Chapter 22
Chapter
Twenty-Two
Angelica clenched her phone tightly in her left hand, the vibration moving through her fingers into her knuckles and palm and straight up into her wrist. She turned the phone over, glanced at the screen, scowled, and turned it back over.
In the five minutes of quiet time she’d found, she couldn’t stop the phone from buzzing. Phone calls. Texts. Emails. Popping up second after second, and she didn’t have the heart to even begin to answer the ones she needed to answer and ignore the ones she needed to ignore.
But people were coming out of the woodwork.
Everywhere she turned someone had something to say.
“Everything good?” Florence asked as she stepped into the small staging area they had claimed.
Angelica tensed. Was it that obvious that something was upsetting her? She hated that she was so easy to read lately. “Everything’s fine.”
“You do know that when people say that I automatically take it that they’re lying to me, right?” Florence put her hands on her hips and stared down at Angelica just as her phone buzzed again. She glanced at the screen.
Christian
Mom’s not doing good today. The end is probably close.
Angelica held in her sigh, barely, and turned her phone over so she didn’t have to see it again. “Was there something you needed?” Angelica asked.
“Just checking on you.” Florence nodded toward the empty chair next to Angelica. “Do you mind?”
“Do I have a choice?” Angelica did shift and straighten up though, since it seemed as though Florence was actually going to sit with her.
“No.” Florence plopped down and breathed steadily, the silence filling the room.
Outside, Angelica could hear the crew moving around, coming back from the lunch break and setting up. Her phone buzzed again.
Henrietta
Your mom is on her deathbed. She wants to see you before she dies. I think it’s incomprehensible that you’d still punish her like this.
Of course her aunt would text at a time like this when they hadn’t spoken in nearly five years.
Angelica paled, cold rushing through her and settling into the pit of her stomach.
She hated this. Her mother was doing this from her deathbed, and she was just supposed to roll over and ask for her belly to be scratched.
She clenched her jaw hard and tightened her entire body.
“Is there a reason you have a problem with me?” Florence asked, her voice far calmer than Angelica probably would be if she was the one asking the question.
“I don’t have a problem with you.” Angelica turned her phone over and turned on her iPad, determined to at least get some work done during the short break from filming she had.
She needed to approve the payroll for the period and then double-check on the budget for production, which she knew had increased because they’d needed more security than ever.
All because of Josef.
If she could curse his name into oblivion, then she would.
But it probably wouldn’t do much in the long run anyway.
“Ange.” Florence’s tone was demanding.
Licking her lips, Angelica pried her gaze away from her iPad and the fifty million emails she still had to answer and looked directly into Florence’s brown eyes. “Yes?”
“You and I have to learn to work better together.”
“Better?” A line formed in the center of Angelica’s forehead. “We work fine together.”
Florence sighed heavily. “No, we don’t.”
Angelica ignored her and went back to focusing on her iPad and the emails. She had one in there from Mountain View West, and the conclusion of the very long saga of purchasing the hotel. It was hers. Officially.
Her heart skipped a beat.
She hadn’t expected that, or for there to be no flourish or relief. Instead, it was overwhelming. All of the paperwork was signed. All of the i’s were dotted and t’s were crossed. Everything was hers. Her responsibility. Her burden.
She closed out of the email quickly and accidentally tapped into another one.
This one from her mother’s sister. Another scathing and begging email about how Angelica had been the one to hold off contact and it was time for her to get over whatever wrongdoing there was so she could talk to her mom before she died.
And again, she had zero desire to even contemplate it.
“Ange?” Florence’s voice wavered this time. “Are you sure everything is okay?”
“Yeah. Fine.” Angelica pursed her lips and closed down her iPad and snagged her phone in her hand just as it buzzed again. “I need to get back to filming.”
She didn’t wait as she walked out of the small room and straight to where she knew Sy and Rex should be.
She could only hope that they were back already.
That she could dive into the filming and forget that everyone in her family was coming out of the woodwork to guilt her into breaking the boundaries she’d set decades ago.
“Ange!” Eva raced toward her, the nanny trailing after her.
