Unravelled (7 page)

I answer a few questions to clear up some uncertainties Mr Wall Street has and then decide that now is as good a time as ever to give him some bad news.

“Elena cancelled.” The popular singer was to be one of the main attractions. “Her agent said that she got an offer that had more certainty and he advised her to accept it.”

“There is nothing you can do to get her back?” Mr Wall Street asks after a groan that accompanied the realisation of the impact this cancellation can have.

“It is not like I have not been trying.” I say a bit miffed. “My second problem is that I can’t get hold of Zondra. I need to know what kind of contract was signed and the legal implications of the cancellation, but every time I try to get hold of our so-called legal advisor, I am either put on hold for ten minutes or I am told that she’s in a meeting.”

“But have you tried contacting Elena?” I don’t like the accusing tone of his voice.

“No,” I say very slowly, trying to control my annoyance. “All communication is directly with her agent, which is normal practice with artists and I’ve just told you what her agent said.”

“Did you try to negotiate with him?” I can feel my ire rising higher. This man does not seem to have any faith in my abilities. I close my eyes for a moment trying to calm down, but all I see behind my eyelids is images of me hitting Mr Wall Street over the head with a skittle. Jamie gives a nervous giggle as I take more time to compose myself. I’ve worked so hard the past few months on the new me and I’ll be damned if one man will ruin all that. Maybe I took to long to calm down, but when I open my eyes, Mr Wall Street looks ready to breathe fire.

“Ms Fields, please be in my office in ten minutes.” With that he leaves the room and stalks off to the elevator. I take a shaky breath and look at the three stunned faces staring at me like the hear-no-evil, see-no-evil and speak-no-evil monkeys.

“I haven’t seen him like this with anyone,” Ray offers his unsolicited opinion. “You seem to rub him up with wrong way, girl.” He looks at the other two questioningly as if they could offer an answer to this complex problem. A slow knowing smile crawls over his cheeks like lava down a mountain and then he offers me a volcanic viewpoint. “Maybe you rub him up the right way.” He tilts his head to one side and the evil man asks me in a sultry voice, “Does he rub you up the right way, honey?”

I had to control myself with Xena-like strength to not explode, and I manage to whisper in a strangled voice, “No, he does not. I find Mr Montgomery overbearing and unaccommodating.” I feel my mouth in danger of running away from me and I move around my table towards the door. “I am expected at a meeting,” I say and leave the room with as much dignity as I can muster under the circumstances – these circumstances being my face having acquired an unwelcome glow and Andy muttering, “My lady doth protest too much.”

In the elevator I think of how I’m able to semi-control my responses to other people, but seem to experience communication-breakdown between my brain and mouth whenever I’m around Mr Wall Street. Usually I need a certain amount of provocation before I speak my mind. But with
Mr Wall Street
I just need to see him blink and that is enough for my mind to switch off and my mouth to acquire a life of its own. For a millisecond I wonder if I’m dilly, but this daft thought is interrupted by the elevator stopping on Mr Wall Street’s floor and the doors open like the magic doors of a haunted house in a horror movie. Where is the scary organ music?

I step onto the lush carpet and promise myself to breathe deeply and count to ten – ok, at least to five – before replying to anything Mr Wall Street says. Agatha is at her desk and when she looks up I’m on the receiving end of a disapproving look.

“Ms Fields.”

“Hello, Agatha.” I try in my friendliest voice. “Mr Montgomery is expecting me.”

“I know.” She returns to her computer and finishes whatever she was typing before she buzzes Mr Wall Street to tell him the black sheep of Villsburg has arrived. I secretly wonder what she was typing and after toying with a few options, come to the firm decision that it is an erotic novel. This puts a smile on my face which immediately disappears when Agatha nods me to Mr Wall Street’s office. I bring back the image of her typing away and using words like “engorged member”, which makes it easy for me to give her my best toothpaste-ad smile before I walk to the door in my confident posture. I tone down my smile a tad and stand in front of the door trying to get my face into an appropriately respectful yet assertive expression when the door bursts open and I find myself eye to mouth with the purported recipient of my now startled facial expression.

For a moment Mr Wall Street looks at me in total surprise, but recovers remarkably well. Very politely he invites me into his office and I follow wondering about the expression on my face. The last few seconds came upon me just too quickly to be sure what I look like at the moment. Deep in thought I sit myself down on the chair in front of his large mahogany desk. I come back to reality when he sits down in his chair and sighs loudly.

“Well,” I say.

“Yes,” he says.

Another moment of silence. This is awkward. I am about to speak, but
Mr Wall Street
stops me with a finger in the air. Another thing he seems to do often in my presence. I don’t think that he’s pointing at something on the ceiling that I should look at, so I wait for him to say his piece.

“Ms Fields, I first want to apologise for my brisk manner earlier on.” Brisk manner? He was growling like a junkyard dog, but an apology is an apology and I’m rather taken aback by it. “In all fairness, you have to see this from my point of view. I walk into your office and find a crowd of people in a very jolly atmosphere. I’m sure you can see how it appeared to me.”

I concede to his point with a little nod. He continues, “I fully approve of all the help you are receiving and will get this message across to those involved. However, I cannot afford to lose too much productivity in my own company and would appreciate it if you could keep that in mind during this project.” I will not get annoyed. I will not get annoyed. “I would also like to propose a truce. I can see that you don’t find me agreeable, but for the sake of this project, let’s put our edgy start behind us and try to work on this together.”

Well, give me a wig and call me Tina! Now seems to be a very good time to think before I speak and I do so. Maybe a little too long, because Mr Wall Street’s look is going from expectant to strange, and that’s when I decide that I’ve thought enough and can speak now.

