Chapter 6
COURTNEY
All right, girl, I tell myself, this is it. Your moment to shine!
I look out the window, not seeing the beautiful city skyline, the clear blue sky, or even the people walking around like ants many stories below me. I see my own reflection.
And judging by the deep furrow between my brows, that girl needs a pep talk.
You have planned for this, prepared for this, and practiced until you can do it in your sleep.
After today, from the ground floor to the top floor, everyone will know that I earned this spot with hard work, keen intelligence, business creativity, and attention to detail.
Because before lunch is even broken out of desk drawers, I’ll have gotten Jane Crabtree of AgroStar to sign a contract with Andrews Consolidated. I can see it now.
“Courtney?” Jillian interrupts my self-hype and I turn around.
“Enjoying the view of your kingdom, Your Majesty?” She bows gracefully but then stumbles on purpose, taking a side-step to save herself.
When I crack the smallest smile, she looks up with a huge grin of her own.
“Gotcha. Need to perk you up for the run-through. Let’s go. ”
She holds out a cup of coffee, steam rising from the milky surface. When I reach for it, she pulls it back. “Uh-uh, follow me. Or in this case, follow the dancing coffee.” She wiggles it slightly, taking care not to spill on the four-thousand-dollar rug Violet hand-picked for my office.
When I take a few steps, I’m rewarded with the cup. The warmth rushes through my hands, and as I take a long, deep drink, the liquid through my belly. Already, I can feel the caffeine kicking in.
As we walk down the hall, Jillian listens to me quietly rattling off my speech. I need to get one more practice round in just in case three hundred and forty-two weren’t enough. I wish I were exaggerating, but I’m not. If anything, I might have forgotten to count a repetition or two.
“Courtney?” a voice calls out from an office as we pass, and I stop automatically, even though I don’t have time for this right now.
“Yes, Kevin?” Kevin Hill is another VP. He’s not a bad guy and is even quite adept at what he does, overseeing a particular manufacturing flow that’s ridiculously specific and requires close analysis every quarter, but he’s just .
. . the sort that delights in up-close analysis, ad nauseum.
In short, he’s a bore. And that’s saying something major, coming from me.
“Good luck today on the AgroStar presentation,” he says, leaning against his door frame. If a different guy were doing this pose, it might be sexy and casual. On Kevin, it looks awkward and uncomfortable. I can actually see that he practiced it in the mirror at home.
I freeze at that. I practiced my speech in front of the mirror. Oh, God, am I going to look like an awkward dork giving the most important presentation of my life? Maybe Kevin and I are two peas in an awkward, hyper-focused pod?
“Thanks,” I say, lost in my own thoughts.
“Of course. I wondered if, after you nail it, you’d like to get a drink sometime, or coffee? In celebration.”
“Oh, uh . . .” The first answer that jumps to my mind is ‘not if you were the last guy on Earth and the human race depended on our repopulating the species’, but that’s not something I can say to another VP, or really, anyone at work because it would be unprofessional and solidify my reputation as the Ice Queen around here.
Though, it’s also unprofessional to ask someone out fifteen minutes before their big presentation.
That’s gotta be like corporate faux pas 101, right? Or sabotage.
Jillian jumps in to save my ass, as usual.
“Court, we have got to go. Time’s a ticking.
” She shoves me down the hall, calling over her shoulder, “Mr. Hill, if you’d like to schedule an appointment with Ms. Andrews, have your assistant call me.
I’d be happy to schedule a coffee chat to go over any concerns you may have. ”
“No, I . . .” Kevin tries to correct Jillian, but she’s dragging me down the hall.
She shuts the conference room door behind us, panting like we just ran a mile.
“Holy shit, Court. I told you to get laid, but not by . . . that! What were you thinking?” She throws her voice high in what I think is supposed to be a mimicry of me, “Coffee? Drinks? Ohh . . . uh . . . Kevin, of course!” She makes a Pfft sound, spitting into the coffee I was still planning on drinking.
“I wasn’t going to say yes! I was trying to figure out how to say no nicely,” I explain. Her brow lifts, and I dutifully add, “Thanks for getting me out of there.”
She nods her head as if I’m royalty.
“Okay, bullet dodged. You’ve got the floor. Show me what we’ve got.”
“Printouts.” She points to the three binders on the table.
“Projector.” She picks up the remote, showing me how to hit the on/off button like I’m an idiot.
