LATE MONDAY MORNING
“Silver Sage? This isn’t Silver Sage; this is mint and I haaaate mint!”
Erika can’t help feeling the mismatch is somehow her fault as Vanessa, the interior designer with a shock of blue hair, stomps her foot in frustration. If only Holly were here. She’s the one who selected the color.
“I dunno,” says a painter working his way through a small bag of Fritos, waiting for this sage/mint dispute to be resolved. “To me, it looks kinda like gray.”
“That’s even more depressing,” Vanessa declares. “We’re not decorating a prison. We’re supposed to connect with Vermont’s natural outside beauty. Get it?”
She flaps a hand back and forth between the gray/mint trim and the huge floor-to-ceiling thermal window, beyond which landscapers are busily plugging in drooping Sawara cypress and blue holly to coordinate with the red of the brilliant winterberry. It’s a mad rush to beat an unexpected early frost. Anything that could go wrong is going wrong fast. They are experiencing Murphy’s law on warp speed.
The weather, for instance. Sleet is now in the forecast. Somehow in all the planning, no one stopped to consider the possibility that they might not be blessed with blue skies and jewel-toned foliage for picture-perfect exterior videos in the third week of October in northern New England. Now Team H&R is in a mad dash to lay the sod and spread the cedar mulch so they can film the house before the shiny new build is dulled with dark clouds.
Vanessa spins around to Erika. “Holly needs to make the call. Put her on speaker so we can all hear what she has to say.”
Erika tenses. She’s been dreading this request. “The thing is, I’ve been trying to reach her and can’t.”
“What do you mean?” Vanessa pulls out her phone, her blue fingernails flicking over the screen. “Where is she?”
LuAnn, chiming in from LA via the laptop on a side table, answers that. “On her spur-of-the-moment honeymoon, apparently. Out of the country.”
Vanessa yanks off her trendy, orange cat’s-eye glasses. “No one told me they were going on a honeymoon. For how fucking long?”
“Robert said he’d they’d be back Wednesday,” Erika replies weakly. “Maybe Thursday, at the latest.”
Vanessa tosses her glasses onto the borrowed teal velvet sectional. “You have got to be fucking kidding me. We are sooooo behind. They should be on site prepared to put in ten hours every day at the minimum. There are tons of details they need to sign off on. What’s Hector have to say about this?”
“He was not pleased, to put it mildly.” LuAnn taps into her own phone four-thousand miles away. “Look, people, I’m as upset as everyone else on the team, especially since I was given no notice. Found out when I touched down yesterday in LAX. Robert shot me a short text with hardly any explanation. Haven’t been in contact with them since. Erika, have you had any luck at all?”
“Texts. Calls. Emails. Nope.” Erika shakes her head, also baffled by the couple’s silence. “No luck.” Which does not sit well. Not at all.
If anything, Holly is an overcommunicator who automatically texts and calls before she thinks.
Is the red in the mudroom too ocher?
I’m thinking maybe a turkey wrap for lunch. No, one of those cucumber salads. I feel bloated.
Did I have something in my teeth on the Zoom. I saw later in the mirror there was a piece of cilantro.
Oooh, did you catch Love Island last night? Craaazy.
Is it my imagination or is there more space junk?
I’m soooo tired. My feet are KILLING me.
Hey, have you ever done mushrooms? Robert has a guy . . . Very “mind opening.”
Don’t forget to order more of that cardamon tea. I am addicted!!!
So, not hearing from Holly going on forty-eight hours raises more alarms than it would for most people, even if she is on her honeymoon.
“I can’t understand why they left to begin with,” LuAnn says. “Holly and I spoke at the wedding. They planned to recover Sunday and then throw themselves full throttle into the final days. She was totally pumped. It doesn’t make sense that all of a sudden they’d leave the country and, apparently, cut off all communication.”
Erika debates whether to relay how agitated and manic Robert was acting the night he came to the apartment to borrow her car. But she decides sharing those personal details would be disloyal, like she’d be bad-mouthing her boss behind his back. Besides, as their assistant, Erika feels that her job is to put Holly and Robert in the best light, not to sow seeds of doubt in the minds of TMB’s producers.
“Well, that’s it! We’ve lost the contest.” Vanessa flings herself onto the couch, even though no one’s supposed to sit on the velvet. “Go with the prison-green paint. I’m booking the next flight to London to handle clients who actually care. And pay.”
“We’re all disappointed,” LuAnn says. “But that’s the risk you take when you’re dealing with nonprofessional talent. If we don’t hear from them soon, we might have to announce that the Vermont project is out of the contest in order to allow Holly and Robert space to address the proverbial ‘personal issues’ et cetera, et cetera . . .”
Erika laughs at the absurdity until she notices LuAnn’s not smiling. Wait, she can’t really be serious. TMB wouldn’t pull the plug so late in the game, not after the hundreds of thousands of dollars Robert’s sunk into this house and their backbreaking efforts to make it a winner. Would they?
“Totally. Better to cut your losses now,” Vanessa adds morosely. “The vendors will be pissed, but at least TMB will get a write-off.”
“No!” Erika hears herself shout. “We are not going to give up. We can’t!”
Vanessa props up on her elbows. “My, my. What’s gotten into Miss Mouse?”
“I’ve got an idea,” Erika says, though she doesn’t quite. Not yet.
“Oh, please.” Vanessa flops backward. “Spare me the can-do ’tude.”
“Give her a chance, V.,” LuAnn chastens. “Go on, Erika.”
Finding herself suddenly on the hot seat, Erika feels her armpits dampen as she furiously brainstorms. “Okay, so, this may sound whacked, but how about I sub tomorrow when Hector comes to shoot? I’m about Holly’s size and now we have the same hair. I can raid her closet to find an outfit Holly can wear during the reveal, for continuity.” Her mind is racing and her body feels disassociated, her lips moving faster than her thoughts. “Hector can use me in the prerecorded scenes. No facial close-ups, naturally. No voice. Production can do their magic and Holly will be back later to do the live-streaming. Problem solved!”
LuAnn nods slowly. “A body double. Interesting. Let me run this by Hector. I’m not sure it’ll fly, but I applaud your ingenuity. Meanwhile, leave no stone unturned trying to reach out to these two.” She holds up her phone, pointing to a message. “Just heard from legal. Off the cuff, they say Holly and Robert are in breach of contract if they don’t get on set pronto and that’ll be grounds for cancellation as well as a lawsuit to recoup TMB’s costs. Pass this along to Robert when you reach him. That’ll get him out of bed.”
Erika’s stunned. Was she mistaken or did the producer actually consider her suggestion?
“What about the sage?” Vanessa finds her glasses on the floor and slips them back on. “Who’s gonna sign off on that?”
“Go with your gut,” LuAnn says. Then, pausing thoughtfully, she adds, “What’s your take, Erika? Is the green too minty?”
Erika chews the tip of her pen and squints, as if a powerful producer asking for her opinion is as common as LuAnn asking her to whip up a soy latte. “V. might be right. Farrow and Ball makes a lovely sage called Calke Green that won’t turn gray against the Slipper Satin on the walls.”
“Not bad,” Vanessa concurs. “But you can’t get Farrow and Ball around here and we need it pronto.”
“I can color-match it to Benjamin Moore at the hardware store downtown. I could have a gallon here in a half hour, ready to go.”
“Works for me,” says the painter, crunching his Frito bag into a ball.
LuAnn nods again. “Good job, Erika. You have certainly earned your stripes today.”
Don’t speak too soon, Erika thinks. The day’s not over.