by Lisa Fenwick
Sam wasn’t sure if she believed that. But she did know that when she had been visiting her client Tyler at Fenway there had been spotty coverage in the VIP seats, which were inside. The arenas Jez played at were all inside.
“Well, I was worried about you,” she said, easing up on her harsh tone. “Where are you now?” She pulled the phone away and looked quickly to see the time. It was almost ten.
“Uh…home. The hotel.”
“Huh? Jez, are you home or in Chicago still?” she asked, confused with his answer. She heard some voices in the background on his end.
“Uhh…Some of the guys just showed up. I’ll call you later.”
Sam sat on the edge of her bed and stared at the phone. What the heck was that all about? It wasn’t like him to be so weird. They always had good talks, and this just left her feeling…off. She had enough on her mind about work. Now she had to worry about what Jez was doing? Maybe he was just having an off night. She knew they had lost yesterday’s game. That was probably it: he was just having a bad day.
She walked back into the bathroom and lifted the lever for the bathtub drain then dried herself off and threw on her pajamas. She flopped into bed and shut off the lamp on the nightstand and closed her eyes, her mind still racing.
********
“Oh.”
Sam sat across from Lance and watched his tan face turn white as he mumbled to her. She didn’t know what to say to him aside from what had been said already, that she wanted to end the agreement between Horizon and Rossi. She had been up all night thinking about business, and it always came back to the same thing: that the merger just wasn’t working out. Not just for Horizon but for Rossi as well. She felt kind of bad, but Lance had been the one who had taught her that business was business, after all.
“Can I change your mind?” Lance asked quietly as he turned to look out the window.
“No. Lance, this isn’t just about Horizon, it’s about Rossi as well. I don’t know what happened with the old team, the ones I worked with years ago, but the new ones are horrible in my opinion. It’s why you’ve lost clients. And I can’t help you keep them. Can I bring them in? Sure. But after that, your team has to manage them and honestly, they kind of suck.”
“I needed to hear that,” Lance replied, shocking Sam.
“Huh?”
“No one has had the balls to say that to me. You’re right, my team sucks. I haven’t managed them properly. And firing the last team wasn’t necessary. It was just…with everything going on…I kind of lost it.”
“What do you mean, everything going on?”
Sam was perplexed. She had no idea what he was talking about. What had happened in the years that they hadn’t spoken?
Lance turned to look at her. “When my grandmother died.”
Sam had never heard about Lance’s grandmother before or that he was close to her. He had never mentioned her once, and Sam thought maybe he was just looking for sympathy. It would be a disgusting move on his part if so, but how could this death affect him so hard when he had never spoken about the woman once?
“I’m sorry, I didn’t know that.”
“I almost called you because she adored you,” Lance said.
“Adored me? I knew her?” Sam asked, having no idea who he was talking about.
“My grandmother was Frankie.”
Sam’s eyes started to well up with tears. Frankie. It all made sense now. Frankie had been the older woman who worked for Rossi, primarily making sure Lance’s office and kitchen were clean and stocked with his ridiculous preference of candies and doughnuts. She had been extremely welcoming to Sam when Sam had been promoted to work for Lance. She had been nothing but sweet, and now it was clear how she knew Lance so well. No wonder his business had suffered!
“Lance, I had no idea that she was your grandmother! Why didn’t you tell me?”
“I stopped telling people that she was my grandmother after a few years in business. People treated her differently when they knew, and she hated that. She raised me. If it weren’t for her pushing me after I blew my knee out and lost my football career, I don’t know where I would be. I owed everything to her, and look at what I’ve done. I’ve just been a mess since she died. And it’s been years.” He stood up straight and cleared his throat. “Sorry, I didn’t mean to turn this into a therapy session.”
“It’s okay, I know exactly how you feel. I miss my mom every day.” She wasn’t sure what to say next but knew that it shouldn’t be about business. Now wasn’t the time.
“So, I’ll just have Mo wrap things up on the finance side and I’ll have legal draft something up. Lance, I hope you understand that this isn’t personal. And for what it’s worth, Frankie wouldn’t want her death to affect you like this. She was super proud of you and the company.”
Sam left silently, walking slowly out his office door and to the elevator. As she stepped inside, she sighed heavily. Even though business was business, she felt horrible about cutting ties with Rossi now.
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
“This is just…”
“Don’t say it. I know. I hired movers this time, didn’t I? And you got your dream reception desk out of this, too. So shush!” Sam chided Addi, who was busy cleaning off the newly delivered uber-modern receptionist desk for their new old office space.
“This space is too big,” Mo mumbled as he shuffled by with a box of his things. He was still angry at Sam for getting the space without even asking him. She had met with the leasing agent and signed the lease without asking anyone. It was in the same building as their first office had been but was double the size. It was the same price because it was only on the second floor, but she didn’t care. She actually preferred to be closer to the ground, to be able to look out the window and see the city moving around.
She stepped into her office and smiled. After a few stressful weeks, she had finally been able to cut ties with Rossi, terminating their contract. She couldn’t leave the Rossi building fast enough, despite Mo’s disapproval.
