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Authors: Johanna Sinisalo
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something of the highest quality — which, of course, meant something expensive — it should be virtually indestructible.
As we filled in our room card, the waiter informed us that if we wanted to eat in the restaurant we’d have to order within the next twenty minutes.
We were back there in ten.
As we showered — to save time we showered together — and set a new world record for changing into fresh clothes, I was kicking myself because Punga Cove was so nice. Swimming pools, poolside bars, an obviously gourmet-standard restaurant, a room the size of a suite with its own door out on to a large private terrace shaded by a grove of palm trees and equipped with rattan furniture — all this and we only had one stupid night to enjoy it.
The issue of money came to mind again as I pulled my new, dizzyingly expensive, ultra-light but very warm Capilene shirt — which I had bought at Jyrki’s suggestion — over my damp skin.
I was in the PR business after all; I was well aware of the power that came with reputation and information.
In the end it hadn’t been all that difficult to get Antti-Pekka, the mid-level boss of the oil company, into a situation towards the end of a shared sauna evening in which he, after responding to my copious hints, went a bit too far with his chubby, greedy paws. I had been right in imagining that a drunken boss, thinking he was about to get lucky, would forget even the most elementary rules of caution. And it was no accident eithier that the changing-room we’d slunk away to was precisely the one in which Riitta had left her handbag, and I knew she couldn’t survive for more than fifteen minutes without it. And so I got an eyewitness, and one from whose perspective the incident was clear cut.
I sobbed and trembled and talked about attempted rape, but when Riitta suggested I should press charges I seamlessly began talking about sexual harassment and indicated in a roundabout way that, as a developing professional in the field, I knew all too well that this wouldn’t do the octane boys’ public image any favours whatsoever. However, harassment was such a serious crime against humanity in general — and women in particular — that it would be wrong, so wrong, to hush it up.
Erkki shouted, Riitta anxiously tried to be understanding, Antti-Pekka was justifiably ice-cold and sarcastic, and it didn’t take long for the oil sheikhs to dig ten thousands euros out of their bottomless pockets.
But at least I hadn’t had to cause Dad the disappointment of resigning from the job he’d done so much to set up. After this little incident, the oil company said it couldn’t foresee continued cooperation with our PR company and neither could the PR company with me.
For a moment I wondered whether I could have appealed against my dismissal, but that might have created too much of a situation.
I didn’t answer any of Dad’s telephone calls. I didn’t answer when the doorbell rang.
He must have heard. And perhaps now he realized I could get by, using all of my own finest assets, in the hard-edged world of business.
But once we got to the restaurant and I had ordered my first bottle of lemon-flavoured Monteith’s Radler, a lager that soon became the vin ordinaire of our New Zealand trip, lamb and roast vegetables with salad and parmesan risotto, I looked at Jyrki across the table (and, yes, at the end of the table there was a candle, and the panorama of fiords behind the window had turned a dark blue), and my heart melted like butter and sank down into my stomach.
Jyrki’s eyes were locked on mine.
He reached his large angular hand across the table and placed it over the back of mine, and I felt almost dizzy.
‘It’ll soon be time to hit the sack.’
The words said one thing and his eyes another.
The mixture of lust and endorphin-induced euphoria brimmed and bubbled inside me so much that my hand was quivering beneath his, and I sensed that he could sense it.
You
As we filled in our room card, the waiter informed us that if we wanted to eat in the restaurant we’d have to order within the next twenty minutes.
We were back there in ten.
As we showered — to save time we showered together — and set a new world record for changing into fresh clothes, I was kicking myself because Punga Cove was so nice. Swimming pools, poolside bars, an obviously gourmet-standard restaurant, a room the size of a suite with its own door out on to a large private terrace shaded by a grove of palm trees and equipped with rattan furniture — all this and we only had one stupid night to enjoy it.
The issue of money came to mind again as I pulled my new, dizzyingly expensive, ultra-light but very warm Capilene shirt — which I had bought at Jyrki’s suggestion — over my damp skin.
I was in the PR business after all; I was well aware of the power that came with reputation and information.
In the end it hadn’t been all that difficult to get Antti-Pekka, the mid-level boss of the oil company, into a situation towards the end of a shared sauna evening in which he, after responding to my copious hints, went a bit too far with his chubby, greedy paws. I had been right in imagining that a drunken boss, thinking he was about to get lucky, would forget even the most elementary rules of caution. And it was no accident eithier that the changing-room we’d slunk away to was precisely the one in which Riitta had left her handbag, and I knew she couldn’t survive for more than fifteen minutes without it. And so I got an eyewitness, and one from whose perspective the incident was clear cut.
I sobbed and trembled and talked about attempted rape, but when Riitta suggested I should press charges I seamlessly began talking about sexual harassment and indicated in a roundabout way that, as a developing professional in the field, I knew all too well that this wouldn’t do the octane boys’ public image any favours whatsoever. However, harassment was such a serious crime against humanity in general — and women in particular — that it would be wrong, so wrong, to hush it up.
Erkki shouted, Riitta anxiously tried to be understanding, Antti-Pekka was justifiably ice-cold and sarcastic, and it didn’t take long for the oil sheikhs to dig ten thousands euros out of their bottomless pockets.
But at least I hadn’t had to cause Dad the disappointment of resigning from the job he’d done so much to set up. After this little incident, the oil company said it couldn’t foresee continued cooperation with our PR company and neither could the PR company with me.
For a moment I wondered whether I could have appealed against my dismissal, but that might have created too much of a situation.
I didn’t answer any of Dad’s telephone calls. I didn’t answer when the doorbell rang.
He must have heard. And perhaps now he realized I could get by, using all of my own finest assets, in the hard-edged world of business.
But once we got to the restaurant and I had ordered my first bottle of lemon-flavoured Monteith’s Radler, a lager that soon became the vin ordinaire of our New Zealand trip, lamb and roast vegetables with salad and parmesan risotto, I looked at Jyrki across the table (and, yes, at the end of the table there was a candle, and the panorama of fiords behind the window had turned a dark blue), and my heart melted like butter and sank down into my stomach.
Jyrki’s eyes were locked on mine.
He reached his large angular hand across the table and placed it over the back of mine, and I felt almost dizzy.
‘It’ll soon be time to hit the sack.’
The words said one thing and his eyes another.
The mixture of lust and endorphin-induced euphoria brimmed and bubbled inside me so much that my hand was quivering beneath his, and I sensed that he could sense it.
You
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