I got my research department immediately on the case. My Chief Information Officer, Bertram, conducted a thorough Google search that netted over 500 images of Mark with a host of rock and roll stars, captains of industry, and political figures, which included the obvious you would expect: Bono, Elton, and Madonna. He had even started a foundation company called Rock and Roll Feels, which was meant to be a clever tease, but begged the question, what exactly does rock and roll feel—happy, sad, angry? Despite his rock and roll pedigree, his look belied the image he wanted to project. At first glance, he looked more like someone who worked at the Geek Squad at Best Buy, maybe even the manager; he had the years of experience to pull off that responsibility. Mark was a cross between the Count from Sesame Street and Jeff Goldblum, just a few degrees off good looking. But those few degrees can make all the difference. No amount of designer clothing and personal training sessions would ever make this man good-looking.
When we first met, he came at Daniel and I so strongly that we both recoiled at his presence. He had a lumbering gait and a shocked look on his face as if always in a state of being taken by surprise. I suspected this might have been the result of a bad eyebrow waxing. I tried not to focus too much on his unattractive looks, but more on his attractive wallet, which had the potential to save us all. In that regard, he was the man of my dreams.
“This guy is made of money,” said Bertram, succinctly summoning up the man.
At 35, Feist had sold a data retrieval system to Sony for $5 billion. It was a tiny but essential technology that would change the way people used touch screens. It was likely these two companies were the only ones advanced enough to understand the full impact of this microscopic breakthrough. This research would enable upgrade-happy people to scroll even faster on their tablets and iPads. And God forbid we lose a nanosecond when searching for important information on our Facebook pages. How privileged we have become, so totally reliant on ultra-fast convenience to help us through our day. The sad part was that once this was introduced, we would likely not be able to live without it, at least until the next iteration came along.
“Oh, look, here’s a picture of him with Naomi Campbell. He must like it crazy,” Bertram editorialized.
Mark’s assistant called back to give me a special set of instructions. He lunched at Nobu at noon, in his usual corner booth. “You can discuss your business there. And please, no PowerPoint presentations, he hates those.” (I did, too, by the way.) She went on to explain his philosophy on work; he would just prefer to have a casual meeting where people talked and made eye contact rather than getting into the formality of a business plan or anything crude, say, like talking about money. He hated talking about money. He must have thought that I was an insider, based on our elite backstage status. I was no insider, but he didn’t need to know that. I agreed to the lunch at Nobu, refusing to let my lack of money get in the way of my great idea. I had no clue how I would pay the bill. But I would worry about that later.
“He and Naomi officially called it quits, so this could be your opening,” Bertram joked, still fixated on the love lives of the rich and famous.
“So, if I make him think this is a date, maybe he’ll pay?” I offered weakly.
“Be prepared to pay for this in one way or another. The rich are different, they don’t even carry wallets,” he shared, as if he were telling me about an odd species found in the Himalayas rather than a fellow human being. And as if to emphasize further, he made his finger into quotation marks and said, “Different.”
I was the first to arrive at the restaurant and was ushered back to Mark’s signature corner booth by the hostess, who had the look of an Amazonian warrior, clad in a Vivienne Westwood dress.
“Geraldine told me you were coming,” she said. “She always calls ahead when Mark has a guest at his table.” She emphasized the word “guest” as if to give it some special significance. She then gave me a cursory look up and down, as though sizing me up for some future purpose, and told me to “wait here, for his arrival.” She pointed to the corner seat, left a menu, and turned quickly to return to her station.
I scanned the menu and, much to my astonishment, there were no prices listed. This was even worse than I had expected. My three credit cards were maxed out, so I planned to skip food entirely and use my debit card, hoping that my unemployment check would hit my account in time to pay the bill. I was cutting it close. If the bill exceeded $112 or if the unemployment check was late, I had no way to pay.
When Mark arrived, 30 minutes later, the Amazon-like hostess was all smiles and warmth as she escorted him arm-in-arm to the table. He winked at the two women at a nearby table, who had dropped their chopsticks long enough to wonder and whisper who “that man” was. He received such four-star treatment, they just naturally assumed he must be a somebody. I overheard one of them say, “That’s not Jeff Goldblum, is it? He looks so much shorter in person.” Mark had perfected the self-congratulatory strut of someone famous. He scanned the restaurant over his aviator Ray-Bans, in an effort to get more people looking at him. But all the other patrons seemed engaged in their own personal dramas, not his. He would have to settle for the two tackily attired housewives from Long Island with orange press-on nails and an overt mixture of designer knock-offs that they had no doubt picked off the Loehmann’s clearance rack. They were his groupies, which seemed to be fitting, since his appearance was more accountant than rock star.
I stood up to formally introduce myself. Instead of shaking my hand, he gave me a kiss on both cheeks and then again, three times in total, French-style. He then stepped back and formally bowed, as if to fit in with his Asian surroundings. I, in turn, bowed as well, which caused him to bow again. I hesitated and tried to bow again and then he bowed again. What? A little dizzy and tired from all that kissing and bowing, I finally just gave up and clumsily plopped down in the banquette. Whatever happened to a simple handshake?
