Original Sin

Meredith took a sip of corner, and touched her arm to escort her into a quiet corner. ‘Forgive me, but I was not keen to tell you about private matters affecting my family when you haven’t even taken the job,’ she said, looking around to make sure no one was listening.

‘Why were there rumours about Olivia and Howard?’

Meredith laughed coldly. ‘When a beautiful starlet and a rich businessman are friends, there will always be rumours.’

‘And what do you think happened the night of your wedding?’ Tess felt stronger now she was on familiar ground – probing, getting to the bottom of the story. She was even beginning to enjoy herself.

Meredith looked at her and saw she wouldn’t let it drop. She sighed.

‘I honestly don’t know what happened. I believe that Olivia was depressed, but I barely knew her; I had only met her a couple of times before the wedding. She was only there because she was an ambassador of the Asgill lipstick range. If she is dead – and that was never proved – of course it’s a tragedy. It was certainly a black cloud over our entire wedding, so you can understand me wanting Brooke’s big day to be perfect.’

Tess looked at her thoughtfully. ‘I thought this job was just to get me off the Globe and out of London,’ she said honestly.

‘No, I can see why you might think that, but there is a job to be done here, Tess. My family needs protecting and I think you could be good at it.’

She looked across the crowd. Brooke and David were standing on the staircase, having their picture taken and laughing.

‘Look at how happy Brooke and David are. A perfect president and first lady, don’t you think? That’s what’s at stake here, Tess, not just the reputation of the family. It’s bigger than that.’

Tess took a sip of champagne and carefully plated the flute on the table beside her. Dom was nowhere to be seen. Not that he would affect her decision anyway.

‘I’ll take it,’ she said simply.

Meredith’s face broke into a warm smile. She took Tess’s hand in both of hers.

‘I knew you’d come to the right decision,’ she said. ‘Resign from the Globe on Monday and you can start as soon as you can get here. There’s plenty of work to be done. And Tess? Welcome to the family.’

5

The Asgill Cosmetics conference room was an impressive place. The silk wallpaper, the shelves full of industry awards, and the Chippendale chairs lined up along the long walnut table all reeked of corporate success. Should anyone be in any doubt as to the company’s place in the world, the floor-to-ceiling windows looked out onto the bustle of Manhattan, a city full of grateful customers. But, despite the grandeur of the surroundings, anyone attending an actual meeting in the conference room could detect that all was not well. Only a decade ago, Asgill’s had been one of the top ten cosmetics companies in America. Not as big as the giants such as L’Oréal or Maybelline, but within striking distance of Max Factor and Cover Girl. Today, though, Asgill Cosmetics was in trouble, a situation that had developed not suddenly but over a protracted period of time; a state of affairs that at least one member of the board found totally unacceptable. Liz Asgill was already seated at the far end of the table as the rest of the executive board filed into the room, and she watched the general managers of the individual brands shuffle to their seats with barely concealed contempt. From their grey faces and dour expressions, Liz felt sure that their reports would be filled with nothing but bad news.

‘Perhaps we should make a start,’ said Liz officiously, once everyone was in the room.

William, nominally the head of the company, seemed distracted, fiddling with his laptop at the head of the table, the prestigious slot that Meredith – as company chairman – had occupied during board meetings until about six months ago. Now she sat to his right, Liz opposite her. Finally William looked up and nodded deferentially to Liz before addressing the room.

‘I know you’ve all prepared your report for the individual divisions,’ he said apologetically. ‘But I think today we just need to concentrate on the first quarter’s results and look at where we’re heading in the light of those.’

There were unsettled grumblings around the room as William introduced Quentin, their chief financial officer, and asked him to run through the figures. Liz could tell within a minute that they were the worst results the company had ever posted.

Liz watched William closely, waiting to see what spin her brother would attempt to put on the latest downwards turn, which had been caused by the recent launch of Vital Radiance, a low-priced organics range that – in theory – dispensed fresh beauty products from pumps placed in stores.

‘As you can see, we’re quite a way off where we’d like to be at this point,’ said William. ‘The launch costs of Natural Glow have obviously been fairly heavy, ditto the forthcoming Skin Plus.’

