“I’m Laura Lynn Connors—I’m here on behalf of Cindy Roberts—and these are my colleagues.” She tosses a limp-fingered gesture in the direction in which Logan and I wait. “We have an eight-fifteen meeting with Mr. Cooper.”
The office receptionist looks straight out of a TV set, where stereotypes morph into caricatures of characters where everyone can say “I know someone like that” about. Janice Green, as the engraved brass plate on the top of her counter reads, is no exception to this un-scientific rule.
The tools of Janice’s trade—fingers to pick up the phone receiver with and lips to talk to those with whom she interacts—are both stained in cosmetics so deep a shade of red as to be usually seen on vehicles driven by emergency response personnel. Janice raps one shellacked nail on the countertop and the tapping sound it makes can be clearly heard where I’m standing, a good four or five feet away.
“Which Mr. Cooper?”
I can only see Laura Lynn in profile, but I notice a glaze fall across her face. She can’t remember our client’s first name.
“Yoooou knoooow,” she says knowingly and leans in. There’s a company phone list tacked to the wall and Laura Lynn strains toward it. Without warning, though, her high heel loses traction on the highly-polished marble floor beneath her. She loses her balance and pitches forward, her chest colliding squarely with the countertop of Janice’s reception desk.
“Kate, it’s good to see you.”
A red flush rivaling Janice’s choice in makeup colors immediately flares in circular splotches on the back of Laura Lynn’s neck. Most people would probably think that the blushing was brought on by Laura Lynn’s acrobatic move into the desk.
But if I know my Queen Chimp—and my research indicates that I do—I’d imagine that she was more mortified that Jack Cooper just greeted me first, and by name.
“Mr. Cooper,” I angle toward him and put out my hand. “It’s good to see you again.”
“Jack,” he says, smiling, and I notice his teeth look like they’ve been featured on Extreme Makeover: Tooth Edition. They’re perfectly straight and crisply white—not a hint of caffeine stain on nary a bicuspid nor an incisor. Seeing this vision of dental radiance triggers an immediate digression of my brain, and I remember that I’m four months overdue for my six-month cleaning. I reflexively slide my upper lip down to cover my front teeth.
“Please call me Jack,” he says again as he shakes my hand. “Hearing ‘Mr. Cooper’ makes me want to look over my shoulder and see if my dad is behind me.”
He smiles once more. My mind can’t keep on track, not while it’s trying valiantly to comprehend the tractor beam-hold that Jack’s smile suddenly has over me. Oh, goodness. Does he do this to all the partner consultants?
Are stomach butterflies billed hourly?
Focus, Kate. Jack Cooper is your key to getting some kudos communicated to Al on this project. Handle the next few weeks of working with him right, and you’ll be on your way to things you’ve only dreamed about. Like a career. And Tahiti.
The Queen Chimp places her hand on top of Jack’s—as he’s still shaking mine. We now look like little girls on an elementary school playground doing that game where you cover up each other’s hands in a tower-like fashion.
“J-a-a-a-ck.” Steel Magnolias has just burst into full bloom, right here in the Lone Star Consulting reception area. I’d suspected that Laura Lynn had a deep well of Southern belle within her, but this molasses-tinged tone of voice and Scarlett O’Hara lash-batting had to be seen—and heard—to be believed. It becomes instantly clear to me that for Laura Lynn, this is a battle. A battle for being in charge until Cindy arrived, yes, but most importantly, a battle for Jack Cooper’s intense gaze.
Laura Lynn stands in front of me, ready to do whatever it takes to maintain her supremacy in our little habitat. Cindy christened her the favored child in the office long ago, and the Queen Chimp will not surrender her alpha position without a fight.
As much as I think of her with little primate nicknames, I am truly foolish for having not taken her seriously before this moment.
As the three of us followed Jack back to the conference room—Laura Lynn in the lead, of course—I continued to mentally chastise myself for my naïveté these past few months. I switched careers from reporting to PR because I wanted a chance to be a career woman, to blaze new territory through the corporate jungle, if you will. One can be successful as a journalist, of course, but it’s as much skill as it is luck in finding the right story at the right time to get you recognized and catapulted to the next level. And in Austin, a town I love dearly and don’t ever want to leave, the only way I could make that leap was to uncover some big political intrigue down the street at the state capitol building.
