“For god’s sake. Do I look terrified?”
“No. Of course not. I just thought—”
“It’s none of your business! I’m absolutely fine.”
All right then. We sat down. I broke the silence by returning to the net sales plans and my team hierarchy. “Of course Shelia’s the go-to person for Marsha, especially if you have schedule questions.”
I reached the innocuous when Mr Hyde turned into Dr Jekyll. “Why would I have questions? Why wouldn’t I know her schedule?”
“Excuse me?”
Suddenly Brian didn’t like our chain of command. Did I not understand he would deal directly with Marsha, not Shelia? He shook a file at me. He wanted everything printed in colour. “My last visit to Saks was a total, total disappointment. Terrible counter team. Inefficient, condescending snobs. This cannot possibly be news to you.”
“One at a time, Brian. Your Saks information is, indeed, news. I’d like specifics so we can address this.”
“Condescending snobs!” He digressed into flamboyant monologue, mincing, ranting but never making solid points.
I thanked him, gathered and offered the papers for him to keep. “My assistant Dustin keeps abreast of my schedule.”
“Dustin! And what, what, is the situation with that man?”
“Situation? He’s a quick study, bringing fresh perspective.”
“Well, he doesn’t bring coffee. We’re to share him. I made that very clear, asked him to get a simple cup of coffee and he turned aloof and uppity.”
Sharing Dustin? If true, Brian had wormed the agreement out of Marsha. I mentioned his credentials. “He’s likely to be promoted quickly. Dustin’s fast tracking to the next level.”
“That’s jumping the gun, plain and simple. And no doubt he’ll expect an increase in pay. I am not fond of awarding additional salary to someone new to the beauty business. He’s curt, condescending, and certainly not accommodating. When I asked that simple favour, he sat and stared at me,” I chuckled.
“You find this funny?”
“He’s a hard worker with specific thoughts on what’s appropriate. I’ve been known to get him a cup of coffee.”
“That sets dangerous precedent. He doesn’t know his place.”
“Many of today’s topics and these printouts were his idea. Personal tasks for us are not in his job description. There’s no need for alarm.”
“I don’t appreciate taking sides against me or your condescending attitude.”
He’d used condescending four times in five minutes. I held my tongue, and hid my alarm. “We’re all adjusting to each other and the demands of this company, but we’re on the same team. We’ve gone over enough for now.”
“That will be my decision.”
“I should continue?”
He downed his water. “No. I must get back to my office. This has been informative but I don’t have all day to chat.” I shook his damp hand. “I look forward to our teamwork.”
“I certainly hope so. We have work to do.” Over lunch I filled Dustin in and reassured him that neither his work ethic, nor attitude needed changing. Under no circumstances did I support bullying in the work place. “I’m not rattled by tantrums and hissy fits,” he said.
Ethan’s winter break began in time for Thanksgiving. I was gone all day and he hobnobbed with the Ludlow high school football coaches. Our steam radiators clanked and the windows rattled but the chimney needed re-pointing which rendered our four fireplaces deficient and useless.
I feared the same about Brian. His approach to the team Marsha and I had in place plagued me. Merchandising to marketing, he talked a good line, but his aloof demeanour, rude behaviour, and barked orders smothered flashes of competence. Bloomingdale’s to Macy’s, I steeled myself for our store visits. He did everything but drape himself over the counters. An oversized cashmere dress coat, complete with white silk scarf, covered his considerable bulk.
Amid the Christmas shopping mania in Nordstrom’s, he put his hand right over the salesman’s, pointed to our latest cellulite cream and asked for a sample hand massage. “Make me a believer, as if I appear attentive but you sense there’ll be no sale.” At Saks it was our beauty serum. His wink-and-a-nod routine ended with a little smirk. “If I may be of any help, my door’s always open.” I might as well have been invisible. Meanwhile, amidst the wafting Christmas carols, store reps he wasn’t trying to seduce took me aside. While reluctant to admit they needed verification or explanation, did I know Brian’s directives seemed incomprehensible, or flat out wrong? Marsha and others at high levels appeared convinced his experience and solid work ethic would show results by the end of the fiscal year. I’d have called his routines fragrance industry as Fantasyland but second-guessing Marsha was neither smart nor practical. From the back seat of my town car, pivoting in my desk chair, or running errands in Ludlow, I stewed. Would I be persona non grata for expressing my concern, or persona non grata for keeping it to myself?
Ethan and I flew home to the usual dysfunctional Christmas. Dad schlepped in loose slippers, no longer hiding his wheezing. I made Darby swear he’d keep his eye on the family and slipped a generous check to Genevieve. Half a day in the house reminded me how critical my employment was, Cox conundrum or not.
I bit the bullet the second week of 1996. Thursday Brian and I had retail visits across the Hudson at The Mall at Short Hills. I asked him for a drink Tuesday afternoon. We chose Happy Hour at Rue Fifty-Seven Brasserie, and over the din I chatted about our career paths, keeping my own information brief and upbeat. I touched on my St. Louis days, mostly Linda’s successful approaches at Olympia.
He downed his first apple martini while bemoaning his middle-class Cincinnati upbringing, and the high school gay bashing. “Of course I persevered.” He snapped his fingers. “Shoe buyer. High, high-end. Gucci, Ferragamo, Cole Haan… Downtown Gidding-Jenny. Of course you know their history.”
“No, sorry I don’t.”
“Well, my, my goodness. Emma Paige in her Stuart Weitzman and Louboutins doesn’t know Cincinnati’s iconic emporium?” He knew my shoe brands? He’d been stalking my feet? “…next door competitors back in the day. They merged. Fabulous, fabulous historic building right down town. Rockwood Pottery on the exterior… They loved me. Loved me. But I met Mr Right and we were off on a grand adventure.”
By then he was off on his second martini while I’d sipped about a third of my one and only.
“Kansas City. Hall’s housewares buyer. Hello gold rimmed latte bowls, everything Cuisinart. I revitalised the entire department. I stocked the best and you’ve never seen such staging. Cooking classes, table setting demos. Queen City’s snootiest knocked down our doors to buy, buy, buy. Very tough industry. What I did for Mauviel fish poachers… You cannot imagine the vagaries of housewares.” Yes, I could but I let him ramble.
“The antithesis of fragrance, I can tell you. Slam, bam. No subtleties. Work. Work. work. Then Mr Right turned out to be so, so wrong, a cheating, two timing slime ball. Did that stop me? You bet your sweet ass it did not.”
Brian was fond of his own voice, yet somehow, he’d eaten the entire contents of the pretzel bowl. He sipped and explained he’d ditched the two-timing slime ball and found the right partner in New York. (“My ‘Daddy Steve’. Older and wiser. Solid, solid”). He interviewed for luxury, luxury, Windsor Limited, and made the leap. (Perhaps out of a fish poacher).
“So here I am, based in our Big Big Apple for five years.”
Long enough for his meltdown and destruction of Jennifer’s friend, I thought.
“Representing Windsor sent me all over the map overseeing our foreign markets. On the fly constantly. Major Italian launch. Tutta Italia, Venezia a Napoli. Once you get some experience under your belt, I’ll have to take you over there. We’ll set up some Amalfi gigs. To die for!”
