Page 6 of The Do-Over

‘You could have grey, but the senior partners frown on what they call “party” colours.’

‘Umm. Dark blue, I guess.’

‘Leave it with me. Now, is there anything else before I go?’

‘No. Thank you, Janice,’ I tell her meekly. I’ve decided I like her, but this meeting has felt a little like being run over by one of the trains she no longer wants me to use.

4

As New York fades into the darkness behind me and the cabin crew begin circulating with our pre-dinner drinks, I stretch my legs and allow myself a sigh of satisfaction. There’s a long way to go, but the initial discussions have been promising and I’m happy with the way I’ve acquitted myself. The deal itself is on the smaller side for Morton Lansdowne; I worked on much bigger ones as a senior associate, but the difference this time is that I’m leading the negotiations on behalf of our client, rather than playing a supportive role as I have in the past. The client in this instance is a small but well-known British publishing house, who have been approached by a leading, and much larger, US publisher in a takeover bid. Our initial discussions have focused on analysing the financial position of each company, their assets and liabilities and, so far, we haven’t uncovered any red flags. I’ve got a week back in London now before we reconvene to start looking at the potential timelines for the merger.

Janice, unsurprisingly, has been a model of no-nonsense efficiency; although I haven’t needed to call on her for any of the disaster scenarios she outlined, various forms have popped up in my inbox during my trip. My initial horror that the financeforms she sent me for the car had the Porsche logo all over them was dismissed in typical Janice style.

A Porsche is pretty much standard uniform for an unmarried partner and I had to pull some fairly big levers to bypass the waiting list. Don’t worry about the cost; your car allowance will do most of the heavy lifting, so it won’t actually cost you much more than something humdrum would have when you were an associate.

Completed forms also magically appeared for the insurance, and a parking permit application from Walthamstow borough council. When I queried how she knew which council to approach, her response bordered on the terse. ‘I know where you live. It’s not exactly rocket science. You can thank me later.’

Any lingering views about the sanctity of my private life were comprehensively exploded by the arrival of two further forms. The first wanted details of all my immediate family members, along with addresses and dates of birth. My inevitable query about why she needed this information was met with a one-line response.

When was the last time you remembered to send anyone in your family a birthday card?

I tend to text them on the day, if I remember.

I think we can do better. I’ll send you some cards to sign, and I’ll make sure they go out at the appropriate times.

Things went from bad to worse when I had to confess that, not only did I not know my nephew’s birthday, but I wasn’tentirely sure how old he was. I’d laughed when I read her reply the next day.

Louis will be six on 15 September. I’ll send him a card, shall I?

How on earth did you find that out?

Register of Births, Marriages and Deaths. Again, hardly rocket science.

The final form concerned my relationship status, and was labelled optional. Although I’ve read through it, I haven’t filled it in as I’m not entirely sure what to say. Janice did explain in her accompanying email that I didn’t have to disclose any details to her, but it would be helpful to know if I had a significant other in case they became needy and demanding, requiring intervention from her to bring them back into line. The idea of Janice ‘intervening’ in a relationship is too terrifying even for me to contemplate.

As I sip my champagne and start to read through the most recent pack of documents the associates have prepared, I think back to my initial meeting with Janice and my doubts about whether I actually needed a PA at all. Three weeks into the job and, apart from the relationship questionnaire, I’m now starting to wonder how I ever managed without one.

Although it’s Saturday morning when my flight lands, I’ve got a debrief meeting with one of the senior partners followed by a next steps meeting with the associates working on the merger, so the taxi takes me straight to the office, which is humming with life as usual. On the way, I get a text from Janice.

Sorry I won’t be in the office today, but I’ve left a pack with documents, your car keys and birthday/Christmas cards for your family at reception. Tailor booked for Tuesday at 3p.m. I’ve put it in your calendar as a smear test to scare off anyone else thinking of booking that slot. Any issues let me know, otherwise I’ll see you on Monday. J.

I smile as I read it. Although I’m not completely comfortable using gynaecology as a cover, I can see the wisdom behind Janice’s logic. If she’d put something as banal as an appointment with a tailor in my calendar, it would have been bumped almost immediately. However, Morton Lansdowne makes a big song and dance about its equal opportunity policies, so nobody’s going to dare to interfere with a medical appointment, especially one relating to female biology. We just have to hope that nobody is tracking the frequency of my smear test appointments, otherwise alarm bells might start to ring if they think I’m having them more often than I should. To be honest, I’m not convinced that I need tailor-made suits, but I can see it matters to Janice, so I figure letting her tailor measure me is a small price to pay for the work she’s doing for me. If I buy one suit, hopefully that will make her feel I’ve taken her advice and get me off the hook.

My debrief meeting with John Curbishley, one of the senior partners, is scheduled for 11a.m. Being assigned to John is the one part of my partnership so far that has proved to be a struggle. Although he’s enormously experienced and I do respect him, his overly brusque manner and tendency to tear into you for missing the slightest detail makes him difficult to work with, to put it tactfully. Meetings with him are very much things to endure rather than look forward to. It’s very much not the done thing to be late for a meeting with a senior partner, butbeing too early is also frowned upon, as it suggests poor time management, so I make sure to arrive outside his office on the eighth floor exactly five minutes early. The courtesy is rarely repaid, of course, and it’s nearly quarter past eleven by the time the door opens and Andrew, another newly anointed partner, appears, looking harassed.

‘He definitely got out of bed the wrong side this morning,’ he murmurs to me after double-checking that the door is properly closed. ‘There was only one clause in the draft agreement that he didn’t like the look of, but he still chewed me a new one.’

Before I have a chance to answer, the door opens again.

‘Come in, Thea,’ John says curtly. No apology for keeping me waiting, but then I didn’t expect one. He’s known for not giving a damn about other people’s calendars, or anything else. Rumour has it that a junior partner asked to move a meeting once so he could visit his mother on her deathbed, and his response was so caustic that, not only did the junior partner not get to see his mother before she died, his visceral assessment of said partner’s commitment to the firm left the partner in tears. He’s an old-school bruiser, and I’m wary as I follow him into his office.

‘Have a seat,’ he tells me as he closes the door. His watery blue eyes are expressionless behind his wire-framed glasses as he unbuttons his suit jacket and eases his substantial frame into a chair on the other side of the small conference table.

‘So,’ he says, fixing his gaze unblinkingly on me. ‘What the bloody hell are a company the size of Bookisti doing buggering around with a tiny publisher like MacOsterley? Surely they have bigger fish to fry?’ This is a classic opener; he wants to see if I understand the business context.

‘On the surface, that would seem to be the case,’ I tell him smoothly. ‘But MacOsterley is a disruptor. Their business model is radically different from most publishers, and Bookisti wantsto be on the crest of that wave if MacOsterley proves to be on to something.’

‘Buy the competition before they become a threat,’ he observes.

---