Learning curves (16 page)

“So?” Angel demanded. “Does this say ‘I’m obviously doing okay for myself and reflect well on my family, I know how to dress well but am definitely not in the husband market yet?’ ”

Jen thought for a moment. “That’s exactly what it says,” she said seriously. “At least it covers the chic and fabulously wealthy part. Just explain how that look says ‘not in the husband market’ for me?”

Angel shuddered. “That was just wishful thinking. My brother’s fiancée has a brother, and I just know the family is already hatching a plan for me. Okay, so, time for outfit number two. This one has to say ‘good-time party girl who still reflects well on her family but also knows how to enjoy herself.’ Okay?”

Jen nodded, slightly bemused as Angel disappeared back inside the changing room. After a while her eyes wandered back to the clothing rack.

She’d never actually worn a suit and had always been suspicious of those who did. Suits were about conformity, a demonstration of power—in other words, everything she hated. And they weren’t particularly practical either. Protestors didn’t tend to wear one of Calvin Klein’s finest when conducting a sit-in on a field up for development, and at Green Futures the look was more “geography teacher” than “smart city consultant.” Some of the guys there wore sandals with socks, for God’s sake. Tim was the only one to wear a suit, and he was an accountant. It would look weird if he didn’t.

Bell was a different story, of course. Everyone wore suits. Even people in the MBA program wore them sometimes—when they were giving presentations, that sort of thing. And her father . . . well, he looked strange out of a suit, like female physical education teachers when they turned up at staff meetings wearing skirts instead of their usual tracksuits. It was just . . . wrong, somehow. On weekends, George used to mooch around in cords or slacks and a jumper over a shirt that didn’t have a stiff collar—none of which went together particularly well and all of which made him look faintly ridiculous. In a suit he was George Bell of Bell Consulting. Out of one, he was just like anyone else.

Well, she didn’t have that problem. She didn’t need to wear a suit to be someone. She was fine as she was.

She caught a glimpse of herself in the mirror and recognized that perhaps she wasn’t
that
fine. Passable, maybe, but she wasn’t going to set the world on fire looking like this—an old baggy T-shirt and old jeans. And that suit hadn’t exactly been a 1980s-style power suit, after all. It had low-waisted trousers. The jacket looked kind of cool, really. She could actually ignore the fact that it was a suit altogether and just wear them as separates . . .

Slowly she stood up and made her way over to the rack, picking up one of the suits and holding it up against herself. She wondered what she’d look like in one. Wondered what it would feel like, striding around in a pinstripe number like this with her father watching her proudly from the sidelines.
“Hello, I’m Jennifer Bell. Yes, George’s daughter. Oh, you know him? Yes, we are close, actually. You think I look like him? Well, you know, you could be right about that—perhaps I do. So anyway, I believe you need some help with leveraging your core strengths to drive up your business performance? Let me see what I can do . . .”

She frowned. What was wrong with her? She hated suits. She wouldn’t be seen dead in one, full stop, end of story. Quickly she put the suit back.

“Do you want to try it on?”

Jen turned to see a sales assistant looking at her and blushed. “Oh, no,” she said quickly. “I was just looking. I mean, I’m not really a suit kind of person . . .”

“It’s more of a going-out suit than a work one,” the sales assistant said. “That’s why it’s hanging with the sparkly tops.”

The sales assistant pointed at the tops, and Jen felt the need to look at them with interest as though she hadn’t seen them before.

“Oh, I see,” she said, smiling at the sales assistant to emphasize that she did indeed see.

“So, do you want to try it on?”

Angel stuck her head out of her cubicle. “These trousers are all wrong. I need another size. And some different shoes . . .”

The sales assistant nodded and walked over to Angel, turning back to Jen as she reached the cubicle. “You can go in there,” she said, pointing at the cubicle next to Angel’s.

