Page 66 of Sexy as Sin
“Never mind,” Willow said. “I’ve got it.”
She’d finished the conversation in the carpark of the Habitat development. Now, she jumped out of the van before she lost her nerve, headed to the apartment block, and rang a bell.
Not yet nine o’clock. Amanda had to be here, or... or they’d have the conversation at Nourish. She wanted to have it here, though. Element of surprise.
The door opened. Not Amanda. Tom, wearing a black T-shirt and black-and-white board shorts with a pattern of skulls, snakes, and roses, like a sad over-fifty rocker. She gave them a quick glance, then looked hurriedly up at Tom’s face again, because she was going to laugh otherwise. She’d imagined Brett wearing those board shorts, which was why she was smiling instead of the businesslike expression she’d planned on when she said, “I’ve come to see Amanda. Is she in?”
“Of course. On the patio. She’s on the phone at the moment, though. Come in.” Willow could see that as soon as she stepped through the office space, because most of the ground floor of the modern apartment was one large, high-ceilinged room whose entire glass end wall opened onto the patio. Fortunate, as there were no other windows except the two end walls on either floor. A sleek, functional kitchen with high-end appliances was tucked into one corner, while a white sectional couch anchored the other, with a backdrop of distressed whitewashed boards that complemented the pale-gray flooring. Two bedrooms and another balcony upstairs, a study behind the kitchen, a tiny patch of garden beyond, and the beach five minutes away on your bike.
She hadn’t been here since she and Amanda had signed the partnership agreement. When she’d complimented her new partner on the sleek apartment, Amanda had said, “That’s what a lifetime of hard work will earn you. Keep it up, and you’ll get there, too.” Which was true, so why had it sounded so patronizing? It wasn’t like caterers tended to get rich. A stylish non-beachfront apartment in a new blockwasan accomplishment, especially if your partner wasn’t bringing in much of the lolly.
Tom detoured into the kitchen and asked, “Can I make you a coffee?” Which made her feel a bit guilty for her thoughts.
“Yes, please,” she said, since Amanda was still on the phone. “A latte would be nice.”
Tom began spooning espresso into the basket of an Italian machine and asked, “How are you going with the photography these days?”
“I’ve been a bit busy for it,” she said, hitching her tote higher on her arm, “but I’ve managed to get some good shots lately. I did one of three rainbow lorikeets sitting on a branch that I’m a bit proud of, in fact. They look quite saucy. Comical.”
“I’d be happy to introduce you,” Tom said, busy steaming milk. “I know most of the gallery owners. You may be able to get a trial spot that way. Personal connections always help.”
She’d been here three minutes and was already forcing down a retort. She knew she was a better photographer than Tom. Surely that wasn’t just wishful thinking. Biting her tongue wasn’t the plan today, so she said, “Thanks, but I’m good.” After that, she headed out to the patio.
Amanda had had long enough.
She’d planned to talk this over with Brett, but somewhere between the beach and Azra’s mum, she’d changed her mind. Now, she set her latte down on the black-metal-and-glass table, took a seat in the chair to Amanda’s right, crossed her legs, and waited.
A lift of Amanda’s perfect brows at her, and the other woman said into the phone, “I’ll work up some possible menus, Stephanie, and get back to you, shall I?” And after a minute, “I can certainly promise that, if it’s important to you. I’d be closely supervising in any case, with an event like this.” Another pause. “Of course I can guarantee it. Itisstill my firm, after all. And I can’t wait to have a sit-down with all of you to lay out some possibilities. I’ll be sending you some exciting new ideas as well that you’ll be the first to see. I think we can promise to be out ahead of the curve on this. I’ve just had a brainwave, in fact. I know we can put together something truly special for them. Right. I’ll give you a ring on Wednesday, then, and run down some sample menus that you and I can put in front of the bride and her mum soon. Let’s get this nailed down. How does nine Wednesday morning sound? Wonderful. We’ll speak then.”