‘Presumably we’re going to have to reforecast the end-of-year results?’ asked Meredith. William shook his head.

‘We should wait until the second quarter for that. Obviously we’re all hoping that Natural Glow is going to be a big hit.’

Liz watched as the rest of the board followed William’s cue and started smiling and nodding at this slim chance of rescue. Clearly nobody else had detected the slight waver in her brother’s voice that betrayed panic.

‘Quentin, have we got a breakdown of the Natural Glow sales figures?’ she asked, interrupting William’s flow. Quentin nodded and handed out his First Quarter Financial Report. Liz didn’t miss the uncomfortable glance he directed at Eleanor Cohen, general manager of the Natural Glow line, as he passed her a copy. Eleanor was an experienced cosmetics industry executive who’d been recently drafted in for her knowledge of marketing in department stores.

‘The first few weeks after the November launch were admittedly slow,’ she said, clearing her throat. ‘But retail conditions for everyone this Christmas were difficult.’

‘Not for everyone,’ said Liz.

Eleanor tried to avoid Liz’s stare, instead directing her comments to William and Meredith.

‘However, the press coverage we’ve had is excellent. Allure gave us half a page for the avocado cleansing oil, which is showing all the signs of becoming a cult classic.’

Liz almost laughed. Already there had been rumours that the drugstores were going to cut back on the retail space they had allocated for Natural Glow because of poor initial sales. If that happened, it was a certain death warrant for the brand.

‘Eleanor, let’s face facts,’ said Liz irritably. ‘We are dead in the water if we don’t do something radical immediately to start shifting units.’

‘Liz, now is not the time for scaremongering,’ said Eleanor.

‘Scaremongering? Natural Glow is haemorrhaging money. It won’t last until fall at this rate.’

Liz looked over at her brother. Only eighteen months older than her, William looked at least a decade her senior: old and tired, worn out by the responsibility. He had none of Liz’s flair and none of the natural authority of their father; he was just a worker bee, a drone reluctantly forced into the queen’s seat. Liz, on the other hand, had been profiled in the Wall Street Journal as ‘that rare executive, one who combines creative brilliance with astute business sense’. They both knew who should be sitting in William’s chair.

William cleared his throat. ‘Let’s not forget that the product we have here is good.’

Liz laughed. ‘Of course it’s good.’

Before Eleanor Cohen had been brought in to launch Natural Glow, the product had been Liz’s baby. The fresh organics concept had been her idea, and she had spent fifteen hours a day working with industrial designers to perfect the dispensing pumps that mixed the fresh ingredients in-store.

‘The problem is not the product,’ said Liz, looking pointedly at Eleanor, ‘the problem is the marketing.’

‘Well, it would have been nice to have received this insight before we launched,’ replied Eleanor tartly.

‘I assumed marketing was your area of expertise,’ retorted Liz. ‘Wasn’t that why we hired you?’

‘Okay, everyone, let’s keep things constructive,’ said William. ‘Liz, you clearly have some ideas.’

A faint smile played on Liz’s lips. She had been anticipating another difficult board meeting and relished the opportunity to place herself in the sun.

‘Okay,’ she said, ‘First of all, we’re not using our core brand effectively. Nobody knows that Natural Glow is part of the Asgill brand.’

‘You are quite happy for Skin Plus not to have brand association to the company,’ scoffed Eleanor.

Liz shook her head vigorously. ‘That’s different. Skin Plus is being positioned as a premium, luxury product, so we need to distance ourselves from Asgill’s. Natural Glow, on the other hand, is very mass market. When you’ve only got fifty dollars disposable income a week and you’re spending a chunk of that on a face cream, the customers want the reassurance that it’s good. They like the validation that a major cosmetics player is behind it, so we should have branded it Natural Glow by Asgill on all the retail units.’

‘I disagree—’ said Eleanor, before Liz cut her off mid-sentence.

‘Point two. We’ve created these fantastic pumps that allow us to deliver fresh product, with fresh ingredients blended and dispensed in front of them, but does the consumer really understand that? Have they been told about the benefits of this unique product? I don’t think so.’

‘We had the idea of putting the star bursts on the retail units,’ offered Caroline Peterson, the marketing director.

