“It does pretty well as it is,” I defended. I didn’t need her help, and for a woman who couldn’t even find the courage to jump out of a plane, even in tandem, I wondered how in the hell she could possibly think she had anything to offer this business.
“There’s always room for improvement,” she answered simply.
I snorted. “Well, since you’re such an authority on skydiving,” I added dryly.
“Can I use this as my office?” She ignored my smart-ass comment.
“We can share it. I guess. I’m not in here often,” I grumbled.
“Good,” she acknowledged. “I need a key. Where can I get that?”
Begrudgingly, I rounded the desk and opened the top drawer, pulling out my uncle’s set that had been in there for weeks. “These were Dennis’s. Feel free to take off the engraved key chain.” I didn’t even know what in the hell they were. Initials and a date. I tossed them to her and she caught them, staring at the key chain in the palm of her hand. She was frozen as she looked at it. At that point, I was pissed off and tired. In the span of a day, I’d gone from thinking I would own this business solo, to finding out I had a very unwanted, uptight business partner that knew nothing about skydiving. I was done.
“We good?”
Closing her fist around the keys, she clutched them to her chest. “I’ll see you in the morning.”
That first week after Clara arrived was hell. We hated her. Marcus especially. She demanded to see all the financial information and wanted to get new software to help manage the business’s spending. Marcus had a system, even if he was the only one that could understand it, and he was pretty damn efficient. He didn’t like having her come in and start taking over what he felt was an already well-oiled machine. She stated we would have a biweekly meeting with the staff. At the first one, she informed everyone they would be needed Sunday evening to help “revamp” the office. Sap was excluded as he had a bad back, but everyone else was required to show. She needed painters. No one liked that idea. That’s because her little idea was pure bullshit. Why would they want to give up their Sunday evening?
“The guys are paid to jump,” I pointed out as I followed her into the office after the meeting had concluded. She plopped her notebook on the table and started fingering through a stack of papers.
“And this office as a whole is the first impression. It looks awful. This is where they work and asking them to help out one night is not that much to ask.”
“We can hire painters,” I protested. “Or you can call your little friends to come back and help you.”
She laughed, ignoring my dig. “No, we can’t. We need to save as much money as we can for advertising.”
“We have a budget for that.”
“Not a big enough one.”
“Look,” I affirmed. At the sound of my tone, she stopped shuffling through the papers and gave me her undivided attention. “Painting the office and making it look “pretty” isn’t going to do shit. People come here to jump. For the experience. Not for pretty-colored walls and comfy couches. This isn’t a fucking showroom.”
“It’s funny you think the experience is solely the jump. Yes,” she agreed, “the jump is the biggest part, the finale, but it’s not everything. We can give our clients, from start to finish, an incredible day starting with entering a clean, well-managed office with a friendly staff.”
“What the fuck is wrong with the staff?” I huffed. “We have a friendly staff,” I argued.
She scoffed at me. “You have Marcus playing pranks on paying customers, Sap eye-fucking anything with tits, and you with shitty manners.”
Damn. She was crass.
I shook my head and groaned in annoyance. “Tell me something, sweetheart. You say we’re doing all of this wrong, yet somehow we make a profit. Explain that.”
She walked up to me, inches away, and put her hands on her hips. “Luck.”
I took a step toward her, so our faces were merely an inch or two away. That was a bad move. She smelled incredible, and how had I not noticed before that her eyes had little flecks of green in them? “Um. Well, it’s working.”
“Did you know there are three other skydiving businesses in Virginia?”
“I am aware,” I mumbled, narrowing my eyes at her. “What’s your point?”
“Do you know what your referral numbers are?”
“Not off the top of my head.”
“Based on the website bookings alone, where a majority of your jumps are scheduled, they can enter how they heard about us, and referrals are only at two percent. That . . .” She gave my chest a hard poke, “Is shameful.”
My blood pressure was rising. “We work our asses off here. And we’ve made it work. Dennis built this business from the ground up.”
“Paul,” she snapped. “I don’t give a shit about who did what or how they did it. I see a business with potential to grow, to profit more. Are you really going to complain about the possibility of making more money?”
“No,” I argued. “I’m complaining about working with a goddamned tyrant. You’re set to suck all the fun out of this place.”