Looking around her space, she felt as if she was home. It was a corner office and consisted of an area for her desk and files and a large area for a conference table. Addi, being the joker that she was, had hung a picture of Jez in his hockey uniform up on the wall behind Sam’s desk.
Jez had been on the road a lot, but he and Sam spoke every day, the result of that strange call he had made to her a few weeks previously. She had ended up sending him a text that said maybe they should take a break, and that had resulted in him showing up at her house the next day with flowers and takeout, and how could she say no to that? He had gotten the hint and made sure that he replied to her texts or called daily, even if it was just a short text. Sam smiled as she looked out the window that showcased the busy streets of downtown Boston below. Things were going amazingly!
********
Lance stood in the empty office space and looked around, kicking his foot at a crumpled-up piece of paper on the floor. Things had moved really fast after Sam had told him that she wanted out of the agreement. Even though his team told him to fight it, or at least to try and force the clause where Horizon would have to pay Rossi a fee for backing out, he hadn’t done so. He didn’t blame Sam for wanting to leave. She stood to make a lot of money off of her deal with Bordiana, so she didn’t need Rossi’s money any more. He had been too embarrassed to tell her that with her leaving Rossi would most likely have to take some drastic measures to stay alive.
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
“You do realize that I have no idea what I am doing, right? I mean, the whole thing was done last minute and all…wiggy waggy. I’m not a designer, Sam! Besides, it was your idea to cut them in the first place!”
“I know. But how hard can it be? You heard what they said. We need to give him a rough design, and then he can work on it for us. It doesn’t need to be perfect,” Sam said, trying to sound upbeat. She and Holly had spent most of the weekend trying to write a design for the boots, and so far all th
ey had come up with was something that looked like a middle schooler had drawn it. She had called several design firms and the fact was that no one could provide them with drawings for the boots with a few days, it was impossible. So, they had no choice but to do this on their own.
Sam grabbed the bottle of white wine they had been drinking and poured them both another glass. She knew she shouldn’t panic, but the truth was that she had no clue what she was doing. This was over her head. Weren’t CEOs supposed to have their acts together? She was sitting in her pajamas on her living room floor, drawing a boot. Her phone ringing jolted her.
“Hello? Oh, hi, Kevin. No, no, it’s okay. Actually, Holly and I are going over the final design right now. No worries. We will have it for you on Monday.” Sam looked at Holly, whose eyes were wide open as she took a giant gulp of her wine. “Name? Uh…well yes, of course. Right. We decided to call them…er…” Sam looked at Holly frantically waving her arm as the two of them then looked around the room frantically as if a name would appear. Sam started to have flashbacks to when she had had to come up with a name for Horizon. “We have called them Plain Janes,” Sam blurted as she and Holly both made a face. “It’s easy and short, catchy because you know they are anything but plain. You can of course change that name.”
Sam held her arm out in a feeble attempt to quiet Holly, who was now laughing hysterically and rolling on the floor.
“Okay, that sounds great. We will see you on Monday.”
Sam hung up the phone and slumped over. Plain Janes? Really? Good grief. She had assumed that Bordiana would name the boots.
“We better get moving. They want the drawings Monday. Uh…and a few prototypes. Let my backup plan of boot designing begin!” Sam mumbled, cringing.
“WHAT!? Prototypes? Oh, for the love of God. Go grab what you have for boots in your closet. Here comes the workshop part of our weekend. I better get a free pair of boots out of this!”
Sam’s phone went off, a text from Jez. She smiled and replied. The two were officially a couple as far as she was concerned. They saw each other whenever they could, given their hectic schedules. He had stayed over at her place a few times, although he had to leave super early in the morning. Waking up at four wasn’t Sam’s cup of tea, but for Jez, she would do it.
“Okay, okay, put the phone away. We have a long night ahead of us!” Holly chided her.
********
“Well, that was a complete disaster,” Holly said as she and Sam entered the Uber.
“I don’t know, the part where their marketing director said that the boot designs were…what was it again? Oh yeah…childish…that was pretty positive.”
The two of them stared out the car window as the sedan creeped along the rainy streets of Boston, the gloomy day matching Sam’s mood. They had flown to New York that morning and met with Bordiana, and it had not gone well. In fact, it had gone horribly. Sam was frustrated. She had made it perfectly clear to them that she wasn’t a shoe designer several times and that having only a few days notice would result in less then professional drawings But the executives at Bordiana didn’t want to hear that and had picked the design apart, which of course had made Holly mad since she was the one who had “designed” the original boot in the first place.
“So, what now?” Holly asked.
“I guess we just wait to hear back from them. I mean, I already had the lawyer file for a patent for the stupid design, the back I mean. Just in case Bordiana tries to do anything like copy the design that they hated. The fact that Sam had the original pair of boots, and that SHE had been the one wearing them, was in her favor. Bordiana could design a knock off, anyone could. But they wouldn’t have the original design and they wouldn’t have Sam representing them.
The Uber pulled up toward the office building, and they got out of the car, the light rain not affecting their slow pace. They were dejected. That million dollars wasn’t going to happen, and Sam had no idea what she was going to do. They had counted on that money. Now she was going to have to tell her workers that she had failed them. They trusted her, and she had failed them all. The guilt was almost unbearable. To top it all off, she hadn’t even heard from Jez all day, which was disappointing. He could have at least wished her good luck.