So, I have always looked at coming to Brown & Company as a perfect opportunity. Here, I can achieve my career goals, and still be in touch with the softer side of the news cycle. And so far, I’ve enjoyed the challenge.
But at that moment out by Janice’s desk, I realized that it will take more than just hard work in order to be successful in my new role. As we walk through the door leading to the richly appointed conference room, it takes only a split-second to realize that I have to change how I’m going to play this game.
“Got it.” The response I’d intended to hold in my mind flowed out of my mouth as I exhaled the breath I didn’t even realize I’d been holding.
“What?” Laura Lynn looked right at me. “Are you talking to yourself, Kate? Good thing I’m giving the presentation.” The last sentence is a mutter, but it sounds crystal clear to me.
Ok, so that’s how it’s going to be. Bring it on, Primate Princess. Bring it on.
“Do you have a laptop?” Jack’s question brings me quickly back to the here-and-now. Cindy still hasn’t arrived, and Logan, Laura Lynn, and I do have a presentation to make to Jack and the rest of the team from Lone Star Consulting.
“Cindy is still on her way, and she is bringing the laptop with our presentation pre-loaded.” The Queen Chimp speaks, hovering close to Jack as she tries to demonstrate her leadership for now.
I can see Jack flipping his gaze down and looking at his watch.
“Um, Miss…”
“Connors. Laura Lynn Connors.” Laura Lynn dives into the pause in the conversation. “You may know my dad, Johnny Connors. He’s part-owner of the Rangers.”
Scratch that. Laura Lynn just belly-flopped into the conversation. If she could have been any less graceful with her name dropping, judges would have awarded her negative style points.
Jack looks at her, non-plussed. “The New York Rangers hockey team? Never did get into hockey. It seems like a Yankee sport to me. Guess I’m just a Texan through and through. I do try to make it up to Dallas for one or two Cowboys games a year. For baseball, I’m an Astros fan, and the company has season tickets to the Spurs down in San Antonio.”
If I didn’t know Laura Lynn better, I’d say the noise frothing from her lips sounds a lot like an awkward combination of choking and spitting. It is said that the chimpanzee’s identifying call is a “pant-hoot.” I think I am hearing my first corporate “pant-hoot,” designed to pull Laura Lynn back into the conversation.
Too bad for the young primate, then, that I instead choose this moment to speak up.
“I have my laptop here in my bag, and I’ve got the presentation on it.”
“Kate,” Laura Lynn said, s-l-o-w-i-n-g her pant-hooting down to measured tones. “That’s nice that you have your laptop, but we need to show Mr. Cooper the right presentation, the one Cindy compiled.”
Her steely gaze softens to sugar as she looks from me to the consultant.
The right presentation, the one Cindy compiled? I guess it’s not considered good business form to call it “The Slide Deck Kate Worked On Non-Stop For Two Days, Which Cindy Then Back Drafted As Her Own.” Cindy even put her name on the title slide—conveniently leaving off any reference to the other team members.
I know this
minor detail because I downloaded the most updated deck right before walking out the door this morning.
At that moment, the intercom speaker buzzes and Janice’s voice crackles into the room. “Mr. Cooper? Cindy Roberts just called and apologized, but she is not going to be able to make it today. She has a one-hundred-and-two-degree fever and you can just barely understand her when she speaks.”
“Okay, Janice. Thanks for the message. We’ll just carry on in here and I will call her later to recap.”
“I think we ought to just reschedule,” Laura Lynn breaks in. “Without Cindy and the presentation, I’m not sure that we will be able to demonstrate to you some of the out-of-the-box ideas that Cindy and I—oh, and the rest of the team—have put together,”
“Don’t worry, Laura Lynn,” I say with a practiced sweetness, belying the fact that I have heard every single one of her digs toward me this morning. “I linked to the share drive through the VPN this morning and downloaded the most recent copy, not 15 minutes before I arrived here for the meeting.”
