Original Sin (13 page)

William pointedly ignored Liz’s glare and glanced down at his watch.

‘We should push on. Let’s save this for the Vital Radiance brand meeting.’

*

Meredith had a glorious corner office from which she could see the Empire State Building. She mixed herself a drink from the cabinet by the window, watching the yellow cabs and pedestrians moving below. Moving behind her desk, she picked up Quentin’s financial report and began to read. It didn’t look good, not at all. They needed this wedding more than ever it seemed. Just then there was a crash, and Meredith looked up in alarm as Liz strode in, and slammed the door.

‘Liz, what on earth is the matter?’

‘We need to talk, Mother,’ said Liz, leaning on the desk.

‘Yes we do, Liz,’ replied Meredith, taking her glasses off. ‘You are senior management.
Management
,’ she emphasized. ‘You cannot behave as you just did in there. The way you just talked to Eleanor, I’d be surprised if we didn’t have her resignation letter on my desk by tomorrow morning.’

‘Well, that would be a start,’ said Liz, more coolly, sitting down in the Eames chair in front of Meredith’s desk, crossing her long legs in front of her. ‘Mother, this company is about to go under and you seem content to let that happen.’

Liz studied Meredith’s reaction carefully. For all her skill at reading people, Liz was never entirely sure where her mother’s loyalties lay. Clearly Meredith did not share Liz’s vision for the business, but she wasn’t sure whether that was a head–in–the–sand refusal to acknowledge the decline of Asgill’s, or whether she was simply so blind to William’s shortcomings that she was prepared to let the company suffer under his weak direction.

‘Don’t be ridiculous, Elizabeth,’ snapped Meredith. ‘No one wants to see this company in difficulties, least of all me.’

‘So are you happy about what you’ve just heard in there?’

‘Everyone is disappointed by the figures,’ said Meredith patiently. ‘But you know as well as I do that the industry is facing some tough challenges. Need I remind you that we are still an independent, family–owned company, and not under the wings of a multinational? In hard times, it’s harder for the little guy.’

Liz shook her head in disagreement. ‘Now you’re being ridiculous, Mother. So what if we’re not in the L’Oréal stable? Smaller companies can still thrive in the beauty industry if they innovate and market themselves properly, but there’s no margin for error. We can’t afford to make any more mistakes.’

Liz took a deep breath, knowing that, for once, she had to be completely honest. She had never been convinced by her brother’s leadership but had stopped short of saying so to her mother because Meredith had the power to appoint his successor.

‘The weak link is William,’ said Liz, pressing on. ‘We know it, the industry knows it, but we can still restore confidence if we remove him.’

Meredith looked unmoved. She sat silently, regarding her daughter.

‘The key attribute for running a company successfully is not necessarily the ability to shout the loudest, Liz,’ she said finally.

‘Perhaps not, but I always assumed an ability to turn a profit might also be required.’

Meredith shook her head. ‘Rome wasn’t built in a day, Liz. When William took over as CEO, we all agreed that we needed to innovate more. He’s doing that.’

‘
He’s
doing that?’ laughed Liz. ‘When has William ever done anything innovative? Vital Radiance was green–lighted in Dad’s time. All William feels comfortable doing is cost–cutting.’

‘He’s overseen two major launches, Liz: Vital and Skin Plus. Not to mention the successful re–launch of The Balm.’

Liz shrugged. She had to concede that one: a simple repackaging of the cleansing pomade that had made her father’s name when he had launched the company in the late 1950s. They’d replaced The Balm’s dated black plastic pot with a sleek brushed glass one and increased sales by 20 per cent.

‘That was three years ago,’ said Liz, shaking her head.

‘Well, I believe in your brother,’ said Meredith and, with those words, Liz knew she was wasting her breath; she knew her mother would never hear her objections. Not for the first time, Liz felt a sinking sense of disappointment and rejection.
Why do I even bother trying?
she thought miserably. Yes, she had been born into wealth and privilege, but Liz had never taken it for granted, working twice as hard as anyone else. But what good was all that effort? All those summers she had spent in the Research and Development lab as a student when all her college friends were having fun in Mexico, Australia, or the South of France, or the MBA she had earned at Wharton in order to understand the business side better. It was all a waste as far as her mother was concerned. Meredith’s attitude seemed to be ‘keep quiet, the boys know best’. The problem was, Liz had been born first and she had been born a girl.

Liz stood up and silently walked out of the room. She was sick of her brother, sick of her mother. She was sick of trying to save the company with her creativity and the hard work she got no credit for.
Screw them
, she thought to herself as she quietly closed the door behind her.
Screw them all
. It was time to look after herself.

CHAPTER SIX

‘Welcome to Asgill’s,’ beamed a tanned blonde as Tess walked nervously into the company’s reception area. If she hadn’t already been anxious on this, her first visit to the offices on the thirty–second floor of a midtown skyscraper, the receptionist was enough to unnerve her. She looked like a super–charged
Cosmopolitan
cover girl; all bouncy, tawny hair, perfect skin and feline eyes. Tess wondered how anyone could look so perfect and perky at seven o’clock in the morning. Then again, all of New York seemed to bristle with an energy she had never witnessed in London, certainly not this early. For her first day at work she had wanted to be the first in, but it seemed as if the rest of Manhattan had had the same idea. The streets below her were already full of people, cars, and noise, and Starbucks had been so busy she had walked straight past it – no one needed a latte
that
much.

‘I’m Sally,’ said the blonde, handing Tess a security pass and leading her down a long cream corridor. ‘When did you get into town?’

