Sick Day Read online

  a novel by

  Morgan Parker

  © 2014 QuoteStork Media, Inc.

  Follow Morgan Parker on Facebook

  This is a work of fiction. All characters, conversations, circumstances and incidents are products of the author’s imagination. Any and all references to real products, objects, locations, events, locations and people are meant to lend the reader a sense of authenticity but are used fictitiously.

  With the exception of quoted text used in a published review, no part of this work can reproduced without the written permission of QuoteStork Media, Inc..

  Prologue

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 25

  Our Story – Olivia

  Chapter 26

  Chapter 27

  Chapter 28

  Chapter 29

  Chapter 30

  Chapter 31

  Chapter 32

  Chapter 33

  Chapter 34

  Chapter 35

  Chapter 36

  Chapter 37

  Chapter 38

  Chapter 39

  Chapter 40

  Chapter 41

  Chapter 42

  Chapter 43

  Chapter 44

  Chapter 45

  Chapter 46

  Chapter 47

  Chapter 48

  Chapter 49

  Chapter 50

  Chapter 51

  Chapter 52

  Chapter 53

  Chapter 54

  Chapter 55

  Chapter 56

  Chapter 57

  Chapter 58

  Epilogue

  Acknowledgments

  Novels by Morgan Parker

  Sick Day

  Hope

  Non Friction

  Textual Encounters: 2

  Textual Encounters: The Christine + Jake Affair

  Coming Soon:

  Textual Encounters III

  Prologue

  Our Story

  My bed at the Drake Hotel was big enough for both of us. We kicked our shoes off at the door and went straight to that bed. I jumped onto the mattress first, my feet landing where the pillows were and my head settling at the foot. I patted the space next to me, where I wanted Oliver to lie.

  He complied with the same lame-ass, high-jump leap I had just attempted, but the mattress was so firm that we didn’t bounce at all, even as his 180-pound frame dropped next to me. He grunted, then edged closer to me. So close that his face was only a couple of inches from mine, a closeness that, judging by the blotchiness on his face, made him more uncomfortable than it made me.

  I laughed at that discomfort.

  “You’re supposed to sleep on this thing?” he asked.

  I giggled like a schoolgirl because that was exactly how he made me feel. The fluttering in my stomach, the impending collapse of my legs earlier when he had laced his hand into mine while we strolled along Michigan Avenue after dinner. My hunger for his lips against mine, against me, all of me, every inch. Yes, like a schoolgirl. And not just because of the physical impression he was leaving on me.

  I covered my crooked giggles with my hand, and his eyes didn’t seem bothered or even slightly curious about my oversized wedding ring.

  This was exactly like a schoolgirl’s crush. I had only known Oliver since yesterday afternoon, yet here we lay on my hotel room bed, separated by a couple layers of clothes, our wedding bands, and roughly three inches of tension-infused space.

  As my hand moved away from my face, I watched Oliver lick his lips. His pupils dilated as he focused on my mouth.

  “What’s your favorite color?” he asked, his voice distant. I knew he was lost in me, in the fantasies about what our time in my hotel room could lead to.

  “Purple,” I said. “Yours?”

  “Orange.”

  I giggled again. This was getting stupid. “Orange is like saying a bus pass is your all-time favoritest car in the whole wide world.”

  We laughed together. It was getting late. If Oliver was anything like me, he hadn’t slept well last night. Our introduction on the plane yesterday—both of us hated flying, and the flight from Vegas had been a choppy one—our flirting in the airport, and then Oliver showing up today at my book signing and press conference, our surprise dinner, our walk, and now this.

  At last, I reached out and grabbed his hand. His palm felt clammy, uncertain. I brought it to my chest, placed it above my breast so he wouldn’t have to get all nervous and awkward. I knew fear was what he felt because that was exactly what I felt, too.

  “It’s okay, Oliver,” I told him. “I know your fears. But sometimes the best decisions are the ones we don’t make for ourselves. So I’ll make the decisions tonight.”

  He took a deep breath, opened his mouth to say something, then changed his mind. We stared at each other for what felt like an eternity collapsing with the snap of fingers—a lifetime gone in the blink of an eye.

  “Just stay with me tonight and let me memorize every last piece of you.”

  } i {

  My name is Olivia Warren, and just because this is my story, it doesn’t mean there’s a happily ever after at the end of it. I may have made my first night with Oliver Weaver sound prettier than the Holy Gardens at the gates of Heaven. The truth is that pretty cannot describe the majority of my relationship with that man.

  For starters, the day we met we were both very much married and, to some extent, in love with our respective spouses. I didn’t mention that earlier because people generally don’t like cheaters. And loving someone, even if you don’t fuck them, is indeed cheating—emotional cheating.

  That next morning, neither of us woke up because neither of us had fallen asleep in the first place. We rolled out of bed, and Oliver convinced me that today he would show me the city, all of it.

  “Why would I want to see all of it?”

