Learning curves (3 page)

2

Bloody stupid MBA. Jen dumped four huge textbooks and two binders on her kitchen table and shook her arms, which were trembling from having carried the load all the way on the tube. No one had warned her about the sheer amount of reading she would have to do on the course. Or carrying, for that matter. Sod interviews, they should do a fitness test of prospective students. Lugging
Foundations of Management
around was no easy matter.

She went straight for the bottle of wine she’d opened the night before and poured herself a glass, sitting down and staring furiously at the books in front of her. She’d had to endure five hours of lectures. Plus an hour and a half of “team building” which had involved her, Lara, and Alan having to go into a room and come back with three facts about one another that they hadn’t known before. Jesus, it was just too soul destroying. What on earth was the point in knowing that Alan liked history books, was born in Hampshire, and spent his childhood holidays in Wales? And while discovering that Lara was a thirty-four double-D was quite interesting, she hadn’t particularly enjoyed conveying this piece of information to her entire class. Especially since she herself was closer to a thirty-four B and just knew that they were all going to be making little comparisons in their heads.

Jen sighed. This was just day one, she told herself. It would get better.

But what if it didn’t? What if it just got worse? What if she was stuck doing team building exercises all day and never got close to doing what she was there for— uncovering a conspiracy and showing her father to be the bastard she knew he was. She had no idea how she was even going to start fishing for information, and sitting in a lecture hall all day long wasn’t helping at all.

Jen downed her wine and poured herself another glass. Maybe she’d turn into an alcoholic, she decided. Maybe if she was drunk all the time she wouldn’t mind sitting through skull-numbing lectures about corporate strategy.

She frowned. Or maybe not.

Slowly, she got up and wandered out through her back door into the little area she called her back garden but which was really too small for such a grand name. It was ten feet by five feet, a teeny-tiny little area that over the past few months she’d managed to turn into somewhere worth sitting, complete with herbs and climbers growing all over the place.

Was she kidding herself, she wondered, thinking that being at Bell Consulting was actually achieving something? Was this really about corporate espionage and bringing her father to justice, or was it rather about her having something to prove? She knew she’d been right to split up with Gavin; knew she had to create a life of her own. But was this the right way to go about it? Wasn’t she secretly deep-down inside doing this in the hope that he’d find out? Be impressed? Realize that he didn’t have the copyright on heroic deeds?

Jen laughed at herself. Doing an MBA a heroic deed? She really was delusional.

She looked around her a little disconcertedly. Things were getting a bit out of control. The clematis was getting everywhere, the jasmine needed deadheading, the poor basil was wilting, and the rosemary was drying out. She wasn’t surprised—they weren’t exactly equipped to fend for themselves against the London grime and uncertain weather. Then again, she wasn’t exactly convinced that she was either.

“What do you say, shall we run off to the south of France together?” she asked her plants conversationally as she put on her gardening gloves.

Slowly and methodically, Jen watered and pruned her plants, gently aerating the soil, adding compost and fertilizer, and imposing some order back into her little enclave. It was the only thing she ever took her time over, she thought to herself curiously. The only thing she did that she didn’t rush, didn’t cut corners. And one of the only things that she was really, truly proud of, too. It wasn’t like it was some great feat; it was just a few square feet with some plants stuck in it, but she’d planted every single one of them herself. No one had had any influence or input—in fact no one else really knew it existed. It was her little sanctuary. And it came in rather handy when making a mozzarella, tomato, and basil salad, too.

She sat back and appraised her work. The herb garden was situated in the far left-hand corner, then to the right where her garden got most sun, she’d planted jasmine and clematis that covered the battered fence separating her garden from her neighbor’s. And at the front, to the side of the little paved area onto which she’d squeezed a small table and two chairs, were pots and pots of heavenly smelling lavender.

All pretty hardy plants, she recognized. Nothing there that would vex the average amateur gardener. But still, an achievement. And nice smells, too.

