It was as if Walter had found a loose thread in a sweater and pulled. Kayla felt herself unravel. Feelings she’d kept carefully locked away tumbled out.
Drowning, panicking, she turned to Jackson. “I need to plug my laptop into your projector, please.” The feelings pressed in on her, dark and terrifying, and she pushed back, refusing to allow them to take hold.
“There is no projector.”
“No projector?” She couldn’t have been more shocked if he’d told her he’d built a hotel and forgotten to include bedrooms.
“It’s not high on our priority list right now.” That intense blue gaze was searching. “Just turn your laptop around and we’ll look at your screen.”
“No projector.” Kayla snatched in a breath as she tried to navigate this latest obstacle. “No projector is just fine.”
Alice placed a freshly iced Santa on the rack. “I always find icing something helps me relax. Give Kayla a knife, Elizabeth, then she can help.”
“I can’t cook. I’ve never iced anything.” Fingers shaking, Kayla swiveled the laptop and fished her notepad out of her bag. “You’re obviously busy so I’ll be as quick as I can.” For her own sake, if not theirs. She needed to get out of here.
“If she can’t do something simple like ice a gingerbread Santa,” Walter muttered, “how the hell is she going to work magic on this place?”
Jackson’s jaw tensed. “If you ask her, she’ll tell you. That’s why she’s here, but so far she hasn’t been able to get a word in edgewise. And I don’t need her to cook. I employed a chef.”
“Even though we already had a perfectly good chef, but we’re not going over that again now.” Walter glared down the table at Kayla. “We’re listening. Show us the magic.”
An expectant silence spread across the room.
Feeling as if everything was happening in slow motion Kayla stared at Walter, then at Elizabeth and finally at Alice, who was carefully adding buttons to Santa’s iced coat.
“Kayla?” Jackson’s voice was controlled. “We’re ready to hear what you have to say.”
She didn’t have anything to say. There was nothing in her head except the past.
Usually she was articulate, but panic had shorted her circuits.
Then she remembered it was all on her screen, but her screen was pointing toward them and she couldn’t see it. “I prepared a presentation that demonstrates some of our experience in this area.”
Alice squinted. “I might need my other glasses. Elizabeth, do you have my other glasses?”
“They’re in your bag where they always are.” Elizabeth handed them to her, and Alice slid them onto her nose and leaned forward.
Kayla adjusted the angle. “From the moment we get up in the morning to the moment we go to bed, we are deluged by messages.” Oh, God, she sounded like a robot. She needed to liven it up and make it more personal. “We live in a fast-moving world where the news changes by the minute so the challenge is how to make yourself heard amongst the noise.”
Alice looked confused. “There’s not much noise around here, honey. Snow Crystal is a peaceful place, isn’t it, Elizabeth?”
“Apart from Sunday mornings when you can hear the church bells. I swear there are times when I wish we hadn’t given money for the restoration.” Elizabeth stood up and removed a tray of baked potatoes from the oven. “One of these days I’m going to cut the ropes of those bells myself.”
Kayla felt a flicker of panic. “I—was talking about media noise. It’s an expression used to describe the amount of information we’re subjected to daily from news channels, social media—”
“Social media?” Walter looked blank and Kayla gripped the edge of the table until her knuckles turned white.
“Social networking is playing an increasingly important role in travel planning right now. Many organizations are picking up on that and now run their own blogs, Twitter feeds and Facebook pages. It’s a way of interacting with customers and personalizing your message. That’s one of the things I suggest we look at when we’re developing a plan for Snow Crystal.”
The only sound in the room was the soft bubble of the casserole on the hob and the faint hiss of the kettle.
She’d silenced them, but it wasn’t an interested silence. It was a bemused silence.
Icing dripped from Alice’s knife onto the table, like snow falling from the branch of a tree.
The whole family stared at her, eyes glazed, and Kayla was reminded of the day she’d dropped a casserole dish while She was staying at her father’s house. Her hands had been shaking, and she’d been trying so hard to make a good impression she’d caught her foot on the rug and tripped. She could still remember her stepmother’s frozen expression as lumps of beef and red wine had spread across the expensive cream rug. She’d wanted to somehow melt away from the horrified stares. Wanted desperately for her father to hug her and tell her it didn’t matter.
But it had mattered because they hadn’t wanted her there in the first place.
She’d been the outsider then, and she was the outsider now.
The only person who wanted her here was Jackson, and he’d been relying on her to impress his family.
If she needed any confirmation that hadn’t happened, Walter gave it. “That’s it? If you ask me, we’d be better off leaving the money in the bank.”
Kayla made a last desperate attempt to recover the situation. “Why don’t I take you through some of the integrated marketing campaigns we’ve run for other companies? It will give you a feel for what can be achieved. For example, our campaign for Adventure Travel generated in excess of three hundred million media impressions, including prime spots on daytime television.”
“Media impression?” Alice looked blank. “What’s a media impression?”
Walter glared at Jackson. “Why do we care what she’s done for other companies? Is she saying we’re not unique?”
He didn’t even address her directly, Kayla thought. She might as well not be here.
“That’s not what I’m saying.”
This time he did address her directly. “So tell me what is special about Snow Crystal.”
There was a hideous silence.
“I—I don’t know yet.” She had statistics, but that wasn’t what was needed here. For once she wished she had the backup of her team. She even would have welcomed Brett saying “no worries” and committing them to all manner of unachievable goals. Anything that would give her a minute to refocus. “But I’ll find out. That’s why I’m here. I intend to find out what is special about Snow Crystal.”
Jackson was staring at her with incredulity, and her cheeks burned because she knew she’d failed him. And herself. For the first time ever she’d failed at her job. There was no way, no way, he’d give her the business after her pathetic performance. And she didn’t blame him. She wouldn’t give herself the business, either.
Walter gave a grunt. “Then maybe we should be having this meeting when you’ve done that.”
“That’s enough.” Jackson didn’t move from his seat, but his voice was hard. “This family may be many things, but rude isn’t one of them. Kayla is an expert at what she does.”
Walter’s expression was mutinous. “Maybe, but she’s not an expert on Snow Crystal. She’s just admitted it, and that’s hardly surprising,