Jen hesitated, then, holding the suit several inches away from her as if it were a wet dog, she strode quickly into the cubicle.
I’m just going to try it on,
she told herself firmly.
There’s nothing wrong with that.

“Wow!” Angel said appreciatively five minutes later as they both came out to take a little look at themselves, self-consciously standing in front of the large mirror and checking their behinds for unattractive creasing. “I’ve never seen you in a suit before. It looks great!”

Jen shook her head bashfully, but she knew she wasn’t convincing anyone. She did look great. Much better than she looked in her jeans, which had become so comfortable that they no longer held any shape, draping over her legs as if hungover and unable to think what else to do.

“It feels odd,” she said, unable to take in the authoritative-looking woman staring back at her from the mirror. “It isn’t me.”

“What’s ‘you’?” Angel asked with a shrug. “We’re not simple creatures, are we? You’re doing an MBA— you were bound to get more business-ey.”

Jen looked at Angel indignantly. “I’m not doing an MBA. I mean, I am, but I’m not . . . you know . . . doing one. Not properly . . .”

“You’re doing a pretty good job of it though, aren’t you. Studying for that exam before Christmas, getting yourself a new boyfriend who actually has a proper job and doesn’t spend his time sleeping on other people’s floors. And your father . . .”

“You think I’m selling out?” Jen asked hotly.

Angel shook her head. “You’re the one who thinks that. I think you’re moving on. And it suits you. But look, we’re not here to deal with your identity crisis— we’ve got mine to worry about. So tell me the truth, do I look too slutty? I do, don’t I? I can just hear my mother’s voice—‘Anuragini, do you wish to bring my house into disrepute? Have you no respect for your family? Oh, why do I have such a daughter? Why do you never listen to me?’ ”

She mimicked her mother’s accent perfectly and Jen giggled. “I think you look fab. And this is the
unofficial
hen-night outfit, right? So will your mum even see you?”

Angel groaned. “You really have no idea, do you? Of course she’ll see me. Not in person, but through my cousins’ descriptions, which will get more and more exaggerated as people pass on the story until my mother hears that I was wearing nothing but a thong.”

“So it probably doesn’t matter what you wear then, if you’re going to get aggro anyway,” Jen suggested.

Angel smiled. “I knew I brought you along for a reason. Perfect logic. I like that. Okay, so, now I need a ‘demure, respectable sister who doesn’t put the bride’s family off her brother’ outfit. Are you going to get that suit?”

Jen shook her head. “God, no. No, absolutely not. I mean, it’s just not . . . Well, just no. No, I’m not.”

“So, yes, then?”

Angel grinned and Jen looked at her hopelessly. “What’s happening to me, Angel?”

“You’re playing a new role,” she said simply. “Get used to it.”

18

Jen got home with an hour to spare before she had to leave again to meet Alan for her promised coaching session. This was meant to be her Christmas holiday, she thought to herself, but she’d never been so busy. She took her new suit out of its smart paper bag and hung it up in her wardrobe, then ran herself a bath. Was Angel right? Was she just moving on? Could you do that so easily—just put on a new skin, turn into a new person with different ideals, different thoughts, and different loyalties? It felt so . . . weird. And so easy. Surely you had to agonize over stuff like this. Go into hibernation for several months. Face some sort of ritual at the end of it, a test of some sort.

She smiled to herself as she poured scented oil into her bath. Maybe the MBA was the hibernation and the final exam the ritual. She imagined everyone on the MBA doing a tribal dance and being pronounced fully fledged members of the business community. Then the smile disappeared off her face. Jesus, was that what she was doing here? She’d been thinking so much about impressing her father, she’d forgotten that in the process she was becoming everything she’d ever hated.

