by Ali Parker
He seemed troubled like there was seriously something on his mind. I couldn’t imagine being responsible for taking care of an entire company and assumed I might look like that too. I didn’t like Elon. He was young, rude, and arrogant, but he was my boss, and there was no way around that. I needed this job, more than anything else, and I knew if I wanted to keep it, I better start getting myself together and act like it. It wasn’t going to be easy biting my tongue, and I didn’t plan on doing so the whole time, but I had to at least try not to flip off the handle at everything he said or did. I had to assume that somewhere along the way, he would have a good idea, and unless I took my stubborn mind and locked it away, I would never see that side. Maybe I was just upset, or maybe he really did piss me off that much, but either way, I was going to have to learn to live with it.
After a few moments, I cleared my throat and watched as he slowly turned around. He smiled at me and sighed. I could tell he hadn’t even seen me sitting there.
“I’m sorry,” he said. “My mind was lost in the clouds. Please, have a seat.”
“Thank you,” I said seriously. “What can I do for you?”
“This company needs a push,” he said. “That’s why I worked so hard to pull in the Cartier client. They have money, influence, and most importantly, they’re a huge company. I know you’ve been with the company for several years, having moved into this position two years ago. Do you like what you do?”
“Of course,” I said. “I’ve done a lot of work to get that department into tip-top shape. My predecessor was excellent but behind in the times, and that was what I had told you and the board my goal was when you gave me the promotion.”
I could tell he had no idea what I was talking about. I remembered him from that day, the day I interviewed for the promotion. He had been flighty, looking off into the distance, not really paying attention to my interview. It was no surprise to me that he didn’t remember.
“Right,” he said, closing what I assumed was my file. “And I would say you’ve done an excellent job.”
“Thank you,” I said.
“I want to know what your thoughts are for this project,” he said. “What ideas instantly pop into your mind.”
“Well, normally, I would have a ton of ideas,” I sighed. “But usually I know more about the project than just the client’s name.”
“Oh,” he said. “I didn’t realize you hadn’t received a copy of the file yet. Hold on one second.”
I sat there as he got up and walked out of the office, handing a thick file to his secretary and then watching her run off to the copier down the hall. This guy hadn’t even made me a copy yet, much really cared what my ideas were. I was trying to keep my temper under control, not wanting to be thrown under the bus when he completely screwed this thing up. All I could do at that point was my best, read the file, and come up with whatever ideas I could muster. I turned my head and watched out the window, the sky bright blue and the clouds drifting by. I didn’t know how he got anything done in that office. I would just sit and daydream all the time. But maybe that was why he was getting involved. Maybe he had wearied of dreaming and something had lit a fire under him. Hopefully, it wouldn’t last that long.
“Here you go,” he said, drawing my attention back to the file he was holding out for me. “That has all the information you’ll need to understand the client and the project.”
“Thank you,” I replied.
“You and I need to go over it before we meet with everyone else,” he said.
“But that’s tomorrow,” I replied. “You want to be ready by the end of today?”
“Of course,” he replied. “Is that a problem?”
“I suppose not,” I said sternly.
“Good,” he said, sitting on the edge of the desk. “Look, I know this is your field, this is your department, but I need you to open up a bit. We’re going to have to work together on this project, and I can’t have you working against me. I need to know I can trust you.”
“I have always been trustworthy,” I replied. “I know you don’t know me or any of the others, but we are the department that makes it happen.”
“I know,” he said. “I’m aware of that, and I do appreciate you guys. Now, it’s time for all of us to work as a team.”
“Right,” I said looking down at the file. “Well, I guess I better get on this.”
“How long do you think it will take to read through all of that?”
“Well, if you can forward me the financials the company sent over and give me about an hour, I guess we can start discussing it then,” I replied. “I’ll put the other projects that aren’t time sensitive to the side or hand some over to the staff, so I can get through all of this.”
“Good,” he replied. “I appreciate it, and I will send those files right over to you.”
“Thank you,” I said, standing up and walking to the door.
“And Amanda?” he said.
“Yes,” I replied, turning toward him.
“Thank you. I think between the two of us, this project will be amazing,” he said.
“With all due respect, sir, it takes a team, every single person out there, not just the two of us,” I replied. “But we’re always used to knocking it out of the park.”
I turned before he could say anything back and walked out of his office. I clutched the file close to my chest, feeling slightly nervous about the way I’d talked to him. I walked into my office and closed the door, sitting down behind my desk and looking down at the thick file. I started to skim through the first couple of pages and realized that this was an elite client, and we were looking at half the amount of time we normally had to put out a project of that magnitude. I sighed and looked over out my tiny office window, no longer able to see the bright blue sky.
I had taken on massive projects in the past, but never under these kinds of time restraints and never with the owner of the company breathing down my neck. This was going to take a lot of work, that was for sure. It might just be the hardest project I had worked on in years. I had to figure out how to juggle that and Elon Truitt at the same time. This was definitely going to be interesting.
