Chapter 20
Tabitha
Sitting in bed with my laptop, I clicked open the link I’d saved.
That purple velvet chair would work brilliantly for reading around the fire in the kitchen, but it was backordered.
I scrolled up and clicked on the next one.
How was I going to find furniture that could be delivered by the grand finale?
Then my favorite ringtone blared out.
Digging through my comforter, I finally found my phone.
“Hey, Felicity.”
“Hello, Tabitha.”
“Everything okay?” It was rare for Felicity Barnfield to call me late at night, so this felt strange.
“Yes, sorry to ring so late, but I thought you’d want to know immediately. Things are actually better than okay. I just got off a call with the Wainwright brothers.”
I’d been chasing an exclusive with them for a year.
These brothers had just built a massive shopping mall, West City, with apartments, park, pool, and gym complex on what used to be a scrappy part of West London.
Darcy and William were both dashingly tall and handsome, but the elder brother, Darcy, drove the media bonkers with his refusal to give interviews.
“Really? What did they call to talk about?”
“I wish they’d called you first, but apparently, they wanted to get my assurance that their story was going to be highly placed in the paper. They’re going to give you an exclusive interview—they’ve agreed to a four-page spread.”
“What? An interview with the Wainwrights?”
This was huge. I squealed internally, bounced off the bed, and danced around the room, a ball of excitement lighting up my limbs.
The whole West City enterprise set out to supposedly reconfigure the idea of what a shopping mall could be, creating a complete community rather than just a collection of shops.
What I’d spied from the road were glamorous waves of a glass building surrounded by verdant stretches of grass, playgrounds, lush gardens, and mature trees.
I always tried to stay impartial and detached as a journalist, but on first sight, I thought it looked beautiful, like an urban oasis.
I’d met the brothers at a few events, and I’d been emailing and texting them for an interview. This was an enormous coup.
“They want to start the interview in two weeks’ time on the Monday,” she explained.
“You’ll stay at one of the apartments at the complex and join them at appointed times for the final push and at night for dinner at some of the bars and restaurants.
” She chuckled gleefully. “To be honest, I imagine there will be a lot of shit hitting the fan and conflict, because they have such a strict opening deadline, and I think our readers will be fascinated as to how these two enigmatic men handle it. Which, as you know, is gold for a newspaper. They’ll also have a TV crew following them around, but we’ll get your story in the paper first. Congratulations, Tabitha. All your tenacity has paid off.”
“Oh my God, this is so exciting.” I danced around the room some more and let out a squeal of glee, then held out the phone, too late to protect her ears. Hugging myself, I sat down on the bed so we could talk through the logistics.
She cleared her throat. “Now, some housekeeping. Your parents’ inn, the TV show. That’s totally under control, right? You will be free and back in London by that Monday, won’t you? You won’t be recalled out on any disasters during that week?”
“Please don’t worry about my commitment.
We’ve still got six weeks, so we have loads of time, and the builder can take care of any issues that arise.
As you know, I’m in London all week. We’re only filming on the weekends.
I’ll turn up on Monday morning to the Wainwrights’ offices, packed for the week’s stay at one of their apartments.
” I still couldn’t believe I’d go out with them every night.
Such a privilege I wouldn’t take for granted. “I won’t let you down, Felicity.”
“You’ve always been a rock, Tabitha. I know I can count on you.
” There was a slight hesitation on her part, and I didn’t like it, but I got it.
Because although I’d not technically taken off any time from work as I’d done my parents’ house on the weekends, usually I went into the newspaper at least Saturdays and often Sundays to get everything done, and energy-wise, it had to be obvious this renovation was taking its toll on me.
After pressing end, I finally gave the loud whoop I’d been wanting to let out. I tripped around the house to find Mum and Dad. Hopefully when the project ended, they’d be ready for their new adventures too.
I found their shadowy outlines on the pond, Dad raking something, Mum chatting to the chickens.
Bursting with excitement, I told them about the assignment with the Wainwright brothers, but their faces creased with confusion, no doubt because they seldom read newspapers or ventured to London if they could help it.
I led them through the house into the makeshift kitchen Tim had set up in the drawing room to take them through my spreadsheet.
“See here?” I showed them the first entry. “I have advertisements for a daily cleaner and a cook.” I clicked into a link. “I’ve also mocked up a basic website.”
Dad peered closer. “Very nice, very nice. Oh darling, look at those snaps Tabs took of the animals. Pinky is such a card, isn’t he?” He was talking about one of the sensible pigs. I appreciated the praise but was frustrated they weren’t focused on what needed to be done.
“Such a ham, isn’t he?” Mum winked, and they snorted with laughter.
I clapped my hands to get their attention again.
“So happy you like it. And my friend at work is doing all the back-end technical stuff at cost, which is incredibly good of him.” I took them to another entry on the spreadsheet.
“Here are all the places we should advertise.” I showed them a mock-up of a typical advert.
“We’re going to really lean into this show, so we can start placing the adverts even before the show ends.
We don’t have time for a soft opening to iron out the kinks, which means we’ll have to go hard-in immediately. ”
Mum and Dad looked totally dazed.
They were already overwhelmed. They looked like kids at a birthday party who had eaten too much cake, had been subjected to too many water-blasters, and now just needed to sit in a darkened room. In minutes, they would shut down completely, which I should have expected and planned for.
Mum fiddled with her hair, re-pinning it in a bun. Dad looked desperately out the window, but it was too dark to see any animals that would distract him.
