Chapter 10
Monday morning, Phoebe’s headache was almost gone.
Tillman had not quite gloated when the doctor had said she should take it easy because she might have a concussion.
So the weekend had been spent with her laying low. She’d seen Tillman out and about. Even though she had been sure to tell him when she got out of his pickup after coming home from the ER that no one expected him to work over the weekend. Sometimes there would be work, sometimes there would be things that they would have to do, if the cows got out, if hay needed to be made before the rain, those types of things. But there was nothing pressing, other than they wanted to get the rodeo scheduled as soon as possible.
He just grinned and told her that on Monday morning when they had their meeting they should decide about a date for the rodeo, and he would try to have all the information he needed in order for them to make that decision.
He’d reminded her that he needed to leave Monday evening, and if she wasn’t able to do her job because her head hurt too much, they could hold off meeting until Wednesday.
She had told him that she would be able to do her job. Headache or not.
She kind of wished she hadn’t, because resting was a little bit difficult because of the stitches in the back of her head. The doctor had ended up putting about twenty in, although about halfway through, he lost count. One of her siblings would take them out for her. They’d done that plenty of times, saving the extra doctor visit.
Thankfully, they didn’t shave all of her hair. If they had tried, they probably knew they were going to have the vain woman in front of them pitching a fit. Perhaps because they’d experienced that before.
Regardless, she and Tillman had exchanged grins over that. Losing her hair shouldn’t have been quite so hard, although seeing the blonde strands lying on the cold hospital floor made her heart lurch. It was silly that she was so attached to something that mattered so little. Although, like she told Tillman, the Bible did call a woman’s hair her crown. Just, Phoebe figured that a woman wasn’t supposed to be vain about her crown, no matter how tightly it was attached to her head.
Grabbing a hot cup of coffee from the pot that was almost always hot downstairs in the kitchen, thanks to Alaska, she decided she’d drink it black this morning, figuring she needed it. She carried it out across the yard and through the horse barn where she nodded at her brothers, already at work, but didn’t stop to talk.
Once she went through the other side, Tillman, as was his custom the week prior, was sitting at the table waiting on her, his phone out, a notebook in front of him, and a pencil behind his ear.
If she could see his phone, he’d either be working on his notes or looking up something that had to do with the rodeo. She’d glanced over his shoulder more than once, and he was always all business.
She’d actually gone on social media to see if she could find any accounts from him, and there was nothing.
She had a feeling he didn’t have anything. Which made sense, since most of her brothers didn’t, although Asher’s wife, Sondra, had taken over the social media postings for the ranch. Her posts garnered a lot of interest, and perhaps someday would even bring in money.
Beyond that, none of them really had time to keep up a social media presence, even if they did have interest, which Phoebe certainly didn’t. She had no desire to post her life online for everybody to see.
She could understand why people did that though, especially people who didn’t live close to their family. But it wasn’t for her. And apparently, it wasn’t for Tillman either, although maybe he had deleted everything with his divorce. That’s what Priscilla had done.
Getting divorced had a tendency to mark a person in odd ways and make them do things that, while it didn’t erase the past, helped them not focus on it so much.
Maybe that was for self-preservation, she wasn’t sure.
“Good morning,” she said as she slid into her seat, setting her coffee on the table and adjusting her seat until she was comfortable, setting her phone and notebook down in front of her.
“Morning.” Tillman studied her, his eyes narrowed just a little as though he were trying to take in every detail that he saw. “You still have a headache. You should go right back over to the house and lie down.”
“I’ll get right on that, as soon as you and I chat for a bit.”
One side of his mouth pulled back like he wasn’t very happy with her answer, and she admitted it was a little bit snide. She didn’t mean it that way, she just didn’t want him to think that he could tell her what to do, except she did appreciate the care and concern that went into those words. And that convicted her.
“I’m sorry. That wasn’t very nice. I can’t believe that you can even tell I had a headache just by looking at me.”
“Your face is a little pinched. I was guessing more than anything.”
Funny that he would admit it. It made her smile, but it also made her feel good that he cared enough to even check.
“Thanks for caring,” she said, although she wasn’t sure that he would even put the word caring onto it or want to admit that he did.
He just jerked his chin up, acknowledging her words without saying whether or not they were true. “I assume you weren’t able to pull any figures together for us?”
“I did. Give me a few minutes for the pain pills to kick in, and it’ll be like I never even saw a hammer last week.”
He snorted a little, then lifted his coffee to his lips. “All right. I can start.”
“Go right ahead.”
He started talking about the things he figured out, and while he did, he turned the notebook so it faced her and showed her the list of things that he put together, dividing them into the three categories that they had talked about earlier. Stuff they couldn’t live without, stuff they’d like to have but didn’t have to, and then luxury items.
He explained where he’d come up with all of the things that he had, and told her that he couldn’t be entirely sure of his numbers, but he estimated to the best of his ability.
“I also have a list of people I’m going to call once we’re sure on a date.” He flipped the page over. Every line on the page had a name on it. “It’s actually three pages long. I assume that most of the people I call are not going to be able to make it, but the bigger names we can get here, the better. They’ll draw in their own crowds. Some of them have quite a following, not just in real life, but a lot of them have a social media presence that reaches tens of thousands if not hundreds of thousands.”
“Wow. Do you really think we’re going to have that many people? Because I didn’t plan for that many.” She pulled her lip in and caught it with her teeth. She had just assumed that it was going to be a small-town rodeo and thought if they even had a thousand people show up, that would be a lot.
