Nick shrugged. “Presumably. But we’re going to focus on us. You’re familiar with the Jourdan deal?”
He had asked hopefully and Zoe was delighted that she could finally seem like a competent employee and less like a stuttering, empty-headed dullard who couldn’t pick up a hint to save her life. “Yes! Yes. Jourdan Wines and Spirits. Vanessa was working on that pretty solidly until her accident.”
“And you too.”
Zoe nodded.
“You’re familiar with the deal.”
“Very.”
“Probably more familiar with it than anyone else in the company -- excluding those currently laid up in South African hospitals with a broken leg.”
“Probably,” Zoe concurred with slight hesitation. She hadn’t thought of it like that before but it was probably true. Wow – she did actually have a position of some trust within the company.
“Excellent!” For the first time since this interview had started, Nick Rothberger looked genuinely happy. “The thing is, Vanessa is in no position now to close this deal – seeing as how her current position is on her back with one leg in the air. But the deal is worth quite a lot to the company.”
“Three billion dollars,” put in Zoe, eager to demonstrate that she had such details at her fingertips.
“Indeed,” Nick nodded, not obviously impressed. “And I don’t have to tell you that there are other companies who are keen to get their hands on Jourdan Wines and Spirits and will be looking to close a deal themselves as quickly as possible.”
Zoe nodded. “There’s Keystone, Quantum, Bro-Tec…”
Nick held up his hands. “Yes, yes, thank you.” Apparently he was willing to take Zoe’s command of the basic situation for granted without her demonstrating that command further. “The point is: can anyone other than Vanessa Reese close this deal?”
Zoe swelled with pride. “I can, sir.”
Nick laughed.
And laughed.
Then tried to speak but fell about laughing again, before finally getting control of himself.
“Sorry, that was rude of me. But no. No. The answer I was looking for was ‘No’. No one can close this deal but Vanessa Reese. We need Vanessa Reese.”
“But,” Zoe frowned, “she’s been flattened by African wildlife.”
“True,” acknowledged Nick. “But if we can’t have Vanessa Reese, then we need the next best thing.”
Having gotten the last answer wrong, Zoe hesitated to venture forth another try, but the weighted silence called for her response. “…Me?”
In other circumstances Zoe might have found Nick’s laugh quite pleasant, but right now it was just insulting. Why had he asked her here if she was not the next best thing?
“Well what is the next best thing to Vanessa Reese?” she asked.
“Someone pretending to be Vanessa Reese,” Nick announced with a theatrical flourish of his hands.
Zoe stared blankly for a minute before realization sank in. “Who--- wait. Me? Me?”
This time she was correct.
“Who else?” Nick asked. “We need someone who understands the ins and outs of this deal, someone who can speak French, someone with style, class, sophistication and beauty.”
Zoe perked up.
“You have an understanding of the ins and outs of this deal,” Nick continued. “You speak French. And we’ve got three weeks to fix the rest.”
Zoe perked down again. “You know there are other people on the team who might do better.” Being put in charge of the deal was one thing, being a puppet was something else. “People who know almost as much about the deal as me and who speak French and who might better meet your other criteria. Wouldn’t it be easier to bring them up to speed on the deal?”
Zoe was almost sure she heard Nick mutter, “Yes it would,” under his breath but perhaps she was mistaken as he continued, “I’ve looked at all the options and I’m sure you are the one for the job. You’ve spent time around Vanessa, you know what she’s like. That makes you the ideal choice to play her. What do you say?”
Zoe was not sure what to say. It was nice to be asked – wasn’t it?
Then again – no.
No.
It would have been nice to be asked to take over the deal, but she was being asked to stand still, say nothing and try to look as much like her bitch-queen of a boss as possible. She was not being singled out for her skill or business acumen, she was being singled out for her gender, ability to speak French and… Well, there had to be something else but Zoe found herself frustratingly unable to put her finger on it. She had the feeling that Nick was keeping something back.
