If You Could See What I See (10 page)

We have a brand director, who mostly does our advertising and works with our marketing director.

We have an operations manager. I’ll simply say she operates.

We have a product director. She works with the designers and the developer. The designers and the developers often scream at each other. What the designer wants to do and what is economically feasible may be at extreme odds. Sort of like two fencers going at it, their swords clanking, only the designer and developer battle with their mouths and an occasional thrown catalogue.

We design products, we develop prototypes, we edit the prototypes, we do fit testing, we try out new colors and materials that we hope our consumers will adore, and we endlessly try to figure out how to advertise and package our lingerie so it’s, in my grandma’s words, “a delightful process . . . makes a woman feel her inner sensuality or her temper tantrum, whichever is closer to the surface.”

We also work with the stores that sell our products. There are many relationships there, too, that have to be managed and—I’ll say it—soothed. We have Web site people, catalogue people, and people that handle the models and photographers for both.

There is Kalani’s factory abroad, the supplies, product development, the supply chain, her employees, and our employees here. Most of our employees like each other, some don’t, a few hate each other. There are personnel issues that come up. Accounting /financial/payroll issues take up boatloads of time.

We try to solve problems we know are upcoming, we solve problems we didn’t know were upcoming, and we solve problems that are tiny and easily remedied. We also work through gargantuan and mind-numbing problems that sometimes don’t have any clear answer. We do our best based on our analysis of that situation, at that time.

All of our employees report to Lacey, Tory, me, or Grandma. I am involved with all pieces. I don’t micromanage, but I manage pretty tightly.

Then there’s my grandma’s expectations of me and the company. “All of our lingerie, all of our products must be perfect, don’t ever lower that standard, Meggie. Never.
Everything must be perfect
.”

The thing is, I agree with Grandma. Everything we make must be perfect, down to the tiniest bow on panties or lace-trimmed garter. Perfection must prevail.

I am not real worried about hurting people’s feelings while I turn this place over and revamp. We either get it together or all of us, including the women in the factory in Sri Lanka, who may or may not be able to line up something else, who may sink into poverty as soon as you can say the word
brassieres,
will lose their jobs.

I am fighting for the life of this company. I am fighting for my grandma’s legacy, her employees, and her massive scholarship fund at the community college.

I am fighting. I am trying not to fail. Failure would not be acceptable to my grandma.

It really isn’t that pleasant.

 

Falling in love with Aaron Torelli was like having my breath taken away, my heart lassoed, and my mind hijacked.

It was a rush. It was a thrill. It was like nothing I had experienced before.

We met in India. I was making a film about orphans living on the streets, and he was there with a crew making a film about Bollywood and the impact it had on the youth there. Amidst the cacophony, color, spices, cows, temples, squalor, rickshaws, and music, we met, smiled, and were in bed together in three days.

Aaron was magic. Heat, sensuality, intensity, and finely honed intellect all wrapped up in a tall, muscled package with longish black curls. He had a black feather tied into one of the curls and smoldering brown eyes that said, “I want you, you want me, it’s all a matter of time.” He was independent, free thinking, and had a smile that stopped my heart in its tracks.

He had been in the independent film business longer than I had, and he had made several films that had done well at indie film competitions. I had worked with another filmmaker recently in Watts on a film about kids trying to get out of Watts via education. I had also worked on a film in the Appalachian Mountains about the ingrained poverty there and had been involved in another film following veterans of the Vietnam War and how their lives had turned out.

I loved it. I lived for filmmaking. Filmmaking was part of my soul, as it was Aaron’s.

We talked for hours. He was specific in his compliments of me and my work. “You understand how you have to dig deep, sometimes get dirty, get imbedded with your subjects to make a film . . . you know that your film can have a huge impact, for years, on other people . . . that your films can show our failure as a country, a society, a materialistic and selfish culture, the sickness of the world . . . did you know, Meggie, that you’re the smartest woman I’ve ever met? It’s like our brains are one, even though we just met. We’re one, we’re like a cosmic gift to each other.”