Satisfied, she nipped inside to get her wine, then came back out and sat down on one of the rickety chairs. Life seemed so simple when she was out here, Jen thought to herself. So basic—life, renewal, and death were the only real principles. Plants didn’t have to worry about ex-boyfriends, estranged parents, and strategic alignment. They just got on with living, growing up toward the sun, and burrowing down for water and nutrients. They were tough, too—Jen loved nothing more than the sight of a little weed growing through concrete, a small display of power that reminded her that in spite of all the buildings, roads, and computers humans had built, they were never going to be able to tame Mother Nature.

Jen sighed and took another gulp of wine. Taming her own mother was just as hard, she realized, as her eyes rested on the clematis for a moment and her brow furrowed a little. The plant had wrapped itself around the wires she had carefully positioned to support it, but was equally as wrapped around the jasmine next to it, which in turn had buried itself into the fence, taking advantage of every crack and hole. And there, at the base of both plants, was a small gardenia, its feeble attempts to grow being thwarted by the greedy climbers.

She hadn’t even noticed the gardenia before—certainly didn’t remember planting it. Quickly she took out her trowel and, feeling her way with her bare hands, gently scooped out the roots and lifted the plant out of its resting place.

She frowned, wondering where to put it. The left hand side of the garden was too shady and the right-hand side would leave it at the mercy of the various climbers that were ruthless in the pursuit of growth.

“Where would I want to go?” she asked herself out loud. “Shade or sun? On my own or fighting for space?”

Finally, she decided on a little space about a foot away from the clematis and dug a hole. Filling it with compost and earth, she eased the little plant in, gave it a quick blast of water, then sat back and let the last minutes of the autumn sun warm her face before it disappeared behind the wall.

Just as she started to relax and let her mind drift far away from thoughts of her mother and Gavin, the phone rang, shattering her peaceful reverie. Jen reluctantly went inside to answer it.

“So how was it?” Jen heard her mother’s voice and half wished she’d left it after all. Maybe she could learn something from the gardenia—if she’d ignored Harriet’s calls a bit more often she might not be doing the MBA in the first place, which would mean no aching arms and sore head.

“Oh, Mum. Hi. Yeah, it was . . . well, you know. It was okay.”

“Did you see your father? Did you find out anything?”

Jen sighed. “Mum, I’ve been there one day. No, I didn’t see him and no, I don’t know anything yet. I’ve been in bloody lectures all day. I’m knackered actually, and I’m getting a real headache. . . .”

“Oh dear,” Harriet said, rather unsympathetically in Jen’s opinion.

“So anyway, how are things with you? Anything happening at Green Futures?” Jen asked conversationally. She wanted to hear about something other than corporate strategy and was even prepared to listen to one of her mother’s tall tales if that was all that was on offer.

“Oh, you know, the usual sort of thing. We’re having a meeting next week that you might want to come along to—on the Sacred Feminine. You remember, it came out of our book club when we were reading
The Da Vinci Code.
We’ve got a meeting to work out strategies for building business success through empowering the Sacred Feminine in all of us—and in our clients. I think this could be really big for us.”

Jen wrinkled her nose. This wasn’t quite what she’d had in mind for conversation.

“The Sacred Feminine?” she asked, staring at her nails and wondering how Lara got hers so long and shiny. Jen had never really been the long-and-shiny nail type and she didn’t particularly want to start now, but she was still curious. “I thought
The Da Vinci Code
was fiction.”

Jen heard her mother snort contemptuously.

“Fiction? Is that what you thought? The greatest conspiracy of our time uncovered, and you think it’s fiction?”

Jen smiled to herself as Harriet launched into a defense of the book and its theories.

“And you think it’s going to help you get more business?” Jen asked eventually.

“I know it will. I had the idea when I was choosing crystals with Paul and it almost felt like a vision, it was so clear.”

