Chapter 9 Clara
I ’M SLOWLY GETTING USED TO a giant gull being the first thing I see when I open my eyes in the morning.
Maggie’s B & B is decorated in a way that the interior designer who furnished my apartment would describe as kitschy, and she wouldn’t mean it in a loving or appreciative sense.
When I stayed here earlier in the week, I was in a guest room in the main part of the house that was musical theater themed.
When I politely asked Maggie why she picked The Phantom of the Opera as a design choice, she said it was the first show she ever saw.
Each room is decorated with something that represents her or a point in her life so that guests get to experience her as well as her home.
I’m in what’s essentially a self-contained condo at the back of the main building.
It’s an extension that they built for Maggie’s mother when she wasn’t able to live on her own.
I have my own entrance at the back, but there’s an adjoining door to the main building for going to breakfast or accessing the reception desk.
My bedroom is sea themed, with anchors and lighthouse ornaments adorning multiple surfaces in equally measured spacing. There’s of course the aforementioned ceiling gull, and I’d bet the air freshener is called Sea Breeze or something similar.
The aqua-blue walls were a shock to me when I first arrived, but it’s nice to be surrounded by color and things instead of the minimalist beige approach I took in my home. I like it a lot.
Maggie told me the whole space was previously booked out for a blogger who wanted to review the town, but he canceled, saying the energy wasn’t right anymore after Flo’s video went viral.
Given there’s only one other couple here right now, I imagine it was a big disappointment for Maggie to have him cancel.
My Sundays are usually spent booking Pilates and brunch and then skipping the Pilates part. Today I’m sitting in front of my closet surrounded by sticky notes and the most delicious macarons I’ve ever had.
As much as I hate to give credit to a man, Jack made me realize something very important last night: for people to trust me enough to let me help them, they need to like me.
I don’t know if Maggie would like me if she came in here to clean and found my plan stuck up on the wall. So, in the interest of being discreet and not strange, it’s on the inside of the closet, where it can be hidden behind my clothes.
Ten out of ten for not being weird, Davenport.
I’m a visual person and I need to see my actions laid out in front of me.
I know I’ll continue to be met with a six-foot-four wall of resistance if I bulldoze through the town trying to change things without support from people.
It’s funny that Jack, the man who received no fewer than three calls the night we met from people asking for things, is so against having another pair of hands around here.
Before I can truly do my best work, I have the very simple task of making everyone love me.
Okay, I’ll settle for liking me. I write Gain Town’s Trust on a pink sticky note and add be proactive, be helpful , and be visible in parentheses underneath.
Something I kicked off this morning when I bought coffee from Bliss Café and macarons from Flo’s Fancies, then signed up to volunteer at the nativity tomorrow night.
I drank my coffee on a slow walk back to Maggie’s, smiling and saying good morning to all the people looking who were definitely questioning who I am.
A lot of my job—the real one I have, not whatever the hell this is—involves finding achievable objectives within the noise.
Listening to people talk at the town meeting last night, before Jack rudely made me stand in the cold, proved what I already knew.
This community just wants to grow and make enough to live comfortably and peacefully, and they want to share the love they have for their town with other people.
Flo has a very clear dream—that she loved recapping last night at the meeting, and, to be honest, I loved hearing—of the town hosting winter markets similar to what she’s experienced in Europe.
Having been to Cologne in December on a business trip, I know exactly what she means.
I can imagine the grass in front of the town hall lined with red-roofed stalls filled with independent businesses.
People would flood here to experience the magic, but before they can bring in outsiders, the businesses already here need to be okay.
To grow and be successful, people need to know Fraser Falls exists. When people know it exists, they need to come here. While they’re here or while they’re looking up town businesses, they need to spend money.
I write Raise Profile, Increase Visitors , and Spend Money on three individual blue sticky notes and put them side by side on the wall beneath my pink sticky note.
I have contacts I can use to get media attention to raise the town’s profile, but it needs to be the right kind of attention.
If I call them right now, all they’re going to latch on to is the fact I’m here and the video.
I need to find the perfect story to hand to them that isn’t “toy company scandal at busiest time of year.”
Getting people here is trickier unless I start running bus tours from the surrounding cities.
I can imagine how confused finance would be when they got my expense report after I started my own Greyhound operation.
Raising the town’s profile goes hand in hand with increased visitors.
I can also look at special events to get people here.
The sticky note with Spend Money has a question mark under it.
I pull the blue paper from the wall and write small business saturday? underneath as a reminder to really think about how I can link them together. It came up a couple of times last night at the meeting and I’m sure (kind of) that there’s something I could suggest here.
Flo mentioned in the meeting that during last year’s increased visitor flow following Holly’s virality, they collected a lot of email addresses and have been doing blasts to remind people of upcoming events.
I reach for the orange sticky notes and separate them from the rest of the pile, trying to think about what would make this trip a success I can be happy about.
Flo deleting the video and going home to a promotion, obviously.
Looking up at the clothes hanging in front of my plan wall, I get the feeling it’d take longer to pack up my desk to move into Daryl’s office than it’ll take to pack up here.
Apart from all the loungewear and sweatshirts, I brought one dress that would be perfect if Fraser Falls opens a nightclub inspired by Ibiza.
Not my finest work but I was packing with a deadline.
