After a lot of googling and finally following a call to Willis, Jonty managed to book a live band. They were sixth formers at Willis’s school but Willis had promised they were good and quite happy to dress up as ghouls and play whatever Jonty liked as long as he paid them and provided a playlist pretty soon. More googling to find songs like The Monster Mash, Highway to Hell, Time Warp and Thriller, and finally he texted the list to Willis, and also sent it to the lawyers at head office so they could ask for permission from the original artists. As long as the band played something creepy every so often, they could do what they liked for the rest.
He had a text back from Willis asking if he wanted to come and listen to them play on Friday. The answer was yes. Because if they were crap, it still gave him a week to sort something out.
Whenever Jonty became too stressed and overwhelmed, he stepped away from the computer and played with Charlotte and Winnie. It was surprising how much it helped. Though, Devan being here would help more.
4
By six, Jonty was exhausted and hadn’t eaten all day, though he had remembered to feed the dogs. Fortunately, several tins of food were kept at the hotel so at least Winnie and Charlotte were happy and currently deep in their favourite activity other than eating, which was sleeping.
He’d made spreadsheets of all he’d bought, and done costings for staffing, but he hardly dared add up how much he’d spent, or would have spent by the time he was done. He was so glad he’d been taught how to use spreadsheets when he was training in London.
When that evening’s restaurant service was done, Marcus and Wayne came to the office to talk about their ideas for food, and they were brilliant. A mix of hot and cold dishes, all of them themed to Halloween. Some of them sounded too disgusting to eat, which was perfect.
“I’ll get Ent, one of the prep cooks, to write the labels,” Marcus said. “He can do Gothic handwriting.”
“I had an idea for a dessert,” Jonty said. “How about Graveyard Delight served in glass containers filled with crumbled Oreo cookies, jelly worms in the fake soil and gravestone shortbread biscuits on top, piped with names of guests and decorated with white chocolate bones sticking out from the fake soil and insects made of liquorice.”
“Sounds fucking revolting,” Wayne said.
“That’s the point.” Jonty beamed.
“It would be a bit crumbly,” Marcus pointed out. “Just broken biscuits.”
“Add caramel?” Jonty raised his eyebrows. “Make it green so it looks like slime?”
“Teeth-rottingly delicious.” Marcus smiled. “But there are ideas in there that I like, so I’ll have a think. We’ll need to figure out how many of each dish because some people are going to take two or more of the same item. It’s normally 10-12 bites per guest for a full meal, so assuming 280 guests that would be…” He fiddled with his phone. “… 3,360 bites, then divide that by the number of bites per platter, say 20, so we’d require around…” More fiddling. “…168 platters of food. Plus dairy-free and nut-free options for those with allergies, as well as vegan and vegetarian options. We’d also require more than one serving line.”
Jonty was lost. Marcus was still talking and Jonty wanted to cry.
“And it will all have to be done between our usual work. Some things can be made in advance, but not everything. It’ll be late nights next week on Wednesday, Thursday to get everything ready and we need to test out the ballroom on Thursday too. That’ll be happening while you’re putting up your decorations.”
Jonty kept nodding. His head was going to fall off in a minute.
“I spoke to Bartosz,” Marcus said. “You know him, right? The maître d’? He’s going to suggest some cocktails and also make sure he has as many staff in that night as he can. But you need to talk to him and liaise. The booze order needs to go in now.”
“Thanks guys,” Jonty said. “I really appreciate your help. One thing though, I think you need to cater for 300 to be sure. Better too much than not enough and I suspect some of the people working that night will be unable to resist nibbling.”
“Okay.” Marcus nodded.
There had to still be loads Jonty needed to do, but he was too tired to think straight. Though there was one last thing he wanted to check before he went home. The coffee. Since he was in charge, he could change the supplier back to who it had been before. Stuff you, Bruce.
It took ages to locate the invoices in the system and he was shocked by how expensive the new coffee was. No wonder the prices had gone up. It didn’t say it was cat-poop coffee and Jonty hoped it wasn’t because the way that was produced was cruel. The hotel’s coffee was supplied by Bandax, a company he’d never heard of and when he looked further, they were supplying a whole load of items to the hotel—toiletries, cleaning products, food. What had happened to Websters, the company the previous owner had used ever since Jonty had started to work there? Not only was Jonty rattled by the fact that the new coffee was ten times as expensive as the coffee they used to have, but why did they did need three times as much over the same period?
Just out of curiosity, he checked the prices of some of the other items and gulped. Why would catering packs of butter be more expensive per kilo than he could buy in the supermarket?
Maybe Bruce had expensive tastes, or was it a Shaw Hotel Group thing? But shouldn’t buying in bulk make things cheaper? Jonty was puzzled and a bit worried, his Spidey senses tingling. Could this be some sort of scam, or was he jumping to conclusions? He’d talk to Devan.
Just as he thought Devan’s name, his phone rang.
“Hi,” Jonty said. “I was just thinking about you. All okay?”
“Yes. Where are you?”
“Still at the hotel. Just about to head back with the dogs.” Winnie jumped up and put his paws on Jonty’s knee. Jonty stroked his head. “How’s your mother?”
“Speaking.”
“Oh, that’s…great. Saying anything nice? Was her first word Jonty?”
Devan laughed. “No.”
“Well, that’s disappointing.”
“She complained about her pillow.”
“That shows she’s improving, doesn’t it? Back to her favourite activity.” Bad Jonty!
“What? Talking?”
He winced. “No, complaining.”
“Hmm. She’s swallowing better and the doctors are letting her come home tomorrow.”
“Great.” That really was great. Jonty crossed his fingers. “So I’ll see you soon?”
“I hope so.”
“I’m sorry about the Halloween thing. It was the last thing you needed. I see that now. I’ve added to your stress, haven’t I? But I’m coping fine. The company agreed to take back the fifty-foot inflatable ghost and the wormery. Who knew they came with so many worms!”
“I hope you’re joking.”
“I kept the snake pit. As long as people don’t touch and no one falls in, I figured we’d be fine.”
“Now I know you’re joking. I haven’t forgotten you hate snakes. How are you getting on with Bruce?”
“Oh, he’s no problem at all. I rarely see him.”