Chapter 17
SEVENTEEN
NADIA
On Monday morning, my phone wouldn't stop ringing.
The first call was from Skye at Skye High Pies. "Nadia, we need to talk. Someone at Elevate approached two of my part-time bakers. Offered them full-time positions with benefits I can't match."
The second was from Daisy, a local florist. "They undercut me on the Palmer wedding. Thirty percent below my quote. How am I supposed to compete with that?"
By Tuesday afternoon, I'd heard from six local business owners. Same story, different details. Elevate Events hadn't only targeted me. They were going after everyone.
I sat in my commercial kitchen, staring at the notes I'd taken during each call, and felt something break. This wasn't my fight alone.
This was a war on our entire community.
My phone rang again. Kelly Thomas, Zac's wife, ran a marketing company.
"Zac told me what's happening," she said without preamble. "I want to help. No charge. These corporate vultures need to know they can't walk into our town and start picking off local businesses."
"Kelly, I appreciate that, but—"
"No buts. We're stronger together, and I can prove it." I heard typing in the background. "What if we created a collective? Bundle services for weddings and corporate events. Show them local beats national every time."
The idea sparked something. "Keep talking."
By Wednesday morning, a plan was taking shape. Kelly suggested I reach out to Angie, the dance instructor who'd done lessons for a friend's wedding. "First dance packages," Kelly said. "Brides love that personal touch."
She was right. I added Angie to the list and kept going.
Kelly's office was at The Oasis on the edge of town. The main barn on the property she shared with Zac had been converted into a shared workspace: rows of hot desks, the low hum of people doing their own thing.
Kelly's private office was at the back, with a view of the natural swimming pond Zac had put in and the type of setup that told you immediately the person working there took their work seriously.
We'd agreed on five o'clock. Elevate wasn't sitting still, and neither could we.
After a glance at the small, round meeting table, I placed my large catering tray on the credenza. Kelly was at her standing desk, three monitors running, a mood board pinned to the wall behind her. She'd been at it since before I'd texted to say I was on my way.
"Help yourself to coffee," she said without looking up. "Don't touch the blue folder."
"What's in the blue folder?"
"Everything that isn't ready yet."
I poured a coffee and studied the mood board. She'd pulled together color palettes, font options, logo concepts. Clean and local without being folksy. Nothing that screamed small-town-trying-too-hard. I recognized good instincts when I saw them.
Daisy arrived just after five with a gorgeous bouquet. Skye Adams was one step behind her, a dusting of flour on the tops of her sneakers, holding a Skye High Pies box.
"She wouldn't let me change," Skye said after she'd put her box next to my tray. She pulled off her disposable cap and tossed it into the trash basket next to the door.
"You said you were ready," said Daisy, popping her bouquet into a carafe of water on the credenza.
"I said I was almost ready."
"Same thing."
"It is absolutely not the same thing."
I let them settle. Poured them coffees, put my notebook on Kelly's meeting table, and uncapped my pen.
"Okay," I said. "Here's where we are."
They looked at me as they each took their seats.
I'd spent the previous evening mapping it out the way I used to plan supply runs. Every moving part. Every dependency. Every place the plan could break down if someone didn't do their job. It had helped then. It helped now.
"We have the meeting penciled for this coming Monday night.
Twelve businesses confirmed, possibly more.
We walk in there with a collective that already has a name, a look, and a pitch.
We don't walk in asking for a vote on colors.
" I glanced through the glass panel beside the door at the rows of hot desks beyond.
"Any chance we could use the workspace out there? "
Kelly shook her head. "Half of those people are working in different time zones. They'll be here all night."
"What about your place, Daisy?" Skye asked, referring to The Daisy Chain.
Daisy considered it for half a second. "Not the apartment. Josh wants to watch the game on Monday night. But the kitchen downstairs could work."
On seeing Kelly biting her lip, she added. “Relax. It’s big enough to house an army.”
I felt a smile pull at the corner of my mouth. "Fitting," I said. "Because that's exactly what this is."
"Right," Skye said. "What do we need to sort out?"
Kelly pulled up her laptop and turned the screen so we could all see. "Name first. Everything else hangs off the name."
