“Cool. Let me just check to see if there’s anything important I need to know before the staff meeting.” I sat down at my desk and logged into my e-mail account. “Ahhh, there’s a message from Mandy Edwards to the entire department. Sent on Sunday afternoon, of course.”
“Of course,” he said.
I shook my head slowly. “What is wrong with her? Doesn’t she see how transparent the constant ‘from home’ e-mailing is?” A lot of people at our company had BlackBerrys, but our company culture was hardly one of sending work e-mail around the clock, especially on Sunday afternoons.
“She’s new. She’ll learn.”
“Learn what? That being a suck-up doesn’t work in this department?”
He put his hand on my shoulder. “Want to tell me how you really feel?”
I looked back at my computer screen. I was sure Mandy would reiterate whatever her weekend epiphany was at the meeting. “Byebye, you suck-up.”
Delete.
Kent laughed and walked out of my office. “C’mon, the meeting’s about to start.”
“Just a second, I’m right behind you.” I had just noticed an e-mail from Andie that said to call her as soon as I got to the office. It was written IN ALL CAPS, very un-Andie.
I shut my office door and dialed her work number.
“Andie Barnett,” she said.
“Hey, it’s me. What’s up?”
“Are you sitting down?” she said.
“Yes.” I wasn’t.
“Seriously, are you sitting down?” she said.
“How do you always know?” I sat down and slouched in my chair.
“Okay, I’m sitting down now. What’s the big news?” I said.
“Well … don’t shoot the messenger, but …”
“But what?” I said.
“Waverly, I hate to tell you this, but Aaron is getting married.”
I sat up straight.
“WHAT? To who?”
“To some girl named Stacy Long. It’s in today’s Nob Hill Gazette. I wanted to tell you before you heard it from someone else.”
Aaron was getting married? Already? In the year since we’d broken up, I’d been on exactly three dates, all setups who never called me again.
Before I could speak, Kent knocked on my door and poked his head in.
“C’mon, Waverly, everyone’s waiting for you.”
I nodded at him and took a deep breath. “I gotta go, Andie. I’ll call you later.” I put the phone down and closed my eyes. It took all my willpower not to lock the door and google Stacy Long right there. I tried to put my work face back on as I stood up to go to the meeting, but I didn’t think anyone was going to buy it.
Jess Richards, the VP in charge of our department, walked into the conference room holding a cup of coffee and a manila folder.
“Good morning, people. Let’s have a quick run around the room to see what’s on everyone’s plate for the week. Waverly, you and Kent leave for the Super Show tomorrow, right?” he said.
I tried to smile. “Yes, sir. Atlanta here we come.”
“So I hear JAG is flying in Shane Kennedy?” JAG was short for Jammin’ Athletic Gear, my biggest account.
I nodded. “Yep.”
“And I assume the press is lining up to talk to him?” Shane Kennedy was the reigning MVP of the NBA and had just signed a $150 million contract with the New York Knicks. I couldn’t even begin to think about how much money that was per month. Per week. Per game. Per trash-talking incident. Per out-of-wedlock child.
I took a sip of my chocolate milk and nodded again. “It should be quite a week. We already have more than thirty interviews set up for him, plus dozens of others on the waiting list. Davey’s really pleased.” David Mason was the director of marketing at JAG, i.e., the guy who paid our invoices.
Kent rubbed his hands together. “This is going to be fun.”
“I hope so,” I said. “Because Waverly Bryson doesn’t know if she can sit through three days of interviews with a guy who talks about himself in the third person.”
Jess laughed. “Well, he can sure sink a three, no doubt about that. Nice work lining up all those interviews.”
“Thanks, Jess. It’s been a real team effort,” I said.
“I imagine it’s pretty easy getting interviews for a celebrity like that?” Mandy Edwards said.
I looked at her.
“Easy?” I said.
“I mean, did you have to do much to get the press interested?”
“What’s your point, Mandy?” The press was definitely interested, but that didn’t mean we hadn’t worked hard to put together a great schedule.
She smiled. “No point. Since I’m new to this department, I’m just trying to learn how things work around here. In foods, the teams I managed never had celebrities to rely on, so we had to be really creative to get the press to pay any attention to our products.”
I glanced at Kent, who slyly rolled his eyes. Then I looked back at her.
“We’ll let you know how it went when we’re back in the office next week, okay, Mandy?” I knew I was being a bit short, maybe even a bit rude, but I just couldn’t deal with her, especially not then.
“Okay, thanks, Waverly. That would be great.” She smiled again.
Ugh.
When I got home that night I went straight to my mailbox. I hadn’t checked it in a few days, so of course it was packed with a bunch of crap that wasn’t even for me. I still received a ridiculous amount of junk mail for my old roommate, Whitney, whose bedroom I’d turned into an office after she’d moved out to get married. I had no idea how to stop the deluge, and it drove me crazy. Once I even wrote deceased on the envelope of a credit card application addressed to her and put it in the mailbox on the corner. It didn’t help.