“I guess I would rather plan for as big a crowd as what we can and go from there. It’ll be a waste of money if we plan for one hundred thousand and only get fifty, but I don’t think it’s out of line to say that we could probably have ten thousand.” He paused. “I don’t want to pry, but I think we ought to have a figure in mind that we hope to make, figure out what our expenses are, and see how many people we’ll have to have in order to make the goal. I think that’s what we should aim for.”
“That sounds good to me.” It sounded totally reasonable. They should have some kind of goal they were aiming to hit at any rate. Not just being able to pull it off, or being able to pull it off well, but hoping to hit a certain number, make a certain amount of money, and have everyone who came leave smiling.
“That kind of jives with everything I’ve been working on.” She opened her notebook and tapped the page. “I have all the food and everything written down here. I don’t think that’s going to interest you, although you can look at it if you want to. I was only planning on food for two thousand people though. If we have ten thousand, and that’s what we’re going to plan on, I’ll be running out before the rodeo even gets started.”
“I think you need to plan for more. We don’t want to be unreasonable, but we don’t want to run out of food either. That will not bode well for making people want to return. I wonder if there’s something we can do with the leftovers if we end up overshooting our mark?”
“Yeah. I think a lot of it can go to the food bank in Rockerton, and we might even be able to give some of it away at churches the next day. I assume it’s going to be on Friday and Saturday?”
“Yes, and I thought we should aim for six weeks.” He put a hand up as she opened her mouth. “I know that’s close, I know we’ll have to work hard, but the quicker we can do it, the better. We’ll get a turnaround on our money faster. Eight weeks would be almost comfortable, but if we shave those two weeks off, then we’ve only got one thirty-day billing cycle, and we’ll have money coming in before the next one.”
“I see your reasoning.” She had been going to open her mouth to protest. Six weeks was...not much time. Not at all. But she was more concerned about him than her. She could have vendors lined up, maybe not as many as what she wanted, but some. And she could have the food prepared. She was going to have to do some finagling to figure out where to store it all, especially if they were going to be feeding ten thousand people rather than two thousand.
She had a little bit of experience in feeding crowds, but not crowds like that.
The vendors would help though. Some of them would be food vendors, although some of them would be the type of vendors a person would see at a flea market or a fair. Regular people who did crafts or some other type of thing to make money on the side. A lot of times, the work was of the highest quality, and it was always unique.
It was her favorite type of place to shop.
Not that she thought she was going to be getting much shopping done on the day of the rodeo. But it was fun to plan something that she knew that she would enjoy if she were a spectator.
“So do you think you can do everything you need to do in six weeks?” she asked, even though she knew he’d already set the date and wouldn’t have done it if he wasn’t sure. She just wanted to confirm.
“I think I can. In fact, I know I can. I did want to suggest something that you might not be comfortable with.”
“All right. You’ve already made me uncomfortable today. You might as well keep on.” She eased her words with a smile, which he saw as soon as his eyes shot to her face. It was obvious that he did not want to make her uncomfortable.
“I have to leave tonight to go to the arbitration hearing in the morning. I was hoping you could go with me. We can talk about all of this then, do our regular daily roundup, sleep on it, and spend the ride back talking some more. That will give us more time to work the rest of the week. We’ll have a lot of things to work out, timelines, things that need to be ordered, and that type of thing. We should be able to work all of that out in the twelve hours we’ll be spending in the truck.”
“All right. I can go.”
His brows lifted and his eyes widened, and she assumed it was because she acquiesced so easily. “Has anyone ever told you you’re too easy to get along with?”
“When you have eleven siblings, somebody has to learn to give in. I don’t really mind. I hardly ever have strong feelings, but when I do, I can dig in with a stubbornness that would probably surprise you.”
He nodded. “I knew you were stubborn. I don’t think I’d be surprised at all.”
She laughed a little, just because of the way he said it. Like he knew a secret about her that no one else knew. Her siblings all knew about her stubborn streak, although she supposed that they often forgot because Tillman was right. She did have a tendency to be easy to get along with. Deliberately. She didn’t want to be the person who was always demanding their way. Or who never had things go good enough for them.
She wanted to be the one who came up with solutions and figured out ways to get along, not the one who was always throwing up roadblocks to make everyone’s life miserable. She’d been around people like that, and they weren’t fun. It was much better to have a can-do attitude than to have a do-it-my-way attitude. At least in her opinion.
“All right, if it’s okay with you, I’m going to go get started on my work for the day, and I’ll expect that you and I will leave around five or six o’clock this evening and finish our discussion then.”
“That sounds good,” she said, draining the last of her coffee and standing up from her seat.
He picked up his cup and his notebook and phone. “I know it’s a short time period, but I think we’ll be surprised how well everything comes together.”
“I don’t think I will be. You seem pretty competent, and I know you know what you’re talking about. If you and Tobias can get the building done, then I don’t see any reason why everything else won’t fall into place.”
She knew she was just skimming the surface of the things that needed to be done. They would have to make chutes and pens and figure out a place to rent bleachers and job johnnies and tables for the vendors and perhaps even provide benches for those who needed to sit someplace that had a back they could lean on.
Plus, there were the showers to build, and the parking area to get ready, and they had to finish getting the ground ready, which they had been doing when she got hurt.
There was so much it made her tired just thinking about it, but she had never been one to shy away from a challenge. And it was a challenge, to her anyway, that he said that he thought they could do it. She would certainly work as hard as she could in order to make it happen.