by Foster, Zoe
Abby.
This was good. The Marcus issue was sorted, the new website was underway, things were going to become more streamlined, more money would be coming in, and maybe, just maybe this year was the one she would be able to take some time off and travel. Yes! Good times.
Now she just had the teeny task of firing someone, or Rob’s preference, multiple someones.
10
Abby was mid-way through trying to source ten non-slutty bunny outfits for the launch of a new premium whisky, and failing – bunny outfits stopped being adorable and started becoming trampy the moment the wearer had breasts – when Angie’s familiar voice came through the speaker.
‘Abby, your 10 o’clock is here?’
Webra! Abby closed the three browser windows and swore quietly to herself. She still hadn’t completely formed in her mind what she wanted the site to be, and if there was one thing that pissed her off in business meetings, it was when the client didn’t know exactly what they wanted. Now she was going to be that asshole.
‘Pop them in the boardroom, set them up with water and coffee and I’ll be in in one sec.’
She applied some red Chanel lipstick and popped a mint in her mouth for a turbo suck before spitting it into a tissue and into her wastepaper basket. Red lipstick, she’d learned in some dopey, over-analytical and mildly offensive book on being a successful female CEO, was a very effective way of instantly asserting that you were not to be messed with, but not afraid of your femininity. Abby thought red lipstick generally made men think of sex – but she wore it anyway. It suited her, with her green eyes and dirty blonde hair, and it made her penchant for simple black dresses fall more to the chic and deliberate end of the scale, as opposed to lazy and uninventive. If it earned her some biz points, that was a bonus.
As she walked, laptop, pen and pad in hand, it suddenly occurred to her Marcus might be here. Oh well, she thought. No time like the present to get the awkwardness over with. He couldn’t ruffle her feathers with doe-eyed glances across the table, especially not when she was in biz mode.
She opened the door to the boardroom, an impressive room with a Florence Broadhurst rug, windows overlooking the city, her favourite fresh David Austin roses on a small art deco-style glass table and a dark brown, antique table with matching chairs. She was very, very proud of this room. That it looked exactly like something out of a design magazine was no accident; she’d modelled it precisely on just that. Warm, chic and beautiful. So Allure.
At her table sat one bald, attractive older guy in a black shirt and glasses. And one guy with wild black curls, facial hair and a plain navy t-shirt. And one Marcus. Oh why was he here? Dear God, Abby thought, the pity already forming in her mind, please don’t let it be because he wanted to see her.
Marcus had shorter hair than she recalled, and a black-and-white checked shirt with a skinny black tie. Jesus. First Rob and now Marcus – when did men start dressing like they were auditioning for a role in Grease?
Shit. Maybe Rob should be here! Lend some impressiveness! She didn’t even think of it. And now it was too late. Just her, her whorish red lips and three dudes who knew everything.
‘Good morning, gentleman, I’m Abby Vaughn. Thanks for coming in to see me today.’
She shook each of their hands as they introduced themselves – Chris, Arthur and of course, Marcus – and they all sat back down. She noticed Marcus was the only one with a laptop; the others had stylish leather-bound notebooks in a grey on white zebra pattern. Ahh. Zebra. Webra. Very good.
The bald man spoke first. ‘Abby, I should probably explain why there’s three of us, when generally we only send two along to these meetings. I’m Chris, the founder and MD of Webra, and occasionally I pop along to these things to annoy the boys and make them feel incompetent and stutter awkwardly and so on. Keeps things interesting.’
Abby laughed. ‘I’ve been known to do the very same thing.’
‘Terribly entertaining.’ Chris had a warm smile and sparkly eyes and the kind of skin that spent a little too much time in the sun. Probably less Indonesia and more Riviera, judging by the size and brand of his watch. He was a bit of a silver fox, Abby conceded. Could you be a silver fox if you had no hair? Maybe he was a shiny fox.
‘So, Arthur is our head of development, which means he will oversee the actual workings of the site, and Marcus here is our award-winning head designer, so it’s his job to make it look incredible and be a joy for the user. It didn’t take too much convincing for him to agree to this particular job, strangely.’