“Let’s go get a drink,” she said, already walking toward Sullivan’s.
They sat down in their usual seats, and Scooter slid two drinks in front of them.
“Why the long faces. You two look miserable.”
“Bad meeting,” Sam said curtly. She didn’t feel like talking much, and she knew Holly felt the same way. What was done was done.
“I’m sorry to hear that,” Scooter said, sounding sincere and then leaving them alone as he tended to another customer.
“Well, we gave it our best, Sam. Cheers to that.” Holly raised her glass to Sam, and they clinked.
“Excuse me, where did you get those?” a female voice asked from behind them.
Sam spun around on her stool to see a young woman and her friend, probably in their early twenties, looking at her boots. She and Holly looked at each other and laughed.
“Oh, she designed them,” Sam said, pointing at Holly. “They’re one of a kind.”
“I saw those on TV a while ago. I so need a pair! Nothing ever fits my calves,” one of them said.
“Same. I would love a pair in a camel-brown color.”
Sam and Holly looked at each other and laughed. Such irony. Everyone loved the boots, but she was pretty sure that she had just blown the deal with Bordiana and that the boots had died a slow death after being grilled by the design teams. Sam had assumed that they would have just taken the existing pair of boots and reverse engineered them. How hard could it be? But the team had picked them apart, to the point that Sam had just suggested they end the meeting, and she and Holly had left. Now not only had she lost the contract with them, but she would most certainly be getting hit with an invoice for Sydney backing out of the presentation.
“How much would you girls pay for these boots?” Sam asked the women.
“A hundred, maybe one fifty. Unless they are designer – are they?” One asked.
“Yeah, what brand are they?”
Sam and Holly looked at each other. “Plain Janes,” they both said at the same time and then burst into laughter.
Their visitors both looked at them as if they were crazy. “Never heard of it. But they are cool. “
“Well, ladies, unfortunately they are one of a kind. Unless you know someone who can draw us up some patterns,” Holly said, downing the last of her drink.
“Are you serious?” one of them asked.
“No,” Holly said, to which Sam said “Yes.”
“We’re design students. We can do it.”
Sam and Holly looked at each other, Sam’s mind already starting to race. Why not?
“Really? How long have you been in design school?” Sam asked, perking up.
“This is our last year.”
“So, how hard would it be do draft up some designs of these boots?” Sam asked.
“Sam!” Holly exclaimed as Sam held her hand up.
“Well, not too hard. I mean, we have the software on our laptops. You already have one that we can base the design on.”
“What are your names?” Sam asked them both.
“I’m Ronni and this is Jessica.”
Sam stuck her hand out.
“Well Ronni and Jessica, I’m Samantha Reynolds. Welcome to the first meeting of Plain Jane’s shoes.”
CHAPTER NINETEEN
“Why not make them interchangeable? You know, like make it an option to buy different ribbon, leather, chain, or whatever for the back once they have the boots?” Sam asked as she watched the small group of women work their magic. They had been holed up in the main conference room at Horizon for the entire day, working on prototypes for the boots. After meeting Ronni and Jessica in the bar the day before and talking for a few hours, Sam and Holly had immediately taken them u
p on their offer to create drawings for the boots. The pair were in their last year of fashion design school, and the way Sam felt, they couldn’t possibly do any worse than Sam and Holly had done.
“It would be fairly easy to do that. We just have to rework the bottom a bit.” Jessica held up the boot so Sam could see it. “See, it’s sewn onto the heel here, but I can modify it so that it’s interchangeable. It’s a great idea, because that way it’s like having a different pair of boots when you just change the back. “
“The plum ones are sharp. We need a teal pair too,” Ronni chimed in. Zoey had a very eclectic style, and Sam looked over at Addi, who was Sam’s go-to stylist for the boots.
“I agree. I mean, every manufacturer typically has two major colors for boots, black or brown. Sometimes a camel or a white. Very rarely do you see any other choices. These are tasteful even with the different colors. And the option of picking what’s on the back for a color is great.”
“Teal it is, then,” Sam said, winking at Addi. She made a mental note to give Addi a great year-end bonus; she had really jumped into this and helped out tremendously without even being asked to.
“How long until we can get the first run done?” Sam asked Ronni. Ronni was in charge of production. She had worked at her uncle’s shoe factory for years throughout school, and that made her the expert in production as far as Sam was concerned. She had a lot of connections in the shoe industry and it was beyond helpful with all this last minute stuff.
“Two weeks, but I’m working on getting them down to one week.”
“It’s critical that it gets done as soon as possible so we are still in the winter season,” Holly said, not looking up from her laptop.
“I’m on it,” Ronni said.
Sam’s phone rang, and she glanced over at it. Yet another call from Lance. He had been texting her, asking to meet up, claiming that he had something to talk to her about. She had been meaning to return his calls but also didn’t want to flaunt this new venture in his face. She was a horrible liar, and if he asked how the boots were doing, she would spill the beans. She felt that it was just better to keep as few people as possible knowing about it.