Jen groaned. Her mother’s whims were one thing, but the whims of Paul bloody Song, feng shui expert and Harriet’s latest guru, were quite another. Jen knew she should be more charitable, but anyone who walked around in long, flowing trousers talking about crystals and meditation just shouldn’t be taken seriously in her book. Her mother had only known him for a few weeks and already she was dropping him into conversation like she’d known him all her life.

“You’re choosing crystals with him now. How romantic,” Jen said sarcastically. The tone wasn’t lost on Harriet.

“I know you’re at an age when everything seems to be about sex, darling, but some of us have moved beyond the physical to the spiritual,” she said crossly. “I don’t know why you don’t like Paul, but I think it reflects badly on you. He’s a wonderful support, really. And he understands me in a way that no one else does . . .”

“You mean he lets you talk for longer than anyone else will put up with,” Jen said amiably. “Look, I’m sure your Sacred Feminine idea is a really great one, but I’m kind of tied up with this little MBA thing I’ve got going on. So you might have to leave me out, I’m afraid.”

“Fine,” Harriet said dismissively. “Oh, and did I mention that I’ve booked a table for the Tsunami appeal charity dinner? You are going to come, aren’t you?”

“No, you didn’t mention it,” Jen said firmly. She’d been to charity dinners before and had no intention of going to another. They were full of people who thought that paying eighty pounds for a ticket made them the world’s expert on the charity concerned, and anyway, there was never anyone there under the age of fifty.

“I’m sure I did, darling. It’s on Friday. The tickets were very expensive.”

“Well, you should have mentioned it, then. I’m going out on Friday, with Angel . . .”

And I think I’m a little bit old to be spending my Friday night out with my mother,
she wanted to add, but thought better of it.

Harriet sighed dramatically. “I thought this was important to you, Jennifer. Honestly, I get you a ticket to a Tsunami dinner, knowing that Bell Consulting has a table, and you can’t be bothered to—”

“Dad’s going to be there?” Jen interrupted, her tone suddenly more serious.

“Not your father, no. I can’t see him deigning to attend something that’s for a good cause. But some of his consultants are going. I know the organizers, you see. And they kindly gave me a little peek at the guest list. But if your social life takes precedence, then I completely understand.”

“I think I’m going to be seeing enough of Bell this week, don’t you?” Jen said hesitantly. She could already hear a little voice in her head telling her that maybe she shouldn’t rule it out altogether.

“And I thought you actually cared about those poor people who’s lives have been destroyed,” Harriet said, her voice catching slightly. “Do you not think that a dinner, with free-flowing wine and champagne, might not be a good opportunity to catch people off guard? To listen to conversations that they may not have walking down a corridor?”

Jen sighed. How did her mother do it every single time, she wondered? How did she make it almost impossible to say no?

“What time does it start?” she asked resignedly.

“Seven thirty P.M. or eight P.M. Oh, it’ll be so much fun.”

Somehow I doubt it,
Jen thought as she put down the phone.

3

Jen looked at herself disconcertedly in the mirror. It was a Friday night, and she should be going out dancing. But instead of hitting the town, she was being forced to put on a ridiculous dress and go to a dinner with her mother, Paul bloody Song, and a bunch of Green Futures cronies. She groaned. When she’d split up with Gavin and moved back to London, this wasn’t quite how she’d imagined her life turning out.

Jen turned round to look at her back view. She was wearing a dress that she’d had for nearly eight years— she didn’t usually have much call for a cocktail dress, and there was no way she was going to spend her hard-earned cash on something she’d probably never wear again—and where it had previously flattered her curves, it now seemed to cling to them in all the wrong places. Had she got bigger, Jen wondered, or did the dry cleaner shrink it?

Not wanting to face the more likely answer, Jen quickly dug out an old pashmina and wrapped it around herself, then put on the highest shoes she could find. It wasn’t great, but it would do. It wasn’t like this was really “going out” after all; this was a duty dinner. It didn’t really matter what she looked like.

