15

Chapter 14

Alex heard the phone first and tried to ignore it. After a moment he realized it was not his phone, which means that it was Samantha's. Despite an overwhelming desire to pretend that he did not hear it, he suspected that Samantha might not want to ignore it.

"Whose?" She asked sleepily.

"Yours," he said pulling himself up and looking for the clock. "No one I know would call me at six-thirty in the morning, especially if they want me to do anything for them."

By the time Samantha had pulled herself out of bed, the phone had stopped ringing and there was relative quiet in the apartment. Alex thought he heard it chirp but did not know if that was before or after Samantha found it.

"No surprise who it was," she said sourly as she keyed in the passcode for the voicemail and tried to crawl back under the covers.

Alex could not hear the message clearly but there was no question that Rachel was less than happy this morning. He thought, ruefully, that if she had gotten another couple of hours of sleep and got up like normal people, she would have been in a much better mood.

"What does she want?" Alex asked after he heard the phone click closed, his own eyes already closed, striving for sleep he knew would not come now despite being exhausted.

"The bitch," Samantha said, tears in her voice. Alex rolled over to see her clutching the phone in her hands, her cheeks wet. "She wants to know why I am not answering my door that she has been pounding on for the last 10 minutes and expects me to meet her in the lobby by seven without fail so that we can discuss my complete failure to achieve the goals she set for me."

"Sounds like a winner," Alex said gently prying the phone from her hands and putting his arms around her, pulling her towards him. "Call her back, tell her you are at the Café Du Lac and it would make more sense for her to join you there then it would for you to come back to the hotel."

"Where is the Café Du Lac?" she asked, sniffling slightly.

"About three blocks from here. In either case, it will take her a half-hour to get there. If she doesn't go for it, then it will take you at least a half-hour to get back to the hotel."

"And why would I be there?"

"Because we have been having breakfast there every morning," he said with a smirk, "Even though we only had breakfast there once, well, twice actually, but I don't count wearing my breakfast as the same as eating it." She hit him with a pillow and then fell on him and kissed him.

"Feel better?" he asked.

"Yes. What is the address of the place? You know I can never find it on my own."

Alex wrote the address down on a piece of paper and slipped into the bathroom while she made her call. He was just finishing when she came in.

"No dice, she wants me there," she said dejectedly and somewhat tearfully.

"Well, jump in the shower and be quick. I can have us to the hotel in about 20 minutes and you can tell her you were not going to walk out on your breakfast. I will be right back."

"Where are you going?" she asked as he pulled his pants on and plucked a t-shirt from a drawer.

"To get you breakfast. If she thinks you have eaten already, you are not likely to get food, at least until your meeting with Monique at ten. I will make sure Michelle lays in a danish or two for you just in case. Now get into the shower and I will be back before you are done."

Alex let himself out quickly and Samantha started her shower. In the ten minutes it took her to do a quick once over and dry off, he had returned with a pair of croissants and coffee, buttering them and feeding her as she combed her hair and got dressed. In less than twenty minutes, they were out the door and onto the Metro, heading in the direction of the Marriott.

"OK, smarty pants, how do I handle the 'failure' to meet her goals?" she asked as they jostled with the morning commuters.

"That will take a little more finesse," he said thinking for a moment. "I would approach it this way. You tell her the vendors were not offering you their best goods and you found better items that you feel are more likely to sell in the United States than what she was trying to get you to pick up. Run with the idea that the people you are talking to are smaller, lesser known vendors and that translates to a better price per unit. Their unknown nature will make the snobs snap them up because they will not be the same as what everyone else has. It comes down to simple marketing really. It might mean that someone has to rethink a campaign, but I think that is a small price to pay. If she really insists on the items, then you can go together and maybe she will have better luck, but I suspect she will encounter the same problems. In the first case you learn and in the second case she learns. Either way, it is all good. I would make sure you talk to Monique before you go to any of the people you visited earlier this week. I think Rachel is jealous, that is why she is pulling this little stunt."

