Unraveled (Jersey Girls Book 1)

by Lisa-Marie Cabrelli

  “You’ve gone nuts, Sal! Frankly, everything seems to have fallen apart today, so I’m not surprised. I think the point is that I don’t want to screw this job up now, so let’s go home, get on the internet, and you can help me figure out how to read this business case.”

  “Ah, but I am your best friend, Claire. Would I leave you to the mercies of the internet—especially when every hour we spend on this job means one less hour you devote to my silk-beaded tank top? Would I allow you to be torn away from your beloved sewing machine and pulled into the black hole of Google guess work?”

  Tod had noticed Claire pulling her stuff together and held up two fingers, raising his eyebrows. She shook her head at him. “What on Earth are you talking about, Sal?”

  “It seems that Mousy Maureen is a little more interesting than we imagined. Apparently, she knows everything there is to know about being a business analyst and she understands your project. Also, for some reason, which I am dying to uncover, Maureen gave me her number and offered to come over tomorrow night to help.”

  Sally held up a Green Knoll napkin with a number scribbled on it, and Claire breathed a sigh of relief.

  8

  Satish

  Satish held the thick, creamy envelope between his teeth as he juggled his briefcase, a stack of papers, and a bag of Chinese food while trying to get his key in the door. He should have just left the envelope in the mailbox until the next one arrived tomorrow, since he didn’t feel he had the energy for it tonight, anyway. The door whooshed open and Satish struggled into the kitchen to dump his food.

  It smelled like Pine-Sol in the apartment, and he remembered the housekeeper had come that day. The Pine-Sol scent was the only way he could tell, because his apartment never looked anything less than spotless. He should have told the housekeeper he didn’t need her, anymore, but he was too worried about hurting her feelings. He did wish the apartment could smell like something else—something more inviting—but he didn’t think she would agree to bake a loaf of bread before she left.

  He dropped the bag of food onto the black, marble counter and opened the stainless steel refrigerator to grab a Perrier. He carried his stack of papers and briefcase through his very modern, very empty, and very quiet apartment to his office sanctuary with the envelope still in his mouth. He had always lived in an apartment, thinking a house to be a waste. Until all of his sisters married and he was sure his family was financially secure, he didn’t anticipate filling a house with his own family. Sometimes, though, and especially tonight, he wished he could come home to something other than an empty apartment and the scent of Pine-Sol. He considered the envelope between his lips and chided himself on how selfish that desire was. His family—his father—relied on him, and he had a duty to serve them before he deserved children’s laughter and a kiss upon arrival.

  Satish looked up at the hallway clock on the way to his office: it was 10:45 pm. Unfortunately, this wasn’t unusual. He had quickly recognized that the way to get ahead in business, especially in IT, was to produce results. He also realized that there were few people you could count on to help you deliver. You often inherited employees from a previous manager, and bringing on new staff members or firing old ones was a long, painful, and often unmanageable process. Often, the only way to deliver above and beyond enough to get noticed was to do it yourself.

  He got into the office early and left late. It was just the way it went. He wasn’t disturbed or challenged by the workload, since he had worked long hours from the time he arrived at boarding school at age seven. At school, there had been a full day of classes and then mandatory night study. It was a three-hour period after dinner every evening during which they had to return to their classrooms and complete the day’s additional assignments in total silence. Those years had been tough, but at least they had taught him the discipline he relied on today.

  Satish remembered his first night study experience. He had just arrived at the boarding school in Dumfries, Scotland. A family friend of his father’s had business in London and had agreed to transport him to school. They had flown from India and immediately caught the train in London to Scotland. Up until that point, Satish had never even been outside of his hometown. He remembered driving up the long, winding road to the school with his heart jumping, and how he kept swallowing great, frightened moans so they wouldn’t give him away to his father’s intimidating and cold friend. To his seven-year-old mind, the school had looked like an evil wizard’s castle out of a fairy tale book. It was a massive brick building with hundreds of windows, which had all been dark, except those on the ground floor. The night had made the bricks look black, and the school loomed, forbidding and imposing, over the tree-lined road. It hadn’t mattered which way you turned in the circuitous drive—the building remained floating over you.

  They had arrived three weeks after the autumn term had begun, so schedules, friendships, and routines were already established and in full-swing. Both the headmaster and his father’s friend had been all business. Satish had not been taken to his dormitory to settle in, but was escorted immediately to night study and left alone. Speaking was not permitted, so Satish had sat, sick with nerves, amongst rows of strange faces that occasionally lifted from their work to sneak curious glances in his direction. He’d had no work to do, and those two hours had been the longest and scariest of his life. The rest of his hours at school didn’t get much better.

  Satish pulled the envelope from his mouth and looked at his father’s bold handwriting. The school had taught him discipline, but even with daily letters from his father, school had also taught him loneliness.

