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“How are we today, June?” The petite Hispanic woman ignores my grimace as she waves at Mom. I’ve made it clear just what I think of all the cheery voices, thewethis andwethat, the memory games and activities. Like Mom’s a preschooler. But Ana wins because she makes my mother happy and bills my insurance the lowest rate she can.
“You girls have fun,” I call, blowing Mom a kiss before running for my truck. It always takes a few tries to get the thing started, and I can’t afford to be late.
As soon as I open the front door of Emerald Lawncare’s shitty office, my boss Roy shoves a work order into my hands and points to the company truck, already loaded up with tools. “Medina client; I want it done before noon. Make us look good.” Some of the richest people in the world live in Medina, on the shores of Lake Washington.
The other guys are watching cat videos and eating breakfast burritos. Scooter gets up and hands me one as an excuse to read over my shoulder. “Holy shit. Why does Ethan get all the celebrities?”
I push his arm off my neck. “Because you stole a squeaky dog toy from Bill Gates’ yard and tried to sell it on eBay.”
“Uh-oh, guys.” He minces back across the room. “Daddy Ethan’s mad at us again.”
I open my mouth to bitch about why doing myjobmakes me a downer with a stick up my ass, but the name written on the work order makes everything else disappear.
Victor Lang.
It can’t be. He’s more elusive than Bigfoot, more controversial than Tonya Harding. The sheet of paper in my hand is the only evidence I’ve seen that he’s even alive.
I re-read the name, like I might be mixing it up with some other Victor who isn’t the gay swimming prodigy that captured the imagination of the entire world. As teenagers, my cousin Danny and I watched every one of his competitions and interviews, wondering how someone our age could be so fucking cool when we were busy dealing with acne and braces. My closeted ass idolized his effortless confidence about his sexuality. And the way his lips twitched into a smile when an interviewer cracked a joke did something indescribable to my stomach. Hell, I had a life-sized poster of him on my bedroom wall.
On his eighteenth birthday, the day his plane was scheduled to take off for the Rio Olympics, he failed his dope test—not just a little, but catastrophically. He earned a three-year ban from the sport, went on a cocaine-fueled bender, and disappeared off the face of the earth.
I guess even Bigfoot needs his hedges trimmed.
