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1
AMBER
The walls are green.No, that’s not quite right. The walls areapplegreen.
I turn around and hold up two paint swatches. In my left hand,applegreen. In my right,ryegreen. Ricardo, one of my contractors, shoots me a nervous grimace as I shake the two swatches in front of his face. I like Ricardo. He’s good at what he does, efficient, and, most importantly, he treats me with respect and makes sure his employees do too. We’ve never had any problems before. Until now.
Because the walls areapplegreen and the client requestedrye.
“Come on, Ric,” I groan. “Tell me what happened here.” We’re 48 hours away from install day, and the last thing I need to see right now are apple green walls in the master bedroom.
“I’m so sorry, Amber. I’ve got a new apprentice working with me and I thought he’d be able to handle this room alone.” He runs a hand down his face and shakes his head. “It’s my fault. I should’ve checked in on him more often. I take full responsibility.”
I reach for my hair and twist a few strands around my finger. The action helps to ground me, stops me from entering a never-ending anxiety spiral as apple green walls close in on me.
“Do you think the client will notice? They dolook very similar.”
The laugh that bursts from my lips is borderline hysterical.Yes, the client is going to notice. I spent a painstaking threehours going back and forth on the pros and cons of apple versus rye with the client, and they were adamant about going with the latter.
And the colours don’t look similar. Not at all.
To the untrained eye they might look identical, but there are yellow undertones in the rye green to help brighten the room, and that’s why we chose it. The apple green, as beautiful a colour as it is, is too warm for a room like this and does absolutely nothing for the space.
“It’s okay,” I say. But it’s not. We’re on a tight deadline with this project, and the client is expecting their dream home to be available to them in two short days. So yeah. Definitely not okay. “How long will it take to repaint?”
“I can have it ready by this time tomorrow.”
I chew the inside of my cheek. It’s 3 p.m. Not ideal. “If you can have it done by 10 a.m. tomorrow, I’ll pretend like this never happened.”
Ricardo’s face is a portrait of relief. I know he relies on the work my company gives him — we pay well, and the work is relatively steady. “Got it, boss.”
Thankfully, the other rooms have all been painted correctly. It needs a good clean, but aside from a few tiny scratches on the hardwood floors in the living room — which Ricardo assures me will easily be dealt with before he leaves today — the rest of the house is ready.
I lean against the banister and exhale the breath I’ve been keeping sucked in throughout my tour of the home.We’re nearly there. I pull out my phone and fire off a quick email to my warehouse manager, Simon, giving him the go-ahead to start loading the trucks for install day. Knowing that we’re nearly there, that the finish line is officially in sight, should help to ease some of the pressure I feel, but it doesn’t.
There’s still so much to do.
I still need to send over a final list to Simon and his team to double-check that every item is included and packed securely onto the trucks. I also need to head back to the office and print off floor plans for each room, then comebackto the house and make sure they’re pasted everywhere so nobody has any excuses for putting things in the wrong places.
I glance at my watch and groan. It’s 4 p.m. I can send Simon the list while I’m on the move, but the floor plans will have to wait until tomorrow. I’ve got a meeting with another client — at 5.30 p.m. on a Wednesday.
Who does that?
Even as I ask myself the question, I know the answer.
Cynthia Zensi does that. My mentor, my boss, the founder of Zensi Designs, and the current bane of my life. Well, one of them.
When I first started at Zensi Designs nearly seven years ago as an assistant, Cynthia had been a completely different person. She was an icon in the British design space with a reputation for creating elegant, sophisticated, and timeless interiors for her bursting little black book full of elite clients. She was a trendsetter. Innovative, bright, and bold.
And she was my idol.
I devoured every piece of information imaginable I could find about her, fervently collecting magazine profiles and touring the country to visit the spaces she designed. I remember spending the day in the lobby of a hotel she designed in Scotland just after I turned 18, marvelling at her skill, her vision, her talent.
Three years later, and fresh from university, it felt like destiny when she announced unexpectedly that she was looking for an assistant. I spent a full week working on my application, crafting the perfect cover letter, and putting together the perfect portfolio; I felt sick when I finally hit Send. The next three weeks passed in a blur of nail biting and refreshing my inbox every few minutes and miraculously ended with an invitation to interview. I ultimately beat out hundreds of applicants and earned the job asCynthia Zensi’sassistant.
Sometimes I wish I could go back in time and capture the essence of excitement, joy, and trepidation I had back on my first day of work, just to remember what it felt like. Seven years on and there’s no trace of it anymore. Cynthia has managed to slowly suck the life out of the one thing that has ever really brought me any happiness.
Though, to be fair, she’s sucked it out of herself as well.