"You don't know Rachel. She is not the type that learns lessons. She teaches them. Why would you think she is jealous?"

"She is in awe of Monique, that much was plain last night at dinner. Not only did Monique come to you last night, but you introduced her to Rachel by addressing her by her first name. Nothing wrong with that from Monique's view, but for someone as self-possessed as Rachel struck me as, it was probably the worst thing you could have done, because it meant you were Monique's friend. Your first visit here and you are already friends with one of the most sought after designers in the country and you are introducing her to the senior buyer like she was an old school friend. Not even the mother of a friend. I don't think that sat well at all."

Samantha stood staring at him, ignoring the crush of passengers that were getting on and off around her. "Sought after? I knew she was good, but that good?"

"I wasn't kidding about Fendi. Or Karl," he said with a smirk.

"I still don't know who you mean."

"Lagerfeld, Karl Lagerfeld. Of Channel and his own line?" He watched as the light bulb went on and then a second one.

"You've met him?" she asked with awe in her voice.

"I have met him, yes, but I am not likely to pick up the phone and invite him to dinner. I honestly don't know him that well. Monique has parties from time to time at her estate. Or rather, she used to and since I was engaged to her daughter, well, I was part of the family and included in the introductions."

"But no more," Samantha said.

"I am no longer engaged to Josephine, no, but I am probably more a part of the family than she is at the moment. This is your stop. I have my phone with me and I will be in the neighbourhood somewhere. Bon chance chérie," he said, kissing her quickly as she stepped off the train and joined the crowd heading for the exit.

Samantha stepped out of the station and slid to one side out of the crowd to catch her breath before stepping off towards the Marriot. There were a number of mainly working class Parisians on the street already, some making their way to cafes and others towards the office buildings and other places of business that supported the bustling City of Lights. The sun would not shine today and brighten the dark stone. It was dark and overcast and a fitful start at a sprinkling rain had already started as she and Alex walked from the apartment to the Metro. By the time she reached the doors of the hotel, the sprinkle had become a steady drizzle. She hoped Alex had remembered to bring an umbrella with him and smiled at the thought.

Rachel was waiting for her in the lobby. Dressed in a tailored suit with heels and stockings, she seemed wildly out of place next to Samantha who was wearing khaki pants, blouse and loafers. Alex had bought her the shoes. A present, he had called them, to help her gain a modicum of respect in the circles she was traveling, and when she was not looking he had also put in the blouse. She appreciated the shoes, they were comfortable and in her travels she noticed that she did seem to blend in with the rest of the people she dealt with. Even Monique seemed to tend towards the more casual style that Samantha was wearing rather than the grossly formal look that her boss had chosen.

"It certainly took you long enough," Rachel said, anger tingeing her voice this morning in contrast to dinner the night before.

"I had to finish my breakfast, and then make my way to the Metro, Rachel. It is a large city after all."

"Yes, I see that," she said sarcastically. "Come with me," she demanded as she turned and marched off to the elevator bank. Silently Samantha thanked Alex for his foresight in feeding her before they left although the croissant seemed to sit like a lead weight in her stomach.

"I set down some very specific instructions," Rachel said as they ascended, "and yet, based on what I heard at dinner last night, you have rejected out of hand, without any consultation with me, all of the simple jobs I have set for you. Instead you have been gallivanting around Pairs like a school girl on her first date. What do you have to say for yourself?"

Samantha was dumbfounded. She most certainly had not gallivanted anywhere. After a week in Paris, other than seeing the Eiffel Tower from a distance, she had spent hours in stuffy offices and moldy back rooms looking at samples and designs and trying to find items that would be salable in the United States. Yet here was this woman, over dressed at seven o'clock in the morning, dressing her down for rejecting what were second rate items, over priced and unlikely to sell in any store at any price. That Monique seemed to agree with her assessment only made her more upset. Still she tried to appeal to Rachel with logic.

"Rachel, I understand you are the senior buyer and far more knowledgeable than I am about this sort of thing, but the items you suggested were hacks. The people selling them were pushing second rate merchandise..."

