Chapter 5 #4
Right on cue, as the crowd on TV exploded with energy, he slapped Mason on the back. “You ran that route even better at CSU. You could have gone pro.” This was a conversation that, whether football was on or not, came up at least once a day since she’d been in town.
Mason side-eyed their father in a way that so clearly said professional athletics would have been settling. He always did. “And spend the millions I’d make way too quickly once I retired, just to stave off the injuries?”
Her dad ruffled Mason’s hair, like he’d done when Mason was a kid. Like he still did. Hallie could see Rob Thatcher ballooning with pride, looking at his only son with a mix of awe and love. “Too smart for your own good,” he beamed.
Honestly, it was for the best that there was nothing in this world that could make either of her parents ever descend from the tippy-top of Mount Mason. That would be a familial upheaval no one could withstand.
Blech.
It wasn’t that Hallie begrudged her brother’s intelligence and athleticism.
Quite the opposite. She was proud of him and all that he’d accomplished.
But the way her parents’ fervor was so… encompassing when it came to him was hard to stand.
Especially because their curiosity about her own life was so different.
There was nothing quite like traveling more than halfway across the country only to be made to feel like furniture at best and an imposition at worst. And it’s not like she didn’t have anything in common with her parents.
Just like Mason and her dad, with their love of football, she shared one huge similarity with them: The Stone’s Throw Inn.
Hallie would have expected that people who had owned and run a bed-and-breakfast for the last forty years—coincidentally, the very one that she still worked at—would be a little bit more curious as to its current state.
But no. They hadn’t had a question. Not a nosy inquiry. Not even a, “Hey, how have things been going with the new owner?” It was like they’d been replaced by pod people who only existed in relation to whatever Mason and Claire had going on.
Her phone buzzed in her pocket at the same time one of the teams scored a touchdown; she welcomed the distraction from watching Mason and her dad high-five like they’d had something to do with it.
Brynn Fitzpatrick - 6:30 p.m.
Check-ins for New Year’s Eve Eve have all been completed! No issues to report.
Hallie smiled down at her phone. For the first few days she’d been gone, she’d texted Brynn every morning, checking in on how things were going at the inn. By day three, Brynn had started preemptively sending her a morning update, along with an evening one for good measure.
She’d come to look forward to them, especially with the drudgery of her day-to-day vacation in Colorado. Vacation was a generous term when you considered that she didn’t get to sleep in, didn’t get to pick activities, didn’t get to nap, and had rarely left the house except to do physical activity.
She responded quickly.
Hallie Thatcher - 6:30 p.m.
You’re a pro! I don’t even know whether I’m needed there anymore.
Brynn Fitzpatrick - 6:31 p.m.
Trust me, you are.
Hallie put her book safely on the end table, hoping that it was high enough to keep it away from the twins. She folded her jogger-clad legs underneath her and leaned her elbow on the arm of the sofa—aka her home away from home.
Hallie Thatcher - 6:31 p.m.
Tell me more…
She didn’t know what she was about to hear, but Brynn could make even the most benign interactions seem hilarious. Especially because she took them so seriously.
It didn’t bother Hallie. If anything, it was a welcome breath of air: someone who, like her, wanted to do a good job.
Reese had been serviceable in her role as the day-to-day manager of the inn when she’d been getting trained, but it was very clear that as the new owner—along with being a successful entrepreneur—Reese’s talents lay elsewhere.
During the two weeks that Hallie had spent with Brynn before coming to Colorado, however, she’d learned that Brynn tackled everything thrown her way with an intense, methodical approach.
Brynn didn’t necessarily see it that way, which meant that getting these updates through Brynn’s lens had become one of the only sources of Hallie’s enjoyment over the last week.
The minutes felt agonizingly long while she waited for Brynn’s reply to come through.
Brynn Fitzpatrick - 6:34 p.m.
Well, Greg and Candace were NOT in a good place earlier today.
Hallie laughed out loud. She was desperate to know what Brynn’s first version of that message had been. The bubbles had disappeared and reappeared before this likely more sanitized version had come through.
Greg and Candace were the class couple of The Stone’s Throw, their on-again, off-again relationship a constant source of delight and frustration for Hallie.
