The Winters(4)

“Eighteen months,” he said. “And thank you, I appreciate your kind words. But I am wondering about a boat. For tomorrow. Something manageable that I can handle alone.”

“Oh, I wouldn’t hear of that. I’m more than happy to take you out tomor—”

“No. Please. Though I do appreciate the offer. You must be busy this time of year.”

“Nonsense. January is between high seasons.”

I spoke up. “The Commodore is available. One person can handle it easily. I just need to clean it out and put gas in it.”

“Thank you. I know that boat,” Max said. “I’ll come by around eight. Does that give you enough time to prep it?”

“Plenty.”

His nose was slightly crooked, the only lived-in thing about his handsome face. I imagined he’d played sports and had an accident with a baseball or football. Maybe an interesting story involving a fistfight at a private school. The thought instantly endeared him to me.

“Mr. Winter, I’m telling you, that little boat won’t do. Let me take you out on the Lassie—”

He gave me a steady look, which I held until my face burned.

“I’d like to take the little one. I’ll come for her in the morning.”

“At least let me bring her around to the club dock, Mr. Winter, all nice and gleaming.”

“I’d prefer to leave from here, if you don’t mind,” he said.

There was an edge to his voice now. He intended to be alone on that boat, and this now worried me, given Laureen’s hushed condolences and his general air of sadness.

“I don’t mind anything. Will you need snorkeling equipment? Will your daughter be with you?”

“No. Dani’s with her aunt in Paris for the month. She’s at that age where she prefers her company, anyone’s company really, over mine,” he said, looking at me.

“Let us pack a picnic for you, then. Call up the kitchen,” she commanded me, “and let them know Mr. Winter wants—”

“I’ll grab some food from the takeaway. I didn’t catch your name.”

This time he was talking to me. I was about to respond when Laureen beat me to it, her accent mangling the emphasis so that it sounded less exotic than it was.

“Pretty,” he said, studying my face as if to solve something about its relationship to my name. “Suits you. Are you new?”

“I’ve been working here about eight years now.”

“Why have I never seen you before?”

He seemed genuinely bothered by this oversight on my, or Laureen’s, part.

“Maybe because I’ve never seen you,” I said, a little impudently, my face warming.

“This one’s not one of my more friendly staff, that’s for sure,” Laureen said. “If I didn’t shove her out the door she’d be content to sit in the air-conditioning all day checking her Facebook.”

I rolled my eyes at Max. She knew I had no interest in such things.

“Yes, well, all right. I’ll see you both in the morning,” he said and thanked us each by name.

The bells clanged behind him.

“Now there’s a man who has suffered,” she said, a hand on her chest, eyes lingering on the door. “Poor man’s wife dies in a car accident just before he wins an election. Then he’s got to raise that kid on his own.” She shuddered. “I don’t like the idea of him alone on the water. Did he seem depressed to you?”

I wanted to say Of course he’s depressed, his wife’s dead, but she was already telling me the Winters were longtime members of the club, where they owned a few of the private bungalows, the biggest reserved for their personal use.

“And they live on a private island that’s been in the family for hundreds of years. An old king gave it to them. And the house, it’s like a castle straight out of a Disney movie. Presidents have slept there. Republican ones, that is. He’s probably the only Republican I could hold my nose and vote for. He’s not one of those right-wing nutters. More of the old-school variety; high brows, low taxes, that sort of thing.”

She turned to face me. “Aren’t you a dark surprise? I’ve never seen you flirt before. You embarrassed yourself by a lot. He might be single now, but you do realize he’s the sort who will end up with a movie star. That’s about the only act that could follow the first Mrs. Winter. Rebekah was something else to look at, I’m telling you. You know, she once offered me a hundred-dollar bill to stay here because she was waiting for an important phone call and was worried she wouldn’t get a signal on the ocean. It never came, the call, but it was me she trusted to sit right where you’re sitting and wait for that call all day, and I did. Of course I didn’t want to accept the money but she insisted. She had a lot of class, that one. The daughter, though? Total piece of work. The biggest snot-nosed brat ever. D’you know a couple years back, that one had half the police on the island plus a helicopter looking for her? She thought she’d go partying with a group of athletes from some college in Florida. Not even thirteen years old, she was. Those poor boys, all in tears when they found that out, swearing up and down no one laid a hand on her, but not for lack of her trying, they said. She could have ruined their lives just like that,” she said with a snap of her fingers. “But at the last minute she said the boys were telling the truth. She’d just wanted to make them suffer a little. Girls like that, they don’t get happy endings.” She meandered to the back office holding her ledger to her chest, flip-flops slapping at her dirty, cracked heels. “Nope. They end up dead or in jail, leaving everybody to wonder which fate they deserved more.”