Leslee isn’t listening. She’s too busy fondling her lemons.
Downstairs, before she puts away the prescriptions, Coco pops into the library, which has become her refuge. She finished A Spark of Light by Jodi Picoult last night and is ready for something new. She pulls out Pachinko by Min Jin Lee, which she has long wanted to read.
As she’s heading down the hall to the primary suite, she hears Bull shouting. Coco nearly drops the book and the bag of pills.
“We should goddamned well be grandfathered in!” This is followed by more profanity—and then what sounds like Bull’s phone hitting the wall.
Coco hesitates, terrified that Bull is going to storm out of his office and realize she heard him. But she’s where she’s supposed to be, doing what she’s supposed to be doing. She keeps going, averting her eyes as she passes Bull’s office; she can see the door is ajar.
“Coco!” Bull calls. His voice sounds improbably cheerful.
She backs up a few steps and pokes her head in. “Hi?”
“Come on in,” he says. “Sit down.”
Coco doesn’t want to go in—she’s holding a book she took from the library without permission and also Bull’s Viagra. But what choice does she have? She steps inside but remains by the doorway.
“Close the door,” Bull says.
This is it, then, Coco thinks. The moment when Bull does the predictable thing and tries to seduce her. I’ve wanted you since the moment I saw you at the Banana Deck, your ass in those cutoffs, your tits in that T-shirt, your eyes, your eyes, your eyes. Coco desperately wants to get her screenplay into the hands of Bull’s contacts. But is she willing to sleep with him?
She closes the door and takes a seat across from him.
He comes out from behind the desk and leans against it, facing her. “How’s everything going?”
“Great,” she says.
“I thought we had an agreement,” he says. “I’m here for the airing of grievances. I’ve got your back. I know working for Leslee isn’t easy.” He tilts his head. “Is it?”
Coco isn’t sure what to say. This could be a trick, a way of evaluating her loyalty. “This job is pretty much what I thought it would be. Leslee makes her expectations clear and I try to exceed them.”
Bull laughs. “God, you’re good.” He lowers his voice and says, “Can we agree the things in this office stay between us?”
Coco is certain now that this is a trap. “Sure.”
“We really want to make Nantucket work,” Bull says. “The other places we’ve tried… well, let’s just say things got uncomfortable. Leslee has a tough time making female friends. No, let me correct myself—she makes friends easily, she just can’t keep them. Other women are threatened by her. She’s beautiful, she’s fun… and she’s naturally flirtatious, that’s just her nature. But she’s a complex creature, which is why I want to check in periodically and make sure you’re okay.”
“I’m okay,” Coco says. She really wishes she weren’t holding the man’s Viagra.
“You probably heard me yelling.”
Coco shrugs. “I was just passing—”
“I’ve built my beverage-distribution business from the ground up,” he says. “My parents owned a shop on the Nullarbor Plain—do you know where that is? It’s a desolate stretch of nowhere in the Australian outback. We used to sell to all the coaches and long-haul lorries that came through. Snacks, drinks, hot meals. I got to know the blokes who delivered our supplies and when I turned eighteen, I went to work for one of them. I rose up in the company, then left and started my own company, and I expanded outside of Australia. Now I distribute to all of Indo. But freaking snowflakes are everywhere, whinging about ecosystems…” He trails off. “I don’t mean to unload on you, I just don’t want you to think I’m a bad guy if you overhear me using some salty language.”
“Not a problem,” Coco says.
Bull notices the book in her hand. “Are you a reader, then?”
“I am. I borrowed this from the library. I’ll put it back when I’m finished.”
“No worries. I’m glad someone’s taking advantage of that room.”
“Are you a reader?” Coco asks.
“Used to be, a bit. These days I mostly read scripts.”
Coco freezes. Is now the time? Can she tell him she has a finished screenplay entitled Rosebush? No, she thinks. It’s too soon. Somehow, she senses this.
“I should get back to work,” Coco says, standing. “Leslee was excited to receive her lemons.”
“It’s appalling, right?” Bull says. “Spending so much money on lemons.” He gives a dry laugh. “And yet I’ve done crazier things to try to make that woman happy. Speaking of which, I heard the party got pretty wild at the end? I conked out right after dinner.”
“It was just the right kind of wild,” Coco says. “I’m actually still exhausted. I worked nineteen straight hours on Saturday.”
“You’ll be paid,” Bull says. “Plus a bonus.”
“I was wondering if I could have a day off, or even an afternoon?”
“Of course!” Bull says. “Why don’t you finish up whatever you’re doing now and take the rest of the day for yourself? Leslee has pickleball this afternoon, then we’re going to the Field and Oar Club with Madam Busybody.”
Ha-ha, Coco thinks. Busy Ambrose. “Would that be okay?”
“Go,” Bull says.
Coco delivers the prescriptions to the bathroom and heads back upstairs to finish putting away the groceries because she’s certain Leslee didn’t do it. She’s right; Leslee is nowhere to be found, and the groceries are all in their bags on the counter. Coco’s mood is lighter now, and she takes great satisfaction in separating produce by color, pouring dry pasta into plastic containers, making sure the edges of boxes are lined up. Coco craved this kind of attention to detail when she was a kid. There was always enough food in her house but everything was shoved into the cabinets willy-nilly; cans routinely fell to the linoleum floor, the flour got weevils, Bree and her kids used to leave bags of chips open, so they went stale. Coco can admit now that while she never dreamed of the kind of extravagant plenty the Richardsons enjoy, she did long for things to be… nice.
When Coco is finished her “home editing,” she brings one of the Amalfi lemons to her nose and inhales. Ahhh, she thinks. She’s free.