‘Nice idea, shame it didn’t happen,’ said Liz witheringly. At this point, Liz reached behind her and picked up a Natural Glow advertising board.

‘Three,’ continued Liz, now in full flow. ‘Advertising.’

The image she held up was of a sliced avocado sitting next to a tumbler of water, a drip of water on the rim of the glass. It was an image that made Liz angry just to look at it, an affront to all the hard work she had put into research and development to bring the product to life.

‘Look at it,’ she said, tapping the board. ‘How is an avocado going to make Natural Glow the market leader in mass-market skincare?’

Caroline Peterson looked embarrassed as she opened her mouth to speak.

‘We worked with O&M for twelve months on this campaign. We felt that the avocado summed up in one image everything that the brand stood for. Exotic yet accessible. Fresh and natural. The soft lime green of the fruit … it says healthy and aspirational.’

Liz rolled her eyes. ‘This line is aimed at the under-thirty-fives. They don’t respond to a fucking avocado.’

Now she pulled out another board with a pasted-up image torn from magazines. It was a photograph of a beautiful woman running along a beach.

‘This is what they respond to. Straightforward, aspirational lifestyle images. They want to be fit and beautiful, and this product will give them that.’

‘Are you now proposing we ditch an advertising campaign that has been running for less than ten weeks?’ asked Eleanor with alarm.

Liz nodded. ‘Absolutely. I also propose that we recall our retail units to rebrand them “Natural Glow by Asgill”. I also think we need a celebrity face, shot in a lifestyle context rather than in the bland studio shoot everybody else does. In fact, I was thinking we could use Brooke.’

There was another murmur from the board, this time one of approval and interest. Liz knew she had their attention.

‘Brooke?’ asked Meredith cautiously. ‘Are you sure?’

‘Remember Aerin Lauder fronting Lauder’s Private Collection fragrances? Everyone thought it was the perfect fit. I think this will be a perfect fit too. Who better represents what the young woman of today wants than Brooke Asgill?’

Liz held up her photo of the girl on the beach. ‘Imagine this girl is Brooke. Now, imagine the headline: “Fresh, fun, fabulous - Natural Glow by Asgill”. In fact, having Brooke as our front woman might even save us rebranding the in-store pumps. After all, everyone in the country knows who she is.’

William shifted uncomfortably in his chair. ‘These are great ideas, Liz, but it would be such an embarrassing U-turn in the industry.’

Liz spun to face him, anger prickling her cheeks. ‘Either we save face and we discontinue the line, or we take decisive action now,’ she said fiercely, her frustration at William’s ineffectual leadership spilling over.

Things had been so different since her father died. Howard and Liz would have huge debates in board meetings, constantly challenging each other, bouncing ideas off each other, so that they produced better results than anyone had originally hoped. Liz and Howard had been so similar, so close. Liz knew he had wanted her to be CEO of the company when he stepped down, but his death from a stroke four years previously had been swift, and formal provision for Liz had never been made. Meredith inherited Howard’s shareholding and she had allowed William to take over the company.

Still, she had some allies. Leonard Carter was nodding his head. Younger than Meredith but still in his sixties, he too no longer worked five days a week, but he was still a respected member of the board. After all, he’d spent twenty years as vice president in charge of international development.

‘We could certainly use Liz’s ideas to roll out the Natural Glow launch in Europe. We’re only just liaising with the media planners now. The avocados were going to be the global brand image, but we could change that.’

‘Hmm, I’m not sure the Billingtons will approve of this,’ said Meredith thoughtfully.

William pointedly ignored Liz’s glare and glanced down at his watch.

‘We should push on. Let’s save this for the Natural Glow brand meeting.’

Meredith had a glorious corner office from which she could see the Empire State Building. She mixed herself a drink from the cabinet by the window, watching the yellow cabs and pedestrians below. Moving behind her desk, she picked up Quentin’s financial report and began to read. It didn’t look good, not at all. They needed this wedding more than ever, it seemed. Just then there was a crash, and Meredith looked up in alarm as Liz strode in, and slammed the door.

‘Liz, what on earth is the matter?’

‘We need to talk, Mother,’ said Liz, leaning on the desk.