Even with their ongoing drama, Candace was a more efficient cleaner than anyone else who’d come through over the years, and Greg was a whiz with any handyman task that cropped up around the inn.
As she’d learned in trying to hire another manager, good help was actually really hard to find, so if she had to play mediator or send them to their opposite sides of the property as needed, it was a small price to pay for quality execution in their respective roles.
Still, she groaned when she imagined Brynn trying to handle them. Mostly because it seemed really unfair to Brynn.
Hallie Thatcher - 6:34 p.m.
Is everything okay now?
Brynn Fitzpatrick - 6:35 p.m.
Yes. I gave them a feelings wheel.
Hallie read the message. Then reread it again. She still didn’t understand.
Hallie Thatcher - 6:35 p.m.
You gave them a what?
Brynn Fitzpatrick - 6:35 p.m.
A feelings wheel. For them to identify their emotions to better navigate them. >>
Squinting, Hallie looked down at the photo that had come through.
It had a lot going on. Big emotions like “angry” and “fearful” and “happy” and “sad” were written in the center, and then there were offshoots that radiated outward into more and more descriptive language to dig into those feelings and break them down further.
Well, shit. No one would ever accuse Brynn of not giving this temp job her one hundred percent.
Hallie Thatcher - 6:37 p.m.
Did it work?
Long, long minutes passed as she waited for a response, but it seemed like Brynn was consistently typing. This oughta be good.
Brynn Fitzpatrick - 6:43 p.m.
Overall, I think it was very productive.
Initially, we identified that Candace felt bad and Greg felt sad.
Broad emotions. Once we dug in, we realized that Candace felt bad because she was stressed, and as a result, she felt out of control.
And Greg felt sad because he felt hurt and was ultimately disappointed.
The root cause, we identified, was that Greg has been playing local shows with his band, but they don’t start until after eleven p.m. Candace has been trying to go to them, but since her shift starts so early, she’s had to miss the last few.
Therefore, Greg felt disappointed that Candace wasn’t showing up for him, but he didn’t realize that she was feeling so overwhelmed with the change to her schedule.
Hallie stared at her phone, awestruck.
“Dinner’s ready,” her mom called from the kitchen.
God, what she wouldn’t give to call Brynn right now and have her walk Hallie through whatever had played out between the three of them earlier today. Word for word, preferably.
But she knew that, annoyingly, and in a way that made no sense—since most of the time, it didn’t seem like her family cared whether she was around or not—her absence at dinner would be duly noted and commented on for the first few minutes of the meal.
Hallie Thatcher - 6:45 p.m.
Brynn, this is… incredible. I want to discuss this in more detail, but we’re about to eat dinner.
She sent another text through before she overthought it. Positive praise could go a long way, especially since she knew that Brynn was hesitant about her people skills.
Hallie Thatcher - 6:45 p.m.
This is great, though. Really amazing.
Before she gave into the temptation to hide away in the bathroom for a few minutes to keep talking to Brynn, she tucked her phone into her pocket and wandered over to the dining room table.
A decadent spread, unlike anything her mom had prepared when she’d been growing up, covered the table.
Once Mason had gone to college, Hallie had mostly taken care of dinner on her own, but even when he still lived at home, this was still so far from the buffet-style-at-the-kitchen-counter situation that was a staple of her childhood that she wanted to laugh.
All the different items were placed on fancy pot holders, acting as the meal’s centerpiece.
And then she clocked the creamy mushroom risotto, which she hadn’t realized was the main dish for dinner.
Maybe she would have realized the dairy-rich entree was the main course, except that when she’d tried to help earlier, she’d been shooed to the far end of the kitchen island so that she hadn’t been in the way.
Hallie took her seat and looked at the other options: a side salad that looked relatively safe, along with roasted asparagus. Unfortunately, upon closer inspection, the asparagus looked like it’d been generously topped with parmesan, too.
She was only here for three more days, she reminded herself as she waited for the salad to be passed to her. By the time the wooden bowl was in her hands, there was enough left that she could just make a small side salad.
Guess she’d be pilfering the twins Cheerios later, which was about the only perk to sleeping so close to the kitchen.
The twins were seated in high chairs at one of the corners, with her mom next to Henry and Claire next to Elliot. Mason and her dad were seated across from her, where she clocked that they were still able to watch the game, which had at least been muted.