Fire in the Wind (14 page)

When the man had stopped laughing he had admitted to being Canadian and had answered her questions about his country. "Why do I see Spanish on signs in New York?" he asked, and Tom had answered for her that there were a lot of Hispanics in New York. "Well, the stewardess speaks French because there are a lot of French-speaking people in Canada," the man had explained, "not because everyone speaks two languages. In fact, the French are French and the English are English and rarely do the twain ever meet."

She'd heard a little in recent years about the twain not meeting. Many people in the province of Quebec wanted to separate and form their own country, she knew that. "Where did the French come from?" she asked the stranger, whose name was Bill and who was a teacher in a remote school in northern British Columbia, the province where they were going.

He told her that the French had come from the Old World to settle the New, just as the English had, and that there had been many battles between the two countries for supremacy in the colonies. Finally, in 1759, the Battle of the Plains of Abraham had given supremacy in North America to the British. But for many years after that another battle had raged, a political one: what to do about the French settlers. Some people had wanted to stamp out the French language and law and Roman Catholicism; others had not. Then, when the thirteen colonies to the south had begun to show disaffection, it was decided that Britain needed a loyal stronghold on the continent. All the rights that had been taken away from the French after 1759 were given back in 1774, and the French were given sovereignty over a vast tract of land that extended right into the Ohio Valley.

The move failed. Not only did it fail to win the loyalty of the French settlers, but it further disaffected the thirteen colonies, with what results every American knew, Bill said. But the principle of allowing the French to maintain their own language, religion and laws persisted under attack until it was enshrined in the law about a hundred years later. The descendants of those early settlers still spoke the language of their ancestors, just as did the English of both Canada and the States.

Vanessa had never before realized that the history of the two countries was so connected. As she sat on her bed now, waiting for Air Canada to answer the phone, it occurred to her that it was no wonder they were so similar. Both countries had had the same parents, the same early influence.

When the quiet-voiced Air Canada agent answered the phone, Vanessa changed her flight booking from Saturday to Monday morning.

She hadn't heard the last of this from Tom, she knew. But it wasn't Tom's reaction she was thinking of now, but Jake's, when he learned she was staying over the weekend.

* * *

In the morning Vanessa waited for Jake in the coffee shop, as agreed, lingering over her breakfast and a second cup of coffee that was doing nothing to calm her nerves. In spite of almost ten years of marriage she was far too inexperienced with men. How could she tell him she was staying over the weekend without having him think she was agreeing to become his lover? Did she even know whether or not she was agreeing to that?

It was a relief when he came striding over to her table, wearing a grey three-piece summer suit that made him look very dark in contrast and very business-like.

He was preoccupied. With little more than a nod to her he pulled out a chair and sank into it, signalling a distant waiter in sign language for a cup of coffee.

"Where's the helicopter?" she joked. "On the roof?"

He looked at her, startled. "Oh," he said, "the helicopter. I forgot. I want to talk to you."

He waited while the waiter filled his cup and her own, then took a quick sip of coffee; Vanessa would have sworn he was nervous.

"I've got a proposition for you," he said abruptly, setting his cup down and looking at her intently. "How would you like to come and work for me?"

Chapter 6

Vanessa choked on her drink. "What?" she asked incredulously, setting down her cup and reaching for the napkin in her lap. She coughed into the napkin, staring over it into Jake's steady gaze. "What?" she repeated.

"I would like you to come and work for me." Now, suddenly, he was very calm, like a psychiatrist working with a child.

Vanessa laughed shortly. "What as?" she asked with real curiosity. There was no saying what he might have in his mind.

"What
as
? As a designer of women's clothing! What else?"

Elbow on the table, Vanessa cupped her chin in her hand.

"You had me wondering," she said with a half-smile. She was leaning half over the table towards him, as though he were a magnet that drew her physically. When she realized that she was wishing that he would lean over, too, and kiss her mouth, she drew back.

"Do you want to hire me at Designwear? Is somebody leaving?"

Jake set his drink down on the table. "I want you," he said, "to design a line of women's ready-to-wear I will be backing. You would have complete artistic control. You would be answerable only to me, and to me you would be answerable only in terms of profit." He paused. "Although of course you would be free to consult with me should you wish."

It took her breath away. It was everything she had ever wanted in her career, the chance to put all her ideas to work. Vanessa stared at him.

"Are you serious?" she whispered.

"Yes," said Jake, watching her.

"I could do what I liked as far as design and production go?"

"As long as you're showing a profit you may do whatever you like."

"What happens if I don't show a profit?"

"You get fired."

Well, that was straightforward enough. Vanessa took a deep breath and felt her confidence in her own ideas waver.

"I... I'm not very experienced with the business end of things," she said, thinking frantically that she didn't know one end of a profit-and-loss statement from the other. Jake sat looking at her, not speaking, and suddenly she was disgusted with herself for being so feeble. Everything she wanted was being offered to her on a plate! Suddenly, like a coal that had been smouldering unseen, the idea caught fire in her.

"I can really run it however I want?" she asked him, her eyes alight.

He nodded. He was watching her closely, as though he had missed nothing of her progress from fear to conviction.