My point is, I do want to feel like I’m leaving the town better than I found it when I head back to my real life. I feel like the people involved in the doll need more from Davenport. More from me.
I write each of their names on the orange sticky notes and line them up beneath my other notes: Winnie and Melissa from Wilde & Winslet, Miss Celia from the Green Light bookstore, Wilhelmina from the art school, Dove from the animal sanctuary, and Jack.
Under Miss Celia I put Matilda Brown? to remind me to talk to my friend about a potential book event with one of her authors, but the rest are currently question marks. There’s definitely a way to tie all these things together, but I just can’t see it right now.
Maybe I should’ve bought string.
I pat the floor around me until I hit the hard case of my phone beneath a purple sweatshirt I’ve yet to put on a hanger. Scrolling to Honor’s name, I navigate to FaceTime and smile when she fills my screen.
“How can I make people like me?” I ask, leaning against the side of my bed.
Her eyebrows pinch together, dipping beneath the thick rim of her glasses.
She only wears them when her eyes are too tired for contacts because Billy Poston told her she looked like Velma Dinkley from Scooby-Doo in eighth grade.
No amount of showing her Hot Velma from the second movie has ever changed her mind.
When Paloma was a baby, I turned up on Halloween dressed as Daphne with Velma and Scooby-Doo costumes for them. I thought it’d help her move past something that happened a decade earlier, but Honor shut the door in my face.
She has zero to feel self-conscious about.
In addition to being smart and hilarious with excellent taste in friends (but not men), she’s ridiculously hot.
It feels like an unwritten rule that every tall girl has a short best friend, and we’re no exception.
She’s half a foot shorter than I am and becoming a mom added to her curves (that I’d die for, honestly) in every way.
Her brunette hair is a few shades off being black, and even with it tied up like it is right now with her overgrown bangs hanging out, she looks effortlessly gorgeous.
Honor takes a bite out of a bagel with cream cheese and nudges her door closed with her shoulder. “Show them your titties.”
There’s a flash of Jack’s shocked face in my head but I push it away. I scowl at her. “I’m not trying to leave town with a criminal record, Hon. I need to work out what my best qualities are so I can play to them, and I’m not sure I have any.”
“Stop looking like you have a stick up your ass. I’m thinking.” Honor sits down and I spot her shampoo and duck-egg-blue bath tiles in the background.
My nose scrunches. “Are you eating your lunch in the bathroom? That’s disgusting.”
She takes another unbothered bite and wipes cream cheese from her top lip with the back of her hand.
“Girl, shut up. I’m hiding from my child, otherwise I’ll have to share my lunch and this conversation.
You’re the first adult I’ve talked to face-to-face this weekend.
Why do you want to know how to make people like you? ”
“It’s the core of all my plans to fix the Fraser Falls mess and get my promotion.”
“Why can’t you just have normal problems? Seriously. Like, one Sunday I’d love you to call me with a pregnancy scare or a flat tire or something.”
“I called you three weeks ago and said I was dying of a cold and you told me to grow up! Also, I don’t have a car and if I was having a pregnancy scare, my first call would be to the church to report a miracle, not you.”
“Told you to grow up but made you lunch. Don’t make me a villain, drama queen. Anyway, there’s tons of things to like about you. You always say yes to everything. You rarely freak out even when it’s a huge thing, like when I called you with a pregnancy scare.”
“It wasn’t a scare. You were pregnant.”
“Moving on… being levelheaded and practical is great to have in a friend. Let’s maybe exclude some of the things you do from that one, but most of the time you’re levelheaded.”
My jaw hangs open. “Excuse you, what are we excluding exactly?”
Honor frowns. “Your weird competitiveness with your brother.”
I should feel outraged and a little embarrassed. She’s totally right though. “Okay, fair. Continue.”
“You’re kind. You’re generous with your time and your money. You encourage people wholeheartedly. You’re funny… most of the time. There are dozens of things that might make those people like you, so you should probably just be yourself.”
There’s a soft throbbing in my chest. “This is so weird.”
Honor sighs and leans against her knees. “ So weird. I hate being nice to you.”
“I think I hate you being nice to me too.” It feels like the truest sign of friendship.
One forged over more than twenty years after we met at summer camp as kids.
Honor is one year younger than me, the same age as Max.
When it was time to go home we forced our parents to swap information so we could meet up in the city.
If anyone knows my good and bad traits, it’s her.
The corners of my sticky notes are starting to curl off the wall. I sigh. “This would be so much easier if I could just bribe everyone.”
“There’s that Davenport charm you should definitely suppress. You got this. Just think what your dad would do, then do the opposite.”
“You should be a motivational speaker.”
Honor finally leaves the bathroom after taking the last bite of her bagel and licking her fingers.
I can hear Paloma’s annoying YouTubers blasting from a TV in the background.
As someone in the toy industry, I’m pretty hot on what kids like, but I’ll never understand how so many people got rich from slime.
“Just be yourself, Clara. They’ll fall in love with you.”
Honor sits at her breakfast bar and balances her phone on the top tier of her fruit stand. I feel like I’m there with her and not miles away from home surrounded by people who don’t want me there. When she’s done updating me on every aspect of her life, I reluctantly end the call.
I wrap my arms around my shins and rest my chin on my knees. My plan looks like the work of an overenthusiastic child, but I think it’s going to work.
I guess I’ll have to try being myself.