Luke was already asleep. The kelp data was on the nightstand. His shoes—the good ones, the ones that had been “resting” since March—were back in the closet.
Meg lay in the dark and thought about sand.
CHAPTER NINE
The logo was wrong. Completely wrong.
Meg had been staring at the San Clemente rebrand for two hours and the sea glass green was still too cool. She adjusted the hex value, previewed it, adjusted it again. Margaret Cassidy wanted the full presentation by Friday. The resort’s corporate retreat was three weeks out and the marketing package wasn’t half done. Her desk had four sticky notes on the monitor, two on the keyboard, and one on her coffee cup that said CALL FLORIST which she had written three days ago and not done.
She picked up the sticky note, looked at it, and stuck it back on the cup.
Her phone buzzed. Luke.
Family meeting Saturday?
Anna set it up. Michael’s presenting the full numbers. Everyone needs to be there.
Even Margo?
Especially Margo.
She’s not going to like it.
Nobody’s going to like it. That’s kind of the point of an audit.
Meg set the phone down and went back to the logo. The green needed warmth. She bumped it two degrees toward gold, previewed it against the neutrals, and sat back. Better. Margaret would want to see options—Margaret always wanted to see options, even when the first one was right, because Margaret believed that the process of choosing made people confident in what they’d chosen. She wasn’t wrong about that. She was rarely wrong about anything, which was both why she loved working for her and why she sometimes wanted to throw her laptop into the ocean.
The phone buzzed again. Luke.
Do you want me to bring anything Saturday?
Meg stared at the text. Bring anything. To a meeting where they were going to learn that the family business couldn’t sustain itself. What would someone bring to that?
She answered.
Just yourself. And maybe don’t mention the chairs.
The chairs are resolved. You ordered white ones.
The chairs are ordered. They are not resolved. Nothing about this wedding is resolved.
The groom is resolved.
What does that mean?
It means I’m resolved. I’m very resolved. I’m the most resolved part of this whole operation.
She pressed her fingers against her eyes and smiled at the same time, which was a thing Luke made her do at least twice a day. The man had waited twenty years and proposed in a marine biology shirt and never once made her feel like the waiting had cost him anything. She didn’t know how he did that. She suspected it had something to do with kelp—years of studying organisms that grew slowly and never rushed had given him a patience she would never have and could never quite believe was real.
Her phone rang. Not Luke—Brad.
“Meg, the Montage wants to move their event up two weeks. Can you adjust the venue package by Monday?”
“I can adjust it by Monday.”
“And the San Clemente presentation?”
“Friday. On track.”
