Willow taps her pen against her chin, her brow furrowing as she tries to come up with a solution. “We’ll just get a new slab and hire an artist to draw the cupid in with a fine-point Sharpie…and add some gold flecks.”
I cock my head and pin my gaze on her. “We can’t do that, Willow.” My voice is flat.
Her eyes brighten as she warms to the idea. “Sure, you and I aren’t capable of that kind of talent, but Asheville is teeming with artists. You can’t walk five feet in this town without running into an art gallery.”
There’s some truth to that.
“That new tea shop downtown has a wall of paintings, and all of the artists are available for commission.” She thumbs toward the door. “How about I pop over and grab us both a cup of nice, soothing chamomile tea to go and get a couple of names while I’m there?”
I stare at her in disbelief.
“Okay,” she says with a sigh and sags against the cabinet. “So the artists are out, but what about the tea?”
“This seems more like a whiskey situation.”
“I don’t know about that,” Willow says wistfully. “You obviously haven’t tried Dottie’s chamomile.”
Maybe not, but everyone in town knows her name. Dottie Hendrickson used to work at a brewery, but she opened a tea shop after she retired, even though she’s at an age when most retirees move to Florida and take up pinochle. (My father gave that a try. It didn’t stick.) They did a write-up about her in some travel magazine, and now people come to Asheville specifically to visit Tea of Fortune and have her or one of the clerks read their future in the wet leaves.
A crock, if you ask me, although I’ve met Dottie and she’s nice enough.
“Be that as it may,” I say, trying to hold back my frustration, “we’re still stuck in this situation. I guess the only thing to do is call Wendy.”
“Did someone say my name?” a lilting feminine voice calls out from the front of the house.
Panic washes over Willow’s face, and she glances around like she’s looking for a place to hide. With no hiding places evident, she settles for partially covering her face with her clipboard, only her eyes and forehead peeking over the top.
She looks ridiculous, so I reach over and slowly nudge the clipboard down.
Willow’s usually much more confident. However, she and Wendy didn’t hit it off. I wasn’t there for their first meeting, but apparently Wendy insisted that recycling is a way to brainwash the masses into using more plastic, and Willow didn’t readily agree.
“I’m here to see the counters!” Wendy singsongs as she enters the family room and kitchen area and stops in her tracks. Her hand lifts to her chest. “Where are my counters?”
Fighting the urge to cringe, I meet this head-on. “There’s been an issue.”
She clenches her jaw. “I can’t deal with issues, Cal.” Then her face crumples. “I have got to get out of that basement.”
I walk over, giving her a sympathetic look that isn’t manufactured. As difficult as Wendy can be, I’ve met her mother-in-law. She’s a hundred times worse. “And my job as your contractor is to take care of those issues. You just arrived before I got it sorted out.”
I spend the next half hour talking her off a ledge, because the only solution we can come up with—a new counter of the same marble but without the cupid—will delay her and her family moving in by another week.
“You said seven weeks, Cal,” she says, near tears.
“I never said seven weeks, Wendy,” I say firmly. “Seven weeks was your timeline.”
“Those twins do it all the time on HGTV,” Wendy throws back at me. “And you seem much more competent than they are.”
I recognize psychological games when I see them. She’s trying to flatter me into devising some magical solution when there isn’t one. Or at least not one that fits her budget. Is it possible to do a kitchen makeover in a week like you see on those shows? Sure, if all of the supplies have been ordered weeks in advance and the homeowners are willing to pay the subcontractors overtime. Most aren’t. Wendy definitely isn’t. With all the changes, her budget is maxed out.
Not for the first time, I second-guess the decision to expand Bear and Son from house flipping to client-driven renovations. My father and I started flipping houses by accident a few years ago. However, we’ve had to pivot. Real estate prices in the area have been shooting up astronomically and finding good flip houses is next to impossible. People are still buying those old, down-on-their-luck properties, though, and they need their homes remodeled. Who doesn’t love knowing you’re getting paid for your time versus working on spec? Still, while the money is good, some clients are more challenging than others.
“You can’t base real-life renovations on what you see on TV,” I say, not for the first time. To Wendy or scores of other clients. “There’s a lot of behind-the-scenes stuff that’s not always realistic for real-life renos. Besides,” I say in a cajoling tone, “we’re probably looking at eight weeks, which is pretty amazing considering this was a total house redo.”
For once, I wish Dad were here to talk to Wendy and help smooth things over. While he and I started this business together, my father has been slowly working himself out of it as he ramps up his baking business, Bear’s Buns. (Yes, I did try to talk him out of using that name. No, he didn’t listen.) At this point, it takes an emergency to get him involved in one of our projects. To be honest, he wasn’t super productive in the first place. He spent more time yapping with the subcontractors and bringing them baked goods than actually getting work done.
Wendy might have compared us to the hosts of Property Brothers, but we were more like that house flipping show with the mother and daughter. Sure, the mother has her helpful moments, but in times of crisis, it’s the daughter who steps up and coordinates everything, while the mother goes digging through the junk in the attic and shows up at the end with a macramé plant hanger that you know the homeowner will likely donate to Goodwill. Dad’s a lot like that, except replace the crafts with baking and helping people turn their luck around with the Bad Luck Club.
Some days I regret the decision to start the club with him too. Especially since that book came out.
I agree to meet Wendy first thing in the morning at the stone fabricator to find a replacement and see if there is any way to cut out the cherub section to create a marble top for the custom piece I’m making for her entryway.
“It’ll be more of a showpiece there,” I say. “And much less likely to get red wine or tomato sauce stains.”
Wendy leaves teary-eyed but happy…or as happy as she can be to be returning to her “dungeon with the wild inmates,” as she describes the basement and her children.
Willow waits until Wendy’s car actually pulls away before she says brightly, “You’re a miracle worker, Cal.”
I grunt because I know that is far from the case. “Go home. Meet me at Asheville Stone tomorrow at eight sharp.”
Her mouth drops open, and she seems to have trouble articulating her thoughts. “I…uh…aren’t…I thought you were meeting her?”
“We’re a team,” I say with a forced cheesy smile. “We’ll go together.”