“I know.”
My mom was behind her desk, bent over some papers, a pen in one hand. A fountain drink cup from the Gas/Gro was sweating through a napkin beside her. “Hey,” I said, and she looked up. “Luke needs a check.”
“Doesn’t everyone.” She sighed, waved him in, then looked at her watch. “Aren’t you due to do check-ins?”
“Just about.” Luke handed her the invoices and, as I expected, she squinted at them like they were written in Sanskrit. “But Grandmother said she had an errand for me to run first, so I was waiting around.”
“Remind her of the time. You need to get out there,” she said, reaching for the checkbook she kept in her bottom drawer. To Luke she said, “Dear God, this is practically illegible. Is that a six or a b?”
I shot Luke a look—he ignored me—as I went back to my grandmother, through the office, which was now quiet. It was three, though, which meant people would start showing up in rapid-fire style soon. Luckily, she was off the phone now, busy opening a Rolo.
“I have to start handing out keys,” I told her. “Did you need me?”
“Yes,” she replied, reaching down for a Park Mart bag beside her. “The owners of Foam Free apparently didn’t trust us to purchase a new doorknob for the property, so they dropped off their own. Maintenance is already there. Can you run it over?”
“Sure,” I said, taking it from her. “Anything else?”
She shook her head, and I headed out to my car and Foam Free, an older property a few blocks down from the office. It should have been a short, easy trip, but I got bogged down en route and coming back by a fender bender on the main road. By the time I pulled back into the office lot, there was a line of cars backed up from the sandbox.
I groaned out loud, already picturing how pissed Margo must be, having to fill in for me. When I got out of my car and sprinted over, though, I found Morris instead, squinting at the box of welcome packets like they were written in code.
“Baker,” a man in a Mercedes, clearly annoyed, was saying to him. “Bay-kurr. B-A-K-E-R.”
“Right,” Morris repeated, still looking. S-L-O-W-L-Y. “Ummm . . .”
I reached around him, finding the envelope, then grabbed it and the complimentary Colby Realty bag and handed them over. “Here you go, sir. Have you stayed with us at the Jolly Pirate before?”
“No,” he said, taking the bag and envelope from me.
“It’s a fantastic property. Our number is on there if you have any questions or problems. Have a great week!”
He grumbled a goodbye, then pulled away, making room for a Cadillac packed with people.
“What are you doing here?” I asked Morris.
“Margo was freaking,” he replied, helping himself to a water bottle from the cooler.
I didn’t doubt this, but it still didn’t answer my question. “Yeah, but why were you here in the first place? Looking for me?”
He shook his head as the Cadillac rattled to a stop beside us. “I came for my other job.”
“McAdams,” a red-haired older woman with a deep tan announced from the passenger seat of the Caddy, skipping a greeting entirely. “We’re renting Sea Door.”
“Right.” I found the envelope, got them a bag, and handed both over. “Have you stayed with us before?”
“Yep,” she replied. “Just hope the air conditioner works this year.”
“Call us with any problems. Have a great week!” They drove off. I looked at Morris, saying, “You have another job? Since when? And doing what?”
He nodded towards the front of the office. “Working for them.”
A minivan, radio blaring, was pulling up right as he said this. So it was with the number one song of the summer so far—a bouncy dance track called “Mr. Right Now”—playing in my ear that I looked over to see Theo and his boss, Ivy, standing by their white van. They were talking to Margo, and all of them were looking right at me.
* * *
“I told you,” I said again. “I don’t even know Clyde.”
We were inside now, in the conference room. Normally I would have been thrilled to be relieved of sandbox duty—Rebecca was suffering temporarily instead—but this kind of third degree was not really an improvement.
“Theo was under the impression that you did,” Ivy said. She wore jeans and a black tank top, her arms pale and sinewy, and she folded and unfolded her sunglasses. “And we could really use some help reaching out to him.
“Why don’t you get in touch with him?” I asked Margo.
“I’ve been away at school for four years,” she replied, glancing at Ivy. She was so clearly starstruck, or New York–struck, or just struck, it was embarrassing. All it took was the word movie or something similar and she threw Clyde, and me, right under the bus. “I don’t know anybody here anymore.”
I would have liked to point out, for the record, that she’d only been a couple of hours away, not overseas. “I don’t know Clyde either,” I said again.
Ivy looked at Theo, her expression displeased.
“So you’ve never had contact with him?” he asked me. For the first time, I realized he looked kind of nervous. There was that flush again. “Because I thought—”
“I mean, I’ve met him a few times,” I said. Which was a huge mistake, because they both literally leaned forward, hearing this. “But he’s a pretty private person.”