Lizzie closed her eyes and let the message roll on. After she deleted it and hung up, she stared at the phone and knew going back to bed was not an option.
She went to the couch, fired up her laptop again and logged into theBoston Globe ’s online classifieds site. Since she was not going to get some shut-eye anytime soon, she might as well focus on something that would help her.
Which stewing about Sean O’Banyon would definitely not.
Plus it was about time she got into her job search. She’d moonlighted every day this week so she would earn some extra cash, but as a result, she hadn’t been able to find time to apply for a new position.
Two hours later, she had her résumé updated and had made online submissions to four jobs: one down on the South Shore at Quincy Hospital’s ED and one each to Boston Medical Center, New England Medical Center and Brigham & Women’s.
Next she hit the apartment ads. Even if Sean wasn’t going to sell the house right away, she had to get out of here. There were just too many memories. And now too many complications.
She braced herself for what she’d find. She knew that the Boston real-estate market for rentals was tight right now because of all the college students returning for school in August. And it would probably make more sense to wait until she knew where she would be working, but she figured it couldn’t hurt to start looking this Sunday when there’d be some open houses scheduled.
Oh…man. Everything was so expensive compared to what she was paying now. Part of it was that Eddie had refused to raise her rent over the two years she’d been here. The other half was simply supply and demand coupled with inflation.
She put the laptop aside and stared out the bay window. With her job at the clinic ending tomorrow, she was relieved to have plenty of moonlighting work lined up. But that was not the way she wanted to live. Pulling night shifts on a regular basis really screwed up your life.
Besides, she had her sights set on bigger things than being a floor nurse. What she wanted to be, eventually, was her boss, Denisha Roberts. She wanted to run a clinic like the one in Roxbury, and to do that, she needed more education and some experience on the administration side of patient care.
Unfortunately, she had a feeling school was going to be delayed for a while.
She turned off the computer and the lights, then went over to the armchair in front of the big window. Sitting down, she curled her legs up under herself and let her head fall to the side. Through the slits in the blinds she saw the dark path of the road and the sidewalk’s ghostly glow and the bulky outlines of the houses across the street. As the night went on, occasionally a car would float by like a boat on a still river, its headlights flaring white then its brake lights glowing red.
Funny how losing a job made you look over your life and reassess things.
And the ending of a relationship did that, too, didn’t it?
Except, had she even had a relationship with Sean? Not really. Just a couple of days…Still, the effect was the same. In the quiet darkness, she found herself thinking back to her two earlier boyfriends. Neither one had come close to Sean for intensity. But then she couldn’t imagine many men did.
Just her luck.
Lizzie was still sitting in the chair a couple of hours later when a car pulled up in front of the house. The headlights went off, one of its doors slammed and a huge shadow of a man came up the walkway.
She got to her feet in disbelief and went to the blinds. Sean couldn’t possibly have come all the way up from New York. In the middle of the night. Could he?
Good…Lord, he had.
In the glow of the porch light, he looked totally out of place, more like he should be walking up to the door of a Park Avenue penthouse rather than a well-worn duplex in South Boston. He was wearing a beautifully tailored dark suit with a fancy black-and-peach–colored tie, and as he reached forward to put his key in the lock, a big fat gold watch gleamed on his wrist.
Lizzie stepped back from the window. Maybe he hadn’t come to see—
The knock on her door was a single, sharp rap.
His voice came through the panels. “Lizzie, I saw you at the blinds. I know you’re up. Can we talk?”
Holy hell, she wasn’t sure she was ready to see him. And even if she was, she felt as if she should throw on a dress and some heels before she opened her door. “It’s late.”
“I know.”
“I should go to bed. Maybe tomorrow.”
There was a brief silence. “I have to go back tomorrow morning.”
She frowned and glanced at the clock on her wall. “But it is tomorrow morning.”