‘There won’t be a transition. You’ve just told Kylie there won’t be Carver Brides until your people are here. I thought…according to the contract…I’d be one of your people.’
He might as well say it like it was. ‘You won’t have any authority.’
Any last hint of a smile completely disappeared at that. ‘So the offer to employ me for a year was window dressing to make me feel good about you guys taking over?’
‘I can’t employ you if you seriously like…’he stared around him in distaste ‘…fluff.’
‘The fluff’s Lorna’s’
‘Lorna?’
‘Lorna’s my mother-in-law,’ she said. She was speaking calmly, but he could see she was holding herself tightly on rein. ‘Lorna set this salon up forty years ago. She had a stroke eight years ago, and advertised for an assistant. I got the job and met Ben. Now it’s my business, but Lorna still puts in her oar. Lorna’s been incredibly good to me. If she wants pink, and the locals like pink, I don’t see why she can’t have it.’
‘Carver Salons are sleek and minimalist.’
‘Of course they are. So you’re here to toss the fluff?’
‘I’ll do the preliminaries,’ he told her. ‘That’s why I’ve come-to decide what needs to be done. By the look of it, we’ll start from scratch. We’ll gut the place. My staff will take over the rebuilding, and everything that comes after.’
‘But you’ll still employee me?’
‘We envisage a smooth transition.’
‘You’re employing me for local colour?’
‘I didn’t say that.’
‘You didn’t have to. I can’t see me fitting the image of a Carver Salon consultant.’
‘Have you ever met a Carver Salon consultant?’
‘As it happens, I have,’ she said, almost defiantly. ‘A year ago I had a…well, I needed a holiday, and my parents-in-law sent me to Paris. I wandered through your salon, just to see how the other half live. Only of course I wasn’t up to standard. I hadn’t been in the salon for two minutes before I was asked to leave.’
‘If my staff thought you were possible opposition, then…’
‘Now, that’s the funny thing,’ she said. She’d risen and moved over to one of the Christmas trees. The angel on top was askew and she started carefully to adjust it. Then she began to check the lights, twisting each bulb in turn, taking her attention from him. ‘They didn’t even ask why I was there,’ she said over her shoulder. ‘I could have been there to talk about my wedding. I could have been there to make enquiries about anything at all. But I was wearing jeans and a T-shirt, and carrying a small backpack Lorna had given me.’ She gave a rueful smile. ‘The backpack was pink. Anyway, they obviously sorted me as a type they didn’t want. They asked me to leave, and suddenly there was a security guard propelling me onto the pavement.’ She shrugged. ‘Given my opinion of Carver Salons, I should have told you to take your very kind offer to buy this salon and stick it. But of course it’s a very generous offer, and I need the money and the thought of me being in opposition to you is ridiculous.’
There was a moment’s silence then. Guy thought about his Paris staff. They were the best. They ran weddings that were the talk of the world.
They’d kicked this woman out. She must have been humiliated.
Maybe he needed to be a bit more hands-on.
He didn’t like to be hands-on.
He thought suddenly of the first wedding he’d planned. He’d been home from college, where he’d been studying law-a career his parents had thought eminently suitable but which bored him stupid. Christa-the girl he’d been dating since both their mothers had organised them to their first prom-had been managing his social life, and that had bored him, too. Then Christa’s sister had announced her engagement to someone both families thought entirely unsuitable.
Louise had wept on Guy’s shoulder. Without parental support, and with no money of her own, she’d been doomed to have a civil ceremony and go without the party she’d longed for.
Intrigued, Guy had set to work. He’d painted cardboard until his hands were sore, transforming a small local hall into a venue that looked like a SoHo streetscape. He’d organised the local hotdog vendor to set up in a corner. The pretzel seller had come as well-and why wouldn’t he have? An inside venue in the middle of a hot August had been a welcome change. Guy had built and painted a bar, made of plywood, but it had looked fantastic. Guests had had to pay normal price for hot dogs and pretzels and beer, but the wealthy guests had been intrigued rather than offended. He’d persuaded buskers to come, including a rap dancer with a hat out for offerings. He’d been hands-on every step of the way, and he’d loved it.
The bride had been ecstatic. Christa and Guy’s mother had been less so. But when Guy had been approached the following week to do another wedding, and another, they’d been forced to stand by as Guy’s career took off in another direction.
He remembered the family horror-his fledgling company had had to fly by the seat of its pants, and to risk money was unthinkable. Christa had been beside herself with rage. But he’d kept on. It had been fun, and he’d never known what fun was until he’d thrown aside the mantle of family responsibility.
When had he stopped having fun?
He could hardly remember. All he knew was that after Christa had been killed it had become his refuge- organising vast numbers of people in glittering social events that held no personal attachment at all.
His firm had grown, so he was now no longer hands-on. He employed hundreds-staff handpicked for their artistic and business acumen.
Would they have kicked this woman out on the street? He didn’t know, and maybe he shouldn’t care as long as they did their job well. But now he thought back to that first wedding, and remembered Louise’s joy. He looked at Jenny, her face a trifle flushed and more than a trifle defiant, and he thought, Hell, she must have been demoralised.
What had she said?
A year ago I had a…well, I needed a holiday, and my parents-in-law sent me to Paris.
She’d had a what? A breakdown? What had happened to the husband?
‘I’m sorry,’ he said.
‘It wasn’t your fault.’
It was, though, he thought grimly. He took the credit for Carver weddings. He took responsibility for his staff.
‘You don’t really want to employ me,’ she said. ‘Do you?’
‘I’d rather this place was kept open for business during transition. I had hoped to keep the acquisition quiet until I got my staff in place, but now it’s got out…It’s unfortunate, but nothing we can’t handle. I want the place open for queries and future bookings. You need to be the front person. I’ll give you a pricing structure so you can give brides an idea of what we offer. Run the weddings you have now under…’He hesitated, then said, without bothering to hide his disdain, ‘Under Bridal Fluff. New bookings will be under Carver Salon.’
‘New bookings will be expensive?’
‘We’re exclusive.’
‘You don’t need to tell me that.’ She grimaced, and he was aware of a stab of…regret?
Once upon a time he’d tried to make his functions wonderful because they created joy. He hadn’t heard of the concept of exclusive. He’d lived on a shoestring.
He’d learned the hard way that was nonsense. That last day with Christa…‘If you loved me you’d keep doing law. Your father’s expecting you to take over the family firm. Your mother’s scared you’re gay. Guy, you play with paints. Paints! And me…How do you think I feel being engaged to a wedding planner?’
She’d said the words with such scorn. Then, two hours later, she was dead. If she’d lived he was under no illusion that their relationship would have been over, but he knew that his life decision had killed her. And his father…His father had heard of Christa’s death and it had been as if he’d said goodbye to the son he’d now never have. A wedding planner…Two days later he’d had a stroke, and he’d never recovered.
Guy hadn’t gone back to law. He’d known he’d be good at this, but right there and then he’d vowed that he’d be a corporate success. Their deaths had been crazy and unnecessary. No one was going to throw wedding planner at him as a term of derision.
He worked hard. He kept to himself. He made money and he carefully didn’t know people. His life decisions
