Girl Friday

by Unknown

  ‘Okay, Tracy,’ Charlie says, when silence descends again, the food having been passed around the table, everyone starting to dig into the mountains on their plates. ‘Now tell us what this mysterious business venture is.’

  ‘It’s not mysterious.’ Tracy laughs. ‘It’s just that I’ve found this building in South Norwalk that’s unofficially for sale, and I’ve been to see it a few times, because I think it would be a great place for a branch of Namaste. I never expected Namaste to take off in the way that it has, but I’m realizing that yoga is becoming an integral part of people’s lives. We’re living in terrible times, times of stress and worry, and while the corporate world seems to be collapsing around us,’ she pauses as Keith nods in agreement, ‘the inner world, the world that embraces all things natural, green, organic…’ she looks at Alice, then Harry, who nod, ‘… is thriving. People know that there’s more to life than making money, and for many people, yoga is the first step.’

  Tracy takes a deep breath before continuing.

  ‘I always saw Namaste as being far more than a yoga studio. It’s a lifestyle. I see it as a place where you can hang out all day, have lunch, have a smoothie, shop for organic products for your home. I want to be able to provide babysitting for children, to give classes on how to make your world a better place. It’s more than yoga, it’s a vision for the future.’

  ‘It does sound amazing when you put it like that,’ Charlie says. ‘And I agree that more and more people are becoming interested in an alternative lifestyle.’

  ‘That’s just the thing!’ Tracy says animatedly. ‘It’s not alternative any more. It’s becoming the norm, and I want to capitalize on that.’

  ‘So the world is moving away from making money, and you want to make money off the back of that?’ Keith laughs, and Tracy pales.

  ‘No!’ Her voice is loud as she jumps on the defensive. ‘That’s too harsh. I want to provide a service to give people what they want. And if it becomes successful, well, great. Why not?’

  ‘So tell us about the building you’ve found.’ Charlie shoots a warning look at Keith, smoothes things over.

  ‘It’s a warehouse, just off Water Street. It’s one of the old red-brick buildings that used to be an industrial warehouse. It’s just under twenty thousand square feet, needs a ton of work, but could be the most amazing space for a yoga studio. I’m telling you, the energy in that place is wild!’ Her eyes light up. ‘It’s like it’s just been waiting for us to come in and take it over.’

  There is a silence.

  ‘Us?’ Harry says, good-naturedly.

  ‘Well, that’s the thing. It isn’t officially on the market. I happened to hear about it from a girl who comes to the yoga centre.’

  ‘Who?’ Charlie is curious.

  ‘Oh she’s not a regular. She’s in some of my evening classes. You don’t know her. But her husband works on Water Street, and this building is owned by a colleague of his. He was hoping to develop it into condos, but he’d leveraged himself to the hilt, and now that the market has collapsed all his investors have pulled out and the building’s about to go into foreclosure, which means he’s desperately looking for a firesale, but doesn’t want to list it because he doesn’t want word to get out about the trouble he’s in.’

  ‘Which means what?’ Keith asks. ‘Isn’t the bank insisting he puts it on the market? And how much is he asking?’

  ‘Apparently, he’s done some kind of a deal with the bank, where they give him a break if he can sell it privately, and he wants six for it.’

  ‘Six? Six what? Six hundred thousand?’

  ‘Charlie! That seriously would be a bargain!’ Tracy laughs. ‘No. He wants six million, which is a pretty good deal. He was looking at developing it into eight luxury loft apartments, each of which was going to sell for around a million.’

  ‘A million for a loft in Norwalk? Are you sure?’ Alice is surprised. A million dollars would buy you a pretty wonderful house in Highfield, and Highfield is far more upmarket than Norwalk.

  ‘South Norwalk has exploded over the last few years, and lofts there are becoming really desirable.’

  ‘Well, not that desirable. Obviously,’ Keith says.

