Not Quite Perfect (Oakland Hills Book 3) (36 page)

As the slideshow began to play, he gripped his notebook in his lap, wishing he hadn’t been a few minutes late. He’d had two informers about the meeting: Virginia had sent him an email the night before, apologizing for bothering him but suggesting he might maybe want to know about April fighting for her reputation. And Liam had sent a text an hour ago, telling him to drag his ass over if he hadn’t already skipped town.

He didn’t know if April was going to forgive him for walking out without a word, but he was going to do his best to help her defend herself at Fite. In his briefcase were a dozen copies of the section of his report addressing the design division, with particular detail about Jennifer, Teegan, and the Women’s team. Nothing most people with eyes couldn’t see for themselves, but it was good to have an outsider put it down in black-and-white.

Ten seconds into the presentation, however, he realized April wasn’t going to need his help. A colorful bar graph illuminated the wall—one that immediately showed how difficult she’d had it the past few months.
 

“Here’s a chart showing the trends in art room work requests over the past year,” April said, “to freelancers such as myself.”

“But you’ve only been here since November,” Teegan said.

“Which is why I pulled the data for longer. So you can compare. Get a frame of reference.” April’s sharp gaze flickered over to Zack, who couldn’t help but smile at her. He liked graphs. This one showed a spike in project requests of 126 percent in November… and 557 percent in the month Rita had gone on leave. It was like a pastel Mount Everest.

“That can’t be right.” Liam stood up and walked over to the whiteboard. He tapped the projected graph. “Spring is big, but it isn’t that big. And why does it keep going? It should go down after we moved on to the summer deliveries.”

April reached under the table and lifted up a stack of papers tall as it was wide. “Here are the hard copies of the project requests,” she said, dumping it on the table with a thud, “if you want to check my numbers.”

Zack bit back a grin and saw that Bev, sipping her coffee, was doing the same.

“Leave them with Rita,” Liam said. “If anyone wants to see for themselves, they can.”

The silence in the room seemed louder than it had a minute earlier. Everyone, even Jennifer and Teegan, were frozen in place, staring at the stack of paper.

“If you sit down,” April said, “I’ll show you the next slide. It gets even more interesting.”

Liam raised an eyebrow at Zack and reclaimed his seat. Zack drank in the sight of April at the top of her game, fighting for herself. It was killing him to keep a straight face.

“Here are the work requests broken up by department,” April continued.

There, in living color, a picture told a thousand words: the Women's department had sent the art room 764 work and revision requests from March through the day last week when Rita had told her to stay home. That averaged out to—Zack factored in five workdays per week over three months—over a dozen requests a day. All of the other departments—combined—had, on average, only three requests per day.

Most damning, in the most recent week, when April had been kept out of the office, Jennifer hadn’t asked for a single sketch, screen print, stripe, polka dot all-over T-shirt, or logo. Not one. And in the months prior to April’s starting at Fite the previous November, the work requests from the Women’s team were a low, steady line, about four per day.

Darrin actually laughed out loud, smacking the table with both hands, the impact sounding like gunshot. “Jennifer, what have you been smoking?”

“Shut up,” Jennifer said. She’d put away her phone and sat up as if she were strapped into an electric chair. “It only looks like a lot. I’m sure she recorded every little thing she did. Walking up the stairs to talk to the design team, saving a file to the correct folder, answering her phone. I wouldn’t be surprised if she filled out a form to go to the bathroom.”

April patted the stack of work requests. “No, they’re all actual projects. Take a look for yourself.”

Without a glance at anyone else in the room, even Bev, Jennifer fixed her gaze on Liam. “I’m sure she tried as well as she could, but I heard she never got it right the first time. Never. She must’ve counted each revision as an entirely new project. I heard that just a few weeks ago she insisted on a special form just to print out a single page.”

“Who did you hear this from?” April asked.

Jennifer looked annoyed to be interrupted. “Who?”

“Yes. If you remember,” April said.

“It was Teegan. Obviously. My assistant.”

“Associate,” Teegan said. “I got promoted Monday.”

Jennifer’s eyes rolled skyward.

