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‘That would be great. I don’t think we could afford to take a hit like that at ours just yet.’ Melanie grimaced.
‘Is it going OK? Lulu always looks packed whenever I see it.’
‘Yeah. Mostly, I — well, no. I mean. Yeah, it’s fine.’
‘No, go on. What were you going to say?’
Melanie forced out an exhale. ‘I’m sure I’m just being paranoid but these reviews, the voicemails. I just get the feeling it’s not something we should be ignoring. But anyway, you know how it is with business loans and pressure. We can’t afford to slip is all.’
After a soft grimace, Paige spoke up. ‘Actually, I don’t know about that. Barbarella was bought for me by Connie. It was her living will request after her last husband died.’
‘Oh Paige, are you privileged?’ Melanie asked in mock horror.
‘Yeah. I mean I was raised by my gran while my mum was doing her own thing, does that help?’
‘Not much, Paige, not much.’ Melanie smiled. ‘I imagine being raised by Connie was amazing.’
‘Yeah, she’s the best.’ Paige didn’t and couldn’t say anything further, but her hand brushed over her phone on the table, half expecting her mum to pick that moment to try and call again. She pulled her hand back and focused on Melanie; it was clear from her face she had more questions.
‘Right, well, moving on,’ Melanie started. ‘Yes let’s do it at yours. I mean the call-back thing with the artist not . . .’ Melanie’s voice wandered off and she laughed nervously.
Luckily Professional Paige kicked in and she quickly moved them on. ‘Obviously we can get Sophie to advertise it, but that’s sort of global.’
‘That’s all right, I have some press contacts from when we launched Lulu and I’ll get in touch with them.’ Melanie added to her to do-list with every action. Paige watched as her app updated, pinging each time an action was added.
‘So how many people have applied?’ Paige asked.
‘Hang on, let me check.’ Melanie clicked about on her iPad. ‘About a dozen.’
‘Do we need more?’ Paige asked.
‘Probably,’ Melanie said before sighing.
‘Fine, I’ll see what I can do to secure some last-minute contenders.’ Paige made a mental note to check with the domestic abuse charity she worked with to see if they would be entering.
‘We have the pay arrangements sorted and ready to go. They’ve been signed off. We need to get the final version of the brief for the judging panel. The thing to be used for scoring the entries. But I guess that’s got to be approved by the group.’ Melanie put her iPad down and went to run her hands through her hair.
‘You can put your hair down if it would help. Does it not give you a headache tied up like that?’
‘You just want to see my hair again because of your hair fetish.’ Melanie laughed, and her cheeks turned red.
Paige deserved a medal. Professional! ‘Yes, I think it should go to the group.’
‘We have something that we sent out to the entrants, so all the key info, but I wasn’t sure how to do this for the judges. Business plan yes, this no. I mean is there a proper way of doing one?’ Melanie asked.
‘Seb might know. She was involved in something like this before, hence the flyers she could so easily adapt. Let me check now.’ Paige grabbed her phone and shot off a text before looking up to see Melanie bite her lip, a tiny scowl visible across the top of her glasses.
‘You OK?’
‘Yeah,’ Melanie said in a not very convincing tone.
‘You sure?’
‘Yep, so that would be great if, Seb, was it?’
Paige nodded slowly as she studied Melanie picking up some sort of vibe but not knowing quite what.
‘If she could share with us . . .’
