Dad peered closer. “Very nice, very nice. Oh darling, look at those snaps Tabs took of the animals. Pinky is such a card, isn’t he?” He was talking about one of the sensible pigs. I appreciated the praise but was frustrated they weren’t focused on what needed to be done.
“Such a ham, isn’t he?” Mum winked, and they snorted with laughter.
I clapped my hands to get their attention again. “So happy you like it. And my friend at work is doing all the back-end technical stuff at cost, which is incredibly good of him.” I took them to another entry on the spreadsheet. “Here are all the places we should advertise.” I showed them a mock-up of a typical advert. “We’re going to really lean into this show, so we can start placing the adverts even before the show ends. We don’t have time for a soft opening to iron out the kinks, which means we’ll have to go hard-in immediately.”
Mum and Dad looked totally dazed.
They were already overwhelmed. They looked like kids at a birthday party who had eaten too much cake, had been subjected to too many water-blasters, and now just needed tosit in a darkened room. In minutes, they would shut down completely, which I should have expected and planned for.
Mum fiddled with her hair, re-pinning it in a bun. Dad looked desperately out the window, but it was too dark to see any animals that would distract him.
“But, darling, we thought we’d have a nice rest when this is all over,” Mum said finally. “Let the dust settle, be with the animals, a little staycation for us all.”
Dad smiled at her. “Quite, darling. Well put. Let’s delay this grand opening for a couple of months, eh? Maybe even after Christmas. Yes, capital. A New Year’s venture!”
My blood pressure sparked to boiling within seconds. “A couple of months?What? No, no, no. That cannot happen. There is a TV show airing the night before we open, the best publicity any business in this country will ever get. We have to strike while the iron is hot. We can’t waste the launch of the TV show.”
Frustrated, I started planning how I could ensure they helped pull this off—a nonnegotiable deadline. They could meet the freelance booking agent to hear about the punters who’d signed up for a stay. They must meet the cook and cleaner and hear they were turning up for work that first Monday at seven, and that guests would arrive around 3:00 p.m.
But it now seemed obvious there were things I couldn’t expect them to do or even help with, like setting up social media, sending out press releases, placing ads with travel bloggers and influencers and offering them free stays in return for an honest, gulp, review. Somehow, I had to do that in my evenings, but I needed to show them all those adverts to demonstrate these weekends were real.
Resignedly, they stared at my spreadsheet on the old table Tim had hauled out of the barn and cleaned off.
“Let’s start with the easy stuff. We need a name for the inn.”
“What’s wrong with what it’s already called?” Dad answered. “Titchcoque House?”
“Dad, I think that ship has sailed. Do you remember what Aberdeeen turned that name into?”
“Yes, but wouldn’t it be a veritable hoot if we kept it?”
“Shriek with laughter, darling,” Mum chimed in.
Laughing fish in the loos, fart cushions, bawdy tapestries—Mum and Dad had retained their old private school adolescent sense of humor.
“Definitely out. Tasteless and off-putting,” I said primly.
“What about Llama House?” Dad suggested, to Mum’s enthusiastic agreement.
“Mmm.” I was beaten for today. “Okay, let’s move on.” I pointed back to the spreadsheet. “The staff.”
Mum took it in. “Cleaners? Cooks? In the house?” Her expression was filled with horror. Then her features softened with optimism. “Actually, that’s a super idea. They could make those baked treats for the animals’ sups. And those ice blocks. What are they called again… Kongs?”
My jaw quivered as I steeled myself not to scream. “The cook will be here for the guests, Mum, to run the inn.”
“Yes, of course. That’s what I was saying.”
I shook my head, trying to keep it together. Having a conversation with my parents was like trying to grasp at underwater creatures you weren’t sure were real in the first place.
The cavernous room swam around me, the dust from the chandeliers clogged my throat, and I felt queasy. Being in this huge room, knowing we were connecting it to the kitchen, a kitchen that had to be itself transformed, and the enormity of this job—the empty air that had to be imbued with warmth, personality, and feeling—was overwhelming, but I knew I could do it, and I wanted to do it. It was my parents’ attitude that cutme at my knees, making me want to tumble to the floor and curl into a ball. I had counted on them being on board with all this.
Stupid, stupid me. Why did I always keep hoping they’d want to do the inn because I’d decided it was best for them? Why did I keep hoping they would step up and do the right thing and take control of their lives?
Right after the final shoot, I had to pack my bags and head back to London to do my job and, well, live my life. And before that, I had the once-in-a-lifetime story with the Wainwrights. My parents were going to have to take on the inn responsibilities, no arguments.
“We need to tuck in the animals for the night,” Mum said, and I nodded numbly as they positively skipped outside, although I had at least an hour left of discussion with them about tasks to implement and calls to make.
Panicked, I reached for my phone. I desperately needed to talk to a friend and find a way through this, but I paused. I was the shoulder that other people came to cry on, and I always welcomed that role. I didn’t want to bother anyone with this hot mess. Isla had a family now. Ishani was on a total high, spending every lust-filled second she could with Kingston, and no way was I bringing her down.
