She smiled. “That’s the first time you’ve said that.”
He blinked. “Yeah, it is.” Why hadn't he said it before?
Her phone rang just as Jeremy was convincing her to go to Hallgrimskirkja. It was Krysta.
“Hi,” she said, a little too chipper.
“What's going on?” Krysta said in the same silly, singsongy voice.
“Oh, nothing,” Lydia gave back. Why not play this game? It was so much better than admitting what was really going on.
“I don’t know what's wrong with you,” Krysta said, “but I hope everything is okay.”
“Oh, I’m fine.” Lydia changed her tone of voice. “It’s just that I'm kind of busy right now.”
“Busy in a good way or busy in an oh thank God you called me Krysta because you're saving my ass kind of way?”
Both, she thought. “Not really…either of those,” she lied in response.
“But something is going on,” Krysta finished for her.
“Yes.”
“Okay, well, whatever is going on if you need an excuse just tell them that your best friend is having a horrific problem with a guy and desperately needs hours of conversation to talk her down.”
“You do?”
“No,” Krysta sighed. “I wish I did but I'm just trying to give you a good excuse.”
“Oh.” Lydia tempered her reaction. It would have been thrilling if Krysta had met such a guy and let go of her crush on Caleb. Then again, Lydia had enough excitement in her love life for the two of them. “So, why did you call?”
Jeremy’s presence quickly faded as Lydia walked toward the edge of the rooftop garden and stared out, her face against the wind.
“Just checking to see how it’s going there.”
“Well, I was thinking about going to Hallgrimskirkja.”
“Hallswhat?”
“The giant church here in Reykjavik—it’s sort of a touristy thing.”
“Oh… didn't you tell me you went there last week?”
“Yeah, I did,” Lydia said, nodding. She realized that Krysta couldn't see her.
“Lydia, what's really going on?” Krysta said furiously.
“I'm here with a guy right now.”
“Oooooh,” Krysta said. “A guy?”
“Not a guy.” Why wouldn't she tell her the truth about Jeremy? What was it that she was holding back? This was Krysta, for God’s sake—it was her best friend. There was no reason to hide the fact that she was here enjoying a cup of coffee with Jeremy, who had just asked her to go sightseeing. It didn't make sense and yet, deep in her gut, she knew it wasn’t time to say anything. Her gut had been just about the only thing she could trust other than Krysta, and so as the two fought each other, she wasn't quite sure which one should win.
If something in her couldn’t trust telling Krysta about Jeremy's presence, then what did that say about the fact that he was here at all? The past few weeks were a jumble and she felt like a live wire, just beginning to settle down until he appeared. Yet, she was grateful for his presence and so the mishmash of emotions left her unmoored.
“It sounds like I'm catching you at a bad time,” Krysta said, “so, let me just finish off with this—your mom is super disappointed that you're not around more and so she’s decided to apparently adopt me as her surrogate daughter.”
Lydia felt like clapping. “Oh, thank God, her attention could finally be split between me and someone else.”
“Yeah,” Krysta said. “It’s a little claustrophobic but she’s really sweet.”
A pang of homesickness struck Lydia in the heart. “I know.” She had to agree.
“So, while you're there whooping it up with your new guy, whatever-his-name-is”—Jeremy, Lydia thought—“just remember the people you left behind, okay?”
“Oh, Krysta,” Lydia groaned, her voice filled with regret and sympathy. “I’m not forgetting you.”
“I know you’re not, but it sort of feels like it because you’re impossible to reach and you’re living this exotic European life now and I miss seeing you every day at work.”
“I miss seeing you too,” Lydia said plaintively. If she wasn’t careful she’d have to bite her lower lip hard enough to stop the tears, letting the pain overwhelm the emotion. “I’ll be home soon.”
“Months from now, Lydia. That's what you told your mom.”
“I know. It’s only a five-hour plane ride. Planes go both ways.”
“You told your mom that, too,” Krysta said flatly, “and those plane rides are $900 roundtrip.”
“Not if you catch a good sale.”
“Lydia, you know that I can’t afford to just hop on a plane. I’ll get there eventually,” Krysta added, “but for now, it’s phone and email.”
It was the first time Krysta had hinted at struggling with the fact that Lydia was going away. Out of the corner of her eye she caught Jeremy playing with his phone, clearly bored. She needed to make a decision.
“Hang on a second Krysta,” she said, waving Jeremy over and putting Krysta on mute.
She caught his attention and he popped up quickly, scrambling to hear what she had to say. “I’m afraid that I can’t go to the church,” she said.
He scrunched up his face in consternation. Those brown eyes were intense and deep, yet playfully welcoming. Jeremy’s had a warmth to them, a devil-may-care expression that made her just want to climb right in a settle down for a fun ride. Mike’s, on the other hand, were pure, white-hot intensity. So different, and yet, she found herself attracted to both.
