Chapter 11
Lotta had been so looking forward to meeting the makers she’d identified, and when she’d contacted them, they’d all sounded keen to meet and hear about the project.
The reality had been very different. The textile artist had ruled out a collaboration straight away, saying that her creative process couldn’t be forced to use inspiration that was presented to her, dismissing the idea of a visit to the Folk Museum to see if anything sparked.
The woodworker didn’t exactly say he wasn’t interested in making anything different from what he did already, but that was how it felt to Lotta.
And the glassblower was happy to work with her but didn’t understand how the collaboration with the Folk Museum would work, however many ways Lotta tried to explain it.
The woman suggested that she’d make some one-off pieces for Lotta, who could then decide what the inspiration was for them.
All day she’d been excited about seeing Mats again, but now she felt she had no time to spare.
She needed to do some more research and try to get more meetings in this week.
Tomorrow, if she could. It felt like the whole thing was falling apart.
So when the reception desk called up to say Mats was there waiting, and she wasn’t ready, it felt like the perfect storm of a day.
‘Can you ask him to come up, please?’
She looked at her phone. They were supposed to meet twenty minutes ago, and there were a couple of missed calls from him. She hadn’t even noticed her phone ringing in her state of panic. And now he was on his way up here, and she wasn’t ready at all.
There was a knock at the door while she was reapplying her mascara, and she answered with the wand in her hand.
‘Come in, I’m so sorry I’m not ready,’ she said, disappearing into the bathroom.
‘Is everything all right?’ Mats asked, probably seeing the mess of notes and her laptop open on the bed.
‘It’s not been the best day,’ said Lotta, coming out of the bathroom and twisting her hair into a messy bun, most of which fell straight out again.
Mats looked at her with concern in his eyes, and before she could stop it, a tear ran down her cheek.
‘Kjaere,’ he said, pulling her to him and cradling her head to his chest.
Lotta felt the floodgates open and cried against his chest for a minute or so, hating herself for it, but powerless to stop it. She never usually got overwhelmed by work like this.
‘I’m sorry.’ She pulled back from him and went into the bathroom to grab some tissues. When she went back in, he’d taken his coat off and was sitting on the bottom of the bed, holding a hand out to her.
‘Tell me what happened.’
It sounded so trivial when she said it out loud, but there was no hint in Mats’ eyes that he thought that.
He listened, properly listened to her. And aside from her sisters, if they were in the right place at the right time, it was the first time anyone had been there for her like that. Certainly not Curtis.
‘And I don’t think it’s going to work in the way I planned,’ she said, blowing her nose and wishing she’d had more than one date with Mats before he saw the reality of her life.
‘The main issue is you don’t have a maker. If that was sorted, you would be okay.’
He wasn’t asking her so much as setting out the problem.
‘The main issue is I’ve bitten off more than I can chew. I’m not going to pull this off, Mats. This is literally the first part of my plan, and it’s already failing.’
‘The first part was the strategy, which must be solid or you wouldn’t have won the business,’ he said, while he looked at her intently, trying to make his words sink in.
‘This is the execution. It’s a distinct thing, and it sounds as if you are up against problems that not even the head office of Snug was aware of.
If you thought, and they thought, there were already makers on the books, finding a new one to work with was not part of the strategy.
And that is why the execution is failing. ’
Lotta looked at him in awe. ‘That’s it exactly. I’m getting bogged down in this when it was never part of the plan.’
He smiled and hugged her to his side. ‘So you acknowledge that and then move on to problem-solving this. Because I am guessing there is no one you can ask to do it for you?’
She shook her head. Perhaps she should have batted this back to Clemmie straight away.
Told her that there were no makers to choose from in the Oslo store and asked her to get Elin’s head in the game to help.
But it was too late for that now. She’d thought it would be an easy win to find someone to work with, and she’d underestimated how hard that would be.
And now she had to fix the mess by herself.
‘I wanted this to be the contract that changed the fortunes of my business, and it could have done if everything had gone smoothly.’
‘You don’t have anyone else you work with?’
‘Not at the moment. I have a website person and a graphic designer who work freelance for me, but it’s just me.’
He chuckled. ‘It’s impressive, Lotta. Just to get to this point as a one-person business, to win a contract for a brand like Snug. You have to have some belief in yourself to even pitch for that.’
‘It was a rare moment that was probably more self-delusion than self-belief,’ she said, smiling at him.
‘Would you let me help you?’
What could he possibly do to help? Start trawling websites like she’d been all afternoon? ‘That’s so kind of you, but it’s okay. I’ll find someone.’
‘I think I know someone. Well, my sister does.’
Could she let him? Aside from the fact that it felt like a cop-out, the last time she’d listened to someone who’d said they would help her, it had backfired spectacularly.
But then like he said, what she was trying to do now was never part of the plan.
What harm was there in taking a tip-off if it put her back on track? ‘What do they make?’
‘She specialises in traditional folk painting, rosemaling, it’s called. Decorative painting, usually on wood.’
Lotta sat up straighter. He could be onto something here.