Grabbing her bag, she went out into the street and flagged down a taxi.

“What a pretty dress!” Harriet smiled beatifically at Jen and immediately turned to Paul. “Isn’t it a pretty dress?”

“You look enchanting,” Paul agreed, and Jen forced herself to smile. It was a horrible dress, but she was pretty much beyond caring. The dinner was being held at the Lanesborough Hotel on Hyde Park Corner and half of well-heeled London seemed to be here—at least the ones with gray hair, Jen noticed. She could smell pressed powder and sweet perfume everywhere.

Trying to forget the fact that right now she should be out somewhere in a proper bar with young people, she looked around the room. It was for a good cause, she told herself, even though she knew that Gavin would laugh his head off if he saw her now. “Yeah, dressing up in a little black dress is really going to help the planet,” he’d say sarcastically. “Bunch of old gits filling their faces? Pur-lease . . .”

And he’d be right, Jen thought to herself with a sigh. Still, she was here now; she may as well make the most of it.

She saw a waiter walking around with trays of champagne and took one gratefully.

“Jen!”

She grinned. It was Tim, the finance manager at Green Futures. “Hi, Tim, how’s things?”

He smiled awkwardly. His trousers had obviously been bought a few years before too, and his stomach was straining over the top of them, matching his neck, which was spilling out of his dress shirt. It made Jen worry about her own tightly fitting dress and she pulled her pashmina around her.

“Oh, you know, can’t complain,” he said affably. “Didn’t know you were coming tonight. Then again, I haven’t seen you around lately. You been off sick?”

Jen shrugged awkwardly. Evidently Harriet hadn’t told anyone where Jen had been, which was good, but it also meant that she had to think up some other excuse for having disappeared. “No, just been, you know, doing stuff,” she said vaguely. “And I didn’t know I was coming here until Monday, but you know what Mum’s like.”

Tim grinned. “Do I ever. Been trying to pin her down for two weeks now to talk about our accounts and she’s mad busy, can’t find the time. But mention a charity ball and suddenly she’s got all the time in the world . . .”

They both looked over at Harriet, who was holding forth, captivating a group of people with stories. She caught Jen’s eye and motioned for her to come over, but Jen shook her head and waved instead.

“Not joining her ladyship?” Tim asked, raising an eyebrow.

Jen took a gulp of champagne. “Sometimes she seems to think I’m about twelve,” she said with a little smile. “If I go over there I’m worried she might start telling everyone how well I did in my A Levels or something. . . .”

Tim called over a waiter who was proffering little sausages and blinis, and grabbed a couple of each, wolfing them down in two seconds.

“Wish you hadn’t come to work for her, then?” he asked conversationally.

Jen thought for a moment. “Dunno, really. I knew it wouldn’t be ideal, but it was nice to have somewhere to go.”

Tim nodded. “Well, if you do get a moment with her, let her know that she’s got some cash flow issues, will you? I’ve tried e-mailing, but I think she sees my name and deletes them straightaway.”

Jen grinned. “I’m sure it’s not that bad, is it?”

Tim raised his eyebrows. “Your mother,” he said, pausing to take a swig of champagne, “is the world’s best networker, the world’s best saleswoman, and a bloody great storyteller. But when it comes to figures . . . Well, anyway, you just tell her she needs to sit down with me so I can walk her through it, will you?”

Jen nodded, frowning slightly, as Tim wandered off in search of more food, then started as a gong sounded and everyone was asked to take their seats. She nipped over to the seating plan and her heart sank slightly when she saw that she was sitting between Paul Song and Geoffrey, one of the Green Futures consultants, who was known as “Beardy Weirdy” by everyone in the office.

“That’s a very nice dress,” Geoffrey said brightly as she sat down. “My mother’s got one just the same.”

Jen smiled thinly. Somehow, she thought to herself, this was going to be a very long night.

