Beau doubles over, his laughter echoing across the pool. Jerry looks up to see what’s so funny, shakes his head, and goes back to his work. “I didn’t hire you a stripper. It’s not like that. It’s not like that, I swear.”
“Then tell me what it is like before I keel over.”
“I hired you a social media manager. She’s really good.”
I blink at him. “What do you mean, she’s good? And how would you know? Your specialty is networking.”
“Here’s what I know.” Beau takes a celebratory swig of his mimosa. It’s comically large, in one of the steins meant for a foot of beer. “You’ve been mulling this over and problem-solving it for weeks. You keep bitching about it whenever we have dinner. It is pointless for me to keep hosting events and being the center of attention if all you’re going to post are pictures of the empty front desk.”
He has a point.
“So I went behind your back and hired someone.”
My brain can’t wrap itself around this. “How did you hire someone? You hire event staff. How the hell did you even—”
“She came highly recommended. Can we sit down?” Beau looks around for one of the lounge chairs, but they’re all lined up in the neat rows I insist on. I have the staff come out three times a day to make sure they’re configured in a pleasing arrangement.
“No, we can’t sit down.”
“I’m sitting down.” He goes over to the closest lounge chair and sinks into it gratefully, head tilted backward into the sun. “Anyway,” he calls across to me. “She came highly recommended by—”
“Shut it.” I’m standing by his chair in a matter of seconds. “Don’t shout business details across the pool.”
He cracks one eye open and looks at me. “There’s nobody here.”
“Just don’t do it.”
“Can you sit down? It’s weird to talk when you’re hovering over me like this.”
“Fine.” I take the chair next to him. “Now’s a good time to explain to me exactly what you’ve done and why you did it before I drown you in the pool with my own two hands.”
“Such threats,” Beau says, then takes another sip of his drink. He doesn’t speak until he’s leaned back against the padded surface of the lounge chair and closed his eyes. “She had a great reference from her previous employer.”
Now I wish I had my own drink. “This person was so good that their previous employer found it more beneficial to let her go? That doesn’t inspire a lot of confidence.”
“It’s not like that. She’s freelancing.” Beau raises his free hand and runs it through his hair. When he’s done, it seems to have made no difference at all. “It’s perfect, actually. We need someone who’s available quickly because I can’t listen to you bitch and moan about this for another day of my life.”
“I mentioned it at one dinner—”
“—and we need someone who knows the area.”
“Knows the area?” Jerry comes around to the side of the pool where we’re stationed. I don’t care what he hears—he’s been here at least ten years. But I am genuinely confused about why Beau thinks this. “What does that have to do with anything?”
Beau waves a hand above himself, indicating the space all around us. “The resort is in the area. We can’t just sell the resort amenities. We need to sell...you know, the area.”
“I’m not interested in selling Ruby Bay.”
My brother sits up and looks at me. “For the guy who’s supposed to be in charge of everything, you’re being really stupid.”
“I’m not the one drinking a foot-long mimosa at nine a.m.”
He scoffs. “When else would you drink a foot-long mimosa?” He looks so indignant that I have to laugh. “Seriously. You’re being a dumbass. Dad was all over the city council, planning social engagements that the resort could be part of.”
“That’s not what he was doing. He took meetings with city council whenever...” My own sentence runs out of steam.
“There it is,” Beau says.
“Shut your mouth.”
He shrugs. “If that’s what you want, my liege.”
I’m remembering them now, the things my dad would plan. A booth at the town’s three art fairs. An entry in the cooking contests they held at the festivals. Discounts for...for what? I’m drawing a complete blank, and there’s not much to fill the gaps. My dad had a lot of his old records stored in a little shed out behind the family residence, one of the biggest homes on the club side. It burned down five years ago.
“Shit.”
“You can thank me whenever you’re ready.” Beau swings his legs over the side of the lounge chair and faces me.
It’s worse than I thought, if I can’t remember simple things like what Beau is talking about.
Like what Beau is talking about.
“Wait. Why haven’t you been doing this kind of outreach?”
He points to his chest. “Me? You didn’t command it, your honor.”
“That’s—” I flop back on the lounge chair, giving up my hold on professionalism. “Do that kind of outreach, Beau. You can get started this morning, since you’re up.”
“Can’t do it. I have a date with—” He checks his watch. “—bed. In fact, I’d better be—”
I pop back up off the chair. “No way. Who did you hire?”
He laughs. “You’re never going to believe who it is.”
“Who?”
“Genevieve Starlight.”
I was wrong before. This is how I die. “You are absolutely fucking with me right now, and it’s verging on cruelty.”
“I’m not. Not in the least. She’s going by a new name now. Jenny London. Totally reinvented herself.”
“I don’t believe you.”
There’s simply no way that Genevieve Starlight has transformed into the kind of person who can help me save my family’s resort.
“You’ll believe it when you see it.” Beau stands up, yawning. “I have to get some sleep.”
I stand alongside him. “You have to get a brain. You know this means I have to fire that poor girl, don’t you?” There’s no way. There’s just no way that I can keep her on, if she’s anything like what I remember from high school.
Beau stabs a finger in my direction. “You know this means you have to give her a chance.”
“That kind of thinking will run this place into the ground.”
“Or save it.” Beau holds up both hands, and in the process spills a bit of his drink onto the tile. “Guess we’ll find out.”
3
Jenny
I’m not the kind of girl who hides behind indoor plants anymore.
There were times in the past when, yes, it was easier to stand very still behind a plant than admit that my name is actually Genevieve Starlight. My mother felt a deep connection to the stars on the night that I was born, and therefore gifted me with the world’s most embarrassing name. Maybe someone without clothes from the 1970s could have pulled it off. Not me.