Fire in the Wind (21 page)

He was pulling awkwardly on his ear, and Vanessa felt a little burst of amused warmth for this odd quality of apology she had noticed among Canadians. In New York a man of Robert's ability—he was, after all, a top accountant in a large corporation—would not have put the suggestion to her in that way. He would more likely have made it clear that she was the recipient of a very large favour. She wondered if Canadians weren't a little like the Japanese, with their constant polite apology for the humbleness of their station, talents and possessions. With this difference—that Canadians really seemed to believe their own poor publicity.

Vanessa, however, did not believe it. She didn't need to be long in Robert's company to realize that he was financially very astute. Vanessa felt a weight lift from her shoulders. She wanted to be designing, not drawing up profit-and-loss statements, and she knew she could depend on Robert's business acumen. She smiled delightedly.

"Robert, thank you! I'm saying yes before you change your mind!"

A good deal of Robert's charm lay in his slow shy smile, and he gave her the benefit of it now. "All right, we'll take that as settled, shall we?"

"You bet." Vanessa smiled, and thought what a strange contradiction Jake Conrad was, giving her everything in business and nothing at all where it really counted—in their personal relationship.

* * *

The television coverage of the funeral of Terry Fox was just beginning as Vanessa walked into the Concorp staff room later in the day, and people were crowded around a television set that sat against one wall of the room. Vanessa poured herself a cup of coffee from the urn and moved down to watch first the moving funeral service and then, more and more absorbed by that courageous young face, a documentary of the extraordinary mission of Terry Fox.

Again, during the film clips of his speeches, she noticed that odd quality of apology, of self-effacement. He had run not for himself but to show all those suffering from cancer, particularly the children, that the human spirit could triumph. "I am ordinary," his message seemed to say, "but I can rise above this because I have to. You can, too."

Then came the film of the moment Jake's chauffeur had mentioned, of the moment when Terry Fox, lying on a stretcher, told the Canadian nation that the cancer had reappeared in his lungs.

Tears choked her. Vanessa blinked them away, but her throat ached with her need to weep for this extraordinary, brave young man.

My God,
she thought wonderingly a few minutes later as the documentary came to an end and she was released from the hypnotic hold of the story. People around her had unashamedly wet cheeks and a kind of glow behind their faces.
My God, and they think he's ordinary! They think he's an ordinary man, like them, turned into a hero! They think they're ordinary, too!
Vanessa gazed in startled wonder at the Canadian faces around her, so like and yet so different from their American counterparts.
I can understand the ordinary being called extraordinary,
she thought.
What kind of a nation calls the extraordinary ordinary?

* * *

There was one Canadian, however, who was neither apologetic nor self-denigrating, and Vanessa bumped into him in a corridor shortly afterwards. She was wearing her coat and carrying her handbag and the market report Robert had given her. Jake raised a startled eyebrow and smiled at her.

"Starting work already?" he asked. "I didn't expect to see you today. Are you looking for Robert or me?"

"Neither, at the moment," Vanessa replied with an odd little burst of pride because she had surprised him. "I've just spent most of the morning with Robert, and I'm on my way home to read this." She indicated the market report she was holding. She had already read some of it, and what she had read was disturbing. "But I'd certainly appreciate the chance to talk to you when I've read it."

Jake looked at her consideringly. "What is it?"

"It's a market report that was done a couple of years ago," Vanessa said. "I've only started it, but it's pretty depressing."

"So depressing it made you cry?" asked Jake.

"What? Of course not!" Vanessa almost snorted in derision.
Cry
over a market report? What on earth did he think of her?

Jake lifted an eyebrow. "Your mascara has run," he explained softly.

"Well, it wasn't running because of any market report, I assure you!" Vanessa said, outraged, then recollected herself. "If you do have any time to spare," she said more calmly, "I'd appreciate being able to discuss this report with you."

Heavy lids dropped over his dark eyes, hiding their expression from her. "But of course," Jake said urbanely. "My secretary will call you with an appointment."

She hated it when he retreated behind that business-like exterior. She felt no different to him than any of the countless other people who worked for him and with him.

She was suddenly hot with the desire to shake this indifferent attitude of his that said there was nothing between them except a management contract each had signed. Vanessa looked up into the cold, tightly drawn mask of his face and opened her mouth to speak.

For a moment she felt just a little apprehensive about what man would emerge if she did succeed in shattering that mask, but she was driven by something beyond her control.

"Considering that I never did anything to hurt you, you're the most unforgiving man I've ever met," she said shakily.

Damn the man, what was he doing to her? This was lunacy.

"What?" demanded Jake in a deep hoarse voice.

"You punish me far more than Jace would have. Jace would have understood and forgiven me ages ago."

"Would he?" Jake's eyes glinted as he barked a harsh laugh. "You may be right. Jace always was a damned trusting fool."

"And you're just a damned fool?" she snapped.

He laughed then in real, if cynical, amusement, as though at a private joke.

"You're right," he said softly. "The big difference between me and Jace is that he was trusting and I am not. And that, Vanessa, whether you know it or not, is what makes you angry. You keep thinking you're going to be able to pull the wool over my eyes the way you did la—the way you did with Jace. And when you don't succeed—"

She wished now she had left the mask alone. Bitterly, she interrupted, "You've really got a sense of mission, haven't you? You're good—you could be out fomenting a religious war somewhere instead of wasting yourself on business!"

She pushed by him and stalked up the corridor, and if he meant to call after her he was forestalled by the appearance of a group of his employees emerging just then from the elevator.

