For the remainder of that afternoon, the eleven guests fanned out and explored the mansion and surrounding island. The island itself was relatively small. But the mansion was most certainly not. By any reasonable person’s standards, the mansion in the center of Avondale Island was beyond anything any regular family would ever need or could ever utilize. In fact, it was the largest mansion that any of them had set foot in. Even Kyle, the vice president of Pioneer Administrative Benefits, with his nearly seven-figure salary, was not accustomed to dwellings quite this large, especially not in a lavish tropical setting such as this.
The mansion had a traditional layout, with a large foyer just beyond the front doors and a grand staircase leading up to the bedrooms. Off to either side was a formal living room and dining room. The mansion’s many hallways lead to a variety of rooms, including a bar, several studies, a library, a sunroom, a gaming room, a smoking room, and a home theater setup worthy of any massive multiplex or hip boutique theater in America.
Outside of the mansion, in its immediate surroundings, were a large garden and huge patio with an infinity swimming pool offering amazing views of half the island’s shoreline and a breathtaking sight line of the blue-green ocean beyond. Flanking the pool were two hot tubs nearly large enough to be considered small pools themselves and a separate diving pool with multitiered diving boards.
Then, of course, there was the beach, complete with powdered white sand and a small lagoon for snorkeling. The boathouse harbored a number of watercraft, including four jet skis and two small boats, all of which were covered in tarps at the moment, much to the dismay of several of the guests.
The guests moved about the island freely. Many of them located the self-service bar with absurd speed considering the size of the mansion and their unfamiliarity with its layout. But they simply followed Jessica Hernandez, the HR rep, who seemed to have a radar for alcohol built into her brain.
“Nice find, Jessica!” said Aaron Paxton, the athletic security guard.
He’d known to follow her. He knew her pretty well, as she forgot her security badge far more than any other employee who worked in his building, resulting in her spending several extra minutes at his security desk in the mornings. They’d even shared a drink or two after work on a few occasions with a larger group of employees. Or, in her case, well more than two drinks.
Aaron definitely liked her, but he wasn’t sure he liked her enough to ever go beyond simple work friends. It may seem petty, but she had this habit of constantly chomping on the ice at the bottom of her drinks that drove him crazy, and not in a good way. And since she always seemed to have a drink in her hand outside of work, it seemed as if she was always chewing on ice. He could never handle dating a perpetual ice cruncher.
Besides, it’s not as if his options were limited. He’d slept with well over a dozen Pioneer Administrative Benefits employees in his three years there. They were drawn to him in an odd sort of way that went beyond just his well-toned physique and masculine facial features. Maybe it was his job as a security officer. Maybe they liked that sense of authority. Or maybe his job duties fell so far outside their own that he seemed safer than sleeping with a more traditional coworker. Whatever the reason was, Aaron certainly wasn’t going to complain or question it.
“Hey, I’m not one to pass up a Bloody Mary,” Jessica said as she opened the bar fridge in search of ingredients.
“No kidding,” Cliff, the company chef, said.
They all laughed.
Aaron, Jessica, Cliff, and Jordan the intern mixed drinks for themselves at the bar. Jessica made her Bloody Mary so strong that it was almost translucent pink instead of the usual deep and rich red of tomatoes.
“Not bad for a corporate event, right?” Cliff said as they sat on some nearby leather couches.
“Yeah, this is awesome,” Jordan said. “Does Pioneer do stuff like this a lot?”
As an intern, he’d worked for Pioneer Administrative Benefits the shortest amount of time of the eleven retreat guests. And technically, he didn’t really work for them at all. It was an unpaid internship organized through his college. He’d started his internship just six months before and was scheduled to finish a few months after they all got back from the retreat.
“No, not really,” Jessica said. “They used to offer individual trips to the top salespeople, but this is the first time they’ve done a company-wide performance-based retreat with other employees outside of sales.”
“I’m just happy to be at a corporate function that I don’t have to cook for,” Cliff said.
“Hey, man, you make a pretty killer generically stuffed chicken breast at the company luncheon every year. I’m gonna miss it!” Aaron said.
Cliff rolled his eyes. “I just can’t wait until I get to decide what I get to make all the time, every time.”
“Guys, what the hell are we all doing?” Jessica asked suddenly.
They all looked at her, unsure of what she was getting at.
“Drinking,” Jordan said.
“Yeah, but we’re on a private island. The sun is out and it’s, like, eighty degrees. Why are we sitting inside? We should be out there!” she said, pointing toward a sliding glass door behind them.
The four of them stepped outside and followed a path to the pool area. The views of the pool and ocean beyond were unbelievable, enhanced, of course, by the endless supply of free drinks in their hands.
