by Ani Katz
The executives took their seats. I studied their faces, the details of their posture and dress, but they were already familiar to me. There was Nina Boyd, AiOn’s VP of marketing and communications, and a select team of her managers: Elias Shapiro, Michael Ricci, and Lakshmi Kumar. I always conducted background research on my clients, mining their social media presence to find out their hometowns, alma maters, and favorite sports teams so that I could connect with them on a more personal level. Nina had played Division I rugby at Wesleyan and was a big Democratic donor; Elias spent his summers on Fire Island and was a die-hard Mets fan. Michael kept in close contact with his family on the Ligurian coast, and Lakshmi had just renovated a brownstone in Carroll Gardens, where she lived with her partner and two-year-old daughter. This kind of information would come in handy as I built rapport. I was great at pitching, always charming and sharp. I knew exactly what to say to make people laugh, how to generate chemistry, how to win the clients’ trust and affection.
Small talk slowly petered out. Greg signaled me with a nod, and I strode to the head of the conference table, my face arranged in a genial grin. After making eye contact with each executive in turn, I let my gaze settle in the empty space just above their foreheads and took a breath.
What does it mean to be connected?
I allowed the question to hang in the air for a moment, inviting my audience to engage, stirring their emotions.
Being connected can mean many things. It means talking to family on the other side of the world, sharing baby photos over thousands of miles. It means being able to access the score of the baseball game, the weather report, or the latest political news. It means always being able to reach your child, your parent, or your spouse. And it means they can reach you too.
I paused, letting my words take hold as I gathered myself.
People around the world connect with AiOn, I said. They trust AiOn. The brand is already universally recognized for its design, quality, and reliability. But how can we go further? How can we capitalize on that sense of familiarity to project a socially conscious message and show what it means to live and be connected now?
I could tell by the way they sat forward in their seats that they were eating it up, hanging on every word. Even Greg’s normally enigmatic poker face seemed buoyant.
In today’s world, connection is more important than ever, I went on. In the face of division, it binds us more tightly. In the face of danger, it makes us feel safe. We want to show what AiOn can do to help ordinary people like you and me navigate these times of uncertainty.
I waited a beat and made eye contact with everyone once more, going around the room and holding each person’s expectant gaze, reeling them in.
Because you don’t just make phones, I said finally. You make talismans for today.
I took out the projector remote and nodded to Abigail. The room went dark, and I pressed play.
The ad begins with a blurry constellation of rainbow lights. Music swells, guitars and drums and vaguely choral vocals. Focus on a pretty girl dancing at a concert, ecstatic bodies bouncing around her. Next we see two teenagers walking along a windswept pier under a heavy gray sky, their heads lowered as white waves surge around them. Then we’re moving through a collage of painted signs and mouths opened in shouts, a boy with a megaphone leading a march on a bright wintry day. Each scene evokes the intimate immediacy of found footage, a distinctly human hand behind each frame, gorgeous yet somehow ominous as we cut from one story to the next and back again.
Then comes the turn, the sudden explosion into chaos.
The dancing girl ducks as the pucker of gunfire echoes through the crowd. The teens run for shelter as the hurricane bears down, fighting their way through the squall. The march dissolves into a maelstrom of fists and truncheons, a battle breaking out on the street. For a moment our young heroes are lost in the turmoil, swallowed by the storm of events.
But then, when we’ve almost lost hope, we find them. The dancing girl sits on a curb, wrapped in the crinkled silver cape of a disaster blanket. The teens are safe in their house, huddled together around a lantern. The boy from the march is walking away from the scrum, trying to catch his breath as he retreats down the block. We see the unmistakable tablet of the AiOn smartphone appear like a magic amulet in each of their hands.
Elsewhere, anxious parents grip their own phones, watching the news unfold in high definition on their crystal screens. They are suspended in desperation, their hearts in their throats.
Then, one by one, the calls begin to come through, the faces of their missing loved ones suddenly filling each screen. We see each of our heroes once more, their AiOns pressed to their cheeks.
Mom?
Mom?
Dad?
Cut to black, and a clear voice rings out in the sudden silence:
I’m okay.
The AiOn logo appears, that familiar stylized infinity sign like a beacon in the night. No slogan necessary.
The lights came up. Everyone blinked in the sudden brightness, squinting like newborn animals. I nodded to Abigail and Carly, and they handed out our handsome, high-gloss storyboards.
As you can see, it’s a very moving story that will resonate with a broad range of consumers, I said, making a slow circuit around the room. It’s socially conscious and politically engaged, but it feels refreshingly cinematic. There’s tremendous digital potential for a variety of platforms, and we can even make different versions of the spot to suit different markets. It’s the kind of ad that’s made to go viral.
Suddenly I realized something was very wrong. The AiOn executives were barely looking at the boards, passing them down the table with little more than a cursory glance. I stopped in the middle of a sentence.
I’m sorry, I said. I meant to ask if anyone has any questions.
