Learning curves (7 page)

“Harriet, I need you to go through the accounts with me,” he said immediately.

Harriet waved him away. “Tim, I really don’t have the time at the moment. I thought I employed you to look after the finances for me?”

Tim sighed. “I’m an accountant, not a magician, Harriet. The fact of the matter is that we’re hemorrhaging cash at the moment and we need to make some cuts somewhere.”

Harriet frowned, then remembered Paul’s words. She needed more confidence in her ability. How right he was. If only Tim would see things in the same way.

“Tim, what is Green Futures’ mission?” she asked, looking at him closely.

He frowned. “Holistic business, holistic growth,” he muttered.

“Precisely. And growth takes funding, Tim, you know that. Perhaps there’s more money going out than coming in right now, but I believe that we are doing the right thing. Do you believe that, Tim?”

Tim looked at her uncertainly. “Of course I believe in that, but if we lose much more money we . . .”

Harriet put her fingers to her lips, and Tim stopped talking. “We must invest to grow,” she said softly, remembering the words that she’d used for her first
Financial Times
interview. “It is precisely because companies are so concerned with profits and the bottom line that corporate disasters continue to occur. Have faith, Tim.”

Tim nodded and left her office, and Harriet sat down at her desk. He had sent her three e-mails, all tagged URGENT, and she deleted them one by one.

Focus,
she reminded herself.
Tim can look after the figures—I need to focus on the bigger picture. And on organizing this party.
Pleased that she had a plan of action, she smiled and picked up the phone.

Tim walked wearily back to his office.

“Not a good meeting?” his assistant, Mick, asked in a deadpan voice.

“What do you think?” Tim said, his voice that of a defeated man.

“So she didn’t think the one-and-a-half-million-pound black hole was a bit of a worry?”

“Didn’t get a chance to tell her, did I?” Tim said. “She told me that focusing on the bottom line led to corporate greed.”

Mick raised his eyebrows. “So we’ll be going out for a nice expensive lunch on expenses, then?”

Tim sighed. “I don’t see why not,” he said, putting down his files. “If everyone else is going to spend money like it grows on trees, I don’t see why we shouldn’t either.”

7

Jen pulled her coat around her more tightly and watched her breath become steam in the cold autumn air.
This had better be important,
she thought to herself irritably as she looked at her watch for the second time. Her mother had insisted that they had to talk and had then suggested this clandestine meeting in the park. Like they were working for MI5 or something.

She frowned. Maybe she was being unfair. Maybe her mother really had got hold of some important information and was being followed. Big corporations didn’t like to be found out. They could both be in danger.

Jen laughed at herself.
Too much late-night television,
she thought, shaking her head and scolding herself for allowing her mother’s hysteria to get to her. Harriet lived for excitement, for the appearance of danger and mystery. What she’d do if she ever faced any genuine danger, Jen didn’t know.

She looked at her watch again. She had a lecture that afternoon with Daniel and she wanted a prime seat, toward the front. If she was late because her mother couldn’t keep her own appointments, he would not be impressed.

“Darling, you’re here!” Harriet was breathless, clutching coffee in her hands to warm them up.

“I’m surprised you’re calling me ‘darling.’ Shouldn’t we have code names or something?” Jen said with a little smile.

Harriet looked like she was considering the idea, then caught her daughter’s expression and sighed.

“Really, darling, I don’t know why you have to be so difficult. Now, isn’t this nice?” She sat down on the bench next to Jen and looked around. “I do love the autumn in London, don’t you?”

Jen looked at her curiously. “Are we here to talk about the weather?”

Harriet shook her head and turned to Jen, her eyes shining. “No. I’ve got some news.”

Jen felt a little thrill jolt through her. “Me too. I was on the eighth floor the other day, and these guys were bringing Dad some tickets to Indonesia.”

“He’s going to Indonesia? When?”

“I don’t know,” Jen admitted. “But I’ll try and find out. So what’s your news?”

“I’m going to have a party!”

Jen frowned. “That’s it? You get me on a park bench to tell me you’re having a party?”

Harriet looked at her daughter despairingly. “A new-beginnings party. It’s important, Jen. I was talking to Paul and it made me realize that I’ve allowed myself to get too caught up in the day-to-day stuff of running a business. I need to look beyond that, go back to my core mission. To be a beacon! I’m going to invite the press. I’m going to put Green Futures back on the map!”

