Gray Quinn's Baby(7)

Had Quinn changed all the personnel? Of course, he was perfectly  entitled to, Magenta reasoned. Quinn ran the show now. But what had  happened to her friends? And what had happened to their working  environment?

So many questions stacked up in her mind, with not a single answer to one of them that made sense.





CHAPTER FIVE                       
       
           



       




'LOOK, Magenta, I don't want to rush you,' Nancy said in a way that  clearly said that was exactly what she wanted to do. 'But Quinn's only  slipped out for an eleven o'clock appointment.'

'So what?' Magenta said impatiently. 'He's got a damn nerve.' She was  still looking round, trying to take everything in. She could understand  Quinn wanting to live the sixties in order to give the campaign that  final fizz of authenticity-hadn't she done the same thing herself? But  didn't he know there was such a thing as going too far? 'Nancy, what's  been going on here?'

'The usual?' Following her glance, Nancy gazed around the office.

'The usual,' Magenta repeated grimly. 'Is it usual to remove the computers?'

'The what?'

'Okay, so Quinn's got you playing his game,' Magenta said. 'I can  understand that you don't want to lose your job-I'm just thinking of all  the expense involved in putting this right again-' She had already  reasoned that the reorganisation of the office would have been fairly  easy if Quinn had copied the layout from the old photographs on the  wall, but there were other things she couldn't account for. There was a  different feel to the place, never mind the look, which was dated, a  little drab and definitely not the right environment to encourage  cutting-edge design work. She thought it boring, not to mention  inhospitable. There were different phones too, but it was the  ergonomically unhelpful furniture that really concerned her-and single  glazing? Had Quinn gone mad? Never mind the expense, what about  condensation? Cold? If people were uncomfortable at work, productivity  would suffer. Didn't Quinn know anything?

And there was a different smell too …

Cigarette smoke?

'Nancy!' Magenta exclaimed with increased urgency.

'Are you all right, Magenta?' Glancing round, Nancy grabbed a chair and tried to press Magenta into it.

'I'm fine.' She was anything but fine. What had happened here? Had Quinn  got people in to dress the offices like a sixties stage-set? And how  was it possible she had slept through those changes? But it wasn't just  the noise element that concerned her; these changes were too thorough,  too perfect, too convincing …

Magenta's throat dried. This wasn't some office team-building exercise.  This was reality. This was reality for Nancy and for all the people  here. It was Magenta who was out of sync. She must have fallen down the  rabbit hole, like Alice, while she'd been asleep and landed in the  sixties. And now the shock of being trapped inside a dream was only  exceeded by her dread of meeting Quinn. From what she'd gathered, he was  just the sort of man who would slot right into the sixties, where men  ruled. Quinn obviously thought they did.

Magenta took a few steadying breaths while Nancy looked on anxiously.  Magenta's heart was pounding uncontrollably, but whatever had happened  she would have to manage it.

She looked as much a part of the sixties as everyone else in the office,  Magenta reassured herself, with her carefully made-up face, perfect  hair and vintage cream wool dress. Though you could have bounced bullets  off her underwear, it did outline her shape to the point where her  breasts were outrageously prominent. That, believe it or not, was the  fashion. It could best be described as 'sex in your face'. No wonder  Jackson had commented; she should have known better than to dress like  this, but had done so innocently. Back in the real world, it had made  her feel sexy-and after the encounter with the biker she had wanted to  prove to herself that she still could feel that way. Now she realised  drawing attention to herself in a sixties office was asking for trouble.

But, on the plus side, she had been researching the era for quite some  time, so even locked into this bizarre dream she wasn't entirely out on a  limb. She could even accept and be a little reassured by the fact that  the dream seemed to be influenced by her research; there was certainly  plenty of raw material here. Although quite how the summer of love, the  sexual revolution and the Whisky a Go Go, the first disco in  America-which just happened to be Quinn's homeland-would manifest  themselves remained to be seen.

