Free Lost Lake by David Auburn Page A

I’ll check the garage. If I can’t find another one I’ll ask my brother. But you’d still need a third life jacket if your little girl brings her friend. Or if you need it. Do you swim?
    VERONICA : Yes.
    HOGAN : Because some … city people don’t.
    VERONICA : I do.
    HOGAN : Okay then. Any other questions?
    VERONICA : No. I think …
    ( Beat. She looks around. Swallows her doubts. )
    All right. Let’s do it.
    HOGAN : Great. You’re really gonna enjoy it here.
    VERONICA : I hope so.
    HOGAN : You will.
    VERONICA : So how should we—how do you like to do this?
    HOGAN : Well, we talked about the total in the e-mail, that still works for you?
    VERONICA : Yes.
    HOGAN : So now I guess maybe just a deposit. To hold the rental.
    VERONICA : All right.
    HOGAN : What if we say half now and then half when you get here. And add maybe five hundred on to the front end as a damage deposit, that I’ll refund at the end if everything’s shipshape.
    VERONICA : So you’re saying half the total rental plus five hundred now?
    HOGAN : Yes. And you’ll get the five hundred back at the end of the summer.
    VERONICA : Unless there’s damage.
    HOGAN : There won’t be. I’ll put away anything fragile. There’s nothing much you can hurt around here anyway even with kids.
    VERONICA : So maybe we don’t need to do the damage deposit? I’m just—
    HOGAN : It’s pretty standard.
    VERONICA : I’m just wondering if maybe—half plus the five hundred now seems like a lot.
    HOGAN : Uh-huh.
    VERONICA : I mean I could do half and half, but then maybe I’d ask you to waive the damage deposit, given that everything around here already looks pretty … broken in.
    HOGAN : I just thought if something got damaged, I don’t even know what—
    VERONICA : Uh-huh.
    HOGAN : It’d be easier if it’s already dealt with, so to speak, rather than negotiate it later—
    VERONICA : No, I understand, but maybe then a better way to do the rent would be a third now, a third I can send you let’s say in June, and then a third when we come up.
    HOGAN : And we’d still do the damage deposit.
    VERONICA : Yes. But maybe spread out over the first two payments.
    HOGAN : Two fifty, two fifty.
    VERONICA : Yes.
    HOGAN : Third payment when you get here.
    VERONICA : Yes.
    ( Beat .)
    HOGAN : Deal!
    VERONICA : Okay. Thank you.
    HOGAN : Thank you. You’re a real wily negotiator, huh?
    VERONICA : I don’t know about that.
    HOGAN : No, I like it! So all right. Any other questions?
    VERONICA : Do you have Internet?
    HOGAN : No. That would require a dish and it’s just not worth it to me. If I need to check my e-mail I drive into town to the library. Cell phone service is spotty. If you stand by the window and kind of elevate yourself a little bit and hold your phone out at about a forty-five-degree angle sometimes a signal can be had—I don’t even bother usually, I use the landline for calls at the house and the library for Internet, like I said.
    VERONICA : I will need to get online a few times for work. How far is the library?
    HOGAN : Ten minutes. It’s only open three days a week but you don’t even have to go in. When it’s closed you can park outside with your laptop. People do it all the time. Oh—you’ll need a car. I mean once you get up here. But you saw that.
    VERONICA : I’ll rent a car for the week.
    HOGAN : You got that budgeted in.
    VERONICA : Yes.
    HOGAN : Well, great, so everything is settled. What sort of work do you do, you don’t mind my asking?
    VERONICA : I’m a nurse practitioner.
    HOGAN : A nurse, huh?
    VERONICA : Practitioner, yes.
    HOGAN : Which means what?
    VERONICA : I can prescribe certain medications, perform certain procedures.
    HOGAN : Turn your head and cough, that sort of thing?
    VERONICA : I’m sorry?
    HOGAN : Sort of halfway to a doctor in other words.
    VERONICA : Sort