Chapter 6 #2
She had almost taken his left ear off with the clippers.
Thankfully, Jessie had been over at the dryers discussing the price of cocktails in Tenerife with Moira, and out of earshot.
‘I don’t know. I mean, yes! But no…!’ There was a sudden realisation of what that would mean.
She’d have to leave Copper Curls. Just when her mother was handing it over to her.
Jessie’s life’s work. Her legacy. One that Georgie should be dedicated to preserving.
But… oh wow, it sounded incredible. She’d groaned, and circled back to, ‘I don’t know. ’
The lovely Ollie hadn’t appeared fazed by her conflicting responses. ‘Look, I don’t want to pressure you, but how about I get production to contact you with all the details and an official offer. If you’re interested, great. If not, no worries.’
No worries . So of course, she’d worried about it ever since.
The only person she’d told about all this was her brother, Grant, who’d asked her five times a day ever since if she’d heard anything, and who wasn’t even here to be her emotional support crutch.
Now the call had come.
‘Sorry, yes. Ollie did mention that you might call.’ This wasn’t happening. Flynn had spiked her coffee or she was high on some crazy hormonal orgasmic afterglow, and she was imagining this whole thing.
‘Great. I’m actually calling from LA – it’s 2a.m. here – but I wanted to catch you early in your day. Okay, so the bottom line is that we start filming in Colorado in one week – December eighth. Not great timing, just before Christmas, but we need the snow.’
This woman clearly hadn’t seen Glasgow today.
‘We’ll also be shooting in LA and Croatia over the course of the season.
I’ll get all the details in an email to you, including the compensation package, living arrangements and the terms of the contract.
I do have to tell you that it’s a six-month contract and we don’t usually hear whether we’ll be commissioned for another series until this one airs, but we’re on season ten right now, so, all being well, the run will continue.
We’re so excited to have you on board. Ollie speaks so highly of you. Do you have any questions?’
Georgie had at least a thousand, but they all appeared to have deserted her for now. Except…
‘Can I think about it?’
There was a brief silence at the other end of the line. Bonnie Katowski was obviously used to a more enthusiastic reaction.
‘Yes, of course,’ she spluttered when she recovered. ‘As I said, I’ll put it all in writing. Ollie gave me your email address, so I’ll fire that over to you now. We are in a time crunch though, so we would need your answer in the next twenty-four hours. Would that work for you?’
Would that work? Absolutely not. It took her twenty-four hours to decide whether to have chips or a baked potato for dinner. Life-changing decisions required at least a month and a half of angst.
‘Yes, of course. Thank you for calling.’
She disconnected the call, then stared at her phone for several seconds, before making her way to the reception area at the front of the shop and slumping onto the stool behind the desk.
This was it. The kind of job that could change her life. At least for a while. And her pragmatic head told her that was one of the problems. Six months. And no guarantee of another season.
Finding someone she trusted to come in and run the salon on that basis would be just about impossible.
More importantly, her mum would never allow it.
When Aunt Cathy had retired, one of her long-term stylists had taken over the business, but that was a plan that had been in the making for years before it happened.
Here, it had always been just Jessie, Georgie and junior stylists who stayed with them until they invariably went off to trendy salons in Glasgow or Edinburgh.
No, Mum wouldn’t trust the salon she’d treasured for forty years to a stranger.
Georgie knew she’d cancel her plans to move to Tenerife and stay here to take care of her third child.
It was the way it had always been. Grant.
Georgie. And Copper Curls. The three much-loved offspring of Jessie McLean.
And then… Oh God, Georgie’s mind began to spiral.
What if her mum or her dad were one of those statistics that you read about, where someone retires and then drops dead almost immediately, despite being in apparently good health.
Then Georgie would have deprived them of their last weeks or months together and the surviving parent would never forgive her.
Although, yes, she was fully aware that she was now catastrophising this whole situation and her mother would live until she was a hundred, but still …
If Georgie wanted to take this job, she knew her mum would move heaven and earth to make this happen for her, even if it was at Mum’s own expense. And that was the very reason Georgie couldn’t do it.
‘Did someone say there was a party happening around here tonight?’ Ten minutes late, Grant McLean entered the building, a bottle of champagne in each hand.
Georgie’s first and only reaction was to groan and put her head on the reception desk.
‘There is. But first I need you to hold my hand while I turn down the opportunity of a lifetime.’