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ansgar-martinsson · 4 years

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The Best Intentions - Part 4

“Well,” Ansgar set his pint down and folded his hands deliberately upon the table. “My business philosophy has always been one of going above and beyond the least. The least isn’t good enough, you see. Even, sometimes, my best isn’t…,” his hesitation was involuntary, but he recovered, tipping his chin beneath a haughty, prideful expression, “my best isn’t good enough… in my estimation.”

He shrugged, reaching for his pint and once again bringing it to his lips. “So, Joline Lindberg,” he took a sip of his beer and licked his lips, “what I am saying – what I am proposing, is that I… that Martinsson Construction, that is, provides you… the Stockholm Opera House, that is… with funding, some amount that you and I agree upon to meet some need for the gala. Whatever need isn’t met yet, whether it be the catering, or something structural, or transport, or security, or music, or, whatever it is where you see a need,” he set his glass back down again, punctuating his point, “I will provide it - not only the money but the manpower, the assitance.”

“So,” he said, his grin broad and honest. “What do you say to that sort of thing? Not an obligation, then, but a…,” he squinted in momentary thought, “a partnership?”

And with that, he held out his hand to her.

“A partnership,” she whispered reverently. The offer was more than she ever hoped to gain by borrowing her mother’s car and burgled shoes. It represented more than she sought to gain from meetings with Wiessing. “That’s a triumph for Career Jo!”

To a symphony of clinking glasse, scraping silverware and chatting people, Joline noticed a gentle breeze wafted her hand into his. Heartily she gripped and shook, “I’d love that really.”

His handshake was powerful, and his hand hot, strong and oddly tender. A silent force, but active reserve in play. He could use them to handle delicate china or deliver untold devastation.

“So this gala of yours, when is it? How can I help?” Ansgar Martinsson inquired after their hands lingered slight longer than custom.

Jo sat back beaming at the win for the Opera House. “Uh, same night as our season debut, the seventh of September. In the lobby. My staff has most everything sorted, being that it’s only a few weeks from now.”

Ansgar produced his mobile from the hidden breast pocket of his blazer. Swiping those long graceful fingers over the display, he entered some personal notes. “Please got on. I’m listening.” His direction sounded curt and clipped, but his tone was soft, sure and non-threatening.

Jo admired his directness, his business sense and his ability to multitask. He asked appropriate questions as Jo rattled off many of the details that she recalled from memory. The caterer had been scheduled, the staff to serve drinks, musicians hired, security increased and a photographer hired.

Ansgar gestured for the waiter to refill their drinks while he continued to make notes or sent succinct messages to Britta.

“I do have an idea – well, several to be fair – for the gala,” Jo finally circled round. “And beyond actually. I wanted to hold an auction, silent or grand – I’m still thinking it through. Fund raising for future projects in and around the Opera House.”

He’d put down his mobile to dedicate all of his attention to her plan. His legs stretched out underneath the table, one ankle crossed over the other. He watched as she got more excited.

“That’s where I need you,” she met his direct gaze. “Your contacts, your posh friends and business associates and their deep pockets. Come to the gala and bid up past costumes or set pieces or props. I’d like to restore and re-imagine that little theatre in the west wing, for intimate concerts and workshops for the university. The Globe did it years ago, and it works as another revenue stream all year round. But I need funding to do that. I’ll also need you to estimate the cost of that… a goal for such an auction.”

Ansgar nodded. “I’ll start making some contacts this afternoon, get some calls going,” he said. He knew, though, with those posh friends and business associates, those contacts weren’t as strong as they’d been before he… before he left. Some of those contacts he hadn’t even reconnected with since he’d been back, others had left him some rather negative emails and voice mails after reading the news of his return.

Where the hell have you been?

Why didn’t you tell me you were back?

How fucking irresponsible can you be?

Screw you, Martinsson. I thought you were dead.

Sorry, Sgar. I’ve got a new joint venture with….

We’ve moved on. Moved on. Moved on.

He smiled, bunching up his napkin and resting it on the side of his plate. “Shall we go? I can drive you back to my office. I believe your car is still there.”

“Yeah,” she said. “My car’s still at your office.”

The woman had dreams, big ones, and she reminded him of himself. She was tenacious, ambitious, and that ambition was attractive. He found himself smiling as she talked in the car, as he listened - as she spoke of funding sources and writing grants and relationship building and plans plans and more plans.

“And when I was in America, I worked for a major university, in their theatre department. I ran the fine arts center, and spent most of my time revamping the talent schedule, getting the stage equipment updated, and… hey, have you ever been to America?”

Ansgar pulled his car into its parking spot, shoved it into gear, and turned off the ignition. “Yeah,” was all he said, his voice curt and clipped. “I’ve been.” He unfolded himself from the car and walked around the back. He opened her door and offered her his hand.