  He flipped on the light on his office—the only room in the house that looked lived in. Satish took pride in the work he loved, and he furnished both his home and work offices for comfort. Even the sound was different in here. In the living room, his footsteps echoed like a snare drum when he crossed his shining hardwood floors. In here, however, the sound was dulled by the thick Persian rugs covering the floor and the beautiful Indian silks he’d covered the throw pillows with. Green, leafy plants covered every space that wasn’t filled with the latest up-to-date technology, including an enormous flat-panel monitor, a state-of-the-art laptop, and photo and laser printers. Books were arranged alphabetically by author in the floor-to-ceiling shelves taking up the entire wall to his left. Satish loved to read, and his voracious, diverse appetite was reflected in the titles, from the antique collection of classic Dickens and Complete Works of Shakespeare to an entire shelf of Stephen King.

  He put down his briefcase, laid the stack of papers on his desk, and inserted Tosca into his CD player. It was time to face the envelope. His father had been writing him daily for as long as he could remember; he was a constant presence through his letters. The content didn’t vary much, and each one began with a few lines updating him on the status of his sisters. It wasn’t about whether they were well, but how they had been behaving during that particular period. Frequently, his father skipped the family update, altogether, and got straight down to business—the business of Mr. Bhatt.

  Satish would be regaled by the tales of the great things his father had accomplished that day. One day, he’d discovered a cheating employee and had saved himself and his partner from ruin. The next, he had secured a significant advancement in relations with families of prospective grooms for his sisters. Another day, he had secured his leadership position in the village through a particularly intelligent and insightful speech he had given during a council meeting.

  The letter always ended the same, with his father reminding him of the great sacrifices he had made for him. He had sent away his only son and lost the pleasure and satisfaction of raising him, so that he could get an unparalleled education. He had scraped together the funds for this education and had ensured that, because the funds did not stretch far enough to cover trips home to India, Satish was well-cared for in the United Kingdom by one of the school teachers during holidays. He reminded Satish that he was what he was bec
ause of his father. He would then give orders as to how Satish should communicate with his sisters, and his final sentence was a reminder of the years that remained until Satish would return home to India and take over the textile business, bringing with him enough funds to cover a significant expansion and his father’s retirement.

  The letter that Satish read through now did not vary from the formula. He ordered Satish to bring Nandita back to Earth, as she had now started discussing an education. This was absurd, and Satish was supposed to tell her so.

  He considered his feelings for his father. He loved and respected him, and of course he had a duty to his family and his sisters, which he had every intention of fulfilling. A few years ago, however, Satish had begun to grow weary of the self-aggrandizing tone of his father’s letters. He tried to recall the last time the old man had asked him a question about his own accomplishments, but he couldn’t.

  The last time he had shared something personal in his increasingly less frequent replies was when he had been promoted. Satish was the youngest person in Telco history to be promoted to VP level, and he thought his father would have been proud. The letter in return, however, had not mentioned a word of congratulations. The lines it did contain were still written in his mind. “A young man should never attempt to rise above the station of his father. Your mother tells me frequently of your greatness, but she should worry less about the greatness of one son and focus on giving me more sons.” Satish missed his mother every day, but she was not permitted to write to him. His anger at the chiding from his father had been soothed by the words his mother had spoken of him.

  He put the most recent letter aside and plugged in his laptop. He had received a return email from Nandita, but had not had the opportunity to read it, yet. He decided to spend some time with his sister, his virtual friend, before he retired in front of Letterman for the evening. He settled in front of his laptop and opened the email.

  Big Brother, you wish you were here to help me?! I wish I were there to help you! Do you honestly believe that love does not matter? Do you honestly believe that Father and Mother could recognize better than I the man who will make me happy for the rest of my life? I know that you have focused on studying and working, but have you no experience in love at all? I am sorry to be so bold, Satish, but I imagined that you did not share your romantic trials and tribulations with me out of shyness and modesty, being that I am your little sister and unworthy of such confidences. From your last message, however, I feel that you may not have shared them with me because, in fact, you have none. Please tell me you were assuming I’m more naïve than I am, if you expected me to believe those things you wrote.

  Our sisters believe those things, and our sisters are happy. They love their husbands as much as I could ever hope to love another. They are committed and dutiful wives. That is wonderful for them, and they will never regret the choice that was never theirs, but I imagined you were different, Satish—more like me. I imagined you would understand that it is your duty to honor the life plans made for you by your family, but that you would believe, as I do, that there is one choice that can be made by you alone. Yes, love can grow from friendship, respect, and mutual understanding, but I would rather it grow as a fire does, from an uncontrollable, surprising spark.

  Satish stared at the screen and then burst out laughing. Speaking of spark, Nandita certainly had some spark in her. He felt a panging ache for his sister. He wanted to sit down with her and talk through the night, so he could understand why she felt so passionate about something that he simply took for granted. He was an educated man and had spent his entire career in a role that taught him to question, analyze, and challenge, yet he had never questioned his feelings about love and duty.

  He had never had a relationship partially because he had dedicated his passion and energy to educational and career goals and partially because he believed that it was not his decision to make. He’d had a few minor flings during his university days with equally distant females, but he had never had a relationship with a woman outside of a working relationship. Truthfully, he had never had a long-term relationship with anyone outside of a working relationship—other than with his family, of course.

