Original Sin (12 page)

‘And what do you think happened the night of your wedding?’ Tess felt stronger now she was on familiar ground – probing, getting to the bottom of the story. She was even beginning to enjoy herself.

Meredith looked at her and saw she wouldn’t let it drop. She sighed.

‘I honestly don’t know what happened. I believe that Olivia was depressed, but I barely knew her; we had only met her a couple of times before the wedding. She was only there because she was an ambassador of the Asgill lipstick range. If she is dead – and that was never proved – of course it’s a tragedy. It was certainly a black cloud over our entire wedding, so you can understand me wanting Brooke’s big day to be perfect.’

Tess looked at her thoughtfully. ‘I thought this job was just to get me off the
Globe
and out of London,’ she said honestly.

‘No, I can see why you might think that, but there is a job to be done here Tess. My family needs protecting and I think you could be good at it.’

She looked across the crowd. Brooke and David were standing on the staircase, having their picture taken and laughing.

‘Look at how happy Brooke and David are. A perfect president and first lady, don’t you think? That’s what’s at stake here, Tess, not just the reputation of the family. It’s bigger than that.’

Tess took a sip of champagne and carefully plated the flute on the table beside her. Dom was nowhere to be seen. Not that he would affect her decision anyway.

‘I’ll take it,’ she said simply.

Meredith’s face broke into a warm smile. She took Tess’s hand in both of hers.

‘I knew you’d come to the right decision,’ she said. ‘Resign from the
Globe
on Monday and you can start as soon as you can get here. There’s plenty of work to be done. And Tess? Welcome to the family.’

CHAPTER FIVE

The Asgill Cosmetics conference room was an impressive place. The silk wallpaper, the shelves full of industry awards, and the Chippendale chairs lined along the long walnut table all reeked of corporate success. Should anyone be in any doubt as to the company’s place in the world, the floor–to–ceiling windows looked out onto the bustle of Manhattan, a city full of grateful customers. But, despite the grandeur of the surroundings, anyone attending an actual meeting in the conference room could detect that all was not well. Only a decade ago, Asgill’s had been one of the top ten cosmetics companies in America. Not as big as the giants such as L’Oréal or Maybelline, but within striking distance of Max Factor and Cover Girl. Today, though, Asgill Cosmetics was in trouble, a situation that had developed not suddenly but over a protracted period of time; a state of affairs that at least one member of the board found totally unacceptable. Liz Asgill was already seated at the far end of the table as the rest of the executive board filed into the room, and she watched the general managers of the individual brands shuffle to their seats with barely concealed contempt. From their grey faces and dour expressions, Liz felt sure that their reports would be filled with nothing but bad news.

‘Perhaps we should make a start,’ said Liz officiously, once everyone was in the room.

William, nominally the head of company, seemed distracted, fiddling with his laptop at the head of the table, the prestigious slot that Meredith – as company chairman – had occupied during board meetings until about six months ago. Now she sat to his right, Liz opposite her. Finally William looked up and nodded deferentially to Liz before addressing the room.

‘I know you’ve all prepared your report for the individual divisions,’ he said apologetically. ‘But I think today we just need to concentrate on the first quarters results and look at where we’re heading in the light of those.’

There were unsettled grumblings around the room as William introduced Quentin, their chief financial officer, and asked him to run through the figures. Liz could tell within a minute that they were the worst results the company had ever posted.

Liz watched William closely, waiting to see what spin her brother would attempt to put on the latest downwards turn, which had been caused by the recent launch of Vital Radiance, a low–priced organics range that – in theory – dispensed fresh beauty products from pumps placed in stores.

‘As you can see, we’re quite a way off from where we’d like to be at this point,’ said William. ‘The launch costs of Vital Radiance have obviously been fairly heavy, ditto the forthcoming Skin Plus.’

‘Presumably we’re going to have to reforecast the end–of–year results?’ asked Meredith. William shook his head.

‘We should wait until the second quarter for that. Obviously we’re all hoping that Vital Radiance is going to be a big hit.’

Liz watched as the rest of the board followed William’s cue and started smiling and nodding at this slim chance of rescue. Clearly nobody else had detected the slight waver in her brother’s voice that betrayed panic.

‘Quentin, have we got a breakdown of the Vital Radiance sales figures?’ she asked, interrupting William’s flow. Quentin nodded and handed out his First Quarter Financial Report. Liz didn’t miss the uncomfortable glance he directed at Eleanor Cohen, general manager of the Vital Radiance line, as he passed her a copy. Eleanor was an experienced cosmetics industry executive who’d been recently drafted in for her knowledge of marketing in department stores.

‘The first few weeks after the November launch were admittedly slow,’ she said, clearing her throat. ‘But retail conditions for everyone this Christmas were difficult.’

‘Not for everyone,’ said Liz.

Eleanor tried to avoid Liz’s stare, instead directing her comments to William and Meredith.

‘However, the press coverage we’ve had is excellent.
Allure
gave us half a page for the avocado cleansing oil, which is showing all the signs of becoming a cult classic.’

Liz almost laughed. Already there had been rumours that the drugstores were going to cut back on the retail space they had allocated for Vital Radiance because of poor initial sales. If that happened, it was a certain death warrant for the brand.

‘Eleanor, let’s face facts,’ said Liz irritably. ‘We are dead in the water if we don’t do something radical immediately to start shifting units.’

‘Liz, now is not the time for scaremongering,’ said Eleanor.

‘Scaremongering? Vital radiance is haemorrhaging money. It won’t last until fall at this rate.’

Liz looked over at her brother. Only eighteen months older than her, William looked at least a decade her senior: old and tired, worn out by the responsibility. He had none of Liz’s flair and none of the natural authority of their father; he was just a worker bee, a drone reluctantly forced into the queen’s seat. Liz, on the other hand, had been profiled in the
Wall Street Journal
as ‘that rare executive, one who combines creative brilliance with astute business sense.’ They both knew who should be sitting in William’s chair.