His grand and foreign greeting was as much for the effect of those around us as serving any meaningful exchange between us. It was weird, but I sensed that he thought it was cool and necessary to cement his image, making me think this was a spiritual meeting of the minds. His entire body language and demeanor was all “we are just here to hang, baby,” as if he were Sting and not a short Jewish man originally from Islip, Long Island, which Bertram later discovered on Gawker.
He slid into the booth and sat next to me, instead of opting to sit across the banquette at the chair provided for normal conversation to take place. I always wondered about those people who sit on the same side of a dining table instead of across from their companion, but my wonderment was cut short because I had just become one of those people. And as I’d suspected, it felt decidedly odd.
Before he ordered, he was presented with green tea and two cups. “This is organic and the best in the city, you have to try it,” he explained and poured. People like Mark Feist are always looking for things to deem the “best in the city.”
“Bono drinks this,” he added.
“Of course he does,” I agreed, half sarcastically.
I thought about how I would be identified on the bottom of the TV screen when people are interviewed and a few choice words are used to define each person, such as, “Linda, wife of the accused gunman.” Or, “Trina, the last ousted Bachelorette.” Mine would read, “Jessie, the destitute publicist, unable to pay the restaurant bill.”
Okay, tea, that should not be too expensive, maybe $10, I tallied the bill so far in my head, calculating that I was left with just over $100 until unemployment came through.
Thinking that less would be consumed over a short meal, I decided to cut right to the chase. “Thank you so much for meeting me, Mr. Feist. I wanted to talk with you about…” But before I could get any further, he was distracted. He was fixated on something and asked, “Turquoise or lapis?” He moved closer, if that was possible, and I thought he must be looking at something over my
head or behind me, so I began a veritable “I Spy” of items above, around and behind me. Then he motioned at my necklace and flicked the charm with his pinkie finger, a move I felt was slightly invasive and an intrusion of my personal space.
“You know,” he said informatively, “Jim Morrison always wore lapis, not turquoise, that’s a huge misconception about him.”
I wondered if this misconception was really the most important thing to note about Jim Morrison. After seeing that Oliver Stone movie, I thought that Jim’s problems went far deeper than his selection of jewelry.
“Is that Kendra Scott?” he asked. So, he was still focused on my jewelry. “I had her make me a belt buckle, just like Jim’s.” And he slid back an inch in his seat so he could lift his paunchy belly off his waistband to reveal a silver-buckled cowboy belt. I tilted my head and awaited an explanation.
“Oh, man, I don’t have that one on today, my bad,” he apologized.
He let out what would be the first of several loud guffaws. It was the kind of laugh that everyone hears and everyone wonders about. I mean, who laughs that hard in public? I had a great sense of humor—with my family I needed one—but I never laughed like that, in public or really any place, for that matter. I tried to turn us away from that laugh and back to the common quieter ground of jewelry design.
“Um, I don’t think it is Kendra Scott,” I blurted, uncomfortably, “I think it’s H&M.”
“Oh yeah, H&M, I’ve heard of them, they do nice stuff, nice stuff.” He sipped his tea and repeated his last statement as if in meditation. As he sipped, my text alert came on; a techno rap beat that had come with my phone and which I had never bothered to change.
“I made that.” He said in recognition and guffawed again. Could this one have been even louder? Once he calmed down long enough, he continued in a strained voice, “I made that text ring. For Jay-Z.” But he did not say “Jayzee” like everyone else does, he said “Jazy,” like lazy, which led me to believe that he could have possibly been talking about someone else entirely. People with affectations do this a lot too; they mispronounce the obvious pronunciations, as if their life is on such a higher plane of living that they have no time to wallow in the everyday trivia, like learning people’s names. I apologized and put the phone on mute.
“No need to apologize, people need to reach others, it’s the great paradox of our connected society.” This non-observation was followed by a small guffaw, for which I was grateful. This lunch felt like it had its own laugh track.
I noticed that the message was from Citibank alerting me that I had insufficient funds in my checking account. That unemployment check would need to clear and soon. No doubt this technology was more of the kind of stuff that Mark’s former company, InfoBase, had perfected. There is such a thing as too much information, for sure.
The waitress came over and made a big deal of seeing “Mr. Mark.” When you go to lunch in the same place every day, this is the kind of service you are bound to receive. This was his personal Cheers bar, where everyone knew his name. He placed his usual high maintenance order.
“Two Hamachi rolls, with no Hamachi.” Mr. Mark didn’t do fish, which begged the question of why he ate at Nobu at all, if all he planned to do was order cucumber and rice. The obvious answer was to see and be seen by the equally high maintenance patrons who regularly ate there.
“Oh, and how about that awesome green salad, but no dressing and some edamame without salt and not cooked?” I could only imagine what I would be paying for all this naked produce. At my local Korean deli, this order would probably have totaled $3 to $4, max.
“We can share, right, Jenn?” he said. Somewhere in the Nobu kitchen I knew was an angry sushi chef flipping Mark the bird. And I might have actually done the same, because I thought he had called me Jenn. Carrying on, nevertheless, I pep talked myself back to the reason I had asked him to lunch. At that point, I was willing to have him call me anything, as long as he could write a check to save the bar.
