by Mia Caldwell
“Fortunately it can be faked,” Nick continued. “We’ll get in make-up and hair stylists to take care of…” he indicated Zoe’s general head region with a wave of a hand. “…that. I daresay a deep pore cleanse will take care of some of it. And you’ll need to go on a diet.”
“I’ll what?!” Zoe knew that she was not ‘model thin’ but nor was she by any stretch of the imagination fat. ‘Pleasingly plump’ was how she liked to think of it.
If he noticed Zoe’s raising ire, Nick did not seem to care about it. “If there are cheek bones in there somewhere, I’d like to see them. For women of Vanessa’s breeding, a salad is a main course, not as a side order to a burger and fries.”
“That must be why they’re so miserable all the time,” muttered Zoe. There really was only so long you could listen to someone critiquing everything about you before the urge to beat them over the head with a chair became irresistible.
“Can you walk in heels?” asked Nick.
“I’m wearing heels,” Zoe ground out through grated teeth.
Nick glanced down at Zoe’s sensible, square two inch high pumps that could have doubled as orthopedic footwear for his Nana . “I’ll take that as a ‘no’. You know what? We don’t really have time now to go through every detail. I’ll make you up a schedule for the first week, starting tomorrow, and we’ll take it from there. Be back here eight o’clock tomorrow morning, we’ve got a long day ahead.”
“Right.” Zoe got to her feet and stalked to the door with suppressed rage in every step.
“Don’t forget!” Nick called after her. “Learn to love salad!”
On the way home, Zoe stopped at McDonald’s for lunch. It was, she considered, an act of well-earned defiance, and was in no way her eating her feelings (as that know-it-all school psychiatrist had told her). But when she got home she found herself staring for long minutes into the bathroom mirror. Was she really that bad? She had always rather liked her unruly curly hair, but was it just untidy? Vanessa, who the world’s most expensive weave, had hinted more than once that Zoe looked unprofessional wearing her hair as she did.
She had always though that over made-up women looked like sex dolls for clowns, but did her minimal make-up just make her look tired? She had always thought of her clothes as ‘practical.’ Did her clothes lack class? Was she overweight? Her face was round but it had always struck her as ‘cute’.
Until now.
In fact there were a whole lot of things, that she had not questioned until now, that suddenly seemed of real importance. After a lifetime of thinking that being herself was a pretty good idea, Zoe wondered if being herself was why she was single and alone and in a lowly desk job. The only taste of the high life she was ever likely to get was by impersonating someone else.
Insecurity of one sort or another had always been a feature of Zoe’s life, that was just the sort of person that she was, one who lacked the confidence to stand up and shout to the world about how great she was. But deep down she had always known that they were just insecurities – not to be taken seriously. And yet, now those insecurities seemed to have been confirmed by a third party, they had been given credence and with it a devious life of their own. They rampaged through her, gleefully pointing out imperfections and cackling at her.
Zoe went to bed and lay awake, staring at the ceiling.
“I’m fine the way I am. This is just a job.” Saying it out loud seemed to help, and she rolled over to go to sleep. But still, through a troubled night, the demons of her subconscious tormented her and told her that she was not good enough, and that maybe this was a chance for her, not to be Vanessa, but to be better.
Chapter Four
On first seeing Zoe in his bar, Nick had considered the task he had set himself of turning her into a believable approximation of Vanessa Reese to be difficult. After meeting her, he considered it almost insurmountable. It was not just that she had no experience or knowledge of the finer things (the sort of things Jacques Jourdan would expect her to be conversant in), she seemed to radiate an aura of unsophistication.
Zoe, in Nick’s estimation, advertised her lack of polish in every word she said, every move she made and even in the way she looked. There was no mistaking Zoe Blanchard for someone who knew which fork to use and simply dressing her properly and getting her a new hairstyle was not about to fix that.
She was rather pretty though.
In a common, girl-next-door sort of way.
Not that that mattered.
That was completely unimportant and he wasn’t even sure why his brain had brought it up.
Back to the point in hand – he was not sure how he was ever going to make this work. The lack of sophistication was bad enough, it meant he would have to teach her everything from square one, but it was made worse by the girl’s obvious slowness and general stupidity.
She seemed to pick up what he was saying about five minutes after he had said it! How she had ever gotten a job assisting a person in such a position of authority as Vanessa Reese, Nick could not imagine. Privately he wondered if Zoe had seen those stampeding wildebeest and simply been too dumb to consider them worth mentioning to her boss.
It was with no great expectations therefore that Nick started Zoe’s lessons the following day at eight o’clock sharp, with an overview of RothCo’s corporate structure, thinking he’d have to start at square one, given her obvious ineptitude.
And he found himself taken completely by surprise.
What Zoe did not already know – and she proved far better informed than Nick had anticipated – she picked up with speed and intelligence.
Yesterday had shown her in a poor light, and it did not bode well for the plan that she was not at her best when being thrown into a strange situation, but her business knowledge and her ability to use that knowledge was first rate… better than Nick’s own if he was honest. She was quick with numbers, able to do sums in her head that Nick had to pull out his calculator for.
