Chapter 18
Parrish was still getting set up at the guest relations desk in the lobby on Wednesday when the mom arrived—with three towheaded children surrounding her. Technically one child, who looked like a four-year-old boy, was attached to the hip of her lime-green-and-pink Lilly Pulitzer shift, and sucking on the edge of a disgusting-looking gray blanket. The other two, twin girls, maybe six years old, were circling the woman’s legs, slapping at each other and whining. They were dressed in miniature versions of their mother’s dress.
“Hi!” Parrish chirped, trying to sound cheerier than she felt. “How can I help you?”
“Day camp,” the woman said. She had an enviable super-toned body, with shiny dark hair falling below her shoulders. “I called the desk last night to sign them up, but the guy who answered the phone, who, by the way, was very rude, said there weren’t any more openings. We chose this resort because my friends all said the kids’ day camp was excellent.”
“Hmmm,” Parrish said, trying to sound concerned. “Let me just check.” She tapped some keys, found the page for the Saint’s Little Minnows Day Camp, and looked up. “I’m so sorry, but that’s correct. The day camps fill up super early in the summertime, which is why when you booked your stay, you should have been sent a link to preregister online.”
The woman shifted the blanket-sucking kid to her other hip, and let out a long, beleaguered sigh. “Well, my idiot husband booked our cottage, so that explains a lot. The only thing he’s interested in signing up for are blowjobs and tee times.” She waved her hand at the computer. “Can’t you, like, squeeze them in anyway?”
“I wish I could,” Parrish said. “But there’s already a waiting list for this session.”
“What am I supposed to do with these three now?” The mom gestured at the girls, who had somehow managed to steal the blanket from their brother and were using it for a game of tug-of-war, while the little boy was sobbing, “Banky. I need my banky.” The woman reached down and swatted both girls’ butts. “Sidney! Sloaney! Stop it!” she hissed. “Give Sutton his blanket back. Right now, or you’re not getting any ice cream.”
Parrish craned her neck to look out the French doors that led to the veranda. “Looks like a beautiful day for the beach. And of course, the pool is open, and the playground. Also, if I hurry, I can sign you all up for the nine-o’clock nature walk with Miss Anne, our in-house naturalist. You’ll see the roseate spoonbill rookery…”
“Birds?” The woman’s shrill voice echoed in the high-ceilinged lobby. She leaned into the desk until her face was only inches from Parrish’s. “It’s already eighty-five degrees outside. Do I look like someone who wants to drag these three on a walk to see some fucking birds?”
“To be honest, you don’t.”
“Babysitters? Surely you people have a babysitting service.”
Maybe just drop them off at the nearest fire station,Parrish thought. Wonder if there’s, like, a Tinder, but for childcare?
“I’m afraid not,” Parrish said finally, trying to sound sympathetic. “But I can add your name to the Little Minnows waiting list, and if something comes up…”
“Hrrumppph.” A man with graying hair stood a few feet behind the mom and her kids.
“I’ll be with you in a moment,” Parrish said, hoping this would signal the woman that her time was up.
“Mommmmmmy,” the little boy wailed. “I tee-teed!” Sure enough, there was a suspicious, spreading wet spot on the front of the mom’s dress.
“Perfect!” the woman said. “Just perfect.” She grabbed both her daughters’ hands. “Come on. We’re gonna go find Daddy on the golf course.”
Felice picked up the sea bass fillet and sniffed. It wasn’t off—yet—but it definitely wasn’t fresh, and had, in fact, probably been sitting on ice for at least a couple of days.
“Eighty-six the sea bass,” she called to Rocky, her sous-chef.
“What? Why? It’s the lunch special.” He pointed to the wall-mounted computer screen. “Look. We’ve got six orders already.”
“It’s gone bad,” Felice said. “When was this mess delivered?”
“This morning. First thing. From our regular fishmonger.”
“What’s his name?”
“Tommy Betz. We buy all our fish from him. He’s been around forever.”
Felice picked up the tray of sea bass and tipped the whole thing into the trash. “This fish has been around forever. We’re not sending this out of my kitchen. No, sir.”
“What do we tell the servers?” Rocky asked, desperation in his voice and on his face.
She turned to the walk-in cooler and pulled out another tray of prepped fish fillets, lifted the plastic, and sniffed.
“Grouper, right?”
“Yeah.”
“This is okay,” she said, placing the tray on the stainless steel table. “Did it come from that same guy?”
“Tommy? I guess.”
“Okay, well, tell the servers that we had a problem and we’re going with the grouper for the special instead. Same preparation, herb-and-citrus gastrique, and what else on the side?”
“Grilled asparagus and cheese grits,” Rocky said. “These fancy people love their grits.”
Felice could remember a time when the only thing her aunt Sherise could afford to buy and cook was grits. Three times a day, sometimes supplemented with some greens cooked with a little bit of fatback. Grits were definitely not what she’d consider a delicacy.
“All right. They can have their grits.” She wiped her hands on a kitchen towel. “Later on, me and Mr. Tommy Betz, we’re gonna have a little talk.”
