by Susan Lewis
‘Mesdames, messieurs,’ she said, as everyone turned in her direction. ‘May I introduce you to Penny Moon. She will be conducting the meeting I have called you all here for and if you have any questions, any comments or worthwhile suggestions, please feel free to make them known. First, however, I would like you to introduce yourselves to Mademoiselle Moon by telling her your names and what you will be doing for our new magazine. If everyone would take a seat at the table, we will proceed in a clockwise fashion. Clothilde we already know so, Céline, perhaps you would like to begin.’
‘Bonjour, mademoiselle,’ the pleasant-faced woman began as Penny’s stupefied gaze came to rest on her. ‘I am Céline Minaudière. My speciality is food, so I shall be supplying restaurant critiques and recipes.’
‘Bonjour, mademoiselle,’ the middle-aged man next to Céline said, smiling. ‘Et bienvenue en France. My name is Barnabé Monray and I am a subeditor.’
‘Salut,’ the cheery-faced lad next to him said. ‘I’m English, my name’s Paul Smith and I’m a freelance hack.’
The next person was on the point of taking breath, when Penny finally pulled herself out of her stupor and, doing her utmost to disguise her anger, held up her hand. ‘OK, that’s far enough!’ she said. ‘I’m not entirely sure what’s been going on here, but I don’t think it’s going to take much working out, so before we go any further I’m afraid that whatever promises Marielle has made to any of you are null and void as of this moment, since she does not have the authority to recruit anyone. However, I will be happy to see each of you individually, when we will go through the proper formalities of interview.’ Turning on her heel to glare at Marielle, she said, ‘In my office now, please.’
She got only as far as the door before Marielle said, ‘Monsieur Villers has approved each—’
‘My office,’ Penny cut in furiously and, pushing the door open, she stalked inside, shaking with anger.
‘Close the door,’ she barked as Marielle came in after her.
With a long-suffering sigh Marielle pushed the door closed and looking every inch the editor in her short-jacketed navy suit and white silk shirt, she sauntered over to Penny’s desk, folded her arms and rested her weight on one leg.
‘Where is David?’ Penny demanded, taking off her coat and dropping it on an armchair. ‘And what is all this?’ she barked, seeing the untidy piles of paperwork on her desk.
‘It’s mine of course,’ Marielle replied, in a tone that suggested Penny was the usurper here. ‘I was here until very late last—’
‘Then clear it out and don’t use my office again without my permission,’ Penny snapped. ‘Now, I repeat, where is David?’
‘I’m afraid I don’t know,’ Marielle answered, resting her chin on a perfectly manicured finger.
Penny’s eyes flashed. ‘Then I suggest you find him, Marielle, and tell him I want to see him before the end of the day. And if you ever try pulling another stunt like that one out there on me again I’ll dismiss you on the spot. Do we have that straight?’
Marielle smirked.
Tearing her eyes away and putting her briefcase on her chair, Penny said, ‘Right, I’ll want to see the CVs, references and published examples of the work of everyone out there, and if they don’t have all that with them you can send them home to get it. I’ll allot each person twenty minutes, so you can draw up a schedule and those who aren’t required immediately can come back later. If they’re not available later it’ll be up to them to contact me themselves to make another appointment. Now, clear my desk, please.’
Marielle took her time stacking everything into neat little piles, then finally scooped up her work and carried it to the door.
‘You will find my sister, Samantha, out there,’ Penny told her. ‘She has the designer with her. Ask them to come in, please.’
As the door clicked shut behind Marielle, Penny put a hand to her head and closed her eyes. Her temples were throbbing and she was perspiring badly. She was quite unused to speaking to people that way, but then she’d never been in a position of authority before. But how much authority did she have when David bloody Villers was going behind her back like this? Her nostrils flared. And where the hell was he, the god-damned coward?
She looked up as the door opened and Clothilde came in carrying a cup of coffee. It was only then that Penny noticed the fresh paint on the walls, the additional chairs and tables placed in her office and how much larger and lived-in it appeared because of it.
