Just Once (13 page)

Pete and Lisa laugh, and Hailey finally notices her.

“Wait,” she says. “What?”

“I came back,” Lisa says.

“And the other two?”

“Gone.”

“Good.”

Lisa nods uncertainly, as though she’s not sure she completely disagrees with Hailey, but can’t be so disloyal as to openly agree. What she can do openly, however, is ogle Pete, who is returning the favor. Hailey notices, and we both roll our eyes. At least with Pete around we’ve got something to tether Lisa to the ranch.

Shane catches my eye when he stops in to pick up lunch for the ranch hands. We stare at each other for a moment, though I’m too busy to stop and talk.

When the guests have cleared out and we’ve cleaned and swept the dining room, Hailey, Pete, Lisa, and I sit down with sandwiches and iced tea.

“You know about Thursdays, right?” Hailey asks.

“Ranch dance?” I guess.

“You betcha.”

I sigh. The ranch hosts a dance for the guests every Thursday night, complete with live music from a local country cover band. Staff attendance is mandatory, and back in the day I spent many hours in the arms of strange men, two-stepping and boot-scooting my way through the night. If we managed to sneak alcohol upstairs, the nights were mildly entertaining. Sober, they were just a reminder that our time was not our own. I’d almost managed to forget all this. “How have they been going?” I ask. Hailey and Lisa have been around for two dances so far. My late arrival makes tonight my first dance of the season.

They shrug and look at each other. “Okay,” Lisa says finally. “Just…you know. We’d rather be off.”

“No kidding.”

“But…maybe this one will be better,” Lisa adds. “I don’t know.”

The way Pete’s looking at her suggests that it will, indeed, be better tonight. Even if her face isn’t.

“Kate?” I turn to see Hank and Mary lingering in the hallway. “May we see you?”

I force a smile. “Of course.”

They disappear down the hall, and I push my plate away, my appetite vanishing. They’ve no doubt heard about our missing kitchen/cabin girls, and they didn’t hear it from me. In my own defense, I’ve been busy every minute until now, but still…I probably should have made time to see them. Or at the very least left a note.

Upon entering the small back office, however, I discover that Hank and Mary aren’t mad. There were no guest complaints yesterday—a season record, apparently—and they didn’t really like Janie or “that other one” anyway. Now that I’m here they’re more than happy to let me post an ad online looking for new staff, and take over the hiring.

“Just can’t be bothered with it,” Hank says, kicking back in his seat like life has never been better.

“Nope,” Mary agrees. “Who cares?”

I hesitate. As the one picking up the slack, I certainly care. “Okay,” I say. “I’ll post something this afternoon.”

“Great,” Hank says.

“Whatever.” Mary shrugs.

They exchange a look. “Oh, hey, Kate,” Hank says slowly. “Do you mind maybe…rewriting some of the text on the website?”

My eyes dart between them. They’re acting especially strange. “What do you mean?”

“Make it newer,” Mary explains. “Fresher. Try to attract more people.”

“The ranch is fully booked.”

“Change is good,” Hank says.

“It’s time for a change,” Mary agrees.

It’s like I’m witnessing some sort of strange performance art. Hank and Mary may be a little offbeat, but in the out of touch, old school kind of way, not…like this.

I nod anyway. “Okay, sure. I’ll look at it after I post the job ad.”

Hank pushes back his seat and helps Mary to her feet. “Great!” he says brightly.

“Thanks, Kate!”

I watch the two of them fairly skip out of the office. What on earth is going on?

There’s an hour between the end of dinner service and the beginning of the dance. I’m upstairs getting ready with the girls, and through the floor we can hear the tables being pushed aside and the band setting up.

The Thursday nights I remember involve ten girls crammed into two tiny bathrooms, but there’s only six of us today: Hailey, Lisa, and me, as well as three female wranglers we rarely cross paths with due to our concurrent shifts.

Lisa, Hailey, and I peer at our reflections as Lisa asks for the fourth time if curling her hair isn’t too “predictable.” She’s got wavy blond hair, and Hailey and I assure her that the curls are anything but predictable. Neither of us really knows what this means, but it seems to calm Lisa, and she wields her curling iron with confidence.

“What are you wearing?” Hailey asks me.

“Just a skirt,” I answer. “Top. Nothing special. Why? You?”

“Can I see your skirt?” she asks.

This conversation is starting to feel just as peculiar as Hank and Mary’s stilted performance earlier.

“Of course you can.” I look at Lisa, who does not appear to have noticed anything unusual.

I lead the way to my room and Hailey follows me in, closing the door. I turn to ask her what’s going on, but she beats me to it.

“So Brandon talked to me today,” she says, sitting on my bed.

“He did? When?”

“During one of my countless runs to the laundry room thanks to the Gross Tall Boys.”

“What did he say?”

“He asked if I was going to the dance.”

“That sounds so…grade school.”

“I know, right? I said I was and he was like, ‘Good.’ Then he tried to give me a seductive smile. I was like, ‘It’s mandatory. It’s my job to be there,’ and he stopped smiling. But seriously, Kate, what’s his deal?”

