Learning curves (25 page)

“Put it this way,” she said, rolling her eyes, “this morning I was all ready to give up, and now I’m not so sure. But to be honest, I’ve had my hands a bit full lately”—she looked at her parents meaningfully—“so I’m not exactly ahead on my coursework . . .”

“You can’t give up,” George said immediately. “Don’t be ridiculous. What’s your latest assignment on? We’ll help you, won’t we, Harriet?”

Harriet paused. “Well, I suppose I might be able to help a little bit, although you know how I feel about MBAs . . .”

“You made me do it,” Jen said incredulously.

“Come on, then, what’s the assignment on?” George said impatiently.

“Bookselling,” Jen said, suddenly feeling slightly less elated. She didn’t want to write about bookselling anymore. She’d rather lost her enthusiasm for it.

“Bookselling?” said Harriet. “What an odd subject to choose. I’d have thought something about corporate social responsibility would be much better. Darling, you’re so clever, you should choose a subject that really demonstrates your ability, don’t you think?”

Jen looked her mother in the eye. “Mum, stop manipulating me. I’m doing bookselling.”

Harriet sighed. “Well, if
you
think it’s a good idea . . .”

“Of course it’s a good idea,” George said cheerfully. “In fact, the client I just met over there is in the book industry. She’s in publishing, not sales, but she knows the book world better than anyone I know. You should meet her. Why don’t I introduce you?”

Jen nodded vaguely. “Sure. Give me her number,” she said.

“Rubbish, I’ll introduce you now. You’ve got to grab opportunities when they present themselves, Jennifer. Don’t ever leave till tomorrow what you can do today.”

“I’m tired, Dad.” Jen groaned. “Let me just have a drink, please?”

But her words fell on deaf ears, and George was already on his feet. “Come with me,” he commanded.

Reluctantly, Jen followed her father to the other side of the pub, where she saw a glamorous blond woman sitting with three middle-aged men.

Her eyes flickered up and met George’s with a smile, then she turned to Jen, who was frowning.

“Anita, this is my daughter, Jen. She’s doing an MBA at Bell and writing a dissertation on bookselling. I thought the two of you should get to know each other. What do you think?”

Anita flashed a smile at Jen. “Love to, George. Hi, Jen. So you’re interested in bookselling, are you?”

Jen stared at her, scowling. She was the woman from the restaurant, the one whom Daniel had been all over.

“Actually, I’m not sure my dissertation is going to be on bookselling anymore,” she said quickly, her stomach starting to churn. Anita was the last person in the world she wanted to talk to. In fact, she didn’t want to have to look at her for one more minute.

“What are you talking about?” asked George, bemused. “You just said—”

“I said I was thinking of bookselling. I’ve changed my mind,” Jen said firmly, adding, before she could stop herself, “I’ve had enough of booksellers and bookselling.”

Anita stared at her, then her eyes widened. “You’re not Jen as in Daniel’s Jen, are you?” she asked.

Jen’s eyes narrowed. “I was,” she said pointedly as her father looked at her, confused. “Before he decided to drop me for you.”

Now Anita was looking confused. “Drop you for me? What the hell are you talking about? Daniel’s crazy about you,” she said, eyes wide.

“I saw you in the restaurant,” Jen said angrily. “Look, it’s fine, really. Have him.”

“But I don’t want him,” Anita said, her face incredulous. “We were having lunch, that’s all. Why would you think otherwise?”

Jen tried to keep her voice level but was struggling. The last thing she wanted was to come across as the petulant girlfriend in front of the glamorous Anita. And her father.

“He kissed you. And he hasn’t called me. He was shitty to me when I last saw him and as soon as I left he went running off to have lunch with you . . .”

So, not doing so well at not sounding petulant,
she thought to herself.

But Anita was smiling, not staring at her as if she were a sniveling child. “I was giving him advice, Jen. He was feeling terrible about the argument you guys had. He told me he’d behaved like a total prick and he didn’t think you’d ever want to see him again.”

Jen noticed her father wince slightly. “He did behave like a total prick,” she said with a little smile.

“And when he told me what he said to you,” Anita continued, “I totally agreed with him. But I said that if he apologized for a week, you might just forgive him.”

Jen nodded, and her smile grew a little bigger.

“Anyway, he only kissed me to say thank you before running off to find you. He even called Bell Consulting and discovered you weren’t there, so he was planning to go to your flat. That’s the last I heard, anyway. So didn’t he find you?”

