The Dead of Summer

Margot stood by the hotel pool at 2 AM, water lapping at the edges like a nervous tongue. The corporate retreat had ended hours ago, but she couldn't sleep. Couldn't stop replaying the moment in the conference room when David—her boss of seven years, her sometime lover, her carefully constructed lie—had introduced the new consultant as "our fox in the henhouse."

The woman, Vera, had smiled with teeth too white to be honest. A predator's smile.

Now, alone in the moonlight, Margot felt like a zombie moving through the ruins of her own life. At 42, she'd given everything to this company. To David. What had she gotten in return? A condo she never saw, a body she'd forgotten how to inhabit, and now this—the realization that she was expendable.

A stray dog wandered onto the pool deck, its ribs showing beneath matted fur. It sat near her feet, watching with ancient, knowing eyes. Margot thought of the dog she'd wanted as a child, the one her mother said they couldn't afford because ambition required sacrifice.

Ambition. The word tasted like ash.

"She's been poaching clients for months," a voice said behind her.

Margot turned to find David, his shirt unbuttoned, drink in hand. He didn't look surprised to see her. He looked like a man who'd already rehearsed this scene.

"I know," she said. "I'm not the zombie you think I am."

"Then why are you still here?"

The dog stood and walked to the edge of the pool, lapping up chlorinated water without hesitation. Thirst made you settle for poisoned things.

"Because I need to see it," Margot said. "The moment everything breaks."

David set down his glass. "Vera didn't steal anything. You gave it away. You stopped showing up years ago."

He was right. She had been walking dead, performing the motions of a life she'd abandoned somewhere between ambition and exhaustion. The fox hadn't killed her. She'd done it to herself.

The dog finished drinking and looked at her, tail wagging once, as if in invitation.

"I'm done here," Margot said.

"Your contract—"

—screw my contract."

She walked past him toward the exit, the dog falling into step beside her. For the first time in seven years, she didn't know where she was going. And that was exactly the point.