Learning curves: a novel of sex, suits, and business affairs

by Gemma Townley

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 m
oney.”

  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.

  EPILOGUE

  “So did Jack tell you about Brian?”

  Jen listened idly to the two men standing nearby as she waited for Daniel outside the church.

  “Brian-who-shags-everything-that-moves Brian? No, no I don’t think so.”

  “The very same. Oh, man, you’re going to love this then. So, six months ago he’s been out at this company bash, a late night, he’s maybe overdone it a little on the Bacardi Breezers, if you know what I’m saying. Tried to go home with Carly from Mergers, but she told him where to go. Anyway, he’s on his way home when he decides he needs to take a leak. Like, he really needs to. So he convinces the taxi to stop, he jumps out, and he’s there, taking a leak down an alley when he’s mugged by this group of young guys.”

  “No!”

  “Really! And they don’t just take his money—they take all his clothes, too. They leave him with his keys, that’s all. Which is nice of them really. I mean, it could be worse, right?”

  “I guess . . .”

  “Okay, but it doesn’t end there. See, he gets home to his apartment building and he finds his wife outside, all packed up ready to go. And when he asks her what she’s doing there, she tells him that she doesn’t want to see him anymore because she’s been sleeping with his best friend for a year.”

  Jen frowned. She’d heard this story before. If she wasn’t very much mistaken, it was the story that had led her to Daniel, all those months ago. And led her into the men’s room, of course. Still, hopefully now she’d actually get to find out what happened.

  “You’re kidding!”

  “No, I’m deadly serious. And he’s standing there, in his underpants, and fortunately she wants the cab so she agrees to pay his fare too, but when he goes to open the door he finds that she’s double locked it. He doesn’t have the key. So he decides to go round to see the friend. Only he’s got to drive there as he hasn’t got any money . . .”

  “You look lovely. But what are you doing skulking around here? I’ve been looking for you.”

  Jen looked up at Daniel, who was in his morning suit and looked more gorgeous than she’d ever seen him. As he leaned down to kiss her, she heard Jack and his friend wander off toward the church and sighed in irritation.

  “Now I’m never going to find out what happened to Brian,” she said in exasperation.

  Daniel looked at her oddly and she rearranged her tightly boned dress to enable her to breathe.

  “Who’s Brian?”

  Jen grinned. “I have no idea. Look, I’m sorry, I was just eavesdropping. You look pretty nice too, by the way.”

  He nodded gallantly. “Are you going to be okay walking down the aisle in that thing? It looks hideously uncomfortable.”

  Jen shrugged. “I don’t exactly have much choice, do I? You can’t imagine Mum was exactly open to my ideas, can you?”

  “Don’t be too hard on her,” Daniel said as he leaned down to give her another kiss. “It is her wedding day, after all.”

  “Let’s just hope she gets here, shall we?” Jen suggested. Harriet wasn’t known for her organizational skills, and as chief bridesmaid, Jen had planned to arrive with her, making sure she got there on time. But, of course, there had been a last minute change of plan—Harriet had had a change of heart about the flowers and had insisted that Jen get there early to check that her instructions had been followed to the letter. She needn’t have worried— the whole church was full of white roses and the smell was quite intoxicating.

  “She’ll be here, don’t worry. So are you going to wear that dress to your MBA graduation next week?”

  Jen punched Daniel lightly on the arm. “Idiot. Go and do something useful.”

  He squeezed her hand and wandered off and as he did, Jen saw Angel arrive.

  “Angel! Over here!”

  Angel wafted over, her beautiful boyfriend in tow. “Hi, Ravi,” Jen said, beaming as he kissed her on both cheeks.

  “I still can’t believe this is the man you’re refusing to marry,” she whispered to her friend.

  Angel gave Jen a little shrug. “I don’t want an arranged marriage to him. Doesn’t mean he can’t ask me normally, though,” she said, a little glint in her eye.

  Jen rolled her eyes. “Only you, Angel. Look, you should go in and get a good seat—I’m just waiting for my mother.”

  Angel raised her eyebrows. “Things are getting less complicated for you, at last, aren’t they?” she said with the hint of a smile.

  Jen winked. “Maybe it’s your turn now,” she said, grinning.

  As Angel and Ravi wandered into the church, Lara and Alan walked over toward Jen.

  “Blimey, your tits look big in that dress,” Lara said in wonderment. “What have you got in there?”

  Jen blushed. “It’s the boning. It hoists everything upward,” she explained, embarrassed. “And it’s bloody painful, to be honest.”

  Alan grinned sheepishly. “You look lovely,” he said
. “And please ignore my girlfriend’s crude language. She’s just jealous that someone else’s breasts are more on display than hers.”

  “You idiot!” Lara said playfully and Jen smiled. She still found it hard to believe the transformation in Alan, for which she took full credit, even though she knew that she’d really had very little to do with it. True to his word, he had applied his business management prowess to himself, and in the process he’d turned himself into an interesting, funny guy, who listened to people and made Lara happier than she’d ever expected to be. Plus, of course, he’d “revamped his brand” by ditching the glasses, buying some very nice clothes, and getting his hair cut. It was like a makeover show, Jen thought to herself regularly, only he’d done it all himself. And all to attract Lara, who he’d secretly been in love with from day one. Some spy I was, Jen thought to herself with a little smile. I didn’t see what was going on right under my nose.

  “Come on, Alan,” Lara said. “Everyone’s in the church now. We should go in. When’s your mum getting here, Jen?”

  Jen frowned. “God knows. She’s meant to be here any minute . . .”

  As she spoke, a car drew up. A white London taxi. And out of it stepped her mother, an apparition in cream silk. Lara and Alan waved at her, then turned to find their places in the church, and Jen ran over to meet her.

  “You look . . . perfect,” she said, small tears appearing in her eyes. “Just . . . perfect.”

  Harriet smiled bashfully, and Jen gave her a quick hug. She’d never seen Harriet looking anything that remotely resembled bashful before, and she wanted to make the most of it. As Harriet disentangled herself from Jen’s embrace, they made their way to the church door where Geoffrey was waiting for her, his beard back and proud.

  “Ready?” he asked.

  Harriet turned to Jen. “You think I’m doing the right thing?” she asked. “You don’t think it’s foolish to marry the same man twice?”

  Jen peeked into the church and saw her father waiting nervously at the front, checking his watch and removing imaginary specks from his morning suit. He saw her and smiled, a smile that she’d only discovered recently—the uncertain, humble smile of a man in love. No one had been more surprised than her when they announced that they’d decided to give things another go, and yet now it seemed the most natural thing in the world. George had invested in Green Futures, so they were partners in business again now, and they still argued most of the time, but now it was just friendly bickering. They needed each other, Jen had realized. And had never stopped caring about each other, even if they disguised it as hate for so long.