Set in Stone

Chapter 27

Grace, Zelina and Bayley were in the locker room at the arena where Tuesday night's live event was taking place by the time Roman called from Miami. It was a FaceTime call, Grace saw before answering it. She didn't know why she hadn't thought of that herself when they had talked earlier in the day. It was a much better idea than having him send her pictures and videos to look at.

"Roman's FaceTiming me. I'm going to go find somewhere quiet to take it," Grace said to Zelina as she got up from the bench in front of her locker.

"Okay, I hope you like the look of the place," Zelina said.

"Thanks, me too." Grace hurried over to the door, making it out into the hallway with her phone still ringing. She held her phone up so that Roman would be able to see her face, and answered the call. She saw a smile appear on his face as soon as he saw her on his screen. "Hi! I'm looking for somewhere quiet to sit," she said.

"Hey," Roman replied happily. He turned the phone slightly so that Tessa Blanchard appeared in the picture. Grace noticed that they "Tessa is here with me."

"Hi, Grace," their soon-to-be employee said, smiling and giving her a little wave.

"Hi, Tessa. Are you guys at the dive shop?" Grace asked as she pushed a door open, finding an empty dressing room. It would do for somewhere private to sit. She turned on the light and sat down on a chair in a corner of the room while Roman replied to her question.

"We are. We've just had a quick look around with the real estate agent. He suggested that we could give you a tour on FaceTime. I don't know why I didn't think of it myself to be honest."

"I thought the same when I saw the call coming in."

"The easiest way to do this is probably for me to film, while Tessa talks you through it."

"Let's do it," Grace said excitedly. She couldn't wait for her first look at what might end up being their dive shop.

Roman touched his phone screen, flipping the video feed to the rear camera. Tessa appeared on the screen, laughing nervously. "I've never done anything like this before. I feel properly put on the spot."

"You'll do fine," Roman chuckled. "Think of yourself as a tour guide."

"I'll do my best," Tessa giggled. She walked away from Roman a bit, and Grace noticed that the limp that she'd had when they had first met was now gone.

"Okay, Grace, we're outside the front of the store," Tessa said. "As you can see, there's quite a lot of footfall and potential passing trade."

Yes, that's an important factor, Grace thought. Scuba equipment or lessons was obviously not something that would benefit hugely from people who happened to walk by and decide to call into the shop, but it was still a benefit. Theirs was going to be more of a specialist business, meaning that people would look them up ahead of time and travel to the shop specifically.

Tessa walked over to stand in front of the shop, Roman moving to track her with the camera. Grace saw that the sign for the previous dive shop had been taken down, leaving an ugly empty space above the glass frontage. The entrance to the shop was in the centre, leaving space for a window display either side of it. Add a sign to the list of obvious things we hadn't thought about, she thought.

"Plenty of room for displays, as you can see," Tessa said. "Roman said you've done a deal for Cressi to supply us. I'd recommend putting on a big display of their stuff in the windows."

"Rome, tell her that we're getting another company in too. We could put a display for each company either side."

"Good idea," Roman said, before speaking to Tessa. "Grace is saying we'll be getting another supplier involved too, so we could give them a display each, one each side of the entrance. Or we could do some kind of sign display to advertise our courses and charters?" he added, providing his own idea.