Chapter One #3
“Positive. Go and meet Amanda and Brenda, or whatever their names are.” Imogen did remember their names, but she knew how to exasperate Piper, and she enjoyed messing with her way too much.
“Amelia and Bridget!” Piper duly corrected her. She gave Imogen a look and then her eyes widened. “Oh my God, do you think they’ll be there?”
“If it says there’s a meet-and-greet then they could be.” Niamh grinned. “It’s possible, right?”
“Totally possible. I’m booking the tickets right now. Thanks, Immy. You’re the best.” Piper leaned over and kissed her cheek.
Imogen brushed it off with a shrug. “You’re grand.”
Niamh watched Piper intently as she tapped away on her phone. Imogen was sure that she held her breath until the moment that Piper set the phone on the table.
Piper beamed. “Booked. Twelve o’clock on Wednesday.”
Squealing commenced. Piper and Niamh both hopped off their seats and jumped up and down. They hugged each other, and they hugged Imogen, who could only smile at their antics. There was some more squealing. Imogen was surprised she didn’t burst an eardrum.
“We’re going to meet Amelia Whitlock and Bridget Clemonte,” Piper said when they stopped jumping.
Niamh pointed at her. “Maybe. We don’t know who’ll be there.”
“I know, I know. I’ll not get my hopes up, but we might. Imagine.” Piper clasped her hands over her mouth like she had just thought of something. “What am I going to wear?”
Imogen chuckled. That was her cue to get up. She was happy to get the bar ready and leave her friends to discuss fashion choices and debate which celebrities they might meet.
Imogen smiled as she ran a cloth over the bar top listening to the sound of Niamh and Piper chittering in the corner. Her friends being happy made her happy too. She took her cloth and shined the golden-coloured beer taps. Then she grabbed some spray and cleaned the glass doors of the fridges.
All of a sudden, the door burst open and in walked Edith McKinney. Their landlady who always smelt like mothballs and money. The older woman owned the full row of buildings the Wishing Well was sandwiched right in the middle of.
“No customers, ladies?” Edith asked with a sneer. She was like that. Sneery.
“Not at the moment,” Imogen said. Niamh and Piper had stopped talking and were now flanking her.
“Shame. Such a shame. Well, customers or not, you will pay your rent on time. You hear? You wouldn’t be the first folk I’d have thrown out of this pub for not paying.”
“We will always pay our rent, Ms. McKinney, we assure you,” Niamh said beside Imogen. “Can we get you a drink or anything?”
“No, no,” Edith said, already backing away. “Just looking.”
“I can’t stand that woman,” Piper said the second the door closed behind her.
“Me either,” Imogen said. “She’s more than a little scary.”
“She’s horrible,” Niamh added. “As if we would miss rent. We haven’t missed it yet, have we?”
“Because we don’t have anything else to spend our tiny amount of income on,” Piper said glumly. “Like everything else that needs done.”
Imogen leaned back against the bar and studied the place.
She imagined if someone looked up old-fashioned Irish pub, the interior of the Wishing Well would be the first image to appear.
There was a lot of wood. The floor. The furniture.
The panelling on the walls. Some of it needed replaced, but they would keep whatever they could.
Imogen liked the traditional feel. The pub had been way too dark when they arrived, so they had added a few more lights around the place without making it too bright.
Soft and warm was the aim. They had added some quirky-looking plaques around the walls with funny jokes and quotes.
The actual bar itself still needed brought into the twenty-first century, the barstools had seen better days, and several of the tables and chairs were ready to fall apart.
Imogen hadn’t realised how expensive bar furniture was until they had gone around pricing some.
All three of them had stood with their eyes about ready to pop out of their heads when they looked at the price tags.
That’s when reality had set in about how quickly they were going to be able to fix the place up the way they wanted to.
Instead of seeing it as a setback, they sat down together and divided the pub into sections which they would tackle one by one.
And within a year or two, Imogen was sure that their vision would come to life—despite setbacks like Edith McKinney’s extortionate rent prices.
But it wouldn’t matter. The Wishing Well was going to be a hit with locals and people who travelled far just to go there.
That’s the kind of pull they wanted to achieve.
As for Imogen, Piper, and Niamh, they were a work in progress too.
They were learning on the job, improving every day.
Sometimes they got it right, sometimes they didn’t.
But it made Imogen proud when she thought about how far they had come in just a few short months. And they would only get better.
Hopefully by Wednesday.