“With a party?” Jen said flatly.
Why am I surprised,
she asked herself irritably.

Harriet’s eyes narrowed. “Yes, Jen. With a party.”

“Tim said you had some cash-flow issues. Can you afford a big party?”

“Tim should think before he opens his mouth. Look, Jen, I don’t need advice on how to run my business from someone who thinks the world is run by spreadsheets. I thought you of all people would understand . . . Paul’s going to Scotland next week and I thought you might like to help. . . .”

Jen looked at her mother in amazement. “You really didn’t bring me all the way here to talk about a party, did you? Because your precious Paul has suddenly realized he’s got other, more important things to do? Mum, will you look at yourself? This is crazy. I’m meant to be in lectures. I thought you had something important to tell me.”

Harriet looked at Jen with wide eyes. “I see. So Green Futures isn’t important to you? I suppose you’re far too busy doing your
MBA.
”

“Which I wouldn’t be doing if it wasn’t for you and your big ideas.”

“Well, if you’re not interested in my big ideas, then I really don’t know what I’m doing here,” Harriet said in an injured voice. “I’m sorry if I disappoint you, Jennifer. I’m just doing my best, you know. Trying to hold everything together, as always. . . .”

She stood up and Jen sighed. That was Harriet’s favorite card that she always used to win any argument— the “I’m a single parent and lone entrepreneur and am single-handedly trying to save the world” trump card that she could never beat.

“You’re doing more than your best,” Jen relented. It just wasn’t worth arguing with Harriet, dealing with the long radio silence, the quivering lip, and the long, drawn-out making-up session in which her mother needed not just the last word, but all the ones before it, too. And anyway, it wasn’t really Harriet’s fault. Jen’s irritation wasn’t directed entirely at her.

“I’m just frustrated that I’m not doing better myself,” she said with a shrug. “I’m not sure I’m the best spy ever . . .”

“We all do what we can, Jennifer, and no one can ask any more of us,” Harriet said with a little smile, sounding much happier. “Now, I’d better go and start the planning for the party if I have to do it all on my own. It’s going to be such a lot of work, but I know it’s going to make a big difference. Let me know what you find out about your father’s Indonesian trip, won’t you?”

Jen nodded and sat still as Harriet kissed the top of her head and marched off across the park.

Poor Tim,
Jen thought to herself as she watched her mother disappear.
Poor all of us.

She sat for a minute, watching people walking through the park, enjoying the peace and quiet. Then she picked up her bag. It was time to get going.

Someone sat down next to her and Jen took it as a prompt to get up and go. But as she heaved the bag over her shoulder, the person spoke to her.

“So, is this where you do your own internal analysis?”

She looked up, startled, then felt her stomach somersault. It was Daniel.

“I . . . um . . . well, in a manner of speaking,” she said carefully, glad that the cold air was preventing her face from going red this time. He was even better looking close up, with little curls around his hairline and the longest eyelashes she’d ever seen on a man.

“So . . . do you work near here?” she asked after a pause. “You work in bookselling, don’t you? I’m Jen, by the way.”

Daniel laughed. “Pleased to meet you, Jen. I’m Daniel.”

Jen raised her eyebrows and he looked a bit embarrassed. “Yes, okay, I guess you knew that already.”

He looked away quickly as if to regain some control over the situation. “Anyway, you were asking about my work? I suppose you’d call it bookselling,” he said easily. “Although I rarely get to actually sell any books these days. Have you heard of Wyman’s?”

Jen nodded. Wyman’s was one of the bigger bookstore chains, and they were all over London.

“I was there just the other day!”

“Well then, you know who I work for.”

Jen wondered what to say next. She didn’t know much about bookselling—only book buying, which, she figured, probably wasn’t the same thing at all.

“I was really interested in what you were talking about the other day,” she said after another pause. “The choice between ethics and profit, I mean. It’s something I’ve thought a lot about.”

Daniel looked at her interestedly and Jen found herself staring into his eyes, which turned out to be a soft greeny brown, and was unable to look away.

“Who did you work for before this?” he asked, and Jen managed to tear her eyes away, only to look straight back into his again.