“Mr Montgomery, I don’t think a truce is necessary, since I don’t find you disagreeable. I agree that we’ve had an edgy start, but I was more under the impression that you found me disagreeable. I actually find you agreeable.” My fingers are crossed on my lap.

“Then why are you always so contrary?”

“What do you mean by contrary?” What ever does he mean?

“You seem to revel in disagreeing with me.”

“I do not.” And then I smile. “Okay, maybe you push my squabble button, but it doesn’t mean that I find you disagreeable.” I cannot believe we are having this conversation! I feel a very strong urge to end this and get on with my day. My life. I give him a bright smile which I hope looks real. “Now that we have that out the way, do you have any comments on the progress we’ve made so far?”

He looks as if he wants to pursue the matter I’m trying to get away from, but to my everlasting delight returns to business talk. “I’m duly impressed with all the arrangements you’ve made so far. As you rightly said, you’ve made more progress in three days than the others had in four months.”

“Not without any help.”

“Noted.” I think he got the point that I need the people he growled at and pushing it any further might cause him to growl at me. Again. So, I smile and simply nod. “I also appreciated the update this afternoon.” My, but this man is full of compliments. What happened on the way from my office to his? “I would like it if we can have an update meeting like that every other day.”

“Sure, no problem.” Wow, I could actually work with this man if he continues to be like this.

“I also want to reiterate that you have all the support you need.”

Now I’m getting a little bit suspicious. Is he handling me or is he being sincere? I make the conscious decision to believe it is the latter. And so it seems like Mr Wall Street and I have agreed upon a seize fire. I must admit being a little disappointed – I enjoyed the sparring.

I leave his office wondering if I’ve ever heard anyone use the word ‘reiterate”.

Chapter 6

“We should’ve taken my car.”

“Ray, stop whining and just hold the door.”

Not a day goes by without a mishap. Day one, it was the roadside incident; day two, the neighbour’s dog; day three, Bomb without fuel; day four, my make-up and today this. I’m facing the falling apart of my make-over and might have to call Juan. I truly hope that it won’t come to that.

Ray and I are following Jamie who is on his very big, very black motorbike, to his uncle’s farm. We all thought it would be a good idea to see the place before I present it as an option at the council meeting tonight. A few of the members have been grumbling again about having a meeting on a Friday evening, but one phone call from Mr Wall Street had them all agree and thus I feel the need to be prepared to the teeth for this meeting. There is no way they will get the better of me.

Mr Wall Street had another super-duper important meeting to attend to this morning and informed us, via Agatha, the dragon-lady, that he won’t be able to go to the farm with us. I snottily informed him, via Agatha, that this was also very important and threatened to make crucial decisions without his input. Somehow I think that message will never make it to him – Dragon-lady appears to strongly disapprove of me and my responses to Mr Wall Street.

“Alex, this door is going to fall off and take me with it.”

“Then put your seatbelt on. It will keep you in the car.”

“The passenger seat doesn’t have a seatbelt! I already looked.” Ray could not infuse more revulsion in his voice even if he tried. He obviously did not approve of Bomb and his idiosyncrasies.

“Oh.”

After a long argument at the office, I won Ray over by convincing him that farm roads are not good for his shiny new car. We left the office at about eleven, a bit later than planned due to our dispute, and I hope to be back in the office at two. There are quite a lot to do before the meeting tonight, but this visit to our possible premises is quite important.

Ray gingerly entered my car and found fault with everything he could lay his eyes on. Papers on the floor, dog hair everywhere, the radio doesn’t work, no cd player, no air-conditioning and so the complaining continued. As if to give him more ammunition, the passenger door flew open when we hit the first bump on the farm road (a bit too fast, I must admit) and it didn’t want to close again. Ray is now gripping the door with both hands, and has moved closer to my side in his fear of being ripped out of the moving vehicle. For a car that already didn’t seal very well, this extra gap helps the dust on the road to freely flow inside and that is making me sneeze. I can already feel the gritty dirt on my teeth. Yuck!

“Slow down, please.”

“If I drive any slower, the sheep will overtake us and we will lose sight of Jamie. It’s not like we’re going at warp speed.” A few things guarantee our thirty kilometres an hour: Jamie going quite slowly in front of us, the scary noises Bomb makes on a bumpy road, and of course, the half-on, half-off door. Jamie slows down even more and takes a smaller, and more bumpy, road to the left.

“I can’t hold on much longer.”

“Oh, stop being such a baby. We’re almost there.” Not even a week and we’re past the early acquaintance level of this relationship and into verbal abuse like people who’ve worked together for ages. I kind of like it, provided that the attacks are not aimed at my car.

Ahead of us are a lot of buildings and after three days of studying the plans for the old dairy, I think I can recognise some of the buildings. Fortunately I’m right this time and I follow Jamie onto the premises. I give a little smile at the obvious relief on Ray’s face when I park Bomb. No sooner have we stopped when the door gives an ominous groan followed by a marrow-drying squeak. Ray takes both his hands off the door and both of us look at it in dire anticipation. Not wanting to disappoint us, the door drops down to the ground where it balances precariously for a few milliseconds before tipping over and coming to a crashing rest on Jeremy’s old dairy land.

I watch Ray get out with more dignity that three queens (pun intended) and gingerly step over the door. I sigh another of many resigned sighs, grab my stuff and get out of the car. Jamie is unlocking the door of a building about one hundred meters from us and we start making our way to him. I dressed with care this morning and am wearing those blasted high heels again which is not the thing to be wearing when one pays a visit to a dairy. I walk very carefully, not really caring about the shoes, but more concerned about stepping into something that came out of the bottom of a cow.

The two of us must make quite the sight. Neither of us dressed for a visit on a farm, both of our designer outfits covered in dust and we are both walking in a weak imitation of Mr Bean so that we avoid stepping into any digested grass products.