‘I saw the exhibition of chests at the Folk Museum showing how a couple of centuries ago they were often the only thing people owned and they kept all their worldly possessions in them and decorated them beautifully with paintings of flowers, that kind of thing.’
‘Exactly. Would you like me to make the call? Ask Ingrid for her email address?’
‘I’d love that, thank you. Do you think your sister could give her a heads-up to expect an email from me?’
‘Sure. Do you still want to go out, or shall I go out for something we can eat here?’
‘Let’s go out. But somewhere… easy.’
He laughed. ‘See you downstairs. I’ll call Ingrid while you’re getting ready.’
Lotta exhaled, feeling some of the tension leave her now that she had a potential lead. ‘Thank you so much.’ She kissed him, wondering whether this was what it was like to be in a normal relationship with Mats or whether he was going above and beyond because he was trying to impress her.
Mats left, and back in the bathroom she laughed when she saw herself in the mirror.
Red-nosed and red-eyed, there was absolutely no reason Mats would try to impress her.
She’d be surprised if he were even waiting downstairs for her.
He’d probably taken the opportunity to run a mile.
But she didn’t believe that. At least she could enjoy the rest of the evening without the pressure of having to come up with another lead.
Of course he was waiting when she went downstairs a few minutes later.
‘Ingrid was very excited about your project, so I think she’ll talk Oda into helping you.’
‘I hope you’re joking,’ Lotta said.
He smiled and tipped his head from one side to the other. ‘All of my sisters are very good at getting what they want in one way or another.’
‘Please thank Ingrid for me. Even if her friend isn’t interested, I appreciate her help.’
‘Does it help you feel better about it all?’
‘I feel back in control for now,’ she said. ‘If Oda says no, I probably need to talk to Snug about where we go from here.’
‘I think that’s smart. This was never part of the plan. It’s important to remember that.’
She looked at him, his face earnest as he spoke about her campaign as if it was as serious as anything he dealt with in his job.
‘I don’t know what I would have done without you tonight, Mats.’
‘You would have found a solution, I know it.’
‘I would have cried myself into oblivion before that happened,’ she said, laughing but knowing that it wasn’t far from the truth.
Mats took them into a shopping centre and down the escalator to a small food court. ‘Do you like Mexican food?’
‘I could murder a burrito.’
They chose their food using an iPad at the entrance of the small Mexican restaurant, then went inside and found a table at the back.
Despite being a fast-food restaurant, it felt intimate and relaxed and perfect for tonight.
They’d both chosen beer to drink, and Lotta felt it gently take the edge off after a couple of sips.
‘How was your day?’ she asked Mats.
‘The whole day was basically one meeting. Pretty exhausting. This is exactly what I needed,’ he said, lifting his beer bottle.
Lotta felt guilty that she’d been crying into his arms. He didn’t need that kind of drama when his day sounded far more intense than hers had been. ‘Sorry you had to deal with a meltdown on top of that.’
‘Lotta, being with you, being able to help you tonight has been the highlight of my day,’ he said. ‘Otherwise the best thing to happen to me today would be that I had first pick of the lunch sandwiches.’
‘I mean, that is something to be excited about on any day.’
The burritos arrived. Again, they’d ordered the same, but Lotta had added extra jalapenos to hers and Mats had a side of nacho chips covered with runny cheese. ‘Help yourself,’ he said.
Sitting here, eating with Mats for the second night in a row, it was easy to fall into thinking life could be like this all the time, and maybe that was normal with a new relationship, but Lotta was suddenly aware that tomorrow night would be their last chance to see each other on this trip.
‘I know it’s only our second date, but do you think this can work for us?
I mean, I live in London, you’re here and it can work now while I’m coming here sometimes, but what will we do after that?
’ She felt brave asking him, but it had been on her mind to a greater or lesser extent ever since she’d given him her number in the ramen place the last time she was here.
Surely it was normal with any new relationship to think about where it was heading, even at such an early stage?
Except this time it felt more important, and she needed to know whether Mats felt like that too.
He looked thoughtful and took another bite of his burrito, which she tried not to take as a bad sign. If he had to think that hard about what to say…
‘It’ll be harder to get to know each other like this. Sporadic meetings, snatched dates in the evenings. In an ideal world, we need to be in the same place if it’s going to become anything. But if this works for us right now, then let’s keep doing this because I’d rather have this than nothing.’
‘Me too.’
She already knew that because he had the hotel, he couldn’t do much about changing where he lived.
But could she move to Norway? That’s what it would come to if they became serious about each other, and it was only sensible to think about whether a future could work if she already liked him as much as she did.
In theory, she could work from anywhere, although an island in the middle of a fjord might be pushing it.
The irony of the timing of all of this wasn’t lost on her either.
Mats was looking to step away from the corporate world, what he’d spent his life building, just as she was stepping into it.
Their pace of life might be the same at the moment but that wouldn’t be the case for much longer, and she hadn’t come this far, overcome so much, to move to an island and leave behind the opportunities that were finally presenting themselves to her.
What terrified her most was that she had never been in a relationship that could survive her success. She already knew Mats was no Curtis, but there was still a nagging feeling that it might not be possible to have a career and a man in her life at the same time.