Their smiles had curdled into winces. Nina Boyd looked to Elias, something unspoken yet obvious passing between them. He cleared his throat and sat forward in his chair.
It’s a very powerful vision, he said. But I’m afraid it may be too dark for AiOn.
We love to tell compelling stories with our advertisements, but generally we’re known for nostalgia and uplift, Nina added. Those qualities have always been an essential part of AiOn branding strategy.
The others joined in, finishing each other’s thoughts in mindless, lockstep chorus.
It’s clear that this concept is in tune with current events—
But we wouldn’t want to appear exploitative.
Or give the impression that we’re using fear to sell our product.
Look, I said. I get it. It’s a bold, new idea. I know it’s dark. I know it’s risky. But this is what the moment calls for. We live in dark, risky times. Shouldn’t we acknowledge the reality people are facing today? If we want to stand out, we need to be as radical as reality itself.
Lakshmi was frowning, her face torqued by skepticism.
Didn’t Lenin say that?
Say what?
That we need to be as radical as reality.
Maybe he did, I answered curtly. I don’t know.
There was a strained silence.
I’m not sure if that’s a message that will resonate with our board, Nina said finally. Communist revolutionary theory tends to be a hard sell in the corporate world.
Awkward laughter shuddered through the room. I felt my face grow hot. Everything was spinning out of control, spiraling into a humiliating tempest that I was powerless to stop, all because of these rubes, these cowards. Greg was trying to get my attention, but I wouldn’t look at him. I could handle this.
Are you just going to play it safe and do what corporate wants? Is that what the AiOn brand is really about? Falling in line? Horrible things are happening in the world every day because too many people are just following orders and trying to play it safe. Is that the message AiOn wants to send? T
hat life is just puppies and babies? That it’s okay to be a coward and sleepwalk through the world, and that everything will be okay as long as you can play with your little gadget?
Greg sighed and shook his head. Abigail and Carly hugged the wall, shrinking into themselves. The executives just stared. No one spoke, but they didn’t need to. Their faces told me everything I needed to know.
I think you’ll look back on this as a mistake, I said. I think you’ll wish you’d been brave enough to go through with this.
Someone sucked in a breath. I didn’t bother to see who it was.
The executives left as quickly as they could, Greg following in their wake as they hustled out of the conference room. I turned to the girls, who still stood staring at me, open-mouthed and ashen.
What? I snapped. What is it?
Carly sighed and rolled her eyes, then began to pack up her things. But Abigail held her ground, regarding me with her arms crossed over her soft breasts, the hint of a snarl playing at her lips.
What?
We told you it was too dark.
Oh, fuck off.
I found Greg in his office. He looked up sharply as I came in, his face dark with displeasure.
What the fuck was that? he hissed.
That was exactly the pitch I proposed to you! I protested. You said it sounded terrific.
Fuck the goddamn pitch, Tom! What were you thinking going on that fucking rant like that?
They needed to be convinced.
And you were going to do that how? By calling them cowards? Insulting their product? Quoting fucking Lenin?
I was just being passionate. You’ve always told me I need to fight for my ideas.
But I’ve also told you that you need to know when to let things go! You looked like a fool, and you made me look like a fool.
It was a great ad! I said. They were just too chickenshit to see it.
Greg shook his head, exasperated.
I should have been more involved, he muttered, as if speaking to himself. This was too important to leave to chance.
You didn’t leave it to chance, I said. You left it to me. You knew you could trust me.
And clearly that was a mistake.
His anger had made him irrational, histrionic. He wasn’t himself.
You don’t mean that, I said. You can’t—
We’ll talk on Monday, Greg said coldly, turning away from me to look out at his view, to attend to his corner of the sky, his sweep of the teeming city below.
But Greg—
Just go.
* * *
—
I can’t remember leaving the office that evening, or many details of the drive home. I vaguely recall the sudden dusk, the usual stop-and-go gridlock in Midtown, the crowds of bristling, bundled pedestrians waiting and then flowing through the crosswalks. I remember the long tube of the tunnel, the array of billboards looming over me on the other side of the river, the green GO at the tollbooth. The slow procession of lights on the expressway, a broken stripe of white heading west and a broken stripe of red heading east, vessels streaking through the darkness of the island.
And I remember listening to a special segment on the radio: a series of different recordings of E Lucevan le Stelle (And the Stars Shone), the heart-stopping aria from the final act of Puccini’s Tosca, each clear-toned tenor offering his own interpretation of the condemned political prisoner Cavaradossi’s wrenching farewell to his life and love. Soon, I began to see the aria’s repetition as a perverse reprieve from the firing squad, a never-ending prelude to execution. The last sobs were drained from our hero again and again, when he already had nothing left to give:
I die in desperation, and never was life so dear to me!
The year before, I’d taken Ava to the new production of Tosca at the Met. I’d been eager to see the company’s return to form after the ghastly Luc Bondy version’s austere sets and gratuitous fellatio. Miriam had fretted that all the torture and murder might be a bit too intense for Ava, but I knew she was mature enough to handle a work of art. It couldn’t be any worse than what she saw on TV.