She pushed the button to ring off, turned to Willow, and said, “How lucky you’re here. October wedding for two hundred fifty, and the highest of high end. It’s Nick Dean, the surfer. Won the... the something last year, apparently.”
“The Triple Crown,” Willow said. “Has a new contract with Rip Curl as well. Earning in the millions, I’m sure.” She’d seen the engagement ring on Dean’s Instagram, in fact. She didn’t stalk celebrity wedding news, but shedidstalk the occasional surfer, and it had been hard to miss the flash. The ring had been one of those square ones with tiny diamonds set all around the solitaire to make the stone look bigger. She’d wondered if it were actually tacky, or if she was jealous.
No, envious, according to Brett. Envy was wanting what somebody else had. She didn’t want that ring, though, and she didn’t want Nick Dean, who seemed like a nice enough bloke but didn’t have the depth that... some other men did, behind their watchful gray eyes. So—no. Not envious.
“Yes, well,” Amanda said, “whoever he is, he’s booked all of Nightcap Estate for it. They’re doing it on a Sunday, to get the date. Not sure what the rush is, but if this wedding doesn’t end up costing well over seventy thousand, I miss my guess.Andthe bride wants ‘something modern.’ This could be very good news indeed, because nobody’s better at that than you, darling, and this would be publicityandword of mouth. If we’re going to land it, we’ll need you to put some sample menus together over the weekend, and to make them sound just as special and unique as I know the food will be. We’ll talk about it Monday, let’s say. That will give us time to tweak until we’ve got something wonderful.”
“So that was Stephanie Oxford,” Willow said. One of Brisbane’s top wedding planners. “And she doesn’t want me involved, even in the discussion.”
“So silly,” Amanda said, “but what she doesn’t know won’t hurt her, will it? By October, this will all be a dim memory, and we’ll be laughing about it. Meanwhile, we go along with the client, because as you know, a wedding planner is never wrong, she just needs a wee nudge from time to time.”
“Let me see if I have our schedule straight, then,” Willow said. “I’m to do most of the cooking for the three weddings this weekend, and you’ll be doing the finishing at the venues.”
“As usual,” Amanda put in. “I did it before you came, didn’t I? Twenty years of it, in fact. We have a division of labor now, that’s all.”
“And in between all of that,” Willow said, “I’m to come up with something spectacular enough to land a celebrity wedding. While disassociating myself from the whole thing like I’m an employee.”
“On the other hand,” Amanda said, “if you don’t do that, we may not have a firm at all. Being in business means doing what you have to do, I’m afraid.”
“This would be a good time, then,” Willow said, “to tell you that I’d like to replace the images on the website with my own photos, which are closer to current standard. Surely we’ll have our best shot at landing Dean’s wedding if our photos are up to par. I’d like to have somebody redo the entire site, for that matter, as soon as possible. We could look cleaner. Simpler. More up-to-date. Black and white on the homepage, maybe. Classic.”
Amanda looked at her, long and steadily, and Willow didn’t drop her gaze. She’d bought in. She was anowner.
“I’m going to say this once,” Amanda finally said. “I see an ego issue in you. I’d ask you to think about that honestly. There’s no individual success or glory in a partnership. There’s only the partnership. To make it work, each partner needs to be honest about her abilities, and frankly, Willow, you could use some work on that. This is a perfect example. You have no photography training. You’re a chef, and yet you think that not only should you revamp our foodandtake the client meetings, you should also take our photos now? And direct a website redo? Why, exactly?”
“Because,” Willow said, attempting to focus on one issue, not everything that had risen like a tsunami at Amanda’s words, “I was speaking to a client—a very sophisticated client, used to the best—who said that our photos look second rate, and they make our food look that way, too. To use the exact words, ‘Shot from Mars, and greasy, like the food pictures on the door of a bad Chinese restaurant.’ I didn’t earn a Cordon Bleu certification so I could cook for a bad Chinese restaurant.”
Amanda’s head jerked back. “And this sophisticated client would be who? Somebody you’re involved with, perhaps? Men don’t always tell the truth, , especially when they want something from you.”
