“You mean Tracy?”
“No, I meant —”
“Where is she, anyway? I thought she was hired to help us clean. All she’s doing is food service.”
“Beth said she starts full time on Monday.”
“She’s kind of creepy, don’t you think?”
“Beth or Tracy?”
Rachel turned to face me. “Both. But this Tracy girl, I don’t know. She’s like a robot or something.”
“You mean because she’s always happy?”
“Exactly. She’s too happy. You know that movie,
Rachel hadn’t just hit it, she’d knocked it out of the park. I wondered if the collective happiness among the locals had anything to do with the strange feeling I’d experienced.
“I’ve noticed that,” I said. “Everyone we’ve met here is cheery to the point of seeming programmed.”
“Except for the gang guys that tried to rape me that first night.”
“Rape you? They said they were offering you a ride.”
“And you said you’re a pencil pusher for Homeland Security.”
“I —”
“Only you happen to know a lot about explosives and computers and rescuing people from Lucite jail cells.”
“I also know a lot about cooking and cleaning. But anyway, those gang guys aren’t from St. Alban’s.”
“How do you know?”
“Their car had Georgia plates.”
She studied me a moment. “Is that the sort of thing pencil pushers notice?”
I got back on the subject of our kitchen helper. “I’m sure Tracy was just happy to get the job. This is a pretty tough economy for a small town like this.”
“True,” she said. “But that makes it even weirder that everyone in town is stupidly happy all the time.”
I couldn’t argue about that, so I focused on my tasks. Rachel did the same, and we continued working until we’d done all we could to make the kitchen spotless. Then we went upstairs and Rachel rewarded me by letting me watch her change into her bikini.
“I’ve got an idea,” I said, raising my eyebrows.
“Don’t even think about it, horn dog. And don’t bother pouting, ’cause it’s your own fault.”
“My fault?”
“I can’t help it if I used up all my energy being your scullery maid. So I’m going to go relax in the sun and bronze this body until I’m Brazilian.”
“You can do that without feeling the slightest bit of compassion for my, ah, predicament?”
“Yup. Oh, and I’ll be completely unavailable sexually until...” she looked at her watch. “Three o’clock. If you can’t wait that long, you’ll just have to find another way to work off your frustration.”
I smiled. “I know just the thing!”
“Eew.”
“Eew?”
“Men. Ugh.”
I had no idea what she meant, but when she headed to the beach I changed into my khaki shorts, grabbed an EpiPen, and drove back to the sand dune that housed the fire ant colony.
Chapter 16
“ARE YOU ALL set for the pig roast?” Tracy asked, cheerfully. “I’ve never been to a Fourth of July pig roast, never even eaten a roast pig. Have you ever even roasted a pig before, or is this your first time?”
“Tracy,” Rachel said. “Shut the fuck up and let us work!”
“Sorry, I talk when I’m nervous.”
“I talk when I’m nervous,” Rachel said, in a high-pitched voice filled with sarcasm.
“It’s okay, Trace,” I said, and caught a warning look from Rachel.
It was the last Monday in June and we’d had an unexpected run on the kitchen. We’d just finished serving our first standing-room-only when a charter bus pulled up in front of the inn and dumped twenty-four female senior citizens in our doorway. Beth had taken one look at the crowd and raced out the door to make a grocery run. I was frying some maple sausage links with sliced apples to take the edge off their appetite until she returned. Rachel was squeezing oranges as fast as she could, and Tracy was washing a rack of glasses, waiting for Rachel to fill the first pitcher with orange juice.
Oh, and Rachel was getting a bit testy.
“You don’t have to take up for Little Miss Tits,” she informed me. “Though I don’t blame you. She’s done
