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“Try it. They eat your callouses. It’s great,” she said.
“I’ve heard of this,” I said, sitting beside her. I looked away as two fish fought over a callus on Irene’s heel.
I was nibbling on a wedge of cantaloupe when Spencer reappeared, carrying his phone. I knew right away that I was in big trouble. He smiled, holding it out to me. “It’s for you,” he said.
Irene dropped her fork to her plate with a clatter. “I’ll take that instead,” she said.
Chapter 19
“Who is this?” Irene said into the phone.
“Did I do something wrong?” asked Spencer.
“No,” I said. I stopped eating my fruit, aware that as soon as it was found out that I was a fraud, none of this would be free any longer. I would have to give back my jewelry. I wondered if the show would even pay to fly me home.
“Oh. Oh, I see,” said Irene. She pulled her feet from the fish pond and wiped them on a fluffy towel. Then she stood up and walked away from us. I followed her. “Go away, get away from me,” she hissed, shooing me back to the table.
“You’re going to send me home anyway, so let me talk to him,” I said.
“Yes, yes, I understand,” Irene said into the phone, “but we have strict rules here that need to be followed. Uh huh. Yes, I see. She’s right here, but I’m afraid I can’t allow you to talk to her. No, I understand that. Okay. Yes. It’s been nice speaking to you as well, Mr. Van Elson. I will let her know. Goodbye.” She returned the phone to Spencer and sat back down at the fish pond. She took a bite of watermelon and a few blueberries and then shook her head angrily. “No! No! This is not supposed to be this hard! This was supposed to be relaxing.” She turned to me, fuming. “How am I supposed to relax when you’re being a troublemaker? Do you realize that if you screw up, I could lose my job? I’m babysitting you right now. Or weren’t you aware of that? Think about me the next time you pull something like this.”
“Sorry. So, you spoke to…”
“Your brother. I’m sorry your great uncle is having health problems, but if you needed an update on how he was doing, you should have been straightforward with me. I would have let you use a phone if you had explained to me that it was a family emergency. What I can’t stand is someone who goes behind my back.”
“Sorry.”
“For the record, he’s fine. His surgery went fine.”
“What a relief,” I said.
“Ugh. It’s just, I don’t want to lose this job. It looks stressful, not everybody could do it, but it’s the only job I’ve got and I need to keep it. I have bills to pay. Maybe you can’t relate to that, but I’m a real person, with real problems, and real bills. Okay? Try to have a little respect.”
“Sorry.”
“It’s fine. I mean, no, it’s not fine, but I feel like we understand each other now.” She stuck her fork through a piece of honeydew and a bing cherry, her face brightening as she popped them in her mouth. “Oh my God,” she said with her mouth full. “Try those together. Their juices mingle like a lesbian symphony. They’re sooo good.”
I pulled my plate and fork back over to me and made a honeydew-cherry kabob of my own. “Yes, amazing,” I said, still unsure whether I was completely in the clear.
Irene wiggled her toes, making sure the fish didn’t miss anything. “How was your massage?” she asked.
“Great.”
“Mine too. You could, like, hear my tendons popping. Like a rubber band factory burning down. Pop pop pop. It was so dreary to have the severity of my exhausted, overworked condition exposed like that, you know? I had knots and ugh, just, like everything wrong, things a chiropractor can’t even begin to fix, but now I feel like a whole new person.”
“Me too.”
“You know what? Your brother sounds exactly like the guy from those infomercials. Mr. Jabberjaw Asshole. The electric dust mop guy?”
“Hmm, not sure who you mean.”
“Sure you do. Mr. Scammy McSleazebucket. You must have seen him selling his battery powered jump rope that counts for you.”
“Nope. Can’t say I know him. Hey, did you try the honeydew with a grape? Try it, Irene. It’s to die for,” I said.
“You really don’t know who I mean? You must watch television or you never would have wanted to be on a reality show!”
“I only watched Bellamy. The rest of the time I’m reading or doing crafts.”