‘Yes we do, Liz,’ replied Meredith, taking her glasses off. ‘You are senior management. Management,’ she emphasized. ‘You cannot behave as you just did in there. The way just talked to Eleanor, I’d be surprised if we didn’t have her resignation letter on my desk by tomorrow morning.’

‘Well, that would be a start,’ said Liz, more coolly, sitting down in the Eames chair in front of Meredith’s desk, crossing her long legs. ‘Mother, this company is about to go under and you seem content to let that happen.’

Liz studied Meredith’s reaction carefully. For all her skill at reading people, Liz was never entirely sure where her mother’s loyalties lay. Clearly Meredith did not share Liz’s vision for the business, but she wasn’t sure whether that was a head-in-the-sand refusal to acknowledge the decline of Asgill’s, or whether she was simply so blind to William’s shortcomings that she was prepared to let the company suffer under his weak direction.

‘Don’t be ridiculous, Elizabeth,’ snapped Meredith. ‘No one wants to see this company in difficulties, least of all me.’

‘So are you happy about what you’ve just heard in there?’

‘Everyone is disappointed by the figures,’ said Meredith patiently. ‘But you know as well as I do that the industry is facing some tough challenges. Need I remind you that we are still an independent, family-owned company, and not under the wings of a multinational? In hard times, it’s harder for the little guy.’

Liz shook her head in disagreement. ‘Now you’re being ridiculous, Mother. So what if we’re not in the L’Oréal stable? Smaller companies can still thrive in the beauty industry if they innovate and market themselves properly, but there’s no margin for error. We can’t afford to make any more mistakes.’

Liz took a deep breath, knowing that, for once, she had to be completely honest. She had never been convinced by her brother’s leadership but had stopped short of saying so to her mother because Meredith had the power to appoint his successor.

‘The weak link is William,’ said Liz, pressing on. ‘We know it, the industry knows it, but we can still restore confidence if we remove him.’

Meredith looked unmoved. She sat silently, regarding her daughter.

‘The key attribute for running a company successfully is not necessarily the ability to shout the loudest, Liz,’ she said finally.

‘Perhaps not, but I always assumed an ability to turn a profit might also be required.’

Meredith shook her head. ‘Rome wasn’t built in a day, Liz. When William took over as CEO, we all agreed that we needed to innovate more. He’s doing that.’

‘He’s doing that?’ laughed Liz. ‘When has William ever done anything innovative? Natural Glow was green-lighted in Dad’s time. All William feels comfortable doing is cost-cutting.’

‘He’s overseen two major launches, Liz: Glow and Skin Plus. Not to mention the successful re-launch of The Balm.’

Liz shrugged. She had to concede that one: a simple repackaging of the cleansing pomade that had made her father’s name when he had launched the company in the late 1950s. They’d replaced The Balm’s dated black plastic pot with a sleek brushed-glass one and increased sales by twenty per cent.

‘That was three years ago,’ said Liz, shaking her head.

‘Well, I believe in your brother,’ said Meredith and, with those words, Liz knew she was wasting her breath; she knew her mother would never hear her objections. Not for the first time, Liz felt a sinking sense of disappointment and rejection. Why do I even bother trying? she thought miserably. Yes, she had been born into wealth and privilege, but Liz had never taken it for granted, working twice as hard as anyone else. But what good was all that effort? All those summers she had spent in the Research and Development lab as a student when all her college friends were having fun in Mexico, Australia, or the South of France, or the MBA she had earned at Wharton in order to understand the business side better. It was all a waste as far as her mother was concerned. Meredith’s attitude seemed to be ‘keep quiet, the boys know best’. The problem was, Liz had been born first and she had been born a girl.

Liz stood up and silently walked out of the room. She was sick of her brother, sick of her mother. She was sick of trying to save the company with her creativity and the hard work she got no credit for. Screw them, she thought to herself as she quietly closed the door behind her. Screw them all. It was time to look after herself.

