Money For Nothing

by Dom Price

  Taking a deep breath to try and re-establish some normality, it was then that the secondary wave of shocks hit her. Dave wasn’t wearing a tie. Laura blinked like a strobe light, but no tie appeared. But her deep breath had picked up something else. Something different. Dave was wearing aftershave. Something catastrophic had gone wrong.

  Suffering sensory overload, and not believing the information her eyes, ears and nose were delivering to her, Laura was a serious risk of a major brain fart, so opted for complete silence. If she let Dave continue, that would give her time to work out what was going on.

  “Have I got a lunch meeting today?”

  Clearly the silence had worked and Laura relaxed as normality was resumed.

  “No Sir, you are free for lunch today. Would you like me to make you a booking?”

  “Please Laura. Usual table, usual time, for two.”

  “No worries, I’ll do that when I get back to my desk. Which client engagement shall I put it under?”

  Dave threw his arms back behind his head with the grin of a man who was betting on himself with great confidence. The smirk on his face made Laura feel uneasy and move backwards in her seat.

  “Put it under ‘Getting to know Laura better’ and you better make it a long lunch. I’ll see you then!”

  Dave rose from the table, taking his papers with him and was in a taxi by the time Laura had gathered herself and stopped shaking. She didn’t want to feel so ungrateful, as every PA at CEC would kill for lunch at Dave’s usual restaurant. The bill alone was more than she earned in a week. But then the other PA’s didn’t work for Dave, and nor had they just experienced the exchange that had just occurred. That was not the normal Dave Marsdon that Laura had got used to, and that meant only one thing. Something was going on, and she seemed to be stuck in the middle of it.

  Despite feeling completely out of place at C’est Bleu, Laura had arrived early in an attempt to conquer her nerves with a stiff drink. On the back foot, she’d been thrown when she’d ordered a “quick shot” and he’d presented a menu. Laura wasn’t used to places with menus for drinks. Food yes, but drinks? Her brain nearly froze when she saw that the Tequila list alone took up a whole page, as she’d previously thought that there were only two types; the cheap stuff and the nice stuff. “This definitely must be the nice stuff” she muttered to herself. Not knowing the etiquette for these places unnerved her, and this was fuelled by the lack of prices on the menu. What kind of place has a menu for drinks and then forgets to print the prices?! Her intention was to pay for this pre-dinner drink herself, but the embarrassment of wanting to ask how much each drink was, meant that ordering was a step too far. She knew she had £15 in her pocket, and in all the bars she frequented, this was enough for a round for her and her buddies. But in here, it might not even cover the cost of the lemon that the Tequila came with.

  Panicking at her third page turn of the menu, and with the elderly bar gentleman keenly waiting, Laura spouted out the reflex words from a normal Friday night out with her girly mates and defaulted to her favourite drink.

  “Double Vodka…Red Bull…please?”

  The immediate relief of having actually managed an order was quickly replaced by distraught fear, as she hurriedly reviewed the menu again. She’d not even seen vodka on the menu, let alone Red Bull. Wanting to shout “bollocks” at the top of her voice but censoring herself and preferring to shout it very loud in her head, Laura looked up to the barman with an apologetic puppy face, that just muttered ‘help me’.

  “Grey Goose OK for Madam?” He had a generous and relaxing smile on his face as he poured the vodka, and cracked the Red Bull with his other hand in unison.

  As the warmth of his generosity calmed her, the fingers were back in the power socket to shock Laura, as the words came tumbling over her shoulder, and set the tone for the afternoon.

  “Good choice. Make that two please Geoffrey...actually no, make it THREE and have one yourself Geoffrey!” Easing in with a drink made sense, but so did sticking to the Rule of 3!

  Dave tried to reassure Laura with a comforting hand on the shoulder, but she’d nearly leapt from her stool, so he thought he’d wait for the vodka to kick in and placed his hand back on his hip. He liked the fact that she was nervous. Dave knew that a nervous client was one with money to spend and he often had the solution. Laura’s nerves bode well as far as he was concerned.

