Learning Curves: A Novel of Sex, Suits, and Secret Affairs

Caught in the middle of the bitter feud between her divorced parents, who run rival management consultant firms, Jennifer Bell agrees to go undercover to investigate corruption rumors by joining the Bell Consulting MBA program, only to find herself dealing with realities of the corporate world and falling for guest lecturer Daniel Peterson. Reprint.

Chapter 1

Jen looked up at the large, gray building in front of her and tried to convince herself that she was doing the right thing.

Somehow it had seemed easier when it was just a matter of telling her mother she’d do the MBA. She’d had visions of herself spying on board meetings, eavesdropping on conversations as she walked down long corridors, compiling a dossier of information and bringing the perpetrators and their heinous crimes to justice. In her mind she’d been the heroine of her own little film in which she (pretty much single-handedly) saved the world and got a thank-you letter from the Queen. Even Angel’s protestations that she had finally lost the plot completely hadn’t deterred her. In many ways, they’d made her feel more of a rebel, made the whole idea more appealing.

And then she’d got the application form. She’d had to write essays, sit tests, and be interviewed by men in gray suits whom she’d had to convince that a career in business management was everything she’d ever dreamed of and more. But now she was actually about to walk right into the Bell Consulting offices and go to her first lecture. Somehow in her daydreams she’d missed out the bit where she actually had to do an MBA.

It can’t be that hard, she told herself. Just boring. Like being back in a physics lesson at school. Or a Durkheim lecture at university. Jen had taken sociology for a term, thinking that she’d get an insight into people’s motivations, thinking that she’d unlock the key to human happiness, but instead she’d spent weeks learning why people commit suicide less often in wartime. Apparently it had gotten more interesting later on; those who stuck with the course kept telling her how great it was. But Jen couldn’t wait that long; she’d switched to philosophy and never looked back. Well, not until she’d had to endure lectures on Hegel, but by then it was too late to switch again.

Anyway, she reminded herself, the point was that she just had to get into a role. Everyone here would think she was a perfectly normal MBA student; all she had to do was to go along with it. Pretend she found it interesting. She shuddered. She’d read the brochure cover to cover, and they were going to be learning about things like “business process reengineering” and “managing the bottom line.” It was too hideous to even bear.

Still, at least she was doing something worthwhile. The truth was that she’d been kind of wondering where her life was going recently. She had started to feel just a little that she was just killing time at a desk at Green Futures and had even started wondering whether she’d been right to split up with Gavin. It was as if she wasn’t entirely sure if her place in the world was the one back in London, wasn’t entirely sure who she was anymore. where her life was going.

She’d thought it would be different, somehow, working for Green Futures. When the firm had started up, her mother had been huge, talked about by everyone. Hers was the first consultancy firm to talk about corporate social responsibility, to suggest that businesses couldn’t just go around doing what the hell they wanted just to make bigger and bigger profits. When Jen had been at school and university, everyone thought she had the coolest mum and she’d thought so too. She’d been really proud, which had been quite nice really bearing in mind that her father was a total bastard who advised companies to do the absolute opposite, focusing on profits alone and not giving a shit about anything so inconsequential as people or global warming.

And the media had loved it, too. Harriet had worked at Bell Consulting before launching out on her own, after all. Her split from George Bell, and subsequent launch of her own rival firm, filled column inches for weeks. Back then Harriet had appeared regularly on the front covers of Newsweek, The Economist, and Time. She was big news and she loved it.

But actually, Jen had discovered that Green Futures was just like any other office. Lots of desks and people sitting at them, furiously tapping away at computers and talking about their children/pets/hobbies over the (organic) coffee machine. Maybe it used to be a revolutionary firm once upon a time, but now it all seemed a bit . . . tired. And in truth, they didn’t have anywhere near as many clients now as they used to have. Other firms had gotten in on the environmental act, and her mother didn’t seem to realize that she wasn’t the big name she used to be. In many ways it was a bit of a relief to be out of there.

Out of the frying pan and into the fire, Jen thought ruefully as she looked up again at the building in front of her. Bell Towers, built to intimidate and impress all those who crossed its threshold. Somehow she’d never seen herself working for either of her parents, and now it seemed she was going to end up working for both of them. But not for long, she told herself. This is the means to an end only.

Forcing a smile onto her face, Jen walked through the doors, and before she knew it, she was standing in the reception area, signing in.



“You in the MBA program?”

Jen looked up at the earnest-looking guy standing next to her in the lift.

“You’re going to the seventh floor,” he explained quickly. “I don’t think there are any offices on that floor—just, you know, lecture halls.”

She studied his face for a moment. Slightly chubby, face a bit rosy, glasses slightly steamed up. Your typical MBA student if ever there was one. He was appraising her too, she noticed, his eyebrows rising as he took in her jeans and Ugg boots. She’d meant to buy some smart clothes, had really and truly intended to dress the part, but she just hadn’t gotten round to it yet. And anyway, it had said in the information packet that dress was “smart casual.” She figured that fulfilling one of those descriptors was sufficient for now.

“Yes, I am,” she said dismissively, then remembered that she was meant to be a typical MBA student too.

“Me too!” he said unnecessarily. He was carrying four textbooks and a binder stuffed full of notes and labeled very clearly bell mba program, alan hinchliffe. “My name’s Alan, pleased to meet you. So have you done any of the

pre-reading? I started on Strategy in Motion but I’d covered most of it already in my business studies diploma, so I focused more on Strategic Business Management—this one . . .” He pointed to the larger of the four textbooks, and Jen looked at them incredulously, then checked herself. I am an MBA student, she repeated in her head. I must pretend to be interested in this crap.

“I . . . uh . . . you know, dipped in and out of them,” she said carefully, hoping that Alan wouldn’t ask her about any of them. “I’m Jen, by the way. Jennifer Bellman.” She cringed as she said it, but choosing a new name wasn’t as easy as it sounded. She’d left it until she filled in the application form and had spent a good half an hour looking around her flat for inspiration—Jennifer Television, Jennifer Lamp, Jennifer Wall. And then she’d turned to the telephone directory and tried some names in there, but she was terrified that she might choose one and then forget it. So in the end, she’d gone for Bellman, the...