The Lot He Was Grading Was Already Awarded to Her

Wayne flicks off his radio so the whole lot hears it: "Tape-girl, this lot belongs to me."

Then he snaps Dorothy's measuring tape in half over his knee, and three men laugh from the excavator treads. Dorothy blinks once, bends down, and picks up both halves. She has six weeks of her own staking in that dirt, a sealed bid bond in her boot bag, and no legally clean way to move a single load without Wayne's signature. If he walks off this lot unsigned, her award gets contested and the schedule he promised the owner dies with it.

Wayne does the talking for both of them. He tells her the grading is his job, the schedule is his schedule, the machines are his machines. He tells her she hands out flags while he moves crews.