“KJ? KJ Parkhurst? My man! Is that you?”
He had been dreading this moment. It was inevitable that one of his friends, either from prep school in Atlanta, from college, or a neighbor, or anybody, really, from his past, would find him here, in the pro shop, dressed in his Saint-branded shirt and shorts, folding and refolding shirts, shorts, and socks.
He spun around and found himself facing a guy about his age, shorter and chunkier, with Oakleys pushed back into his shaggy hair. He was with an older man, his father, probably, and KJ knew he knew him, sort of. Maybe this guy had played lacrosse for a rival Atlanta school—Lovett, or maybe Marist?
“Oh, hey…” KJ’s voice trailed off. He was hoping the guy’s name would come to him. “How’s it hanging?”
“Goin’ good. I mean, I stunk up the front nine, but it’s all gravy, right?”
“Absolutely. It’s just a game, that’s what my granddad says.”
The other guy. Maybe his name was Nash? Yeah. Nash something. He’d coached the kid in a summer junior league camp put on at Westminster.
The older man moved to the other side of the shop to examine the selection of putters and wedges.
“So, uh, are you, like, working here now?” Nash asked.
KJ straightened up. “Hell yeah. The money’s good and the hours don’t suck. Gives me time to work on my game, ya know?” He lowered his voice and nodded at Olivia, who’d been drafted to fill in when someone called in sick. “And the ladies are fine, ya know what I’m sayin’?”
“I hear that,” Nash said, giving him a fist bump. “Say, KJ, I heard from my buddy Miles that you’d quit Wake. I told him that can’t be right.”
“Taking a little sabbatical is all,” KJ said. He gestured at his leg. “Messed up my knee this year, so I thought, what the hell, might as well head down to the Saint, catch some rays. But I got bored just sitting around my granddad’s house, playing video games all day. The boss here is an old family friend, and he’d been bugging me to come work for him, so I finally said okay.”
“Cool,” Nash said. He reached down, unfolded one of the polo shirts KJ had just folded, studied it, then tossed it aside before rejoining his father at the cash register.
“Good seeing you, man.”
KJ picked up the shirt and refolded it. “You too, asshole,” he muttered.
Livvy was brazenly eavesdropping on KJ’s conversation with the customer.
What a load of bullshit,she thought.
The night before, while KJ and Garrett were hanging out in the lounge area, sucking down beer, KJ had tipsily admitted that he’d been kicked off the lacrosse team and flunked out of school. He’d also confessed that his presence in staff housing was a direct result of his father’s “sentencing” him to spend the summer working and getting his shit together.
Livvy didn’t actually dislike KJ. Yes, some of the time he acted like the rest of the entitled assholes who made up a certain percentage of the Saint’s guests, but unlike them, he could, on occasion, be generous, even thoughtful, offering her the last slice of pizza, or, as last night, stopping to give her a ride home when he encountered her walking back from the restaurant.
He’d even offered her a ride this morning, after she got the call directing her to report to the pro shop instead of the Verandah.
Livvy rang up the customer’s purchases: two golf shirts, a golf club, and a leather belt with a design of embroidered whales. The total came to a whopping $1,422. The old man gave her a noncommittal nod and left the shop while Livvy fumed.
Traci Eddings hadn’t hired her to work as a sales clerk. She’d been hired as a server in the restaurant, where, if her customers had spent that kind of money on a purchase, she would have easily made a 20 percent tip. Instead, she got a lukewarm smile, which wouldn’t help pay her bills.
She moved over to where KJ was rearranging the shirts. “Do you know those people?”
“I know the son. His name’s Nash. I coached him in a summer league lacrosse camp.”
“His father just spent almost fifteen hundred dollars here. How rich are they?”
“I wouldn’t say they’re mega rich. Maybe ordinary rich. Why?”
“I can’t get over how much money you people spend on stupid shit,” Livvy told him. “Why does a golf club cost, like, a thousand bucks in here? I see golf clubs at the Goodwill for ten bucks. And why does a Saint logo on something make a twenty-dollar shirt worth a hundred and fifty?”
KJ gave her his best, most dazzling smile. “I’ll have you know that shirt is made of one hundred percent organic yarn-dyed Sea Island cotton. Hand-sewn right here in the US by artisans using patterns custom-designed for this resort.”
“You’re full of shit,” Livvy told him.
“Guilty.”
“What about you? Are you regular or mega rich? And what’s your real story?”
“Me? I’m not any kind of rich. I mean, my parents and my grandparents have money, but I’m working here, aren’t I?”
She didn’t want to admit that she’d been eavesdropping—last night or just now. And she wouldn’t point out that he’d neatly evaded her question.
“Working in here is boring as hell,” she complained.
“But it beats waiting tables, doesn’t it?”
“Not really. At least I’m not standing twiddling my thumbs between customers. When I’m working at the Verandah, I’m moving. The shift goes fast, I’m making decent tips, and I’m not bored out of my gourd. I mean, what do you even do in here all day long?”
KJ whipped out his phone and showed her his gaming apps, two screen-loads of them.
Livvy rolled her eyes. “Dude. Get a life.”