“But, darling, we thought we’d have a nice rest when this is all over,” Mum said finally. “Let the dust settle, be with the animals, a little staycation for us all.”
Dad smiled at her. “Quite, darling. Well put. Let’s delay this grand opening for a couple of months, eh? Maybe even after Christmas. Yes, capital. A New Year’s venture!”
My blood pressure sparked to boiling within seconds.
“A couple of months? What? No, no, no. That cannot happen. There is a TV show airing the night before we open, the best publicity any business in this country will ever get. We have to strike while the iron is hot. We can’t waste the launch of the TV show. ”
Frustrated, I started planning how I could ensure they helped pull this off—a nonnegotiable deadline.
They could meet the freelance booking agent to hear about the punters who’d signed up for a stay.
They must meet the cook and cleaner and hear they were turning up for work that first Monday at seven, and that guests would arrive around 3:00 p.m.
But it now seemed obvious there were things I couldn’t expect them to do or even help with, like setting up social media, sending out press releases, placing ads with travel bloggers and influencers and offering them free stays in return for an honest, gulp, review.
Somehow, I had to do that in my evenings, but I needed to show them all those adverts to demonstrate these weekends were real.
Resignedly, they stared at my spreadsheet on the old table Tim had hauled out of the barn and cleaned off.
“Let’s start with the easy stuff. We need a name for the inn.”
“What’s wrong with what it’s already called?” Dad answered. “Titchcoque House?”
“Dad, I think that ship has sailed. Do you remember what Aberdeeen turned that name into?”
“Yes, but wouldn’t it be a veritable hoot if we kept it?”
“Shriek with laughter, darling,” Mum chimed in.
Laughing fish in the loos, fart cushions, bawdy tapestries—Mum and Dad had retained their old private school adolescent sense of humor.
“Definitely out. Tasteless and off-putting,” I said primly.
“What about Llama House?” Dad suggested, to Mum’s enthusiastic agreement.
“Mmm.” I was beaten for today. “Okay, let’s move on.” I pointed back to the spreadsheet. “The staff.”
Mum took it in. “Cleaners? Cooks? In the house?” Her expression was filled with horror. Then her features softened with optimism. “Actually, that’s a super idea. They could make those baked treats for the animals’ sups. And those ice blocks. What are they called again… Kongs?”
My jaw quivered as I steeled myself not to scream. “The cook will be here for the guests, Mum, to run the inn.”
“Yes, of course. That’s what I was saying.”
I shook my head, trying to keep it together. Having a conversation with my parents was like trying to grasp at underwater creatures you weren’t sure were real in the first place.
The cavernous room swam around me, the dust from the chandeliers clogged my throat, and I felt queasy.
Being in this huge room, knowing we were connecting it to the kitchen, a kitchen that had to be itself transformed, and the enormity of this job—the empty air that had to be imbued with warmth, personality, and feeling—was overwhelming, but I knew I could do it, and I wanted to do it.
It was my parents’ attitude that cut me at my knees, making me want to tumble to the floor and curl into a ball.
I had counted on them being on board with all this.
Stupid, stupid me. Why did I always keep hoping they’d want to do the inn because I’d decided it was best for them? Why did I keep hoping they would step up and do the right thing and take control of their lives?
Right after the final shoot, I had to pack my bags and head back to London to do my job and, well, live my life. And before that, I had the once-in-a-lifetime story with the Wainwrights. My parents were going to have to take on the inn responsibilities, no arguments.
“We need to tuck in the animals for the night,” Mum said, and I nodded numbly as they positively skipped outside, although I had at least an hour left of discussion with them about tasks to implement and calls to make.
Panicked, I reached for my phone. I desperately needed to talk to a friend and find a way through this, but I paused.
I was the shoulder that other people came to cry on, and I always welcomed that role.
I didn’t want to bother anyone with this hot mess.
Isla had a family now. Ishani was on a total high, spending every lust-filled second she could with Kingston, and no way was I bringing her down.
I was friends with everyone at work, but I was the boss, and it would be inappropriate for me to offload personal stuff onto them.
And anyway, this whole mess called into question how I was doing my job.
My editor was being patient and accommodating, and I was working until midnight to keep up the Home and Garden pages, but after the show’s premiere, I could see her patience would come to an end, especially with the new assignment interviewing the developer brothers.
Who would even understand what I was going through?
There was one person. A hulking, bossy man who literally threw his weight around when it was needed and even when it wasn’t.
Should I call Tim? No, that was crossing the line again.
We had a professional relationship, albeit a bickering, sniping one.
This would drag him into the mucky quagmire that was my family life.
MAKEOVER YOUR MONEYMAKER, sneak peek.
Four design teams compete to turn a home into a business.
Team: Tim and Tabitha.
500 Comments:
IWantTimToNailMe2: House: Good bones. Man: Good bones, if you know what I mean…
LaIslaBonita: Groan… We always know what you mean.
LlamasRLife: Could we have more of the llama? That li’l cutie is the real star.
RugbyThighs69: Break down my walls, Tim!
TimTheBuilder: Lucky Tabitha. But Tim seems so sweet and fun, and she seems so…
LaIslaBonita: Don’t you dare say strident. If she were a guy, you’d be applauding.
TeamTimFTW342: Gathered skirts not your best look, sweetheart.
GirlBossesDoItBetter: Calling her sweetheart doesn’t make your comment any less sexist, you wally. Pull your neck in. Her style is floral outfits, and she looks great in them.
TeamTimFTW342: I call her sweetheart because I want the best for the poor girl.
LaIslaBonita: Riiiight.