“It’s Jessica,” I gently corrected him.
“That’s what I said,” he answered.
“So, Mr. Feist,” I continued, but he put his finger on my lip, to quiet me, which worked, because at that point I had no idea what else to say during this conversation. I felt like I was in the middle of a Fellini film and I had no idea what the subtitles meant.
“Let’s take a gratitude moment for this meal we are about to enjoy.” He closed his eyes, put his hands together in prayer and kissed his small sushi plate. I wondered if I was supposed to follow his lead and cringed in expectation of what the other patrons might make of my display. But with a slick whip of his napkin, he covered his thigh and my thigh, and then leaned in.
“What were you saying, baby?” he asked. Now all of this would have been charming if Mark didn’t look like someone who used to get beat up in high school. At that moment, I wanted to kick his ass myself. While he was crafting his entire new age Jim Morrison persona, I was watching my chances of landing the capital I needed to save the bar dwindle away. I had real business to take care of and he was not taking me seriously. If this is how business is done, I resolved, then I would beat him at his own crazy head game.
“That wasn’t the first time you met Bruce, right? I got the distinct impression that you and he were longtime friends.” I flattered him with proper hero worship.
“Oh, yeah, we go way back,” he beamed with fake modesty.
“I thought so, that’s why he told me to contact you about a little project that has Mark Feist written all over it.” I billboarded his name with my hands.
“Bruce said that?”
“Oh, yeah, he said that, and more. He said if you want a cool guy to help save the day, you need Mark Feist.” Again, I used my hand gesture to add a special touch. I could see from the flattered look on his face that I had him right where I wanted him. It was all going so well, when through the front door I saw a familiar face enter the restaurant. It was Dr. Ursula. She did not see me at first; so quick-thinking me dropped my napkin on the floor before diving directly under the table, to hide from her as she made her way through the dining room.
When I leaned down under the table, Mark thought he was getting a bit more than lunch.
“Take it easy baby, we just met,” he half-joked and then looked around to see if anyone else had noticed. I had lost count of his laughs at this point, but he had worked himself up into a healthy new one by the time Dr. Ursula made her angry promenade over to us. Damn, I hadn’t ducked under the table in enough time for her not to notice me.
In all my coolness to be inconspicuous, I knocked my head on the table, which sent the entire tea service crashing to the floor. All heads turned, including Dr. Ursula’s, who, once she realized what I was doing, picked up her pace a notch to angry commando on a revenge mission.
“Jessica,” she teased in a “come out, come out, wherever, you are” tone of voice.
And then I began my slow motion rise from the floor. I noticed every expensive accessory she had on as I made my way back up to the banquette. Bowing at the good doctor’s feet was something that had not changed since I’d been fired.
“Jessica, stand up this instant. There is something I have to say to you. You left my tour in ruins. This new publicist is unimaginable; she has no idea what she is doing. You had a lot of nerve leaving me.”
I lurched back into the banquette, next to Mark. He and most of the restaurant were listening. Instead of letting everyone know that I had been laid off, I just sat there and let her continue. Mark sensed that as well and had taken the role of spectator at the U.S. Open tennis match waiting for one of the Williams sister to deliver a final smash.
“All that woman does is tell me that I am amazing. Well, I know I’m amazing, but you, Jessica, I needed you. You were hired to serve me.”
The two women from Long Island caught the tail end of the conversation
and said to each other:
“Oh, no, she did not.”
“Oh, yes, she went there.”
“Doctor, please calm down, it can’t be that bad,” I cut in mid-tirade. “You still have two books on The New York Times bestseller list.”
“This is heavy,” Mark said, rapt at the notion of a public girl fight that could or could not be over him. From a distance, even this bad publicity was good for the image he wanted so desperately to create for himself.
“Who is this person?” Mark Feist wanted to know.
“She is like, killing my green tea buzz with her total negativity,” he added.
The good doctor turned to look at Mark and she recognized him, as most highly moneyed people are apt to recognize one another, like they all belonged to the same private club, which, come to think of it, they all did. She composed herself, realizing her celebrityhood and, finally, her manners. She extended her hand.
“I am Dr. Ursula,” she announced.
“This is Mark Feist,” I introduced. I could see her eyes light up.
“Did you say Mark Feist as in InfoBase Mark Feist?”
“Guilty, as charged,” he admitted with mock humility.
“Well, I am happy to meet you, even under these circumstances. Good day to you both.” And with that, she stormed off.
“She is hot. I dig cougars,” said Mark.
I tried to fight down my nausea and redirect the conversation back to Bruce, back to The Garage, but the opportunity had passed, because, before I knew it, Mark looked at his watch and got up to go. I could only imagine what was next on his agenda, hot yoga, and a massage, a meeting with the Dali Lama?
And then, in a flash, he took my face in his hands and placed a wet, messy kiss on my mouth, before sliding out of the booth and heading toward the door.
Best Friend for Hire Page 14