William cleared his throat. ‘Let’s not forget that the product we have here is good.’

Liz laughed. ‘Of
course
it’s good.’

Before Eleanor Cohen had been brought in to launch Vital Radiance, the product had been Liz’s baby. The fresh organics concept had been her idea, and she had spent fifteen hours a day working with industrial designers to perfect the dispensing pumps that mixed the fresh ingredients in store.

‘The problem is not the product,’ said Liz, looking pointedly at Eleanor, ‘the problem is the marketing.’

‘Well, it would have been nice to have received this insight before we launched,’ replied Eleanor tartly.

‘I assumed marketing was your area of expertise,’ retorted Liz. ‘Wasn’t that why we hired you?’

‘Okay, everyone, let’s keep things constructive,’ said William. ‘Liz, you clearly have some ideas.’

A faint smile played on Liz’s lips. She had been anticipating another difficult board meeting and relished the opportunity to place herself in the sun.

‘Okay,’ she said, ‘First of all, we’re not using our core brand effectively. Nobody knows that Vital Radiance is part of the Asgill family.’

‘You are quite happy for Skin Plus not to have brand association to the company,’ scoffed Eleanor.

Liz shook her head vigorously. ‘That’s different. Skin Plus is being positioned as a premium, luxury product, so we need to distance ourselves from Asgill’s. Vital Radiance, on the other hand, is very mass market. When you’ve only got fifty dollars disposable income a week and you’re spending a chunk of that on a face cream, the customers want the reassurance that it’s good. They like the validation that a major cosmetics player is behind it, so we should have branded it Vital Radiance by Asgill on all the retail units.’

‘I disagree–’ said Eleanor, before Liz cut her off mid–sentence.

‘Point two. We’ve created these fantastic pumps that allow us to deliver fresh product, with fresh ingredients blended and dispensed in front of them, but does the consumer really understand that? Have they been told about the benefits of this unique product? I don’t think so.’

‘We had the idea of putting the star bursts on the retail units,’ offered Caroline Peterson, the marketing director.

‘Nice idea, shame it didn’t happen,’ said Liz witheringly. At this point, Liz reached behind her and picked up a Vital Radiance advertising board.

‘Three,’ continued Liz, now in full flow. ‘Advertising.’

The image she held up was of a sliced avocado sitting next to a tumbler of water, a drip of water on the rim of the glass. It was an image that made Liz angry just to look at it, an affront to all the hard work she had put into research and development bringing the product to life.

‘Look at it,’ she said, tapping the board. ‘How is an
avocado
going to make Vital Radiance the market leader in mass–market skincare?’

Caroline Peterson looked embarrassed as she opened to mouth to speak.

‘We worked with O&M for twelve months on this campaign. We felt that the avocado summed up in one image everything that the brand stood for. Exotic yet accessible. Fresh and natural. The soft lime green of the fruit … it says healthy and aspirational.’

Liz rolled her eyes. ‘This line is aimed at the under–thirty–fives. They don’t respond to a fucking avocado.’

Now she pulled out another board with a pasted–up image torn from magazines. It was a photograph of a beautiful woman running along a beach.

‘This is what they respond to. Straightforward, aspirational lifestyle images. They want to be fit and beautiful, and this product will give them that.’

‘Are you now proposing we ditch an advertising campaign that has been running for less than ten weeks?’ asked Eleanor with alarm.

Liz nodded. ‘Absolutely. I also propose that we recall our retail units to rebrand them ‘Vital Radiance by Asgill’. I also think we need a celebrity face, shot in a lifestyle context rather than in the bland studio shoot everybody else does. In fact, I was thinking we could use Brooke.’

There was another murmur from the board, this time one of approval and interest. Liz knew she had their attention.

‘Brooke?’ asked Meredith cautiously. ‘Are you sure?’

‘Remember Aerin Lauder fronting Lauder’s Private Collection fragrances? Everyone thought it was the perfect fit. I think this will be a perfect fit too. Who better represents what the young woman of today wants than Brooke Asgill?’

Liz held up her photo of the girl on the beach. ‘Imagine this girl is Brooke. Now, imagine the headline: “Fresh, fun, fabulous – Vital Radiance by Asgill”. In fact, having Brooke as our front woman might even save us rebranding the in–store pumps. After all, everyone in the country knows who she is.’

William shifted uncomfortably in his chair. ‘These are great ideas, Liz, but it would be such an embarrassing U–turn in the industry.’

Liz spun to face him, anger prickling her cheeks. ‘Either we save face and we discontinue the line, or we take decisive action now,’ she said fiercely, her frustration at William’s ineffectual leadership spilling over.

Things had been so different since her father died. Howard and Liz would have huge debates in board meetings, constantly challenging each other, bouncing ideas off each other, so that they produced better results than anyone had originally hoped. Liz and Howard had been so similar, so close. Liz knew he had wanted her to be CEO of the company when he stepped down, but his death from a stroke four years previously had been swift, and formal provision for Liz had never been made. Meredith inherited Howard’s shareholding and she had allowed William to take over the company.

Still, she had some allies. Leonard Carter was nodding his head. Younger than Meredith but still in his sixties, he too no longer worked five days a week, but he was still a respected member of the board. After all, he’d spent twenty years as vice president in charge of international development.

‘We could certainly use Liz’s ideas to roll out the Vital Radiance launch in Europe. We’re only just liaising with the media buyers now. The avocados were going to be the global brand image, but we could change that.’

‘Hmm, I’m not sure the Billingtons will approve of this,’ said Meredith thoughtfully.