She set our drinks down on the table, closed her eyes, and inhaled deeply. “Just smell that sea air. This place has done wonders for me already. You know, this is the longest I’ve gone without thinking about Rich in, I don’t know, years probably.”
So far, Zosia had kept fairly tight-lipped about her impending divorce from mogul Richard Barry. I suppose when the whole world considers the breakdown of your marriage front-page news, the last thing you want to do is add any more fuel to the fire.
“How long were you guys married?” I asked.
“It would’ve been thirty years this November.”
“Wow. Do you miss him?”
She looked up from her cup. “You know, you’re the first person who’s ever asked me that. Everyone else is so consumed with the financial ramifications of our breakup they’ve forgotten there are two people at the center of this marriage, who at one time were very much in love. And we were very much in love, you know.”
I smiled. “I can believe it. How’d you two meet?”
“At Stanford, our freshman year. We were immediately inseparable. To my parents’ chagrin, we got married right after graduation. I supported him through his MBA and half a dozen failed business ventures. Then, twenty years ago, he comes to me with this idea for an online platform to sell consumer goods—his modern-day version of the Sears catalogue, and I could see that look in his eyes, he wanted this one to work, needed this one to work. So, I helped him build The Jungle from nothing. It went from the two of us filling orders out of our garage in Palo Alto to a multi-billion-dollar company. I don’t give two shits about any of that. I miss my lover. I miss my best friend. I miss my sparring partner. I miss the father to my children.”
Zosia had tears brimming in her eyes. “But,” she said, dabbing them away with a napkin, “I didn’t realize until I got here that there was someone else I was also missing—myself. I haven’t thought about my needs, my wants, my feelings in forever. For years, it was all about Rich and our children. Then, it was all about The Jungle and our public personas. When you throw our kind of money into the equation, forget about it, you completely lose sight of who you were and what used to matter to you. You become somebody else entirely. At least, that’s what I liked to tell myself about his affair. My Rich wouldn’t have strayed.”
I rested my head on my hands. “And you feel differently now?”
“Who he is, who he was, I suppose I see now that none of it matters. He made his choice, and that choice just happens to be barely twenty-five years old, with flawless skin and a perfect rack.”
I set my arms down on the table and tilted my head to the side. “You’re a beautiful woman, Zosia.”
She put her hands over mine. “Thank you, Joanna. You really are a sweetheart. Your mother must be so proud of you.”
I pulled my hands back and set them down into my lap. “My mother passed away a few years ago.”
“I’m so sorry, I didn’t know.”
“That’s okay, I don’t talk about it much—well, ever, to be honest.”
Zosia stood up from the table and smoothed some hair away from my face. “With one week of Boot Camp left, maybe it’s time you did.”
Chapter Twenty-Four
The next morning, I grabbed my notebook and the treasure map and was out on the beach just as the sun was coming up. I found a chaise lounge that had been left out from the day before and settled in to work on my letter assignment to Sam. I flipped open to a clean page and thought back to Dr. P’s instructions. He wanted me to write a letter to Sam that explored the good and bad parts of our relationship, where I was to take some responsibility for my part in its ultimate demise.
I set pen to paper, and before I knew it, I had filled several pages of the notebook with musings about Sam’s affair. Maybe I had played a role, but there was no way my mistakes even came close to touching his. After all, an affair was the ultimate betrayal of the heart wasn’t it?
I scribbled out a few more thoughts and set the notebook down—that was quite enough indignation for one day. I picked up the treasure map and looked out to the horizon. Tucking the notebook into the back of my shorts, I slipped on my aqua shoes and set out for the lighthouse.
This time, I made it all the way across the jetty to the lighthouse and retrieved the second clue from up inside the bell tower. I unfurled the tightly rolled paper and read the scroll.
Teach me to steer the ocean swell, where untouched I glide, through a place I’ll never belong, but that beckons me always to ride.
The surf school! I hurried back up the beach and over to the shed. I pushed open the swinging door and squatted down to look for the next clue behind the surfboards lining the wall.
“Need any help?” said a familiar voice above my head.
I spun around on my knees and came face-to-face with Todd’s…knees. I looked up and into his handsome face. His hair was pulled back into his signature man bun, and his wet suit was glistening from a recent dip in the ocean. He stood his surfboard up against the wall.
“Joanna, what are you doing here?” he asked when I didn’t respond to his offer of help.
I stood up and brushed off my shorts. “I’m still in search of that buried treasure.”
He raised his eyebrows. “Any luck?”
I pulled the first clue out of my pocket. “I made it all the way out to the lighthouse this time.”
Todd looked down at my ankle. “Unscathed?”
“Unscathed,” I repeated, pointing at my aqua shoes.
“Smart.” He peered over my shoulder to read the clue. “Want any help trying to find the next one?”
After Louisa’s revelation, I’d decided I would take a step back from my budding friendship with Todd, or whatever it was that was developing between us. It’s not that he owed me an explanation, exactly, but he’d been so forthcoming about his restaurant going under and what brought him to Topsail, all the while conveniently leaving out the bit about his ex-girlfriend’s role in all of it. I couldn’t help but wonder what his angle was.
“I’m okay, thanks.”
“I don’t have to be anywhere for a while. Between the two of us, I’m sure we can find the treasure,” he said.
“I’m supposed to find it on my own, part of the Boot Camp experience.”
He smiled and put his finger over his lips. “I won’t tell if you won’t.”
“You won’t tell whom? Louisa?” The forcefulness of my tone surprised me, but after Sam, I had no intention of being blindsided by a man ever again.
He closed his eyes. “She told you.”
“She told me the two of you used to date. What I don’t understand is why you didn’t tell me. I know you don’t technically owe me anything, and maybe I’m crazy, but it felt like there was something developing between us.”
“You aren’t crazy,” he said softly.
“So why wouldn’t you just be honest with me?”
“I didn’t want to scare you off. Lou’s built a whole career around helping women get over the men who broke their hearts. If I told you I was the ex-boyfriend of the founder of THE Breakup Boot Camp, I can only imagine what you would’ve thought of me. I wanted you to get to know me a bit better before all of that came to light.”