She battled back her overly dramatic jitters as she stood in front of the big window showcasing a luxury bathroom setup that Murdoch Construction could install for a customer with a taste for marble. Aiden might not even be there, and she’d be able to get in and out without having to deal with… whatever was going on. She took a steadying breath and pushed through the front door, where all her Aiden angst fled when she took in the scene in front of her.
“Look, I don’t know, okay? I’m trying to find it, but…Unnngh.” Trip was hunkered behind the front desk, bashing his pointer finger over and over on the computer keyboard but apparently not finding what he was looking for. “Can you just, I don’t know, keep waiting until we call you about it?”
Every part of her curled in on itself at the worst display of customer service she’d ever seen.
“No.No!” He was shouting now, and since nobody else was around to do anything about it, she’d just have to step in because this was intolerable.
She walked into Trip’s direct line of vision and snapped to get his attention. When he finally looked up, she gestured for him to hand the phone over to her. He hesitated, so she snapped again with more authority until he surrendered the handset.
She leaned over the counter, pressed it to her ear, and spoke in her warmest voice. “Hi there. I’m so sorry. I had to step away from my desk, and Trip’s been covering for me. How can I help you?”
An agitated male voice spilled from the other line. “I was just asking when my screen door would be in, but that idiot couldn’t tell me a single useful thing.”
“Oh, he’s not so bad. You should see him with a paintbrush in his hand. His color-washing technique could make you cry, it’s so good.” Of course, she had no idea if Trip was competent at any parts of his job, but a cheerful demeanor as thick as Teflon worked wonders in customer service. “Now tell me your name, sir.”
Soothing the grump on the other end of the line was far better than dreading what she’d say to Aiden when she saw him, so she jerked her head at Trip to vacate the phone area. He scrambled to comply as she lifted the phone cord to allow herself room to move around the counter and take his seat.
She was greeted with a spreadsheet on the screen that listed hundreds of names in no particular order. God, was this their management software? A twelve-year-old version of Excel? Yikes.
But she’d worked with worse. She entered the man’s name into the search bar and located him buried deep in the list. “Gil McConnell? 2628 Whitewood Lane?” When he grunted his confirmation, she tabbed across his listing but found nothing informative about any orders being placed. “Okay, I’ll tell you what. I’d like to check into this status so I don’t give you any incorrect information. And I hate to see you wait on hold while I do that. Can I get the most recent update on that order status and call you right back, Mr. McConnell?”
“I’ve left two voice mails already.” His voice was peevish, and the yappy dog trying to join the conversation in the background added to the general agitation.
“I am so sorry about that,” she said smoothly. “It’s been wild around here. Were you at the Beaucoeur Home Expo a few weeks ago, by any chance?”
“No.”
Geez, he wasn’t giving her anything to work with, but she forced a smile into her voice and continued. “It was incredible! You should’ve seen some of the new innovations out there. Tile with LED lights in them. Showers that you control with voice commands. You turn it on and set the temperature with your voice! I tell you, Mr. McConnell, we live in the dang future.”
“That so?” he asked, curiosity creeping into his voice. “I’ve never heard of anything like it.”
“I had extreme bathroom envy, I tell ya.” She grinned triumphantly at Trip, who was listening to her end of the conversation with his mouth open. “Anyway, I don’t want to keep you on the phone any longer. I’m going to find out about the status of that door, and I’ll call you back as soon as I do, okay?”
She confirmed his phone number, and Gil McConnell hung up a much more cheerful man than he’d been three minutes earlier.
“What the hell did I just watch?” Trip was looking at her like she’d just poured gasoline on the countertop and set it on fire.
“Customer service, hello,” she said. “Now where do you guys keep your records? I’d like to call him back this afternoon.”
Trip pointed behind her, and she swiveled to find three identical black filing cabinets. “No. No way. You guys keep physical records?” She was already up and moving to the drawer markedM, and after rifling through the alphabetical-ish files, she produced a folder with Mr. McConnell’s name on it. “Okay, says here he finalized his product selection, but I don’t see any record that it was ordered. Would it be in here if it was?”
“Far as I know.” Trip peered over the counter at the papers in her hand and tapped his finger on the scrawled writing on the sheet. “That’s Dad’s handwriting. I’m guessing he forgot to tell Mom about it, and it fell through the cracks.Shit.”
Thea smoothed her hand down the paper in thought. “Okay, we can salvage this.” A memory from the home expo tickled her brain, and she swiveled back to the computer for a quick Google search that confirmed her recollection. “Do you trust me to try to make this work, or do you want to call him? Or wait for Aiden to get here and handle it?”
At his brother’s name, Trip’s face closed down entirely. “No. Just make the call.”
Yikes. So that weirdness was still going on apparently. She blew out a breath, cracked her neck, and punched in the grump’s number. As it rang, she told Trip, “You guys need a Bluetooth headset. This phone ties you down like an umbilical cor— Hi, Mr. McConnell! It’s Thea from Murdoch Construction.” She crossed her fingers for luck and held them up so Trip could see. “Okay, good news and bad news. The bad news is that we don’t have your door in just yet. But the good news is that there’s still time to change your order.”
“Why would I want to change it?” he asked suspiciously.
“Would you believe, it’s that silly home show again!” she chirped. “At the booth next to the magic shower, the Adriatic Window company had its new products on display, and I saw the cutest screen with a built-in doggy door that gives your pal the freedom to run in and out, and it’s tied to a chip in his collar to make sure he’s the only animal that can get through. Wouldn’t that be great as things start to warm up this year? Give your best bud backyard access without having to get up and down all the time to open the door? And the chip means no possums get into the house, only your dog.”
She held her breath and bared her teeth in a comically nervous smile as Trip looked on. She was gambling that she’d actually heard a dog in the background, that they lived in a house with a fenced-in backyard, and that the grump on the other end of the line loved that little beast enough to spring for a fancy door.
Thank God, he let out an interested exhale. “Computer-chip doggy screen door, you say?”
“Absolutely. Why don’t I shoot you an email with options and you can take a look to see if you might prefer that model? We’d be able to make that change for you, no problem. And I’ll also see if I can dig up a promotional video of that voice-control shower just for fun. Some things a man’s got to see for himself.”