  For every twinkle there was in Dave’s eye, there was a shock of nerves, confusion, doubt and upmost fear drilling its way through every agitated nerve in Laura’s body.

  Eating in a restaurant of this calibre was enough of a sensory overload and learning curve for Laura, without having to attempt it with your boss who seems to have just had his cut throat business brain replaced with slime.

  “Shall we” as Dave ushered Laura towards ‘his’ table. Dave had caught on to Laura’s nervousness, and had allowed the waiter to seat her to avoid any more reactions when he placed his open hands within 5 yards of her suddenly insatiable body.

  As they sat, it suddenly dawned on Dave that this was his place of business. It was his boardroom. He’d never flirted here. He’d never really brought a woman here. Well, there was Margaret from Aztec Logistics, but she was more of a man than most of the suits he worked with. His endless delivery of killer lines that took a client from a potential to an advocate, and from curious into customer, just didn’t quite seem appropriate.

  The alternative to killer lines, was nerves, and this wasn’t a comfortable or customary sensation for Dave. He fidgeted as he sipped his drink and swapped occasional grins with Laura, who had already polished off her first drink and was waving at the waiter for her top up.

  Supping slowly, the energy drink kicked into Dave’s senses and his mind was working a fanatic pace, if not a little jumbled up by the vodka. Dave put the drink to his lips as his train of thought focused in.

  “If I just think of her as a client, then it will be OK. Not like a client as in paying for it, but as someone with something to sell. NOOOOO! She is a customer and we need to build a business relationship. Perfect. So I need to start off with something flashy that sets the tone, and then build on that. Easy.” He thought to himself, just as he drained the glass and placed it down.

  Laura had ordered for both of them, and his top up was ready and waiting for him. Buying some time, he sipped the top off, and lowered the glass and his glance to take note of his prey.

  “You know I’ve sealed many a deal in here you know”

  It just came out. It had made sense in his head, but out loud, it carried a different message, especially judging by the crimson colour that bestowed Laura’s concerned face. It was time for Dave to dig.

  “I don’t mean like that. Well I do, I mean client wise. I’ve wooed many a paying customer in here...you know, as in clients of CEC. Not where I’m the client, like ladies of the night. Not that that was what you were thinking. I meant that this is where I do some of my best work. Deals where money changes hands. Oh god!”

  Looking up, the colour remained on Laura’s face, but it had been joined by a massive grin and the start of an elongated chuckle.

  “What are you talking about Mr Marsdon?”

  “Please Laura, call me Dave. Erm, what I was trying to say was...ahem...”

  “That you’ve had lots of women and that you picked them all up here, in exchange for an amount of money.” Laura interjected with a wry smile on her face that suggested that Dave was off the hook.

  “I wish that was the case.” Dave was muttering, seemingly under his breath, but with enough volume to catch Laura’s keen ears as her eyes shot bigger than an owls and she let out a tiny high pitched squeal, freezing all the features on her face with complete shock.

  “Oh there I go again. I don’t mean that I wish I’d paid for sex.” Dave had a little more certainty this time. “I mean that I wish I had more luck with women.”

  “Luck or success?” retaliated Laura. The second double vodka had n
umbed the blow of that comment, but it resonated deep inside Dave. Now wasn’t the time.

  “Let’s order. The Duck is exquisite and the slow roasted pig is just divine.”

  “The last time someone suggested duck to me, it was so I didn’t bang my head.” Laura tried and failed to hold back her sniggering, to the point where much of her laughter emanated from her nose and the tear ducts let loose to confirm just how hilarious she found herself. Luckily, Dave hadn’t eaten since the small bite of toast before 7am, and so the vodka had alerted his sense of humour and Laura’s infectious giggles caught him with his guard down.

  Wary still from the “Luck or success” comment that Laura had jabbed him with earlier on, the topics of conversation throughout lunch were much safer, and centred around the people they knew from the office and Dave catching up on some of the gossip that he normally missed as he was too busy to socialise.