Angelica stopped short, opening her arms for Eva to run into them and give her a hug. She breathed slowly and took in this moment more than she normally would. She’d needed this, even if Eva hadn’t known that.
“Where are you off to?” Angelica asked, letting Eva go and stepping back.
“I’m still not allowed to leave the hotel.” Eva frowned and then pouted. “So we’re going to watch a movie and look at the beach.”
God, that sounded miserable. This whole situation could have been avoided, and Eva wouldn’t be suffering like this.
Josef was to blame for it entirely, but that didn’t alleviate the guilt that Angelica felt when she looked at this spunky kid who was forced to live inside a hotel room because the people out there couldn’t be trusted to leave her out of adult problems.
“Maybe you can sneak down to the beach later when the chaos outside eases up.” Angelica brushed her fingers across Eva’s shoulder.
“Maybe,” Eva replied, though she didn’t exactly look like she believed the sentiment.
Which Angelica could understand. All of this was throwing them for a loop. Angelica bent down and whispered, “Look, I know this is really crappy. None of us are happy about it. But it’s what we have to deal with right now.”
“Because of you and Mom.” Eva looked at her directly, those crystalline eyes that matched Hope’s meeting Angelica’s.
“Yeah, kind of.”
“What do you mean kind of?” Eva wrinkled her nose in confusion.
“It’s because I made Josef mad because I didn’t want to do what he wanted, so he’s making a mess that we have to clean up because he’s mad.”
“He’s throwing a fit,” Eva said succinctly.
“Yeah, like an overgrown toddler.” Angelica laughed a little and snagged Eva’s fingers to squeeze them. “And we have to deal with him throwing his fit.”
“You know, Mom always says that you ignore toddlers who are throwing fits and then they’ll stop. But if you give them attention, then they’ll keep doing it because they get what they want.”
“Your mom is a wise woman.” Angelica sighed a little and then smiled up at her. “She’s not wrong, but we do also have to make sure that no one gets hurt in the process, and that’s really what we’re doing. Okay?”
“I guess.” Eva shrugged a little. “You should watch a movie with me tonight. Mom said I could watch KPop Demon Hunters again.”
Angelica’s lips curled upward. “I’d love to, but I’m not sure I can find the time this week. Next time, I promise.”
“Okay.” Eva stepped back a little before she leaned in and whispered into Angelica’s ear. “You make time for Mom, right?”
“Yeah. I do.” Except she hadn’t lately. Angelica’s heart clenched hard.
She and Hope had barely had a moment to themselves.
They’d been thrown back into filming, and Angelica had treated this season like any other season.
And she hadn’t intentionally made an effort to find time—outside of work—with Hope. And that was her fault.
“I will,” Angelica corrected. “I promise.”
“Good.” Eva gave her a brilliant smile and then stepped back. She looked at her Nanny and then skipped away as if she didn’t have a care in the world.
Angelica truly hoped she didn’t.
“They’re ready for you when you are.” Rex’s deep tones reached her ears, and Angelica tensed.
How long had she been staring into the space that Eva had occupied before he’d found her?
Staring off into a world of thought and anxiety that she couldn’t control.
Her phone buzzed again, and she still didn’t manage to resist the urge to flip it over and check the notification.
Another cousin. She pursed her lips and looked up into Rex’s eyes.
“Is Hope joining?”
He shook his head. “No, not this time. She had an issue in the kitchen she needs to resolve.”
“Naturally,” Angelica mumbled. Why hadn’t Hope told her that?
Instead, she’d heard it through the grapevine instead of directly from the source.
If that didn’t say anything about the state of their relationship currently, then she didn’t know what else would.
Eva was right. Angelica had to put in way more effort.
But that didn’t make it easy.
She followed Rex into the back office and sat down in the chair across from the desk. Joy sat behind the desk, Ross adjacent to Angelica. If that wasn’t a comment on the power dynamics here, then Angelia wasn’t sure what was.
She waited patiently while Rex and Sy set up two stationary cameras so they could catch everyone’s reactions in the small space. Everything was cramped in here, and the room would start heating up faster than Angelica would be able to handle. It always did.