I follow along closely, just in case I am.
The screen at the front of the room illuminates, the Andrews logo on the left and AgroStar logo on the right.
“Push this button to go forward, this one to go backward. If you have any problems, I’ll be right here to handle them. ”
“Let’s hope it doesn’t come to my needing tech help if I’m suggesting that this woman give millions of her dollars to us. That would not exactly instill confidence,” I quip dryly.
I forget that I’m not supposed to drink my spit-laced coffee and lift it to my mouth. As soon as I take a swig, Jillian’s eyes go wide. “No! Bad boss lady! Spit that out!”
Mouthful of hot coffee burning my tongue and feeling like a chastised pet, I have no other option. I spit the coffee back into the cup in a brown stream of grossness. “Ugh!”
Unflappable, Jillian trades me the ruined coffee for a paper napkin and I wipe my mouth. After doing a lipstick check for me, she continues.
“Everything bagels and salmon-infused cream cheese—God, can you imagine what her breath must smell like after that? Fresh fruit, Earl Grey tea with lemon,” Jillian says, pointing at the small spread on the table at the back of the room.
“And Abi’s delivery person brought the two fresh flower arrangements this morning.
Mums like her cards, though they’re yellow and orange, not white.
They were unavailable, but these colors seem happy.
If you can call spindly spider flowers happy. ”
It’s one of the little details I planned specifically for Mrs. Crabtree.
Her family goes back generations to noble roots, and she uses spider chrysanthemums on her business cards as a nod to her family crest. And with my sister, Abi, owning a specialty flower shop, it was a no-brainer to add that detail.
I look at the arrangements, in awe of Abi’s work.
She is an artist with flowers, the only one in our family to flip her middle fingers to basically everything the Andrews name stands for and strike out on her own with nothing more than her creativity and belief in her abilities to build on.
She’s always marched to the beat of her own drummer, and mostly, we love her for it.
“I thought putting them on the breakfast bar would be nice because the air conditioner vent will help move the fragrance around the room without their being in your face on the table.” She holds a hand up directly in front of my nose, and I blink in surprise.
I nod, pleased. “Well done. We thought of everything, didn’t we?”
Both of us look around once more, but even after my Terminator-like scan, I think we’re ready to tackle anything.
And just in time, because I see my father escorting a middle-aged woman this way.
Ms. Jane Crabtree. A young guy in a suit follows them, eyes on Ms. Crabtree the whole time. Her assistant or security, I guess?
Jillian disappears into the corner, throwing me a thumbs-up and a smile before sitting down, tablet in hand to take notes.
I give Dad a nod as he enters, noting that he’s wearing his power meeting suit, black with tiny gray pinstripes, and a silvery tie.
He looks good, happier and thinner than I’ve seen him in years.
I hope it’s because I’m handling things now as a VP.
Ross used to give our father gray hairs by the bushelful, but those days are over now.
Both because Ross is settled down and because he’s not representing Andrews Consolidated anymore but himself.
Dad’s proud, though I don’t think he tells Ross that.
I offer my hand to Ms. Crabtree. “So nice to meet you, ma’am.”
She shakes my hand like a limp fish, barely touching me with her cold fingers. “Ms. Crabtree will do fine. Ma’am makes me feel like my mother . . . old.”
I chuckle politely as though she told a joke.
Truthfully, she is a few decades older than me but younger than Dad.
I’d put her age at mid-fifties, but she’s had good maintenance work done and looks spectacular, with barely a line creasing her face.
And I can spot an expensive haircut, designer clothing, and custom jewelry at one hundred yards, and Ms. Crabtree has every hallmark of being a wealthy woman.
Jillian sets a cup of Earl Grey tea at the spot furthest from the door and we all sit.
Except for the assistant-slash-security, who excuses himself silently, closing the door behind himself.
I don’t see him walk down the hall, so he must be standing directly in front of the door, a live-action blockade. Likely, security then, I decide.
It hits me in a whoosh of excitement. Playtime’s over and I’m on the pitcher’s mound of the big leagues now. This is everything I’ve been working for. It’s going to be my signature on a deal that will net the company millions of dollars in profit.
This is my chance to show everyone, especially Dad, that I’ve got what it takes. This meeting is the proof in my pudding.
“This is your daughter, Morgan?” Ms. Crabtree eyes me as though I’m a creature at the zoo, talking about me as if I can’t understand her.