Never Mind The Botox: Rachel (29 page)

A sharp rap on the toilet door made her jump.

‘Hey, are you alright in there?’ asked a voice that to Rachel’s horror had an American accent.

‘Er, yes, fine, thanks. Just, umm, warming up a bit.’

Rachel stood frozen still in the cubicle until she heard the footsteps leave. She opened the door and peered out. Shit, who had that been? Could it have been someone from the Equinox team? Rachel prayed that it wasn’t. She hadn’t heard anyone come in. Maybe she’d been shouting too loudly to hear the door go. It was Natalie who’d persuaded her to do warm-up exercises before she presented when she’d rung to wish her good luck last night.

‘You need to get the adrenaline pumping,’ Natalie had said. ‘Get your energy levels up. That way when you get in the room you’ll already be on fire.’

She’d also told Rachel that doing exercises that connected one side of the body to the other helped make the two sides of the brain work together. This meant that her brain would be alert and ready to problem solve should she get any difficult questions. Natalie had read about it in some book or other. It had all sounded pretty convincing at the time. But rather than feeling on fire, Rachel now felt like a prize idiot. She was hot and sweaty and red with embarrassment. Great!

She left the toilets and went back to the project room where Carl, AJ and Rosa were all waiting. AJ looked slightly pale and Rosa was fidgety with nerves, hopping from one foot to the other. As usual Carl appeared calm and composed. Rachel had briefed him earlier on the link to Audrey that they thought they’d found. Although he didn’t say as much, Rachel could tell from the glint in his eyes that he was delighted.

‘Shall we go up?’ Rachel asked, hoping that no one had noticed her flushed face.

Carl nodded and they left the project room and made their way up to the Beau Street boardroom. The vast room was empty when they arrived to give them time to set up and organise where they would each sit. After a few minutes of fiddling with technology and rearranging chairs, they were ready. As they waited, Rachel realised she was feeling pretty good about her presentation. In fact, she was almost looking forward to it. Maybe Natalie’s exercises had worked after all.

However, as more and more people began filing into the room, Rachel’s confidence began to ebb away. The bankers arrived first. Meredith Romaine swept into the room, followed by her colleague, the rather tired looking Alfred King. It looked like he’d really been burning the midnight oil. Rachel bet that Meredith was a right slave driver.

Meredith came over to greet them. Her shoulder-length, curly, dark hair had been pinned into a high quiff at the front that made her look even taller and more intimidating than usual.

‘My client is very much looking forward to today,’ said Meredith. ‘As you know they were pretty unhappy to hear about the whole fraud business. But they’re carrying on with the sale process, for the moment at least. Let’s hope you guys can show them some good news.’

For some reason, even though she was smiling broadly at them, she sounded ever so slightly threatening.

‘We can only do as well as the company has,’ said Carl.

Quite right, thought Rachel. We’re not miracle workers.

Charles Sutton and Tom Duffy arrived next.

‘The Equinox team are on their way up,’ said Charles. ‘I will suggest they sit here opposite Carl. There are three of them: Lawson Green, their CEO, Brenda Martinez, their in-house legal counsel, and Ryan Miller, their commercial director. Ryan has been the one leading most of the negotiations from their side so far.’

Everyone sat down, leaving three places free opposite Rachel and Carl. Rachel’s palms began to feel a bit sweaty and she rubbed them on the lap of her checked dress. It was rather warm to be wearing knee-length boots but Rachel hadn’t had the time or the energy to pick out another outfit.

After a few minutes the Equinox team arrived. Lawson Green was in his late fifties and looked rather like a giant bowling ball. He was dressed in beige, chino trousers with a huge waistband and a blue, short-sleeved shirt with a white collar. His hair was combed to the side with a military-straight parting and was very thick right down to his ears. Rachel couldn’t help wondering if it might be a wig. Brenda Martinez was about the same age and was dressed in a pillar-box-red suit with big shoulder pads that matched her big hair. She looked tough as old boots. Ryan Miller was probably in his late thirties, sporty looking, suntanned and, Rachel thought, actually rather good looking.

