I avoided downtown and drove south instead, into South San Francisco, then over the bridge across the bay. I had stopped for coffee and a sandwich somewhere near CSU when my phone rang. It was a number from Gratchen Advertising.
That was when I realized I was supposed to be at work right now.
I stared at the number, and instead of feeling sick dread or helplessness, I felt nothing at all. Like Gratchen was from some other lifetime. I answered. “Hello?”
“Olivia.” It was Corey. “It’s after noon. It’s Sunday, but we are behind on the l’Orifice presentation because you left on Friday night. I sent you an email telling you to come in. Were you going to bother showing up?”
I swallowed the last bite of my sandwich. I had, indeed, seen the email on my phone, but I’d completely ignored it. “I’m sorry.”
There was a long pause, the sound of Corey obviously waiting for me to say something else. “That’s all?” he said finally. “I’m sorry?”
Answers ran through my head. I had a rough night last night. Someone threw me down the stairs and I went to the hospital. It was a perfectly good reason for me not to come in on my day off. At least, for any other employer it would be a perfectly good reason. I had the feeling Corey would argue it.
And suddenly, I didn’t care. I didn’t owe him anything. I didn’t owe them anything. Not my personal life, not my mental energy, and not my time. Not even for the piddly amount of money they paid me.
“I forgot,” I told him.
I could practically see his eyes bulge behind his glasses. “You forgot to come to work?”
“I did, actually,” I said. “And I wouldn’t have come, even if I remembered. I guess that means I’m not cut out for the job. So here you go. I quit.”
“Olivia, we have important deadlines coming up. We are buried in work here. You can’t just quit without notice.”
It was funny that he would say that, since the firm had been telling me from the first day that I was completely replaceable and there was a lineup out the door of graphic designers waiting to take my job. “Just hire someone else,” I said. “Let them pay their dues instead of me. But I can’t work for you anymore. I’m done.”
“This is outrageous,” he said. “There’s no way you’re getting a reference from us.”
It was like he was talking another language. The idea of asking for a reference, so I could get another job just like that one, was absurd. “That’s fine,” I said. “Have a nice day.”
“Olivia, I really can’t understand why you would do this.”
“Because life is too short to do something I hate,” I said. “Bye.” And I hung up.
I waited. Sitting in the car, with my phone in my hand, I waited for the panic to set in. That was the single craziest thing I had ever done—almost crazier than letting a criminal on the run into my apartment, or getting into Devon Wilder’s car. I had quit my job. I had told them off. I had nothing else. I was unemployed.
But the panic didn’t come. I had savings; I’d put money aside from my first paycheck. I didn’t need much to live on. The rent at Shady Oaks was cheap, but if I had to, I could bunk with Gwen or my mother for a while. The house in Diablo flashed through my mind—and the billionaire who lived in it—but I pushed it away for the moment. I would find my way on my own.
As if he was reading my mind, a text appeared on my phone from Devon.
Tell me you’re safe, he wrote.
I stared at that and my heart flipped. A huge, slow, dizzying turn in my chest. He could have been angry with me; he could have flipped out. He could have demanded I tell him where I was, or tried to order me to come back. He could even have come after me, or sent Ben after me.
But he said and did none of those things. Instead, he’d asked me about the one thing that mattered the most to him—whether I was all right.
I took a deep breath. I was in love with Devon Wilder. It was clear to me now—I wasn’t just in lust with him, or fascinated by his looks and his personality and his complex life. I was in love with him. And he was in San Francisco, while I was driving away.
And somehow, right now, that was right.
I’m safe, I told him. And then, because I couldn’t resist, I added, It’s a beautiful car.
Thank you, he wrote back. Consider it a loan.
A loan meant this wasn’t forever. A loan meant I was coming back.
Was I coming back?
I didn’t know, not right now. I couldn’t answer. I just knew I wanted to keep going.
It wasn’t until I got onto Interstate 5, heading south, that I realized where I was going. I drove for an hour, dodging heavy traffic and trucks, before pulling over at another stop and calling my sister.
“You busy?” I asked Gwen.
“Just running errands. It’s my day off,” she said. She sounded like she was outside somewhere, maybe heading for her car. “What’s up?”
So I told her, as briefly as I could, that I had been thrown down the stairs last night, and today I’d quit my job, borrowed—stole, sort of—Devon Wilder’s Mercedes, and left town. When she was done shouting at me (“Holy shit, what’s the matter with you? Why didn’t you call me? Are you all right?”) she finally got around to asking me where I was going.
“I just pulled off I-5,” I told her. “I think I’m going to LA. To see Mom.”
There was a moment of quiet. “You haven’t been back to LA since art school,” Gwen said.
“No,” I replied. “I think I owe her a visit.”
“She’ll be happy to see you.”
“I hope so.” I’d always felt so clearly that I’d let my mother down when I failed art school; she’d paid for it out of her own pocket, and I hadn’t even finished. I’d told myself ever since that I felt bad letting Mom down, but now I was starting to see the truth: I’d felt bad letting myself down. And it was time to let it go. “I’ll tell her you said hello.”
“Sure,” Gwen said with dark humor in her voice. “If she asks.”
I bit my lip. Gwen was going to have to work out her own problems with Mom; I had to focus on mine. “I’ll be in touch.”
“Drive safe,” she said. “And don’t talk to strangers.”
After I hung up and got back on the interstate, I made a decision. I pulled off and headed for Highway 1 instead—taking the longer, winding scenic route down to LA, instead of the fastest route straight down the interstate. I’d never seen Salinas or any of the towns along the coast. Maybe now was the time.
I had a beautiful car, a little money, a road ahead of me, and nowhere to be. I should have been blissed out.
There was no reason I should feel so empty.
Chapter 27
From the San Francisco News:
Largest Drug Bust in San Francisco History Underway
Police have begun the largest drug bust in San Francisco history, according to Police Chief Mark Sanders in a press conference today.
“This is an extraordinary occurrence,” he said. “We fight the drug war every day, but today we have been given the opportunity to execute a clean sweep.”