Chapter Nine
Don’t get into cars with boys.
My grandmother told me that when I was sixteen, and I am telling it to myself now. Just don’t do it. Don’t ever do it. Even when it’s raining. Even when you trust them. Even when they look at you like they want to do so much more to you than simply drive you home.
Don’t get into cars with boys.
You know what you should do instead? You should work on your damn festival, Katie.
You should put together the best festival anyone has ever seen.
The kind of festival they write legends about.
Or at the very least, lengthy blog posts.
Or oral histories! Oral histories in Vanity Fair about the little festival that could.
People love an underdog story. And you are an underdog story.
You are David versus Goliath, you are Rocky Balboa, you are Reese freaking Witherspoon in Legally Blonde and you are going to—
“Would you slow down?” Nush yells behind me. “Some of us have short, if not perfectly proportioned legs.”
I whirl around, adjusting my backpack as Gemma and Nush catch up with me.
“I feel like you’re in a mood,” Nush says.
“I’m not in a mood.”
“You look like you’re in a mood.”
“ I’ll be in a mood if we don’t get there before the rain starts.
” Gemma takes a sip from her flask as she peers distrustfully at the clouds.
The storm that swept through the area a few days ago hasn’t completely gone, and we’ve been having frequent showers ever since.
I half hoped it would be enough to slow down the construction work, but those guys really mean it when they say they work in all-weather conditions.
“This is the start of a horror movie,” Gemma adds now.
“I just want you both to be aware of that.”
I turn on my heel, ignoring them. It’s been over two weeks since the village meeting and things are not going well.
First, there’s the fact that no one wants to invest in my genius idea.
No one wants to sponsor or fund or loan me a cent.
And turns out you need a lot of cents to host something like this.
You need cents for bunting and posters and lights.
You need it for food and alcohol. For music and insurance and first aid kits and photo booths and, to be honest, all the things I don’t think they necessarily worried about back when they didn’t have social media or, like, gluten intolerances.
But they’re all things we have to worry about now.
Especially if we’re going to garner the kind of press attention we need to get.
And we’re going to need a lot of press. We’re going to need—
“ Katie! ”
I slow my steps, turning again as the other two emerge around the bend, this time with Nush holding her side like she’s got a stitch.
“Remind me never to go hiking with you,” she huffs.
“We’re here anyway.” I gesture up at the big barn before us, nervous about how they both stare at it. Nush confused and Gemma resigned.
“Is this where you’re going to murder us?”
“Don’t be so dramatic,” I say. “It doesn’t look that bad.”
“It looks pretty bad.”
“I forgot this was even here,” Nush says, and I grimace. The barn is one of many abandoned buildings around the village, and I’ll admit it doesn’t look like much. But once we cut back the grass on either side, it won’t be so bad.
I think.
Hidden just inside the forest, a few minutes away from the lake, it was the biggest place I could think of to hold something like this.
“I thought the whole point was to have everything at Kelly’s?” Gemma asks.
“Kelly’s won’t be large enough.”
“It won’t?” She frowns. “Just how many people do you think are going to come?”
“A lot,” I insist. “And they need somewhere they can party. Somewhere impressive.”
“And you chose here?”
“I think it could work,” Nush declares and strides through the door. Or rather, the gap in the wall that serves as a door.
“Please just give it a chance,” I say to Gemma, as we follow. “And before you say anything, we’re going to work on the smell.”
“What sm— oh.” Her nose wrinkles as she glances around, and I try and view the space through confident, optimistic eyes, and not hers.
So it needs a little TLC. Who doesn’t these days?
All we need to do is get rid of all the broken farm equipment, sweep out the cobwebs, and it will look good as new.
There’s no electricity, but Frank already said we could use his generator, and yes, there are a bunch of gaping holes in the wall letting in the cold air, but that won’t matter in the summer.
I spent hours combing through everything I could find about the festival.
I’d seen photographs of it in its heyday before but had never really paid attention to it.
And honestly it didn’t look that special.
It didn’t even look that romantic. Just a bunch of people sitting around, talking.
We were going to be different. We were going to be festival 2.
0. We’d welcome people to Kelly’s, they’d make their wish, sign our petition and then they’d travel a few minutes along a beautiful lantern lit path (I still need to figure out that part) and party the night away.
