Chapter 22
CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO
To Do:
- Buy highlighters
- Check in with a capella group
- Don’t stalk Olivia
“So the horses are going to be white, right?” Brad Lux pressed the tips of his fingers together and leaned back in his chair. The sleek leather of his high-backed office chair towered above him, shining in the morning sun. His mahogany desk gleamed with three computer monitors arranged across its surface. A golden nameplate sat on the desk. Even the trashcan was fancy.
Mindy and Claire exchanged a glance. Claire’s cheeks ached from the effort of smiling, and her head was full of cotton. The under-eye concealer she had applied this morning had barely made a dent in the bruised half-moons beneath her eyes.
The stress from ESA, the move, and the biggest project of her career was more than enough to send her on a sleepwalking spree. The fear of stumbling unconscious into an ESA trap had kept her tossing and turning for days. And now Brad had spent the entire meeting nitpicking and micromanaging every aspect of the proposal. This was the sixth change he had requested today, and they had two-and-a-half weeks to pull everything together.
Not to mention the fact that they had to conduct interviews and find someone suitable to represent Happily Ever Afters. That alone would have been a monumental task. Interviewing while catering to Brad 24/7 was one of the worst ideas she had ever had. And then there was the fact that Luke had proposed to the neighborhood cake-making hussy but had never so much as broached the subject of marriage with her?—
Mindy raised her eyebrows at Claire. It had probably been a full fifteen seconds since Brad had asked his question. Get it together, Claire.
Claire straightened her shoulders and made eye contact. “We can request them from the ranch, but I can’t promise they’ll have two white ones available.”
“Even if there’s just one.” Brad leaned forward and drummed his fingers on his desk, then glanced at his watch. He certainly was fidgety. Barney had been fidgety too. Was he hiding something?
“We’ll do our best.” Mindy offered him a warm smile.
Brad stopped drumming and leaned forward. His brown eyes burned into Claire’s. “It’s the least you can do after losing her priceless childhood saddle in your warehouse fire.”
Claire’s smile slid off her face like toppings falling off a street taco. “And again, I am so sorry about that, Brad. The replica should be done by the end of the week.”
“I don’t appreciate slip-ups, Claire. And this was a pretty big one.” He tapped one thick finger on his desk blotter.
Heat flamed her cheeks. Something inside her that had been strained the entire meeting snapped. “You know we didn’t set the fire, right?”
Mindy inhaled sharply and nudged her.
Claire blinked. Her body went numb. What had just come out of her sleep-deprived mouth? Had she just sassed their biggest client ever? She gripped the arms of her chair and waited.
Brad looked startled, then laughed. He leaned back in his chair. “You’re right. Shit happens. I’ll expect an email update as soon as the saddle’s done. I want to look it over to make sure it matches the pictures.”
“It will,” Claire said firmly. “Was there a particular reason why you wanted white horses?”
“Karen had a white horse growing up. Her name was Sadie. I think she’d really like it.”
Her heart softened, just a little bit. She made a mental note to talk to the stable. “We’ll do everything we can. Was there anything else?” She held her breath. If there was, she was going to leap across the desk and administer a lobotomy.
Brad seemed to debate for a moment, then shook his head. “Let me know what the helicopter company says. I don’t love the extra cost, but Luke’s right, the traffic downtown can be a real bitch. We don’t wanna get stuck.”
Claire nodded. Maybe she needed to step it up a little bit since she had just sassed him. “I’ll email you as soon as I hear. Thanks for meeting with us today. Your ideas have been very thoughtful and just the right amount of splashy.” Understatement of the century. Changing the Hollywood sign was more than a little splashy. “Karen’s going to have an amazing day,” she added.
She and Mindy stood. Claire offered her hand to Brad and he shook it enthusiastically. “I hope so. Thanks, girls. We’ll check in on Thursday to see where we’re at. Same time.”
Girls. Ugh.
