“You don’t agree?” I shoot him a narrow-eyed look.
“All I said was, ‘Yes, sir’.”
“I know. It was the way you said it. Your tone of voice.” I scowl. “You agree with me, don’t you? She’s not at all right for Hudson’s?”
“I’ll adjust my tone of voice,” he says smoothly. He’s avoided answering me. Slick bastard.
My watch pings. “That would be your reminder to call Akiri Yamamoto,” he says.
“Thanks.” I sigh. “Please have Shanice take care of my grocery list, pick up my new dress shoes and bring them to my house, and check in with Alice and Tamara to see if they need anything. Oh, and make a reservation for dinner tonight at Norfolk’s.”
Norfolk’s is the exclusive private club where my family and I have owned a membership since my grandfather’s time. Tamara loves going there because there’s a photograph of our family on the wall, and it makes her feel special. Also they make killer Death by Chocolate cake that sends her bouncing off the walls and ceiling just like the cartoon character Ricochet Rabbit, which drives my sister insane. That’s a bonus.
I settle in to my office, open up the planner on my iPad, and set it up on a stand next to my desk. Then I place a call to Akiri, a very hot designer that I’m dying to get for the Popup-Palooza. His clothes are too avant-garde and impractical for my taste, but everybody’s after this guy. Our biggest competitors are begging for the exclusive rights to carry his various lines. It’s a measure of how much I want him that I place the call myself, rather than having my secretary do it.
Unfortunately, I get his secretary, who tells me that he’s out. I hear Akiri talking in the background, but he’s pretending not to be available – and making sure I know it, too. He’s playing hard to get because he wants a higher cut than what I’ve offered him. I try not to be too annoyed; it’s how the game is played. And I’m willing to increase my price, but I won’t roll over too easily. I leave a message that I’ve called, and hang up, drumming my fingers on my desk.
I glance at the big oil painting of my father on the wall, for reassurance. It glowers down at me.
“The minute anyone thinks that the Hudsons can be pushed around, we’re shark chum,” my father always used to say. Usually after he reduced someone to tears for trying to wheedle a raise or a sick day. Talk about a mean bastard. And I say that with the greatest of admiration.
My father was tough, but he was also the most honest man I know. Twenty-two years ago, when I was twelve, Hudson’s unscrupulous CFO nearly bankrupted us by taking out huge loans using our business as collateral, embezzling a small fortune and running up huge debts. He killed himself when it came to light.
That was what derailed my father’s plans to open up the stores overseas. At the time, he’d been planning on doing it without going public, but real estate was more affordable back then.
Everything screeched to a halt when the news came out. The press nearly ripped us apart, with cruel innuendo swirling about our family for years. They implied that he and my uncle knew about it all along. They dug up publicity pictures of my father posing with the store’s models and claimed he was having affairs with them. It was bullshit. That man never went anywhere without my mother; they were like conjoined twins. The tabloids snapped pictures of him drinking with friends and investors and said he wasn’t minding the store because he was an alcoholic, and that’s why he didn’t notice the embezzlement.
Which was it? He was in on it, or too drunk to pay attention? The truth was, neither, but they didn’t care that their lies nearly destroyed us.
My father, who believed that living well is the best revenge, never let his smile falter. What he went through to pay back our creditors for someone else’s debts earned my undying admiration.
I cock an eyebrow and smile grimly at his portrait. “What’s that, Dad? Get back to work and stop wallowing in nostalgia? Why, thanks, you’re right, as ever.”
I start going through my list of calls for the morning, using my e-stylus to check off each one on my planner as soon as the call is complete. I’m scanning the fashion