Page 6 of A Smart Girl's Guide to Second Chances
‘Alex Lawson,’ he replied, looking slightly bemused by Miranda’s high-octane aura.
‘Ah, the great man himself!’ Miranda exclaimed. She put her hands together and dipped her head to him. ‘We feel honoured to be trusted with your very important work.’
His ego is big enough! It doesn’t needanypumping up, I wanted to shout. Instead, I gazed at a small stain on the grey carpet.
‘And I see you’ve already met Rebecca,’ Miranda said.
I reluctantly looked up from the floor and met his eyes.
‘We’ve met,’ he said in a neutral voice. I felt my throat tighten. He could still read me.
‘Rebecca is one of our superstars,’ Miranda said. ‘She’ll be your point of contact – the person you can go to if you needanythingat all. Nothing is too big or small for her to care about.’
My heart sank. Clearly Alex was going to be heavily involved in this project.
A stream of people started converging in the meeting room, including Adrian and Lucas, who I recognised from the office, and others with ATG lanyards like the one Alex was indeed wearing. I checked my watch: it was showtime.
Alex opened the meeting with an introductory presentation. He spoke without slides, which would have made anyone from Stern & Co feel naked. I quickly understood why my firm had been engaged by this medical mega-company: ATG had recently acquired Alex’s company, and we’d been hired to advise ATG on a strategy to market the technology they owned but he’d created.
He spoke with the gravitas and experience of a university professor (it turned out he’d actually been a professor before he founded his company) as he gave us the crib-notes version of his research.
I realised, as I watched Alex hold his audience’s attention, that I understood more than I’d expected. Everything he’d told me about the embryonic stages of his research that summer nine years ago had stuck in the far recesses of my mind like Blu Tack on a teenager’s bedroom walls.
Speaking in a laconic drawl, with only a hint of condescension, he was effortlessly interesting. No one had even surreptitiously turned over their phone since he’d stood up. I knew what held the room’s attention: his unbridled enthusiasm for his work was as infectious as the flu, as I well knew – I’d gone down hard and fast before.
While my heart rate still hadn’t returned to a normal level, he didn’t seem put out by my presence at all. But that had always been his superpower, his ability to be hyper-focused when it came to his work.
I slowly turned over my phone, hiding it with my Moleskine notebook, and typed his name into Google. I clicked the first link, then the second and third and skim-read, while trying to look like I was paying attention.
I pulled together a timeline in my mind based on the few data points I’d gathered. He’d been in Boston pretty much since we’d last seen each other, except for a stint at a university in Switzerland. He’d only been working for ATG for a few months. Somehow this made me feel better – that our orbits hadn’t been overlapping for years, that he’d been safely tucked away on the other side of the world.
‘Rebecca?’
I jerked my head up from my phone. I’d missed the end of Alex’s presentation and Miranda, a vision in citrus, was staring at me expectantly. The wattage of her smile flickered as she clocked that I hadn’t been paying attention. My stomach did a flip. Partners often called on us, with no notice, to say something insightful and pithy in front of clients.
I prided myself on my comprehensive notetaking, but as I glanced down at my random scribbles (Heart disease – good to diagnoseandWhy is he here?) I realised that it wasn’t my best minute-taking work.
‘I think this technology will play a crucial role in the transformation of... health,’ I ad-libbed. Miranda’s eyes narrowed as Alex’s lips curled up.
‘Powerful words, Rebecca. And it would be great if you could introduce yourself, which is what we’re going around the table doing...’
I blurted out my name, cheeks burning with embarrassment. I felt a rush of animosity towards Alex.
The room’s attention turned to Lucas, but Alex’s eyes stayed on me for a moment longer. And I knew, deep in my gut, that there was only one sensible way forwards. Alex and I could not work together.
After finishing introductions, we shuffled out of the meeting room. Miranda offered to take our team out for a coffee. I’d never worked on a case with Adrian and Lucas, the juniors who’dbe doing the heavy lifting, so team building – which mainly manifested in the form of endless (expensed) coffees, dinners and organised ‘fun’ – was a priority in the first few days. I knew I should go, earn some ‘team spirit’ brownie points from Miranda. But, instead, I pretended I had something urgent to do. Because there was something urgent Ihadto do.
I waited for a few minutes, until I was sure the team would be safely in a lift, then did a slow loop of the floor until I found the nameplate I was looking for. He saw me through the internal windows before I had a chance to knock or flee.
I opened the door. ‘Can I come in?’ I asked, in a tone that I hoped was civil.
‘Sure,’ Alex replied from his chair. His office was sparse – one shelf of an otherwise empty bookcase was filled with what looked like well-thumbed textbooks, a miniature basketball hoop had been suctioned to a bare grey wall and a plastic tray on his desk was overflowing with paper.
I shut the door behind me. I spotted the same battered, black backpack Alex had used at Oxford, sitting on the only spare chair in the room. He didn’t offer to move it.
This is not a good idea, was the opening line I’d planned to say as I stormed into his office.
‘You weren’t surprised to see me today,’ I said instead.
