Chapter Nine: Loosen Your Tie
"Joe?"
Joe looked up. Peter Hathaway was in the hallway, clutching his presentation notes and his fat leather planner. "Mr. Alanson is here," Peter said.
"I'll be right there," Joe said. "I just need to transfer my notes to a disk."
He waved his disk at Hathaway, who smiled. "Well, okay then. We start in ten minutes."
Hathaway disappeared from Joe's doorway, and Joe hurried through the rest of his email, deleting ads for Viagra and 10 off textbooks. Closing the browser, he slipped the disk into the drive and quickly transferred his PowerPoint presentation to the disk's only folder: "Alanson."
Two minutes later he removed the disk from the drive and gathered the rest of his presentation meetings, which included two pie charts done on foam-core board and some brochures that he and Hathaway and Clark had prepared.
Hathaway was already speaking when Joe entered the conference room. He liked Hathaway, who was forty-ish, with white-blond hair and a disarming smile. Since they'd all been told to dress up for the Alanson presentation, Hathaway was wearing what he referred to as his "best suit" – a navy blue number with a dark navy pinstripe, plus a crisp white shirt and a solid cobalt blue tie.
Clark, full name Andrew Patterson Packard Clark, the other member of their presentation team, was in his early twenties. He was the company's newest "hot shot," and he liked to live up to his reputation. Sometimes he was worthy of his interactions with the older scientists, and sometimes he just looked like a fourth grader infiltrating a high school sex ed class. Dressed in a charcoal gray suit with a light lavender shirt underneath, his tie was a darker shade of purple with a small blue dot pattern. His boyish face looked flushed in the conference room lights, which shone on the very white part in his dark brown hair.
"… And here's our last team member, Joe DuBois," Hathaway said as Joe shut the conference room door behind him. "Joe, this is Davis Alanson."
"Pleased to meet you," Joe said, extending his hand towards their guest. Davis Alanson was in his late fifties and bore an air of old money and new disinterest. With him was a small, bespectacled woman with a timid expression on her face.
"This is my lawyer, Janine Bernhard, and my son will be joining us for the presentation," Davis Alanson informed them. "He should be along shortly."
Davis had barely finished his sentence when the conference room door was banged open and a gawky man in his twenties half-ran, half-fell into the room. Unlike his father, who was wearing a classically tailored black Italian suit with a light blue oxford shirt, or the lawyer, who was somber in a black pantsuit with a small gold brooch on the jacket, the younger Alanson sported a wrinkled white oxford, rumpled khakis, black-and-white tennis shoes, and a Bugs Bunny tie. "Uh! Sorry I'm late!" he exclaimed. He stuck out his pale, bony-wristed hand in Joe's general direction. "I'm Jacques Alanson. But you – uh! – can call me Jacky."
"Pleased to meet you," Joe repeated.
"If you're ready, we can begin," Hathaway suggested. Joe handed him the disk with their presentation, the three scientists gave one last tug to their best ties, and they were off and away. Clark spoke first, mostly because he had recently graduated from Yale Business School and had a better head for the logistics of a business proposition. Joe had to admit that Clark could have sold a sauna in Hell, and wondered if the young up-and-comer would have been happier selling something.
Twenty minutes of what Hathaway referred to as the "opening act" later, and it was time for Joe to give his part of the presentation. He put his pie charts on the flimsy metal easel in the corner and gave the Alansons and the lawyer some of the brochures. "Now, we're aware that you're attempting to start an aerospace program at the Polytechnic Magnet Institute in Seven Palms. The curriculum we're presenting here today is designed to be the best you will find at any comparable institute."
Hathaway took over, clicking to the next slide on the PowerPoint presentation, and they continued on for forty-five minutes. Davis Alanson took several pages of notes in his leather-bound notebook; his lawyer took at least twice as many notes. Jacques Alanson fidgeted in his chair and did not much else.
At the end of the presentation Joe felt as though he could have used a few good belts of something strong. Davis Alanson, who had been incredibly impressed with the presentation, clapped when Hathaway read through the last slide. The lawyer, whose name Joe had honestly forgotten, gave a small smile, which seemed to be the height of her emotional attachment. Jacques Alanson leapt out of his chair as soon as the presentation was over and shook hands, limply, with everyone in the room except for his father and the lawyer, who took the time to whisper to each other.
"That was excellent, just excellent, gentlemen," Davis Alanson declared when he was finished whispering to Janine. "That was the most well-done presentation I've seen."
"Dude," Jacques Alanson said. "Uh! Your PowerPoint was sweet."
Davis Alanson looked down at his gigantic silver watch. "Thank you for your time, gentlemen. We'll call you within the next few days to make our decision final."
"Our president, Mr. Clay, wanted to meet with you before you left," Hathaway said. "He asked if you would wait in his lounge."
Davis gave Hathaway a smile. "Excellent. I've looked forward to discussing our next golf game!" He smiled. "Jacques, Janine, I'll meet you in the lobby. Janine, will you phone Blumberg and let him know I'll be late for the next meeting?"
Picking up his wool overcoat, Davis Alanson swept out of the conference room, Hathaway and Clark in his wake. Jacky followed him, slinging his leather-sleeved varsity-style jacket over his shoulder. Only the lawyer, Janine, was left in the room with Joe, who had begun picking up the brochures and pie charts. She busied herself putting papers into her black leather briefcase. Then, as though realizing that she wasn't in the room alone, she looked up at Joe. "Your presentation was well done, Mr. DuBois."
"Thanks," Joe said.
"I suppose you could loosen your tie now," the lawyer suggested.
Joe gave her a smile. "Is it that obvious that we don't dress up that often?"
"You would probably be a bit more at home in a T-shirt and jeans, is that correct?"
"I do like dress down Fridays," Joe agreed.
"Mr. DuBois, I'm not officially authorized to tell you this," Janine said, "but Mr. Alanson would like to meet with you on Wednesday to discuss the future of the aerospace program at the Polytechnic Magnet Institute. Please be at the Alanson Complex at six-thirty on Wednesday evening."
Having finished putting her papers into the briefcase, she snapped it shut and gave Joe a smile of her own, exposing a mouth of perfect white teeth. As she stepped away from Joe, she said, "And please, wear something a little more comfortable."
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