I sat down on the couch and flipped through the monster stack of mail. Junk, bill, junk, Pottery Barn catalog, bill, Pottery Barn catalog, bill, more junk. Finally, there it was, the Nob Hill Gazette. I just had to see it for myself.
I took a deep breath and slowly turned the pages one by one.
And then I saw it, on page eleven, right above the horoscopes:
Aaron Christopher Vaughn III and Stacy Elizabeth Long, both partners at Vaughn, Miller and Hyde, will marry at Grace Cathedral at 7 p.m. on New Year’s Eve. The ceremony will be followed by a black-tie reception at the Fairmont Hotel….
Suddenly feeling like I’d been kicked in the stomach, I leaned back into my couch and looked up at the ceiling. I couldn’t believe it. Aaron was getting married. Married. Hitched. Casado. And he hadn’t even called to tell me. I knew a year was a long time, but part of me still felt like it had all happened yesterday.
And while part of me had gotten over the pain, a bigger part of me hadn’t.
Slowly I put the newspaper down on the couch. Then I put my head down on top of it and cried.
Our flight to Atlanta the next morning left way too early for my taste, but luckily it wasn’t that crowded, so Kent and I each had our own row to stretch out in. It was my dream to have a client who would fly me in business class, but for now the only way I was sitting in business class was if I enrolled in one at the local community college.
Shortly after we took off, I leaned my head against the window. Within minutes I fell into a deep sleep, only to be awakened moments later by a flight attendant with very big hair asking me if I wanted something to drink. I looked up at her, half asleep. “You had to wake me up to ask that? Couldn’t you just leave some water or something here on my tray?” I said. It’s not like they were actually going to serve me food.
“But I need to know exactly what you want, sweetheart. We have a wide assortment of beverages on board.”
“Okay, uh, I’ll have coffee, please,” I said. I will never understand people.
After that I couldn’t fall back asleep, so I pulled out my laptop and booted it up. I ordered another cup of coffee and took a quick look at the row behind me. Kent was sound asleep.
As I saw the screen flicker to life, my thoughts turned to Aaron and the new life he’d created. He’d obviously had no trouble jumping back into the dating pool, whereas I could barely keep my head above water. Flirting? Dating? Playing hard to get? I truly sucked at it all. One day I’d even started jotting notes on my life as a born-again single woman, because it all seemed so ridiculous.
At first it was just a free-flowing hodge podge, but somehow it had morphed into something more: an idea for a line of greeting cards. Aaron’s pet name for me had always been “Honey,” and I would often leave him sticky notes on his pillow, windshield, bathroom mirror, etc. So in a feeble attempt at irony, I called the cards Honey Notes. I hadn’t told anyone about them yet out of fear of being ridiculed.
WAVERLY’S HONEY NOTE IDEAS—NOT TO SHOW TO ANYONE OUT OF FEAR OF BEING RIDICULED
Front: So, he dumped you?
Inside: Honey, he was ugly anyway.
Front: Why is it so hard not to think about a boy when he’s the one thing you’re trying not to think about?
Inside: Honey, for some questions there just aren’t answers. But there’s always chocolate.
Front: Can’t take another blind date?
Inside: Honey, if you take a few tequila shots before them, they’re a lot less painful.
Front: Know that overwhelming feeling of inertia that kicks in when you’re thinking about getting up and going to the gym?
Inside: Honey, where the hell is that inertia when you’re thinking about getting up and going to the refrigerator?
Front: Is it okay to have really long hair in your 30s?
Inside: Honey, HELL YES!
(I wasn’t 30 just yet, but I was getting way too close.) I typed in the following idea:
Front: So, the ex is getting married, and you’re still on the market?
Inside: Honey, think of yourself as a prime piece of real estate—your value is only going up.
I scrolled through the rest of the list and bit my lip. It sometimes hurt to write them, but I thought the cards were funny. Would anyone else, though? I had clearly lost all perspective.
I closed my eyes to rest, and before I knew it the plane began its descent.
Pink, pink, pink. Not sure who had designed my room, but it was the hotel industry’s equivalent of a chick flick. I set my suitcase down and looked around. A vase of pink flowers on the desk. Light pink-and-white sheets. Pink roses in the wallpaper and carpet. Pink soap in the bathroom. There was so much pink that I suddenly felt myself craving cotton candy. But I really couldn’t complain, because the room was truly gorgeous. JAG was taking care of us.
I walked over to the window and opened the drapes. I gazed down at the beautiful swimming pool twelve stories below and wished it were summertime. How I longed to lounge by the artificial waterfalls with a good book and a margarita! The only times I ever stayed at fancy hotels were when I was working or when I’d been with Aaron, and when I was working I never had much time to enjoy them. And as for the times with Aaron, well, enough said.