6

‘Welcome to Asgill’s,’ beamed a tanned blonde as Tess walked nervously into the company’s reception area. If she hadn’t already been anxious on this, her first visit to the offices on the thirty-second floor of a midtown skyscraper, the receptionist was enough to unnerve her. She looked like a super-charged Cosmopolitan cover girl; all bouncy, tawny hair, perfect skin and feline eyes. Tess wondered how anyone could look so perfect and perky at seven o’clock in the morning. Then again, all of New York seemed to bristle with an energy she had never witnessed in London, certainly not this early. For her first day at work she had wanted to be the first in, but it seemed as if the rest of Manhattan had had the same idea. The streets below her were already full of people, cars, and noise, and Starbucks had been so busy she had walked straight past it – no one needed a latte that much.

‘I’m Sally,’ said the blonde, handing Tess a security pass and leading her down a long cream corridor. ‘When did you get into town?’

‘Last night,’ replied Tess. Everything had happened so quickly that it was easy to forget she was in a completely new city on a new continent. The Asgill offices seemed like a different world, too, especially compared to life at the Globe, which had been one huge airless room full of ringing phones, old Formica desks, and the smell of stale tea. Here, on the thirty-second floor, everything was tasteful and calm, with pale-ivory walls, chrome cantilever furniture and huge photographs of the company’s advertising campaigns. It even smelt delicious, thanks to vast arrangements of fresh lilies everywhere. We’re not in Kansas any more, Toto, she thought as she tried to keep up with Sally’s brisk pace.

‘Office hours are eight to five, although some of us get in earlier, others a little later,’ said Sally, nodding over to some smaller offices off the main open-plan block.

‘Mrs Asgill has the corner office and she gets in at nine a.m. She’ll drop by and see you this morning. In the meantime, Patty Shackleton, our legal counsel is going to show you around and get you up to speed.’

Sally stopped outside a small, sunny office and motioned for Tess to step inside.

‘Home,’ she said with a grin.

When Sally had gone, Tess took her jacket off and hung it on the coat stand next to the door, then went to sit behind the glass desk, closing her eyes for a moment as she felt the morning sun pour through the windows and warm her back. My new life, she thought, feeling excited, on edge, and just a little bit sad about how easy it had been to leave London, the city she had called home for almost ten years. She had flown back to England the day after Brooke Asgill’s engagement party and given her notice letter to a smug, suntanned Andy Davidson first thing on the Monday morning. Unsurprisingly, he’d been more than happy to accept her resignation. ‘Leave at the end of the week, yeah?’ he had said. ‘No sense hanging about, is there?’

Tess was inclined to agree, and her plane ticket to JFK was booked for the day after that. Her farewell drinks in the upstairs of the pub next to the Globe offices prompted a good turnout, but only confirmed to Tess that she was making the right move. There were so many new faces in the crowd. Tess knew she was part of the old guard at the Globe, and that wasn’t a good place to be at twenty-nine. Even when her girlfriends turned up to say goodbye, Tess realized how infrequently she saw them, and how distant they had grown. Seeing them once or twice every six months: no wonder all they had to talk about was celebrity gossip and memories of nights out that had happened years ago. Tess knew she had fallen into a rut; it was time to get new stories and have new adventures. That’s what Dom had told her on the drive to Heathrow, and it was what she had kept telling herself as she walked through Departures, willing herself not to get upset. After all, it wasn’t as if she was emigrating, it was more like a very long press trip from which she would return richer, hipper, and infinitely more connected than if she had stayed in London.

Just as she was firing up the computer in front of her, she heard someone enter the room. Looking up, she saw a tall black woman wearing an expensive trouser suit, her hair worn like the singer Sade’s, scraped back off her head.

‘Patty Shackleton,’ the woman said, briskly offering a long, manicured hand.

Hell, even the lawyers look like models here, thought Tess, rising out of her seat to introduce herself.

‘Pleased to meet you, Patty, I’m Tess,’ she said, smiling.

Patty didn’t move, her face wearing a taut, concerned expression. ‘Have you read Danny Krantz?’ she asked quickly, pulling out a paper from under her arm and opening it with a rustle.

Tess felt a flutter of panic as she instantly fell onto the back foot on her first day, feeling both incompetent and unprofessional. Danny Krantz penned the gossip column in New York’s Daily Oracle. Together with Page Six in the New York Post and Rush and Molloy in the Daily News it was one of the juiciest, best-read newspaper columns in the country.