Ballet Shoes and Engine Grease (17 page)

“
Well…all right…great.” Crimson forced an
upbeat tone. Hank’s offer might be a ploy to make her life misery,
or it might be an olive branch. She’d take the chance. “My
transport problem is solved, and we have a winner.” She waited for
the burst of applause to die down. “Thanks everyone. Enjoy your
lunch. It’s on me today, to say thank for your efforts after the
fire. I really appreciate the extra work you did to get the factory
back to full operation so quickly.”

Her heart pounded as she hurried back to
her office. Was this why people built empires? For this glorious
sense of having done something right, having won people
o
ver, having measured up
and achieved success, even if just by one tiny step at a
time?

****

Croink, croink, croink.
Her mother’s old Toyota lurched
forward in shuddering leaps. Crimson clung to the steering wheel,
petrified. “What did I do? Did I wreck the engine?”

Hank s
teadied himself against the dash. “You let the clutch out
too fast. It caused a kangaroo bounce. I told you, learning to
drive with a stick shift is hard.”

“
I’m not touching Stephan’s
Panther.”

They
had been commuting together for two weeks, but Crimson had
only obtained a learner’s permit two days ago, after enrolling in
driver’s education classes. She turned the key in the ignition to
restart the stalled engine and muttered her way through the string
of instructions she’d memorized.

“
Engage gear. Press the gas pedal. Release
the clutch.”

“
That’s it,” Hank said. “You’ll do
fine.”

“
I’ll give you gray hairs and a heart
attack.”

“
I already have gray hairs and my heart is
solid as a rock.”

She slanted
a glance at him. They’d been circling each other,
like wary cats, talking business, avoiding anything personal. Now,
the tension got to her, and she burst out without thinking. “Why
are you doing this?” she asked. “You don’t…owe me anything.” She
almost said
you don’t even like me.

“
Why did you put on overalls and scrub the
factory floor?”

“
I wanted to help. Make a
contribution.”

“
Right,” he replied. “I’m returning the
favor.”

Crimson pressed the pedals. The engine
roared. Gravel scattered
beneath the wheels. She steered down the drive, away from
Longwood Hall, and joined the main road. With a surprising degree
of patience, Hank coaxed her along until they had reached the
office and stood parked neatly in the lot outside.

“
Nick’s doing great in China,” Hank said as
they walked into the building.

Crimson
stumbled. She’d received emails from him. Terse.
Businesslike. With the thirteen hour time difference, they hadn’t
spoken on the telephone. Not once. Nick didn’t call her. She didn’t
dare to call him. Why had he gone away? Was he no longer in
Japan?

“
He’s found a couple of new suppliers,”
Hank said, oblivious to her turmoil.

“
Of course,” Crimson said glumly. “In
China.”

****

Shortly after lunch, Anna peeked
in
to her office. “Your
mother’s on her way up.”

Crimson clicked the keys to send her
laptop into hibernation
.
“It’s okay,” she said. “I’m expecting her.”

“
Hi, honey,” came from the
entrance.

N
o chirpy
coo-ee
?
Surprised, Crimson looked up… and stared.

“
Mom? Your hair…?”

“
You like it?” Esmeralda fluffed the soft
platinum curls. “Myrtie took me to her hairdresser on Fifth
Avenue.”

“
I love it, Mom. And have you lost
weight?”

Her mother smoothed
her palms over the flattering black jeans.
“Myrtie’s been nagging at me about healthy eating. It’s not that
bad, really, all that rabbit food and lean protein.”

“
That’s…that great, Mom,” Crimson said, and
fell silent.

As a child
, she’d been a tiny bit ashamed of her mother.
And, because she’d felt guilty about it, she’d never commented on
Esmeralda’s appearance, had never complained. Instead, she’d
quietly nursed her resentment. Now, it occurred to her that perhaps
her mother had only needed a little nudge in the right direction.
Someone to encourage her to change. And now, Myrna Constantine was
offering the support she as a daughter had failed to
provide.

A wan smile curved her lips. “It’s
fantastic, Mom. Truly. You look great.”

“
Myrtie’s with me. She’s at the
photocopier.”

Myrna Constantine strolled in.
“Hello, Crimson.”

She wore flat shoes, beige chinos, and her
hair, which Crimson had never seen in anything but a neat chignon,
was bunched into a stubby ponytail.

Myrna
dumped a pile of magazines on the desk. “You can have
these.”

Crimson poked about in the stack.
People. OK. The
National Enquirer.

“
You read gossip rags?” she asked, full of
surprise.

Myrna waved the photocopied pages
in
the air. “I
study
them. It’s good to know who is
getting married and buying a mansion. Who is getting divorced and
downsizing.” She glanced at the clock on the wall. “Heavens, is
that the time? We must be off.”

“
Wait.” Crimson jumped up. “Will you be
staying at Longwood Hall?”

“
Yes.” Her mother said, flustered. “I
invited Myrtie to stay. It’s still my home, until the end of the
year, and I there is no reason why I can’t have guests…”

Crimson waved a
way the bumbling explanation. “Of course you can
have guests. I was talking about your car. I’ve been using it to
learn to drive. Is it all right for me to keep it, if I get you a
rental instead?”

“
There’s no need,” her mother said.
“Myrna’s bought a car, now that she can no longer afford a limo and
a driver.”

“
Oh?” Crimson directed her attention to
Nick’s mother. “What did you get?”

“
A pickup truck, of course,” Myrna
Constantine said. Then the two mothers looked at each other and
burst into peals of laughter. They were still reeling with it when
they bounded down the stairs in their practical shoes, clutching
the photocopied bits of gossip.