Jen frowned as she undressed. Everything was topsyturvy —her mother was now the liar; her father the person she wanted to protect. Business wasn’t so evil anymore, whereas Gavin the eco-activist had betrayed her. She’d just bought a suit, and now she was about to spend her Saturday night out with Alan, the MBA geek, teaching him how to chat up women. Well, only
part
of Saturday night; she’d promised Daniel that she’d be at his place by ten P.M. at the latest. Daniel, her new boyfriend with his own flat, his own business, his own everything. She shook her head and got into the bath. If fate had some grand plan for her, some explanation that made sense of the strange new world she seemed to be inhabiting, she wished she could have a little peek at it.

An hour and a half later, Jen made her way into a dark and dingy pub on the corner of Tottenham Court Road for her assignation with Alan, a pub he’d chosen and which in retrospect Jen wished she’d known was at the top end of the street, because she could have got off at a different tube stop and avoided a twenty-minute walk.

She found Alan at a table in the corner, and he looked up at her nervously.

“What a nightmare journey!” she said, sitting down in a heap. “Alan, why did you have to choose somewhere so far away?”

Alan took off his glasses and wiped them clean with his handkerchief. “Look, I’ve been thinking about this and I’m really not sure this is such a good idea,” he started nervously. “I don’t even want a girlfriend. Don’t need one, at any rate. I’ve got my MBA work to do and . . .”

Jen sighed and looked at him firmly. If she was prepared to accept change in her life, then Alan was damn well going to do it, too. “Alan, you
do
want a girlfriend, and this
is
a good idea. Look at you—you’re a quivering wreck, and it’s only me sitting here! Tell you what, I’ll get some drinks and you can think through ways to start conversations with girls. Then you can try them out on me. Okay?”

Alan looked utterly unconvinced, but Jen headed up to the bar regardless. Change was scary, she reminded herself. She would have to help Alan through it gradually. And she was definitely the one to sort him out, she thought to herself purposefully as she ordered a pint of bitter for him and a gin and tonic for herself. The doubt and uncertainty that had been dogging her since she’d bought that suit a few hours before were gradually subsiding, leaving in their place the conviction that moving on was an incredibly positive experience. And that she was now the expert in it.

“So,” she said with a smile five minutes later, plonking the drinks on the table. “Hit me!”

Alan looked perplexed. “Hit you?” he said nervously. “What, like a high five?”

She sighed and sat down. “I meant
tell me.
Your chat-up lines.”

“Oh, right. Do people really say
hit me
?”

Jen shrugged. “I don’t know. But that isn’t really the point. So come on.”

Alan went red. “I don’t really have any chat-up lines,” he said awkwardly.

“Okay, put it this way. You’re in a pub, right here, and I’m a strange woman who has just sat down at your table because there’s nowhere else to sit. And when I say strange, I mean you don’t know me, not that I’m actually
strange.
I’m . . . I dunno, a pretty, intelligent-looking woman. Nice shoes, that sort of thing. So I’m sitting here and I’m obviously not with anyone, and you like the look of me. What would you say to me to start a conversation?”

Alan looked at Jen strangely. “I wouldn’t. I’d probably take out a book so that I didn’t have to talk to you.”

“Right,” Jen said uncertainly. “Well, that’s an interesting approach. Okay, what about at a party. One where you’ve seen someone you like?”

“I don’t go to parties. I hate them. You have to talk to strangers.”

Jen thought for a moment. This was turning out to be a lot more difficult that she’d hoped. “Okay, Alan. Look, the thing is, if you want to get a girlfriend, you’re going to have to talk to strangers. You did okay when you met me and Lara, didn’t you?”

“That was different. I could talk about work with you straight away. You didn’t expect me to talk about films I’ve never seen or foreign places I’ve never been. I can’t do small talk.”

Jen took a slug of her gin and tonic and sighed. Who was she kidding—she hated small talk, too. Hated going to parties full of strange people.

“Okay,” she said eventually, “let’s forget parties and pubs. Let’s think work situations. Maybe if you liked the look of someone on the MBA course. That’s got to be easier, right?”