  ‘It’s true, the market isn’t what it was, but I have different plans. I’d see turning the entire building on the first floor into a fantastic yoga studio and restaurant, which is why I want to get you involved –’ she looks at Alice and Harry – ‘with a store, and conference rooms. That would take up about ten thousand square feet, and then we could still develop the second and third floors, still turn those into apartments, and we would market them as more than apartments because it’s a different way of life – the key to alternative living.’

  Tracy sits back, pleased with herself.

  ‘So… how much do you need to raise?’

  ‘That’s a good question. I’m glad you asked me.’ She reaches down and pulls out some papers from her bag. ‘I’ve prepared some numbers.’ And, with a smile of encouragement from Robert McClore, she hands them round the table.

  It feels like a very long walk from the car park to the Highfield Inn, and as she pushes open the door to the lobby, Kit suddenly asks herself what the hell she is doing. She’s not at all sure she’s ready for this, ready to meet this sister, and now that her mother has revealed all that she has, she wonders if she needs more time.

  ‘Kit?’

  Damn. She’s barely through the door, and there she is, Annabel Plowman, sitting on the beige leather sofa in the window.

  ‘Hi.’ Kit falters, not sure what to do. The girl doesn’t look like a drug addict and an alcoholic. She looks young and fresh and pretty. She looks exactly like the younger sister Kit has always wanted.

  Kit walks over, and Annabel stands, both of them smiling awkwardly at one another.

  ‘I don’t quite know how to do this,’ Kit says, realizing that she has welled up, the tears in her eyes mirroring those in Annabel’s.

  ‘Me neither.’ Annabel smiles and holds out her arms, and the two women hug.

  They pull apart, Kit not knowing what to say, until she spots the bar off the main entrance.

  ‘Shall we go and get a drink?’ she asks. ‘Maybe find a quiet spot so we can talk?’

  ‘I’d love to find a quiet spot,’ Annabel says. ‘But I don’t drink. I’m nine months clean and sober.’

  ‘Oh.’ Kit doesn’t know what to say. ‘Congratulations.’ So Ginny hasn’t been lying. Or has she? She painted Annabel as an all-round evil person, and here she is, looking so innocent, yet admitting, instantly, that she has a problem with drink and drugs, but that it is behind her.

  That is the problem with Ginny. Her own mother, yet Kit doesn’t really know her well enough to know what to believe. She knows she is glamorous and wealthy and beautiful. She is fun and funny, and will light up a room as soon as she walks in.

  She is also prone to exaggeration, to telling stories, to living in something of a fantasy world, and Kit honestly doesn’t know how to separate fact from fiction. In another life, Ginny would have made a wonderful actress, another Joan Collins perhaps, a Grande Dame who would have shone on the silver screen.

  So who is the real Annabel Plowman? She certainly doesn’t seem to be the woman her mother described. She is only twenty-eight, has the freshness still of youth, a freshness that Kit herself once had, before marriage and children tired her out and took away her bloom.

  ‘I know I shouldn’t tell people immediately,’ Annabel says with a smile, sensing Kit’s discomfort. ‘It’s not called Narcotics Anonymous without reason, but I’d rather you knew the truth from the get-go. Can we maybe grab a coffee? There’s a coffee shop through there. I think it’s closed but they’ve been very sweet to me. I’m sure if I ask nicely they’ll bring us a coffee and, obviously, a drink for you if you want one.’

  She turns to look at Kit who is just staring at her. ‘You’re staring at me.’

  ‘I am? Oh God.’ Kit shakes her head, bringing her
self back down to reality. ‘I just didn’t expect you to sound so… English.’

  ‘I’m a London girl, born and bred.’ Annabel smiles. ‘It’s utterly weird for me to discover I have this whole American family I knew nothing about.’

  ‘But you’ve known about my mother –’ Kit stops and corrects herself – ‘our mother, for some time, haven’t you?’

  ‘A while, yes. She doesn’t want to know me, though. I can’t say I blame her entirely. I went a little off the rails for a bit, and it seems my dad was turning to Ginny for support, which means she’s heard all of the bad stuff, and none of the good.’

  ‘There is good, then?’ Kit raises an eyebrow.

  ‘Ah. I take it you’ve spoken to Ginny.’

