“You know what? I think you might just be on to something,” Jules conceded slowly. “Going incognito, playing innocent. By day, I’m a mild-mannered designer-slash-construction worker, but by night, I’m an undercover super-spy for the Kahn compound, acquiring top-secret information in the service of protecting all that’s good, beautiful, and righteous against the evil forces of the Moore empire!” Plus, she thought, it would be nice to have another reason to talk to him at work.
Chloe grinned slyly. “Now you’re talking!”
Chapter Eight
Julianne spent the next three weeks at work in an eco-friendly nightmare. Every time she turned around, Remi was standing over her shoulder. He was settling comfortably into his role as “boss,” and while he was always a kind, encouraging, and respect-ful equal to the other guys on the site, Julianne felt like he was there for the sole purpose of making her life more difficult.
She was cutting boards at the circular saw the first time it happened. She had pulled her hair down from its ponytail to put on her safety goggles, so it hung loosely down around her tan shoulders. She eyeballed the length of a board and drew a crisp pencil line across the two-by-four before arranging it on the circular saw.
She was about to rev up the saw when she heard his voice over her right shoulder.
“Um, Julianne, can I have a word with you?” Remi’s voice was quiet.
Julianne spun around, trying to keep her face neutral.
“Sure thing, but it needs to be quick. I don’t want to get behind on these boards.”
“That’s actually the thing,” Remi responded. His voice was gentle but Julianne could have sworn he was savoring every word. “I think it would be better if you laid off the circular saw for a while.”
“Why? What are you talking about?” Julianne’s cheeks stung with embarrassment at the implied demotion. She used power tools all the time with her sculptures. The last installation she’d made was the size of a tree house, and she’d assembled it out of all sorts of boards and planks.
“It’s not so much your craftsmanship that’s the issue.
It’s more about the dress code.” He sounded concerned, almost parental. Jules, however, had a sneaking suspicion that he was embarrassed.
Julianne looked down at her denim cutoffs, her black ribbed tank top, and her worn-in Pumas. All over the site, guys were wearing practically the same thing, with a few tank top and sneaker variations. She ran her fingers over her belt, which was made of elaborately braided nautical rope. “Is this the problem? I mean, I can take it off.” She began to tug at her belt buckle.
Remi’s face went bright red at the suggestion of Julianne unbuckling. “N-n-no,” he stammered. “That’s not it. It’s your hair. You can’t have your hair hanging down like that when you’re standing over the circular saw.
You could get pulled in. It’s a liability. It’s, um, on all the safety code posters, and I know it seems like a really nit-picky thing, but these tools are really dangerous so …”
His words tumbled out in one rambling run-on sentence.
“Are you kidding me? I only had it down for a second—I was just pulling on my goggles.” Julianne was almost too shocked to be angry.
“Look, all I know is I turned around and you were standing over the platform marking your board and your hair was hanging on the circular saw. If you want the whole DIY haircut look, you can use the scissors in the office during lunch.” His attempt at a joke flew right over Julianne’s head. “For today, how about you measure the boards, but let Jeremy cut them?” Remi mum-bled, darting his eyes toward the floor as he gestured to a new guy—a junior water polo player from Julianne’s school, who had joined the crew the day before. “He’s only here for the week, and it’ll be really good experience for him,” Remi finished quickly. Julianne nodded, too stunned to argue. “Hey, Jeremy!” Remi called.
“Come over here! Jules could use a hand.”
As Jeremy sauntered over, it only took a second for Jules to understand why the entire girls’ volleyball team was always gathered around his locker. Unfortunately, it only took two more seconds for Jeremy to prove that he was also a tremendous jerk. “C’mon, baby,” he said pur-posefully to Jules. “Let a real man show you how it’s done.”
Julianne fumed. How dare he act like the problem here was that she was a girl? Maybe there were bigger losers than Remi on this site, after all.
“Sorry, Jeremy. Remi wasn’t able to find a real man, so you’re going to have to help me instead,” she shot back.
“But if a real man comes by, feel free to take notes.”
Undeterred, Jeremy tossed his arm around Julianne’s shoulders to guide her, barely avoiding wiping out on the laces of his untied Nikes. They made it almost all the way back to the circular saw before Julianne whipped around and mouthed, “I’m going to get you!” at Remi’s receding back. She couldn’t help but notice that he’d finally started wearing better pants—they hung loosely over his long legs—but she tried her best to ignore the improvement and focused on her anger.
“Damn it,” Julianne muttered to herself, her ocean blue eyes brimming with hot tears. Between kicking herself for not being more cautious about her hair and feeling the weight of Jeremy’s toned, chauvinistic arm around her, she didn’t know what to be humiliated about first.
From that point on, it seemed like everything that could go wrong did. Julianne spent three miserable days filing and photocopying invoices in the site trailer. The inside of the trailer was covered in fourteen distinct shades of beige and one very distinct odor of mildew.
She spent every cooped-up moment in there dreaming of the murals she’d paint on its crumbling rent-a-walls if only she had access to the crew’s paints. Even on the days that