Abby smiled, first at John, then Marcus. Marcus was leaning back slightly in his seat, smiling sincerely at Abby. He was outrageously calm for someone who was supposed to be nervous with lust for her.
‘Well, shall we get started? If any of you have had a chance to look at our current site, which was created in the time it takes to re-heat a pizza and probably loses me as much business as it attracts, you’ll see it needs to be executed, and swiftly.’
‘For the sake of politeness, we’ll just nod in agreement,’ said Chris, smiling.
‘What I’m after, essentially, is a site that can make my agency, well … automatic. I’d like to eliminate all phone bookings, and make Allure an agency that, at least for the actual job-booking side of things, can be run entirely through the website.’
‘Trying to trim some fat from staff numbers?’
‘What? No!’ Abby looked at Chris’s face. He knew. It was obvious.
‘Well, not deliberately.’ They all laughed. ‘It’s more that I want the business to be able to be operated remotely, from anywhere. So that I can have my phone and my laptop and be in, I don’t know, Papua New Guinea and still run my business.’
‘Excellent plan.’ Chris said.
‘Chris says this because he spends seven months of the year in New York, London, Istanbul, Tunisia …’ Arthur said wryly.
‘That sounds like heaven,’ Abby said, dreamily.
‘Near enough. Obviously I had to establish great clients and exceptional staff first, but these days I’m fairly free to work from wherever I choose in the world. Liberty is the new luxury. What you’re doing is very smart.’
‘Automated emails to the models …’ mumbled Arthur, as he madly wrote on his pad.
‘Sorry …?’ Abby asked, confused.
‘Once the client-generated booking is finalised. When a job is booked, and the client enters the date, time and so on of the job, he or she also chooses the models he wants, with two or three backups in case the first choices aren’t available. We could make it so all of the details go directly to the girls picked for the job, and they can accept or deny the job, and then that information comes back to you.’
‘Well that’s just removed about 75 per cent of the agency’s work.’
‘Easy. And we can set up email, SMS or Facebook reminders to the models the day before the job, for final confirmation.’
‘Can we get one hourly on the day, too?’
Chris and Marcus laughed. ‘Anything you’d like,’ said Arthur dryly, who was writing again.
Marcus spoke up. ‘Have you considered penalising the girl’s pay if they cancel within twenty-four hours of the job?’
Abby shook her head in bewilderment. ‘No …’
‘Think about hotel cancellation policies. Or salons. Humans value something more if they’re going to be punished financially for not showing up. And if you know twenty-four hours out, you can find another girl easier, right? Instead of at the eleventh hour.’
Abby’s head was spinning. Who were these people, and why hadn’t she met them five years ago?
‘That’s brilliant. All of this is brilliant. How do you— I thought you guys just made websites …’
Chris spoke. ‘There’s a lot more that goes into an intelligent website than decorative design and a few forms. We love solving big-picture problems as well. You have to be smart about how you use technology. Let it work for you. Literally.’
‘The de
sign itself, do you have any ideas?’ Marcus asked, as he tapped away at hummingbird-wing pace on his laptop. He was being so professional. It irritated Abby. He was as calm as she had made sure she was. Where were the gooey smiles and nerves?
‘Not really, I’m afraid. That said, I feel confident letting you guys drive. Let’s keep the black and white theme, though, and lots of white space. The design has to be purposeful; everything needs to work automagically and all of it has to be meaningful for the user. No bells and whistles. Not that it should be barren, of course but—’
‘Elegant. Modest. Not like traditional model sites.’
‘Exactly, and unfortunately because of the name Allure, a name shared by many of our friends in the brothel, stripping and escort industry, I need it to instantly show we are not that. If that makes sense.’
‘Deleting giant red stiletto on the homepage …’ Marcus smiled cheekily and got back to his laptop.
The meeting bubbled along effervescently for another twenty-five minutes, and with each new notion raised, Abby became skittish with excitement about what her life could become once this site went live. These men, these impressive, clever men, had opened up the possibility of living the life she had aspired to, but had no tangible way of creating. A life that meant, she realised with a whisper of terror, she might not even need this beautiful office anymore. And all in under forty minutes.