  He chuckled. “It looks like you just sucked on a lemon! Okay, just the best parts.”

  “Why?”

  He took my hand and pulled me to the door, to our shoes, out to the hall, and to the elevators. We were acting like two kids trapped in the lives of two mid-lifers, struggling with lack of sleep. But we were far too jacked up on the adrenaline-rush of having found our soul mate to slow down and just breathe.

  “You’ll love this,” he promised, and the next thing I remember, we were standing in a vast, all-white room. White floors, windows on two opposite walls. A white table setting with white linens, white side plates, and silver cutlery.

  A waiter in a white shirt (and black pants) smiled and gestured for us to sit down. It was the only table in this large white space, but it felt cozy. Oliver made it feel that way.

  I leaned forward on the table, my elbows on the edge as I propped my face up to take him in, to take all of this experience in. “Where are we?”

  “Lunch,” he told me. “You’re tired, aren’t you?”

  I nodded and wondered if he had drugged me. As the panic set in, I felt his hand on mine, and a gust of emotion flooded through me. All of this was like something out of a dream sequence in a crazy sci-fi movie. I imagined seeing the finest paintings, the most compelling pieces of art, and I felt
the deepest emotion flicker through my head.

  When my eyes opened, our lunch had arrived—a nice serving of salmon with a cute salad. The colors of the food were vibrant and alive.

  Oliver and I talked about the blurry stuff of reality—our marriages, our kids, our jobs. The disappointment left by each of those things. Oliver paid the bill, and a heartbeat later, I was standing in front of a Monet painting, the train station one. Each stroke of Monet’s brush spoke to me in this moment of ultimate fatigue.

  “Let’s get lost,” Oliver said, and we left the Art Institute of Chicago.

  The next thing I knew, we were riding a Ferris wheel overlooking Chicago’s North and South shores. We walked to the Sears Tower after that, talking shit and laughing and careless. Then we found and sat on the hardest wooden benches in the world—they were at Union Station—and we stared up at the ceiling and got dizzy, as if we were watching the stars at night.

  “I need to sleep,” I mumbled, my voice whiny and desperate even to my own ears.

  We ran through the streets with stupid-big smiles on our faces, all the way back to the Drake, back up to my room, and to the hard bed where we fell asleep holding each other. And somehow—I don’t know how—it was love.

  Within two days of knowing this wonderful, sweet man, I loved him more than anyone could ever believe possible.

  Including Oliver.

  But I did, I loved him. Hard and deep, like no human should be allowed to love. The kind of love that destroys you.

  } i {

  Present Day

  Chapter 1

  5:28 AM

  Not a cloud in the sky as the sun rises over the Gold Coast’s impressive skyline.

  “…couple of minutes before five-thirty on this Friday morning as we ease into the summer’s last long weekend,” Big C announces as the radio alarm fires off. “So who wants to call in sick and get a head start on what will arguably be one of the finest weekends we’ve had all year?”

  I step away from the floor-to-ceiling windows, noticing Riley’s picture on the wall, and smack the alarm’s OFF button as I pass the bed on my way to the bathroom. Despite my condo being thirty floors above street level, the hot water arrives almost instantly once I turn on the faucet. It’s a nice bathroom—so nice that I feel guilty whenever I use it to, uh, relieve myself. Even standing under the steaming spray from the rainfall showerhead, I feel a little bad about the LeLabo soap pooling on the travertine at my feet. Yes, it’s that pretty of a bathroom.

  So I hurry up, squeegeeing the tile and glass clean before drying my hair and getting dressed.

  I love my condo, which explains the OCD cleanliness and near-institutional feel to it. I like it this way, and I probably should be institutionalized for what I’m about to do. Grabbing the cordless phone in the kitchen, I drop a Chai Tea Latte K-cup into the Keurig and wait for it to finish brewing before dialing the phone number I know all too well.

  It rings five times before the voicemail picks up. If not for the spicy aroma from my girly coffee, I would normally feel slightly ill at the sound of my boss’s voice. But the coffee gives me strength; it reminds me of the adventure awaiting me. At the beep, I leave my message, keeping my voice purposely coarse and pained.

  “Newman,” I groan. “I’m dying. For real this time. I think it’s…” I haven’t really thought this part through because I’ve recently become something of an expert at calling in sick, so I blurt the first thing that comes to mind, fully aware that last week’s “sickness” was food poisoning: “E-coli poisoning.” Fuck. Tart. Face-palm fucktart, actually. “Sorry to be doing this to you and the team on a Friday before Labor Day, but…” I cough, then wonder, Do people cough with e-coli poisoning? Or do they just puke a lot? Or at all? Whatevs, no point splitting hairs over the details now. “I have to run, Newman. You know where to—” cough “—where to find me.”

  I hang up and laugh because Newman has me against the ropes right now, and that screw-up with the e-coli probably just cost me my job. Great.