Did Zoe bear some fleeting resemblance to Vanessa? If she did it was very fleeting indeed. Vanessa was tall, statuesque and stunning, Zoe was short, chubby and the word ‘plain’ had been bandied about far more than she would have liked. It had never really bothered Zoe that much – she had not wanted to be defined by her appearance but by her ability, and so she had, if anything, played up her lack of obvious visual appeal. Now she was being asked to become the thing that she had never wanted to be (if only temporarily). All her efforts to be judged by what she could do. Realization was dawning on her.
“You need a black girl.” It was a statement, not a question. Zoe pursed her lips and narrowed her eyes.
“Well… that helps if someone is going to be Vanessa.”
“Because we all look alike.” She crossed her arms and leaned back in the chair.
“Now—I didn’t say that.” Nick sputtered.
He didn’t have to. It was a source of endless ire to both Vanessa and Zoe (one of the few things they had in common) that they were constantly mistaken for each other. They were also frequently mistaken for Anika Washington, who had locs and worked in payroll, and Yolanda Martinez, who weighed close to four hundred pounds and worked in the cafeteria. Really, how hard could it be to keep the four black women who worked in the same office building straight?
Pretty damned hard, apparently.
“No thanks,” said Zoe, firmly.
“I’ll give you five hundred thousand dollars,” said Nick, without batting an eyelid.
Another thing that Zoe had never wanted to be was one of those girls who value money above all else. She would not marry for money, she would not work purely for the pay-check, she would not be swayed by the gods of materialism. But whether you wanted to be one of those girls or not, someone waving five hundred thousand dollars under your nose was… well there was an awful lot she could do with five hundred thousand dollars.
Most pointedly, her parents were mortgaged to the hilt on their home and it had always frustrated Zoe that she was not in a position to help them. Surely doing something just for the money didn’t count if you were planning to give the money to someone else? Right?
Zoe was still eyeing him warily. “I’m not definitely saying yes,” she hedged, “but tell me what this would entail.”
Nick Rothberger smiled and, as he embarked on his explanation, Zoe could not help noticing what a very attractive smile it was.
The details were simple enough.
In three weeks th
ere was a meeting scheduled between Jacques Jourdan and various competing investors, Vanessa Reese representing RothCo included, to discuss terms on the sale of Jourdan Wines and Spirits. Zoe would step in for Vanessa at that meeting and would behave exactly as Vanessa would in that situation. She would be fed what to say and she would not deviate from it.
That much of the plan was simple, the complex part was that Jacques Jourdan himself had, via their emails and letters, developed something of an attachment to Vanessa. It would be too much to say that he was enamored of her (and Zoe was very clear that there were some things she would not do), but they had a lot in common, he liked her and a big part of this deal rested upon that pleasant relationship between them and the hint that it might grow into something more should Jacques Jourdan play his cards right.
Zoe would have to be Vanessa convincingly enough so as not to lose that affinity, or the deal was doomed. In the intervening three weeks she would learn how to be Vanessa enough to fool Jacques Jourdan. She would read the messages that had passed between the pair to get some idea of which subjects to bone up on and in what areas her knowledge was deficient. She would learn how to talk like Vanessa, how to behave like Vanessa, how think like Vanessa. She would leave behind the badly dressed, vodka-spilling, lemon wedge-choking, nacho-cheese dripping, hick that she was, and become the classy, uptight, wine-sniffing sophisticate that apparently floated Jacques Jourdan’s boat (and that boat was a yacht).
And the changes would not stop with her knowledge and behavior.
“It will be uphill work,” said Nick, mildly insulting by implication, as he had managed to be throughout. “You don’t dress like Vanessa – she has class.”
“She has money,” said Zoe – despite her mild temperament she was being more and acid in tone the longer this went on. Which was actually pretty good training for being Vanessa.
“Money you can gain,” said Nick, “class is something you have or you don’t.”
Zoe bit her tongue, knowing that, if she had all the money in the world, she would still prefer to lounge around in a T-shirt and sweat pants, and rather judged anyone who didn’t.