“Right,” Mindy said. “And Claire and I are going to scout the locations today, and then we’ll do a run-through a couple times this week to make sure the route is doable.”
“Excellent. See you later.” Brad had already swiveled his chair back to his bank of computer monitors before Mindy and Claire left the room.
They both exhaled loudly as the office door shut behind them.
“So now we have to find a white horse, swap the appetizers again , ask the a cappella group to do a medley instead of the original song, and find a violinist to put in the hedge maze at the Getty,” Mindy whispered as she leaned against the door.
“I don’t know how we’re going to pull this off,” Claire whispered back. Dread had settled in her stomach. Was it too much? Had they finally gone too big on a proposal? And out of their comfort zone of West Haven? A rookie mistake.
“That reminds me.” Claire straightened and walked over to the reception desk. “Hi,” she said with added charm. “Brad told us to schedule another meeting in another few days. I think he said toward the end of the day.”
The receptionist blinked at them. Her feet were propped up on the desk, and the glow necklace and neon green tights she wore suggested she had come straight to work from an all-night rave. She couldn’t have been more than twenty. Claire hadn’t been to a rave in years. Was she getting old?
“Mr. Lux doesn’t like meetings at the end of his day,” the receptionist drawled in a near-perfect valley girl accent. She blew a strand of pink hair out of her eyes as she typed. “He usually goes to the gym after work. Doesn’t like the stress beforehand.”
“My mistake. Give us a call when he’s ready to schedule,” she said, stepping away from the desk with another smile.
A security guard opened a door for them. Outside it was, of course, perfect weather. Claire lifted her face to the sunshine and drank in the Vitamin D. The traffic in LA might have been ten times at stressful as West Haven. But there was something magical about the sun on the West Coast.
Mindy nudged her. “You know he wanted to meet in the morning. Did you have an aneurysm?”
“Oh, I know,” Claire said, brushing a dog hair off her blouse. “I just wanted to see what his schedule was like after work. Because we’re going to follow him to the gym and make sure he’s not a serial killer or creep before we get too deep on this proposal. Can’t be too careful.”
Mindy shook a finger at her. “You, my best friend, are incredibly wise.”
“Thank you.” She took a mini bow. “So we’ll pick a day to stake out the studio, wait for him to leave, and see where he goes. If he really does go to the gym, we’ll sneak in and see if he mistreats anyone there. I refuse to plan a beautiful proposal for another garbage human being.”
“I didn’t get that vibe from him,” Mindy said as they walked toward the parking lot.
“Same,” Claire admitted as they passed a gazebo that was in several of her favorite TV shows. “But I didn’t get it from Barney either.”
“Good point.” Mindy glanced at her phone. “By the way, are you okay?”
Claire crossed her arms. “What do you mean?”
“I’ve never heard you talk back to a client before. I almost fell off my chair.”
She waved it off. “I’m fine. Just tired. New house and all that. I think the sleep deprivation lowered my bullshit-tolerance meter. It won’t happen again.”
“Sounds like it’s time to set up a cot in front of your bedroom door again.”
“Don’t you dare.”
Mindy grunted noncommittally and stared at her phone screen. “Not a single message from Sawyer. It’s one o’clock there.”
“Doesn’t he have a class on Tuesday mornings?”
“Yeah, yeah,” Mindy grumbled and tucked the phone away. “So when are you going to talk to Luke about the Olivia situation?”
“I don’t know. I feel like he’s going to come home late and not want to talk.”
“That or he’ll be excavating the backyard to install a koi pond,” Mindy muttered. Luke’s penchant for working on house projects when he was stressed out was endearing. Most of the time.
“She was throwing herself at him, right? I didn’t imagine that?”
“Please.” Mindy pressed the unlock button. Fifty yards away, the car beeped. “I wouldn’t have been surprised if we rounded the corner and she was dry humping him.”
Claire snorted. “Want to find somewhere for lunch, send a couple of emails, and then scout the locations before we head home?”
“Sounds like a plan.” Mindy tossed her black hair over one shoulder as she approached the car.
