The First Part of Chapter 2: They Find Out

It was Monday morning, and there was an all-company meeting. Karim turned to James, sitting on his right beside Colleen, and asked, “How was Montréal?”

“Clarissa and I had a lovely time there,”

“That’s nice to hear,” said Maurice. Riley nodded in assent.

Without further delay, Maurice got to the point. “The ends of this meeting run thus: Septara, the computer chip maker, remember them? Anyways, Intel absorbed them, Le Chateau is lukewarm about us, and Venneris is struggling. In short, we’re losing market share. Are there any ideas? I’ve asked everyone in the office to come here today, in the boardroom, for who our next clients should be.”

The meeting, despite the urgency given the shrinking market share, was quite boring in James’s opinion, and he stared at the clock, as it slowly approached the appointed end of the meeting at 10:15. Riley said, “We should continue in our efforts to help Venneris,”

“My file,” noted James quietly. “They should diversify their product lines––and I told them as much––from simply one paper product, namely newsprint, to others, such as packaging, toothpicks, or perhaps pencils.” That was that for Venneris; the final decisions rested with Venneris executives in Corner Brook, not themselves. Riley, Karim and Courtney respectively called companies in trouble, including Magnus, which made ball bearings, Evitron, the hubcap maker, and two publishing houses. Colleen and Marcus meanwhile went over the daily news to see if they could find any companies to be concerned about, and had found the proverbial butcher, baker and candlestick maker, or that was what James had heard; his mind was still with Clarissa, and his body yearned for her too; fortunately, Courtney, sitting on his left, didn’t look down and notice. The meeting lasted an hour, which was much too long; he wanted to be back on the phone with Clarissa––no, wait––the CFO of Venneris. The meeting was at last over, and at 10:15 James went to his office and picked up the phone. He had the chief financial officer of Venneris on speed-dial number one, and he made sure he pressed that and not Clarissa’s number, which was on speed-dial number two. Within two rings, there was an answer.

“Venneris, this is Eileen O’Murphy.”

“Hello Eileen. We just got out of a meeting; anyways, we at Valoix Consulting are really passionate, as you know, and to cut matters short, we think you need to diversify.”

“Diversify?”

“Into other paper products, of course; there are all kinds of paper that we need––”

“Yes, we know, and let me tell you, we’re working on it.”

“Would you like to set up a conference call sometime so I can go through the numbers? I can run them in two days or so, and I expect they will get the same results as I have just told,”

James reflected on Venneris’s corporate image: it was squeaky clean, but not especially known for creativity, and this collective persona for that company was reflected in Venneris’s company motto, “never sin”; it was a staid logo, and good enough for survival, but not expansion, and that attitude would not hold off potential shocks.

When the day was done and James went home, which was at six, as usual, James’s thoughts turned from work and Clarissa to just Clarissa; he was obsessively and constantly thinking of her, and assumed she was doing the same. His thoughts went from various romantic moments touring the hills by bicycle, strolls along the river, much hugging and kissing, body contact, and various fantasies that cast him and Clarissa as heroes out of legend. He assumed Clarissa would tell her parents some time; he was planning to get around to it, though it kept slipping his mind; perhaps he should simply let a neighbour tell them?

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