“So then I asked them whether they’d considered recruitment in the region. And do you know what they said?”

Jen noticed Geoffrey had stopped talking and realized that he must have asked her a question. She smiled, hoping that he’d carry on talking. This dinner had been an absolute joke and she was angry at herself for being suckered in to it. She wasn’t going to find anything out about Bell, or Axiom, or anything else of any interest. Plus she felt like a frump in her dress, and was feeling bad that vanity had become so important to her. It shouldn’t matter what she looked like, she knew that. But somehow, it just did.

“Well, do you?”

Shit. What was the question, Jen wondered desperately. She searched through her head, trying to recall what on earth Geoffrey had been droning on about for the past two hours, or however long it had taken them to get through three long courses.

“I bet you’re going to tell me,” she said eventually and was relieved to see a satisfied smile appear on his face.

“They said no!” he said triumphantly. “And just like that, they realized where they’d been going wrong. They couldn’t thank me enough after that, of course, but I said to them ‘don’t thank me, thank yourselves for having the foresight for—’ ”

“You know, I’m just going to . . . get a drink,” Jen interrupted with a little smile. “Can I . . . um . . . get you anything?”

Geoffrey shook his head. “Don’t want to drink too much on a school night!” he said conspiratorially.

“It’s Friday,” Jen pointed out.

“Even so . . .”

Jen shrugged and wandered over to the bar, relieved to escape from his incessant talking. He wasn’t a bad person, she knew that. And actually, she kind of liked him in a deep down sort of way. So long as he wasn’t in the same room as her for too long.

“Vodka tonic, please,” she said as a barman rounded on her. Then, drink in hand, she perched on a seat and turned around to look at the rest of the diners. There were about twenty tables, each with twelve people on it, which made . . . Jen frowned as she did a quick calculation . . . 240 people. And at least one table was made up of Bell Consultants. But which one?

She stared ahead, wondering for the millionth time that evening what she would be doing if she were out with Angel. Or anyone else she actually chose to spend her time with.

“So then she says that she doesn’t want to see him anymore because she’s been sleeping with his best friend for a year.”

“No!”

Two men had approached the bar and were talking in animated voices. Jen looked at them briefly, then turned back to her drink.

“Yes. And he’s standing there in his underpants, and he’s looking at her, and . . . oh, ’scuse me . . .”

Jen heard a mobile phone ring, and the guy who had been speaking answered it and pressed it to his ear.

“Mr. Bell. Yes, I’m there now. No, not really. We’re just . . . you know, networking . . . Right you are. Yup. Yup. Okay, then. ’Bye.”

Jen froze and gripped her drink. They must be the Bell consultants. And they were right next to her! She allowed her hair to fall in front of her face, and tried to edge a little bit closer while staring resolutely ahead.

“Okay, so then, he goes round to see the friend,” the man continued, putting his mobile back in his pocket.

“He goes round to see the friend? Seriously?”

“I’m serious. He decides to have it out with him.”

“And his wife is there?”

“Yes. But not with the friend. She’s with the friend’s wife. Her girlfriend.”

“No!”

Jen rolled her eyes. So much for finding out anything useful, she thought, telling herself that she had no interest whatsoever in the man in his underpants.

“I’m telling you. So he rocks up in his Mercedes. Locks the car. The front door of his friend’s house opens, and he jumps. I mean, the guy is all nerves. Anyway, he drops his car keys. He bends down to pick them up, but they’ve fallen down into the drain.”

“They’ve fallen down into the drain?”

“The God’s honest truth.”

“And he’s still in his underpants?”

“Seriously. Look, I need a slash. You get the drinks in and I’ll be back in a sec.”

“I’ll come with you. I wanted to ask you about that Axiom thing, by the way.”

Jen’s eyes darted toward the men, then back to her drink. Axiom? This she had to hear.

“Oh that. Yeah, bloody nightmare. Where’s the men’s?”

