Having a Ball (5 page)

Stevie dragged her thoughts back from the man. "It was good, thanks. The
rooms look great."

Alice's phone beeped, and she looked at it. "Gran says she and Uncle Tom
are in the library and you should come up."

Uncle Tom? Stevie turned as though looking back at the garden. Tom
Blackwood. That must have been the man she'd seen a few minutes ago.

No wonder she hadn't recognised him. The Tom Blackwood she
remembered had been pale and stubbly, with long hair in a ponytail. Clearly the last
nine years had changed him for the better.

She turned back to Alice and smiled. "I guess we'd best go see them,
then."

From: Dr. Evelyn Blackwood

To: Lady Beryl

Sorry Beryl. I meant to
call you back immediately, but my son Tom turned up and I got
distracted.
I've got to go talk to the party planner about her
fee.
Evelyn

##

From: Lady Beryl

To: Dr. Evelyn
Blackwood
That's what
I wanted to talk to you about. Sally was going to do the ball for free. See
if you can persuade this new girl to do the same.

##

From: Dr. Evelyn Blackwood

To: Lady Beryl

Come now, Beryl. I
don't think we can ask that. Sally offered to do it because she believed
in the charity. This girl knows nothing about the charity. She hasn't
even seen Priya's photos.

##

From: Lady Beryl

To: Dr. Evelyn
Blackwood
You said
she was just starting out. Tell her it's a great networking and
advertising opportunity. If all of us in the group tell our friends,
imagine the amount of work that could bring for
her.

##

From: Dr. Evelyn Blackwood

To: Lady Beryl

Funnily enough, Tom
said something similar a minute ago. I shall certainly use that argument
as a bargaining tool. I hate doing that sort of thing though. At least
Tom's here now. He can help with the negotiations. He's a management
consultant. I'm sure he can be ruthless if needs be.

##

From: Tom Blackwood

To: Olivia Gornall

You're never going to believe
this. My mother has asked me to help her negotiate fees etc with the
party planner. My mother actually asked me for help. Maybe she forgot
for a moment and thought I was Dan.
Maybe if I drive a hard
enough bargain, I'll scare the girl away. Of course, that might just piss
Mum off...

##

From: Olivia Gornall

To: Tom Blackwood

Tough call. Why would she
have got you mixed up with your brother? If she wanted someone to
identify a bug, she'd ask the entomologist. If she wants some advice
with project management, it makes sense that she'd ask the son who's a
management consultant. She's not daft.

##

From: Tom Blackwood

To: Olivia Gornall

To be honest, I'm surprised
Mum even remembered what I do for a living! She tends to think
anything non-academic is basically irrelevant. Anyhow. I'm flattered to
be asked.

* * * *

They'd nearly reached the entrance hall when Alice's phone rang again.
"The library's just over there." She pointed. "Can you find your own way? Is that
okay?"

Stevie watched Alice scurry off, already chatting. The people in this house
seemed to live on their phones. She thought of her own phone, safely turned off in
her pocket. Perhaps she was just as bad when she wasn't trying to avoid
Marsh.

Come to think of it, she had spent a lot of time on the phone when she
was a teenager. The main reason her phone wasn't constantly ringing nowadays
was because most of her friends were trekking around the Far East on their gap
years. Feeling a little lonely and unloved, she walked slowly across the hallway. The
door to the library was ajar.

"But Mum, she's just a chit of girl. She has no experience whatsoever." A
man's voice, from inside the library.

Stevie stopped.

"I know Louise suggested her," he continued. "But she implied that she's
too young and flighty."

What? Stevie blinked. Lou wouldn't say that about her? Surely not? She'd
worked for Lou before and there had never been any problem. Well, apart from
that one time she organised the flowers for the wrong day.

"She's just a kid, after all. She's barely older than Alice."

Why did people insist on treating her like she was ten years old? First
Marsh, then Louise, now this guy who hadn't seen her in nine years. How dare
they? All doubts about whether she wanted to take the job vanished. She was going
to take this sorry excuse for a party and turn it into a brilliant event. And she would
do it without Louise's help. That would show them.

"Hmm," said Evelyn. "Beryl says we should try and press her to do it for
free, like Sally did."

There was a pause. Then, "Okay, I suppose that's a good idea. If she's
willing to take it on at such short notice, she can't have much else on. So, maybe
she'll be desperate enough to do it on the promise that people would recommend
her. A loss leader, as it were."

"Well, we can't afford to pay much, anyway," said Evelyn. A spoon tinkled
against a cup. "Here you go darling. Have a biscuit as well. I'm glad you're here. I'm
so rubbish at negotiating with people."

"Glad to help mother. Glad to help."

Stevie's lips pressed together. A chit of a girl? Desperate? Who did he
think he was? He may have grown up and grown handsome, but he was still a
prat.

If Evelyn had asked her to do the project for free in return for
recommendations from her friends, Stevie would have considered it. After all,
Evelyn's friends sounded like exactly the sort of people who would have daughters
to marry off and retirement parties to arrange. But now, having heard Tom's cold
analysis of how to take advantage of her inexperience, she decided she would drive
as hard a bargain she possibly could. She might not take it all at the end, but they
didn't need to know that. Lifting her chin up, she rapped on the door and walked
in.

Tom was standing by the window, with his back to her. Evelyn was
pouring more tea. "Ah Stevie. This is my son Tom. Tom, this is Stevie."

Tom turned round, taking a bite from his biscuit. His eyes widened. For a
moment he looked stunned. Then he coughed violently and thumped himself in the
chest.

Stevie took a step back, alarmed.

Evelyn reached up and gave Tom a sound smack between the shoulder
blades. He gulped and carried on coughing, although there was less urgency to it
now.