* * *

On Friday morning she went with Robert to view the factory without having discussed with Jake the contents of the market-research report she had now read.

The full report had more than lived up to the disturbing inferences she had drawn from her first quick glance through it. Vanessa hadn't slept well after reading it, and now she had to force herself to concentrate on what Robert and the trustee's assistant were saying about the factory they were going to see.

"Here we are," announced Robert as the assistant, a quiet-looking woman named Moira, pulled the car to a stop in front of a three-story grey brick building that looked about fifty years old.

Vanessa stood assessing the exterior as Moira produced a key, and then they all trooped inside. The factory itself was on the ground floor; the sewing machines and irons and hanging rails were all still in place. Vanessa drew in a long slow breath. She'd thought the market report had prepared her, but there was a difference, it seemed, between knowing and seeing.

"Is this the entire factory floor?" she asked.

"That's right." Moira consulted her clipboard. "Thirty-eight sewing machines and six ironing stations," she said. "However, there's lots of room for expansion, Mrs. Standish. There are two tenants on the second floor of the building. Both are on five-year leases that expire in three years. And the whole third floor is empty at present."

It was cleaner and brighter than a lot of factories Vanessa had seen, and walls and ceilings were painted the same light grey as the outside of the building. Odd bits of bright summery fabric and thread were littered on the floor and tables, a sad reminder that not so long ago this factory had been a bustling enterprise and that what they were presiding over was something like a funeral. Vanessa shivered. Could she build success on the bones of so recent a failure?

Moira took them through the shipping and receiving areas and the cutting room. Everything was on the same small scale as the factory.

Off the small reception area where they had come in was a flight of stairs by which Moira led them to the second floor.

"Now here," she said, "are the administrative offices, design office and showroom...."

It took them two hours to go over the premises to Vanessa's satisfaction, and even so she was aware of holes in her own knowledge that made it difficult for her to assess the building.

Back in Robert's office at Conrad Corporation they discussed the drawbacks and advantages. There were not many disadvantages. The space truly seemed almost ideal for their purposes.

"Robert," Vanessa said at last, tossing her notebook and pen down and leaning back, "did you check into why the company that had this space went bankrupt?"

Robert sat up and pulled a folder from a drawer in his desk. "Mostly it was because they were under-capitalized. They tried to do too much with too little. Also—" he pushed his glasses up on the bridge of his nose and consulted the papers in the folder "—they weren't careful enough with their credit. We don't have the first problem, and I'll make sure we don't run into the other two." He smiled.

"Do you think we should go for this, Robert?"

It was a complicated decision. Since the bankrupt company had owned the building Vanessa had the choice of merely buying up all the machinery and equipment and finding factory space elsewhere or buying the building, as well. The former course involved minimal risk, the latter much more.

"Not unless we can guarantee ourselves some tenants on the third floor, in any case," Robert said.

"Could we do that?"

Robert looked thoughtful. "We could, if we lease them to companies in Conrad Corporation."

"Oh!" Vanessa blinked. For some reason that gave her an odd feeling of being part of a family.

"If I'm not mistaken," Robert continued, "there are one or two companies in buildings not owned by Concorp whose leases are coming up for renewal. I'll look into that. In fact...." He paused, and a smile lighted his eyes. Vanessa wasn't experienced enough to recognize it as the smile of an accountant who has discovered something Absolutely Risk-Free; she only knew that it made her lean forward in curious expectation.

"In fact, if we're lucky, Conrad Corporation just might buy the building for us. Then
they
could have the leasing headaches, and we would lease only the space we need...." Vanessa was fascinated to see how quickly Conrad Corporation had become "they" to Robert, and the new company "we."

"I'll run it by Jake and see what he thinks."

Vanessa nodded. She already regretted the stupid argument she had thrust on Jake in the corridor yesterday, but she would regret it a whole lot more if he were to let his angry feelings get in the way of a business decision and refuse to let Concorp buy the building.

But she said nothing to warn Robert of his possible reception by Jake, and the conversation moved on to the question of the machinery and equipment.

"I wish we'd hired a production manager before this decision came up," Vanessa sighed after a discussion of pros and cons. A good production manager would recognize faster than she would any major drawbacks in the machinery and, for that matter, in the factory space.

"Look, we don't have to decide today," said Robert in a calm voice. "It's Friday afternoon. Why don't you go home, relax and have a nice weekend? Don't think about this at all this weekend. We'll take a fresh look at it on Monday and see what we think."

"I can't think about it this weekend. I've got to look for an apartment," she said, feeling relieved that it was so.

"Good God," said Robert. "Well, I don't envy you that task. This city must be one of the tightest housing markets there are."

"Don't encourage me," said Vanessa wryly.

"Look, my wife and I are having a small dinner party Saturday night. Would you like to come? Nothing very strenuous—but you'll need to unwind after a day's apartment hunting."

"I'd love to," Vanessa replied instantly, with an alacrity that made them both laugh. Vanessa was an outgoing person; she had a lot of friends in New York. She was going to miss them badly until she met new people here. Robert probably had a wife just as nice as he was; he seemed the sort of man who would. It would be lovely to think she had found friends so soon.

"Do you have any friends in Vancouver?" he was asking now.

"No one at all," Vanessa said cheerfully. No one but Jake Conrad, and he wasn't exactly a friend. "But it seems like a friendly city."

"Oh, it is," Robert agreed. "Casual and friendly. Vancouver's nothing like the east. You won't have any trouble settling in."