Just Once (3 page)

For the second time that morning, I find myself arching my eyebrow. What is it with the people around here? “I’m Kate Burke,” I inform her. “The kitchen/cabin manager. Who are you?”

She freezes. “Let’s start again,” she suggests.

I try not to laugh.

“I’m Hailey, one of the kitchen/cabin girls,” she says. “Who might you be?”

“Kate Burke. The new kitchen/cabin manager.”

“Pleasure to meet you.”

“Uh-huh. Why are you drinking in the morning, Hailey?”

She sighs and sinks to her knees, gripping her hair in one hand before sliding back under the bed to retrieve the bottle. “I wasn’t drinking—and I wasn’t going to,” she says before I can suggest it. “I was just checking that the other girls hadn’t taken it.”

“Which girls?”

“Janie and her minions, Lisa and Becca. You’ll meet them.”

“They’re drunk?”

“Oh, who knows. Everybody here is either drunk or hung-over half the time. But they’re eighteen, so when I see them snickering and running off together, my first thought is: vodka.”

“Naturally.”

Hailey shrugs. “Anyway. I have to get back. I only meant to come up here and check. I’ve been gone nearly half an hour.”

I watch as she tucks the bottle into the back of a drawer, arranging bras and panties in front of it.

“Nice meeting you,” she says before ducking out.

After shoving the mattress back on the bed I return to searching for the elusive Shane. I couldn’t help but notice that the girls’ bedroom had a fan, so I feel further validated in my quest for one of my own. I’ve done my share of staying in cramped, hot hostels, but I’m not twenty-two anymore and the appeal of stifling, crappy sleeping quarters has worn off. Not that they were appealing before.

I introduce myself to everyone I meet, most of whom are perfectly nice, but none of whom know where to find Shane. I pass the kitchen at one point, and Alec asks if I’ve seen “my” girls. The guests have gone, but the kitchen and dining room are in disarray, and with the exception of Hailey, there’s no one cleaning up. I promise to keep an eye out and soon find the three missing girls crammed into the phone booth, sharing a cigarette. Taking a deep breath, I rap on the door, wondering whose bright idea it was to hide in a clear glass booth.

After a second the door cracks open and a plume of smoke wafts out. I inhale—just a cigarette.

“Can I help you?” the blonde from earlier in the kitchen asks. She’s pretty in a mean-girl way, and because she appears to be the leader, I assume she’s Janie and the other two are the “minions” Hailey mentioned.

“Are you the kitchen/cabin girls?”

“So?”

“I’m Kate,” I tell them. “Your boss. Alec is looking for you.”

“Tell him we’re busy.”

I push the door open the rest of the way, and they topple out. “Tell him yourselves.”

The other two look cowed and afraid, but Janie just glares. “In a minute.”

I fix the other two with a stern look. “Now.”

They look like frozen deer: they don’t want to displease Janie, but they don’t want to get in trouble either. I don’t know what I could do to punish them—firing people is a last resort when your business is as remote as this one—but I try to give the impression of being ready to act on my unspoken threat.

“Let’s go, Janie,” another blond one mumbles, shuffling her feet.

“Yeah,” the third girl echoes, a brunette with bad skin. They all look to be eighteen or nineteen, and Janie and the blonde could be sisters, but right now I don’t care. I’m already starting to understand why Jolene left. I found one girl upstairs stuck under a bed looking for vodka, and three geniuses hiding in a clear box—all while they’re supposed to be working.

Janie takes one last drag and stomps out the cigarette, grinding it into the ground with the heel of her cowboy boot. “Fine.”

They walk off, Janie slightly in the lead, as though it were their decision. I take a deep breath and remind myself that I’m in the right here. I try to avoid conflict, but sometimes I can’t, even if it makes my hands shake so bad I have to stuff them in my pockets.
You’re right
, I tell myself again. I’m an adult and I’m behaving like one, which is probably why it feels so strange.

Chapter Two

A S
HORT
T
IME
L
ATER
I linger just out of sight as the staff waves goodbye to the departing guests and the ranch vans drive off. I feel as though I’ve met everybody but the one person I’m looking for, and I’ve badgered them all with my need for a fan. With the exception of the kitchen/cabin girls, everybody here seems competent and comfortable, and I hope I’m making the same impression.

I run upstairs to dig my credit card out of my bag, then hurry back to the smoky-smelling phone booth and dial the only phone number I know by heart. After three rings, a familiar voice picks up. “Hello?”

“It’s me.”

“Where are you?”

“At the ranch.”

He sighs. “Seriously?”

I squat down on the overturned milk crate that serves as a seat and lean against the dingy wall. “Seriously.”

Stanley Goldblatt, my agent, best friend, and tormentor, launches into his now-standard plea for me to return to Boston where he’ll kick out my tenants so we can be apartment neighbors again.

I can’t help but laugh. “I promised I’d stay,” I remind him. “I’m here for the summer. And I want to be.”

This is true. I promised Hank and Mary I’d spend the summer, June to September. Despite not having worked in hospitality since my last summer here, I should be able to manage. Over the course of my career I’ve stayed in hundreds of hotels and eaten in thousands of restaurants—I know what guests like, even if I’m not normally the one to give it to them. In return I’ll get a season free of the stress of city life, three blissful months where I can wake up in the same bed every morning to the sweet comfort of a dull routine. It’s the perfect opportunity to put myself back together. I’ll walk away confident and composed in September, finally ready to return to the life I know and love.

