Carla Neggers: Tempting Fate

“Heard you were up prowling the grounds again last night,” he said. “Couldn’t sleep?”

“I was up early.”

“Stealing tomatoes, I understand.”

He did know how to inch close to the line. He was a stocky, healthy-looking man in his mid-forties, with iron-gray corkscrew curls and an unfortunate tendency to undermine his brilliance as the Pembroke’s manager with impertinence if not out-and-out insubordination. Eugene Chandler had personally fired him ten years ago from the staff of the Beverly Hills Chandler Hotel. Apparently Ira hadn’t displayed proper deference toward her grandfather, the chairman of the board. Dani could just imagine. She’d plucked him from a managerial job at a mid-priced chain hotel in Istanbul. He’d instantly fallen in love with the Pembroke.

He was also one of the few people who knew about his boss’s occasional bouts of insomnia. Thanks to Ira, Dani had nearly gotten her face knocked in when he’d set security on her a few weeks ago after a report of a prowler on the grounds. He considered the incident additional proof that he was damn good at his job: nothing slipped through Ira Bernstein’s fingers.

“You can’t beat a tomato fresh off the vine,” Dani said. “Is there something you need from me?”

He smiled, clearly relishing how far he could push and still not have her go for his throat. “Just wanted to let you know that two reporters have been by looking for you.”

“And you told them what?”

“That you’d been in a rotten mood for days-”

“Ira.”

“Took their names and numbers and promised I’d give them to you. I made no promises about what you’d do. However, here you go.” He dropped two scraps of paper on her table. “You can throw them away yourself.”

“Did they want to discuss the Pembroke or the sordid details of my personal life?”

Ira grinned. “There are no sordid details of your personal life.”

The man did grate.

When he didn’t get a rise out of her, he continued. “Both want in-depth interviews covering your professional and personal life in whatever detail they can get.” He waved a hand lightly. “They tried to bribe me for your dress size and brand of perfume, but I-”

“Are you like this with the guests?”

“I’m only cheeky with the people who sign my paychecks. A fatal flaw, I must admit. With guests I’m smooth as honey. Mind if I sit down?”

She motioned to a mission-style rocker she’d found in a dusty store off the beaten track in Maine. Ira groaned-she might have asked him to sit on a bed of nails. Her Pembroke office wasn’t nearly as weird as he liked to pretend. It was an odd-shaped room with twelve-foot ceilings and double-hung windows, its decor reflecting her unorthodox executive style. In addition to her chintz-covered couch and rocker, and maybe art deco table, she had a Shaker jam cupboard, two caned side chairs, a truly ugly brass plant stand in the shape of a screaming eagle and a turn-of-the-century Baldwin player piano she’d found squirreled away in the far reaches of the main house before she’d begun renovations. Since the house had sat empty for so long, she hadn’t been able to save all she’d have liked to, but what hadn’t succumbed to rot-structurally, cosmetically or in furnishings, or to termites, mice or plain disuse-had remained untouched virtually since Ulysses Pembroke’s day. Her architects had been delighted not to have to undo “improvements”-layers of paint, linoleum, wall-to-wall carpeting. Unfortunately that still hadn’t made their job easy or cheap.

“How was New York?” Ira asked.

“Fine.”

“None of my business, eh?” But his gray eyes had turned serious. “Look, Dani-”

“Out with it, Ira. What’s on your mind?”

He sighed. “People talk-and I hear things.”

“Such as?”

“Well, for starters, word’s out that you’re considering the purchase of a company in West Virginia that manufactures glass bottles.”

Dani slipped her feet back into her shoes, purple flats that didn’t go as well as she’d hoped with her straight cotton-knit dress, above the knee, ordered from a catalog and an entirely different shade of purple.

“Are you?” Ira asked.

“I wouldn’t say I was considering. I was just inquiring.”

“You don’t know anything about making glass bottles. Dani-look, I’m no expert on the beverage business, but seeing how the fate of Pembroke Springs and this place are tied together, I’ve been doing some research. From what I can gather, glassmaking companies are a dying breed. They’ve all been bought out by the big guns. This outfit in West Virginia is tiny by comparison. You could lose a bundle.”

“Now you sound like my bean counters.”

She’d listened to them rail about her tight cash flow for two days in New York. She figured that was what bean counters were supposed to do. Since she was a Pembroke, she worried that her tolerance for risk was perhaps dangerously high and expected straight talk.

“Ira, Pembroke Springs uses a lot of glass bottles.”

“I know, but that doesn’t mean you have to manufacture your own. I understand you could save a ton of money if you switched to a stock bottle-”

She shook her head. “No.”

“Why not?”

“Brand awareness is the name of the beverage game, Ira. People look for the Pembroke bottles. They’re distinctive and they’re attractive. A restaurant here in town uses our mineral-water bottles for vases on its tables. That’s free promotion. They wouldn’t use a bottle that some mouthwash company also uses.”

“A restaurant sticks daisies into maybe ten Pembroke Springs bottles. Big deal.”

“Pink roses,” she corrected.

“Proprietary bottles are expensive.”

“Yes, they are, but in the long haul, a private design-unique to us-more than pays for itself.”

Ira scratched his head, not on firm ground when talking about Dani’s mineral water and natural soda company. “Look,” he said, “you know, I know-pretty soon everyone else will know-you’re stretched thin. Getting the Pembroke ready has cost you. Now that it’s opened, your cash-flow situation should improve, but before it does-”

“If I have to entertain cost-cutting measures, Ira, I will do so.”

“Guess it’s a good thing you pay yourself less than your housekeeping staff.”

“That’s an old rumor, Ira, and not true. I’m not personally extravagant, I’ll admit. I don’t mind making sacrifices in the long-term interests of my businesses. The Pembrokes have a long tradition of losing their shirts. Thank you, I’ll pass.”

“I’m sure your father and all the rest of them said the same thing,” Ira pointed out.

“I won’t compromise on quality. It’s what we sell. The resort and water and natural soda businesses are highly competitive-the big guys swallow up the little guys all the time. I’m not Perrier or Coke or Club Med, and I can’t pretend to be. But I’m not going to get stepped on.”

Ira leaned forward. “Dani, it doesn’t have to be this difficult. You took on a lot at once. You’re practically a kid still. You’ve got a fortune tied up in equipment at the bottling plant-you’ve expanded into natural sodas and flavored mineral water at an incredible pace. The Pembroke is a valuable asset, but right now it burns cash.”

“All to a good end.”

“Ever the optimist. There is one more thing.”

With Ira, there always was.

“There’s a rumor floating around you’re thinking of selling this place.”

Dani stiffened. “Not true.”

“I know, and ordinarily I wouldn’t even bring it up, but, Dani, if people didn’t smell blood-”

“Ira, I’m a Pembroke. There’ll always be talk I’m on the verge of self-destructing. I’ve been listening to it ever since I told my grandfather he could give my Chandler trust to charity.” Actually her words had been far more to the point, but this Ira Bernstein knew. “I’m not selling the Pembroke, I’m not switching to a stock bottle, I was only asking about the glass-making company. I am not going broke. Anything else?”