He directed his question at the barman, who pointed to the other side of the room. As they walked off, Jen looked around furtively, slipped off her stool, and followed them out of the ballroom and down a corridor. She watched them go into the men’s room, then she opened the door slightly, trying to hear what they were saying.

“So anyway, he’s lost his car keys . . .”

She rolled her eyes. What about Axiom, she wanted to ask. Sod the guy in his underpants.

“. . . and he looks up and there in front of him is . . .”

“Hello.”

Jen looked around, startled. There was someone right behind her, evidently trying to get into the men’s room, and she was blocking his way. He was looking at her curiously and she wondered how long he’d been there.

“Hello!” she said falteringly. She knew she should move, but with him right next to her, it wasn’t that easy—she couldn’t go forward into the men’s room, and now she couldn’t go back either.

“Is this the . . . er . . . welcoming party?” he asked with a little smile. Jen reddened. This didn’t look very good, she realized. She was standing right in the doorway to the gents and, to add insult to injury, her head had been pressed right up against the door.

She turned around to face him and cringed. Naturally, he was gorgeous. Had she been doing something that wasn’t embarrassing, and wearing a dress that fit her properly, it probably would have been one of the old codgers who found her.

“Sorry. I was just . . . um . . . looking for someone,” she said quickly, wrapping her pashmina more closely around herself and nearly spilling her drink all over him in the process.

“Can I help?”

“No!” Jen said, too quickly. “I mean, thank you. But no.”

He was still looking at her curiously, and she figured that she’d better move to let him through. Otherwise he really would think she was weird.

“Sorry,” she said again, moving too quickly and ending up with her face buried in his armpit. She stepped back again and as she did so, her face nearly brushed his, making her go even redder than before.

His eyes met hers and twinkled slightly. And just when she thought things couldn’t get any worse, she saw Geoffrey coming down the corridor, his brown squishy shoes looking so utterly wrong with his dinner jacket and black trousers that it was almost comical.

“Hello, Jennifer,” he said, seemingly oblivious to the oddness of finding her in the doorway to the men’s room, tangled up with a stranger. “I was just looking for you at the bar, as it goes.” Jen felt her heart sink as the stranger deftly moved away, freeing her up to pass.

“Well, it looks like you’ve found your someone,” he said, and, with a little smile, he disappeared into the men’s, Jen’s eyes following after him. She turned to Geoffrey, who was smiling inanely.

“Looking for me?” he said brightly. “Well, there’s a little mixup! I’ll tell you what, let’s go back to the table, shall we? Unless of course you want to stand around the men’s room!”

He laughed at his joke and Jen smiled reluctantly. “Of course not,” she said halfheartedly. “Why on earth would I?”

Jen returned to the table, accompanied by Geoffrey, and slumped on her chair. This had to go down as the worst night ever, she thought despondently, staring at her vodka tonic and taking a sip. She’d totally screwed up, missing out on the Axiom conversation, embarrassing herself in front of the only good-looking man in the entire room, and was now back where she started, next to Geoffrey.

“You okay?”

She looked up to see Paul gazing concernedly at her.
That’s all I need,
she thought with a sigh.
Someone to tell me I should move a mirror in my flat and everything will suddenly be okay.

“I’m fine,” she said politely. “Just, you know, a bit tired.”

“Maybe you need someone to talk to,” he said.

She looked at him suspiciously. “Thanks, but I’m fine, really. I should have been out with my friends tonight, as it happens.”

Paul nodded sympathetically. “But it is good that you support your mother, no?”

“I suppose.” Jen shrugged despondently.

Paul frowned, and for a moment Jen thought that he was going to argue with her, tell her that she wasn’t supportive enough, but then she saw him put his hand in his pocket and take out a pager. He smiled apologetically, bowed his head, and stood up.

“Please excuse me,” he said, and Jen smiled back.

“Sure,” she said vaguely. “Whatever . . .”