Chapter 23

Tuesday-Wednesday, May 29-30

I hit the shower as soon as I got home. Kacie came in as I washed, but didn’t try to join me. She just leaned on the counter in a T-shirt and panties until I was finished.

“Mom and Dad calm down yet?” I asked as I toweled off.

“A little,” Kacie said. “But it really wasn’t Daddy’s fault. He didn’t do anything wrong. That cop just wanted a better look at my tits. He stared at me the whole time. I don’t think he even looked at Daddy’s license. Kept calling him Mr. Robertson.”

“I’m afraid it won’t be the last time you’ll be subjected to that,” I said, pulling on my boxers. “I’ve heard several of the girls in my class complain about getting stopped by cops around the school and feeling creeped out about the whole experience.

“Of course, I’d stare at your tits all the time if it wouldn’t get me in trouble. Pretty sure Mom would figure out something was up then.”

“You are such a boy,” my sister snorted before changing the subject. “When are you going to give me a ride in your car?”

“I don’t know,” I said. “I’ve got to be at the club early tomorrow to start working. Jed’s got a bunch of his teammates coming to apply. I could be there all day. Thursday could be a repeat of Wednesday, then we’ll be into the weekend. The thing about this job is we’ll be working when everyone else is playing.

“Whenever I do take you for a spin, you’ll have to cover up. I don’t want to get pulled over by a cop who wants to stare at your tits. Mom might take my keys away.”

She whapped me on the arm and headed into her room.

“Boys!”

Mom told me at breakfast the next morning that I was to report to Robert Alvarez, the director of the Activity Center, by 9 a.m.

“He’ll handle all your orientation,” she said. “And before I forget again, Larry wanted me to give you this.”

She slid me a folded piece of letter-sized paper. It was a copy of the flyer made for the cabana patrons outlining our services. There were no surprises.

While it was on my mind, I brought up the childcare issue.

“We’re still looking into it,” Mom said. “We’ve got a couple of members who are qualified to run such a program. I’ve set up meetings with them for this week.”

“Some of the guys Jed’s bringing in to apply for the cabana jobs are responsible for their siblings,” I said. “I was thinking maybe they could be included, but I don’t know any ages or anything. You could rope Kacie and some of her friends into babysitting duty while you figure it all out.”

Mom got a gleam in her eye, while Kacie looked unsure about giving up her free time. Dad just sulked about losing his car keys.

Much as I wanted to drive, I hoofed it over to Jed’s before heading to the club. He insisted that we jog since we’d missed our running the last couple of days.

Once we were on the course, Jed decided we should sprint from green to tee from the 13th hole to the 10th on our way to the Activity Center. At least there were no par-5s in that stretch, but a couple of the par-4s were easily a quarter mile in length. I was wiped out by the time we got to the pool.

Mr. Alvarez gave us a quick rundown of employee procedures like clocking in and out as well as pool rules we would be expected to follow just as if we were there to swim. He also showed us the storage area from which we would stock the kitchenettes and gave us a couple of packages of legal pads.

“Put one of these on the counter in each cabana,” he said. “The patrons can leave orders for their preferred refreshments each day. See me when you need more pads, but one should last most of the summer if they’re not wasteful.

“You’ll have to go through sexual harassment training, but I’d like to get all of y’all in one go if I can. The simple rule is ‘keep it in your pants.’ You’ll be around a lot of young girls and women in some very revealing attire. Just let them be and try not to stare. I know, easier said than done.”

Mr. Alvarez also said we’d wait until the other hires were made to go over to the tennis shop and get everyone outfitted.

“Just wear nice shorts and collared shirts these next couple of days,” he said. “Impress upon your guys that these uniforms are club property and are not to be worn off the premises. We’ll set up an area in the changing room for you with a hamper and launder the clothes each day.

“I know they’ve talked about two pairs of shorts and at least four shirts per guy so you should always have a clean set. Spills will occur and there will be days you want to change into a fresh shirt after a few hours in the sun. They can get a quick shower in the changing room if they need one during the day.”

“Good,” Jed said, “because these hogs can sweat a lot.”

“Just so you can give Serge a heads up,” I said, “most of the guys coming in are about Jed’s size, a couple even bigger. They’ll probably need 3X or even 4X if he carries anything that big.”

Jed and I went to wash off the sweat accrued from running most of the way here and Mr. Alvarez gave us each an Activity Center staff shirt to wear for the day. Jed barely squeezed into a 3X.

“Sorry, that’s the biggest I’ve got,” Mr. Alvarez said. “Just put them in the towel hamper at the end of the day.”

We headed over to the main building to check on the guys who were supposed to be putting in applications today, telling Mr. Alvarez we’d be back by noon to start taking orders for the cabanas. As we walked across the parking lot, I noticed Dad’s Z4 parked in a reserved spot while Mom’s X5 was nowhere in sight. She was making a point about taking away his toys until he learned his lesson. I’m sure she also intended it as a not-so-subtle message that the same could happen to me if I wasn’t careful.

After finding Jed’s teammates, we invited them to the pool to scout out the setup and grabbed a quick steak sandwich at the 19th Hole, eating as we walked back to the pool.

Our first stop was at the snack bar, where we introduced ourselves to Charlie, the head cook. He got us together with Melinda Hernandez and another counter girl to go over how he wanted orders presented so we could get the right product to the right person.