"And in your infinite experience, you felt it better to strike out on your own? Well, we will go and apologize to Mrs. DuMaurier and then we will go and talk to the people I instructed you to visit and then we will fly back to the United States where you will clean out your desk and find yourself another job in another company. I don't know what they were thinking when they hired you..."

"If that is your attitude, then I guess we have nothing more to say," Samantha said as the doors opened on her floor and she stepped out. "I will meet you at Monique's office at ten o'clock as we planned and then you are more than welcome to spend the rest of the day crawling around musty salons. I am going to enjoy my last day in Paris. Good morning." And with that she walked down the hall towards her room, leaving her boss in a fine fury as the doors to the elevator closed and she finished the ride up to her floor.

Samantha never intended to go to her room and instead she slipped into the stairwell and started down the steps, pulling out her cell phone and calling Alex, relaying to him all that had happened. He told her to meet him outside the hotel and they would go and find a proper breakfast since her morning now seemed to be free.

"I am so mad I could spit," Samantha said after they had slipped into a booth at Remy's café. Alex had ordered them some breakfast and was gently stroking her hand, trying to calm her down. "I mean, she does not even understand the work I did..." Alex let her vent in this vein for a few more minutes until their breakfast arrived. Alex was passing her the cream when his own phone rang, his mouth curling up with a smile as he answered it.

"Oui, bonjour?" He said, cradling the phone against his ear as he spread raspberry preserves over his croissant. "Oui? Oui, ici. Oui, c'est vrai chérie. A dix heure, oui? Un moment," he pulled the phone away from his ear and looked sideways at Samantha. "What do you think about meeting Monique at nine-thirty?" he asked.

"That is fine with me. It isn't like I have anything else on my schedule this morning" she said, looking at him questioningly.

"Monique, nine-thirty is fine. All right, we will see you there." He closed his phone and put it back on his hip, taking a sip of his own coffee.

"Well?" Samantha asked, clearly intrigued.

"It would seem that your boss called Monique. Not a good idea at this hour of the morning I might add, to cancel this morning's meeting. Some story about having to make several sales calls today. So Monique trumped her and told her the meeting could easily be moved up, so it was. It is kind of tough to say no to Monique especially when she is rudely awoken. Rachel did not seem to think you would be there though."

"I am beginning to learn that she is tough to say no to. Not that I would ever hope to have any reason to," Samantha said, grinning slightly.

Alex's phone rang again and this time his French was so fast it was almost impossible for Samantha to follow his side of the conversation. Before it was over, he had taken out his laptop, flipped it open and was rapidly taking notes all the while continuing his conversation, his face sliding from one of amusement to seriousness as he typed. Sitting across from him, she could not see what he was doing, but she guessed, based on the speed his fingers were flying over the keyboard, he was documenting the entire conversation. He hung up the phone and pulled his map book out of his pocket, squinting at the monitor before flipping to the index and then back again to the screen. He made a couple of notes in his book before closing it and slipping it back in his pocket. He made a couple of more entries onto the laptop and then closed its cover.

"Are you up for a field trip?" he asked her looking up from putting the machine in his satchel.

"Sure. Where are we going?" she asked.

"It's a surprise," he said smiling, "but I have to go and do a quick job before we meet Monique and then I can do the rest of it later next week when I get back from London. But if I go now and take some pictures, I can work on it on the TGV and have it basically done."

Samantha found all of this rather cryptic but since she did not have anything else to do, she gathered her things together and they headed out into the dark morning, the sky leaden and heavy and the streets already wet from the first rain of the morning.

