Roma Knows How To Negotiate!
"Husband, tell me again why I am here?" Roma asked.
"It is important for our business."
"That will explain why you are here. It does not explain why I am here with you."
"It is good for my negotiations that I will show a strong stability that comes with marriage." Fenil explained. "Perhaps then the investors will see that I am a stable man and will become convinced enough that they will fund our business. We cannot return to India with empty hands. Look there. That is the hotel where we are to meet the investors. You must be quiet while we are there. I will talk for us both. You must not speak out of turn while I negotiate."
Earlier, their yellow taxi had traveled over a bridge so high that Roma had become frightened by it. She had looked down at her lap until they were no longer traveling over that bridge, to avoid looking through the windows. Roma did not like riding on airplanes or taking elevators to the uppermost floors of high buildings. Only now had she discovered that she did not like traveling over tall bridges either, because she had never been over a bridge as tall as that one.
"Everything on this island is named Coronado." Fenil said, sounding marveled where Roma was not. "The island is Coronado, the bridge is Coronado and even the hotel is Coronado. This hotel is a historical place. It is a famous place throughout the world."
If the hotel was so famous, Roma thought, then why hadn't she heard of it before? Not for the first time, the thirty-two year-old Indian woman wished she were back home in Kanpur. For her, stability came from familiar places and people, and not from great big hotels that looked like giant British plantations.
Fenil felt it necessary to remind her of her place again. "Remember, you must remain quiet while I negotiate."
This irritated Roma, to have husband refer to her as having less intelligence than he did. Perhaps she did not know American investors as well as he, but she could do many things that her husband could not. She was a highly respected woman in India, not only because she was Upper Caste and married to a wealthy businessman. On her own, Roma had come to manage five large beauty shops between Kanpur and Delhi, and would have twice as many if her great negotiator of a husband had not failed in convincing the Chinese to open up the borders to their business.
That was the face that most people saw of Roma, but even more important was that through her and her husband's efforts they had acquired and invigorated a good number of manufacturers of cosmetics. By re-branding and marketing their products with a new, distinctive flair, the Roma line of cosmetics had become trendy and popular in northern India, especially among the young people from the Upper Caste. It seemed that every time Roma released an old cosmetic in a new package, her beauty products would go viral on Facebook and Twitter.
The Chinese were already creating knock-off products based on her merchandise, but legally nothing could be done about that. The Japanese and the Koreans were ready to welcome them with open arms. Those are the countries they should have gone to, Roma reasoned, instead of coming to the United States. The problem was that too many of the investors in these Asian countries were older men who saw women as inferior to them. On the other hand, if Western investors backed Roma and Fenil, it would be a hundred times easier to get their shops and their cosmetics into the Asian nations.
And so, to further expand their business Roma had come on a plane with her husband and had taken elevators inside high buildings twice already. She had just crossed over a great bridge and now she was looking out at a great hotel she had never heard of before. Things were so much easier to manage in India, where people kept their thoughts and their feet grounded.
The taxi pulled up alongside a row of neatly trimmed hedges. Roma listened as Fenil paid the driver, appalled to hear that the price for the ride was sixty American dollars. From Roma's point of view, it was only a short ride from their hotel in La Jolla to this second hotel in Coronado. She hadn't seen the point of why they couldn't simply meet the investors in their hotel, instead of having to be taken to another hotel in another part of the city. That's when Fenil started telling her about his agreement to play tennis with the potential investors.
"Come with me." Fenil said, as he slid out of the car.
Roma followed her husband closely. They ended up standing on the broad sidewalk that ran alongside the long row of hedges. As usual, Fenil was so worried about his appearance and his composure that he paid no attention to his wife. It would be up to her to make sure she was equally presentable. If Fenil's negotiations failed, he could very well blame her for having said or done something to embarrass or disgrace him.
Roma considered herself as best she could. She was a tall woman by the standards of India. Her skin was fair and her hair dark brown. Many times, it had been suggested to Roma that the image of her face should be used on her products. She was as pretty as any Indian fashion model. However, the last thing she wanted was to look upon shelves of merchandise showing little faces of her on their boxes.