“Whenever you’re ready, Ange. Action.” Rex stepped just outside the door, leaving as much room as possible in the tight confines.
Angelica paused, staring at the dark screen on her iPad and freezing.
Her entire body told her to move and act and speak, but she couldn’t force herself to do it.
She couldn’t make herself do her job. She held her fingers together with the electronic pencil between them as if she was about to scroll through something on the screen, but there was nothing there for her to look at.
“Ange?” Sy asked, his voice shocking her.
“I’m fine,” she said quickly, shaking her head and turning her iPad on. She cleared her throat and shifted in her chair. “We need to talk about branding, because I think that’s the number one issue here.”
“The issue is we don’t have guests,” Joy fired back.
“And why don’t you have guests?” Angelica squared her shoulders, finding the calm she’d always found in the work. Except she’d had to fight hard to get there this time, and the fear of slipping back into melancholy terrified her.
“Because they are choosing to stay elsewhere.”
Angelica held her breath. This was going to take every ounce of patience she had, wasn’t it? “And why are they choosing to stay elsewhere?”
She risked a glance over to Ross, who remained silent, his lips glued shut. He rarely talked, actually, now that Angelica thought about it. Joy was the one who typically answered questions.
“Let’s start this way. Ross, when you go to a restaurant to order food, how much time do you spend looking at the menu?” Angelica uncrossed and recrossed her legs, turning her focus onto him.
“I don’t see the point—” Joy started.
Angelica put her hand up to stop her. “Let him answer the question.”
She then waited in silence as Ross looked between the two women and finally took a gulp of air and spoke.
“I uh… not a whole lot.”
“How many minutes?” Angelica asked.
“Maybe five?”
“One of the tenets of having diners is that you want them in and out. You need tables to be opened up so that other diners can come in and have a meal. It’s a rotation of keeping people moving. Chef Lawrence and I were discussing the menu. Do you know how many pages there are in your menu?”
“A lot,” Ross mumbled.
“I still don’t see how this is relevant,” Joy fired back.
Angelica kept the tension high. “Twenty-three pages.”
“Really?” Ross squeaked.
Angelica raised an eyebrow at him and turned to focus on Joy. “How much time do you suppose it takes for someone to go through a menu packed full of twenty-three pages of options?”
Joy stayed silent. Ross didn’t budge. Angelica looked at one and then the other and sighed.
When she didn’t get a response, Angelica continued, “Too many. And there’s no rhyme or reason to what’s on that menu.
Chef Lawrence has done a beautiful job of branding when it comes to her business—high priced items, high quality food—people know when they eat at one of her restaurants they will be served a five-star meal with French and Italian influences but primarily American food.
Can she cook other foods? Absolutely. But that doesn’t mean she puts them on her menu.
And did you know that her menu at her restaurants is one page—front and back? ”
Ross’s jaw dropped. Joy’s, however, only clenched tighter.
“Branding is key to selling this place as somewhere people want to come. It’s easy to see when it comes to the restaurant. But we can bring that into the main part of the hotel and elevate it as well. Then you can have more guests who stay, more who come to dine.”
“We aren’t a five-star hotel,” Ross said.
“No, you’re not. I’m not saying you need to be, either.
But you do need to know exactly who you are and what you want to become in order to market yourself and make a profit.
” Angelica glanced down at the iPad she hadn’t even touched during this conversation.
A notification popped up on the screen—an email from her family.
Again.
Her stomach twisted sharply.
They wouldn’t ever stop, would they?
She closed the iPad and focused on the Borjeses. “So, do you want to take me up on the offer to help with branding? Or do you want to continue to spin your wheels and get nowhere?”
She wasn’t even sure why she was asking that question.
They’d listen to her for the next week because they’d applied to be on the show, and then everything else was out of her hands.
What they did was their own choice, and they would be responsible for their mistakes.
But she also knew that Rex and Florence and Logan would be looking for those questions for the trailers and promotion, for the transitions when editing, and because it made it seem like Joy and Ross actually had a choice in what was happening here.
Even if they didn’t.
“Well?” Angelica asked when they hadn’t answered.
“Yes,” Joy and Ross said at the same time.
“Good.”