‘You’re a life-saver,’ Penny smiled as Clothilde put the coffee on her desk and Sammy and Jeffrey came in behind her. ‘No, stay,’ she said, flopping down in her chair as Clothilde made to leave.
Sammy was grinning all over her face. ‘What a bitch!’ she chuckled. ‘Did you fire her?’
‘No,’ Penny answered. ‘But I probably should have. Clothilde, this is Sammy, my sister, and Jeffrey, the designer.’
Jeffrey’s eyes, made twice their size by the thick lenses of his wire-rimmed spectacles, softened in a smile as he shook Clothilde’s hand.
Penny fought back a smile of her own as she saw the instant adoption in Clothilde’s expression, which was transferred to Sammy as Sammy stepped forward to shake her hand too. For a moment Penny was tempted to ask Clothilde to warn her if she ever saw Marielle stepping out of line again, but to start splitting the team into two separate camps at this stage probably wasn’t wise.
‘Clothilde,’ she said, ‘do you think there is any chance at all that you might be able to fix me up with a secretary, even just a temporary one, by the end of the morning? I know I should have thought about this sooner, but no doubt I’m about to discover that plenty of other things have slipped through the net too.’
Clothilde’s wrinkly face broke into a smile. ‘As a matter of fact,’ she said, ‘I can offer you my niece, Brigitte. She is staying with us at the moment from Nantes. She will be nineteen next week.’
‘What qualifications does she have?’ Penny asked.
Clothilde grimaced. ‘I don’t think any,’ she answered. ‘And, to be truthful, her English isn’t very good, but she is a bright girl with a lot of energy and if nothing else she will be able to help out until you find someone else.’
‘OK, thank you,’ Penny smiled, wishing she could ask Clothilde to take it on, but Clothilde’s other commitments wouldn’t allow her to work the kind of hours Penny would be putting in over the next few months. ‘Maybe you’d like to go and give Marielle a hand in sorting out an interview roster,’ she said.
‘You’re going to interview them all?’ Sammy said, sitting down in one of the padded-leather and steel-limbed chairs the other side of Penny’s desk.
‘It would seem crazy not to,’ Penny answered, taking a sip of her coffee. ‘After all, they’re here, and for all I know they might be perfect. And, if they’ve come from where I think they have, the chances are a lot of them will be.’
‘Why, where do you think they’ve come from?’ Jeffrey asked, shrugging off his tweed jacket to reveal a pair of splendid red braces over a bright yellow shirt.
‘I gave Marielle the list of contacts the editor of the Nice-Matin was generous enough to give me. He said he was going to make a few more calls on my behalf as well, which I imagine he has and Marielle has worked from that too. Which is fine, but she had no right making any promises or, indeed, hiring a single person without my say-so.’
‘Did she have David’s?’ Sammy said.
‘So she claims and I don’t imagine she’s lying. But that’ll be for him and me to sort out – when he decides to show his face. Until such time I need to get these interviews over with and I’d like your help, both of you.’
‘Mine?’ Jeffrey said. ‘But—’
‘Yours,’ Penny interrupted. ‘I’ll need a sounding board and someone else’s gut instincts, so you two are it.’
By six o’clock that evening, punch-drunk from so many interviews on so many different subjects, Penny had seen fifteen out of the twenty or so peopl
e, most of whom she had hired either on a permanent or a freelance basis, with the result that they now had on staff an advertising director, a sales and marketing director, a fashion editor and two subeditors. The advertising and marketing directors, she had learned, were the only ones David had interviewed personally. And their lengthy list of contributors contained experts on everything from French bureaucracy to cryptic crossword puzzles – which, Penny thought wryly to herself, could easily be one and the same thing. But that this small stretch of coast had yielded up so much talent and in such a short space of time was something Penny was finding extremely curious, despite the help of the editor of Nice-Matin.
‘I get the feeling I’m missing something somewhere, do you?’ she remarked to Sammy and Jeffrey when the three of them were once again alone together. ‘I mean, it’s all been so damned easy. I wasn’t expecting to be in this position for at least another month or two and now here I am about to call a full editorial meeting for tomorrow.’