Chapter 7
Elon
I stared down at the papers on the desk, wondering what I had gotten myself into. I hadn’t been involved in the creative side of things for a very long time. In fact, it had been years since I was hands-on with a project. I thought that was the reason I hired other people to work in that department, but apparently, in order to be respected and trusted, I needed to show the board I was more than capable of being part of all aspects of the process, not just the upper management portion of things. I enjoyed the creative part, or at least I used to, but it was difficult to focus when I knew my future at Truitt Marketing was on the line. It made the task daunting and kind of overwhelming.
“Mr. Truitt,” my secretary said over the speaker.
“Yes?”
“Your brother, Tyler, is on line one,” she said.
“All right,” I replied. “Thank you.”
I sighed, not really wanting to talk to anyone. I loved my brother, and he was always a good friend to me, but he lived in a completely different world. He was a model, and a pretty famous one at that, and his responsibilities were limited to looking good and posing for pictures. Either way, it had been a while since I’d talked to him.
“Hey, brother,” I said, faking a happy voice.
“Hey, buddy,” he said. “How are you? It feels like it’s been forever.”
“I was just thinking that.” I chuckled. “How are you?”
“I’m really good,” he said. “Work is picking up for the new summer lines, my schedule is completely booked with my agent, and I’m just living the life. How about you?”
“I’m good,” I lied. “I’m just working hard. Got a big project going on right now, so things are a little hectic around the office.”
“Hopefully, not too hectic,” he said. “I have a shoot wi
th a company in Chicago this weekend. I was hoping you and I could get together and have dinner and maybe some beers or something. You know, catch up on life and act like brothers for a little while.”
“Ha.” I laughed. “We only seem to do that during holidays. I guess it wouldn’t be too out of the question to do that at other points too.”
“Agreed,” he said. “Besides, I barely know what’s going on with you anymore. We need to get you hitched up and give our parents some grandchildren before they start looking to me for that nonsense.”
“Uh, I’m putting that one on you.” I laughed. “I’m good right where I am, focusing on work and the girl of the minute. Women are only interested in my money. We’ve had this discussion many times.”
“Yeah, but there has to be someone out there who’s not worried about your bank account,” he said.
“If there is, she’s in hiding or already hitched.” I laughed. “As much as I’m enjoying this conversation about my pathetic love life, I do have a ton of stuff to get to today. What night do you want to have dinner?”
“How about Saturday at seven?” he said. “I’ll make reservations somewhere and text it to you.”
“Sounds good,” I said. “And it was really good to hear from you.”
“You, too, man,” he said. “I’ll see you Saturday.”
I hung up the phone and sat thinking about the last time I’d seen my brother, Tyler. He was always so well put together like he’d walked off a runway and into real life. He always had a lot to say, but it was mostly about him, and he never really cared about what I had to say, even if he was asking the question. He was one of those people who thought about what he was going to say next instead of actually listening to the answer. I was starting to regret the fact that I had agreed to go to lunch with him.
There was something about his life that made mine look so sad and pathetic. You would think that would be hard to do, considering I had a multimillion-dollar company, the perfect penthouse, the bachelorhood men dreamed of, and friends in very high places, but he was capable of making that look small compared to his life. Sometimes, it was hard to believe he lived in such a glamorous world, but then I would see him on television or in the tabloids and remember he lived in a whole other world than I did. I shook the thought out of my head and looked down at the file on my desk. I would just have to deal with that as it happened, but in the meantime, I had a project that I seriously needed to focus on. There was a really tight deadline for it, though I wasn’t entirely sure what a normal deadline was like for the ads department. It didn’t really matter, because everything was agreed on, and it either happened, or I went down with the ship.
I pulled out my pencil and started to jot some ideas down, hoping I was on the right track. I had shopped at Cartier for years for gifts for people, so I knew what kind of luxury experience their clients were expecting to see when they walked through the door. That was what I thought we should portray in the ads as well, make the clients feel important, focused on, before they even put the paper down and walked into the building. Their level of client service sold people more than the jewelry did, and I knew the CEO was looking for that in the ads as well.
I worked on my ideas quietly for about forty minutes, really starting to get into the groove again. It felt good, familiar almost, being there working on things from the ground up. It was almost like the old days, but this time, I actually had a team of people behind me. I looked up as Amanda came back into my office, reading the file as she sat down. She had a pad of paper on top, and she was jotting down a couple of things.
“So, what do you think? Your creative juices flowing?”
“I have a question,” she said. “Are these dates something you put up?”
“Those were by the client’s request,” I said. “Is there a problem?”
“No, it’s just half the time we usually have to put together something of this magnitude,” she said. “It will be a push on this.”
