Page 10

JULIA

A golf cart with a little trailer picks me up at the landing pad.

The middle-aged white lady driving doesn’t say much as she takes me past the tourist traps and stores of Avalon, up a wooded hill with NO TRESPASSING signs every hundred feet, and finally to a fancy gate with a guardhouse.

She introduces me to a sunburned guy named Bruce who steps out with a clipboard in his hand and a weapon at his hip.

She unhitches the trailer with my toolcase and she’s gone.

Bruce acts as if he’s in charge, so I treat him as if he is.

“Ground rules,” he says, bouncing on the balls of his feet. “You saw the no trespass signs.”

“Couldn’t miss them.”

“So, you can read.” He taps a pen on the clipboard. “I’m gonna review these rules anyway. One. You’re working on two cottages. You do not have access to the main house, that one right there, unless given explicit permission. Do you know what explicit means?”

“I do.”

“It’s not like a rap record or a porno.”

“It means ‘clear.’”

“Moving on. There are no guests. No friends. No deliveries. Not without what kind of permission?”

“Explicit.”

“Correct. Staff has tried to sneak people in and either they’re journalists or hornier than a bug-eyed toad, thinking they’re just gonna land on one of our lily pads. So we had to lock it up, especially on party weekends. Third, no photos.”

“I take pictures of my work to show it’s done.”

“Not on this compound you don’t.”

“Then someone’s gonna have to sign off my punchlist, and that could take another half day.”

“I’m sure it’s not that complicated.”

“Then I guess you can do it.”

One day, I’m going to learn how to not insult men with power over me, but that day isn’t today. I brace for a defensive response, but he’s either too dense or too mature to be baited. I’d put money on the first.

“I’ll make a note to check your phone on the way out,” he says. “Do you know what an NDA is?”

I make a quick prayer to keep me from punching this man in the face.

“Yeah.”

“Have you ever signed one before?”

“Yes.”

He continues as if I said no. “An NDA protects the owners of this compound from weirdos leaking incorrect information about the goings-on.”

“If it’s incorrect, is it a leak?”

As if I said nothing at all, he hands me the clipboard and pen. “Five million dollars if you break it. Before you ask, yes. We have collected on that amount.”

Is that a threat? I don’t like threats. They make me very prickly.

“Have you now?”

He gets just a little softer. Maybe he can sense that he’s set me on edge. He surely doesn’t want to explain to his boss how he ended up with an entire clipboard up his ass.

“If you don’t try to play fast and loose with the rules, we’re good.”

“Sure.” I skim the pages. “I’m not a fast and loose kind of girl.”

“That’s what she said.” He laughs as if I’m in on the joke. Just because I understand it doesn’t mean I’m in on it.

I flip through the agreement. The language is dense, but the point is clear. Explicit, even.

No pictures. Otherwise, I’m not supposed to do the things I normally wouldn’t do.

Fine. We need a truck. All I have to do is get through a punchlist.