Alex had pulled a Bluetooth adapter out of his bag and slipped it onto his ear. Samantha had never seen him use one. He always seemed to prefer to hold the phone up to his ear. As they started up the small hill toward the river, Alex had already dialed a number and was talking in rapid French to the person on the other end. Samantha was feeling disconnected. Alex had always been open and friendly, a shoulder to cry on and right now she really needed that, but here he was, wrapped up in an electronic bubble as they walked along the streets of one of the oldest cities in Europe. Somehow it seemed wrong. This was not New York where everyone was constantly attached to their cell phone, this was Paris, even though she saw as many people connected here as she had ever seen in New York. But she certainly did not expect her darling Alex to be one of them. It was not fair. By the time they had reached the river, Alex must have called a half-a-dozen people, each conversation seemingly longer than the one before it, the French so blindingly fast and alien that she stopped even trying to follow the conversations instead looking around at the landscape as they walked. She caught some words for clothing and Fendi and Monique's name a couple of times but it was so hard to keep up that she finally decided to enjoy the scenery around her, despite the occasional raindrop that continued to fall. She might never get back to Paris and she wanted to have stories to tell about her trip to Paris and how beautiful it looked, even in the rain.

Alex, between calls, had her pose at a number of locations along their walk, taking several pictures of her with his digital camera, typical Parisian monuments or buildings or scenes in the background. Samantha could not figure out what the point of the pictures was, because they seemed so random to her. Some were of non-descript doorways or arches, others were scenic views of the city. Whenever she asked him what the theme was, he would smile enigmatically at her and shake his head.

"It is for Monique, chérie. I am sure everything will be explained shortly. Have patience."

He made it in to a game and she started to have fun after he promised she could look at them and keep some of them for her photo album. He even let her take several of him as they walked along the Seine, dodging raindrops.

During that time, Alex made one call that was not in incomprehensible French. In fact it was in English.

"Sebastian Bing, please. Yes, Paris Alex, and tell him he is costing himself money for each minute he keeps me waiting."

They crossed the street and Alex mimed that he wanted Samantha to pose in front of the statue there. He took a couple of pictures of her and the scenery before turning his attention back to the phone.

"Seb, mate, how is it? Good to hear. Are we still holding options on those properties in Nice? Good, execute the options, minimum of one year and get them to shave ten percent off of their already inflated prices. Yes, I am serious. Thanks mate. I will be in tomorrow to sign the papers and we can grab a drink afterwards alright? Sounds good. See you then."

"Do I get to know?" Samantha asked as he hung up and put his ear piece in his bag.

"I am sure it will all be explained and it will all make sense in its own time. For now, look pretty and we will continue our walk," he said in that madly polite voice she had come to recognize as his "doing business" mode meaning she might as well ask the statue for information than to get it from Alex. He could be maddening at times. She wrapped her hands around his neck and gave him a deep kiss and then they continued on their walk.

Alex took a few more pictures as the rain began to fall harder before finally opening his umbrella and pulling her under it with him, putting the camera away and steering them to a nearby taxi stand.

"Ready to take on the Wicked Witch of New York?" he asked her after he gave the driver the address of Monique's studio.

"I guess, but I really don't know what she can do for me. I mean, I really don't want to work for Rachel anymore and I don't know what sort of job I will be able to get once we get back. I can only imagine the phone calls she has been making while we have been walking around the city."

Alex just smiled. "Worry not chérie, I suspect that things are about to get very interesting for all parties involved."

They rode the rest of the short trip in silence, each thinking their own thoughts. When they arrived, Alex paid the fare and they hurried into the building as the heavens seemed to choose that moment to open up and vent their full fury upon the citizens of Paris.

"Good morning, Monique. Good morning Greg," Alex said as, dripping slightly, they were shown into the conference room where the others were gathered, waiting. On a side table there was a selection of pastries and coffee and on another table, a smattering of samples and a hanging rack of clothes next to it. Alex walked over to the sample table to look at some of the items there while Amanda's staff was fluttering around them protectively. Samantha went and sat down next to Monique at her instance.

"Nice collection," he said, flipping over some of the fabrics. "Having a garage sale? Anyone want coffee while I am up?"

"Not for me chérie," Monique said with a tight smile at his antics and Greg shook his head as well. Alex looked at Samantha who was about to say something when Rachel walked in, followed by Michelle and Amanda.