Chapter 22
Tabitha
Third weekend filming, Saturday
“Folks, please gather round,” Simon called. “Interns, get craft services and wardrobe.”
This sounded serious. I was beside Tim, helping him inspect all the new kitchen fixtures that had arrived.
After we’d torn out the kitchen and broken down the two walls, he’d spent the week “roughing in,” laying out and installing pipes, doing wiring and ductwork.
I looked at Tim to get his reaction, and he gave me a little shrug. Was something wrong?
The two interns conferred, then scurried off to get Poppy and Trystan. The rest of us shuffled into a tight group in front of Simon in the ripped-out kitchen.
He clapped his hands. “We have to be finished in two weeks.”
Two weeks?
“Did you just say two weeks?” I cried out. From all around me, the others chorused the same words.
Simon nodded smugly. “Two weeks.”
“Two weeks? No way,” Trystan said. “I’ve planned a menu for two months. Food is on order. Drinks are being stored in my space.”
“Don’t worry,” Simon said. “Everyone is being paid in full for their two-month contract, so it’s win-win. The powers that be are saying this show is hot, and we have to get it out as soon as poss.”
“I’m confused,” I said. “How do the powers that be know this show is hot?”
The whole crew turned to me with looks, like… How were they looking at me? What was I missing? Maybe it was because I knew nothing about TV.
Tim stepped forward. “Tabitha is right. We only just started. We’ve done a total of four days.”
Now the crew turned to look at Tim with that same surprised look they’d given me.
Simon gave us a dropped-jaw duh look. “Television doesn’t make sense.”
“Nothing about this show makes sense,” Tim said, frustration etched into his face.
“It doesn’t track what actually happens.
I mean, as it is, I’ve already done months of work.
We don’t explain that at all. And even with over a month to finish, we were pushing it.
We need to close the walls, install the fixtures, fittings, counters, cabinetry, do the painting and papering, and refinish floors.
And now we have to wrap it up in fourteen days? ”
“Welcome to television, you ridiculously innocent boy,” Freya mumbled.
“I don’t understand all this complaining, Tim,” Simon said.
“Tell me how to fit five weeks of hard and tricky construction work into two weeks,” Tim demanded. “Go on. I genuinely want to know how you plan to do that.”
“Tim, ball’s in your court, mate,” Simon said.
“You play rugby or whatever, right? So you get the metaphor. I can’t help you.
You’re the contractor. I’m the director.
I don’t ask you to do my job. We’ve all got to muck in and make this deadline work.
And to be honest, I agree with the powers that be.
No one wants to see how the sausage is made.
No one cares about the electrics or the plumbing or closing the walls.
It’s about the decorations anyway. Cushions!
Wallpaper! Sofas! That’s why we got young Talitha in. ”
Simon flung a dismissive hand at me, as if I should be grateful for his approbation.
Decorations. That burned me.
“Her name is Tabitha,” Tim snarled.
I could feel my face getting hotter and hotter. Usually, I would have been annoyed at Tim speaking for me, but right now, it felt good that someone had my back.
Simon looked confused at the correction. Then annoyed.
Everyone in the crowd went rigid but silent. Maybe they knew there was no arguing with Simon.
“That means I need more crew,” Tim said. “And all my subbies will need to be paid a rush fee.”
Now Simon looked plain bored. “Of course. Bill us for more workers—that’s not an issue.
Can’t you pull some of your people from your own jobs?
Don’t you have a building business with scores of workers?
” He made it sound like Tim wandered around with a band of tradies behind him. “I mean, clearly, we need them. Today.”
“I can’t pull them from my other sites,” Tim said. “That will damage my relationship with my clients. And that sort of treatment gets around a small village very quickly.”
Yuxi stepped forward. “I’ll work extra hours.”
Solomon was hanging back, trying to look small, but seeing Yuxi, he stepped forward too. “Me too.”
A sound intruded from the corner of the kitchen.
Amid the dust and chaos, Dad was grinding away on one of his own projects, something involving steel and wood that only added to the dust and chaos.
Mum was gluing a fringe onto one of her many lamps, dripping glue all over the floor, while chatting with the llama who had his head through the window.
Simon held out his arms. “You have two very willing people at your fingertips. They own this house, so they want to do it.”
I tried to catch Tim’s eye. His horrified face must have been a mirror image of mine.
Simon clapped his hands as though the issue was satisfactorily resolved and turned to Trystan about what sort of garlic was in the chicken Alfredo for lunch.
My mind ticked over, making a list of everything that needed to happen. First, I needed to take an hour out now to get all the orders expedited.
Kitchen appliances, sofas, drapes, cushions, bedding, and towels.
I’d have to make calls early in the morning before my job and late at night.
It was too late to take this week off, but I had to get the whole of next week off.
Anxiety twisted in my stomach that I’d made a promise to my editor that this shoot wouldn’t interfere with the interviews, and that was nonnegotiable.
I looked at Tim, his jaw slack, his eyes staring, but I was sure his mind was racing as fast as mine. At least we only had fourteen days left together.
That should make me feel better. We fought a lot of the time, he was obstructive, he didn’t agree with my vision.
And now, I was going to be free to concentrate on the Wainwright story in two weeks.
After the rush and stress of finishing over a month early, that should make me feel relieved, but somewhere in my body, a painful twisting sent out panicked mayday signals to the rest of me. Alert, alert, alert.
After fourteen days, I wouldn’t see Tim again. Oh, I might see him at the pub, in the grocery store, in the street. But not to really see him and talk to him.
I clutched at where the distress was coming from.
It was my heart.