Rachel, Carl, AJ and Rosa all stood up as they came into the room, being the only ones who hadn’t met them before. They then played rather a long game of musical handshakes, as each of them introduced themselves.

‘Really pleased to meet you all,’ drawled Lawson Green, vigorously pumping each hand up and down like he was jacking up a car. Brenda Martinez, on the other hand, was much more reserved, holding out a rather cold and stiff hand with a thin-lipped smile. Rachel was terrified that she’d been the American voice that had talked to her in the ladies’, but Brenda didn’t seem to show any reaction when they shook hands. Ryan Miller was quite charming, smiling and laughing as he walked round. Rachel thought he was acting more like he was at a baseball game than a crucial business meeting.

It didn’t take long for the meeting to get into full swing. After the usual introductory pleasantries, Carl stood up and spent about five minutes giving an outline of the work they’d been doing, which was greeted by lots of enthusiastic nods from the American contingent. Carl was a very proficient speaker, with a low and methodical tone that was almost mesmerising. Rachel found herself so engrossed listening to him that she almost forgot she was up next.

‘So, I think that it’s best that I sit down and let those who really know what they’re talking about take you through our findings,’ said Carl. He turned to look at Rachel.

‘Oh, yes, right, thank you,’ said Rachel, jumping up. God, she was glad that she’d been practising. Strong start − that was what she needed. ‘Thank you, Carl. Good morning, everyone. As Carl mentioned my name is Rachel Altman and I’ve been leading our work here at Beau Street.’

Rachel talked through the slides slowly and carefully, making sure she kept regular eye contact with Lawson Green as she did so. ‘Know who the most important person in the room is and make sure they feel like you’re talking to them personally,’ Natalie had said.

‘So, Lawson, as you can see the core business has been growing steadily with sales growth each year of between seven and eight per cent. Now, I believe you’re all aware of the fact that Dr Lloyd Cassidy has been suspended, pending an investigation into some irregular transactions?’

There was a series of disappointed nods from the Equinox team across the table.

‘Well, we have adjusted these figures so you can see them both with and without his sales figures. This lowers the growth rates a little, to between five and six per cent,’ said Rachel.

‘That’s not so great,’ said Ryan. ‘Our offer was based on the higher numbers.’

‘But if we look at some of the faster growth areas − the newer procedure types − then the impact is much less apparent, as Lloyd Cassidy didn’t undertake many of these new procedures. You can see that the growth rates are largely unchanged when you exclude his sales figures,’ said Rachel.

‘And our newer procedures are some of the areas that you’re most interested in,’ said Charles enthusiastically to Lawson Green. ‘Our toe-reshaping business is going like a train, helped by the fact that these super high heels are all the fashion at the moment. More than fifty per cent of women have bunions, you know, and just as many hate their toes in open sandals.’

Rachel couldn’t quite believe that this sort of image madness was such big business. She had visions of some goliath of a woman with huge, fat, hairy legs coming in to have her feet reshaped to the size of a pixie.

‘Thank you, Rachel, for explaining that. Very helpful,’ Charles added.

Rachel nodded modestly at Charles, secretly delighted with the public praise, and turned to the next slide, which was the one with the two pie charts. The sides of Rachel’s mouth twitched as soon as she saw it and she felt the urge to giggle well up in her chest. She took a deep breath and started to talk.

‘Now, these two pie charts…’

But she quickly had to stop as a small laugh escaped from her mouth that she tried to disguise as a sort of high-pitched cough. She looked at the floor and desperately tried to compose herself. She tried to replace the image of a huge pair of tits with the thought of her parents dying in agony in some terrible car crash or of small children starving in Africa. But it wasn’t working.

Rachel could tell that the assembled audience was starting to become uncomfortable with her silence. AJ was sitting looking into his lap with his hand over his mouth. His shoulders were shaking. That was the last straw. Rachel’s face began to crack and she was just about to start laughing when AJ leapt about ten feet in the air with a shout. Everyone turned round to look at him.