  Satish had felt his first spark today—he had been undone. He engaged in a brief fantasy of that beautiful girl, Claire, knocking on his door right now. If he had her in his arms at this moment, he would slowly pull the pins out of her upswept hairstyle and see what happened to it. He would then remove piles of pillows from his fancy couch, arrange them on the hardwood floor in front of the fire, and settle in for the night to talk, laugh, and discuss the questions Nandita had raised in his mind.

  What am I bloody thinking? He chided himself. I know nothing about this woman, except for the fact that she was promoted into a job she doesn’t know how to do by a major letch who only promotes the women he sleeps with.

  Satish slammed his laptop closed. He would not respond to Nandita tonight, but would think about it for a while. He also would not engage in any further fantasies about a relationship with a woman he wasn’t even sure had the brains to carry on a basic conversation. What he would do was put his foot down with Nick; he could not have Claire working on this project. It was too important for someone new, and he needed the help of an influential analyst now that he was working on the project without Phil. Besides, he wasn’t sure how he felt about spending time every day with a woman who was capable of “undoing” him.

  9

  Claire

  Claire hesitated before she knocked on Satish's door. She was nervous, but thanks to Mousy Maureen, who had turned out to be not so mousy, after all, she was prepared.

  She had called Maureen two nights prior as they were leaving Maxwell’s. When she’d realized it was after midnight, she’d been amazed that Maureen was awake and chipper. She was getting altogether too interesting, and Claire and Sally intended to find out more about this mysterious mouse.

  The next night, Maureen had come directly to their apartment, as promised. Claire had felt a rush of satisfaction as the woman powered up her laptop to get down to business. Unfortunately, the only desk in the tiny living room pinned between the two even tinier bedrooms was Claire’s sewing table. Maureen had wandered over to it to take a look and gently fingered the stacks of richly-colored silks in gold, burgundy, and emerald green, along with some that were shot through with gold and silver threads. She’d picked carefully through the boxes of beads and jewels organized neatly in clear boxes on the cheap, particle board bookshelf.

  Claire had been pleased that Maureen was paying such close attention to her passion. Sally ignored it; in fact, every time she stepped on one of Claire’s spilled beads, she spent twenty minutes hopping around, yelling. She had recently started marking the fridge with a whiteboard pen and had insisted that, when the tally totaled twenty, she and Claire would need to part ways and find separate apartments. The score currently stood at twenty-three, and not surprisingly, Sally had never mentioned it again. The real truth was that she was the Oscar to Claire’s Felix.

  “How do you know how to do this?” Maureen had asked as she reverently picked up and held at arm's length a beaded, golden, silk skirt with sapphire silk trim.

  “My mom taught me,” Claire had answered.

  “Does she have a boutique or something?”

  She had gone into her sewing corner and dug through a pile. “No, she passed away when I was young.”

  “Oh, gosh. Sorry, Claire.” Maureen looked mortified and the mouse had reappeared.

  “Don’t worry,” Claire had smiled encouragingly. “It was a long time ago.” She’d found what she was looking for and held out a scarlet sash to Maureen. It was Indian silk and had little decoration, except for an abundance of tiny, iridescent beads around the hem. She had started making them from her silk leftovers when she realized the fabric belts were in style. They looked great with jeans and even better with a sexy, black dress. Her friends had been clamoring for them.

  �
�It’s beautiful,” Maureen had sighed while running her fingers over the beads. “I’ve never seen anything quite like it.”

  “It’s yours. Thanks for offering to help me—I appreciate it. Where did you learn about this job, anyway?”

  “Oh, let’s just say I knew someone once who taught me.” Maureen had looped the silk around her neck and tied it like a loose tie. Claire had never seen her wear anything but gray or black to the office—and it was misshapen gray and black, at that. The scarlet color next to her face made her cheeks rosy and her eyes flash, and Claire suddenly realized how beautiful she was. She looked at Sally to see if she had noticed, but her roommate was busy reading Vanity Fair and stuffing chocolate macaroons in her face.

  “Thank you for this, Claire. You should have a business,” Maureen said. “These would sell like hotcakes! Anyway, let’s get down to the business at hand.”

  She had then explained the assignment to Claire and made it all seem so clear. She realized that the business analyst job could be quite fun; she would be kind of like an ambassador. Nick’s group was responsible for supporting the software used by the Telco sales teams, and the primary software was for opportunity management. This had made no sense to her when her boss had carried on about it, but Maureen had put it in terms she could understand.

  “Let’s say you did have your own business, Claire. If you were speaking to a couple of stores about stocking your gorgeous scarves, you would want to keep track of those opportunities, wouldn’t you? More important, you would want to give the boss—in this case, you—some information on the possible sales you are working on, like how likely they are to close and how much revenue you might make from each sale. That’s what opportunity management software does. The sales people type in what they are working on and Nick’s team makes reports to give to the executives. Got it?”