“The v-pen?” She pronounces the acronym carefully. “That’s nice, Kate, but what does your little Toyota SUV have to do with our presentation?”
A laugh bubbles up, and in trying to suppress it, I manage to get it lodged in my nose. It even hurts a bit, wedged there beside the septum.
“Virtual Private Network. VPN. It’s a way to securely access a server from a remote location, like your home.” I pop the projector cable into the back of my silver-sleek Dell. I’m so glad I have this to focus on, because if I was looking at Laura Lynn, that trapped laugh would have escaped like a jailbird who decided to both pass ‘go’ and collect the two hundred dollars.
“Toyota’s small SUV is a RAV-4.” I pause. “Okay, it looks like we’re ready to go. Jack, do you want to call anyone else in?”
I finally have confidence in keeping my laugh bubble under control and can look up. Logan is biting his lower lip and slowly spinning his Starbucks cup in his hands, eyes fixed on the few swallows of coffee left.
Jack can’t look me in the eye, either. He shakes his head and clears his throat once, twice, and once again, before speaking. “Uh…Rich had a family emergency this morning, so it’s just me.”
And Laura Lynn is quickly blushing as crimson as a baboon’s behind. For once, the chimp species is silenced. I make a mental note to tell Jane Goodall, the next time we are together in one of those dream-contrived ballrooms in Geneva.
I press a couple of keys at the same time, linking the screen on my laptop through the projector to the screen just behind me.
But before I begin, I look at the Queen and just can’t resist throwing this one last dart at my more inexperienced co-worker with the bigger title.
“Oh, and for the record,” I lower my gaze and meet her eyes, smiling. “I drive a Camaro convertible, not a Toyota.”
The silence makes me think a little too much about what I’ve said. Did I go too far? Should I apologize to Laura Lynn? I hesitate before I click on the red-and-white icon to open the presentation. “Laura Lynn, Logan, Jack, I’m sorry, I…”
“Whatever, Kate. Just get on with it, since it looks like you’re taking over the presentation anyway.” The emphasis on “you’re” is unmistakable. It’s the kind of “you’re” which leaves “since you took my place” clearly unsaid. “You’re wasting Jack’s time,” she says, with emphasis on that word again.
It’s funny…we’re told from preschool that we need to apologize. But just because we need to do something, doesn’t mean things will go easily. I shouldn’t have made a joke at her expense, so the right thing to do was to try and make things right with Laura Lynn before moving on. But apologies are two-way streets, and Laura Lynn didn’t have to accept my words. And clearly, she didn’t.
I take a deep breath as I prepare to present. I think I can handle this.
I know I can handle this.
“Well, all right. Without further ado, Jack, we’d like to show you the strategies that the Brown & Company team has assembled to both partner with—and complement the efforts of—the Lone Star Consulting team, with regard to the Capital of Texas Zoo, scheduled to open here in Austin in early July.”
For emphasis, I give a glance to each of the other three in the room. Logan is scribbling something on a crisp, white legal pad. Laura Lynn is giving a Krypton-worthy stare through the top of the Texas pink granite conference table. She’s palpably refusing to look at me or participate in the presentation.
And then there’s Jack. His gaze is trained on the screen behind me, but as I focus on him, I notice his eyes flick hummingbird-fast to my face, then back to the screen again. His eyes are blue; I’ve noticed them before. But as he studies the words on the slides, I see those eyes take on an intensity that darkens them significantly. There is a quality in color which reminds me of midnight and the deepness of a still lake in them.
He is a businessman born, and he is in his element in this boardroom.
I am a relatively newly-single, relatively newly-minted Assistant Account Executive, and I am fantasizing about the eyes of a business partner as I speak on building credibility and cultivating stakeholder interest.
Handling the presentation is one thing. Handling my observations is another.
I am so in over my head.
As impromptu as I felt giving the speech, when I wrap up, I decide the presentation went well. Jack asked several questions, as I figured he would, then the four of us made some tweaks and changes to the plan. Even Laura Lynn let her surliness slip, in order to seem useful again to Jack.
