Page 37 of An Introvert's Guide to Life and Love
The timer pings, and I carefully transfer my pizza to a cutting board. Half listening to the meeting, I search every drawer in the kitchen before accepting the fact that Gramps does not own a pizza cutter. Grumpily, I cut the pizza with a knife instead, then eat it and a handful of baby carrots at the kitchen table.
By eight o’clock, I’ve managed to submit all my reports to Kat. I could hear Gramps snoring after lunch, but I clamped my headphones back on and it successfully drowned out the noise. By the time my workday is over, I’m angsty to get outside and feel the sun on my skin. But standing on the balcony, I realize that the day is over. It’s almost sunset, and it’s not a pretty one today, either. Thesky is full of rain-soaked clouds, threatening to overflow. The air is still, humid, and crackling with the anticipation of a storm. The pool deck and beach below are both empty.
I guess I might have to spend some time outdoors tomorrow morning, before my workday starts. I don’t like it. It’s not my normal routine. But I can’t be at the beach and not spend any time in the sun. For now, I’m going to take my usual after-work walk, even if it means getting caught in a thunderstorm.
Chapter 16
The threatened storm doesn’t materialize, although the sky continues to bulge with dark-gray clouds as night falls. I’m refreshed and sweaty after a long walk on the beach, catching up on the latest episode ofElementary. As I walk back to the condo, the shimmering blue light of the hot tub catches my eye. A dunk in the Jacuzzi sounds lovely, and I still have a few minutes left of my episode to listen to.
The only problem is I’m not wearing a bathing suit. I glance around the deserted pool deck and give a cursory glance at the balconies up above. There’s no one around, so I strip down to my bra and underwear and step down into the hot tub. The warm, gently bubbling water feels so good that I let out a sigh of contentment. I’m about to slip my headphones back on, but then I notice the sounds: the ambient noises of the beach at night. The waves whisper softly as they rush back and forth, and the palm trees overhead rustle in the warm breeze. There are other sounds, too, like the musical chirping of something that might be a cricket, and the unmistakable deep croak of a frog.
“—and I told her, ‘Not with my money, sugar!’”
I startle at the sudden peal of laughter nearby.Crap.I go for my clothes, but they’re just out of reach, and before I can hop out, I have company.
“Mallory, is that you?”
Angela appears, wrapped in a white bathrobe, accompanied by a man and a woman I haven’t met.
“Hi, Angela.” I sink further into the water, hoping she doesn’t look too closely at my skimpy pink bralette.
“Isn’t a late-night soak just heavenly?” She gracefully removes her robe and drapes it across a chair, revealing a bright-purple one-piece. “It’s a ritual of ours. This is Pam and Simon.” The two strangers wave hello. “Mallory is Leonard’s granddaughter.”
“Ohh, poor Leonard,” Pam says, climbing down into the Jacuzzi.
Simon makes a sympathetic noise in agreement as he sits across from me.
“We’re sorry about your grandmother,” he says with a heavy Brooklyn accent. “She was a delight.”
“Thank you.”
“When do you fly home, Mallory?” Angela asks, settling into the water between Pam and me.
“In a few days,” I say vaguely.
“And have you had a nice trip so far? Is it what you were hoping?”
“Yeah. It’s been… nice.” The question makes me think about the reasons I’m here, and it occurs to me that I made absolutely zero progress today on the house stuff. I’m supposed to be making decisions about renovations. Instead, I let the entire day be consumed with work. I didn’t extend my trip just to work from Gramps’s living room. Tomorrow, I need to wake up earlier and actually get things done.
“Young people today,” Simon booms. “So virtuous. When I was your age—what are you, twenty?—I was hiking and drinking my way through Mexico with my buddies. Ha! Visiting grandparents? That was only if my parents dragged me along.”
I smile slightly. When I was twenty-two, I was sipping espressosat sidewalk cafés in Paris, snorkeling off the beach in Kantiang Bay. More recently, Alex and I had daydreamed about taking trips to Japan or Peru. Of course, that never happened, and it never will.
“I did some traveling in my early twenties,” I say. “Thanks for thinking I’m twenty, by the way. But it’s been years since I’ve traveled anywhere, other than here.”
“Years? What’ve you been doing?” Simon sounds scandalized.
“The pandemic, dear.” Pam slaps her hand lightly on top of the bubbling water.
“Oh, that. Well, it’s time to shake it off, all right? That’s behind us now. You grab some friends and go see the world.”
I bite back a laugh.I wish it were that easy.I glance at Angela and see that she’s giving me a soft, empathetic look.
“Actually, I’m also here because I inherited Lottie and Gramps’s old house. So I’m figuring out what it needs. And how to pay for it.”
Angela shakes her head with a click of her tongue. “If only you could’ve talked to Lottie about this. What a shame. Do you know, she was so talented at getting things done for free. She would call in personal favors with no shame. And if she couldn’t get someone to help her, she’d find a way to do it herself. I remember the time she single-handedly replaced her Toyota’s muffler. Didn’t know a thing about cars.”
“How did she do that?” I ask.