And yet, in the final moments of the opera—when Cavaradossi lay lifeless and his lover Tosca threw herself from the parapet, when the curtain came down and the audience erupted in a thundering ovation—my daughter had looked up at me as if I’d hit her, her eyes bright with angry tears, demanding I answer for what she’d just seen.
Why are they all clapping? Everyone died!
After that, I knew that Rigoletto would be out of the question. If she couldn’t handle the execution of political prisoners, there was no way she’d be able to stomach the tragic twist of Verdi’s dark masterpiece—a father losing his only daughter to assassins he himself had hired to avenge them both.
Then again, these recollections are probably borrowed from other evenings, other drives home. I can’t be sure which memories really belong to that day, which memories I’ve invented and massaged to fill in the gaps.
Somehow, I made it to the Hutch campus. The visitors’ lot was already full, and parked cars lined the winding drive, a long row of shiny carapaces gleaming coldly in the night. Stragglers ran giddily over the snow-covered ball fields, the air thickening with their white breath as they hurried toward the neoclassical villa of the theater building. I hurried too, shivering.
By the time I climbed the theater’s broad marble steps and pushed my way through its castle-gate double doors, the auditorium was dark, dense with murmurs, the play about to begin. It would be impossible to find my wife, impossible to sit beside her. I settled myself into a creaking seat in the back row, still wearing my coat.
The crowd applauded in a brief, rising shriek, and then the curtain parted to reveal a cold and cheerless office, a window with a wintry city view painted into the backdrop. Faint strains of Christmas music could be heard, coming from somewhere off-stage. A homely and bespectacled girl hunched over a writing desk, her long hair shellacked with steel, her thin face set in a scowl.
Why couldn’t I have been Scrooge? Ava had sobbed after the casting list went up. Olivia’s not even Jewish!
Scrooge isn’t Jewish either, I’d said.
But our teacher said he might be!
Really?
She said it depends on your interpretation.
Well, you’re only half Jewish, I said. And you’re too pretty to be Scrooge.
Now the greedy moneylender faced down her clerk, an anxious wisp of a child armored in artfully threadbare tweed, small hands in fingerless gloves.
You’ll want all day tomorrow, I suppose?
If it’s quite convenient, sir.
It’s not convenient, and it’s not fair.
But Christmas is only once a year!
Sitting there, I felt sick all over again, feverish with anger and shame. I started at the sudden commotion onstage, a hidden door in the darkness bursting open to reveal a pudgy, wild-haired girl in a tattered waistcoat, her skin and clothes pale with chalk. She lunged around the stage, dragging her boa of aluminum foil chains, wailing inconsolably.
I am here tonight to warn you, that you have yet a chance and hope! A chance and hope to escape my fate!
The ghost began to chase after Scrooge, the two barely holding back giggles as they capered madly around the room, until finally the miser leapt into bed and burrowed under the covers, howling, a bit too gleefully, for mercy.
I thought of my wife, my dear and gentle wife. My sweet Miri. I recoiled at the thought of everything she’d had to suffer these past few weeks—everything we’d had to suffer—and all for nothing. I hadn’t even texted her to tell her about the failure of the presentation. It was much too shameful to admit defeat after all I’d been through, after how hard I’d tried.
I had to do better. I had to try harder.
I thought of all the things I c
ould say to her, how I could win her back. I would tell her that she was the love of my life, the absolute most wonderful person I’d ever met. I’d tell her that I still couldn’t believe I got to wake up next to her every day—this gorgeous woman, this goddess. I would tell her that she was my one and only, my small darling, my bright spark in the darkness. And I’d promise to get better. To be better.
Onstage there was a blinding flash, and suddenly there stood beside the miser’s bed a girl in a long white robe, a glowing tiara of lights and holly crowning her dark hair. She gazed solemnly at the quaking figure before her, eyes blazing with secret knowledge, too absorbed in her role to allow even the subtlest cheat to the audience to show them that she was just a human girl and not some avenging angel.
My daughter.
Are you the spirit whose coming was foretold to me?
I am!
Who, and what are you?
I am the Ghost of Christmas Past!
Long past?
No, my daughter intoned. Your past!
Tears sprang to my eyes. I watched transfixed as my daughter the ghost led her charge through the forgotten rooms of his past so he could see the shades of his former selves: the sad child at boarding school rescued by his favorite sister, the youth at a raucous Christmas Eve dance, the callow man dashing his beloved’s naive hopes.
It was only a play, of course. Only little girls in too much makeup and homemade costumes, some more convincing than others as they moved awkwardly or fluidly around the stage, shouting out and sometimes stumbling over their lines, exaggerating their joy and grief so they could be more easily seen and understood.
It was only a play. But it was the ghost of Evie that I saw onstage, as if I were watching one of her pageants. And when we came to the happy family gathered around their holiday hearth, the smiling faces of the wife and children whom the miserable man was meant to treasure as his own, I began to weep openly.