Hostile Makeover (11 page)

Ross waved her into the single guest chair—which along with a battered metal desk, chair, and ancient file cabinet were the only furnishings in the room—then wedged himself between Shelley and the file cabinet, a chivalrous act that left his hip and thigh practically embedded in her shoulder.

Despite the fact that she was the one seated directly across from him, Haynes spoke to Ross. “This here was my first location, and I’m opening my sixth at the end of April. As I told your assistant here on the phone,” he nodded toward Shelley, “I don’t have a whole hell of a lot left over for advertisin’.”

Assistant?
The flush of anger worked its way up her spine. “But I’m not—” she began.

“I’m sure you don’t know too much about tahrs,” he said to her. “Fortunately, your boss appears to know his way around a vehicle.”

“What I was trying to say,” Shelley bit out, “is that I’m actually your account executive. Mr. Morgan is just—”

“Really pleased to be here,” Ross interrupted. “We’ve been wanting to talk to you about your business for some time. We think there’s a lot more we could do for you besides just placing occasional newspaper ads.”

Wrestling with her annoyance, Shelley snapped open her briefcase and pulled out the proposal she’d put together. “I went ahead and worked up a—”

“Phew,” Wiley interrupted. “I have got to get that AC unit fixed. It’s hotter than a witch’s—” He shot Shelley an apologetic look. “Sorry, ma’am.” He reached into his pocket and withdrew a stack of quarters, which he set on the desk and pushed toward Shelley. “How’d you like to run on over to the Coke machine out in the garage and get us all somethin’ cold to drink?” he asked. “My treat.”

Shelley’s mouth may have fallen open. There was a not-so-subtle pressure on her shoulder, and she knew exactly what Ross was trying to tell her. But then, it was easy for him to expect her to be diplomatic; he wasn’t the one who’d just been sent out for drinks.

She closed her mouth and swallowed back her outrage. “Sure.” She scooped the quarters off the scarred desk and left the office, barely resisting the urge to walk out the front door, hop in the impressive-mobile, and peel out of there.

When she entered the garage, conversation ceased, and she could actually feel every eye in the place glom on to her rear end. She moved slowly to the Coke machine and then carefully—so as not to drop any change she’d have to bend over and pick up—fed the coins into the machine. Clutching the cold cans to her chest, she made her way out of the garage and back through the showroom.

In the office she delivered the refreshments without comment and took her seat in the metal folding chair—smack up against Ross Morgan’s rock hard body and the tons of heat it was throwing off.

“Thank you, little lady.”

She knew Wiley Haynes hadn’t really called her that, because this was, after all, the twenty-first century. The pressure on her shoulder told her that he had.

“Mr. Haynes,” she said as calmly as she could. “I assure you I am—”

“Ross here tells me you prepared this report.” He held up the proposal she hadn’t had the chance to hand out.

“Yes.” Surprised, she fumbled in her briefcase for her copy.

“So maybe you know a little more about tahrs than I gave you credit for.”

“Well . . .”

The pressure on her shoulder was more subtle this time, but she didn’t need any warning pressure to remind her of Ross Morgan’s presence or their purpose here.

“I’d never pretend to be an expert on tahrs, um, tires, Mr. Haynes,” she said. “But I have been doing my homework. There are a zillion tire locations to choose from here in the Atlanta area and all of them—including Tire World—are ignoring a potentially important market segment.”

“Which is?”

“Well, actually . . .” She swallowed, already imagining how a man who still called people “little lady” and assumed all females were assistants was going to feel about this. “It’s women.”

Ross stiffened beside her and Wiley Haynes started in surprise.

“I assure you there are women out there who buy tires. And we want to make sure they buy them from one of your six locations.”

Wiley Haynes appeared to be speechless, which Shelley decided was not necessarily a bad thing.

“That’s a very interesting premise,” Ross began. “Maybe we should give Wiley some time to, um, digest this idea and then . . .”