“Hang on,” Claire said as they approached.
“Do we have to do the thing?” Mindy groaned.
“I have strict instructions from Jack.”
Claire laid a scarf on the ground and dropped to her knees to peer underneath the car. No chloroform-toting stalkers today at least. No rusty nails or other debris hiding behind the tires either. She rose and pressed herself against the backseat window. It was empty. Next, she surveyed the cars on either side of them. Also empty.
“We’re good,” she said, pulling on the passenger side handle.
“I could have told you that five minutes ago.” Mindy climbed into the driver’s seat with a dirty look.
Claire glared at her. “I’m sorry, who bought me a GPS watch because I was abducted?”
“Sorry. Thank you for being safe,” Mindy said, but she was totally rolling her eyes behind her sunglasses as she reversed out of the parking spot. “I think I’m just hangry. Where do you want to go to lunch?”
“Let me see what’s around,” Claire said, pulling up an app that listed restaurants nearby. “Oh, this one sounds good. Karma. It has four-and-a-half stars.”
“Sounds good,” Mindy said as Claire pulled up the directions and mounted her phone to the dash.
When they got there ten minutes later, they frowned at the sign.
“Legalize marinara?” Claire read as she squinted.
“Ten bucks says this is a vegan joint.” Mindy pulled into a parking spot.
Claire clicked on the restaurant’s website and scrolled. “Damn it. I owe you a ten. Do we eat some tofu or do we go somewhere else?”
“I feel like after that meeting with Brad we deserve a margarita. Mexican?”
“Perfect. Let me look.” Claire found another promising sounding restaurant. Mama Casa couldn’t be a vegan. Or could she?
They pulled up eight minutes later.
“God damn it.” Mindy stabbed a manicured finger at the sign. Kale salad with cilantro avocado balsamic reduction was the advertised special. “We are in Southern California. There’s supposed to be great Mexican food here. I want queso, not some hokey-ass kale salad with black beans on it. So help me I will drive to Tijuana if I have to.”
Claire closed the app. If she didn’t act fast, Mindy would have a hangry meltdown. She Googled instead and found a restaurant that explicitly mentioned carnitas. “Third try’s the charm.”
Mindy’s stomach growled as she pulled back out onto the highway. “If this is another vegan restaurant, I’m dumping you out on the sidewalk and driving back home.”
“Luke’s house or like…Pennsylvania home?”
Mindy glared at her. Claire hadn’t seen her this angry since a twenty-four-hour charity relay in college where the power went out and all the hotdog stands had to shut down.
Thirty minutes and one margarita later, Mindy’s mood had improved significantly. “Okay, email to the stables sent,” she said through a mouthful of queso.
“Great. I contacted the a cappella leader and asked about the medley. The songs aren’t even in the same key and they’ll need to rehearse.” Claire grabbed a fistful of hair and pushed her half-eaten taco platter out of the way. The stress was messing with her normally voracious appetite. “I might actually murder Brad when this is over.”
“Where do we find a violinist? Craigslist?” Mindy asked.
“That sounds like a great way to get Brad and Karen murdered,” Claire muttered. “I’ll ask Luke. Maybe he knows someone from the studio.” She fired off a quick text to him and hoped that he wouldn’t be too upset from the morning’s events to answer.
“Any word from the insurance company?” Mindy asked hesitantly.
Claire shook her head. “It’ll be weeks before we hear anything.” A dark cloud settled over her. “I still can’t believe they burned the freaking warehouse down. Five years of work, up in flames. Which reminds me, I need to check on the progress of Karen’s saddle.”
Mindy sighed and crunched on another tortilla chip. Her expression darkened. “We have to bring those fuckers down. Let’s do some research tonight after our safety meeting. I’m looking forward to learning about the dangers of pollution.”
“Done. Ready to attempt the run-through?” Claire carefully stacked their plates on top of each other.
Mindy nodded. “Business first. Then we squash the assholes.”