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his birthday, she thought, as she wiped the kitchen counter. If it was truly his birthday, and that wasn’t another lie.
    She tossed the dishcloth in the washing machine, and set about plumping up the cushions of her giant sofa. She’d never have predicted Garrett would be interested in the partnership in the first place. What if he didn’t quit after all?
    Their prospective client, Brightwater Group, was tickled pink at the prospect of not one but three fabulous ideas for their campaign, in exchange for giving feedback to the KBC board about the three partners designate. Rachel was beginning to feel like a contestant on America’s Next Top Ad Agency Partner.
    She hated those shows. She wasn’t a crier by nature, but she cried when people got thrown out of the house, expelled from the island, kicked off the catwalk.
    I could be next. She felt nauseous just thinking about it. If Garrett did stick around, his slimy behavior today had given her a heads-up that he wasn’t about to play fair. If he wants a fight, he’ll get it. She would put the work in, she would leave nothing to chance and she would win.
    This would have to be her best campaign ever. She would have to be the best every step of the way. Starting with the meeting she, Garrett and Clive would attend at Brightwater’s offices on Monday.
    Rachel usually handled briefing meetings with ease. But this time the client would be directly comparing her with Garrett.
    What if they liked sleazy, lying, tardy but highly creative jerks?
    What if the client asked some off-the-wall question, to which she would say her usual, “Hmm, you make an excellent point, Ben/Jerry/Jack. I’d like to think about that and get back to you.” While Garrett would produce some amazing spontaneous insight.
    It didn’t bear thinking about. She needed to be even better prepared than usual, so she could at least look unrehearsed and intuitive. Okay, the logic was skewed…but that was what she had to do.
    Starting right now.
    An hour later, Rachel loaded her overnight bag into the trunk of a rented Ford Focus, along with a supply of Aunt Betty’s Apple Pies, courtesy of her very appreciative client—how many bottles of Calvin Klein fragrance had Garrett been given, huh?—and joined the weekend crawl out of Manhattan. Once she was through the Holland Tunnel, she stuck to the toll roads, and the traffic thinned right out.
    It was only eleven o’clock when she pulled into The Pines Mobile Home Park in Freehold, New Jersey. She followed the loop road, if you could call the vaguely circular stretch of gravel a road, around to her parents’ trailer.
    Her mom must have heard the crunch of her tires, because the door of the double-wide opened before Rachel switched off her engine.
    “Hi, Mom,” Rachel called as she grabbed her bag from the backseat. She loaded up an armful of pies, then closed the door with her butt.
    “Honey, did you tell us you were coming—oh, yum!” Nora Frye’s eyes lit up at the sight of the red-and-white pie cartons.
    Rachel kissed her cheek and handed over the booty. “Kind of a last-minute decision—is that okay?” Cell phone reception wasn’t great here, and it was always a hassle to phone the trailer-park office and hope they’d get a message to her parents.
    “That’s fine, though I guess we’ll have to cancel our trip to Paris,” her mother said gaily, leading the way inside. As she crossed the threshold, she raised her voice. “Burton, Rachel’s here!”
    “Did he work last night?” Rachel asked. Her dad’s burly build meant he easily found a job as a security guard whenever her parents’ other schemes fell through.
    “Got to bed at five,” her mom confirmed, “but he can wake up for you.”
    Rachel followed her mom to the small kitchen area. While Nora filled the kettle Rachel had given her last Christmas and set it on the stove, Rachel dug in her purse to produce a pack of real coffee. Her mom set the jar of instant she’d been opening