Jen frowned and shook her head. “He never came,” she said, her heart quickening its pace at the news that Daniel wasn’t sleeping with Anita. That he’d felt bad after the argument. But why hadn’t he come over? What had stopped him? “Maybe he changed his mind,” she suggested, in a faltering voice.

Anita shook her head. “No, he was definitely going over.”

Jen racked her brain desperately. Had she been out? Had she been in the bath? Had she . . .

Suddenly she looked at Anita and took out her phone. “Gavin,” she said frantically. “Gavin was there.”

Anita nodded, humoring Jen as if she knew exactly who Gavin was.

Jen dialed a number and waited, her face gradually getting hot. She heard Gavin’s voice as he picked up.

“Yeah?”

“Gavin,” she said. “Did you bump into Daniel the other day? When you left my place, did you bump into Daniel? And if you lie to me, I swear I will skin you alive.”

There was a pause. “I might have done.”

Jen sighed loudly. She could feel the adrenalin sweeping through her body. “And did you, by any chance, say anything to him that might have made him turn around?”

Another pause. “Look, Jen, I might have told him that we were kind of back together. And that you never wanted to see him again. But I was only thinking of you. I was just working on the basis that if he wasn’t on the scene, you and me might . . .”

“You . . . you bloody imbecile,” Jen shouted. “You stupid, idiotic . . .”

“Bastard?” offered Anita.

“Bastard,” confirmed Jen, quickly hanging up the phone. “Dad, I’ve got to go,” she said breathlessly, turning to Anita and smiling. “Thanks. And sorry about the whole thinking you were sleeping with him business.”

Anita smiled. “No problem. Maybe we could have lunch sometime to talk about your dissertation. Make Daniel jealous instead?”

Jen nodded gratefully, gave her dad a quick kiss, and ran out of the pub, stopping only to tell her mother that she was going, and refusing to listen to Harriet’s suggestion that she do something else entirely.

30

Daniel wiped his hands on his trousers and looked at his watch. In just five minutes, the other board members would arrive and all eyes would be on him. He would tell them about his cost-cutting plans; about his plans to wage a price war with children’s fiction. And then he would go and kill himself.

Daniel frowned. No, he corrected himself, that’s not what he’d do at all; he would go and implement the plans. He was a managing director and he had to start behaving like one. It wasn’t like he had much else going for him, he thought ruefully.

Suddenly he got the urge to call Jen, to ask her why she was with that ridiculous tramp of a boyfriend, to ask her to run away with him to Borneo or somewhere equally far away. But he dismissed the idea as soon as he’d had it. Focus on the here and now, he told himself. Focus on what you’ve actually got, not on pipe dreams.

He checked his watch a second time and decided he had time to nip to the men’s room.

Jen pushed open the doors to Wyman’s tentatively, trying to work out what she was going to say. “I’m sorry” didn’t really seem to cover it sufficiently; “I’m sorry, and don’t worry, I’m going to detach Gavin’s limbs from his body” seemed a little over the top. And what if he just looked at her like she was mad? He might not have cared when Gavin told him that she’d got back with him. He might have been relieved.

She shook herself. Of course he wasn’t relieved. This was going to be one of those great reunions, she just knew it. Maybe she should have brought flowers.

The receptionist was busy chatting to someone at the desk, and Jen decided not to risk being asked if she had an appointment, heading straight for the elevator instead. Then she thought of something. Pausing briefly, she reached for the flowers that were still sitting right there. So, the lilies were a bit old—they were still better than nothing. She tried taking out one or two stems, but they were all tied up together and after grappling for a moment or two and worrying that the receptionist was going to say something, she picked up the entire vase and jumped into the elevator.

A minute later, the doors pinged open on Daniel’s floor and Jen stepped out, wondering again what on earth induced her to take an entire vase of flowers from the reception area. It was so big it nearly covered her face. Which, she conceded, wasn’t such a bad thing—at least it gave her camouflage as she walked down the corridor, even if she did look faintly ridiculous.

As she approached Daniel’s office, she saw that the door was open and that no one was inside. A middle-aged woman, presumably his secretary, was sitting outside.

“Those for the board meeting?” she asked vaguely, peering at her computer screen as she spoke.

Jen thought for a moment. If there was a board meeting, Daniel would be there.

She nodded.

“Down the corridor,” the woman said, pointing left.

Jen obediently followed her directions, trying to shift the vase in her hands so that she could see where she was going. She would just grab Daniel before he went in, she thought to herself. Quickly tell him that Gavin was a lying idiot and that if he was free later, perhaps they could meet up and talk. And if he said no, well, that would be fine. She would simply hand him the flowers, and walk away, dignity intact.

