“What are you doing?” Poppy nearly screeched. Her calm and cool nature was nowhere to be found. It was as if a shrill, snappy Chihuahua had suddenly inhabited her body.
“Wiring up the place,” the guy said, totally nonplussed in the face of Poppy’s fast-growing panic.
“Well, watch the molding. That’s original to the house. You can’t buy molding like that anymore. If you ruin it we can’t replace it.” Poppy considered throwing her body over the molding to guard it with her life. Damn gravity, always getting in the way of her plans.
That’s when she noticed the row of installed cameras—approximately twenty—lining the front family room. Rage whooshed out of her, leaving devastation in its wake.
“They’re a foot away from the molding,” Kiki assured her in a calming voice. “Um, what’s your name?”
“Wasim.”
“Wasim here knows what he’s doing,” Kiki said. “Weren’t you the Gaffer forBig BrotherandLove Island?”
Before Poppy could stop herself, she said, “Big Brotherwas a set, not an architectural masterpiece. Plus, this isn’t a reality show, it’s a renovation show.”
Kiki arched a brow. “Splitting hairs, now, aren’t we?”
“You’re right.” She looked at Wasim. “I’m sorry. You must be amazing at your job to have worked on two hit shows like that. I wouldn’t normally yell at someone for doing their job. Especially when they’re so good at it! Obviously! Because, you know,Love Island.I’m just nervous,” she said, though he’d probably figured that out from her babbling. “I want to save as much ofthe original charm of the house as possible and when I see all these holes in the original plaster, it freaks me out. But I shouldn’t have taken it out on you. I’m sorry.”
She stuck out her hand in an olive-branchy kind of way, but it was too late. Wasim eyed it like a live electrical wire.
“Elbow bump?” he said, uncertain.
Poppy pasted a rictus grin on her face and stuck out her elbow, not caring that she probably looked frozen in a deranged version of the chicken dance. Wasim came down the ladder and tentatively knocked her elbow with his.
“How many more cameras?” she asked.
“About, um, eighty.”
“Eighty!”
Wasim took a large step back.
Kiki elbowed Poppy in the ribs, knocking a burst of wind from her gut. “What Poppy means is, how can we help you do your job?”
“I got it, really. Plus, Jack doesn’t like too many cooks in the kitchen. He said?—”
“I don’t give a flying hoot what Jack said,” Poppy argued, her inner Chihuahua back with a vengeance. “This is my aunt’s house, and she left me in charge. A director with no construction experience isn’t going to make decisions about drilling into the ceiling without my go-ahead. Got it?”
Wasim swallowed. “Yes, ma’am.”
She waved an arm for Wasim to proceed to the next marked camera station, following hot on his tail.
After installing thirty-one cameras, axing thirteen, and relocating nineteen, they came to Poppy’s childhood bedroom, which she’d be using again for the duration of filming. Besides new paint, the room was staying as it was.
Wasim reached for the doorknob.
“I beg your pardon. What do you think you’re doing?”
“I still have cameras left.”
“And you think they’re going in my bedroom?”
“Jack said?—”
“And what did we learn about what Jack said?”
Wasim’s head jerked like a bobblehead in rush hour traffic on the 405. “Right. Uh. So what should I do?”