In India, a respected businesswoman would not be showing off any portion of her body to the public. Her clothing would be much more conservative. Here in the States, things were vastly different. There were a number of people crowding up the main thoroughfare, most of whom Roma suspected were tourists. The men wore silky shirts that fluttered with the breeze, while the women wore colorful blouses. Among that sort of crowd she saw a lot of hats, sunglasses, cameras and shorts. Everyone was showing off their legs, which caused Roma to feel a little less anxious in showing off hers.
It wasn't that Roma's form was unsightly. To the contrary, she still had her enticing and womanly figure of full breasts and queenly hips. The Americans might see her as being thick-bodied, but their fashion models were all skinny twigs. In India, where so many women ate their fill or did not maintain their figures, a face and form like hers was highly sought after by influential men.
"Tell me how I look, husband." Roma asked, because if she didn't Fenil would have continued to ignore her.
They were both fully dressed in white. Fenil had his shorts and Roma had her skirt.
"Don't bother me with such questions." Fenil told her. "Come with me. Don't speak to me, as I have to arrange my thoughts for this approaching negotiation."
Roma dutifully followed her husband, but she did not understand all this wooing and socializing with investors, which she felt was unnecessary. To her it was a simple matter. They had a successful business and were looking to expand into other countries. Did the investors want to be a part of that success or not?
While they walked along, Fenil became more anxious. He always behaved this way, Roma knew. Perhaps this is why he hadn't been very successful as of late. The people from other countries did not look well upon a man who was nervous and sweaty, and who had a clammy handshake. The presence of Roma, as Fenil had said, was to calm the investors enough to secure a deal with them.
Fenil asked a random passerby for directions to the hotel's tennis courts. The person merely pointed toward the hotel. They walked along that way, ending up not at tennis courts but in a large parking lot that had perhaps a hundred cars on it. Fenil asked another person and this time they were pointed toward the beach. Roma didn't trust those directions because who would put tennis courts on a beach? After a few more minutes of walking, they realized the hotel had a great patio built behind it. They found several places for guests to sit and chat, a large swimming pool, and finally they came to the tennis courts.
"You must not mix up the names of the investors." Fenil told her, more to ease his own worries than to inform his wife of anything. "These two men are business partners. Mr. Wagner owns several buildings in La Jolla, including the only theater. Once Mr. Wagner purchases a building, Mr. Plaidy steps in to occupy it with important businesses. Most recently, Mr. Plaidy has expanded a chain of expensive restaurants in the same way we wish to expand our own business. These are very important men."
Roma was busy thinking about tennis. She played more often than her husband and usually did very well against other women, and also against a number of men. Roma was an aggressive player, whereas her husband was a player of average skill. Because they were in the midst of a negotiation, Fenil would have preferred that his wife would allow their opponents to win, but Roma was not that sort of woman. If she was to play, she would play to win regardless of who was standing on the other side of the net. They hadn't come to the States with the intentions of playing games, however, and so neither of them had the right attire or even the equipment. Because Fenil was entirely compliant, he'd agreed to the match and so they'd gone out at the last moment to purchase their white clothes. Their rivals would lend them extra tennis rackets.
"Remember to speak only when spoken to." Fenil said, as he spotted the two investors already engaged in a match.
Her husband's attitude changed before Roma's eyes. He waved his hands too much. He smiled and laughed too much, even at statements not meant to be taken as jokes. This angered Roma, to see her husband acting this way merely because he was meeting men with larger bank accounts than his.
The investors were both in their fifties. The German Wagner was the taller of the two, standing at over six feet. This man had arms and legs long enough to cover his side of the court like an octopus. Plaidy was as tall as Roma, an American as agile and spry as Wagner was long and powerful. Both men were adept at the sport. Roma watched them closely, trying to gauge their strengths and weaknesses before they were playing against each other.
The first game was a disaster.
Fenil kept calling the two investors by the wrong names. He did this so often that the investors ended up laughing at Roma's husband as if he couldn't possibly be making the same mistake so many times.