“Is this about that time you asked for the printout for an abstract all-over triangle design for a tank bra from a few years ago,” April began, her cheeks flushed in an adorable way that made Zack’s chest ache with longing, “but you couldn’t remember the name of it, or the line or the season—or the actual year, it turned out—so you ended up describing it to me from memory and I had to completely redesign it?”

Teegan didn’t reply.

“Teegan?” Bev asked, her tone sweet as always.

“Yes,” Teegan said. “We needed it right away, but she couldn’t get it to us until the late afternoon. We missed the FedEx delivery.”

Jennifer shot to her feet. “That’s what I’m talking about. Rita would’ve known what we needed without wasting an entire day’s work.”

“Sounds like you don’t know yourself what you needed,” Liam said, making Zack want to cheer.

“Rita would’ve had it for us in three minutes. And the company would’ve saved a thousand bucks, or whatever it costs to have your—April here,” Jennifer said.

“I’m not sure I would’ve known what you were talking about, actually,” Rita said.

Jennifer’s tone turned warm, best-friends-forever. “You would’ve. You totally would’ve. You’re amazing.”

“But Rita was on family leave,” Bev said.

“I know, and it was such a tragedy.” Jennifer reached out and squeezed Rita’s arm.

“Not at all.” Rita leaned back in her chair, but her arm was still captured in Jennifer’s grasp. “Both of my children are back in school now.”

“I mean it was a tragedy you were out so long,” Jennifer said.

Rita freed her arm, her fair cheeks flushing a splotchy pink. “Actually, I chose to extend my leave so I could spend some healthy time with them. I’m a single mom, so there’s never enough time, and when my youngest got better—” She cut herself off and looked at Bev, then Liam. “Anyway, thanks for letting me do that.”

“You were on
vacation
?” Jennifer asked. “How long have your kids been back in school?”

Rita’s face was still flushed. “No, I was—”

“You don’t have to explain,” Bev said. “I’m sure Jennifer wouldn’t want to discuss
her
personal matters in the middle of a design meeting.” She gave Jennifer a smile that wasn’t as beaming as her usual expression. Zack detected lightly veiled disgust.

“But we were totally screwed without her.” Jennifer flung out her arm, jabbing a finger at the graph on the wall. “Look how much it cost the company to rely on somebody who didn’t know what she was doing! I’m sure there isn’t a page in this presentation that talks about
that
little problem.”

With a toss of her gorgeous, sexy, wonderful head, April clicked to the next slide. “Although I disagree with the claim that I’m unqualified, I did think it was good to show how much all that busywork cost the company. I’ve made a few charts with the monthly invoices and total workload for all freelancers—again, broken up by division.”

The first chart showed the Women’s team was responsible for over ninety-six percent of April’s billed hours. The second showed that she was paid a third less, and considering most of her days were part-time, she did twice as much as the average freelancers who had worked the year before her.

April shook her head sadly. “I had no idea I wasn’t charging enough by the hour. I’ll remedy that in my next job.” She lifted her head and held Zack’s gaze. “Wherever it is.”

Chapter 33

Z
ACK
’
S
HEART
JUMPED
INTO
HIS
throat.
Wherever it is?

“San Francisco just can’t compete with New York,” April said. “In terms of opportunities.”

Liam looked at Zack for a moment, then back to April. “Sometimes you just have to go for it.” His tone was bland.

“That’s what I was thinking,” April said.

Zack dug his fingernails into his leather notebook, aware his own face had turned hot. He had to grit his teeth to stop himself from shouting out.

She’d changed her mind about following him to New York. Even though he’d left her without a word, even though she’d have to give up her family and friends, everything she’d known.

“You’d certainly do well there,” Zack said, his heart pounding in his ears. “But I’d miss working with you.”

“Your job at Fite is almost over anyway,” she said.

 
“That’s true,” he said, not caring that the rest of the room hung on their every word, heads swiveling back and forth like a crowd at Wimbledon. “In fact, I’ve just signed on with a new client in San Francisco. I start next week.”

Her voice rose. “San Francisco?”

Nodding, he put his notebook on the table and reached for one of the cinnamon buns jutting out of a cardboard box, hoping nobody noticed how his hand shook. He wanted to grab her instead and run out of the room, but she needed to bring her meeting to a triumphant conclusion first.

