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“I’m not mistaken, am I?”

She lowers her sunglasses, like she’s making a show of checking my name plate because I’m an employee and not a member like her.

“Karyna.”

She purrs my name out in a tone I can only describe as sweet.

Like some poisons are.

“My daddy taught me that calling people by their names can help in making them comfortable. I hope it’s true. I don’t want you to feel nervous around me. I’m just asking you a very simple question…about a person we both know. It’s not like I’m asking you to spill secrets, am I?”

It’s the last part that makes me remember Fredericka’s warning from earlier.

We signed an NDA, and I need you to take that seriously.

You can’t say a word to anyone about this until everything’s finalized.

“I’m sorry,” I say awkwardly. “Is there anything I can get for you, Ms. Amparo?”

Sadie looks at me for one moment, and then she steps back. “If that’s how you want to play it, Karyna.”

And so we start to play.

For the next sixty minutes, we play a game where it’s Sadie who makes up all the rules, and all the rules are designed to make me lose. She starts by asking for towels. One at a time. For all of her friends. Who happen to need two each.

Sadie insists on having all of her friends supplied with towels before she asks one for herself, but when I bring her the first one, she tells me it doesn’t smell right, and so I get something fresh from the laundry room, only this one isn’t folded right, and so it’s back to the laundry room again.

After that, she wants her drinks, only this time what I give her is too hot, too cold, no it’s still too cold, how do I not see it’s too cold? Are my hands too callused that I don’t feel the way normal people feel temperature?

When I come back to her with the pool bar’s fifth try on her margarita, Sadie goes all ewwwww on me.

“Seriously, Karyna? I saw what you did there. You let your sweat drip straight into my drink!”

She’s screaming by the end, and of course this has everyone in the pool area watching us like we’re the newest soap in town.

“This is completely unacceptable,” Sadie hisses at me. “Do you know I can get this entire club closed because of what you’ve done? Who do you think you are?”

I usually let things slide and apologize. Customers are always right and all that. But for some reason, I find myself shaking my head. “I didn’t do any⁠—”

Sadie cuts me off with an outraged gasp. “Oh, so now you think you can also get away with defamation by calling me a liar?”

My head has started spinning and hurting at the same time. I didn’t even know that was possible. And I just don’t understand how my life came to this point. Why do I feel like all of this is scripted, and Sadie is the director, writer, and the main star…while I’m the lowly extra with no lines to speak of. All I’m asked to do is look and feel pathetic⁠—

“You.”

And that’s me right this very moment, with Sadie suddenly poking a finger to my chest, hard enough to make me stumble back.

“Will.”

Another poke, another step back.

“Pay.”

All eyes are on us, but no one’s stopping her from poking⁠—

“For.”

And so I still end up backing away⁠—