Water's Edge Read Online Free Page A

can smell dinner out here!” she called out.
    Clarice walked into the kitchen and kicked off her shoes. Whiskers followed and brushed against her leg. Tall and shapely, with blond hair and blue eyes, Clarice Charbonneau had attracted Tom’s attention at a pro-am golf tournament twelve months earlier. For the past eight months they’d not dated anyone else.
    “Magellan was in a horrible mood today,” she continued. “Three people were royally chewed out during the planning session. I kept my mouth shut, but it made me wonder why I put up with the stress he stirs up every time he comes into town. If he was based here instead of L.A., it would be unbearable.” Clarice paused. “Oh, I went with the magenta next to the yellow and held my breath during the meeting. Magellan didn’t comment on it one way or the other. Alice thought it was pretty.”
    Clarice continued talking while she washed her hands in the kitchen sink, then took a bottle of wine from a small wooden rack. She poured two glasses and held one out to Tom, who took it from her.
    “Here’s to your future,” she said, looking him in the eyes. “Barnes, McGraw, and Crowther lost a brilliant young lawyer today. Their loss will be someone else’s gain.” They clinked glasses and took a sip of wine.
    “That’s what you think?” Tom asked.
    “Of course.” Clarice sniffed. “After the shock wore off, I was furious. The loyalty-and-hard-work thing you tried doesn’t work in the twenty-first century. Law firms are getting to be more and more like big corporations where everyone is as disposable as a plastic water bottle. But don’t worry. You’ll collect a half-dozen job offers within a month and take your pick. Then, someday you’ll get a case with McGraw on the other side and teach him a lesson. Let’s eat.”
    Clarice handled chopsticks like an expert. The two slender pieces of wood frustrated Tom, and he defaulted to a fork. They divided the food, with Tom taking two spring rolls. While they ate, Clarice prattled about her day at work and a phone call with her mother, who lived in Sarasota.
    “Mom was completely out of line,” Clarice said between bites. “I told her it was none of her business whether Nicholas goes to culinary school in Charleston instead of getting his MBA at Wake Forest. He’s paying his own way, and she can’t order him around like she did when we were kids. And with a name like Charbonneau, any restaurant would be thrilled to hire him. Of course, she didn’t listen. All she wanted to do was vent.”
    Tom had met Clarice’s mother on two occasions. Her venting reminded him of a volcanic eruption.
    “You don’t think I’m like her, do you?” Clarice asked, stopping to take a sip of wine.
    “Not at all.”
    “Liar,” Clarice replied with a smile. “But I like it when you tell me what I want to hear.”
    “Your mother has unresolved issues.”
    “You think so?” Clarice responded, rubbing her temples with the tips of her fingers. “Every time she blows up, it scares me that I’ll end up the same. It took me an hour to calm down after she called.”
    “Was that before or after I phoned about losing my job?”
    “After, which partly explains how I felt. Like I said, I was already upset.”
    “Did you mention my situation to your mother?”
    “No, that would have made her talk for another thirty minutes, and I couldn’t risk that with Magellan on the rampage.”
    They finished dinner and the bottle of wine. Clarice had been right. The meal and the drinks calmed Tom down. Then they watched a sentimental movie that made Clarice cry. When the movie was over, she yawned.
    “I’d better head home,” she said. Clarice shared an apartment with another young woman in a modern complex about ten minutes away. “I have to be up early in the morning for a red-eye meeting at work before Magellan flies back to the West Coast. After that I’m going to Savannah and won’t be back until midday Saturday.”
    “Why