Alan looked at her worriedly. “I don’t fancy anyone on the MBA course,” he said quickly. “I don’t know what people have been saying, but it isn’t true. I’m not . . .”

“I said
if,
” Jen said quickly, emphasizing the word for effect. “I’m using the MBA course as an example. A theoretical one. You know
—if
you did fancy someone, how might you go about talking to them?”

Alan was looking hot and uncomfortable. “I don’t, though,” he said gruffly. “I knew this was a bad idea.”

Jen put her drink down. This was going to require all her ingenuity and patience. “Alan,” she said slowly, “think about it. Lots of people meet people at work. It’s the perfect place—lots of like-minded folk all in the same office. If you can’t ask someone out at work, where you spend half your life with the same people, then you’re going to find it a lot harder anywhere else.”

“I told you,” Alan said defiantly, “I don’t fancy anyone in the course. And even if I did, and I asked them out, they’d only say no, and then I’d have to enroll in a new MBA program. No, it’s a terrible idea.”

Jen took a deep breath. “They won’t necessarily say no,” she said quickly. “Not if you plan it carefully enough. What you’ve got to do is figure out little ways to find out if they might be interested. To give them subtle signs that you might be. So that if and when you do ask them out it isn’t a total shock. You see? That way you don’t set yourself up too much.”

“You mean risk management?” Alan asked seriously.

Jen looked at him, exasperated. The man really could not talk about anything other than business strategy. It was a hopeless case, and if she had any sense she would bail right now and go to Daniel’s flat. He’d have food waiting for her, wine, those arms . . .

Then she had a thought.

“Risk management, you say?” she said carefully. “Well, actually, yes. That’s exactly what it is.” She picked up her glass again and took another sip. “In fact, why don’t you think of this whole exercise as stakeholder management? ” she said, watching as Alan’s face turned from suspicion into interest. “Your prospective girlfriend is a potential stakeholder. You’ve got to work out how interested in you she is, analyze her preferences and interests, and then develop your strategy. It’s just like an MBA assignment, only not on paper. A
practical
assignment.”

“You mean, find out if she’s interested in films before inviting her to the cinema?”

Jen glowed. “Alan, that’s exactly it. But you wouldn’t suggest that a business cold-call a customer, would you? Not unless they’re selling double glazing and don’t mind being hung up on a million times. No, you’d suggest building up to it first, right? Make sure that the customer has heard of the company, knows its products.”

Alan nodded.

“Right,” Jen continued. “So maybe you wouldn’t just invite this girl to the cinema straight off—first you might mention a film you’ve seen. Ask her if she’s seen it, whether she enjoyed it. Ask her what she liked or disliked about it. Market intelligence, you know? Suddenly you’re having a conversation, and if it goes well, the next time you talk about films it could be a natural thing to ask her to the cinema to see a film.”

Alan nodded seriously and started to make notes on a pad of paper.

“Like Amazon,” he said as he wrote. “Knowing what you bought last time and then making recommendations the next time you visit the site. Customer relationship management?”

Jen took a deep breath. “Exactly,” she said.

“And this stuff actually works?” he asked.

Jen smiled as she remembered her own early conversations with Daniel about MBAs, books, ethical business, family squabbles.

“There are a lot of couples out there,” she said firmly. “They all had to start somewhere.”

“Hello, gorgeous.”

Jen grinned and reached up to kiss Daniel, who wrapped his arms around her, picked her up and swung her round, depositing her in his hallway.

“What took you so long?” he asked, ushering her into his flat. “I didn’t know whether or not to cook.”

Jen’s eyes traveled around the hallway, taking in the photographs of Daniel in diving gear; on a mountain; smiling, with his arm around a woman . . . Her eyes narrowed as she frowned involuntarily.

“My sister,” Daniel said with a twinkle in his eye. “She lives in the States. So?”

“So, what?” Jen asked, slightly embarrassed at having been caught out.

“So where have you been?”