  ‘Not really. I tried to call her but you know how she is – she’s off with some new man on a yacht in the south of France.’

  ‘I don’t know how she is,’ Annabel says, a sadness suddenly in her eyes. ‘I wish I did. My dad always says I have her eyes, that I look just like her.’

  ‘You do. A younger, paler version. And you look like me.’

  ‘I know. You look like me too.’ Annabel grins.

  ‘Isn’t this weird?’

  ‘The weirdest thing that’s ever happened to me. Well, apart from being abandoned by my mother about three minutes after I was born.’

  ‘If it helps, she isn’t exactly overflowing with maternal warmth.’

  ‘I kind of got that impression.’

  ‘Put it like this: she didn’t abandon me quite so definitively, but I only saw her for a couple of weeks a year, and when I say, “I saw her”, I mean that quite literally. She would occasionally dress me up and parade me around, if she happened to be with friends who would approve of a perfectly quiet, well-behaved child, but most of the time whichever husband she was with didn’t want children around, so I was entirely raised by my father as well.’

  There is a silence, and Annabel’s face slowly crumples.

  ‘I’m so sorry,’ she whispers, as tears trickle down her face. ‘I had no idea. I had this fantasy that you had somehow sucked up all the love I didn’t get. I thought you had the mother I always wanted.’

  Kit reaches over and takes Annabel’s hand, squeezes it tight. ‘All my friends had the mothers I always wanted. Mothers who were there when they got home, who baked cookies for them, sat at the kitchen table and did their homework with them. I had a dad who loved me more than anything, but he was a single father who had to work, and he did the best job he could do, but he couldn’t raise me in the way I wanted, couldn’t give me the attention I wanted.’

  Annabel laughs. ‘I always say I was raised by wolves.’

  ‘Me too!’ Kit’s eyes shine in delight.

  ‘And there we both were, you in America and me in England, knowing nothing about one another. That’s what I find so awful. I could have had a sister. We could have had each other.’

  ‘We have each other now.’ Kit doesn’t let go of Annabel’s hand. ‘We’re sisters. Flesh and blood. Which means neither of us needs to be alone again.’

  ‘It’s amazing!’ Annabel smiles through the tears. ‘Tell me everything. I want to know everything about you. Everything. Even if you think it’s irrelevant or boring, I want to hear it all. I want to know about you now, and what you were like as a little girl. Is that handsome man I saw coming over your husband?… Oh. Shit. I sort of stalked you before I left you that note. Did you see me?’ Kit nods and Annabel groans. ‘I’m so sorry. But still, I want to know it all. What’s it like being a mother? Tell me what it’s like being you. Tell me.’

  Kit laughs. ‘Oh my God. Where do I start?’

  In the car park outside the restaurant, Keith and Charlie are saying goodbye to Alice and Harry, all of them huddling by the cars, wrapping their arms around themselves to keep the night chill out as winter fast approaches.

  ‘Am I being a bit dumb,’ Keith says, ‘or does Tracy not realize that the financial world is lying in ruins around our feet, and no one has the spare money to invest in anything right now?’

  Tracy, who brought Robert, had parked in the car park across the street, and the others stand and wave them goodbye as her car pulls slowly past, both Robert and Tracy waving through the window.

  ‘She is so going home to fuck him,’ Charlie mutters to Alice.

  ‘I know!’ Alice breathes. ‘I can’t believe it. Although I guess if you are into older men, you probably can’t do much better.’

  ‘She’s into older men and she’s seriously set her sights on him.’

  ‘Well, he’s certainly attractive.’

  ‘Not to mention desperately rich and famous. I don’t know why she even bothered asking us for money. He could buy her the warehouse many times over.’

  ‘I don’t think he would, though. You know he has a reputation for being incredibly tight with money.’

  ‘He does? Ha!’ Charlie grins. ‘Tracy will knock that out of him in a heartbeat.’

  ‘Good luck to her,’ Alice says.

