The Perfect Life (The Perfect Stranger #4) - Charlotte Byrd Page 0,19
that life was going to be private.
It doesn't work if his picture shows up in a magazine or he's embroiled in some big lawsuit over the sale of a marina and a hotel.
All of these thoughts and many others spin around my head, making me nauseous. When I have a free moment, I go back to my phone and search Oliver Beckett and try to read everything about him that I can.
The problem is that he hardly exists. Besides these two articles, there's nothing else about him and he has no social media presence at all. It's not unusual, of course.
Unlikely, but not unusual, but I guess it is suspicious.
“I need to put this out of my mind,” I say to myself, making the television louder.
Dora yells, “Swiper, no swiping,” she sings a song that I join in with the girls on, and dancing.
I move my hips back and forth and show Kylie how to do the same with hers. I'm not much of a dancer and in the mirror at the far end of the living room I can tell that my moves sort of resemble a two year old’s. I don't mind, however. It's fun to dance and we both laugh as we do it.
When the song comes to an end, instead of plopping back down on the couch, I go over to the toy box and pull out the Legos.
After a few moments, the girls join in and together we start to build something very big and very tall. It's nice to busy my hands with something tangible, but unfortunately it doesn't quiet my mind.
I keep thinking about Tyler and the possibility that he might be Oliver. Of course, it's nice to imagine that he's now a very wealthy man living the life of his dreams.
When we talked about starting over, he never mentioned where he would go or what he would do, but I sort of imagined us in California.
I thought he liked it there, too, and I'm surprised that he left. Then again, maybe it was too painful to stay or maybe he never left at all and that this Oliver Beckett is someone else entirely.
Just as we are running out of Legos and the girls start to yawn, Libby comes home.
“Where is…?” I start to ask as Libby shakes her head.
“There was some sort of leak at Giant Eagle,” she says, pronouncing Eagle like ‘Iggle’ the way that people usually pronounce it around here.
“Wow. I had no idea that grocery store managers could be on call.”
“Yeah, it's like he's a doctor without any of the perks,” she says with a laugh.
“Well, how did it go other than that?”
“Actually, really well. It's really nice to connect and talk about something other than work, the kids, and our bills.”
I help her get the kids to bed and, surprisingly, it doesn't take long.
When we get back to the living room, I’m tempted to tell her about Tyler, but I bite my tongue.
I don't know what’s real and what's not and I don't want to blow it out of proportion. Besides, I have a feeling that she already thinks I'm a little nuts after what happened with my mom.
“I see that you got into the magazines,” Libby says.
“Yes, I hope you don't mind,” I say, leaning over and starting to collect them into a pile.
“No, not at all. Darren thinks that it's a waste of money and he's probably right, but I really like them. I know that I could subscribe to them and return them online which would probably cost me a fraction of what they do now, but we both have to have our vices, right?”
She picks up Coast and stares wistfully at the sprawling home on the cover.
“Can you imagine living in something like this? All that glass? All that nature just engulfing you from all sides?”
I shake my head.
“I know that you have a really big house in comparison to this one and I can only dream about living in something as big and comfortable as yours.”
I give her a slight nod and say, “If I told you about how hard it has been to pay the mortgage recently, you probably would not be that envious.”
I mean this as a joke, but it comes out rather crude and privileged. I immediately wish that I could take it back.
“Sometimes we can't even pay the mortgage on this one,” she says with a laugh and I can tell that she has had a couple of drinks