  Grabbing the steaming cup from the Keurig, I head to the Bat Cave—my special name for the den, a tight room with two bean bag chairs and a sixty-inch flat screen that doubles as my gaming and computer screen. All kinds of great ideas are born here. I drop onto red Tipsy (the other chair is called brown Topsy) and hit the remote for the screen.

  Once I see that the Japanese Yen has weakened against the US dollar by more than one percent overnight, I turn the television off. And I laugh. Again.

  It’s not even six o’clock and this beautiful day is already slipping out of my control. I shake my head, take a sip of the Chai Tea Latte, and allow myself to be enveloped by courage. It’s exactly what I need if I really plan on writing this text message that kept me up all night.

  Grabbing my iPhone, I activate my jAppe messaging service and find the thumbnail of Hope’s picture. I tap on her face, a pic that I took just two months ago against her protests. It amazes me that such a small thumbnail can encapsulate the full definition of perfection, but it does. Hope is my perfect.

  I type the quick message, and press send. It looks like this:

  Me: Let’s play sick day together.

  Then I watch the iPhone’s screen and wait for her to read my message, wondering the entire time if her fiancé will find it first and come for me like he did the last time I crossed that line into his happy home.

  } i {

  Two Months Ago

  Chapter 2

  While standing in the early morning line at the Panera Bread downtown, I heard a voice that brought my world to a standstill. I couldn’t help it, but I swung around and stared past the line of traders and suits behind me until my eyes located her. Hope McManus.

  To me, she looked exactly like she had the last time I saw her three years, four months, and two days ago. (I was probably a little inaccurate with the months and days, but definitely right about it being three years). Except this sight of her was a happy one, as evidenced by that smile she displayed while speaking to another man, a guy in a suit who seemed to be our age—early thirties at the most and flirting with the notion of gray hair.

  “You’re up,” the trader in the orange vest (not one of Landon’s guys) told me, staring sternly past me at the girl behind the counter. I could read his impatience the same way he read market trends at the Merc all day.

  I refocused, or tried pretty damn hard to at least reorient myself in reality, and stumbled through my regular order. Since hearing Hope’s voice, I had lost both my focus and my appetite. I really didn’t care if they used a regular egg instead of the egg whites I would have normally asked for, and keep the change. Yes, I know I gave you a twenty, just keep it, keep it, for real, I’m late, let’s hurry up.

  Get it together.

  After paying for and collecting my food, I kept my head down and made my way toward the doors when she called me.

  “Cameron!” It was an order, not a question. It was Hope.

  I froze as she hurried over and planted herself right in front of me, taking my elbows so I couldn’t run off and, well, die. That smile of hers killed me, those bright white teeth killed me, her hazel eyes killed me, her dark, wavy hair killed me. Everything about her was murderously perfect.

  I smiled back at her (easy enough to do) and squeezed out in one long, run-on breath, “Hope, you look great what are you doing back in Chicago it’s been so long since I’ve heard from you wow it’s so nice to see you again are you living here or just visiting what have you been up to and how long will you be here?”

  Hope laughed. Deep down, I figured she would do that—kill me some more with her essence before giving the knife a final turn in my chest for good measure.

  I forced a laugh of my own; I didn’t want to feel left out in our private chat in the middle of this busy Panera Bread. When I stopped acting like a donkey, she handed me a business card.

  The first thing I noticed was that her last name hadn’t changed. The second thing I noticed was the address
. My face stiffened as I met her stare again. “That’s the same building where I work,” I said.

  The smile melted off her lips. “I haven’t seen you there. Are you new?”

  I consulted the business card again. She was on the 14th floor at a company called Probst Financial Consultants LLC. I was on the 45th. Different elevators, but still a mystery that we hadn’t crossed paths before.

  I shrugged. “Been with SCF for three years this October. But anyway, we should—”

  “Grab lunch,” she finished for me, and that smile returned.

  “Yes,” I agreed, frowning like the professional banker I was supposed to be.

  “And soon.”

  The man she had arrived with brought her coffee and nodded at me. His hands were full from carrying her order, as well as his own.

  “Yes,” I said with a nod that almost convinced me that I was back to normal. “Soon.”

  When we left Panera, Hope and her colleague steered left, and I turned right, even though we were all headed to the same building. I was sure my behavior would be interpreted as bizarre, but one surprise miracle in a single day was just about enough for me.

  } i {

  Chapter 3

  That day, running into Hope at Panera sucked. A lot. Had I not already used the last of my annual sick day allowance this month—blame that one on a hard weekend of partying with Gordon and some of his poshy executive friends aboard a company jet to New York—I would’ve used it to get my head straight that day. Combine that with Newman on my ass about some of my past due, cross-selling reports, taking time off was definitely out of the question.

  Speaking of Gordon, I called him after spending an hour Google-stalking Hope McManus, who didn’t exist according to the fine folks in Mountain View, California. But she did exist; I had just seen her and stared into her eyes.