“Irregardless, are you going to get your car back?”
Darcy scowled. “Probably not.”
When she ran the critique on this situation, Darcy was going to have to accept that letting her hormones get the better of her a couple times had probably contributed to her ex-roommate’s belief that he could get away with her car. Lessons learned. Better to make horny mistakes outside the home than inside them.
“That sucks,” Kristin pointed out unnecessarily. “So, where are you gonna go after this, then?”
Kristin had pulled out several bunches of kale, so Darcy started washing them in the prep sink. Beet-kale-turmeric-huckleberry juice was a staple here.
“Somewhere with no commute, I guess,” Darcy said unhappily. She had no good ideas. “I heard that those off-shore oil platforms always need to hire people to cook and clean,” she mused, thinking out loud. “You go out for ninety-day contracts, and they pay really well.” Maybe she’d be able to save enough for a second car after a couple of those gigs. Maybe she’d have more time to study than she did here—she was only taking eight hours online, and at that rate she was never going to graduate. But it sounded pretty thin, even inside her head.
The list of accomplishments she could reasonably expect to garner with her life kept shrinking. She was basically down to finishing her degree and getting a job in forestry, but those goals were looking more remote by the year.
Kristin stopped her work and stared at her. “Darcy, the first time they spilled oil on, like,oneduck, you’d start pushing your coworkers into the ocean.”
“Maybe they wouldn’t spill any oil if I was in charge.”
“I don’t think they’d put you in charge, at least not at first.”
“Well, they should,” Darcy said.
Kristin silently nodded agreement to that proposition until Darcy tipped her head back and laughed. Nobody was going to put her in charge of anything bigger than a warming hut.
“Maybe I’ll stay in Montana,” Darcy said. “When’s rodeo season? I could be a clown.”
“Mmm, I’m not sure whether the rodeo is seasonal,” Kristin said. “But I don’t think rodeo clowning pays as much as bull riding. Is that oppressive to bulls, or would you consider it?”
“Seems like the bull’s on equal footing with the rider, so maybe? Do you think it’s hard?”
“A lot of guys at my high school in Butte did it, so it can’t bethathard,” Kristin said. “You don’t skip leg day, do you?”
“Never,” Darcy said, looking down at the limbs in question. “I could crush a walnut between these babies.”
“Nowthat’san idea. OnlyFans. One girl, one walnut. You could come with me to Bozeman and be a cam girl. Or, you know, work with me at the vegan caterer’s.”
They looked at each other again, Darcy appreciating that there was an actual offer behind the joking suggestion. Kristin might be lazy. She did zero work at the wellness retreat unless Rachel or Darcy was standing right over her. But as far as Darcy had been able to discern that summer, lazinesswas Kristin’s sole besetting sin. She was genuine and nice and pretty funny. Darcy could do worse for a roommate, even if she was sure she’d end up doing all the cleaning.
But moving in with Kristin and taking the kind of job she could have gotten at eighteen was as good as admitting that Darcy hadn’t been—oh, smart enough, capable enough, strong enough—for college or the Navy or the Park Service. And that she had nothing at all to show for the past decade and more of her life: no degree, no pension, no career, not even a fucking car.
“I want to have my own bedroom again,” Darcy said, gently declining Kristin’s offer. “I’m going to start sleeping naked. Rachel said it’s healthier. I overheard her telling one of the guests yesterday that she does it.”
“Gross,” Kristin said, cackling. “Though I bet Dr. Goodhair appreciates that.”
“I bet it was his scientific suggestion,” Darcy agreed. “Just like our uniforms.” She gestured to their cutoff shorts, and Kristin snorted. Whether Dr. Goedert was a good psychologist or just another pervy grifter was outside of Darcy’s area of responsibility. If the Navy had taught her anything (aside from not very useful things like auxiliary engine maintenance and how to pee in a hole with deadly accuracy), it was that worrying about the overall mission was wasted effort.Worry about your own job, Albano.
“Anyway,” Darcy said, looking at the two remaining mason jars, “what are you serving the new guys?”
“Mr. and Mrs. Van Zijl?”
“I don’t think they’re married?” The two new guests didn’t fit the usual profile. Darcy had seen some interesting people come through the retreat—B-list actors, musicians, anactual European royal—but these two seemed both younger and less colorful than most guests.
Kristin laughed. “The guy brought his kid with him to rehab?”
“No, I think she’s like, his sister or something.”
“Weird. Well... do they have any allergies?”
Darcy grabbed the latest guest register and passed it to Kristin. “Take a look.”