Jeffrey shrugged. ‘Well, I wouldn’t knock it if I were you, because this means you have every chance of getting launched by the end of August. Incidentally, at the risk of stating the obvious, you still need to find yourself a good printer.’
‘Yes, I hadn’t forgotten,’ Penny told him. ‘We’ll get on to it straight after the meeting tomorrow.’ Dropping her pen on the pad in front of her, she turned to put her feet on the edge of Sammy’s chair beside her. ‘You’re very quiet,’ she remarked.
‘Mmm,’ Sammy said. ‘I was just wondering if maybe Sylvia had been to work down here – you know, calling in old favours, rounding up all the contacts she has . . . What do you think?’
‘It’s certainly possible,’ Penny answered, treating herself to a luxurious stretch. ‘And if she has, who can blame her? After all, it’s her money. Anyway, I don’t know about you but I’m in sore need of food and drink before I start getting my act together for the meeting tomorrow. You don’t have to stay on, Jeffrey. You must be tired, having only just flown in this morning, and you still haven’t checked into your hotel yet, have you?’
‘Aren’t you staying with us?’ Sammy asked, turning to look at him. ‘We’ve got plenty of room.’
Jeffrey smiled. ‘Penny did offer, but I’ve ungraciously turned her down. I’ll find myself a little studio apartment somewhere for the duration. Meanwhile, a hotel suits me fine. So, if you’re sure you don’t need me any more tonight, I’ll be off.’
‘Give young Brigitte the number of your hotel, will you?’ Penny said. ‘I might need to call you later. I’ll leave a message if you’re not there. And, while you’re at it, ask her to go and rustle up some kind of takeaway for me and Sammy.’
In fact, feeling the need to move around a bit, Penny followed Jeffrey out of the office and, seeing Marielle sitting at her desk, busying herself with God only knew what, she waited until the door closed behind Brigitte and Jeffrey before asking Marielle if she had managed to contact David yet.
‘Yes,’ Marielle replied, keeping right on with what she was doing.
‘And?’ Penny sighed wearily.
‘He’ll be here for the meeting tomorrow.’
‘Where is he now?’ Penny asked.
‘He didn’t say.’
Rolling her eyes in Sammy’s direction, Penny said, ‘Well, maybe you’d like to give me the phone number you dialled.’
‘He called me.’
‘I see. And when exactly did he call you?’
‘A few hours ago.’
‘So why didn’t you put him on to me?’
‘You were interviewing,’ Marielle reminded her.
A few seconds ticked by, then suddenly Penny’s hand crashed down on the desk in front of Marielle, making her jump.
‘Thank you,’ Penny smiled as at last Marielle looked up at her. ‘Now, I expect you already know that I have approved most of the people you had here today, but there were two I didn’t. The first was the film reviewer, because I have other plans for that column; the second was the Agony Aunt, because Samantha here will be running the problem page.’
Marielle slanted her eyes in Sammy’s direction. ‘Nepotism?’ she said derisively.
‘That’s it,’ Penny confirmed shortly. ‘Now, back to the matter of recruitment: I’d like to know how you managed to round up all those remarkably talented people in such a short space of time.’
Marielle shrugged. ‘It wasn’t difficult. I know a lot of people.’
Penny’s eyes bored into hers, but though it was evident that Marielle wasn’t going to relinquish the credit she did at least have the grace to blush.
Penny flicked a glance towards Sammy, who was watching them from the doorway; then, making a supreme effort to keep the chill from her voice, she said, ‘Maybe, Marielle, you would like to come into my office where we can discuss exactly what it is that you object to so strongly in me.’
Marielle looked at her, and for the second time that day she allowed a condescending sweep of her eyes to speak for her.
‘It doesn’t need to be this way,’ Penny told her, hanging on to her temper. ‘I’m perfectly prepared to accept you as an integral part of the team, but in turn you are going to have to accept that I am your boss.’
‘Correction,’ Marielle said smoothly. ‘David is my boss.’
Penny inhaled deeply and closed her eyes for the count of ten. But before she could speak again Marielle said, ‘Would you mind telling me what qualifications your sister has to run a problem page?’