‘Oh my goodness! I’m so sorry,’ said Rosa, getting up too. ‘I’ve knocked my glass of water everywhere. Are there any napkins?’

Tom Duffy jumped up and grabbed a large handful of napkins from the coffee tray on the sideboard. He handed them to AJ, who dabbed at the large wet patch in his lap. AJ looked at Rosa in bewilderment, who just gave him a small knowing look and began mopping up the puddle of water on the table. Carl looked at them both furiously.

‘Perhaps we should take a quick break,’ said Charles. ‘Let’s reconvene in a few minutes.’

Rachel almost sprinted out of the room in relief and headed straight for the ladies’. She leant over the sink and gently splashed some cold water onto her cheeks. Shit, she’d very nearly blown it.

A few moments later Rosa followed her.

‘God, I’m so sorry, Rachel, but I couldn’t think what else to do. You looked like you were about to lose it, so I just panicked and threw my glass of water into AJ’s lap.’ Rosa was white and shaking.

Rachel grabbed her and hugged her tightly. ‘Oh my God, Rosa, you totally saved me. I can’t believe that just happened! I’ve spent weeks discussing every type of body part imaginable without laughing and then I completely lose it over a fucking slide with two pie charts on. Can you believe it?’

‘It was probably just the pressure,’ said Rosa. ‘Are you feeling okay now? We should probably go back in a minute. Carl looked cross enough as it is.’

‘I’ll handle Carl, I promise. Don’t worry; he’ll be fine. And thank you, Rosa, I really mean it. I don’t normally need my team to save me by chucking water over each other.’

Rosa grinned.

‘Hey, no laughing,’ said Rachel, grinning too.

When they got back in the room, Carl was still apologising profusely to Charles and Tom.

‘Absolutely no problem,’ said Charles. ‘It’s just one of those things. We’ll be back on track in a few minutes.’

Rachel managed to finish her presentation without laughing and sat down feeling incredibly relieved that it was over. The trauma of nearly fucking up so badly meant that she’d been a bit shaky and had stumbled over her words a few times − nothing too disastrous, but her performance certainly hadn’t been the triumph she’d been hoping for. She’d really wanted to impress Carl, show she was ready to be a director, but somehow she didn’t think she’d succeeded.

She had also found it hard to read the team from Equinox. Were they still interested? She couldn’t tell. Ryan had asked lots of questions about what the business looked like without Lloyd Cassidy, probably so they could re-cut their offer. Alfred King had furiously scribbled down all the answers as it was undoubtedly his job to work out a new valuation for the business, probably by the next morning or some other equally ridiculous deadline, the poor guy.

As the meeting broke up Brenda Martinez came over to chat.

‘Thank you for your presentation, very informative,’ said Brenda. She leant towards Rachel and dropped her voice to a low whisper. ‘And by the way, your little toilet psyching-up session seemed to do the trick. I thought you did very well.’

Rachel’s face dropped. Oh no! How embarrassing. She would definitely have to kill Natalie later.

‘Er, thank you,’ said Rachel, totally lost for anything else to say.

‘I used to find that sort of thing really useful too when I was training,’ said Brenda wistfully.

Training! Rachel was hardly a trainee. Patronising old cow.

‘Actually, I qualified several…’

But before Rachel could finish, Brenda had turned away and started talking to Lawson Green.

Rachel shook her head. Fuck it. More humiliation.

As she headed out of the room she almost walked straight into the team of lawyers who were waiting to go in for their meeting with Equinox and Beau Street. She remembered Alex Fisher from their previous meetings.

‘How did it go?’ Alex asked.

‘So, so,’ Rachel replied. ‘Good luck in there. There’s a cast of thousands.’

Rachel, AJ and Rosa headed back towards their project room. Carl managed a cursory ‘well done’ before disappearing for the lifts to head straight back to the office. Rachel’s heart sank as he left. If he’d been impressed with her then he’d kept it well hidden.

‘I think that went okay, don’t you think?’ said Rosa when they were back in their project room.