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“Yeah, our graphics gal does it in post.”
“And the lights in the rooms are already set for the stills, right?”
“For the stills, sure, but not for people. What are you thinking?”
“Can we have the walk-and-talk camera follow us into the back bedroom? I want to do the nursery reveal in there. Farha needs to get up and move, and I think you’ll get the sparkle you’re looking for.”
“Hmm, it’s not a bad idea, Fi. Give me ten.”
Sofia turned back to her clients with a satisfied smile. “Is she kicking?”
“Like a champion footballer.” Farha winced and pressed on her rounded belly as if she could remove the tiny foot from its spot pressing into her ribcage. “We won’t have to worry about a scholarship.”
Sofia couldn’t help the mushy grin that spread across her face. She’d always loved children and hadn’t quite given up hope that she’d have some of her own someday.
“I’m sure all of this sitting isn’t helping. We’re going to try something else for this next shot. I’m going to show you the design on my laptop in the room, so you can picture it in the space. They’ll do some cool graphics work later that will make it look magical, and most importantly it gets us up from this table.”
Gautam laughed and rubbed a hand across his wife’s lower back. The way Farha leaned into his touch with relief came perilously close to pushing Sofia’s envy button.
“Anything to stretch a little. I’m game.”
“Okay, folks. Let’s head to the back bedroom. Trina will lead with the camera rig.” Jake rounded them up and expertly placed them where he wanted them.
Sofia snagged her laptop and followed Trina. More setup. More fidgeting. More tedium. This was going to get real old, real quick. She hoped this was just beginning-of-production kinks getting worked out. If everything took this long, there was no way they’d stay on track. At Jake’s nod, Sofia opened her laptop and began again.
“This is going to be the nursery. By the time you’re ready to bring your little girl home to this room, it will be completely transformed. I worked with the corals and neutrals you chose as the color scheme. Over here,” she gestured to the longest wall, “we’ll have this beautiful crib and the reading nook here in the corner with a comfortable rocker for bedtime stories. I can already picture you cuddled up withGoodnight Moon.”
She could tell by the glowing look on her face that Farha was picturing the same thing. Sofia grinned in response.Nailed it.
“The changing table and custom toy chest will go here under the window, and we’ll be swapping out this carpet for the darker hardwood you’ve chosen for the rest of the house…” She trailed off as Farha and Gautam looked back and forth from her laptop to the dirty white walls with tears welling in their eyes.
“It’s going to be beautiful. Thank you, Sofia. It’s exactly what I wanted.” Farha wrapped Sofia up in a hug made awkward by her large baby bump, and Sofia beamed.
“Cut! That was great, everyone! Let’s try the same format in the master. Archie, help me get the lighting set up in there.”
Sofia grinned at the now glowing couple. Maybe this TV thing wasn’t so hard after all.
* * *
Adrian frownedat the blueprints in front of him. This TV show was going to kill him. He could see Sofia’s vision quite clearly, but he had serious concerns. As he walked through the house, he tapped walls, pulled up carpet, and peeked into attics. Trina was following him with her camcorder, filming his every wince. She’d told him he wouldn’t have to speak since she was just filming for background and he wasn’t miked for sound, so he didn’t, but this was still going to look bad on screen. The good news was that the Shah family hadn’t moved in yet, so he had plenty of room to explore and work. This wasn’t always the case on their renovation jobs. The bad news was that the Shahs had ignored a lot of warnings from their inspector when they bought the house, and he wasn’t a good enough actor to hide his concern.
Housing was so scarce and so overpriced that he couldn’t fault them for pouncing on the fixer-upper, but a house in this condition always had hidden problems. Sofia’s complicated plans didn’t have a shot in hell of becoming reality on time or under budget. If he was going to convince Dom to trust him with his company, he couldn’t deviate from their mission statement: make the house comfortable and safe on time and under budget. There simply wasn’t money for all of the fancy extras she wanted to incorporate.
He hadn’t even opened any of the walls, and he could already tell that most of the electrical would need replacing, which meant extensive drywalling, not to mention the cost of the wiring and electricians. While they had the walls down, it made sense to pull out all of the old galvanized plumbing and replace with copper, too. Galvanized pipes were only meant to last forty years, and this house was going on fifty. It wasn’t as sexy as Carrera marble, but it was a hell of a lot better use of the money. He couldn’t in good conscience let this family move their new baby into a pretty house just waiting to break down. To add insult to injury, the wall she wanted taken down in the kitchen was load-bearing. The header they’d need would eat another five thousand from her budget, not to mention the cost of installing it… What a mess.
And he’d promised his crew he’d try to avoid having them work unscheduled hours. He’d also promised Sofia he’d do what he could to help her make this a success. He could see a lot of late and lonely nights in his near future.
As Trina ducked out for uploads, he pulled his cell phone from his back pocket and called the office.
“Hello?”
It was ridiculous that the sound of her voice made everything go still inside, quiet and waiting for more. The rest of the world fell away as he got lost in her voice, which was a problem because she clearly expected him to speak.
“Hello? Is anyone there?”
Get it together, man. You called her, remember? Bad news? Right.
“Hi, Sofia. It’s Adrian. I’m over at the Shah project… Have you got time to talk about these plans?”