Or not,
she thought with a shrug. But, then again, if she got really desperate, there was always the option of begging and wailing, she decided, with a little smile.

The corridor ended with double doors, which were open, leading to an empty room. As she walked in, Jen took a deep breath and tried to go over what she wanted to say. She immediately found herself stifling a yawn— it was only midafternoon but she realized she was exhausted. Still, she wasn’t surprised—she’d never known a day like this.

She closed her eyes briefly and leaned against the wall. She should put the flowers down, she decided. It wasn’t really helping her, lugging around a huge vase full of water and lily stems.

But before she could move, she felt someone looking at her, and opened her eyes quickly.

There was a man with gray hair frowning at her. “Can I help you?”

“I . . . um . . . I was looking for Daniel. Daniel Peterson.”

“Are those for the boardroom?” He was looking at the flowers.

Jen started to shake her head, then decided against it. “Yes. I suppose. I mean, they’re for Daniel . . .”

“For the boardroom,” the man said. It was a statement, not a question, and Jen found herself walking in and placing the vase in the middle of the table.

“Daniel,” the man continued, “what on earth did you order these flowers for? No one will be able to see anyone else.”

Jen turned round, startled, to see Daniel appear at the door. He looked over at her and his eyes widened.

“I didn’t . . .” he started to say, then stopped, his face utterly flummoxed.

The older man was staring at Jen, who shrugged limply at Daniel.

“. . . didn’t realize they’d be so big,” Daniel finished, looking at Jen curiously now.

She nodded seriously. “No, nor did I,” she said. The older man was now staring at her oddly, and she took another breath, turning imploringly to Daniel. She had to let him know why she was here. Had to explain. “The . . . the shop just wanted to inform you . . .” she said hesitantly. “About the mixup a few days ago. Our employee, Gavin—the one who looks like a tramp— he . . . well, he wasn’t entirely telling the truth . . .”

There was a hint of a smile playing on Daniel’s lips.

“Not
entirely
telling the truth?” he asked.

“Not at all, actually,” Jen said, rolling her eyes. “He made it all up.”

“I’m so pleased,” Daniel said quickly. “I was so desperate to apologize for my dreadful behavior. The last time I was . . .” He looked over at Robert and frowned slightly. “. . . in the shop, I was angry and it had nothing to do with the . . . flowers.”

The man was shaking his head now. “Apologize? What sort of contract have we got with these people? And what are you doing spending your time in florists, Daniel? I thought you’d been working on corporate strategies for the board to agree on.”

He was smiling thinly, and Jen suddenly realized why they were in the boardroom. Today was the big day, Daniel’s make-or-break presentation.

“Actually, no,” Daniel said evenly. “And actually, she’s not a florist.”

Jen reddened guiltily. If Daniel told this guy who she was, he’d never live it down.

“Then who is she?”

Daniel looked at her, then looked at Robert, as if doing a quick mental calculation, while Jen held her breath. This was an important day for Daniel. She wouldn’t let him screw it up just because she’d turned up out of the blue.

“I’m from Bell Consulting,” she said suddenly. “I’ve . . . I’ve been working with Daniel on the ideas for this presentation.”

She shrugged helplessly at Daniel, who grinned.

“Robert, meet Jennifer Bell.”

Robert turned to look at her curiously, shook his head in wonderment, then wandered over to greet the other people who were arriving for the meeting.

Daniel winked and moved over toward her. “I’m so glad you came,” he whispered. “And I’m so, so sorry. You were right—I was a prick.”

“No, I’m sorry,” Jen whispered. “You present what you like—it’s got nothing to do with me.”

“Bugger that,” Daniel said firmly, then he frowned. “I deleted our presentation,” he said dolefully, then looked at Jen hopefully. “Can you remember any of it?”

Jen thought for a moment, then pulled some paper out of her bag. “Most of it’s in here,” she said, handing him her half-written assignment.

Daniel grinned. “Play along with me, okay?” he said softly as the others came over to say hello.

Jen nodded silently and felt Daniel’s hand brush so lightly against hers that she almost thought she imagined it, but the tingling sensation that resulted from it told her otherwise.

“Daniel,” said Robert as everyone started to take their seats around the table, “I hope you know what you’re doing. I don’t remember you mentioning any consultants.”

Daniel grinned. “No, I don’t think I did. But don’t worry—for the first time in a long time I know exactly what I’m doing.”

As Robert sat down uncertainly, Daniel turned back round to Jen. “I can’t remember half the stuff we talked about,” he whispered. “You’re going to have to prompt me.”

“Stuff?” Jen whispered back. “What do you mean?”