“Oh, right. I was with a friend from the course. Alan.”

Now it was Daniel’s turn to frown. “Right,” he said, walking toward the sitting room. “Well, I hope you had a good time.”

Jen smiled to herself as she followed him. “We did, actually,” she teased Daniel. “We were talking about relationships, mostly.”

Daniel turned round and stared at her. “Relationships?”

“And how he can get himself one,” Jen said, grinning. “He’s a bit of a geek, actually. I was . . . kind of teaching him. How to get a girlfriend.”

“I see,” Daniel said. “Well, just so long as he isn’t eyeing you up. . . .”

Jen raised her eyebrows at him. “I really doubt it,” she said quickly. “So, what did you decide?”

Daniel looked at her curiously. “Decide about what?”

“About whether to cook. You said you didn’t know whether to cook or not.”

“Ah. Well, I decided not to. I figured that if you were hungry we could get takeout, if that suits you.”

Jen nodded. “Sounds perfect. So, what have you been up to since I saw you last?”

Daniel rummaged around in a drawer, pulled out some menus, and handed them to Jen. “Italian, Chinese or Thai—take your pick. What have I been up to? Oh, not much. Working, sleeping, waiting around for my gorgeous girlfriend to turn up . . . and trying to figure out some winning ideas for a presentation I’m doing in a couple of weeks.”

“I fancy a black bean curry with chicken,” Jen said, handing the menus back. “So what’s the presentation?”

Daniel rolled his eyes. “It’s to the board. Which would be fine, but I just don’t seem to be able to see eye to eye with my chairman these days. I need some big ideas that will blow them away, but he keeps talking about cost cutting like that’s the answer to all our problems.”

Jen frowned. “Problems? I didn’t think Wyman’s had any problems.”

Daniel shrugged. “Everyone’s got problems. All of our competitors are problems, as are the costs of real estate in London and the demise of the high street. They’re not insurmountable problems, but they keep us busy. So, black bean curry? Sounds good—I think I’ll join you.”

He picked up the phone and made the order, then joined Jen where she was sitting on the sofa.

“And what have you been doing lately,” he asked tenderly. “Missing me, I hope?”

Jen looked at him playfully. “Why should I have missed you, when all you’ve been thinking about is the cost of London real estate?”

Daniel nodded seriously. “Harsh, but fair,” he said solemnly. “Did I also mention that I’ve missed you desperately and have been unable to sleep because of it?”

Jen looked at him archly. “You can do better than that,” she said with a little smile.

He put his hand through his hair. “Okay, so sleeplessness isn’t enough. How about self-flagellation? Would that impress you?”

Jen giggled. “Did it hurt very much?”

Daniel nodded. “Yup. Quite a lot, actually. I was hoping you might kiss it better.”

“I see,” Jen said thoughtfully. “And where did this self-flagellation . . . manifest itself?”

“Um, well, I guess here,” he said, pointing to his cheek. Jen reached over and gave it a little kiss.

“Anywhere else?” she asked, her eyes glinting.

Daniel frowned, then unbuttoned his shirt slightly to reveal his broad chest. “Here,” he said, pointing to the area just below his neck. Jen reached over and kissed it.

“And here,” he said softly, pointing to the top of his back.

“You know, you might need to take off your shirt,” Jen said thoughtfully.

Daniel nodded seriously. “If you think it might help,” he said, unbuttoning further. “Do you think it would be a good idea if you took yours off too?”

Jen found herself smiling involuntarily. “You’re the one who should’ve been coaching Alan this evening, you know,” she said as she allowed Daniel to unbutton her shirt and kiss her neck. “I just told him that he should ask lots of questions.”

“Questions?” Daniel asked, taking off her shirt and putting it to one side.

“Yes,” Jen said, trying to concentrate as Daniel’s lips started to explore her body. “I said he should find out what girls like, and then he’ll have something to talk to them about.”