In the afternoon, Nick proceeded quickly to the deal itself, jumping a few steps as Zoe clearly needed no extra tuition, and found that Zoe was as well versed as he could have hoped and more. More than once she corrected him in his knowledge of the most up to date figures and several on his math.
“You’re very good at this,” Nick admitted, feeling a little guilty at his previous condescension.
“Thanks,” smiled Zoe. She sipped the coffee that Eddie had brought in, and then added four sugars and a huge helping of cream, an act which reminded Nick that his job was not finished yet.
As their ‘lesson’ progressed it was clear that Zoe not only understood what he was talking about and had a command of all the necessary facts, figures, and jargon. Zoe clearly had a business mind – she saw the future implications of actions and how they might be exploited to the company’s advantage.
She automatically included tax and subsidiary revenue in her mental calculations and applied the most advantageous business model, typing them quickly into an excel spreadsheet, pulling up pivot tables and showing him just how different variables affected the bottom line of RothCo.
It occurred to Nick that, had it not been for the manifest disadvantages she possessed elsewhere, then she would have long since moved up in the company.
But the bottom line remained; Zoe did not look like a business woman - she barely looked like a PA – no one was going to trust her with greater responsibilities because that first impression was the one that people took away.
Nick was starting to realize that was a mistake. Perhaps Zoe would mix uncomfortably with the more traditional type of executive, but she certainly didn’t lack the skills or ability.
In a way it was funny: Nick himself had all the right social advantages, but he lacked the business mind – him trying to explain this stuff to Zoe was a little like Barney the Dinosaur giving Stephen Hawking a lecture on the nature of time.
“You’ve done really well today,” said Nick, and immediately regretted it, as it sounded conde
scending, like a teacher talking to a child. It could be hard to congratulate someone without sounding massively patronizing.
“I know,” Said Zoe, apparently unconcerned. “Same time tomorrow?”
“Yes. There’s still a lot to do - but the business side you clearly have down pat.”
Zoe nodded. “Cool. Goodnight.”
“Goodnight,” said Nick as Zoe turned to leave. “And Miss Blanchard? Try not to say ‘cool’.”
He regretted that as well afterwards.
She would have to get out of the habit, of course. Executives did not say ‘cool’ (unless they were those executives who are trying to sound young and hip, usually for marketing purposes, and they just made everyone cringe), but the lesson could have waited until tomorrow. He could have let her go home on a positive note. She had done well today and they were ahead of schedule already, but the days to come would be the tough ones. With business taken care of they would be moving onto how to be Vanessa Reese, and that was an area in which Zoe had no prior experience.
The more time he spent with her though the more he noticed that she was prettier than he had first given her credit for.
Nick shook his head to dispel the thought. Why did his brain keep throwing that in there? She was not really that pretty. Was she? He shook his head again – it didn’t matter.
“You’ve got to be kidding.” Zoe looked at the horse incredulously. “You want me to sit up there?”
“On the saddle? Yes,” confirmed Nick. “Unless you can see somewhere else more convenient to sit on a horse.”
“I’ve never ridden a horse in my life!” Zoe wailed.
“You must have ridden something!” said Nick. “A pony, a donkey, a lazy boyfriend!” He wished he hadn’t said that last one – why had he said that?
Zoe shot him a dark look. “I don’t think that’s the same thing at all. And if it is, then I’m definitely not getting up there.”
“Sorry.”
“I rode a donkey once at a friend’s birthday party when I was five.”
“There you go!” Nick said encouragingly.
“Is riding a horse similar?”
“Not in the least.”
“Then why does it matter?!”
“Because,” Nick thought quickly, “the donkey was as much bigger than the five year old you, as the horse is bigger than you now. So it shouldn’t be that scary.”
Zoe looked at the horse again. “Okay.”
She placed a foot in a stirrup and, before Nick could say ‘wrong foot’, swung herself into the saddle. It was a surprisingly graceful swing for someone who had never done it before, which made it all the more of a shame that it ended with Zoe facing the horse’s backside.
Zoe peered forwards. “Something’s gone wrong.”
Nick could not help laughing and Zoe joined him, collapsing into giggles while the horse stood patiently, flicking its tail. Nick wondered if he should tell Zoe that executives do not giggle, but decided against it. Her giggle was a nice sound – who could object to that?
“Let me give you a hand down.”
“I’m fine.”
Zoe’s descent from the horse was, it had to be said, a lot less graceful than her ascent had been, but she made it unaided.
“It’s easier to get on than off isn’t it?” Zoe observed. “Other foot?”
“Yeah.”
Somehow, the complexities of mounting and hilarity of being presented with a horse’s ass, had distracted Zoe from her fear and she seemed pretty comfortable as she settled into the saddle, this time facing the right way. Nick mounted his own horse, beside her.
“I think I’m okay,” said Zoe, judiciously, “as long as we stay like this.”
“It’s not really riding if you don’t move.”
“I’m okay with that.”
“I’m not. We’re just going to go for a walk around the yard. Give it a little kick.”