“I want to go swimming,” Jordan said as they all gaped at the stunning, modern infinity pool.
Well, not all of them were looking at the pool. Aaron was gazing up at the high dive longingly.
“I can’t believe they have a diving pool,” he said quietly.
“You like to dive?” Cliff asked.
“Dude,” Aaron said. “Do I like to dive? I was a two-time state champ in high school, and was a Division One All-American three times in college. I almost qualified for the Olympics once. Well, sort of, almost. I missed it by a few people, but that’s still closer than most get.”
The other three seemed impressed. As well they should be. He was right—not many people did get that close.
“I wonder why it’s covered,” Jordan said, referring to the blue panels covering the diving pool.
“Ask him,” Jessica said, pointing toward Giles, who was readjusting some towels on a nearby shelf that were apparently not folded to his liking.
“Hey, Giles,” Aaron called out.
Giles glanced up from his folding and walked over them. “Yes, Mr. Paxton, what can I help you with?”
“Mr. Paxton!” Aaron said with a grin. “I like this guy.”
The others laughed. Giles smiled politely.
“Anyway,” Aaron continued, “why is the diving pool closed? I want to dive!”
“It’s merely closed for the day. We’ll likely open it up tomorrow. We’ve got a pool party of sorts scheduled for the afternoon,” Giles said. “Is there anything else I can help you with?”
“Yeah, I’m gonna need a refill soon!” Jessica said, holding up her mostly empty glass.
“I’ll send someone right out,” Giles said before going back inside the mansion.
Elsewhere on the island, Tiffany and Kyle had wandered down to the large beach on the eastern shore. They’d flung off their sandals and walked barefoot in the sand along the edge of the crystal clear water.
“Thanks for making sure I got to come,” she said.
“Are you referring to the trip or last night?” he asked with a sly grin.
They’d shared a room at their hotel in Miami the night before. Well, technically they’d had separate rooms. But she hadn’t even bothered going to her room that night.
“You’re so dirty,” she said playfully, nudging him toward the water with her hips. “That’s gross.”
Kyle stumbled slightly as his feet splashed into the oncoming wave. He caught his balance and then reached out and grabbed her arm, pulling her toward him and the water. She squealed and then giggled as she managed to break free from his grip. As they frolicked on the beach, seemingly oblivious to the fact that they were on an island with coworkers and would eventually have to return to the real world where they had spouses and families, a lone person watched from beneath a palm tree halfway up the path to the mansion.
Gary Froehlich, the janitor, sat alone and watched them behave foolishly. He took a sip from his whiskey. When the server had asked him what he wanted to drink, he’d said a Jim Beam double, straight. She’d seemed taken aback and reminded him that they had the finest whiskeys available. He’d merely shaken his head and repeated his order. It made no difference. If everyone else wanted to get duped by shallow marketing gimmicks and brand name positioning, that was their problem. But whiskey was whiskey. It was a fact, in Gary’s mind. An often overlooked one, at that.
He watched his superiors act like children on the beach below him, two people who probably made as much money in their Christmas bonuses alone as he did in a whole year. He’d looked through Kyle’s desk one night while cleaning the office, something he later regretted and felt guilty about. But just the same, the stuff he found in there likely would have made Satan blush. Gary shook his head slowly under the shade of the palm tree. What was this world coming to if people like that were running the show?
On the other side of the mansion, Whitney Nelson, the young claims processor, and Charlene Sanderson, the elderly customer service representative, walked leisurely together through the island’s lush garden. Charlene had spent the first twenty minutes gushing about her love of gardening. “I even brought my own tools,” she’d said at one point with a sly grin. But eventually, their conversation had widened to other topics, of course including plenty of frivolous small talk such as how work was, where they were from originally, and how amazing and gorgeous the resort was.
“No drink, sweetie?” Charlene eventually asked before taking the final sip of her piña colada. It seemed odd to her that a twenty-two-year-old would pass up a free drink, while on vacation no less.
“No, I don’t drink,” Whitney said.
“Ain’t that something,” Charlene said, more to herself than anything. “Well, good for you. My husband drank plenty enough for half the country. It ended up killing him, that damn drunkard. Of course, that doesn’t keep me from missing him terribly every day.”
“Oh,” Whitney said. “Sorry.”
She didn’t know what else to say. This line of conversation almost made her wish she had accepted that drink after all. She fidgeted with the ring on her finger.
“I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to make you uncomfortable,” Charlene said. “He died a long time ago. What’s done is done.”
Whitney nodded.
“Who’s the lucky guy?” Charlene asked.
“Huh?”
“Your ring—who’s the lucky guy?”
