CHAPTER SEVEN
When Katja arrived at the café for her shift the following Friday morning, there was an aura of excitement about her.
I smiled at her expectantly.
‘I’ve done it!’ She beamed at me. ‘I’ve booked my flight to New York.’
‘Wow! Fabulous!’
‘I’m going in March and staying for four whole days – in the city that never sleeps, woo-hoo! – and I can’t wait to surprise him.’
‘ Surprise him?’ I looked at her, taken aback by her daring. ‘So are you intending to just turn up at the door of his hugely romantic Brownstone apartment? Or will you phone him when you land in the Big Apple, en route from the airport?’
‘I’m not sure. I’d love to just surprise him at the door. Imagine his face!’
‘He might not be in.’
‘True. That would totally ruin it.’
I grinned at her. ‘I’m now picturing you lounging ever so casually on the steps outside the apartment awaiting your lover’s return, like Carrie Bradshaw in Sex and the City .’
‘Nice.’ She grinned as she donned an apron. ‘But it’s not the movies, Ellie. This is real life. It’ll probably be pouring with rain and I’ll have accidentally left my umbrella on the subway, so I’ll end up greeting him looking like a drowned rat.’
‘Ah, yes!’ I pointed at her enthusiastically. ‘Just like at the end of Four Weddings and a Funeral . When Hugh Grant opens the door and she’s standing on the steps in the pouring rain and then they kiss.’
‘You’ve been watching far too many movies.’
I grinned. ‘You’re right. Probably best to let Richard know you’re on the way.’
‘Just in case he’s having too much fun without me.’ She said it as a joke but her downcast eyes told a different story.
‘What do you mean? He’ll be delighted to see you.’
‘But what if he isn’t? What if he took up the New York offer to get away from me?’
‘Rubbish. He loves you. You’re great together.’
‘We were.’ She smiled wistfully. ‘We used to finish one another’s sentences, we were so close. But things changed.’
‘He’ll have missed you, though. And absence makes the heart grow fonder, remember?’ I shrugged. ‘I wouldn’t mind betting that this New York trip of yours will get your relationship right back on track.’
‘I hope you’re right.’
‘Listen, are you sure you’re okay about doing extra shifts?’ Both Katja and Maddy were filling in for me at the café, now that Rori had left to start her new job.
‘Of course.’ Katja smiled. ‘It’s all extra money for New York.’
‘That’s good. It’ll only be until I can find someone to work at the glamping site.’
‘No response yet from the adverts?’
I shook my head gloomily. ‘None at all.’ I’d been expecting to have a few candidates to choose from, but taking out an ad in the local paper as well hadn’t produced any applicants, either, and I was really starting to worry. We were booked solid every week for months to come. And today was changeover day.
On this particular Friday, all of our guests would be ending their stay with us and vacating their accommodation by ten, so then I’d have a five-hour window in which to clean all six shepherd’s huts and the large, Bedouin-style tent – including changing bed linen and towels – and be ready and waiting with a smile to welcome our new guests to the site from 3pm onwards.
I glanced at my watch. Nine-thirty. The guests would be packing up and getting ready to leave. Time for me to get busy.
Rori had been able to turn a shepherd’s hut around in less than thirty minutes, which meant a total of three hours – plus forty minutes for the Bedouin tent, which was much larger. As long as I worked fast, I’d be fine...
I said goodbye to Katja and walked over to the store room attached to the shower block. The handy cart we used to trundle items over to the huts was standing empty, waiting to be filled with sets of bed linen and towels and cleaning equipment.
Calculating how many duvet covers, sheets and pillowcases I’d need, I glanced up at the shelves where they were stored – and my heart missed a beat with horror.
The shelves were practically empty.
Rori hadn’t mentioned a problem. What on earth had happened?
We used a local company, EazyClean, to launder our linens, and they generally collected on Tuesdays and delivered them back freshly ironed late on Thursday afternoons. I hadn’t even thought to check that the delivery had been made the day before. Rori had always done that.
Panicking, I glanced through the contacts on my phone. But I didn’t even have EazyClean’s number in there, so I half-walked-half-ran back to my office in the café.
Carrying the extra baby weight was hampering my speed and mobility more and more as the weeks went on, making me feel awkward and clumsy, and by the time I made it to my office, I was seriously out of breath and had to stand in the doorway for a while, leaning against the doorpost to get my breathing under control.
It flashed through my mind then how worried Zak would be if he knew what was going on here in his absence. He still didn’t know that Rori had left. If he found out, he’d be back here in a flash. Perhaps it was time to give in and call him...
Just then, my phone started ringing and it was Rori herself, phoning with bad news.
‘EazyClean just called me to say their premises were flooded yesterday and they’ve been forced to cease operations. They obviously can’t use their machines and they phoned me because I was their contact. I gave them your number so you can expect a phone call soon, but I thought I’d better give you a heads-up.’
‘I can’t believe this,’ I murmured, in a horrified daze.
‘I know. It’s awful. Look, I’ll try and get a couple of hours off and come over and help you sort something out. Is there another laundry company we could use instead?’
‘I’m not sure. I guess I’ll have to start looking.’ My heart was beating uncomfortably fast as I tried to swallow down my growing panic.
I really appreciated Rori’s desire to help, but my business worries couldn’t be allowed to interfere with her first week in her new job.
So I pretended I’d remembered about another laundry company.
‘I’ll phone them now and see if they can help.’
‘Okay. Let me know how it goes?’
‘I will. Thanks, Rori.’
Call ended, I sank down in my chair, my head spinning.
I had holiday makers arriving from 3pm – eighteen of them – and they’d all be expecting their accommodation to be pristine and perfect, just like in the photos on our website.
How on earth was I going to make it happen?