  “Is all that really going on?” Dave was slurring his words slightly whilst enjoying the stories of other people’s infidelities, affairs, hobbies and past times. But deep down, he was baffled to grasp how that could all happen and the requisite work gets completed. It simply didn’t compute. These people had targets too, surely. Dave had been aware for a while that the drive, desires and determination that he had, wasn’t necessarily equalled by that of his lesser peers, but he had assumed that they were still that way inclined. Hearing all this gossip and washing it down with the finest vodka money can buy, was creating a smouldering melting pot of chuckles, glances and eye contact.

  But the untrained eyes of Dave didn’t see the ingredients nicely coming together in the cauldron, his eyes blurred by the steam as the infectious giggles bubbled along. Dave felt like the conversation was off topic and he had to manoeuvre it back there if he was to succeed. “Focus Dave” he silently reminded himself, “plan, execute, measure.”

  “Do you like wine Laura? I was thinking of getting a bottle to go with our meal?”

  “Yes Sir. I mean Dave. I love wine. I prefer white though. Red gives me a headache.”

  “Well we wouldn’t want that would we? Do you think you’d like a Semillon?”

  Laura burst into that giggle once again and it comforted Dave further.

  “I’ll just order shall I?” Dave got the waiters attention. “Hello there. Do you have a good Semillon?”

  Laura was practically bent over double in pain from trying to resist the laughter, and Dave was struggling to keep a straight face. Lunch with Laura was proving to be fun, and this dating lark was a breeze.

  “Might I recommend the Hunter Valley ’06 Award Winner for sir and madam?”

  “Perfect. Thank you.”

  The subtlety of the conversation was relaxing Laura, and she now felt guilty for suspecting the worst from Dave. She had always labelled him as such a stuck up wannabe, who lived to work and who fed himself on the scraps of the corporate junk pile. For these reasons and for her stereotype that Dave would only be nice if he wanted something, she now felt bad. It seemed that he’d just wanted to treat her, maybe for the long hours, or maybe just as a thank you for all her hard work. As the second bottle of wine was placed on the table, her mind wandered in the haze of tipsiness, and she thought for a moment. “Surely not...but maybe...maybe he is saying sorry for the little incident at his house. Oh my god. After all the nasty things I said to the other PA’s and all along he just wanted to say sorry. He is genuine after all, and it’s me that is bad!” Thinking through all these emotional connotations was making Laura well up inside, and the flood gates were just about to burst.

  “Anyway, let’s get back to the business at hand. You know Laura; the way I operate you have to seize opportunities. You can’t waste your life wondering if something better is coming around the corner, as it rarely does. Taking time out to reflect is a sign of indecision and flushes ££’s down the drain and I detest that. It can take an age to get the answer 100% right and to find the perfect solution. Well sometimes in life, being nearly there is enough. My clients don’t want 100% fixes, as they are too expensive. They want me to correct what isn’t working, to do so efficiently and then leave them to carry on with business as usual. I’m a fire fighting businessman who can perform first aid on companies and calm a rowdy crowd in any boardroom.”

  Dave paused from his monologue to swig the last of his Semillon from his glass for dramatic effect, and to take the breath that would deliver his killer blow. The line that sealed the deal. Closed the case.

  “So how about it...me and you?” nodding towards Laura who was speechless.

  Dave had well and truly stolen defeat from the jaws of victory in spectacular fashion. In one deep breath, he’d taken Laura from a smothered kitten ready to be pampered at the foot of the bed, to a vicious pit-bull in the neighbours back garden, scratching at the fence to get through to its target.

  Dave swirled his finger around the top of his glass, with a confidence that defied the position he was in. Laura’s silence didn’t unnerve him yet. He was sinking, but he didn’t know it. Dave was amazed at how similar this situation was to some of the deals he’d closed. He quickly thought back fondly to the £1m contract he’d got with McKenzie Beverages, to provide some consultancy in their Head Office. There had been four other big competitors all vying for the same piece of work, but over a Crème Brule and glass of Tawny Port, he’d performed a similar monologue and challenged the CEO of McKenzie’s with the words “you don’t want someone to spend an entirety detailing every movement in your company and telling you what doesn’t work. You want someone to come and find the top 3 things that don’t work, give you 3 solutions and fix them within 3 months. 100% is expensive and time consuming. You need a quick fix, and we’ll start with the low hanging fruit, build up some quick wins and work from there. So how about it?”