“Bookselling,” Daniel whispered, his eyes twinkling. “I want to talk to them about good, old-fashioned bookselling.”

“And so,” Daniel said, looking around the room, “to sum up, there’s no point in us being in the bookselling business if we’re going to act like we’re selling just anything—potatoes, computers, whatever. The point is that books are different, and if we’re going to grow, we need to be different too.”

He looked at Jen, who gave him a reassuring smile. Doing a presentation with no notes and no slides was a crazy thing to do, but somehow Daniel had got through it, with Jen scribbling things down on bits of paper as she remembered them, and passing them to him. It had felt quite exhilarating—felt like Daniel and her against the world, fighting their corner. Or, you know, sitting in a boardroom telling a load of businessmen how to run a business. She smiled at Daniel as he looked around the room.

Robert cleared his throat. “All very interesting, Daniel. But we’ve heard a lot of waffle and very few specifics. Would you like to enlighten us on how you might make Wyman’s
different
?”

Jen watched as Daniel put his hands through his hair nervously, three times in a row. “Well,” he said hesitantly, obviously thrown off his stride, “we had a number of ideas. There were, um, well, in terms of customer knowledge, we were thinking along the lines of, uh . . .”

“Working in partnership with other companies,” Jen prompted. “One of the big travel websites, for instance. A customer books a flight to Spain, and the travel web-site is linked to Wyman’s, so they can buy a Spanish guidebook at the same time, or maybe a couple of novels set in Spain. If it’s a beach location, the system suggests beach reads. And then, if you buy a book, it’s waiting for you on your seat when you get on the plane so you don’t have to carry it around with you.”

Jen watched as Robert frowned. Daniel looked at her with a grateful smile and nodded for her to continue.

“Or branding,” she said, getting into her stride now. “At the moment, Wyman’s is a great shop, but once someone’s bought a book, once they’ve taken it home, it could have come from anywhere, couldn’t it? I mean, it’s not like Marc Jacobs where you have the label to remind you why you spent that money.”

She looked around the boardroom, and was met by a sea of curious eyes.

“Okay, so here’s an idea,” she said, remembering sitting on Daniel’s sofa a couple of weeks before, drinking wine and coming up with all these schemes. “When your buyers choose the books they want to stock each month, they don’t just order whatever quantity; they do a joint venture. They guarantee to take a fixed number of books in return for having the Wyman’s brand on the back. Books from Wyman’s will be instantly recognizable. And people will want to shop there because of it. It’s a possibility, right?”

Daniel was grinning now. “We could have a loyalty program,” he said, the excitement back in his voice, “with reduced prices for members, invitations to talks by authors, chat rooms to discuss books online. We could publish a magazine with the first chapters of a whole load of books to entice people into the shop. We could even give it out for free on planes and enable people to order books for their return flights . . .”

“Yes, thank you, Daniel, and er . . .” Robert looked at Jen vaguely.

“Jennifer Bell,” Daniel said firmly.

“Right. Well, thank you, both of you. But, Daniel, as we’ve discussed before, I think what the board is really looking for is a, how shall I put this, a more focused plan. A strategic plan that considers our supply chain, cost efficiencies, that sort of thing . . .”

“I disagree,” said one of the men round the table. “I think we need a bit of creativity.”

“I like the airline idea,” said another. “I know the chief exec of American Airlines. I’m sure he’d be interested.”

Robert frowned. “Well, of course, we may individually like one or two of the ideas, but in the round, what it amounts to is . . .”

“. . . is what I want to do,” Daniel concluded for him. “Take it or leave it.”

“Well,” said Robert, “in that case I really think we need to . . .”

“Take it,” said the man who liked the airline idea.

“Absolutely,” said the man who was in favor of creativity.

“I agree,” said a mousy woman who hadn’t spoken for the whole meeting.

Robert looked around, his eyebrows raised to the middle of his forehead.

“But . . . but . . .” he said helplessly.

“Thanks for all your help, Robert,” Daniel said, picking up his things. “I think that probably concludes this meeting. I’ll see you tomorrow?”

Then he turned to Jen and winked. “If you’re not too busy carting bloody great vases of lilies around this evening, do you think I might be able to buy you dinner?”

She smiled broadly. “I’d like that,” she said softly. “And Daniel?”

He looked at her expectantly.

“Anita says ‘hi.’ ”

“Anita?” Daniel shook his head. “God, you can’t trust anyone to keep their mouths shut these days, can you?”

And with that, he leaned down, picked Jen up, and kissed her, just like she’d been dreaming he would all the way through the meeting.