She would have to rely on what she knew if she was going to anticipate  and avoid some of the problems, Magenta concluded. She would draw on  that knowledge now-and her first action would be to open all the windows  and let the smoke out.

Predictably everyone complained that it was too cold. 'Well, you can't smoke in here,' Magenta insisted. 'It's against the law.'                       
       
           



       

'Since when?' one of the younger guys asked, swinging his arm around her  waist to drag her close so she had no alternative but to inhale his  foul-smelling breath.

'And that is too,' she informed him, removing his searching hand from her tightly sculpted rear end.

'Ooh.' He turned to his friends to pull a mocking face. 'What got into your bed this morning, Miss Steele?'

'No one?' another man suggested, to raucous jeers.

'We all know what's wrong with you, ice maiden.'

'Cut it out!' Magenta said angrily. 'I'm not in the mood.'

'Apparently, you never are,' one of the men murmured to his colleagues in a stage whisper.

As if that were the cue for the main player to enter the scene, the  double doors at the far end of the office swung open and every head  swivelled in that direction. Some of the women even stood at their desks  as if royalty was about to enter the room. To say Magenta was stunned  by this reaction wouldn't even come close. 'What the … ?'

'Quinn,' Nancy told her tensely, hurrying away.

Magenta turned to say something to Nancy, but everyone including Nancy  had returned to work the second Quinn arrived. And Quinn didn't just  arrive-he strode across the floor like a conquering hero. To make  matters worse, all the women were giving him simpering glances when what  he needed, in Magenta's opinion, was a short, sharp, shock and someone  to stand up to him. Whatever dream state they were both trapped in, this  was getting out of hand.

But could this really be Quinn? Magenta's head was reeling. Quinn in the  sixties was none other than the gorgeous biker, in a jauntily angled  Trilby hat and a dark overcoat that, instead of making him look silly,  only succeeded in making him look like the master of the sexual  universe.

'Magenta,' he said curtly, shrugging the coat off his shoulder and handing it to her along with his hat.

He knew her?

'That's a better look for you,' he said, giving Magenta the most  intrusive inspection yet. 'I like to see a woman in a dress with some  shape to it.'

What?

'Keep it up,' he said approvingly. 'And remember, I expect the same high standards from my staff at all times-'

'Yes, sir,' she said smartly, playing along, which was all she could  do-other than acknowledge Quinn was a beyond the pale chauvinist-as well  as the best-looking man she had ever seen in her life. With his  tough-guy body clothed in a sharply tailored dark suit and impeccably  knotted tie, he looked amazing.

'I'll need you for a meeting later,' he said, as though they had been  working together for ever. There was not a shred of equality between  them, Magenta registered with a spear of concern.

'So no gossiping with the other girls in the kitchen when you're supposed to be making my coffee,' Quinn warned.

Would that be the coffee with the extra-strong laxative in it? Magenta wondered.

'And absolutely no lunch break for any of you girls. You'll have a lot  of work to get through by the time I finish the meeting I'm going into  now-understood?'

Actually, no, I'm a bit confused. Magenta thought Quinn had called a  meeting to discuss her position with the company going forward, but  perhaps that directive hadn't made it through to the sixties. She  decided to prompt him, if only to find out how much had travelled with  her in the dream. 'So, you're having another meeting first?'

'What are you talking about?' Quinn demanded impatiently.

'Another meeting before our meeting … ?'

Quinn had no worries about touching Magenta. Taking hold of her shoulder  in a firm grip, he steered her into an alcove out of sight of the rest  of the office. 'Not in front of everyone, Magenta … ' And then his eyes  warmed in a way that made her heart stop. 'Later, maybe-if I have the  time.'

Magenta's mouth formed a question, but she was so stunned by Quinn's  brazenly sexual behaviour her voice refused to function, and when she  did speak it was only to ask Quinn what he wanted her to do with his hat  and coat.