What? she thought. What? Where did that thought come from?
Banishing it, she held up one hand as if protesting something that he hadn’t actually said. “There’s no way. I just…my friend has an emergency and I’m going to have to talk her through it.”
“Guy stuff?” he said, nodding. “Not everybody can meet a guy as wonderful as me.”
She rolled her eyes. “That’s right, Jeremy. You’re one of a kind.”
He took the hint and lifted an arm in a gesture of goodbye. “I’ll catch you later.”
“I’m sure you will.” Lydia had the feeling that she’d be seeing a lot of Jeremy over the next few weeks. If Mike had actually sent him to watch over her and Jeremy had followed through, complete with plane ride and guest-house rental, then he was going to obey Mike’s wishes.
She had done so, too, taking his transfer and promotion and running with it. Malicious obedience had prevailed.
So, could Jeremy apply the same thing to his orders? Could he maliciously obey and take care of Lydia? What, exactly, did that mean? Would the next few weeks tell her?
“Lydia? You there?” Krysta's voice came through the speaker on her phone and she nearly dropped it over the edge, down two stories onto the cobblestone street below. She unmuted the phone.
“Yeah, yeah, I’m here,” she snapped. “I got rid of the guy.”
“You did? I’m sorry. You didn't have to do tha—”
She interrupted Krysta. “It’s okay. Let’s just take an hour and talk. I may be nearly a continent away, in a new job, and in a strange land, but I still have time for the people who are important to me.”
A baseball cap, an old light blue Egyptian cotton V-neck t-shirt and Levi’s, along with a pair of Merrells made him feel more in touch with his roots, and the disguise was closer to Matt Jones than to Michael Bournham. But, really, it wasn’t either of them. He felt renewed, reborn, without the trappings of his wealth. He was just another guy coming to a campground to rent a cabin for a month and just be. Figuring out who Michael Bournham really was without the CEO title, without the driver and limo, without people like Diane trying to broker his fame. Without so much money that he could never spend it in ten lifetimes. That! That was his mission. This was no vacation! This was more of a retreat. A journey inward with a level of self-reflection he had not been able to engage in for far too long.
Of course, it was Lydia who provoked all of this. Every single step. His own stupidity was the driving force behind the house of cards that came crashing down this past few weeks. Entering her world at work, though, had been the most unintended consequence of his entire career. Of all the planning and scheming and manipulating that he’d engaged in to scrape his way to the top. The irony as he pulled into the driveway for Escape Shores Campground, that even in his own escape he was entering another part of her world, was something that he would need to tease out for the next month. She was in Iceland, safely ensconced in one of his final acts as CEO of the company, giving her a promotion, raise, title, and position she richly deserved. He knew, though, that it wouldn’t go smoothly. His plan had been to ramp up European operations to give her enough meat in the new job to make it seem more real. To be more real, in fact. He knew she had what it took to engage in the kind of client work, project management, development, and expansion that the push to turn Bournham Industries into a juggernaut required.
Shaking his head, he took the baseball cap off and ran a hand through his nonexistent hair, forgetting that he’d shaved it off. A tiny stubble from a few days’ growth greeted the palm of his hand, and as he scratched one eyebrow and pulled the cap back down, a man in a little red golf cart drove past in the opposite direction. Insanely large and folded over into the tiny vehicle, his face was friendly, framed by overgrown curls, and he waved and smiled. Mike returned the gesture. That had to be one of her brothers.
Here he was searching for authenticity, and once again he had to do it in a disguise. If Matt Jones had been a terrible, horrible pseudonym, so milquetoast it made his teeth hurt, then he needed to come up with something better. Spending a month among Lydia’s family, hiding out in what he presumed to be a small, rustic cabin with acres to wander and shores to walk required some level of social interaction, no matter how sparse.
When he parked in the visitors’ check-in spot, got out of his car, and smelled the ocean, the endless loop of concentration that had consumed his mind, teasing out all the details he needed to be careful to craft into a coherent story, vanished. It was a balm, like being fed medicine for a sickness he didn’t realize had infected him. Three deep breaths later he faced the office, a general store with a counter and a computer, but oddly enough—he watched as a customer ahead of him made a transaction—the cash register wasn’t. It was an iPad propped up with a card reader attached to it.
He looked around the front porch before entering fully. Rocking chairs, window boxes with herb gardens growing in them, the occasional marigold peeking through, a bit limp in this early August weather. The front porch needed to be painted. It had that weathered ocean look, and the building itself was shingled and looked like something you’d find on Nantucket. White trim and sea-faded wood, but inside the store high tech met the 1950s and now his curiosity was piqued. Lydia had seemed so modern, advanced, tapped into the Matrix, and yet smart enough to see corporate life for what it really was. A nonsensical superstructure that placed human interests last and profits first. Here, though, technology was integrated into a very old and very relaxed vacation spot.