Ashley: Awesome! I can’t wait for you to meet Carson.
Me: You’ve piqued my interest. Looking forward to meeting him.
I’m lying, of course. I don’t much care who Carson is.
Ashley responds with three winking emojis. I do not have the bandwidth to interpret what that means.
FOUR
Herc
The first couple of tours today earned me tips in the single digits.
It didn’t help matters that I audibly sighed into the microphone when I steered the pontoon boat by the area where that daggum movie was filmed and blurted, “To your left, blah-blah, Baby Watermelon Stairs. Anyway…”
The funniest part about it is I’ve never even seen that movie.
“The problem is your attitude. Yes, the busy season is winding down, but you still need to smile,” my marina manager reminds me. He’s not threatening to fire me, but only because we’ve got a full schedule today, and there’s not a person within fifty miles he can call unless he wants to do the tour himself.
“Sorry, Efram. I woke up in a shitty mood,” I tell him as I’m sanitizing the rows of seats to prepare for the next load of passengers.
Efram laughs his throaty laugh and re-ties the boat’s rope to the dock cleat. “You woke up hungover again.”
“Maybe.”
“Makes no difference to me, but when those Crabby Karens leave bad reviews on TripAdvisor, I get an email from someone named Aubri with an ‘I’ at a corporate office somewhere telling me to issue a refund and a voucher for a complimentary tour the next time they vacation here. And if my roster is not full of paying customers? I lose money.”
I get it.
“Sorry, man. I’ll do better.”
He laughs again as his gaze is drawn to the far entrance at the other side of the small metal dock. He mutters, “Boy, you’d better. Because this group coming up right now is guaran-fuckin-teed to want to hear all about the watermelon stairs in vivid detail, and they smell like finishing school.”
I don’t look up; I’m still scrubbing down the shabby seats of my boat. “The fuck does finishing school smell like?”
“Uh,” he stammers, then chuckles, “like an Eastburn.”
My spray bottle clatters to the deck, and I finally look up.
Well, well, well.
Looks like Cass, Titus, Leela, Crosby, Mila, Ozzie, and the whole gang have decided to pay me that unplanned visit a bit early. And, fuck me, if it isn’t Meghan bringing up the rear. And she’s with someone.
Or, more specifically, some guy is simply walking next to her.
I quickly size him up: derpy hard-part hair, hipster beard, khakis, and boat shoes. Tool. Maybe I’m harsh, but he’s a tool, and I hate him.
Did Meghan plan this to torture me? Rub it in my face that I wasn’t invited to this reunion?
And then, the second my ex’s eyes lock on mine, I see it. She didn’t even know I worked here and didn’t plan for this.
FIVE
Meghan
“She needs to sit here.”
What is Herc doing here?