He sat back and folded his arms. “Well that’s not the way anything decent gets done.”
She leaned forward over the table and breathed deeply. “Forget the construction for a moment, let’s just talk about the design.” Her real intent here was to come up with a line that wasn’t overtly fashion or trend based. For all Coremade’s handmade exclusivity it wasn’t a derivative look. This man had come up with its distinctive qualities and all Amelia wanted was a taste of that through what she was trying to come up with. The same question kept forming in her mind; where was this obstinacy coming from, why couldn’t he see that she wasn’t trying to take anything from him or unwind his little empire?
Again the dismissive rhetoric flowed. “Start with something broken it will always be broken.”
Tension rose up within her again. “Not everybody can afford to walk around in handmade shoes.”
“The rest of the world can wear clogs for all I care, the only thing I have anything to do is done right or not at all.” He stood and lurched towards his desk. “You’re wasting your time coming here.”
Almost at the point of exploding, Amelia couldn’t quite contain the icy retort. “I think maybe it might be worth my while talking to some of the other employees here, perhaps they had more to do with the success here than I give them credit.”
It was long seconds before he turned around and when he did, his face was mottled with a rage far beyond the snide insinuation of her words. With self righteous indignation he pointed at her while he spat the words out. “You will not undo what I’ve created here, and if you try you’ll answer to Richard.”
Taken aback by the venom in his response, not so much by the threats, Amelia replied in a cold tone. “I have no concerns about those conversations, Ted. None at all. I’m going to suggest one last time that you lose all this attitude and talk to me about what’s in front of you.”
The indignation remained cast to his features as he responded between clenched teeth. “You’ve taken up too much of my time already and I won’t let my work here suffer as a result.” He folded his arms. “I have no more time for this today.”
Exasperated, Amelia stood and began to roughly throw the samples and sheets of material back into her satchel. “Very well, as you wish.” With enormous difficultly she quashed her anger and forced a calm tone. “Ted, I’m going to leave you alone for a few days to think about all this, then we’re going to have one more try. After that, if it doesn’t work out, well, I don’t have any more time for you.” She regarded his stony features with a level gaze, and without further comment walked out of the office.
As she walked towards large doors at the rear of the factory, a suspicion began to form in her mind and she glanced around the factory at all the workers. Though her statement to Ted had been flippant, his response had caused some level of disquiet within, and now she began to wonder if there wasn’t some truth to it. What if this man was egotistical bluster and nothing else? Once establishing this watermark of changes to Coremade, he hadn’t gone on to do anything else. Surely someone with that amount of ability would need a constant outlet for such a talent and wouldn’t be able to just sit still for the next ten years as he had, just making sure everything ticked over.
Surreptitiously she glanced quickly from face to face, knowing that most of them would be marking her departure and also that Ted would have his baleful eyes on her retreating form. Confusion welled as none of them seemed to present the spark of creativity she expected. She knew designers and they all presented almost identically; passionate, driven, self aware and with a certain amount of obstinate arrogance. None of these around her seemed to be those sort of people.
Frowning, she left the factory and, passing through the great warehouse, she went through the small steel door to her car parked in the large rear loading dock. Turning the ignition key she wondered briefly if Richard or even Arthur had had something to do with this. Quickly she dismissed that idea, knowing that though he was a strong leader, his abilities didn’t run to creativity. He was a person who had to be told what was good taste and why, and luckily for him his wife had a refined eye for the finer things in life.
Struggling with the impasse, Amelia acknowledged why she was spending so much time with an intractable personality like Ted. There were several others that could probably provide her with the information and advice she needed, and yet she persevered with him. Now that she examined her motivations it was easy to see she was fighting with her own demons.
With a deep sigh, she realised this agitation and struggle with an immutable force was the exact opposite of her marriage. Where Ethan had capitulated to every confrontation, here was a man who could not be broken. She was fighting with a ghost, something that had never existed in her own life. Ethan had betrayed her for another as the ultimate capitulation, but she could not find Ted’s limits, she couldn’t break him.
A smile crossed her face. “Well, today I found your measure.”
Ultimately though she knew there was no point to this confrontation; there could be no winner. Looking back on her interaction with this man she sensed there was little chance of his suddenly becoming open and forthcoming. He didn’t want to contribute, he wasn’t interested, he didn’t care, and he viewed her presence in his realm with a barely concealed distaste.
Something niggled at her though, and as she passed through reception at the central office, instead of heading to her small corner office, she veered towards human resources. Someone had fashioned Coremade and she was becoming certain it wasn’t Ted. Perhaps whoever this was had openly contributed and then been silenced as history was reinvented with Ted as the centre of the universe, but it had to be somebody from that insular world in Kensington. Even Richard had said several times that the plan for Coremade’s reinvention had come from within.
Leaning against the door to the office of the HR manager, who hadn’t noticed she was standing there yet. When he finally looked up, his attention became immediately alert. “Do you need something?” His voice quavered after not having spoken for some time.
She framed a series of questions in her mind before replying. “The warehouse in Kensington. Could you get me a list of people who worked there in ’96, and how long they’d been there? And can I also have the current list?”
Jason frowned at the strange request. “Sure. May I ask why you want it?”
“It’s probably nothing.” She turned away. “Could you leave on my desk when you get it done?” She paused. “And if you could get me a sample timesheet of each person, that would be great.” Without further comment she walked away.
The sheets of data were promptly delivered to her and she began to leaf through them. In total there were twelve employees out there at the time. From the timesheets, four were dedicated to warehouse duties and the other eight she guessed were assigned to Coremade.
Checking against the current roster, there were only two of those eight that weren’t still employed. She smiled. “Well Ted, you may be a moron, but you seem to inspire loyalty.”
A shadow appeared in front of her and she looked up. Richard stood there impassively. “I thought I saw you come in.” He paused. “You’re not here much.”
She gave him a shallow smile. “I hate offices; they’re pigeon holes and they make you small.”
He eased past the threshold and looked around absently at the details of a room almost free of adornment. “I want to talk to you about Ted.”
Amelia slumped her shoulders. “Richard, I’m not beating him up, and I’m not asking much of his time. The guy just will not contribute.”
“I know.”
She frowned at the acknowledging tone in his voice and the absence of his usual imperious attitude.