That took forty minutes. Skye wanted something that referenced the town. Daisy wanted something that referenced crafts. Kelly wanted something that would survive a Google search in five years. I wanted something that didn't sound like a farmers' market desperate to survive.
We went through eleven options. Skye vetoed four of Kelly's. Kelly vetoed three of Daisy's. Daisy quietly and persistently advocated for "The Coogan's Break Makers Circle" until Kelly said, not unkindly, that it sounded like a quilting group.
"What about Select?" I said.
Silence.
"It's not location specific," Kelly said slowly. "But it could scale. And it's doing two things at once."
"Select, as in you get to choose," Skye said.
"And it's a collective," Daisy reminded us.
Kelly was already typing. "The Select Collective."
More silence. Different this time. The sort that settled my thoughts. "What about The Selective?"
"That works," Skye said.
Daisy was already nodding.
Even Kelly gave it a smile of approval.
I wrote it at the top of my notebook page and underlined it twice.
Kelly moved fast once we had the name. She'd been doing this long enough that the rest came quickly.
Color palette. Primary font. A one-line positioning statement she'd clearly already drafted and was pretending to arrive at spontaneously.
I let her have it, and the results were exactly what I'd expected.
We were deep into package options when my phone buzzed on the table. I glanced at the screen. Daemon. A text. How's it going over there? I typed back: Good. Productive. Talk later. Short enough to say nothing. Long enough to say everything was fine.
I set the phone face-down and picked up my pen.
Kelly waited approximately four seconds.
"Who was that?"
"Logistics," I said.
"Mm." She reached for her coffee.
"Zac talks about Daemon a lot," said Kelly.
"I imagine he does." I kept my eyes on my notebook.
"He says Daemon's been useless on the job site all week." She said it conversationally, studying me before taking another sip. "Distracted. Making mistakes."
"Is there something you want to ask me, Kelly?"
"Nope," she said. "Just making conversation."
Daisy made a sound that approximated a laugh.
"Can we talk about the tasting session?" I said.
Kelly smiled at her screen and said nothing, which was worse.
Skye, apparently deciding the best response was food, opened her box and started setting out mini tarts on the meeting table. Lemon curd, dark chocolate, salted caramel, her infamous cherry tarts, two seasonal fruit variations.
She arranged them as someone who took presentations seriously regardless of the audience. I'd brought food. Not samples, but a full spread. Marinated olives, two kinds of bruschetta, a small dish of the white bean dip I'd been testing. The type of food that made a room feel like a table.
Rather than risk tipping the flowers over, Daisy left her bouquet on the credenza, where we could all admire it. Locally sourced, she explained. Nothing imported. Everything that could grow within fifty miles of Coogan's Break.
We agreed on seven o'clock for Monday. Early enough that people could get there after closing up, late enough that the dinner rush wouldn't be an issue for anyone with a kitchen to run.
Kelly looked at it all laid out and said, "This is the pitch."
"This is what we are," Daisy said.
Skye picked up a lemon tart, bit into it, and said nothing for a second. "We're going to beat them."
Not a question. A conclusion she'd arrived at through evidence.
I looked at the three of them. A florist, a baker, a marketer. None of them had asked for this fight, but they'd still shown up.
"Yes," I said. "We are."
I wrote the last action item in my notebook, assigned the last responsibility, and set the last deadline. Then I closed it.
We had a name. We had a look. We had a plan.
Now we needed Monday to go our way.
I drove back to my commercial kitchen and spent the rest of the evening on prep work. A corporate luncheon the following morning. A supplier call. The sort of ordinary business that kept the lights on while everything else was in motion.
Still at the kitchen? Come over when you're done.
I stared at the screen longer than I should have.
Something had been off since Sunday's christening. He'd been present but elsewhere. The careful distance, the surface-level answers. I knew the difference between someone who was processing and someone who was retreating. I'd been telling myself it was the former. I was less sure of that tonight.
I typed back: Early start tomorrow. Rain check?
His reply came quickly. Sure. Sleep well.
Two words. No follow-up. I put the phone face-down on the prep counter and finished the mise en place.
I wouldn't pull at it tonight. I had a collective to launch, a corporation to fight, and a team counting on me. Later, when we were alone, I'd ask him directly.
Or I'd give him a little more time.
I hadn't decided yet.
That was probably the problem.