Shelley refused to let him backpedal on her behalf. She was right about this; the research said so and she knew it in her gut. If they backed off now, Wiley Haynes would never agree to consider the idea. Hell, after this kind of heresy he’d probably never let them back in the door. “I’d like to see you do a huge grand opening celebration with entertainment and giveaways targeted toward women.” She felt Ross’s hand on her shoulder, warning, cautioning, but she ignored it. “I also think we should offer tire clinics for women. You know how Home Depot teaches people how to do home repairs and remodeling? Tire World could give free workshops to teach women about tire selection and safety. And when they’ve completed the workshop they get a discount coupon as a graduation gift.”

Wiley winced, then snuck a peek up at Ross.

The weight beside her shifted and she braced herself.

“I haven’t had a chance to read the report,” Ross said smoothly, “but assuming the research backs this up, it’s a very . . . novel approach . . . which is,” he cleared his throat, “of course what you’re looking for from an agency.”

Shelley began to unclench. It wasn’t exactly a rousing vote of approval, but it wasn’t a slap-down, either.

“I have every confidence in Ms. Schwartz’s ability to steer your account in a more profitable direction.”

He did?

“You do?” the tire man asked.

“I do. And, of course, no one at Schwartz and Associates operates in a vacuum. We have a team of creative and marketing people working on each client’s behalf. We’re, uh, just at the idea stage. The main thing right now is that we agree to proceed.”

“Well, now.” Haynes leaned back in his chair and took a long sip of the Coke she had fetched for him. “I suppose I’d be open to hearin’ more about this. I already figured we’d do some sort of grand openin’.” He shook his head, still at a loss. “But women?” He snorted. “I never would have thought of it.”

“No, me, either.” Ross squeezed out from behind her—a move she felt through the open back of the folding chair and in too many parts of her body—then placed a hand under her elbow to help her rise so that they were standing side by side in front of the desk. “But one thing Ms. Schwartz knows for sure is parties. She’ll give you a call when she has a plan and a budget ready.”

“Yes.” Shelley stuck out her hand to shake Wiley Haynes’s callused one and silently prayed that he was NOT going to call her “little lady” again. “Give me a couple weeks to put something together for you. Then maybe you could come in for lunch to discuss it when it’s ready?”

As they left the office, Shelley tried to decide whether she was relieved to be leaving with a positive outcome or pissed off that Ross Morgan had taken over so completely. In the end she decided there was no reason she couldn’t be both.

Morgan handed her into the passenger seat, and she pulled the door shut, laid her briefcase at her feet, and folded her arms across her chest. “You were just supposed to be an observer on this,” she pointed out as he slid into the driver’s seat. “But as usual you had to be the head sardine.”

“If you’d gone by yourself you’d still be running out for snacks.”

“Ha!”

“Do you realize what you proposed to that man?”

“I proposed a killer idea that’s going to set Tire World apart from every other tire store chain in Atlanta.”

“To Wiley Haynes, head of the unenlightened. You might as well have proposed that he hire all female technicians.”

“Hmmmm . . .” She looked at him to see if he’d been joking. “Maybe he could put a few women on that we could feature in the print ads . . .”

He snorted and slammed the car into gear. Shelley stared out the window, refusing to be soothed by the leather seats enveloping her or the purr of the engine. She tried to picture the meeting with Haynes minus Ross Morgan, and had to admit the image wasn’t a pretty one. Still, she was not going to thank him for interfering or put up with any more of it.

On the interstate, the Porsche cut smoothly through traffic. Ross drove with a light touch on the wheel, handling the car like he handled everything else: with a calm competence she didn’t want to admire.

A silence stretched out between them.

“I’ve been trying to figure out who you are today,” he said, finally, without taking his eyes off the lane of merging traffic ahead of them.

“Who I am?”