Abby bid farewell to the Webra trio at reception, happily, excitedly, and just short of issuing high-fives, and floated back to her office, closing the door behind her. In six weeks she would have Allureagency.com 2.0. She would also have two, maybe three less staff and strong impetus to find a much smaller office, primarily for castings and dispensing outfits. Abby filled with pride knowing that soon she would be part of a brave new world. Her brother would be so proud! And she could actually go and visit him now, so that he could be proud in person.
As she started clicking on emails, her thoughts snuck on to Marcus. He had shown absolutely no hint of interest in her, she realised. Not one lurid smile, not one flirtatious glance. It wasn’t even awkward saying goodbye to him. It was all the Right Thing for him to do, of course, but Abby couldn’t help feeling deflated. And embarrassed: here she was assuming his initial email was a written declaration of intent, and then in person he was this suave meeting cat. And so clever! His ideas were dazzling; she could see why even though he was barely legal to drink he’d been made department head. She’d been blown away by his rapid-fire genius, each suggestion had been significant, every argument and explanation rational and helpful.
That he was extremely handsome was almost 99 per cent irrelevant. It was his grey matter that had thoughts of him, past and future, swirling through Abby’s head.
11
Mads was in a bad way. This was an entirely alien thing for Happily Married Super-in-love Mads. She’d had a fight with Dylan the night before and had reluctantly agreed to a ‘crisis’ meet-up at Chelsea’s house first thing. It would be a regular fight for most couples, but, as they were as likely to yell at each other as a couple of Tibetan monks, it was epic for them. Knowing there was unhappiness between the Perfect Couple made Abby and Chelsea ill with unease.
The three of them sat morosely around Chelsea’s kitchen table, drinking green tea. Abby and Chels looked timidly at Mads and Mads stared with tear-stained cheeks into her tea, fidgeting with the handle of one of Chelsea’s prized Versace teacups.
‘Jesus, it’s like there’s been a death,’ Chelsea said. ‘Not a real death, like, a celebrity death.’
‘Mads,’ said Abby softly. ‘Please don’t feel guilty about this. The fact that you want a baby is not something to feel bad about.’
‘I don’t feel guilty about that,’ she said, sniffing. ‘I just, I guess I feel bad about how I’ve made Dyl feel about my wanting a baby. I know he’s feeling the strain. We got the quote for IVF last night and I could just see in his eyes he’s feeling so fatigued.’
‘Oh, honey …’ Abby said, rubbing Mads’s arm.
‘He also said, that, that,’ the tears started again, heartbreaking, raw tears, tears that Chels and Abby hadn’t seen Mads cry since well before Dylan, back in the days of shower-after-sex Shaun and Danny the spray-tan-wearing actor, when Mads was a firecracker of a girlfriend, always ready to explode ‘… that I’d changed.’ Her soft tears made way for harder tears.
‘Honey, you probably have changed. Your priorities certainly have. But it’s not the end of the world. I mean, this is a man who cried more at your wedding than all of us combined.’
Mads shook her head and tore a couple of tissues from the box next to her. ‘That’s what’s most devastating about all of this to me. I have changed. You don’t see the half of it, when it’s just the two of us I’m a different beast.’
Abby looked at Mads and sighed.
‘Sweetie, it’s a tough situation. And you mustn’t be too hard on yourself. It’s a big thing, and at risk of copping a wallop, you both have very valid points. You are allowed to want a baby, and Dyl is allowed to be feeling some fatigue and to be a bit weird about doing IVF. There is no right or wrong here. And you’ve been trying to conceive for over twelve months, of course it’s starting to wear—’
‘Of course it is!’ interrupted Chelsea, clearly bursting after having had to wait so long to talk. ‘This is heavy stuff. But it will be okay. You will sort it out. You know that. He knows that. Sometimes you just need to let off some steam to get the pressure back to normal.’
