his pocket.



I drive home, engaged. I look at the ring all the way there, as if it’s going to bite me. It’s a Tiffany’s iceberg—big and gaudy. It reminds me of something but I can’t remember what since I have soooo completely moved on.

In three months I have taken the Florida Bar Exam and passed. I start my new job as a Defense Attorney for Spinner and Associates. The secretary oooh’s and aah’s at my ring. She asks me about Turner, what he does, what he looks like. She has a slight gap between her two front teeth which I stare at as she sings the names of her two miniature cockapoo’s: Melody and Harmony. She tells me how her grandmother’s garden gnomes were stolen from her yard in broad daylight. Broad daylight! In Boca Raton nonetheless. I sympathize with the gnome situation and set up a play date for Melody, Harmony, and Pickles.

When I settle behind my desk for the first time, I feel accomplished. My things are unpacked at the condo, my drivers’ license has been changed back to Florida, I have groceries, and yesterday I visited my mother’s grave to fill her in on my engagement. This is my new life, I realize with mild surprise, and then I lower my head to my desk and cry because it is really my old life with hollow upgrades. I call Cammie to tell her this and to tell her that I made a big mistake moving back here. Big. Huge. She listens to me cry and then tells me that I’m stupid and she’ll be here in three weeks, to hold on and hold down, things will get better.

“Okay,” I say, but I don’t believe it—not even for a second.

But things do get better. At first, I adjust to my new routine anxiously. When I fled to Texas four years ago, I arrived practically empty-handed. I built a brand new life there, filling my cabinets with plates and glasses and a new Thomas Barbey print for the hall. There was nothing left to remind me of my adventures in Florida. Now, when I walk through my new home, I am putting on the same lamps and making tea in the same kettle that was part of my Texas life. It is confusing. But with all things new, there is a stage of uncomfortable acclamation. After a few weeks, Sunny Isles becomes my home, Spinner and Associates becomes my job, and the Publix at 42nd and Eisenhower becomes my grocery store. Cammie arrives with Pickles a week later as scheduled. She stays with me for a month before moving into her own place, which is a short thirty-minute drive away. Cammie doesn’t like Turner. Did I mention that already? She says that he is as predictable as a virgin’s period. I mean, she doesn’t hate him, but she could definitely do without him, as she reminds me on many occasions. I like Turner. I really, really do.