Open for Business – Part 1. Cressida McLaughlin

Robin protested, filling the glasses with bubbling liquid. ‘I just agree with your assessment of the situation.’

      ‘Assessment of the situation?’ Molly clinked her glass against Robin’s. ‘You mean I’m right, as usual. Let’s make a toast – to new years and new beginnings.’

      ‘Zero points for originality.’ Robin leaned against the table, which held an array of nibbles and glasses, and her mum’s crystal bowl full of home-made punch. She’d changed into a black, knee-length dress with a high neckline and swooping back, her curls loose – and slightly frizzy – around her shoulders. She looked a lot more prepared for a party than she felt, but she still wasn’t anything to match Molly, whose perfectly made-up face couldn’t hide the natural beauty underneath. Her friend was always immaculately turned out, but then as the owner of Groom with a View, the beauty parlour two doors down from the guesthouse, she was bound to be. She was wearing a thigh-skimming plum-coloured dress and towering heels, her short blonde hair styled expertly into corkscrew curls.

      ‘It’s not meant to be original,’ Molly said, after she’d taken a swig of prosecco, ‘but it’s true, isn’t it? For you. You’ve been forced into a new start. You’re beginning to make a habit of it.’

      Robin sighed and dropped her head forward. ‘What am I going to do? They’re moving just before Easter, to beautiful, sunny southern France. It should seem a long way off, but it feels like it’s hurtling towards me at a hundred miles an hour. Do you think they’d mind if I went with them? Robin Brennan, once a successful entrepreneur, now committed to life as a recluse, hanging on to her parents’ coattails at the age of thirty-two.’

      Molly leaned against the table alongside her, and she caught a whiff of her friend’s heady, seductive perfume. ‘That is not an option,’ Molly said. ‘Firstly, you’ve got too much spirit to live such a humdrum existence, you’d be bored in ten minutes, and secondly, you’re not moving away again so soon. Not now I’ve just got you back.’

      ‘I’m not moving, not really. Mum and dad have left me the house, when they could have legitimately booted me out and bought a chateau.’ Robin chewed her lip. ‘But it’ll be weird rattling around in this place without a job or a purpose or my parents.’

      ‘Right,’ Molly said. ‘So you need to do something. You don’t want to start up Once in a Blue Moon Days again?’ She asked it tentatively, shooting a glance in Robin’s direction then looking quickly away.

      Robin stared at the floor, her chest squeezing at the mention of the upmarket events company she had started with her friend Neve. They had planned exclusive days for their clients – weddings, anniversaries, extravagant birthday celebrations. No request was too big or difficult; Robin and Neve would track it down, make it happen. It wasn’t cheap, but the experiences they organized were unforgettable – as rare as seeing a blue moon in the night sky.

      ‘No,’ she replied quietly. ‘I gave it up because it didn’t work without Neve. I couldn’t do it. Not just because I missed her, although that was a part of it, but because she was the organized one. She did the planning, made everything run like clockwork, and I kept the clients happy. She said that I was the shiny exterior, putting clients at ease, and she was the frenetic back office that nobody wanted to see.’

      ‘You were the serene swan and she was the swan’s legs pedalling frantically beneath the water.’

      ‘Exactly. I tried to keep it going after she died, but without her to execute her meticulous plans, things went wrong. Sooo wrong.’ Robin winced and tried to shrug away the memories. ‘And London is so well-connected. You can get anything online these days, but lots of the bespoke orders we were placing needed to be negotiated face to face. I’d be starting with too many handicaps if I tried again down here.’

      ‘All very fair and logical,’ Molly said, waving her glass at her friend. ‘No more Once in a Blue Moon Days, and no more Campion Bay Guesthouse.’

      ‘Let’s try and keep it positive, shall we?’ Robin elbowed her gently in the ribs. ‘Frame it as an opportunity, rather than the end of everything.’

      ‘That’s what I’m trying to do, if only you’d keep up. So,’ she spun to face Robin, who jumped and spilled prosecco all over her wrist, ‘you can’t help your parents with the guesthouse any more, because they won’t be here.’

      ‘Right,’ Robin said, narrowing her eyes. ‘I’m still waiting for your positive spin?’

      ‘But you’ll be here, and so will the guesthouse.’

      ‘They’re closing it – it’s going downhill, not getting the bookings any more, making a loss. I see it every day. My tomato and parmesan bread is going uneaten, except by me, and that can’t go on for too much longer unless I take up triathlons.’ She sighed and sipped her drink. ‘And I don’t want to take up triathlons – sometimes getting out of bed is hard enough.’

      ‘Don’t get off topic, Robin. Listen. You see it every day,’ Molly repeated, raising her little finger. ‘And you ran a successful luxury experience company.’ She held up the ring finger. ‘And you have your head around modern marketing and social media; Instagram, Periscope, Twitter.’ Her middle finger came up, and she waggled them triumphantly.

      Robin’s stomach did a tiny somersault, competing with the prosecco bubbles. ‘Yes,’ she whispered. ‘Three valid points, if you discount the total disaster Once in a Blue Moon Days became when I was on my own.’

      ‘So take it over.’

      ‘What?’ She chewed her cheeks frantically as her friend’s eyes got wider, the seed of the idea planted firmly inside both their minds.

      ‘Take it over – the guesthouse.’ Molly put her glass on the table and clapped her hands together, her blonde curls bouncing. ‘Do all the things you told your mum to do. Give the place an update, refurbish the rooms, launch the new and improved Campion Bay Guesthouse with a killer marketing campaign. They’re not asking you to move, so why not just take over from them and bring the place up to scratch at the same time?’

      Robin shook her head, more out of disbelief than refusal. It was a huge decision to make, but instantly she saw the possibility. She’d grown up in the guesthouse; she’d helped out all the time, slinking past strangers on her journey to or from her attic bedroom. She’d seen guests arguing with each other on the stairs, returning home in the dead of night giggling and covered in sand, complaining to her dad that their porridge was more like wallpaper paste. She’d seen it at its most popular and, more recently, at its most bereft. She drummed her fingers on the edge of the table.

      ‘I see those fingers,’ Molly said. ‘You think it could work, don’t you? I know you could do it. Luxury experiences, but all under the same roof – not to sound like Toys R Us or anything, don’t use that tag line. But it would be …’ Molly stopped, swallowed, held Robin’s gaze.

      ‘Carrying on Neve’s baby,’ Robin finished. ‘Keeping the idea of Once in a Blue Moon Days alive, but here in Campion Bay.’

      ‘Her dream, and your parents’ dream. The guesthouse won’t close, yours and Neve’s brainchild won’t be forgotten, and you’ll be making a living, running your own business again.’

      Robin stared at her hazy reflection in the window, surrounded by the pre-party scene, the ideas buzzing inside her mind like fireflies. It was obvious when she thought about it. Her parents couldn’t keep the guesthouse going – they didn’t have the will to do it any more – but she did. It wouldn’t be the same as the events company. The groundwork was in place, the booking software, the rules and routines her parents had lived by. She wouldn’t be creating unique experiences from scratch on her own, and so was less likely to cause any disasters. She realized her glass was empty and turned towards the table to find Molly already holding the bottle.

      ‘Now,’ Molly said, her pink lips smiling, ‘we really have something to celebrate. Let’s get another glass down us before Mrs Harris arrives. I’m not