She placed her hand in his and stood. Ansgar felt a strange chill go through him, as if he was being scanned - she’d looked up at him, her eyes narrowing with a cock of her head. She studied him for a split second that seemed an eternity. “You okay? You seem a little bit off just now.”

Ansgar swallowed, giving his head a small shake. “Yes, I’m fine,” he said. Lowering his head, he gestured widely with his left hand. “This way. Your car is in the car park upstairs.”

“Thank you for lunch,” she commented towards the taller man’s back, his loafers clicking on the smooth concrete. The mention of America triggered him, in a small way, deflated him. He tried to hide it by leading the way to the car park. “By the way…” Her feet skipped a step to meet his stride and walk beside him. “It was unexpected, productive… thank you for that!”

“You are quite welcome. It was a pleasure.” Another bland automatic response, his thoughts elsewhere.

Jo didn’t take offense, only kept a steady gait with him. “Next business meal’s on me.”

He side-eyed her to check for truth or for an extra limb or appendage. Usually, back in his other life, when women learned who Ansgar was and what he was worth, the question of payment landed on him. All the time.

The sun beamed down on them then as they stepped out from the private carport overhang to the guest lot. No third arm or extra nose on the woman… no airs, no attitudes; she just was. He wondered if she handled his moody like she did her talent.

He found a smile, a weak and surprised one, underneath the mountain of memories. “We’ll see about that,” he responded noncommittally.

“May I ask you something? It’s a bit rhetorical, a lot personal, and entirely none of my business.” The two stopped at the door of the mini, the smell of Linnea, petrol and damp wafting off the river. “This is me,” she announced with an off-hand gesture.

Ansgar surveyed the car shortly, then the woman, and then the car once more. One eyebrow cocked up in disbelief. “This is not you.”

Jo cracked a smile. “Borrowed me. My ride…” she shrugged, searching for the right phrase, “uh, not appropriate for the skirt.”

“Ah!”

Tucking her hair behind her ears, Jo turned fully to her companion as they stood in the summer sun as it pressed down into them. She glanced at her feet, digging her hands deep into the rear pockets of her jeans.

Ansgar dared, as he always would regardless the woman, a trailing stare down her body. While she contemplated her shoes against the pavement, he drank in her long legs, firm thighs, and curve of her breasts, accentuated by the strain of black cotton. He yanked his focus from her just as she looked up again.

“I was gonna say… gonna ask,” she clicked her tongue against her teeth, losing some of her nerve. She’d be disappointed in herself if she didn’t speak her mind. “You said that you’d been away,” she squinted in curiosity, “Are you happy being home? Are you happy here?”

His nostrils flared. His lips pressed together into a tight straight line. The entitlement… the brazen…

Her hands flew up to beg mercy. “It’s none of my damn business. Don’t answer. Only food for thought… rhetorical, ‘member?” Another shrug lifted her shoulder, this one offered up in apology. “Thank you again for lunch… and your attention. Truly.” She produced her business card from her back pocket and slipped it into the pocket of his blazer.

“Ring me, won’t you? When you schedule work in the theatre? I’ll be there to help, yeah?” She didn’t let his silence get to her. “I’d fancy a lesson so I know what to look for… in the future.”

Jo felt that she’d shocked him enough for their first meeting. She voted against a friendly gesture of a kiss on each cheek. He seemed so in need of something nice, something pleasant, but she perhaps wasn’t the right person to extend that. Not yet.

She folded herself into the car, waving out the oppressive heat. “Until next time, Herr Martinsson.”

“Until next time, Froken Lindberg,” he said, giving her a polite bow of the head. He set his hand on the car frame, but it was she who closed it, leaning over and pulling the door closed with a tinny thunk. He lifted the same hand in a gesture of farewell as she started the small car, put it into gear, looked over her shoulder and backed it out, shifting again to drive away.

He lowered his hand as he watched after her for a moment. “No, if you must know,” he murmured. “I’m not happy being home. I’m not happy here. I’m not happy anywhere. Not yet at least.”

And he turned on his heel and strode back into his building.

***

Later, in the early evening, after he’d spent hours on the phone (angrily and heatedly lecturing… threatening… his sprinkler subcontractor, warning his surety agent, seeking counsel from his construction solicitor, chewing out his mechanical engineer, and instructing his public relations manager with regard to the gala) and another few hours bent over Opera House plans and specs, he sat back, yawned, and stretched. “Oh, fuck,” he moaned. “Fuck this all to hell.”

He hadn’t anticipated spending the entire day on the Opera House. He hadn’t anticipated coming back to face a shit-storm like he was facing, both physically with the coordination of work, or on a public relations level. What would it do for the press to learn that Martinsson Construction’s flagship project for the past three and a half years had sprung massive leaks? What would it do indeed?