Pointing the bun at her, he said, “Sorry to interrupt. Please continue.”

She stared blankly. The sound of Jennifer’s annoyance—sighs, snorts, seat-shifting—filled the room.

“I’d love to see the rest of the slideshow,” Rita said.

April didn’t break eye contact with Zack. “I could email it to you, Rita.”

Bev reached over the table and tapped a button on the laptop. “As long as we’re all here…”

Lost in April’s eyes, Zack smiled, happiness flooding him. He wouldn’t mind having Bev as a sister-in-law. She was nice. Not as nice as April, who had mastered a totally different, superior-in-every-way kind of nice, but just fine.

He was getting ahead of himself. Just because April was willing to move to New York didn’t mean she wanted to spend the rest of her life with him, bear his children, sign a marriage certificate. She was a free spirit. She might want to keep him as her personal sex slave, and only that until she grew tired of him.

No, she loved him. He felt it.

Liam’s low voice broke into his thoughts. “Tell us about this chart, April.”

Finally, she turned away from Zack. “Oh, this one shows the percentage of designs requested of the art room that actually make it into production and into stores.”

“You’re kidding me,” Liam said, leaning back in his chair, eyes scanning the room.

None of the departments had very high production rates—the highest was for Men’s, at 56 percent—but Women’s was staggeringly low.

“Eight percent?” Bev asked. “In other words, ninety-two percent of what the art room is doing for the Women’s team doesn’t go anywhere?”

Jennifer’s voice rose. “That’s garment. That’s how it always is. Everywhere.”

“Actually,” Zack said, “the data here shows quite the opposite. Look at last year. Much better, by at least half. Or the Men’s division—”

“Men’s is always like that,” Jennifer said. “Black, charcoal gray, a few stripes, a pop color that’s on trend, the end. Darrin could run the same line year after year and nobody would notice.”

Clearly enjoying the show, Darrin popped a blueberry scone into his mouth. “I wish. I tried that once, but Liam caught on.” He smiled at Liam. “Smart man.”

“Suck-up,” Liam muttered.

“It wasn’t too bad before I went out on leave,” Rita said, “but it did seem to me, Jennifer, that you were giving April an especially hard time.”

“Why are you singling me out?” Jennifer demanded. “It’s Teegan’s name on most of those project requests. Not mine. I never worked directly with her.”

Until now, Teegan had sat with her mouth shut and her eyes wide. “But you
told
me to give her a hard time—”

“It has been impossible to get decent design assistants in this company,” Jennifer said. “We’re too small, too pathetic, and we don’t pay nearly enough.”

“Can’t afford to if we spend all our money on work that goes into the recycling bin,” Liam said.

Teegan was visibly close to bursting, her mouth opening and closing like a broken garage door. “I—I—I was only doing what she told me.” Her wild gaze scanned the crowd, settling, to his surprise, on Zack. “
You
know.
You
were there. You heard what she was like.”

“I never heard her talk about the art room,” Zack said with regret. “She always met with you in her office.” And in spite of his repeated requests, Jennifer had always closed the door.

The overhead fluorescent lighting lit up the tears pooling in Teegan’s eyes. “I can’t believe this.” Her voice cracked.

“I think maybe we should take a little break,” Bev said, squeezing Teegan’s arm. “How about we go for a walk around the block and you tell me whatever you want to tell me. I’ll listen.”

Jennifer stood up. “God help us, the preschool teacher is on the case. Is that what it takes to get ahead around here now? A few tears?” She backed up to the door, eyes scanning the group for an ally, finding none. “Maybe I should cry, too.”

“Go ahead,” April said.

“I hate this place,” Jennifer said. “I can’t wait to leave.”

“Turns out we have that in common,” April said. “We can’t wait for you to leave, either.”

Jennifer shot her one last hateful glance before striding out of the room. Nobody called out or chased after her.

Teegan closed the cover on her tablet and hugged it to her chest. “Am I—are you going to fire me?”

“Let’s go on that walk,” Bev said, gesturing to the door. Teegan nodded, and they went out together.