Page 11

CASPIAN

I don’t realize how much I’m worrying until the afternoon, when she opens the box again.

She seems fine. Ready to go. All business, just like the Julia I love. So, nothing bad happened while I was boxed. I’d laugh with relief if I had a mouth.

She slides me and the others into her belt then reviews her punchlist by sliding her finger down the paper, then makes a call. Tonya’s on speaker.

“You good?”

“Yeah. I’m texting you a list of shit to bring. The hardware store here is a joke.”

“Okay. Do you have scope?”

“Rich people campus. The main house is whatever. Not my business. Five guest houses. Eleven hundred square feet each, give or take. Two were just renovated and need a polish. Four days. Maybe five.”

“What about the others?”

“Two, I don’t have access to yet, so it could be another job down the line. And number five, I’m sleeping in. It hasn’t been upgraded since the war.”

“Which war?”

“The one with the guys in ditches.”

“Ah, the Great War,” Tonya says. “Have you crossed paths with the guy whose name was on the helicopter?”

“No, but it left right after we landed. Could be going to get him, just to torment me.”

Just to torment her. Exactly. Carol got the handy girl in the handy place all weekend.

I hope I’m handy when JJ Dick tries something.

I hope she remembers I’m there.

I’d really like to feel the back of that guy’s skull by way of his eye socket.

Julia and the tool trailer are taken to a little cottage farthest away from the main house. She leaves us there for a bit, then comes back with her punchlist. We start working almost immediately. When the sun is high in the sky, her hands get shaky and her stomach rumbles.

She goes to the front gate and talks to that Bruce guy about using one of the golf carts lined up under an overhanging roof.

“Sorry,” he lies. “Those are spoken for.”

He tips his camo cap in apology. I don’t believe him and I can tell I’m not alone in that.

“I need to get food,” she says. “There’s nothing in the cottage and I don’t have access to the main kitchen.”

“House rules.” He holds out his hands in a kind of shrug. Because he may be the boss, but he has no power here. “That was in the contract. I thought you could read.”

He walks away. Julia mutters under her breath. Something about controlling, patriarchal fucking bullshit. Then she calls out to him again.

“What about this one?” She points at a decrepit old golf cart off to the side. The upholstery on the seat is ripped and one tire is flat. “Is it spoken for?”

“No keys. If you can start it, you can take it.” He laughs, as if saying, good luck, lady .

She takes me out of her belt, spins me around the tip of her thumb, and says “Challenge accepted.”

My handle is sticking out of her purse as she shops in Avalon Market.

I’ve been on her belt shopping before. She gets the string cheese, beans, eggs, ramen noodles, macaroni and cheese, frosted flakes—and fills the rest of her basket with winter fruit.

The milk section’s a little bare. The last carton of whole milk is on the top shelf.

She reaches. Can’t get it. She pulls me from her pocket and uses my flathead to poke at it, trying to push it over the ledge, but it only moves sideways.

From above, I see the guy approaching, and I know he’s going to be a fucking problem.

“Let me help with that.” He grabs the milk and hands it to her. “That’s not a job for a screwdriver.”

The fuck it’s not. I woulda had it if he hadn’t come over with his big hammy fucking hand.

“Thanks,” she says, sliding me back into her purse. She’s smiling. Her eyes are sparkling. Fuck.

“Sure. Yeah, so the dairy boat comes in on Monday.”

“Good to know. Do you live here? Or are you just a really observant tourist?”

“My family’s been on the island since before the bison.” He chuckles at a joke I don’t get, then clears his throat. “We used to have a really big house up the hill, past the golf course. But, you know… things happened, then other things.”

“Oh, I know all about things.”

“Things. Yeah anyway… end of the week, shelves gets pretty bare around here.”

“I should be set for the weekend.”

“On apples, for sure.” He points at her basket. “You baking a pie?”

“Uh, oh.” She looks down. “Yeah, I guess that’s a lot. I went shopping hungry again. You know the rule.”

“Yeah.”

“Yeah.” She clears her throat. “Well, thanks for the reach.”

“If you’re hungry, you should try the seafood place on Clarissa Ave. I can walk you over.”

“I can find it.”

“I’m a little hungry myself, if you want company—besides the screwdriver, I mean.”

I never wished for a fist as hard as I’m wishing right now.

“Nah. I’m just going to eat at home,” Julia says.

“Apples for dinner?”

“Honeycrisp are my screwdriver’s favorite.”

He laughs as if what she just said isn’t her showing a preference for me over him.

Take that, tall-guy-with-hands.

“My name’s Dan.”

“Nice to meet you, Dan. I’m Julia.”

“It’s a small island, so I’ll probably see you around,” he says, backing away as he should.

“Sure.”

“My sister and I own the parasailing place over on Pebbly Beach Road, if you feel like scaring yourself from eight hundred feet.” He’s almost too far away for her to talk to when he reels her back in. “You ever been parasailing?”

“Nah.”

“The physics are sound but only if you keep moving.”

“Just like life.” With that, she waves goodbye.

Thank fucking God. She goes to the register to pay for her food, and he goes right to fucking hell for all I care.

In the golf cart, she jams me into the hole where the ignition was, jiggles me and turns me hard. I’m useful as fuck. It’s because of me that the switch can connect the cart ignition and the solenoid. She hits the gas and the cart jolts forward.

Mr. Dan-hands slings his leg over a bicycle and loops an Avalon Market shopping bag over the handle bars.

He waves to her. She waves back and darts up the road, humming a tune.

She seems pretty happy, which is great, but I’m losing my shit because he’s a man and I’m an inanimate object jutting out of the ignition.

I have to calm down.

First, I have to figure out how to save her from Jaeger Duke.

Then I have to save myself from her ever seeing Dan again.

Where’s that goddamn talking insect when you need him?