Page 2 of Enemies to French Kisses
Thirty-five and brilliant, Guillaume Toussaint is the epitome of biotechnology entrepreneurship. He has done the groundwork to make his success come true, collecting three university degrees and a hefty amount of money from an angel investor. Innov’ Biotech is his brainchild, and we’ve drunk the proverbial Kool-Aid. He identified a gap in the market: bringing advanced medical technology to at-home care. Like in the US, Europe’s population is aging. Guillaume saw this opportunity and has been maximizing it since he launched a few years ago.
Innov’ has only picked up speed ever since, and that’s how I landed this job.
“Laura!” Guillaume points his finger at me from across the conference room. “Start us with the numbers from the UK.”
“Yes, sir,” I stand and wait for the squeak of shifting chairs to settle.
I have the distinct feeling someone is staring at me. Sure, I’m standing up and the better part of fifty eyes are looking at me, but this is different. I glance at Marc and find his eyes burning into me. If I didn’t know better, I would say he’s a velociraptor in disguise. The thought takes me back to when I was a kid, and Mom put on Jurassic Park thinking it would be a great kids movie for Brian and me while she went out to the bar.
Brian and I haven’t thought of dinosaurs the same way ever since.
“Thank you, Guillaume.” I roll my shoulders back, an old habit a mentor taught me to assume my space in the room. “I’d like to begin with Northern Ireland, who is showing surprising growth given the demographic.”
The English-speaking world is my portfolio. I am the queen of my domain, calling upon facts and figures, market research, and government expenditures, everything that four-year business degree and twenty-year student loan promised would happen when I hit the world of work.
I always thought it would be Chicago or Philadelphia or maybe even New York.
Never did I dare imagine I’d be starting my career in Paris on the eighteenth floor with a view of the Eiffel Tower to the left and Sacre Coeur to the right.
But when Natalie, my bestie since playschool, said she was desperate to spend a year in the City of Love, I tried to say no… and couldn’t.
It’s not that I didn’t want to come to France (I didn’t), or that I thought the food wouldn’t be amazing (I didn’t realize the joy of a morning croissant), it’s that my specialty is business case analysis. And my analysis said that trying to scrape by in Paris on an entry-level wage was going to get us a tiny apartment with a whole lot of cockroaches and mold. A cardboard box would be better than the places I saw online.
But Natalie is the convincing type. A dreamer, a lover of all things refined, and she’d been desperate to get out of Sage, Texas, since she could spell the word adventure.
I’ll never forget the day Natalie rounded up the bunch of us girls who had been friends for just about forever in the backyard of her parents’ farmhouse. We sat around the picnic table as Natalie took us through the plans on a chalkboard our friend Chrissy borrowed from the elementary school where she was doing a work placement.
By the end of the hour, the chalkboard was covered in sketches of Paris scenes, cost of living estimates, a pros and cons list, and several words Natalie underlined such as “luxury,” “opportunity of a lifetime,” and—no surprise—"love.”
I was not so easily won over by her makeshift arguments and pleas to join her. I told her as much. But then Natalie said something I never thought she would, and I was convinced.
“Imagine what this would do for your resumé…”
Cheeky. She knew exactly how to win me over.
It’s not that I’m work-obsessed, but when you grow up with as much uncertainty as my brother and I had, job security means a whole lot more than adventure. And it starts with building a resumé.
Fun fact: I learned that resumé means “summary” in French, as in a summary of all one’s experience to date.
I am very grateful to report that I was wrong on some fronts, in that at least our apartment does not have cockroaches. I happily admit my error on that, though the water often breaks down. Nothing quite like having to make a pitch to the boss having double-dosed on antiperspirant and dry shampoo. On top of that, it is approximately the size of a sardine can with six girls, on the sixth floor of a walk-up. But that view of the Notre Dame cathedral from the cruise ship-sized mini-window just about makes it all worth it.
So here I am—a long way from Sage, Texas—taking our head office staff through the Innov’ Biotech contract value from Northern Ireland.
“Those numbers are as of yesterday.” I light up my pointer on the figure and do a little swirl. I feel power in the laser pointer.
Someone chuckles, and I know exactly who.
Guillaume clears his throat. “Do you have something to add, Marc?” Guillaume has a strange partiality to Marc, a fact that blows my mind. But I suppose he has a soft spot for the first-ever employee of Innov’. That’s the only thing that can explain it.
“Somethingto add?Yes.” Marc looks up at me from the chair. Even though I’m standing over him, it feels like he has the upper hand. “I’d like to add about thirty thousand euros.”
“Huh?” I stare at him right back. How dare he add new contracts in my domain.Mine.“You’ve been prospecting in the UK?” I could kill him. It was bad enough when he stole my pharma idea, but this? This is too low.
He feigns shock and stands. “I would never, Laura. How could you say such a thing?”
Because you’re a rotten good-for-nothing who doesn’t hesitate to cut me down with a biting retort?
I say nothing. The chair rolls against the industrial carpet as he stands and struts to the screen where my figures are projected in all their glory of Northern Irish growth.