"I'll be fine in a minute," Tom wheezed, in between coughs. "You carry
on."

Evelyn gave him an exasperated look and turned to Stevie. "Anyway,
what do you think? Will you take it on?"

"It's certainly a challenging project. There's a lot that still hasn't been
taken care of." She gave Evelyn her most businesslike smile. "And you haven't said
how much you were willing to pay."

"Well..." Evelyn glanced at Tom, who was still bright red in the face with
the effort of trying not to cough. "We were rather hoping that you'd do it for
free."

"For free?" She let her voice betray nothing more than mild
curiosity.

"Well, Sally, the previous organiser, was doing it for the charity. For free. I
mean, the charity committee are pretty influential and wealthy women and some of
the guests are likely to be in need of party planners soon. You're sure to get a whole
load of recommendations off the back of this one project--assuming you do a good
job, of course. Which I'm sure you will."

"Right," said Stevie. "I see." She paused, as though to think it over. "I'm
sorry Dr. Blackwood. We seem to have both wasted our time this afternoon. It was
nice meeting you." She turned to leave.

"Wait!" said Evelyn. "How... How much did you have in mind?"

Stevie named her sum.

"We can't..."

"That's preposterous," said Tom, having recovered his voice. "You have
no experience to speak of. No client recommendations. From what I can tell, you
don't even have a proper business to back you up. That sort of sum is daylight
robbery."

"And we can't afford that," said Evelyn.

Stevie ignored Tom and concentrated on Evelyn. "I know you can't," she
said. "I only have a rough idea of your budget, but from what I can see, you're lucky
to break even. That's if you sell at least a hundred tickets. I'm guessing you've sold a
load to friends and family and you've got about two thirds of the tickets left to sell.
Am I right?"

Evelyn didn't say anything, but a slight twitch gave her away.

"I have an alternative suggestion. I will do the project for the cost of my
expenses and forty percent of any profit you make."

"Forty percent! Don't be ridiculous," Tom said.

"Is it ridiculous?" said Stevie. "You have no caterer, no marketing, no
plans for publicity and no idea how you're going to fit everyone in the house. The
garden looks like the wilds of Borneo and you have this Lady Beryl woman who is
so difficult that even a friend can't stand working with her. You have four weeks to
get all of this sorted out and you can't afford anyone but me. You can barely even
afford me." She took a deep breath. She didn't want to say this, but there was a
principle at stake. "Take it or leave it."

Tom gave a short "Ha!"

Evelyn raised her hand and silenced him. "Ten percent."

"Mum..."

"Twenty-five," said Stevie. Twenty-five percent of not very much was still
not very much. It was lucky she wasn't doing this for the money.

Evelyn hesitated.

Stevie seized her opportunity. "Great. That's settled then." She strode to
Evelyn and shook her hand. "I'll head off now and make some calls. I'll pop by
tomorrow to see you with some ideas." She gave Tom a sweet smile. "Nice to see
you again, Tom." With that, she turned around and walked out.

As she closed the door behind her, she heard Evelyn say. "I like her."

* * * *

From: Olivia Gornall

To: Tom Blackwood

So, how did it go negotiating
the poor girl out of a job?

##

From: Tom Blackwood

To: Olivia Gornall

Not so good. I seem to have
lost my touch somewhat.
She got Mum to agree to give her 25% of
the profits. Mind you, sounds like there isn't going to be much of a
profit from this ball anyway. So I guess it's not such a bad deal after
all.

##

From: Olivia Gornall

To: Tom Blackwood

This girl got the better of the
famous Tom Blackwood negotiating skills? And she took a job that you
didn't want her to get?
Oh, I need details. Tell me everything. And
no glossing over the embarrassing bits. I've held your ponytail out of
the toilet while you were throwing up. You owe me.

##

From: Tom Blackwood

To: Olivia Gornall

I wish you'd stop going on
about that. That was over 10 years ago. I wish you'd just let me get sick
in my hair. I could have just washed it and saved myself years of
grief.

##

From: Olivia Gornall

To: Tom Blackwood

Yeah, yeah. Now TELL
ME!

##

From: Tom Blackwood

To: Olivia Gornall

Since you insist.
Mum
gives me a cup of tea and a biscuit. I'm standing there, psyching myself
up for battle. Stevie comes in. I turn round, expecting to see a skinny,
flat-chested 13 year old with acne and braces. Instead I find myself
looking at a gorgeous woman with chestnut brown hair and an amazing
figure. In the past few years she's filled out perfectly and in all the right
places.
Anyway, she was so stunning, I caught my breath.
Unfortunately, I also caught my biscuit. By the time Mum had thumped
me and I'd coughed the bloody thing up, I'd lost my edge.
She
walked all over us.
There you have it. The details.
Foiled by a
custard cream.
Tom

##

From Olivia Gornall

To: Tom Blackwood

LOL! So much for the legendary Blackwood skill and
charm. Shame you didn't get to wow your mother with your razor
sharp negotiating skills.
I take it you're not as dead set against the
girl as you were this morning then.

##

From: Tom Blackwood

To: Olivia Gornall

Well, she HAS effectively
agreed to do the gig for the cost of expenses. From what I've seen and
heard, this ball isn't going to make any profit. 25% of bugger all is
bugger all.
Typical. The one chance I get to show off in front of
Mum, I go and choke on a biscuit. I give up. I'm just going to have to live
with being the lesser son.
Anyway, I'm planning to avoid going to
Mum's until after the ball. I don't want to run into Stevie again. Even if
she is rather nice to look at.

* * * *

From: Louise Edwards

To: Stevie Winfield

How did it go with
Evelyn? Are you going to take the job?
Call me after 8pm.
I
think we need to talk about you and Marsh as well. He's worried about
you.
Lou