‘Last night,’ replied Tess. Everything had happened so quickly that it was easy to forget she was in a completely new city on a new continent. The Asgill offices seemed like a different world, too, especially compared to life at the
Globe
, which had been one huge airless room full of ringing phones, old Formica desks, and the smell of stale tea. Here, on the thirty–second floor, everything was tasteful and calm, with pale ivory walls, chrome cantilever furniture and huge photographs of the company’s advertising campaigns. It even smelt delicious, thanks to vast arrangements of fresh lilies everywhere.
We’re not in Kansas any more, Toto
, she thought as she tried to keep up with Sally’s brisk pace.

‘Office hours are eight to five, although some of us get in earlier, others a little later,’ said Sally, nodding over to some smaller offices off the main open–plan block.

‘Mrs Asgill has the corner office and she gets in at nine a.m. She’ll drop by and see you this morning. In the meantime, Patty Shackleton, our legal counsel is going to show you around and get you up to speed.’

Sally stopped outside a small, sunny office and motioned for Tess to step inside.

‘Home,’ she said with a grin.

When Sally had gone, Tess took her jacket off and hung it on the coat stand next to the door, then went to sit behind the glass desk, closing her eyes for a moment as she felt the morning sun pour through the windows and warm her back.
My new life
, she thought, feeling excited, on edge, and just a little bit sad about how easy it had been to leave London, the city she had called home for almost ten years. She had flown back to England the day after Brooke Asgill’s engagement party and given her notice letter to a smug, suntanned Andy Davidson, first thing on the Monday morning. Unsurprisingly, he’d been more than happy to accept her resignation. ‘Leave at the end of the week, yeah?’ he had said. ‘No sense hanging about, is there?’

Tess was inclined to agree, and her plane ticket to JFK was booked for the day after that. Her farewell drinks in the upstairs of the pub next to the
Globe
offices prompted a good turnout, but only confirmed to Tess that she was making the right move. There were so many new faces in the crowd. Tess knew she was part of the old guard at the
Globe
, and that wasn’t a good place to be at twenty–nine. Even when her girlfriends turned up to say goodbye, Tess realized how infrequently she saw them, and how distant they had grown. Seeing them once or twice every six months: no wonder all they had to talk about was celebrity gossip and memories of nights out that had happened years ago. Tess knew she had fallen into a rut; it was time to get new stories and have new adventures. That’s what Dom had told her on the drive to Heathrow, and it was what she had kept telling herself as she walked through Departures, willing herself not to get upset. After all, it wasn’t as if she was
emigrating
, it was more like a very long press trip from which she would return richer, hipper, and infinitely more connected than if she had stayed in London.

Just as she was firing up the computer in front of her, she heard someone enter the room. Looking up she saw a tall black woman wearing an expensive–looking trouser suit, her hair worn like the singer Sade’s, scraped back off her head.

‘Patty Shackleton,’ the woman said, briskly offering a long, manicured hand.

Hell, even the lawyers look like models here
, thought Tess, rising out of her seat to introduce herself.

‘Pleased to meet you Patty, I’m Tess,’ she said, smiling.

Patty didn’t move, her face wearing a taut, concerned expression. ‘Have you read Danny Krantz?’ she asked quickly, pulling out a paper from under her arm and opening it with a rustle.

Tess felt a flutter of panic as she instantly fell onto the back foot on her first day, feeling both incompetent and unprofessional. Danny Krantz penned the gossip column in New York’s
Daily Oracle
. Together with Page Six in the
New York Post
and Rush and Molloy in the
Daily News
it was one of the juiciest, best–read newspaper columns in the country.

Shit
, she silently cursed herself,
of course
she should have read all the papers, but there seemed to have been so many other things to do that morning.

‘Not yet,’ she replied quickly, ‘I’ve organized for all the papers to be delivered to my apartment, but that won’t happen until tomorrow,’ she said, blushing.

‘It came on line at five a.m.’ Patty did not say it in an unkind or accusatory way; it was a simple relaying of fact. She tapped the page. ‘Read that.’

Tess took a swig of coffee as she read the story, wincing both at the strength of the coffee and the gossip item.

Brooke Asgill, fiancée of New York’s most eligible man, David Billington, may look like perfect wife material, but this morning news emerged that Brooke is a home–wrecker.

Tess glanced up at Patty, her expression grave.

Brown University professor Dr Jeff Daniels left his wife of ten years to be with Brooke Asgill when she was a student at the institution. Although the relationship between Daniels and Asgill didn’t last … ’
Tess quickly skimmed the rest of the story, reading the last line out loud.

‘Old flame Matthew Palmer, now a doctor at the Columbia–Presbyterian Medical Centre says: “Brooke was always hot. I’d be surprised if any man could resist her.”
’

Tess shook her head, then looked at Patty. ‘I guess this means our guided tour is off?’

‘I guess so,’ smiled Patty. ‘Instead you’ve got a baptism of fire. Nothing we can’t handle, though.’

Tess didn’t doubt it. She had done all her homework on her contacts at Asgill’s and she could still recall Patty’s impressive CV: Duke University, Harvard Law School, five years at a Wall Street commercial firm, three years here at Asgill’s. She was exactly the sort of person you’d want on your side in a crisis. Tess was glad
someone
knew what they were they doing.

She looked back at the newspaper in front of her and began to feel her old journalistic curiosity creeping back.
Interesting
, she thought.
So Brooke Asgill does have a dark side after all.
She almost smiled, before remembering which side of the fence she was on now. At the
Globe
it was all about exposing people’s misdemeanours; now she was being paid a great deal of money to cover them up.

‘Have you contacted the paper?’ she asked.