The people of Austin know the zoo is coming; it has been under construction for about a year now. But because there is a privately-owned small zoo located just outside of town that also functions as an animal sanctuary, the backers of the Capital of Texas Zoo have chosen to keep the project largely quiet. Now, though, with a little over a month to go until the opening, it’s time for the “get to know the zoo” campaign to begin in earnest.
This is where our team comes in. Lone Star Consulting has been involved in all the big picture ideas since the beginning, but they are deferring to outside communicators at this crucial, more detail-oriented stage in order to properly bring the message to the masses, if you will.
We’ve chosen a pretty flexible theme for the campaign and called it “Zoo Who?”
I initially thought of the idea because the rhyming sound made it catchy and easy to remember. Also, I felt it embodied a lot of flexibility, allowing us to adapt the slogan as we individually introduced the different elements and groups who made up the zoo.
“The idea of the layered campaign is something I like, Kate,” says Jack, as we begin to wrap up. “We’ll first focus on the five groups of animals with the highest degrees of recognition—the gorillas and other primates, the elephants, the giraffes, the lions and other cats, and the penguin house. I think that will get people interested because we haven’t previously had access to those animals in this area. People have had to drive for hours outside of Austin to see these types of animals for themselves.”
I nod my head in agreement. “Right. And in addition to the traditional routes of print, TV, and some radio, we’re going to bring “Zoo Who?” out to the summer day camps and schools in the area, plus universities and the large shopping centers around the area. I also really like Laura Lynn’s idea of including the children’s hospital.”
It was a good idea. Since I still feel a little guilty about the earlier incident, I intentionally want to bring up Laura Lynn’s name in a positive light.
This, of course, is not something I learned by example from my own boss. Is there such a thing as learning by dis-example? It sounds like something Pavlov probably could have studied, but without all the drool.
I look over at Laura Lynn as I finish talking and happen to notice Logan. A few hairs in his dark blond mop-like cut are bobbing, which I think is a sign that Logan is (however imperceptibly) nodding in support of the Queen Chimp. Laura
Lynn, of course, doesn’t notice.
It quietly occurs to me that crushes do spring up in the strangest places. But in a way, it makes sense. Here we have the preppy young man who strikes me as the unassuming beta chimp, looking out from afar for the brash pack leader. And, after all, the old adage does say that “opposites attract.” But in this case, it doesn’t seem to matter too much. The nod of his head shows that for him, shy Logan’s interest is at a level rivaling a sign installed on the Vegas strip. Unfortunately for him, though, Laura Lynn isn’t even looking his way.
Jack pushes his chair back from the table in a deliberate manner. Since he’s now part of the team, I guess he gets his own primate moniker. But he’s not just any primate, chattering and swinging through the day like my office chimps. He’s more like a stately silverback gorilla signaling to his band that the hunt—I mean, meeting—is over. Usually, silverback gorillas are the elder statesmen in their groups. Jack certainly isn’t old, but he does carry himself with unquestionable maturity and statesmanship.
Everything about him seems to speak in a wordless business shorthand. He doesn’t have to utter a syllable for the rest of us to know exactly what he means.
Case in point, the other two meeting attendees instantly follow Jack’s lead, standing up and folding shut their notebooks.
“One more thing, before all of you go,” Jack says. “Since Rich and Cindy didn’t get to join us today, and our summer intern, Nicole, starts tomorrow and will be working on this team, I think it’s a good idea if we find some time soon to all get together. I’d like to see us mesh as a team. We’re under some tight deadlines here, and it’s important to the success of this project that we all click.”
“Oh!” The girlish, breathless squeak pops out of Laura Lynn. “Like a social? Jack, I was the rush chair for my sorority at UT. Socials are such a great idea.”
“I was thinking dinner actually, Laura Lynn. Not anything with a theme and printed T-shirts.”
The Queen’s lower lip pushes out into a decidedly primate-like pout.
Gorilla Dating Page 3