“You’ll go crazy,” Stanley chides me. “I know you. You’ll lose it. You barely survived six months at home.”

“Those six months were wonderful,” I assure him. “But I’m ready to work again.”

“You’re having a nervous breakdown.”

“Am not.”

“You’ll get bored. You won’t have any friends.”

“Why wouldn’t I make friends?”

“You won’t have anything in common with a bunch of cowboys,” he says. “Or cowgirls. You’ll be lonely.”

“I’m surrounded by people.”

“And horses.”

“And peace and quiet.”

“Kate, if all you needed was peace and quiet, you had that at your beachfront cottage in Thailand.”

He’s got me there, so I try another tack. “I know Thailand didn’t exactly go as planned, but this will work out. Trust me. I need a break. Something different. You know that better than anyone.”

“You had a break! You said you were better!”

This is true too. Before Thailand I spent six months “not working” at my apartment in Boston, until I started feeling antsy. You know something’s wrong when you’re in your own home, next door to your best friend on the planet, and you still feel like you’re in the wrong place.

“I’m on sabbatical,” I say.

“Uh-huh. You know, if you get lonely, Kevin looked pleased to hear you were coming back to the States ahead of schedule.”

“Kevin Drew?”

“The one and only. Come to think of it, he’s been looking overworked lately. Maybe he could use a little R&R of the S-E-X variety.”

I laugh, but I can’t help but remember dreamy Kevin Drew and his five-thousand-dollar suits and perfectly veneered smile. He’s my financial advisor, and also a bit of a player, but he’s put all that practice to good use. We hooked up while I was home, and though we always had a good time, it hadn’t been enough to stay. And, incidentally, when I wanted to leave Thailand, I didn’t want to go to Boston. Not for Kevin and not for Stanley—it was home, but it wasn’t.

“I’m breaking my habits, Stanley. No more being reckless. You said you’d support me.”

“Kevin Drew is not something to give up so easily!”

I laugh, but he’s wrong. Because that’s the thing with traveling nonstop: it’s hard to have relationships, but it’s easy to have flings. It’s easy to keep my heart separate from my head.

“Maybe in September,” I make myself say, if only to get him off my back.

“You won’t last that long.”

“Thanks for the support. I’m hanging up now. It’s lunchtime, and I have to go meet the staff I haven’t already accosted.”

“Remind me why you’re doing this?” he pleads. “Working as a maid?”

“I’m the kitchen/cabin manager,” I clarify. “Not a maid. And Hank and Mary are the kindest people I know. They were short-staffed, and I wanted to come back.”

“And you want to hide.”

“Starting now.” I hang up and head for the dining room.

The typical Saturday workday ends the moment the guests drive off the property, but today Hank and Mary have forced everyone to gather in the dining room (now tidy), to greet the newest member of their ranks. Chefs Alec and Mark have made lunch, and once Hank and Mary have embarrassed me, we all sit down.

The four kitchen/cabin girls sit together, as do the wranglers. Brandon is joined by two other similarly hulking, plaid-shirt-wearing men, though when I ask Mary which one is Shane, she looks around, perplexed.

“He’s not here,” she says after a minute. “Not sure where he’s got to.”

“What do you need?” Hank asks.

“A ceiling fan. I’m in the sweatshop again.”

They laugh, no doubt remembering my complaints from long ago. “Shane’s the guy to ask about that,” Mary confirms. “We hired a handyman, but he couldn’t change a light bulb. Still, nice guy.”

We make small talk for the rest of the meal, and eventually people start filtering out, ready to enjoy their brief reprieve from work. Hank, Mary, and I linger to go over the basics of my duties, further verifying my impression that nothing has changed in the ten years I’ve been gone.

Because the guests have a set schedule during their stay, the kitchen/cabin staff has a pretty fixed routine. The wranglers come in for breakfast at six thirty; guest breakfast is from seven to nine. When the guests go out for morning rides or various activities, we clean cabins, then come back to serve lunch from twelve until one. Once the dining room and kitchen are clean, we have a few hours off—most of which are spent napping—then we set up, serve, and clean up dinner from six until nine. After dinner the guests have the option of hanging out in the lounge or at the pool, but they’re normally so exhausted by the day’s activities that they just retire to their cabins. The staff, on the other hand, washes up and goes to O’Malley’s, the nearest bar.

Sure enough, that evening the Saturday night routine is just as I remember it: around eight I hear the female wranglers and kitchen/cabin girls cramming into the two bathrooms and fighting for space in front of the mirror, gossiping about who kissed who and who hurt whose feelings.

I’m alone in my room with the door open, trying to decide if I should join them. I haven’t technically been invited—and given my introduction to the kitchen/cabin girls, I’m not expecting to be—but I was an O’Malley’s legend in my old days, and I wouldn’t mind checking it out again. Not that I’d be repeating any of my previous shenanigans, but still…It could be fun. And I wouldn’t mind showing the girls that I don’t have to be the strict schoolmarm my phone booth lecture suggested. We could start fresh.

There’s a faint knock on the door, and I look up from my pensive position on the bed.

It’s Hailey. “Hey,” she says.

I straighten. “Hey.”

She steps inside and immediately fans herself. “It’s hot as hell in here.”

“Tell me about it.”

“Christ. Did you want to come out with us tonight? Everyone’s going to O’Malley’s. It’s much cooler.”

A bead of sweat winds its way down my spine. “I’m in.”