At the end of the day, while she waited
for Hank to be ready to leave,
Crimson leafed through the magazines. She found no clues to
the odd behavior of her mother and Myrna Constantine in the reading
material the pair had left behind, but an item on the society page
caught her eye.

Marcela Ballard
, the wife of David Ballard, a former motor racing
champion and the head of Ballard Automotive, had flown out to China
on an extended holiday. It was rumored that her marriage was in
trouble and she was leaving her husband.

A
jolt of jealousy slammed into Crimson. She stared at the
picture of a woman with long, dark hair and serene beauty, and
accepted the truth. She had committed the utter act of stupidity
and fallen in love with Nick Constantine. And now he had vanished
off to China. And so had Marcela Ballard, his former
fiancée.

****

I can do
this. I can do this
, Crimson told herself.
If Marcela
Ballard can write books
on early Christianity, and the history of the
Vatican, and the Spanish Inquisition, I can bloody well chair a
meeting and tell people what to do. Particularly as those people
are paid to do what I tell them to do.

Crimson turned to Patrick
Letterman, who sat beside her
at the conference table in her office. They had spent a week
brainstorming ideas for the advertising campaign. Patrick was in
his early thirties, fair haired, a little chubby. He’d worked hard
to impress, in the hope that Jorge would soon leave for a bigger
job, creating an opportunity for promotion.

The three directors
, Hank and Peter and Jorge, walked in
together. Making it clear that they had convened beforehand, to
speculate about the purpose of the meeting.

“
I’ve reached some decisions,” Crimson
informed them. “I want to make a promotional video, to tie in with
the print campaign in car magazines. A blank DVD costs less than
fifty cents. Add postage, and it will only cost a few dollars to
target selected clients.”

“
There’ll be one-off production costs,”
Jorge pointed out.

“
They’ll be small. Gregg Watkins has a
brother who is in film school in New York. He can borrow equipment,
provided he can direct the video and use it as his school project.
If we need extras, Anna and Gregg can bring in actors from Longwood
Players.”

Jorge glanced at Patrick.
“You’ve looked into
this.”

Patrick shrugged.
“It’s Crimson’s idea. I’m just helping
with the logistics.”

She
took over again. “I thought we’d start with a film clip of
the Spur in Le Mans in 1923, or some other race. There must be
archive footage we can use. Then a segment with someone narrating
the history of Constantine Motors. Then Hank, doing a tour of the
factory. Perhaps Nick talking about motor racing in general. Then a
ballet sequence that flows into a picture of the original Spur.
Grace and speed. Glamour and artistry. Poetry in motion and all
that crap. There’s a buzz about a ballet dancer heading up a car
company. I want to milk it for all it’s worth.”

She paused for effect.
“Then, the old Spur will morph into the
new Spur.”

“
New Spur.” Hank scowled. “What the heck
are you talking about?”

“
A new car,” Crimson told them. “I want to
revive the Constantine Spur. A limited edition vehicle. Ten, twenty
cars at the most. That’s what we’ll produce into inventory, to keep
the factory on a full working week. I’d like to make the new Spur
bigger than the Panther, with every possible extra included. And I
want to sell them in an auction, here, on the premises, a few days
before Christmas. The ideal Christmas gift for the man who has
everything.” She directed her words to Hank. “Can we do that? Make
bigger cars, without cutting into the profits?”

“
Well.” Hank’s wiry brows gathered into a
frown. “If you just make them with a longer wheel base, with the
same width…yes…it can be done.”

“
Jorge, do you think it might work?” she
asked the marketing director. “Will people pay for something
exclusive? I want the reserve price to be three hundred thousand
dollars per vehicle.”

Jorge rubbed at his top lip in a gesture
that made Crimson guess he’
d shaved off a moustache not too long ago. “If you create a
buzz…maybe…but I’m not sure about the auction. If you have ten
identical cars, people will get bored bidding for them.”

Crimson studied the g
lossy picture of a Constantine Panther on
the table. “How about we make them each a different color, and give
them a name. A blue one, Spur Sapphire. Green one, Spur Emerald.
Give each of them a unique identity.”

“
No,” Jorge said. “Not the tradition.
Dilutes the brand image.”

“
What if we make them two colors, like the
Panther?” She traced her fingertip over the photograph. “Black
here, where the panther is dark green, and another color here,
where the Panther is purple?”

“
That might work,” Jorge
conceded.

Crimson
scribbled on her notepad. “All black, Spur Onyx.
Black and cream, Spur Ivory. Black and pink, Spur Ruby.”

Peter, the earnest, somewhat plodding
finance director, spoke for the first time. “I’m not sure Christmas
is a good time for the auction. People don’t like to be away from
their families. And some of our client base is from other
religions.”

The room fel
l into silence.

Jorge brightened up. “Thanksgiving.
American festival. We promote the Panther as an American car, and
we’ll do the same for the Spur. That should appeal to both domestic
and overseas markets. We could make the auction at the end of
November, the weekend after Thanksgiving.”

“
That’s only three months
away
,” Hank said, his
face furrowed as he performed the mental calculations. “Unless we
start working overtime, the production schedule would allow for
twelve cars. Let’s play it safe and plan for ten.”

“
Great.” Crimson held up her pen. “All in
favor, gentlemen?”

Hands rose in agreement. Heads nodded.

Eat your heart out, Marcela
Ballard
, Crimson thought
as she watched the management team of Constantine Motors file out
of her office, excited voices trailing after them, her plan now
their sole topic of conversation.

Back to Contents

Chapter Ten

Nick rented a car at JFK. Driving
jetlagged was not a good idea, but he wanted to go straight
from the airport to Longwood
Hall. To Crimson.