It would do a massive pile of fuck all, that’s what it’d do.

Or perhaps, he thought he had anticipated it. He’d trusted his staff – or perhaps, when he left all that time ago, he hadn’t even given it any thought as to whether he could trust anyone who would carry on the business in his absence. He simply didn’t care, not then. There were other things to care about. Or not.

Perhaps he should have cared.

He’d left no note, no word, no nothing to the Board, only a quick email from a new, nondescript and untraceable Gmail account to his solicitors, telling them that he was taking leave from his position as CEO for the foreseeable future, that they should put the temporary succession plan in place, and that he would advise upon his return.

What else could he have expected?

And from Joline Lindberg? What more should I expect?

He shook his head, taken aback by the thought of her that slithered its way into his tired mind. The image of her, her anticipatory grin, those curves tightly wrapped in that pair of jeans, that blacker than black shirt showing off every bit of her, of her on that motorcycle she talked about, and… Damn it!

He scrubbed at his face, coursing his hands down to stretch his skin, his mouth gaping open as his fingers pulled down on the edge of his jaw to curve around and pull at the tight, aching flesh of his neck.

… and then he closed his eyes, and the thought of her invaded again. He found his fingers splayed, pressing lower, down his chest, over his stomach to his groin and…

Fuck! No! No fucking way!

He shook his hand violently. “She’s a client, you arse,” he muttered, sneering in self-disgust. “Dickhead.” He woke up his computer, and opened his emails. Something to do, something to get his mind off of…

FROM: [email protected]

Ansgar sighed, chuckled mirthlessly to himself, and opened the email.

Jo slumped further into her computer chair, one foot tucked under her and the other poised on the lip. She bobbed her head, her chin brushing her knee. She chewed absently on the end of her pen, reading over her email… again. The screensaver popped up and littered her document with digital air-borne balloons, bouncing this way and that. A sign from some almighty spirit to save her from, in fact, confirming her brand of crazy for the man that she spent most of her afternoon.

Her mouth spluttered around her pen as she tried to call out to her mother. “Mamma?” she spat, her tongue falling out of her mouth momentarily. She threw the oral fixation aside and tried again, “Mamma?” She called blindly through the house from the comfort of her office, which was little more than a closet. She kept her desk, chair, laptop and a poster of The Globe in London on her wall. To this day, her favorite gig she’d ever done, and it was only a fortnight workshop.

“Joly, I’m… fine.”

“Are ya? Really? Can I get something for ya?” She untangled her limbs and padded along the champagne colored rug.

“No, no… Joly, I’m fine.”

Jo followed the sound of her mother’s voice to her room at the opposite of end of the hallway. She found the woman in her favorite chair near the window, knitting another scarf or booties or mittens for her grandsons that the eight year olds had outgrown about four years ago. “Did you take your meds, mamma?”

“You didn’t need to come in here. I heard yer mouth.”

Choosing to ignore the snark, Jo bent and kissed her mother’s forehead. She did it every night, not only as an ‘I love you’ but also to check her temperature subtly. Her mother hated the fuss, and Jo adapted her behavior to it. “Did you take your meds?”

“Yeah, yeah… I have. What are you working on in there?” Emelie jerked her head towards the door, her fingers working like magic, over and under, cross and weaving, gracing the yarn in a spell.

“Proving to my… partner… that I am as mad as he believes me to be.”

“Brilliant pastime, my dear.”

Jo checked over her mother’s levels and notes from earlier in the day before her treatments. She said nothing, only noted it to herself. She felt just a pang of guilt for not having gone with her to hospital that day.

“Joly, come away from there. I’m fine.” Her needles clicked and danced, progressing along whatever project it was.

“I’m going with you for the next—“

“Joly, torturing your… partner with your neurosis is time better spent than bothering over me.”

“Neuroses if you please, mamma.”

With that, Jo exited her mother’s room and headed back to her office to reconsider sending that email once more. She dropped into her chair just as she had before, swiping her middle finger over the touchpad to rouse it and chase away the balloons.

She read:

TO: [email protected] 20:33pm 1 attachment

Herr Martinsson,

Please forgive the unexpected email AND the Stanley person who gave me your email. Not to worry, I don’t believe it was his true identity and you’ll be pleased to know that he didn’t give it up without a fight. Your employees do respect your privacy to the utmost.

I had some additional thoughts regarding the Opera House because I needed the distraction more than anything else. I sat down at my computer and wrote a formal proposal, see attached. I assumed that you would like some sort of project proposal and a contract between us. An understanding, if you will.

If you’d like to email me back, I’d appreciate knowing if you’re available, if you’re open to more ravings of a lunatic…

Or you can tell me to bugger off in your colorful way. I await your response.

Yours,

Joline Lindberg

And then she foolishly hit send.

#the best intentions

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