I can honestly say I have never been as physically attracted to any man as I was Aaron. Chemical reactions? Brain waves? Zen goes sexy? Whatever you want to call it, it was there and sizzling. He started calling me My Meggie.

Our relationship wasn’t even a whirlwind romance. It was as if I were picked up by a tornado of love and lust and flung through the eye of the storm and the only one there to catch me was him, with that endearing smile.

I was unprepared for his personality.

I was unprepared for the force of it, the charisma, the romantic aggression, the sweet words.

I fell hard.

I had never fallen like that before. I doubt I ever will again.

For that, I am grateful.

 

I saw Blake at his house as I drove home that night. He was on his wraparound deck, talking on the phone. I liked his house. I liked the classic, Oregon style to it. I liked all the lawn. I knew he had a view west, as his house was up on a hill, so he would be able to enjoy spectacular sunsets through towering pine trees.

I wondered what he did, where he worked.

It didn’t matter much, though. What I wanted to do was to get lost in that body. I didn’t want an intellectual connection, I didn’t want an emotional connection, I didn’t want the mess that comes with being involved with a man.

I never wanted to be involved with a man again in my life.

But I did want
him.

Physically, that is.

I wanted relief. I wanted some time out. I wanted him to be for me alone, a time for fun and release, a sunny vacation, so to speak, in the midst of a life covered and flattened in stress.

I sizzled and simmered for that man.

I wanted the sizzling and simmering to help me forget.

 

She called and left a message on my cell phone. She was in contact with her attorneys. They would be calling me soon. She was suing me. I would be ripped down to nothing.

I sucked in air as waves of dizziness roared through, twirling me around and upside down. When my head cleared, I deleted the message.

 

“We need to do something to the Web site to make it more alluring,” I said. “More fun, more intriguing, more depth, make the customer stay longer, buy more.”

Lacey and Tory leaned over my shoulders at the table in my office. Lacey smelled vaguely like morning sickness. Tory had a musky, fruity perfume on. I would have to say I preferred Tory’s scent.

“Our Web site doesn’t need to be a sadistic bondage circus act,” Tory protested, flicking her black hair back. “Or a bordello.”

“No one said it did. It’s not oomfy,” Lacey said.

“What does oomfy mean?” Tory said. She was wearing a red dress with a ruffle. I tried not to dwell on the red or I’d start feeling sick.

“It means it’s not catchy enough,” I said. “We have to liven it up. Make it edgy but seductive, sexy but not slutty . . . a new setting behind the models, a new layout, new colors, maybe a theme.” I kept studying the Web site, page after page. “Something radically, splendidly different . . . and we need to get our strawberry in there more.”

“What do you think we should do?” Lacey asked.

“We have to sell our image, ourselves. We need to stand out against all these other lingerie companies who have so much more money than we do. The photos here of the models are what all our competitors use. Tall, way too-skinny, anorexic-looking young women with bouncy chests and frowns modeling our stuff. They’re frowning because they’re hungry, probably.”

“But we sell lingerie,” Tory said. “We need the tall, skinny girls with bouncy chests. That way our customers buy into it. They want to
be
those girls. If they buy our stuff, they can trick themselves into thinking they’ll look like our models.”

“No one can look like a model. The models don’t even look like models,” I said. “You two know that because of all the shoots we’ve been on. They have good bones in their faces and they’re thin. An army of stylists, perfect lighting, excellent photographers, and Photoshopping take care of the rest. It’s false. It’s a false image. False advertising, when you think about it.”

“We aren’t false advertising,” Tory huffed.

“Sure we are. Women do not look like this in real life.”

“Help me see inside your tricky brain, Meggie,” Tory said. “No one wants to look at heavy or obese women or women with no chests, flabby stomachs, and cottage cheese thighs in lingerie. Brutal, but true.”

I flicked to the last page of the Web site. “No, they don’t. But we have to give this a makeover. It’s not working.”

