Bill sighs again. He sighs a lot. “We needed to cut costs somewhere, Helen.”
Helen glances around at the neighboring tables, paranoid someone overheard. “Well, don’t say it like that, Bill. Honestly.” She looks back at me, lowering her voice to a conspiratorial tone. “I can’t function unless the house is kept at sixty.”
I blink in confusion, trying to follow the abrupt turns in this conversation. The Dysons sure are keeping me on my toes today. “Sixty…degrees?”
“She can’t sleep unless it’s an icebox,” explains Bill. “I have frostbite on my toes and fingers.”
“I like things the way I like them,” she snaps at her husband, then looks back at me. “It’s been sowarmlately, and our home air-conditioning has to cover over twenty-five-thousand square feet. That, combined with the cost of air in our lake house, was just ridiculous.”
“Ridiculous,” echoes Bill.
“We even had to turn the lake house up to seventy.Seventy. Can you believe that?”
I shake my head. “No, I really can’t.” Especially since they could have traded in that ring and paid ten housekeepers a year’s salary.
“So, we had to let Marina go after ten years.” She shakes her head. “It was awful.”
“It sounds awful,” I say, keeping my smile plastered to my face, all while thinking about poor Marina. I hope they at least gave her some sort of severance after ten years of working for them. Somehow, I doubt it.
“That’s all for now,” Helen says suddenly. “We’ll also have the shrimp cocktail.”
I smile past my whiplash at her abrupt end to the conversation. “I’ll be right out with that appetizer and those drinks for you,” I tell them.
After putting their order in with the kitchen and the bar, I shuffle over to Jake and Ollie.
“What’s with the look?” asks Ollie.
“Yeah, you seem very perplexed,” says Jake.
“The Dysons are in ‘mourning,’” I tell them, making sure to use proper air quotes.
“Oh, good. Gossip,” says Ollie. “It’s been a slow day.”
“Who died?” asks Jake. “Was it Bill’s sister? She looked a little gray last time she was here.”
“Or was it that yappy demon dog Helen totes around?” asks Ollie. “I thought maybe they’d have to put it down after it bit the third golf caddy.”
“No way. She’d sooner eat tuna from a can or drink Barefoot wine than put down Frederique. That little gremlin will outlive us all.”
I shake my head, trying not to laugh at the thought of Helen sipping ten-dollar wine and forking down some Chicken of the Sea. “No, guys. No one died. They fired their maid because their air-conditioning bill was too high.”
They both stare at me for a moment, letting that sink in.
“They fired Marina?” asks Jake in disbelief.
“After ten years?” cries Ollie.
“That woman was way more than a maid. She practically raised their kids.”
“She definitely raised their kids.”
Jake makes a face. “Rich people are disgusting.”
Ollie nods. “I second that.”
“Hey, slackers,” says Brit, appearing out of nowhere. She scans our faces with her kohl-rimmed eyes. “What’s wrong?”
“Oh, nothing,” says Jake. “Just the Dysons suck.”
