Page 1 of The Beach Shack
CHAPTER ONE
Meg Walsh hit send on the final email, checked the time—5:42 a.m.—and smiled with satisfaction. Everything was ready. If everything went well in today’s presentation, she was pretty much a shoo-in for V.P. at Mercer & Reid, the west coast’s biggest marketing company. It would also be the culmination of years of sixty-hour weeks and sacrificed weekends. She closed her laptop and headed for the shower.
Morning light filtered through the floor-to-ceiling windows of her Russian Hill apartment, illuminating the space that looked more like a carefully curated showroom than a lived-in home. Meg preferred it that way—clean lines, neutral tones, everything in its place. The only splash of color came from a small painting above her desk of the cliffs of Laguna Beach, the orange-pink sky reflecting on the waves below.
The painting had been a gift from her grandmotherfive years ago. “So you remember where you come from,” Margo had written in her perfect calligraphy on the card. Meg’s thumb brushed over the frame as she passed, a habitual gesture she never quite registered making.
She’d hung it the same week Michael had packed his things and left. “It’s like living with a ghost,” he’d said during their final argument. “You’re either working or thinking about work.” Meg had been too busy finalizing the Henderson account to properly grieve the three-year relationship, filing it away under “personal disappointments” and moving forward.
Forty minutes later, perfectly pressed and polished in a tailored charcoal suit, Meg stirred her coffee at the kitchen counter and reviewed her mental checklist. The San Clemente Resort campaign was the biggest pitch of her career—a complete rebranding of a tired seaside hotel into a luxury destination. Her team had done exceptional work. Now she just needed to deliver.
There was a certain irony in marketing Southern California coastal experiences when she’d gone to such lengths to escape her own beach town roots. The last real vacation she’d taken had been to New York City.
Her phone chirped with a text from her assistant.
Car downstairs in 15. Folders on your desk. Brad wants to walk through final slides before client arrives.
Meg typed back.
Already reviewed slides. Tell Brad I’ll be there by 7.
She slipped her phone into her bag and was reaching for her coffee when a calendar notification popped up on her tablet. A yellow box with a simple note:Margo’s birthday.
“Oh, crap,” Meg murmured. Her grandmother turned eighty tomorrow.
She’d have to remember later, after the presentation, though “later” had a way of becoming two days later or next week in Meg’s carefully scheduled life. Last year’s birthday call had been two days late, and the guilt still lingered.
She made a note in her color-coded planning app—Call Margo, send flowers, PRIORITY—and placed her empty mug in the dishwasher.
The ride to her downtown office was quick, the streets still quiet. Meg used the time to review statistics one last time: “Southern California luxury travelers prioritize authentic experiences over amenities by 64%... 72% cite ‘connection to local culture’ as a deciding factor... The target demographic spends an average of...”
Authentic experiences. Local culture. These were the buzzwords she’d built the campaign around, though Meg couldn’t remember the last time she’d had an authentic experience herself. Vacations were rare, and when she took them, they were meticulously planned extensions of her work life—visits to clients,industry conferences, networking events thinly disguised as getaways.
Her college friend Diane had stopped inviting her to girls’ trips years ago. “You’ll just work through it anyway,” she’d said when Meg asked about their annual weekend. The worst part was, Diane had been right.
Her office was exactly as she’d left it the night before. Three folders sat in the center of her desk, labeled in her assistant Jen’s neat handwriting: “Presentation Materials,” “Contract Terms,” and “V.P. Committee.”
The last folder made her pause. Inside were the documents Brad had shared last week with the evaluation timeline. If today’s presentation landed the San Clemente account, Meg would be the youngest woman ever promoted to V.P. at Mercer & Reid.
“There she is. Our resident genius.”
Meg looked up to find Brad Mercer—current owner and son of the founder—leaning against her doorframe, coffee cup in hand, already exuding the easy confidence that came with being born into the role Meg had worked years to approach.
“Morning, Brad. Just going through everything one last time.”
“Always prepared.” Brad nodded approvingly. “That’s why we’re all betting on you for this one. The San Clemente people are traditional, but they know they need to evolve. Your angle on authentic local experiences is exactly right.”
“Thanks.” Meg straightened the already perfectlyaligned folders. “Did you get my email about the revised social media strategy?”
“At midnight? Yes, and it’s impressive, but do you ever sleep?” He smiled, but his eyes held something closer to concern.
Meg returned the smile without addressing the question. Sleep was just another resource to be optimized, currently averaging five hours and twenty-seven minutes according to her fitness tracker.
“The client’s arriving at nine,” Brad continued. “Why don’t you join me for breakfast in the conference room at eight? We can do a final walkthrough.”
“I’ll be there.”
After Brad left, Meg turned to her computer, intending to review the presentation slides one more time, but instead typed “Laguna florist” into the search bar. Even in trivial moments, she maintained the distance from her hometown that she’d established when she left for college.
