Twice Shy by Sarah Hogle (ebook offline reader .TXT) 📕

easy to run in the abstract, when you’re daydreaming about them but still have plenty of time before the real work begins.

I’ve registered my business and am scheduling inspections, checking in on the status of applications for various permits and licenses. I’m conducting outreach to magazines and newspapers all over Tennessee, hoping they’ll want to write about the hotel, offering journalists free stays for opening week (which I’m tentatively slating for the first week of September, depending on how long it takes to receive all the proper certifications). I’ve got to go hard on press with targeted Internet ads, but ads are expensive. On top of everything else, I’ve got to master the art form of being my own social media manager. If only Wesley would let me post pictures of him mending fences and pruning shrubs, we’d book up all the way through next year.

On Tuesday, I contact my local landmark preservation commission to begin the process of nominating Falling Stars to be declared a historical landmark, which would not only be fantastic for publicity but would also grant me tax breaks and leeway on building code. I respond to a message from a site acquisition agent with a cell phone company about a potential cell tower lease. They want to install a tower on the property, which means I get to negotiate fees and generate some extra income.

I like the problem-solving that comes with heading my own projects, anticipating kinks in the plan and conquering them. I like the spreadsheets, the rigorous search for good deals on hand towels, flour, lightbulbs, cleaning supplies. Coupon hunting and menu drafting: dinners will be served in the dining room unless guests request room service; if they put in an order for lunch, the meal will be dropped off at their door in a picnic basket along with a laminated list of picnicking spots on the grounds. Guests can grab their breakfast in the kitchen and enjoy it wherever they like.

I can do this. I’m going to prove to the world that I can do this.

Chapter 18

ON WEDNESDAY, I DRIVE to the farmers market in Maryville to chat with local vendors in hopes of establishing partnerships. Everyone is warm and small-town friendly, asking all kinds of questions about the hotel. Even though I probably waste too much time chatting, I walk away from the market feeling like an absolute god: I landed discounts on bulk orders in exchange for using and advertising their products exclusively. Falling Stars is officially in business with Kiana’s Stationery Shop, an artisan soap and lotion maker called Lather Up, and Huckleberry Homestead, who in August will start delivering homemade butter, cheese, and sourdough. Their cows are free-range, they say, and there’s a live feed of them playing with toys on the farm.

I come home to a leak in the washing machine hose, an inch of water covering the laundry room floor, and the painters that I caved and decided to hire are busy spraying the front of the house maroon. “Excuse me,” I call politely, waving to get their attention. My voice is too timid—nobody hears. I stretch, nearly on tiptoe, and speak louder. “I’m sorry, but that’s not the right color. It’s supposed to be pink.”

One of the guys, Phillip, screws up one eye as he scans the big splotch of new paint. “It’s sorta pink.”

In what universe? I raise my arm and point. “That is maroon.”

The guys split dubious looks among one another, shrugging. “Maybe maroon is what you ordered,” Phillip suggests.

“No. I know what I ordered, and it isn’t even close to this.”

One of them, the youngest, is barely seventeen. He scratches his chin worriedly, mumbling to them in an undertone that he thinks I might be right.

They ignore him. “It’ll look different once it’s dry,” says Phillip with the highest confidence. “The clouds are casting a shadow over us right now, which makes it seem darker. Trust me, once we’re done you’re gonna love it.”

“I don’t want maroon.” I’m beginning to panic. When they turn around to get back to work, I lose it. A much braver person than I am possesses my body and uses it to bellow, “I! Don’t! Want! Maroon!”

Dumbfounded, they stop what they’re doing.

“Calm down, now, sweetheart,” the oldest one entreats.

No, he did not. “You can call me Miss Parrish,” I snap.

Phillip snickers.

I’m about to do something that’ll get me arrested when Wesley’s truck pulls up the driveway, bed stacked with lumber that will become a shelter for his animals in short order. He climbs out, frowns at the house, and says in a quieter tone than the one I initially tried out myself and nobody heard, “That’s not the color we ordered.”

“Oh?” Phillip plasters on a baffled smile. “You sure? Here, let’s look it up.” He looks up the information while my spinal fluid simmers to a froth. “What do you know! You’re right.”

And then he apologizes. To Wesley.

We eventually get it ironed out. I continue my part of the conversation through clamped teeth, but fortunately no one tells me to calm down again. The new paint won’t be in for another two weeks, however, and their next availability to come back isn’t until mid-July. Leaving Falling Stars gray with a patch of maroon.

I am a professional. It is the only reason I do not scream.

“You know what? You’re fired.” I don’t have time for this. I have a washing machine hose to deal with, a bank to call, and security cameras to set up. Not to mention, I might have chatted with a young woman I met at a gas station on my way home from the farmers market and spontaneously offered her free board at Falling Stars when I found out her landlord is going to be kicking her and her little boy out of their apartment at the end of the month. I need to bake a dozen of Wesley’s favorite bear claws before