“Yes. Whenever I’m with you I feel like I’ve been plopped down in a fifties movie. It’s not just the cut of your suits, though, or what you’ve been doing to your hair. It’s the whole shoulders-back, chin-up, you-can’t-keep-a-good-woman-down thing.”

The man was much too observant. And obviously an old movie buff.

“It’s Hepburn again today, right?” His thigh muscle bunched—she just happened to notice this out of the corner of her eye—and the car accelerated as he changed lanes. “With a hint of, oh, I don’t know . . . Sophia Loren?”

Shelley studied him out of the same corner of her eye that had noted his thigh-bunching. She’d die before admitting to her dependence on film stars for inspiration and internal fortitude, or the time spent in front of her mirror each morning trying to imitate their easy confidence. Nor did Ross Morgan need to know that today she’d been unable to settle on an individual role model and was now, instead, channeling the combined presence of every strong movie heroine she could come up with. On the bright side, if he thought she was confining herself to fifties films, he was sorely underestimating the depths of her desperation.

“Don’t be silly,” she said. “It’s just me. Mortally offended, tired of being a second-class citizen, thinking about calling the National Organization for Women and reporting Wiley Haynes to them.”

“You can deny the movie influence all you want. Just promise you’ll let me know when I get it right.”

Not bloody likely
. “Look, let’s not get off the subject.”

“Which is?”

“Your interference.”

He didn’t respond, but a small tic appeared in his jaw.

“I want you to keep your mouth shut at the next appointment.”

“You want me to remain silent?” His tone was incredulous.

“Yes, you can smile and nod but you can’t talk.”

“You’re kidding.”

“Nope.” She folded her arms across her chest and continued to stare straight ahead. “I’ve known Abe Mendelsohn since I was born and there’s no way he’s going to say no to me.” She turned to face Ross. “I don’t need or want you on this appointment. Either agree to keep quiet or let’s just skip the whole thing.”

“This is ridiculous. If I go in there and don’t talk, we’ll both look like imbeciles.”

“I mean it,” she said. “Promise me now, or I make my excuses to Abe and we go back to the office.”

He shook his head, irritated. “You know, you were starting to actually make sense back there at Tire World. I mean, you were preaching to the wrong choir, but at least I could follow your line of thinking. This is just plain stupid.”

“I don’t care what you call it.” They were less than a block from the store. A few moments later he turned into the parking lot. “If you won’t agree we’ll just cancel the appointment.”

“But what if you get in trouble? What if—”

“No matter what,” she insisted.

“Fine!” He put the car in park and turned it off. “Have it your way. But don’t think you can change your mind midway through. If things start heading south, you’re on your own.”

She rolled her eyes. “I’ll take my chances.”

He pulled the key out of the ignition and reached for the door handle. Both car doors slammed as they exited and crossed the parking lot toward the building.

“Just remember,” he warned as they neared the entrance, “you’re the one who laid out this little scenario. These will be the last words you’ll hear from me until we’re finished. I’ll save the I-told-you-so’s for later.”

Abe Mendelsohn met them on the sales floor of the Northpointe Mendelsohn TV and Appliance store. A bear of a man with a shiny dome of a head and appraising brown eyes, he wrapped her in a great big hug, then shook hands with Ross.

Shelley had known the Mendelsohns since childhood, and had spent part of her formative years in the sandbox with their son, Paul. When she and Paul had hit their teens, their mothers had tried to matchmake, but even the most determined yenta couldn’t overcome the lack of chemistry between two people who had stuffed tadpoles in each other’s diapers.

Paul was married now and about to become a father—a fact her mother brought up often.

“You look great, pumpkin,” Abe said.

Ross’s eyebrow shot up at the reference to her childhood roundness.

“I haven’t seen your father since he got home from the hospital. How is he?”

“Good,” she answered. “He’s taking it easy.”

“Yeah, I heard he and Miriam were planning a trip.” Abe smiled down at her. “Your mother called yesterday to ask if Paul had any unmarried friends.”