“Well, the client was going to go with another company if we couldn’t agree to their deadlines,” I said. “If the other company can do it, so can we.”
“The other company can do it because they work off of computer-built templates and catchy words,” she said. “Not grassroots creativity like Truitt Marketing is known for.”
“Well, we’ll have to make it work,” I said. “Everything is in stone at this point.”
“All right,” she sighed.
“Tell me what some of your initial ideas were,” I said.
“Well, Cartier is known for their luxury, their million-dollar items, and the way they cater to the rich and famous,” she said. “Immediately, I thought about how someone like me could never afford something from Cartier. I went to their website and looked around at their smaller items, their financing options, and other things. It seems that if I had disposable income, it actually wouldn’t be that crazy of an idea for someone like me, a regular person, to own a Cartier piece. With that being said, I think we should gear this project to middle-of-the-road customers, the kind of people who buy these magazines and watch television, who aren’t made of money. The regular Jills like me looking to pamper myself or the regular Joes wanting to do something special for their lady.”
“I don’t know,” I said. “Cartier doesn’t care about the regular Joe. I think in order to make them happy, the ads need to be focused on the people they cater to when you walk in their store, the people with deep pockets looking for the kind of customer service Cartier is known to give.”
“So, sell more bling to the people who already have ten pieces,” she said, shaking her head.
“It only makes sense,” I said, shrugging.
“Maybe to someone with deep pockets,” she replied. “Maybe for a man like you who can afford the specialty pieces. In order for you to reach a wider audience, you have to move down a level and see it from the average consumer’s sight.”
“We are a luxury marketing firm,” I said, leaning forward. “Obviously, we don’t focus on everyday consumers.”
“Let me ask you something,” she said, putting the file on my desk. “Why, if you already had your mind made up, did you ask my opinion? Were you looking for someone to be a dick to in order to make yourself seem smarter? Take a look at the ads we’ve been putting out for years now. They are luxury items being made available to regular Janes like myself, not just to the high and mighty. If you’re going to work on the marketing floor, you have to open your eyes up.”
“I have my eyes wide open,” I said. “I’m aware that your perspective would come from a different place than mine, but that doesn’t mean you’re right. Maybe if we had taken the route I’m talking about with the other clients, we would have more clients to work with right now. We want to up their revenue long-term, not just for the moment. The regular consumer will scoff at the idea of buying a Cartier watch.”
“I wear a Cartier watch,” she said, holding up her wrist. “A gift from my everyday best friend, who happens to work in this office for both you and me.”
“I’m sorry,” I said. “But this isn’t personal, and you’re taking it that way.”
“I’m not taking anything out of context,” she said. “I am just reminding you there are more of us than there are of you.”
I stared at her, not even sure what to say. I had offended her, I could see it, and that was not my intention. She was a tough woman, and just like me, she had her opinion on things. For this ad, though, it needed to be perfect, and we couldn’t take any chances.
“I’m going to go work on other projects,” she said, standing up and walking toward the door. “If you need me, I’ll be in my office, doing every day normal things.”
She walked out of the office, closing the door hard behind her. Normally, I would be livid if someone acted like that toward me, especially someone who worked for me, but for some reason, I couldn’t be angry with her. Maybe she was right. Maybe my mind wasn’t open to other possibilities with this project. Eit
her way, it needed to be done, and sitting there arguing with each other was only drawing the process out. It was obvious I was going to have to start the preliminary ideas on my own. I had to be ready for the meeting the next day because we needed to get going on this project before too much time slipped by.
However, as I sat there, trying to get my ideas hashed out, I couldn’t help but think about Amanda and what she’d said. The last thing I needed was a distraction. I had always gone with my gut, and my gut on this project was luxury. Hopefully, after some time, and seeing my ideas hashed out, Amanda would get back on board with everything.
Chapter 8
Amanda
To say that I was angry would be an understatement. I felt like I was being toyed with. My ideas had always worked, and they were what had made the clients we did have into repeat clients. To think he could just walk in and use his very warped mindset of the economic standing of consumers, disregarding the everyday person, was beyond my comprehension. If he wanted my opinion, then he should’ve actually taken what I was saying into account, should’ve thought about it, researched it, instead of just blowing it off like I was nothing more than some uneducated person on the street. I had to get out of there to clear my mind and keep myself from completely quitting. Elon Truitt was so exasperating, and thinking about spending the next however long, working side by side with him made me sick to my stomach. Handsome or not, he was incredibly arrogant, and arrogance was not sexy at all.
I walked out of Elon’s office, not waiting for a rebuttal. I closed the door hard, trying to get the point across that I was not in the mood for his bullshit. Maybe it was over the top, but at that moment, I didn’t care. I stomped back to my office and grabbed my purse, closing the door and starting down the hallway. Before I could get out, Dalton grabbed me from his doorway and pulled me into his office.