“Oh, this,” Whitney said, fingering the ring nervously again. “This isn’t an engagement or promise ring or anything. It’s a purity ring. It’s my vow to stay pure until I’m married.”
Charlene belted out a laugh. She didn’t mean to be rude, but she couldn’t help herself. In this day and age, she never expected to hear that from a young pretty girl.
“I’m sorry, sweetie, I don’t mean to be rude. I think that’s really nice of you,” she said.
“It’s okay, I know it’s weird. But the Lord and I know it’s what’s right.”
“Good for you. You stick to your beliefs,” Charlene said. “Don’t let anyone ever tell you what you should or shouldn’t be doing with your body. It’s your choice.”
Whitney wasn’t sure if the old lady was mocking her in some way, but she didn’t press the issue. Instead, she stopped and smelled one of the bright orange flowers in a garden filled with fluorescent exotic plants that she was sure likely couldn’t grow anywhere in the contiguous United States.
“You enjoy your flight?” Charlene asked, feeling bad and eager to change the subject.
“Yeah, it was fun. The flight to Miami yesterday was my first time on an airplane actually.”
“No kidding?” Charlene said. “You’re just too much, sweetie. Too much.”
Only two guests stayed inside the mansion for most of that afternoon. Todd Nettleson, the thirty-one-year-old IT guy, stayed inside mostly because of how easily he sunburned. He had naturally pale skin that burned rather quickly. To make it worse, he found it impossible to tan. When he burned, his skin would peel two days later and then go right back to being sickly white. Also, if forced to be brutally honest, he was also self-conscious about his body freckles and back hair. So he typically preferred non-beach activities, ones where people stayed inside and/or kept most of their clothes on.
Cathy Boller, the middle-aged and excellent sales representative, also stayed mostly inside the mansion, spending much of that time chatting with Todd, whom she knew in passing from the few times she needed computer support and ended up getting Todd assigned to her help desk ticket. She stayed indoors because she’d always hated the beach. It just wasn’t her thing, or so she told herself. Deep down she was just uncomfortable wearing bathing suits in front of people. She liked to tell herself that she was comfortable with her body—and for the most part she actually was, surprisingly—just not when it came time to wearing a bathing suit in front of coworkers.
Cathy and Todd were single and attracted to each other in an offhand sort of way. But neither one of them would likely ever make a move for various reasons mostly involving their deep-rooted insecurities. That said, the mutual attraction certainly made for good conversation, though the endless supply of fresh drinks delivered to them by a server every thirty minutes certainly helped as well.
They spent most of their time in the mansion’s game room, which housed a pool table, a Ping-Pong table, several old arcade games, six massive TVs, and a whole cabinet filled with board games, from classics like Monopoly to a few newer ones with wacky names like ZaMbiZzLe!! that neither of them had ever heard of.
“What do you think about Tiffany and Kyle?” Cathy asked as they settled on each end of one of the large leather couches.
“Definitely boning,” he said.
Cathy laughed, even though she was pretty sure he hadn’t phrased it that way to be funny.
“That’s how she got her current job, too,” Cathy said. She worked in the same office as Tiffany. For the most part, everyone knew how incompetent she was. It was well understood that she’d slept her way into a supervisory position. “There are probably very few guys above her she hasn’t slept with. Maybe even some of the females, too. Or so I’ve heard.”
“Yeah, probably the only reason she hasn’t contracted a host of diseases yet is the fact that Pioneer Administrative Benefits is so female dominated,” Todd said.
And it was true. Women outnumbered the men three to one, company-wide. But the bitterly ironic part was that when it came to management positions, it was much closer to fifty-fifty. And for the executives, it was three to one the other way. The company men in charge seemed to like to keep women beneath them. Literally and figuratively.
It was one of the reasons Cathy worked as hard as she did. She definitely didn’t want to be in sales forever. She eventually wanted to get into management or even higher. She wanted to shake things up from above. That’s not to say that women had no power within the company. There was one division, claim reimbursement for one of the private insurance contracts, in which every single management position was occupied by a woman. And that division had an extremely high termination rate of the few male employees who managed to get jobs there.
But that was neither here nor there at the moment. Cathy tried to push these thoughts from her mind. She was here to relax and have fun, after all. To enjoy the fruits of her labor, so to speak.
“Hey, want to play a game?” she asked suddenly with that big smile that never seemed to leave her face. “I haven’t played a board game in years.”
Todd had to admit that her smile was pretty irresistible. It almost made her chubby face look much prettier than it was. And it was definitely her best feature, if you didn’t count the large chest that overweight women usually had. And Todd actually was counting that, in all honesty.
“Yeah, why not? We’re on a company-paid vacation after all, right?” he said.