Abby looked at Chelsea in admiration and a teeny bit of shock. This from a woman whose philosophy in relationships was generally along the lines of, ‘This is annoying; I’m leaving.’ It was testament to how much she – everyone – believed in Mads and Dylan. A great relationship can do that, Abby realised. It can make not only the people within that relationship better people, but there is a flow-on effect to people in the couple’s periphery. She knew personally that she had much higher expectations of men, relationships and herself after seeing how beautiful and loving it could be. Dammit! They needed an effing baby! Stat!
‘Where did you leave it, Mads?’ Abby asked.
She took a deep breath in and exhaled sadly. ‘Nowhere good. After he’d said that I’d changed, I retaliated. It was horrible; I felt the gruesome old Mads rear up, the one who loved a fight. I didn’t even know that foul wench still had a heartbeat.’
‘What did she say?’ asked Abby gently.
‘You have to remember this is after trying, cycle after cycle, for almost fifteen months …’
‘Darling, we’re not here to judge you,’ Abby said.
‘It shits me, you know, that he says I’ve changed, because it infers I’m the only one this is affecting, which is bosh, because … Anyway. So, I said that maybe the new Mads didn’t like the new Dylan, because he was such an unsupportive twat.’
‘That’s it?’ Chels asked, her brows rose in line with her intonation.
‘Whatdoyoumean? That’s an atrocious thing to say!’ Mads said, stoically defending her pathetic cruelty.
‘The old Mads would’ve told him he was a useless fuck and he could shove his wedding ring up his arse!’
Abby clamped her lips together to block the smile forming. ‘It’s true, Mads. You would’ve ripped his nipples off, then kicked his motorbike over on the way out.’
A soft smile spread over Mads’s face. She nodded, sniffing and wiping her nose. ‘It’s all relative.’
‘Mads,’ Abby spoke up. ‘You know Dylan’s intentions are solid gold, right? He IS being supportive and he wants more than anything for you to fall pregnant.’
Mads turned, rolling her eyes. ‘Do you have to keep pointing out the black mark on the X-ray? I know that! But this bullshit could trickle on for another five stinkin’ years; he needs to harden up!’ She shook her head in frustration.
Abby took a moment to compose her thoughts. She knew Mads had a penchant for the dramatic; it was part of what made her such a fantastic writer
and entertaining friend, but Abby couldn’t help thinking a little bit of calm might be more helpful at this point.
‘What if you were able to relax a bit, Mads? Just leave it to the universe for a bit?’ Abby looked at Mads with kindness. And a little bit of trepidation.
‘Yes! Embrace and enjoy the freedom!’ said Chels jubilantly, as though she’d just been asked (for the chance to win $50,000) how one should best regard a year in which they are going to be neither pregnant nor breastfeeding.
‘Seriously, you’re still so young, babe. Lots of women have babies in their late thirties and even forties these days …’
Mads looked at her well-meaning friends and smiled sadly. Their intentions were good, but their arguments were both flawed and exasperating.
Mads stood up. ‘All right, my well-meaning turkeys, I’m going home to apologise. I have to believe this will all work out eventually, for sanity’s sake.’
Abby and Chelsea were confused as to whether to take this to mean their brilliant suggestion had been adopted as a plan of action. Mads’s face suggested that it probably had not.
Mads pulled out her phone, which was illuminated.
‘Dyl?’ Chels asked.
‘Yes, five missed calls.’
‘Bless him. Even after you called him such outrageous, hurtful names.’
‘He just sent a photo of him kissing the lens.’ Mads welled up. ‘We’re such losers, aren’t we?
‘The biggest. We’re here if you need us, although you definitely won’t!’ Abs called out to Mads as she walked off down the stairs, hoping it was true.
12
Abby left Chelsea’s and headed across the city through dense, lunch-hour traffic. Ever since she’d known Mads, she’d wanted babies. She’d had no siblings; she’d worked as a nanny for years and now as a teacher. The woman wanted kids! Mads would get them, Abby confirmed to her self and the universe. And soon.
Her phone rang shrilly. Chels.
‘Did I forget something?’