“You’ve got to be kidding!” Zoe looked shocked. “It’s bigger than me! I make a point never to kick anything bigger than me. We’ve got an understanding, me and this horse: I don’t kick it, it doesn’t throw me off and leave me for dead.”
“It’s used to it,” Nick assured her. “You’re not really kicking, per se, you’re just squeezing.”
“Well then say ‘squeeze’,” suggested Zoe. “That’s how accidents happen. And don’t call me Percy.”
“Per se,” Nick explained. “It means…”
“I know what it means,” Zoe grinned and rolled her eyes. “Just yanking your chain. Per se. Let’s go, horse.”
Looking back on the event, Zoe would have been willing to admit that she had kicked rather than squeezed, and perhaps had kicked rather too hard at that. The horse took off like a bullet from a gun, with Zoe shrieking in terror. It reached the fence at the edge of the yard but did not even slow, leaping athletically over and setting out across the fields.
Nick set off in hot pursuit, pausing only briefly to wonder what would be the outcome if this happened in France. He caught up with Zoe two paddocks further on, caught hold of the reins and brought her to a safe stop. She was pale faced, wide-eyed and breathing heavily. She turned to speak, and Nick worried that her first words would be to quit the whole deal.
“My ass,” Zoe enunciated, “feels like I’ve spent an evening at a very specific type of ‘gentleman’s club’.”
“Can we avoid language like that?” suggested Nick.
“Fine. My ass feels like it’s seen more paddling than an Olympic kayaking course!”
“I’m not sure that’s a big improvement.”
“You’re damn right it’s not! It didn’t hurt at all before we started.”
“Not what I meant…” Nick began.
“I know!” Zoe began to dismount.
“It’s a long walk back,” Nick pointed out.
“Then perhaps the pain in my legs will distract me from the pain in my ass.”
“Again, could we avoid the word…”
Zoe shot a fierce look at him. “There are other parts of my anatomy that got pummeled as well, so unless you want me to start name-checking them, learn to live with my ass!”
She began to walk, rather gingerly, back across the paddock. Nick called after her. “Technically the lesson hasn’t actually started yet.”
“You’ve got the journey back to think of something you can teach me while sitting on a cushion!” snapped Zoe. “I’m not getting back on that damn thing today!”
Nick could not help smiling.
Previously, Zoe had been deferential and obedient, doing what she was told and accepting his rudeness and condescension as part and parcel of this curious deal they had made. This was the first time he had seen her like this, independent and answering back – the language needed adjustment but the attitude was actually great training for being Vanessa Reese.
He also found it oddly attractive.
It was probably best not to think about that.
“Are you picking these things just to spite me?”
It had been a few days since the horse-riding incident, and in those few days Nick had introduced Zoe to opera (‘So it’s fat people howling in German?’), to caviar (‘I know we eat chicken eggs and duck eggs, but somehow this is weird’) and to abstract art (‘That’s a tree?! I know kids that could do better!’). Now he felt that sufficient time had passed to try something a little more active again.
And something a little riskier.
“You must have been on a boat before,” said Nick, as they looked at the sailing boat that stood at the dock.
Zoe shook her head. “I’m not falling for that again. One minute you’re saying it’s just like riding a donkey, the next I can’t sit down for a week.”
“That was less than a week ago,” Nick pointed out.
“I am well aware of that,” said Zoe, darkly. “Didn’t you notice I brought a cushion to the opera? Wish I’d brought my iPod,” she added, shaking her head.
“Sailing is eas
y,” lied Nick, encouragingly.
“Doesn’t this guy have like a yacht?” Zoe pointed out. “With like a crew to do the sailing for him?”
“Yes,” acknowledged Nick. “But part of being cultured is being able to do the things that other people do for you. It’s the knowledge that you could do them yourself, but you’re far too busy working, appreciating art, drinking fine wine, and counting your money.”
“Sounds dumb to me.”
“Can we find a word other than ‘dumb’?”
Zoe gave him a sharp smile. “I can find several, if you would like to hear them.”
Nick considered this. “Perhaps we’ll stick with ‘dumb’ for now. Get on the boat.”
Zoe sighed. “Do I have to?”
“Yes. And stop complaining.”
Sometimes, Nick was discovering, it was necessary for him to put his foot down – he was after all the one in charge here and it did not pay to let Zoe forget that. For one thing, part of her training was an understanding of the hierarchy of business and indeed of life – some people (people like Vanessa and Nick) were at the top, and others (people like Zoe) were not.
It was not prejudicial or exclusive, it was how it was meant to be, a matter of birth—and yes, money. If uncultured people like Zoe were in charge then where would the world be?
Zoe reluctantly put a foot on the sail boat. “It’s moving!”
“Of course it’s moving!” Nick snapped – there were times when she just irritated him. “It’s on the water.”
“It’s moving away from the dock!” There was no denying it, the single foot Zoe had put on the boat was pushing it away from the dock, on which her other foot remained planted, forcing her increasingly into the splits.
“Put your other foot on the boat.”
“Are you crazy?! That thing’s not safe.”
“It’s a hell of a lot safer than this.”
“Help!” Zoe was now being stretched, further than she had been since High school gym class.
“Can you get the first foot back to the dock?”