  His quick and punchy lines had swayed a very successful businessman, multi millionaire and head of one of the largest drinks manufacturers in the country, so it was certainly safe to assume that it would work on an under qualified and slightly tipsy personal assistant. She had no defence for his intelligence.

  Laura sat. Her legs wanted to leap into life and run far far away. In fact her entire body wished it was somewhere else, and not getting quite as pickled as she feared she was getting. Whilst her words were clearly slurring, and she’d missed her mouth with at least two of the last three sips of wine, there was no doubting the anger and hatred that currently infested her entire body. For a moment, all her bodily functions shut down as she digested the words that had just blurted out of Dave’s mouth like he was at one of his wanky presentations.

  She pondered briefly and thought to herself “Did he really just say that I was nearly enough and that he’d like to perform first aid on me????”

  Most senior businessman had melted by this stage, so Dave was rightly starting to get a little agitated by the lack of response from Laura. He’d comforted himself for the first 30 seconds of silence that she wasn’t as intelligent as his usual audience, and so he was forgiving her a little extra time to understand the magnitude of his offer. But the last minute had been a little uncomfortable. Laura was kind of staring, but not. Her eyes were focused like a chess player going for the jugular of his opponent, and there was a menace that Dave feared laid behind that look. It was time to interject with some well timed words of Marsdon wisdom. Maybe she just hadn’t got it.

  “Laura...are you OK? What I am saying is that metaphorically speaking, I am your fireman and you are my low hanging fruit. I can put out your flames and you can ride the wave of success with me.”

  The ludicrousness of those words alone would have sent Laura off, but combined with the cheesy nature of Dave’s delivery, resulted in a sudden snorting burst of laughter from Laura, that provided Dave with a view of her fillings and tonsils. Laura was giggling inside, as only the weekend previous, she’d poured a pint of lager over a man who’d suggested she had “droopy melons for her age”. Now with Dave’s comment of low hanging fruit, she w
as definitely going to have to get more support for her puppies. The transition from her silence to this raucous laughter was in stark contrast to the rest of the restaurant, which had now fallen into unison as they eagerly observed the noise coming from their table.

  Wailing now, Laura yelled with combined laughter and deep routed anger “I strongly suggest you take your hand off your hose as you’ve well and truly put my bloody flames out with those lines mate”.

  Astonished by the outburst, and slightly confused by the response, Dave was on the relationship highway without his GPS. In fact, he might have even been driving on the wrong side of the road.

  A veil of sadness suddenly consumed Dave as the embarrassment of Laura’s volume, the error of his words and total compromise of his professional nature all collided with horrific effects. It brought feelings and sensations of his teenage vulnerabilities towards women, and reminded him of those parts of his life which he’d sacrificed to have such unparalleled success in business. Whilst he didn’t regret a single moment of his glory or success, he was certainly a stranger in this world of women, and that unnerving thought that he couldn’t talk himself out of this situation, made him feel more stricken with fear.

  Luckily, his lack of experience in this situation meant that Dave was wholeheartedly reliant on his instincts, which were struggling to decide between the flight or fight response. He deeply wanted to run, but Laura was his PA and even if he sacked her, this was still his favourite restaurant, and he’d have to come back. But he didn’t know how to fight in these situations that were so foreign to him.

  Bereft of ideas and lost for words, Dave naturally slipped into a deep and vocal laughter, which was inspired by Laura’s chuckling and sniggering, and proved to be a catalyst for both of them. They were so deeply engrossed in the moment, that neither noticed the waiter deliver the two shots of Petrone Tequila that Dave had nervously purchased before the commencement of his now much forgotten monologue.

  As they settled back into normality with aching faces and tense muscles from the endless laughter, they took their shot glasses in unison, clinked together with a jovial 'cheers' and tipped their heads back in perfect symmetry.