  Harry turns to look at Keith as their wives hug each other goodbye. ‘It did feel a bit strange. Look, I’m a gardener, I’ve got no idea what those numbers meant, but I think she was asking us to give her all the money, without putting anything into it herself. Was that right? Because I’m thinking that can’t be right.’

  ‘Nope, you pretty much got it. She’s asking us to put significant amounts of capital into a high-risk venture that’s unlikely to profit in the short term, without putting any of her own capital in.’

  ‘She did say she would if she could, but that her money was all tied up.’

  ‘Right.’ Keith laughs. ‘That’s what they all say.’

  ‘So… what do you think?’ Alice says.

  ‘I think that even if we had that sort of money, I’d want to know a lot more information.’

  ‘Are you going to ask her for that information?’ Charlie asks.

  ‘Sure. Why not? I don’t think it’s for us, but it doesn’t hurt to have all the info.’

  ‘Okay. Great. Well, let us know when you get it,’ says Harry.

  ‘I’ll have her make a copy for you.’

  And with that, they say goodbye.

  ‘So are you the slightest bit interested?’ Charlie asks as they climb into their car.

  Keith turns to her slowly. ‘Honey, right now we’ll be lucky if we can pay the gas bill this winter.’

  ‘What? You’re joking, right? Right?’

  ‘Charlie –’ Keith looks away, and suddenly she knows things are serious, and she’s not going to like what she’s about to hear. ‘Things are really not good at work. We need to talk.’

  15

  Tracy barely says a word as they leave the restaurant.

  ‘I thought you were wonderful,’ Robert attempts to appease her. ‘Your presentation was thoughtful, professional and compelling.’

  ‘So why was that goddamned Keith so dismissive?’ Tracy turns to him. ‘I felt like he was laughing at me all evening. What the hell was that about?’

  ‘I have no idea. And I don’t think he was laughing at you. If anything, he looked like a man who is worried about the way of the world. You did say he worked on Wall Street, and from what I hear, it isn’t looking good.’

  ‘So what? You also think I’m crazy, looking for investors in a new business in this market?’

  ‘I didn’t say that,’ Robert says calmly. ‘I believe that a good idea is a good idea, and it will work in any climate, it just might make funding a little harder.’

  ‘Do you think it’s a good idea?’

  ‘Namaste? I think it’s a great idea. I think you’re absolutely right about people looking for something else, something other than the material lifestyle we’ve all led this past decade. And I think if it’s supposed to be, it will be.’

  Tracy stops herself from snorting in disgust. None of this was supposed to be. She was supposed to have been able to walk straight into any bank and be offered a ninety per cent mo
rtgage, based on her assets, her income and her business plan.

  It’s not like she hasn’t done this before, but how was she supposed to know there would be a mortgage crisis bigger than anyone had ever seen, and that the real estate market was going to come crashing down around their ears?

  No one’s giving mortgages now, and if they are, their demands are far higher. Two of her clients were recently offered mortgages with forty per cent down. Forty per cent! Who, particularly in these times, has that sort of money lying around?

  Robert McClore, that’s who.

  Keith and Charlie, and Alice and Harry may have been reluctant, but their money has probably disappeared in the crashing house of cards. Robert McClore, on the other hand, has the kind of money that doesn’t disappear, and the kind of income that isn’t affected by Wall Street.

  For when recession strikes, people turn to the most affordable forms of entertainment on offer: movies and books.

  He has already mentioned his island in Maine. An island! In Maine! And he has a real-estate portfolio as well as being co-owner of a number of businesses, including a hugely popular radio station.

  Robert McClore is the real deal. The Golden Goose. Too large a prize to blow it by asking for money at this stage of the game. She has done enough research to know that, with his reputation for stinginess and savvy business dealing, that would be the worst thing she could do.

  Plus, the potential rewards are so much greater than just an investment in Namaste.

  ‘How about a drink to calm you down?’ Robert eyes Tracy warily. ‘A nightcap. We could pop into the Horseshoe Tavern.’

  Tracy takes a deep breath. This anger isn’t appropriate. Not now. And not with Robert. She turns to look at him and smile. He is such a good man. So different to what she expected. So different to what she has waiting for her at home.