“Green Futures,” she said. “The consultancy firm.”

“I know what Green Futures is,” Daniel said quickly. “Harriet Keller, the storm trooper of ethical business. You work closely with her?” Jen nodded.

“Well, I can see why you’re interested in ethics, then. To be honest, it’s not really my speciality—you’ll know a lot more than me if you worked for Harriet Keller. I just wanted to get the point across that you have to know what you want, otherwise you don’t have a chance in hell of getting it. Now, we should probably be making our way to Bell Towers, shouldn’t we? Aren’t I meant to be lecturing you to death at three P.M.?”

Jen grinned and stood up. There were little droplets of ice forming on her coat and yet she felt incredibly warm as they walked back toward Bell.

She certainly knew what she wanted now. All she had to work out was how to get it. Maybe her mother’s ideas weren’t so bad after all, she thought to herself as she walked, sneaking little peeks at Daniel all the way back to the office. Maybe things were finally looking up.

That weekend, Jen found herself at her kitchen table, attempting to write her internal analysis assignment. Every time she wrote something, she read it with Daniel’s eyes and immediately deleted it. Too naïve, too outlandish, too boring. She wanted to write an assignment that would make him look at her differently. An assignment that would bowl him over, make him want to talk to her about it, maybe over dinner . . .

She shook herself.
No one ever fell in love with an assignment,
she told herself firmly. And even if they had, she was pretty sure it wouldn’t have been about internal analysis.

She looked at the question again. “Conduct an internal analysis of an organization or industry of your choice, using the models and theories discussed in the course.” It was straightforward, at least. No trick question there. But it was also about as inspiring as . . . well, as something very uninspiring. Jen sighed.

Unless . . . she frowned. If she were to do an internal analysis of a bookseller, that would get his attention, wouldn’t it? If she could come up with things that Daniel hadn’t even thought of . . . Okay, maybe that was unlikely bearing in mind that she’d been learning about internal analysis for a few weeks and he was teaching it. But still, he might find it interesting. He might even be flattered.

Smiling, Jen got up and made herself a cup of tea, then sat back down to work.

“I’ve ordered your usual.”

Jen grinned at Angel. “Thanks.”

“So you were working all last night? Like, actually doing an assignment? I thought you were doing this course under sufferance?” Angel’s face was incredulous.

“I know, I surprised myself. But there’s this guy who lectures us. Daniel. I just . . . well, I wanted my assignment to be good.”

Angel laughed. “You’re actually going to get really into this MBA, aren’t you? You’ll end up working as a Bell consultant or something. It’s so wonderfully ironic. . . .”

Jen grimaced. “I am not going to be a Bell consultant. And I still think MBAs are hideous. But if I’m going to do it, I may as well do it properly . . . Know your enemy and all that.”

“So this Daniel is the enemy?”

Jen blushed and Angel raised her eyebrows.

“Not exactly.”

“I don’t know anyone as complicated as you, Jen. Really, I don’t know how you manage sometimes.”

Jen looked at Angel curiously. “I’m not complicated at all. I’m perfectly straightforward.”

Angel stirred her herbal tea. “Jen, you spend your life rebelling against things, then rebounding back again. Your father, your mother, Gavin. I lose track myself!”

“And you’re so straightforward?” Jen challenged. “You say you don’t want an arranged marriage or to be an Indian wife, but you never have a serious boyfriend. You won’t drink coffee because of all the toxins, but I bet you were necking vodka shots last night as per usual . . .”

Angel’s eyes twinkled and she put on her best demure face. “Vodka’s very pure, you know. But okay, enough. I didn’t say that complicated is bad, did I? It could have been a compliment.”

“Was it?”

Angel laughed. “Yes and no. So, this Daniel person. Is he a good man? And has he got any money?”

Jen nodded as her muesli, yogurt, and bagel with jam arrived. For someone who said she hated her mother’s attitude toward men and marriage, Angel managed to sound a lot like her sometimes. “You’d like him,” she said with a smile. “He isn’t like Gavin at all.”

“Then I like him already. But he’s your teacher, right? So nothing’s going to happen?”

Jen shrugged and started eating. “He’s probably married with five children. But it doesn’t stop a girl dreaming, does it?”