Lacey darted for the bathroom, red curls flying behind her. Tory was quiet for a second, but I could feel her anger careening around the room, prickly and hard. “You come in here and want to change the whole company, strip it down and rebuild it, Meggie.”

“I wouldn’t rebuild if things were working.”

“And you’re the lingerie genius, Miss Brilliant Panties, Thong Woman. Hail to Meggie, even though you’ve been gone for years.” She threw her arms up. “You’re an arrogant know-it-all. You don’t even wear nice clothes. You don’t even wear our newest lingerie. Your underwear is probably stained beige!”

She had me there. Except it was white. Old, white, unraveling. Yesterday I noticed my white underwear had a hole in it.

“Have you ever taken the time to appreciate what I did, Meggie? How hard I’ve worked? All I get from you is criticism and what I’ve done is wrong and you can do better and you’re taking over and it’s your way or the highway. Gee. Maybe I should have left the company for years to make a bunch of films and tramp around the world. Think you would have liked getting stuck here dealing with Grandma? With the factory? With all the employees? With a tanking economy?”

“I didn’t say you did everything wrong, Tory. You’ve done a lot right. You’re a talented designer, but the company is sinking—”

“And that’s my fault.” Tory’s hands went to the waist of her red dress. Gall. Red still makes me so sick.

“No, a lot of it’s the economy, but we need to rebuild Lace, Satin, and Baubles. We have to get excitement going again, reach a broad, younger customer base—”

“So you think I sucked at the excitement part.” Those gold eyes shot bullets at me. “Scotty the slug-faced rectum idiot probably thought the same thing.”

I paused on that colorful sentence for a sec as Lacey walked back in, listing slightly. “This isn’t personal, Tory. It’s not against you. I don’t have time to sit around, have tea and crumpets, and say things gently about what needs to change here. We need to move fast. I’m being honest and blunt—”

“I’ll be honest and blunt then, too. You’re a steamroller. You’re plowing me over. You have no sense of fashion, you’re stick skinny and look like you’re made of bones, your hair is a mess, and you act like a cold, controlling, premenopausal zombie.”

“A zombie?”

“Here’s the truth, since you’re always criticizing me.” Tory crossed her arms. “I don’t know if you’re mentally and emotionally healthy enough to run this business.”

“Mentally and emotionally healthy enough?” Whew. Now my latent fury was awakened. “Well, you may have me there.”

She flipped her black hair back. I wanted to pull it out of her head. I stood up and faced off with her. “Okay, Tory, let me give you a rundown of where the company is exactly, then you can decide if I’m mentally and emotionally healthy enough to handle the responsibilities here.”

Analytically, like a living computer, I evaluated our designs and products; which ones were selling and which weren’t; where marketing, sales, and PR were falling down; and where we were too heavy as a company and not streamlined enough. I discussed our catalogue and Web site, then I talked about how we should have had a larger share of the market by now, been in more major department stores, and how that could have been accomplished.

I dove headfirst into the financial predicament that Lace, Satin, and Baubles had sunk into, detailing all the numbers in our financial reports, the assets we had, our mind-blowing debt, and how much salaries and benefits were costing us. I talked about the stability and problems of our factory overseas, those costs, and our own restricted cash flow. I told her our net worth, to the penny, and predicted exactly what day we’d shut our doors.

When I was done, Tory looked stunned. Anytime she’d tried to interject, I’d shot her down and annihilated her arguments.

Lacey was grinning. That was not nice, and I’m sure it only made Tory feel more isolated, two sisters against one. I glared at Lacey. “Tory, we can reinfuse this company or we can kiss it good-bye. You are making over $200,000 a year. Do you want to lose that salary?”

“I won’t lose it.”

I leaned forward. “You will. You are going to lose that money. We have months to turn this company around, and if you don’t get on board, if you put up roadblocks, if you do anything to stand in my way, we will close this place, lock the doors, and sell off the inventory. There will be nothing left.”