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Chris rushed into my office, his face beet red and huffing like he’d personally ran up and down all twenty-eight flights of stairs to our offices to see me instead of just crossing the hall. “You’re taking an un-paid sabbatical. Right now. Come back in sixty days a normal person or I won’t be able to keep them from firing you, Kenna.”
I nodded, because what else could I do? I’d just told my CEO I’d genital him within eight inches of his life. I’d fire me.
Liz and I both stared at the doorway after he’d left. She finally turned to me, eyes wide. “Wow, Kenna. I’m not sure if I should be scared or just damn proud.”
I squeezed her hand, hoping she knew how much I appreciated her even when I couldn’t get the words out. I’d had a lot of words a few minutes ago, but I was currently fresh out. A toilet flushed on the other side of my wall, breaking the silence. The symbolism didn’t miss me. After nine years of busting my ass to move up the ranks, I’d just flushed my career down the toilet.
Grabbing my bag, I looked around my office. Several pictures of me and Justin were prominently displayed. The mug he’d given me one year on Valentine’s Day. A snake plant I’d bought when he dragged me to Home Depot one too many times. None of it was anything I wanted to keep. I threw the strap of my bag over my shoulder and lifted my nose in the air.
“I’ll call you when I get home. Stay here. You don’t want to be tainted by walking next to me.”
The walk of shame through the office was a silent one as everyone stared. Thankfully no one joined my elevator ride down to the first floor. The first full breath I’d taken all week happened the second I stepped outside of the tall glass skyscraper. Cars were zooming by in the rain and people were hurrying about their business with umbrellas covering their heads, having no clue that someone’s life had just imploded. Mine. It was my life.
I held my hand out and watched the drops cover my palm. So much for sunny skies today.
“You’re in shock, love,” I whispered out loud.
I nodded, also aware that having conversations with myself was dangerous territory, but hell, I needed to hear a friendly voice, even if it was my own. I scurried to my car with my bag over my head, shielding me from most of the rain.
It was as I left the city that my car gave a lurch and began to lose speed. “You’ve got to be fucking kidding me!” I shouted, slamming my palm down on the steering wheel and veering off to the side of the road with flashers on and my dashboard displaying no less than three warning lights.
It wasn’t the best neighborhood, so I called a tow service from inside the car with my doors locked. They were twenty minutes out, which seemed like an eternity when all I wanted to do was get home, put my sweats on, and eat a gallon of ice cream to keep from losing my shit entirely.
Two guys across the street were eyeing my car. I kept the phone to my ear. Why? I had no clue, but when they approached, I yelled something about speaking to the cop in charge, my heart racing. My pretend phone call with the cops didn’t deter these two fellas who looked like they dropped out of school to lead a rougher life that included scaring women on the side of the road. They crept behind my car and I spun in my seat to see what they were doing. One had his head on a swivel and the other one disappeared under my car.
With the squeak of metal on metal, I lurched to the side. “Motherfucker!” Those two assholes had my car on a jack. Another clank and the one keeping watch rolled my tire away.
“Hey!” I smacked the inside of my windows. “Put that back!”
They ignore me, jacking up each corner of my car and rolling away all four of my tires. While I was inside. Shouting obscenities the whole time.
In the grand scheme of things, when the tow truck finally came, I should have been glad they didn’t break a window and rob me. As it was, I had enough time to sit in my car and read through the papers in that manilla envelope that had been on my doorstop.
I burst out laughing, the sound demented and scary, even to my own ears.
Justin had served me with divorce papers.
Chapter Two
Dec
“Catch anything good?” Sam hollered at me the second I got my boat close enough to kill the motor.
“Always do,” I drawled, throwing out the spring line.
Carl grabbed it and wrapped it around the dock cleat with a modicum of expertise. Bob and Jerry, sitting at one of the concrete picnic benches that lined the dock, had their mouths too full of Annette’s donuts to help out. Which was fine by me. I could get this boat docked in my sleep if I had to, despite it being a forty-two-foot Boston Whaler with three six-hundred-horsepower outboards. The Afishinado was a thing of beauty.
The gator boys, as they liked to call themselves due to their college mascot affiliation, were more talk than action. They hung around the docks most mornings, giving the fishermen shit while they ate their donuts and drank the mediocre coffee from Glaze of Glory. When both ran out, they usually moved on to the park downtown, becoming geriatric pests to the young mothers who just wanted to give their kids some time outdoors to run off energy before dinner. Sunshine Key had a gang problem and they were pushing eighty years old.
“You’re back kind of early. They ain’t biting today?” Sam asked again as I cleaned up the boat to sit overnight. The man didn’t actually care about what fish I’d managed to hook today. He just liked to hear his own voice.
“Gotta pick up Maeve.”
Conversation died down immediately, as I knew it would. My neighbor, the one I talked to every single day since I moved down here to the Keys a decade ago, had passed away last week. Seeing as how we’d become fast friends, I was entrusted with picking up her ashes today. Maeve hadn’t hung out with this motley crew of old men, but they knew who she was. Everyone knew everyone in Sunshine Key.
“God rest her soul,” Jerry said around another mouthful of donut.
I grabbed the cooler and hefted it up on the dock before ducking down to grab my personal belongings. The midmorning sun was already predicting a scorcher of a day. As much as I loved sitting out at sea and hooking anything that came my way, I wouldn’t mind getting out of this heat a little earlier than usual. Floating on my boat was usually my favorite way to pass the time, but thoughts of Maeve and what in the hell this life was even for had made the last few fishing trips somber ones.