I shrug. Apart from our initial encounters, I haven’t had many occasions to talk to Brandon. If Shane hadn’t completely obscured my view of any other man, I might have noticed him more, but as it stands…I’ve got nothing.

“Are you going to dance with him?”

“No. If I dance with him I’ll let him feel me up and in the morning he’ll ignore me again. I’m not about to make it a habit.”

“Good idea.”

“Are you going to dance with Shane?”

I shrug. “I don’t even know if he’s going.”

“He’s been at the last two.”

“Seriously?” I have a hard time picturing it.

“The old ladies love him,” Hailey says with a laugh. “You should see them. They act so frail and helpless. For such a serious guy, he’s pretty good with them.”

“Yeah. He’s good at a lot of things,” I say absently.

“Oh?” Hailey looks intrigued.

“Not like that,” I say hastily. “I wouldn’t know.”

“But you want to know.”

“I’m not going to
know
anything,” I say. “Those days are behind me.”

“What days?”

“You know. Carelessness. No strings. Jump first, think later. I can’t do that anymore.”

“What, have fun?”

“Hailey, you’re the one who dragged me in here to say you weren’t going to let Brandon have any fun tonight!”

“I had to!” she protests. “If I don’t say it out loud no one can hold me accountable in the morning.”

“I bet if Brandon promised to hold you account—”

“Shut up!” she squeals, throwing a pillow at me. “Fine. Fine. You won’t
know
Shane, and I won’t
have fun
with Brandon, and tomorrow we’ll pat ourselves on the back for being spinsters. Deal?”

“Deal.”

We finish getting dressed, collect Lisa, and stomp downstairs to the dance. The wood-paneled room and twanging banjo strings lend the night an authentic country air, and already staff and guests are two-stepping around the floor. Most of the guests at the ranch aren’t actual country folk. They show up with brand new denim and cowboy boots and plaid shirts and play dress-up. They’re charmed by their surroundings and generally find the simple solitude of the mountains peaceful and calming. At least for a week. Then the lack of technology gets to them, and they’re itching to leave by the time Saturday rolls around. I can understand. No television for an entire summer was almost unthinkable when I was a teenager. I remember stopping at the airport newsstand and buying every tabloid available to devour on the plane ride home, desperate to catch up on the important news of celebrity hook-ups and divorces.

Tonight everyone is in a good mood. The band is the same one that played ten years ago, and they’re playing a lot of the same songs. Pete’s already here, wearing a clean Ponderosa Pines polo shirt and jeans, fending off the advances of a couple of tween girls. His eyes light up when he spots Lisa, but he mimes apologetically that he can’t come dance with her just yet. She adjusts her bandage and smiles coyly. It’s okay. She’ll wait.

Hailey and I exchange another look—we’re so far beyond all that—and when she promptly blanches I follow her gaze, though I’m pretty sure I know what I’ll find. Brandon is dancing with a tiny old lady, his broad shoulders clad in black plaid, a cowboy hat on his blond head. The man could be in a cowboy calendar: Mr. July. He’s just so damn pretty, and Hailey isn’t immune, no matter how determined she is.

“Come on,” I say. “Let’s find guests to dance with.”

She sets her shoulders. “Good idea.”

We approach a couple of older gentlemen and ask them to dance. Soon we’re weaving our way around the room, agreeing with the men that we are so lucky to work at such a beautiful place, asking if they’re having a great time. The song ends, and we dance with more guests. Five songs later I’m starting to sweat. I haven’t seen Shane yet, but Brandon appears to be particularly aware of Hailey’s presence, though he hasn’t been able to get to her before the next guest whisks her away.

I slip past a slow-dancing Lisa and Pete and duck into the hallway to catch my breath. Before I reach the outside door, however, my nemesis—Summer Skank—walks through.

“Sum—Cassidy!” I exclaim.

She looks down her nose at me. “Kate,” she sneers. Her blond hair is piled on top of her head with “artful” tendrils swirling around her face. She’s toned down her outfit tonight, opting for a barely there nude-colored spaghetti-strap tank top and skin-tight jeans, finished with red stilettos. She looks like a
Showgirls
reject.

In comparison, I look decidedly
Little House on the Prairie
, with a knee-length floral skirt, sleeveless white blouse, and cowboy boots. It’s not particularly stylish, but at least it’s appropriate.

“What’re you doing here?” I ask when she makes no move to explain.

She blows a curl out of her eye. “I was invited.”

“Invi—?”

My question is answered when Mark enters the hall, two beers in hand. “Oh, hey, Kate,” he says awkwardly.

“Hey, Mark.”

“Enjoying the dance?”

“I am. You?”

“Uh-huh.”

Cassidy looks between us, amused at our awkwardness. We both know she’s only here with Mark because she thought there was something between us, which there most definitely is not. But if she’s distracted by the sous chef, she’ll have less time to bother me, which works just fine.