"It's paint, lady," he growled, glaring at her. "You hired us to paint and we're painting."
"I told you to wait until I got back," she reminded him grimly, and silently berated herself for not completing that phone call she'd been starting when Justin and Cale had arrived. She could have asked them what color the paint was or insist they wait until she returned. Instead, she'd put the phone down and forgotten all about it until now. Not that the painters probably would have heard the ringing with their iPods on anyway.
"We did wait," Bill snapped. "You've been gone more than four hours. We finally decided we'd best get started, or we'd be here all night."
Alex ground her teeth together. She'd only intended on being gone an hour at the most, but with everything that had happened, the time had gotten away from her.
"When an hour and a half passed with no sign of you and not even a phone call, we started painting," Bill snapped angrily.
"The wrong color," she shrieked back. "Does this look like White Sand to you?"
"No, it looks like walls," he snarled.
"I mean the color," she said furiously. "The paint is supposed to be a soothing off-white called White Sand, not lime green."
He frowned at her, and then glanced around the room briefly, before shaking his head. "This is the paint they delivered, so this is the paint we used."
"It's the wrong paint," she said grimly.
"Well, that's not my problem," he said stiffly. "Call the store you bought it from and complain to them."
"You're damned right I will." Alex whirled away in a temper, slipping her bag off her shoulder to dig inside it for her cell phone as she paced across the room. When she realized the other two men, earbuds in and oblivious to what was going on, were still painting, she snapped, "Make them stop."
Grunting with displeasure, Bill climbed down off his ladder and moved to the nearest man. Alex then turned her attention to her phone but paused as she realized she didn't know the number. She needed a phone book,or the bill, she thought, and rushed through the dining room and then the kitchen to get to the office.
Alex found a copy of the delivery invoice lying on top of her otherwise empty desktop. She snatched it up, noted that yes, the receipt did say White Sand paint and that the store number was at the top.
Alex plopped her purse where the invoice had been and punched in the number to the paint store, her temper simmering, but she managed to maintain her cool as she explained her problem to the efficient-sounding woman who answered. She even managed to keep her temper under control when the woman said she would fetch the manager and put her on hold. However, after fifteen minutes on hold, she was practically foaming at the mouth. When the manager finally picked up, Alex tore into him over both the mix-up and being on hold for so long. The manager started out trying to soothe her, explaining that he'd taken so long because they'd had to get the delivery papers from the driver.
Unfortunately, Alex wasn't in the mood to be soothed. She barked out that someone should have let her know rather than leaving her hanging, and was angry enough she feared she might have thrown in an insult about the ineptitude of the woman who had answered the phone and himself for not thinking of that. Whatever the case, that's when the manager stopped being soothing. He announced coolly that according to the delivery papers six cans of White Sand paint had been ordered and delivered and he had a signature on the papers indicating that this was the case and all was in order.
Alex immediately snapped that it certainly wasn't
White Sand on her walls. Unfortunately, she might have included another insult or two there. She certainly wasn't very diplomatic. Really, it had been a very stressful couple of months, and she was feeling a bit like a woman on the edge at that point.
Her attitude won her a moment of chilly silence that was followed by the manager's announcing coldly that he would be more than happy to replace any unopened cans of paint remaining. However, she would have to look to the painters for reimbursing her for the paint already used since they had signed for it ... and thank you for shopping with us.
It was the dial tone that sounded after he hung up that snapped Alex out of her hysteria. She listened to it dully, all her anger running out of her like air draining out of a balloon. She sat on the desk, staring bleakly at the unpainted walls of her office and then slowly hung up. Alex knew she'd reacted badly to this latest problem, but dammit, there hadn't seemed to be a day that had gone by without one problem or another cropping up in the months getting this restaurant ready. She was starting to think the damned thing was cursed.
Taking a deep breath, Alex held it briefly, and then slowly let it out and tried to focus on what needed doing rather than what had happened so far. The tables and chairs were arriving tomorrow, so the dining room had to be painted tonight. She had the painters, she needed paint ... and quickly since she doubted the painters would be pleased to sit about kicking their heels for long.
Fine, Alex thought grimly, she would rush to thenearest paint store, buy the proper paint, as well as primer since the lime green was bright enough she doubted the White Sand would cover it, bring it back, and set the men back to work.
Feeling somewhat calmer, she headed out of her office to find the painters. They were in the dining room where she'd left them, but the ladders were gone as well as the rest of the painting paraphernalia and the men themselves were heading out, carrying the rolled-up drop cloths.
"Wait a minute," she cried, hurrying after them. "Where are you going?"
"To grab a beer," Bill announced, stomping to the van parked in front of the restaurant and tossing the drop cloths in the open back door.
"But what about the restaurant?" Alex asked with renewed panic. "You have to finish painting."
The man slammed the truck's back door and turned to her with irritation. "You said it was the wrong paint and we were to stop painting."
"Well, yes, but I'm going to go get the right paint and-"
"Nope." The man spun away to walk around to the driver's side door.
"Nope?" Alex echoed, and then hurried after him. "What do you mean, no? I need the restaurant painted tonight. The tables arrive tomorrow."