Penny looked at Sammy and Sammy gave a brief shake of her head. ‘Sammy’s qualifications are known to me,’ Penny answered, ‘and will also be made known to David. All you need to know is that Sylvia Starke is happy with my decision. And quite frankly, Marielle, if you don’t buck your ideas up a bit your dismissal will become another of my decisions Sylvia Starke is happy with.’
Marielle rose majestically to her feet, her glassy eyes glittering with malice. She uttered not a word as she started packing up her briefcase, then walked across the office to get her coat. ‘That is the second time today you have threatened me,’ she said icily. ‘I will not be putting you to the trouble again. I resign,’ and swinging the door open she stalked out.
‘Fuck,’ Penny muttered.
‘Good riddance,’ Sammy added.
Penny turned to her, shaking her head. ‘As much as it galls me to admit it,’ she said, ‘we need her. There’s still a hell of a long way to go and her knowledge of the region, as well as her efficiency in getting things together the way she did today, is too valuable for me to let go.’
‘So what are you going to do?’
‘Right now? I’m going to start preparing for tomorrow’s meeting. Then early in the morning I’ll swallow my pride and call her.’
After working through until almost midnight the night before, Penny was back at her desk at seven the next morning. Until Clothilde arrived at eight she was alone in the office, having left Sammy at home boning up on pop psychology. During the evening she had found another task for Sammy, that of seeking out all the happening hot-spots along the coast, particularly those around the ports. She had an idea for a column that, if it worked, could be quite a winner.
She was just going over the itinerary of the up-coming meeting again, making sure she’d covered everything and trying to shake off the feeling that actually none of it was in the least bit relevant, when the door to her office opened and David walked in. A bolt of nerves instantly shot through her, but having taken a resolution to be pleasant to him and at least to try to forge a partnership that worked for them both, she plastered a smile of welcome on her face.
‘Hi,’ he grinned, seeming to find her warmth as amusing as he did surprising. His unruly blond hair was damp from the rain and his fine-boned face was as handsome and self-assured as ever. Penny wasn’t sure whether it was that which irritated her the most or whether it was the domineering power of him that seemed to swamp her authority the moment he walked in the door. He was wearing a faded
blue sweater over a pale-blue denim shirt and jeans and managing to look far more relaxed in her office as he pulled up one of her visitor chairs than Penny did. ‘So, how you doing?’ he asked.
‘Fine, thank you,’ she answered. ‘It’s good of you to grace us with your presence today.’
‘Think nothing of it,’ he told her, waving a dismissive hand. ‘As a matter of fact I intended to be here yesterday, but a couple of things cropped up that meant I didn’t fly in until late last night.’
‘I see,’ Penny replied, not bothering to ask where he’d been. ‘I spent the day interviewing yesterday,’ she said, looking back down at the paperwork in front of her to make a show of being distracted by more important matters than his company, ‘and it appears, somewhat incredibly, that we are almost up to full strength already. However, I would appreciate it if you didn’t go ahead with such major decisions without me in the future.’
‘You got it,’ he told her affably.
‘And I can’t help wondering,’ she added, fixing him with boldly sceptical eyes, ‘where such an extraordinary amount of talent came from and so quickly.’
Laughing he said, ‘From you, who do you think? You were the one who went to see Couval at the Nice-Matin, you were the one who charmed him into giving you the list Marielle worked from, and I, well, I guess I just got lucky that the couple of guys I knew were available.’
Penny’s eyes were still narrowed, but she quickly looked away as he narrowed his too.
‘Seem to be a lot of bees around this place, wouldn’t you say?’ he remarked, looking up at the ceiling.
Penny frowned. ‘What are you talking about?’
‘Well, Marielle’s got one in her bonnet about you and it seems to me you’ve got one in yours about me . . .’
‘David, I have nothing in my bonnet about you,’ she told him with exaggerated patience. ‘All I have is a desire to make this magazine work, with or without your help.’
He grinned. ‘Hey, you’re not about to fire me too, are you?’