"When would you want me to begin?" she demanded.

Jake paused. "As soon as possible. As soon as you're ready."

Ideas were bubbling over inside her head as though the lid had suddenly come off a pressure cooker, and Vanessa tried to curb her excitement.

"There are a lot of things we would have to discuss before I could make up my mind."

Jake smiled as though at a secret thought. He pushed back his chair, "Of course," he said. "I'd like you to come to the office now and talk to my accountant. I'd like to have your answer before you leave tomorrow."

She wasn't leaving tomorrow; she wasn't leaving till Monday, but for some reason Vanessa was more nervous now than ever about telling him so.

"That's not a lot of time, Jake," she protested. "Why so soon?"

"Well, all right," he said. "Shall we say a week today?" His tone was faintly patronizing, as though she were being too cautious and cowardly, and she wondered if someone with more confidence would have jumped at this, when privately she felt that even a week was scarcely enough time to decide.

She shifted uncomfortably. "Yes, that would be all right."

Jake initialled the bill with a casual scrawl and rose. "Ready?" he said, and she wasn't ready; she would have liked a few more minutes just to sit there and absorb the idea. But it was obvious that in business Jake didn't waste any time, and so she got up and followed him out of the coffee shop.

"We're going to the office now?" she asked, catching up with him outside the door. Jake nodded. "I'm not dressed for it," Vanessa said, indicating the blue jeans and sneakers she had put on in anticipation of the helicopter ride.

"Never mind that," Jake said impatiently. "It doesn't matter."

But here she had the strength to put her foot down. "It does to me," she insisted. "I won't be ten minutes."

She changed as fast as she could, somehow infected by Jake's impatient hurry, suddenly afraid of irritating him with delay. She pulled on stockings and a light grey suit and shirt and threw the contents of her large navy shoulder bag into a smart grey bag that matched her shoes.

"If it weren't for the slow elevators in your hotel," she smiled at Jake as she stopped beside him, "I'd have made it in five."

But he didn't get the joke. "Eight minutes is fine," he said, glancing at his watch, then guided her out to the car waiting at the curb.

Conrad Corporation was in downtown Vancouver, not far from the hotel, in a large modern office building. According to the building directory Concorp took up the top seven floors, and in the elevator Jake pushed the indicator button for the top floor.

It was obvious from the décor that this was the executive floor, the face Conrad Corporation showed to the public. Jake nodded to the receptionist and led Vanessa around a corner and down a hallway.

"Morning, Jean," he said to a woman sitting behind a desk. "Would you tell Robert we're ready for him?"

Then he opened a carved walnut door and ushered Vanessa into his office. She sank down into one of the stuffed leather chairs he indicated in front of his desk, feeling as though Jake's rate of doing business was going to put her into a spin. In the car he had driven fast and competently, filling her ears with fact after fact about the business she would be expected to run.

When Robert Dawe, who turned out to be an accountant, arrived, it was more of the same. He was carrying lists of hastily devised figures, which he explained to her with a flattering assumption of her quick comprehension.

Vanessa's I.Q. was good; it wasn't that she didn't understand the figures and facts she was being given, just that she wanted time to absorb the implications and ask questions. But it was all so exciting, so completely thrilling, that finally she forgot caution and felt herself get caught up in the excitement of a new venture—small potatoes to Robert Dawe and Jake Conrad, perhaps, but her biggest opportunity yet.

The next time she looked at her watch it was two o'clock, and Jake was saying, "Good enough. Let's get some lunch."

Robert declined to join them, and in a few minutes Vanessa and Jake were out on the street. The sun was shining now, though earlier there had been a very light rain. "Let's walk," said Jake.

"Slowly," Vanessa suggested with a smile. "I'm beginning to feel like a whirligig."

"Slowly," agreed Jake, suiting his pace to the words and giving her the benefit of that slow crooked smile.

Conrad Corporation's offices were not far from Granville Mall, a street, Jake told her, that had been closed to all traffic except for buses in an effort to make the downtown core more pleasant for pedestrians.

"This is great," she said. "I wish New York would do this to Fifth Avenue. You know," she confided as Jake pulled open a door and led her into a quiet restaurant, "when you're in New York it's hard to believe you could live without that incredible pace, where everyone around you is constantly running. But Vancouver's starting to get to me. I'm slowing down. I think I'm going to like it here."

He led her to a table by the window and looked at her as they sat. "Are you?" he asked with a meaningful smile.

She blinked. "Yes, I... oh!" she exclaimed in surprise, lifting a hand to her mouth.
I'm going to like it here,
she had said, not
I could get to.
...Unconsciously she must already have decided to take the job.

Consciously she was still overwhelmed, still undecided. But deep down, something in her had weighed the pros and cons and come up with a decision. Vanessa admitted all this with a self-deprecating laugh. "If only I were sure I could trust my unconscious decision-making process," she said ruefully.

"Always trust your instincts," said Jake.

"Do you always trust yours?"

"Let's say I trust them without always obeying their dictates."

Vanessa laughed. "Oh, well, there has to be such a thing as civilized restraint. What do you do when you can't obey your instincts?"