“What the hell is that?” Marie asked, throwing down her sandwich. She got to her feet, and Lawrence and I followed.

“Looks like the foreman here called Shane,” Lawrence said.

“You called Shane?” asked Marie.

“Shane would have found out anyway,” I said.

“I guess now we’ll never know if he would have or not,” Lawrence said.

“This is my job we’re talking about,” I said. “I’m not here to make friends. I’m here to make money and go home.”

“You want to do your fucking job, foreman?” Marie said. “Tell that bag of dicks to get out of my excavator.”

But when I did, Cameron said nice and loud, “Shane told me I’m up in the seat.”

“Like hell,” Marie said. “That’s my machine.”

“Princess, it’s the company’s machine,” Cameron said. “None of this belongs to me or to you.”

“Well, foreman, what do you say?” Lawrence asked me.

“She ain’t the foreman,” Cameron said. “She’s just Shane’s old girlfriend or something is what, even though she’s ugly. But I ain’t picky.”

“Everyone just wait a minute,” I said. I went into the trailer and called Shane. “What’s the idea?” I said. “I tell you we don’t need anyone else, and you send us the biggest asshole in the state?”

“Calm down,” Shane said. “Cameron’s a character, all right, but he’s harmless.”

“You’d better come down here,” I said.

Ten minutes later, Shane’s SUV pulled through the gate. He got out with a nervous grin, his wavy hair all brushed. “Folks, please,” he said, “just work it out.”

“I ain’t no oiler,” Marie said.

“Marie, you’ve got to understand,” he said. “Cameron’s experienced. I switched him off another crew to fill in short notice. He’s been up in the cab. Can’t very well put him on the ground. He’s doing us a favor.”

Cameron sat smiling in the operator’s seat, waiting it out.

Shane turned on me, and now his gold teeth were nowhere to be seen. “Karen,” he said. “You told me you were shorthanded, so I sent someone to fill in. Now you expect me to come down here and deal with some petty conflict? What am I paying you for? To sit in that trailer all day and do nothing?”

I didn’t know what he was paying me for, and I’d hoped it would never come up. Cameron smiled down at us. Shane pursed his lips to conceal his teeth. Lawrence watched Marie. Marie watched me. Whatever my strategy had been, whatever I’d been practicing and preparing for, it wasn’t this.

I said, “Come on, Marie. Ease up, okay? It’s just until Jay gets back.”

She met my eyes like murder.