It was a simple plan. A good plan. I just need everyone else to get on board with it.
“Do you know what we need?” Nush asks, her neck craned to the ceiling as she rotates on the spot.
“A montage?” Gemma asks. “One that preferably takes us through the next few weeks?”
She shakes her head. “Men.”
“What?”
“Big strong men to do all of this for us.”
I frown. “It’s not going to take that long to—”
“I vote for the men,” Gemma interrupts, raising her hand.
“Come on, you guys!” I throw my arms wide, gesturing to all the glorious potential. “Use your imagination.”
“I feel like I’m getting ill by standing here,” Gemma says. “What does asbestos look like?”
I follow her to the back of the barn, leaving Nush by the entrance, where she pokes at the wall as if expecting it to collapse.
“Okay,” I say. “I know being moody is your thing and that life is hard and awful—”
“Excuse me?”
“But you promised me you’d help,” I finish. “You promised. So, if you could put a lid on all that negative energy, I’d appreciate it. I guarantee you whatever criticism or concern you have is one I’ve had a million times myself.”
She tsks, clicking her tongue off the roof of her mouth, but she has the grace to look a little guilty. “I’m sorry,” she says. “I just don’t want to see you sinking all your time into this. It’s a lot of work.”
“Which is why I need your help,” I say. “And hard work doesn’t scare me. It just seems like a lot because we haven’t properly started yet.”
“Is the floor supposed to sink like this?” Nush calls, and Gemma squeezes my arm, her one show of support.
“Alright,” she says. “I’ll shut up. I promise.”
“I’m pretty sure it’s not supposed to sink like this,” Nush continues.
“Then stop standing on it.” I perch on an overturned crate, dropping my backpack to the floor. “I asked Adam if we could host a raffle and he said yes.”
“A raffle?” Nush makes a face.
“We need money,” I remind her.
“No, we need something cool,” she corrects. “Or someone. We should get a celebrity.”
“We definitely can’t get a celebrity.”
“Not famous , famous,” she says, as Gemma takes a seat next to me. “Someone from the local radio. Or that man from Rossbridge who got into The Guinness Book of World Records .”
“He didn’t get in; he just tried out for it.”
“Yes, but the adjudicator came and everything.”
“We’re starting with a raffle,” I say firmly. “Once we know our budget, we can start thinking about the other stuff.”
“Speaking of other stuff,” Gemma begins. “We do appear to be missing one key element of the festival. Have you picked a matchmaker yet?”
“A what?”
She stares at me. “A matchmaker,” she repeats. “For your matchmaking festival.”
“ Our matchmaking festival.”
“Katie—”
“We don’t need a matchmaker,” I interrupt, reaching into my bag to take out the surveys I printed off this morning. “I found some questionnaires online. We’ll pair people up ourselves.”
“We need a matchmaker,” Gemma insists.
“I’ll be the matchmaker!” I wave the paper as proof. “And these are pretty thorough. Fill one in with me now and I’ll show you. It’s not hard.”
“I’m not going to—”
“I’ll do it.” Nush’s hand shoots in the air. “I want to find my soulmate.”
“I guarantee you she got those questions from her first Google hit,” Gemma says.
“It was the third Google hit, for your information. And don’t knock it till you try it.” I take a pen from my pocket and smooth the paper out on my knee. “Okay,” I say, turning to Nush. “What—”
“Anushka Sandar. Thirty-one. I own a salon in Ennisbawn, I have a cat named Chester and I’ve been single for five months. I dumped him,” she adds, and Gemma smirks.
“That’s great,” I say. “But the question I was going to ask is what do you look for in a partner?”
“Oh, easy.” She waves a dismissive hand. “Someone who knows how to cook.”
“Brilliant. See?” I glance at Gemma. “Easy.” Cook . I note that down. “And what about—”
“Also, how to bake,” Nush says. “Those are two different things.”
“Okay, well we can—”
“And they need to care about the environment. But not in an annoying way. Billionaires are taking private jets to their islands on the weekend, I’m allowed to use a plastic straw every now and then.”
Gemma swings one leg over the other, looking like she’s settling in for the long haul.