CHAPTER 2

 

 

Talking about numbers made my head hurt. Literally. I had a massive headache but that didn’t give me a get-out-of-jail-free card. Not when it came to business stuff.

Jane, however, was in her element. She loved this stuff. “We don’t have any overheads so that leaves only variable costs. We have to cut those.”

Overheads? Variables? I wasn’t sure she was still speaking English.

I pretended to understand anyway. If nothing else, I was a superb actress. “So how do we cut them?”

Jane tapped her pencil on the desk as she thought about it. Her mind was brilliant, I knew she would come up with some answers.

So I waited.

And waited.

It would have been nice to have a solution to offer myself, but that wasn’t going to happen. I was great at making dinner for my family of five on only five dollars, but we weren’t talking macaroni and cheese here.

So I waited some more.

Finally, Jane’s face lit up with a stroke of an idea. I could almost see the light bulb appear over her head. “We need to buy our fabrics in bulk, that’s the only way. Our main expense is material and I brought it all straight from the sewing store. We need to get it from the warehouses instead.”

Shopping, that sounded doable. “Okay, so we get fabric from the warehouses. We can do a shopping run on the weekend.”

Jane shook her head. “It’s not that simple. Wholesale suppliers don’t just let anyone in. We’ll have to get Holly to set up an account.”

Holly was the official owner of our business. She had half of a business degree so we figured she would suffice. All she had to do was pretend to be the fashion designer and commit fashion fraud. Easy.

“So we’ll get Holly to set up an account.” I still wasn’t seeing the problem here.

“Have you ever been to Costco?” Jane asked. Talk about a random change of topic.

“Uh, yeah. Have you?” Jane at Costco? I would have paid money to see that.

“I’ve heard about it. But you know how when you go there you have to buy, like, fifty rolls of toilet paper to get the cheap price?” She waited patiently while I nodded. “It’s the same with a wholesaler. We have to buy a lot of fabric to shop there.”

“So we buy a lot of fabric.” My mind wandered to the fifty or so toilet paper rolls we had at home. It took a while to get through that much paper. If space was an issue, then Jane had a whole mansion to store the fabric. I still wasn’t seeing the big problem.

Jane took a deep breath, trying not to get frustrated with me. I knew that look well. “To buy a lot of fabric, we have to lay out a lot of money.”

Ahhhhh… there it was.

“We don’t have a lot of money,” I said, feeling like I had just solved some complicated calculus problem.

“Exactly. To buy the fabric, we’re going to have to put everything we have back into the business. If we don’t sell any more clothes, we’re going to go broke.”

“It’s a gamble.”

She nodded in agreement. “So do we take our money and run? Or do we roll the dice and take the risk?”

There was a third option, keep going with the expensive clothes and fabrics from the store. But that wasn’t really an option at all. We had a clear vision for Every Girl Inc and expensive clothes did not fit into that model.

In fact, there wasn’t really any other option. There was no backing out now. Not when I had tasted success and found it to be pretty darn tasty.

“Dices were made to be rolled,” I replied, my lips quirking up into a smile. I put my fist up, waiting for a bump.

Jane bumped me. “Then let’s roll.”

After that big decision, the rest was really easy. We hunted down the best wholesalers in the city and made a list for Holly to contact. Considering we were giving her a cut of all the sale proceeds, she had to do a little work for it.

By the end of the evening, the problem of pricing didn’t seem as huge as it did at the start. Just like all our other problems, we found a solution that would help us move forward.

We were kind of awesome like that.

I crawled into bed that night, certain I would dream of nothing but price tags and numbers. I honestly didn’t know how Jane did it.

There was nothing we could do about the new clothes until the following Saturday. Hope had done her tasks by then and got everything ready with the wholesalers. That just left us with some serious shopping.

Jane picked Holly and me up early on Saturday and we drove to the industrial part of the city. Out there, the buildings weren’t pretty, just large boxy type structures designed for function over façade.

And we were going shopping in the biggest one of all.

My eyes were like saucers as we parked the car in the lot. The building had to be as big as several football fields. It was busy too, trucks and commercial vans waited to be loaded with fabrics everywhere. I hoped Jane’s little Mazda would be able to cope with our haul.

