“You really love this stuff, don’t you?” Emily said, feeling baffled herself. She’d worked in marketing for years back in New York City and hated it now with every fiber of her being.
Bryony wiggled her eyebrows. “I love it. Plus, I get to see all the mysterious guests who book in. Look at this one.” She swiveled her laptop around to show Emily the accommodation spreadsheet which was automatically populated by website bookings through the magic wizardry of computer code. “The carriage house has been booked out by Mr. X. I’m hoping he’s another Roman Westbrook.”
Emily raised her eyebrows, excited also. “Or a James Bond villain.”
Just then, a group of three men walked into the inn. They were all wearing beige slacks and polo shirts, and had varying shades of gray hair. Emily noticed then that each had a large roll of paper under their arms and realized that they weren’t some kind of traveling barbershop quartet but the architects from Erik & Sons, with their initial sketches for renovating Trevor’s house.
She and Daniel had approached a local family firm, hoping they’d have a more sympathetic approach. As she leaped up now and walked toward them, she realized by their eerily similar appearances that they were the “& Sons” contingent. She shook each of their hands, blinking, feeling like she was looking at the same person three times over.
“We’re triplets,” the man with the lightest gray hair explained. “I’m Wayne. This is Cain. And that’s Shane, the youngest by five minutes.”
“My chances of remembering whose name belongs to who are more or less zero,” Emily confessed.
“We don’t mind,” Wayne Erik continued. “We’ve had fifty-five years of being confused with each other. If we had a problem with it, we probably wouldn’t dress the same.”
He grinned, indicating their matching Erik & Sons navy blue polo shirts.
“Please,” Emily said, “let us go and find somewhere quiet where we can spread these out. I know we’re meeting for a tour of the house later today, but I’m so happy to take a look at these now.”
She led them from the bustling foyer and into the empty dining room, whereby the Erik triplets unrolled their sketches onto the large walnut table.
Emily peered down at the designs, one scroll per floor of the house. The plans looked phenomenal, grand and rather exciting. But seeing Trevor’s house pared down to lines and measurements on pieces of paper felt so odd to her, so unpleasant and final. She felt herself getting choked up.