Other People's Secrets by Meredith Hambrock

Author:Meredith Hambrock
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: CROOKED LANE BOOKS

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Tippie shows up alone a half hour later, wearing coveralls and knee-high rubber boots, a baseball cap tugged down low over her eyes, driving the big ol’ truck her dad drove for all those years with the smiling honeybee plastered to its cylindrical tank. She hops down from the driver’s seat. She’s a big woman with wide shoulders and large breasts she refuses to stuff into real bras, her nipples usually visible through her shirts.

“Where’s Grant?” Baby asks.

“On vacation,” Tippie says. “You want some boots? I’ve got some spares in the truck.”

“Yeah, sure,” Baby says. Tippie grabs a pair and tosses them at Baby. She shoves her feet into them.

“Holy shit!” Tippie laughs, looking out over the field. “Did you do this?”

“Can you keep your voice down?” Baby hisses. “Christ.” Tippie’s booming alto feels like it’s echoing all around them.

“You really fucked this one up. I’ve never seen anything like this. And I’ve seen some shit.”

“So what do we do?”

“Let’s go dig,” Tippie says, grabbing a shovel.

Baby follows Tippie and watches her take stock of the damage, continuously whistling at just how much is leaking out. They walk over to the clear mound where the tanks are buried. “She’s going to have to replace it,” Tippie says, even before she starts digging it out. “What a friggin’ doozy.”

“How much?” Baby asks.

“Twenty thousand easy,” Tippie says. “Plus labor.”

“So thirty?” Baby asks.

“I mean, probably,” Tippie says. “I’ve never seen it this bad before. I’m not sure there’s any point in trying to dig it out when we’re going to have to replace everything.”

“What should I tell her?” Baby asks, gesturing inside. “Is there a timeline?”

“I don’t know,” Tippie says. “With a failure this bad, I don’t even know what we’re going to do about the lawn. I’ve got to call my dad.”

“All right. I’ll go tell her,” says Baby, heading back to the front doors of the resort.

If there’s a way to lie about this for her own benefit, Baby isn’t able to pull it out in time, not before she’s made it to the front door, kicked off the boots, and walked through to the Parrot, where Amelia sits with Peter at a table, her face in her hands. Baby loiters outside the bar, unsure if she should go in. They don’t hear her.

“The instructions were clear. Open by July first.”

“Repairs aren’t necessarily a bad thing,” says Peter. “If you take everything into account.”

“It reflects badly on my ability to run this place,” she says. “How am I supposed to prove myself if I can’t even fucking open on time?”

Baby slides away from the door to the Parrot and heads back to the front doors and slams them, waits a minute before pacing back over to the bar. They’re both waiting for her, Amelia sitting up as if everything is fine, shoulders thrown back, Peter next to her, his eyebrows furrowed.

“What’s the damage?” Amelia asks.

“It’s not good,” Baby says.

“Clearly,” Amelia says. “Just tell me.”

“Between twenty and thirty thousand. Full replacement.

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