“We should stick together inside,” Jane started, giving us a lecture before we even got out of the car. “I have a list of everything we need and we can’t get anything extra. Our budget is tight, so nothing not on the list. Got it?” She stared at me with that last comment.

What, like I would stray from an instruction?

Jane was getting to know me too well.

“I know. Got it,” I replied, trying not to take it personally. I wasn’t a list person. I wasn’t the kind to color inside the lines. But, for the business, I would definitely try.

We were allowed out of the vehicle and followed Jane inside. The moment we stepped through the doors, I understood her warning about sticking together. The place was packed. No, not just packed, it was like we were all vacuum packed in together.

No air. No room.

Lots of BO.

I actually gripped onto the back of Jane’s top so I didn’t lose her. A few minutes later, I felt Holly do the same to me. We wove through the massive crowd elephant style. Which was a pity because I really loved shopping and this wasn’t fun at all.

The bolts of material were huge, taller and rounder than all three of us put together. I had some serious doubts whether Jane’s car would be able to haul everything back to her place. We might need to leave Holly and come back for her later.

Jane stopped. I didn’t notice, running straight into her back. Holly did the same to me, letting out her breath in an ‘oomph’ right into my ear.

“This is beautiful,” Jane said, running her hands over a bolt of material. It was red and thick. Instantly, I could imagine it in a winter coat. Or a skirt. Or perhaps some pants.

“It’ll work,” I replied. “Let’s get it.”

Jane consulted her list, satisfied it met some predetermined criteria. She raised her hand to get the vendor’s attention.

A short man with a moustache and beard hurried over. His entire face was covered with a layer of sweat which he dabbed at with a handkerchief. “You like this one?”

“It’s okay. How much per yard?” Jane asked, keeping her voice neutral.

“Eight.”

“I’ll give you three and buy the whole bolt.”

How did she go from eight to three? Was she crazy? There was no way Mr. McSweaty was going to go for that. We were going to lose the fabric.

He eyed Jane carefully, his gaze travelling over every feature of her face. “Seven.”

“Four,” Jane shot right back.

“Six. And it’s my final offer.”

The hint of a smile crossed Jane’s lips. “Four-fifty. And that’s my final offer.”

We were going to miss out on the material. We were going to be elephant-walking around the gigantic building forever.

“You buy the whole thing?” Mr. McSweaty asked. What? He was actually considering it?

“The whole thing and we’ll pay in cash.”

“Deal.” He held out an equally sweaty hand which Jane didn’t hesitate to shake. I could already tell she was thinking of the hand sanitizer in her handbag.

“He’s actually giving it to us for that?” I asked while the man handwrote a receipt.

“Yep.”

“But that’s almost half-price.”

Jane looked exceedingly happy with herself. “It’s called negotiation. None of the prices in here are fixed. You have to haggle.”

Words escaped me. I always thought a price was a price. I wondered if negotiating would work at Walmart? Probably not. Costco? I don’t think so.

After that first purchase, Jane was on a roll. She bargained down all the prices, some so low I actually felt sorry for the vendors. It felt like we were robbing them, but Jane was on a high.

She even got them to carry everything to the car.

Thank goodness we had agreed to split our business profits equally. If I had to negotiate those terms, I would have ended up owing Jane money.

“Our list is done,” Jane declared, ticking off the last item. We had fabric, zippers, and buttons coming out of our ears. I had never seen that much stuff outside of a fabric store before.

The little Mazda groaned under the weight of all the fabric. I was squished into the back of it, having to hold my breath just to be able to fit. Holly sat in the front passenger’s seat, hugging a trash bag full of off-cuts we got for free (Jane talked one vendor into throwing them into the deal).

No matter how uncomfortable we were, Jane still drove her usual slow, careful speed. We returned to her place and her staff helped us carry everything up to her room. It looked like a massive pile of material when we put it all together.

“That’s a lot of clothes to make,” Holly said, doubtful.

Jane shrugged, unfazed. “We’ve got a lot of orders to fill and new designs to make.”

Holly patted her on the shoulder. “I’m glad it’s you and not me, girl.”