I walked back across the room and opened up the closet.
Ahhh, there it was.
The Robe.
Fluffy, white, usually priced around $150.
I loved lounging around in The Robe.
I looked across the room. On top of the TV was a basket full of fruit, nuts, and candies topped off with, surprise, a pink bow. I opened the card from Penelope French, the firecracker of a woman in charge of JAG’s trade show logistics.
Hi Waverly!
Some energy snacks to get you through a crazy week. Good luck!
Penelope French and JAG
Wow. In total there would be about fifty people representing JAG at the show, and in addition to handling all our travel and accommodations, plus the thousands of details involved in getting the booth together, Penelope had taken the time to send out goodie baskets with personalized cards.
I opened up a bag of cashews, kicked off my shoes, and tried to convince myself it was going to be a fun week.
CHAPTER FOUR
The next morning, I received a wake-up call at 6:45, which was hell enough, but given that my West Coast body thought it was 3:45 a.m., I seriously thought I was going to die. Thank God I’d preset the fancy coffee maker the night before, because the smell of caffeine was the only thing that got me out of bed.
I flipped on the lights and turned on the TV as I stumbled toward the pot. A hot shower and two very strong cups of coffee later, I was ready to face the day. As I got dressed, I listened to Matt Lauer and Meredith Vieira discuss their favorite sites for online holiday shopping. Then I recognized the voice of Scott Ryan, a field reporter I’d become friends with over the years. His report was on an 80-year-old man in Dallas who owned a hundred cats.
“A feature on a man with a hundred cats? You paid how much to go to journalism school, Scotty?” I said to the TV.
I arrived at the conference center a few minutes after eight and made my way through the massive complex back to the JAG booth. I couldn’t see Kent or Davey, but nearly the entire JAG sales department was already there. The show didn’t open until nine o’clock, but we were all expecting a rush and wanted to be prepared. The first day of every trade show is always the craziest.
The Super Show had thousands of exhibitors every year, and it seemed like each company was set on outdoing the next with a fancy booth and “extras” to attract attention. Those extras ranged from girls in tiny bikinis handing out protein shakes to tiny gymnasts performing on balance beams to promote leotards. JAG was no exception. Our booth was enormous. We had several private meeting rooms, but the icing was a huge display room in the front area that resembled a sporting goods store, plus half of a regulationsize basketball court with a ball and a real referee for impromptu guest and/or employee pickup games.
I said hello to everyone and beelined to the coffee counter at the back of the booth, where I immediately noticed that the entire catering staff was wearing the exact same outfit I was.
Nice.
“Uh, I’ll have a chocolate chip bagel and a mocha, please,” I said to the girl behind the counter as I looked at her white button-down shirt and black pants.
She handed me my bagel and yelled. “Mocha coming right up!!”
Whoa—down, girl. She was way too perky for 8 a.m.
“Good morning, Waverly.”
I turned around to face Gabrielle Simone, the icy new VP of sales at JAG. She was dressed in an expensive navy blue pantsuit and pearls, her short black hair slicked perfectly behind her ears.
She quickly looked me up and down, then over at my outfit twin behind the counter.
Crap.
“Um, hi, Gabrielle, how are you?” I said.
She ran her long skinny fingers over her pearls. “I’m fine, thank you, just eager to get started. If we’re going to hit the aggressive sales targets I’ve set for this quarter, we’re all going to have to push ourselves pretty hard this week.”
I nodded as the girl handed me my mocha. “Um, yes, it’s going to be a lot of work.”
Gabrielle fingered her pearls again. “Well, I expect that you’ll do your job well. David Mason mentioned what we’re paying your agency each month, and it is quite a bit higher than I would expect for the amount of press coverage you seem to be generating.”
There’s no good way to respond to a comment like that.
I cleared my throat. “Um, well, we’re working hard. We’re excited about all the interviews we have lined up this week for Shane Kennedy.”
She nodded. “Good, glad to hear it. We don’t want to be wasting our money now, do we?”
Again, no good way to respond.
I smiled. “Of course not.”
“I’m glad we agree. Now if you’ll excuse me, I have a meeting with the CEO.” She turned on her heel and walked away.
When she was gone I looked down at my mocha. It was shaking.
I made a mental note for a Honey Note:
Front: Scared to de
ath by your clients?
Inside: Honey, it’s better than being scared to death by your unemployment officer.
I walked into the back room marked for press interviews and sat down at the conference table. I took a sip of my mocha and heard a knock on the open door. I looked up. Shane Kennedy was standing in the doorway.
“Hi there, I’m Shane Kennedy,” he said. Like I didn’t know.
I tried to smile and look casual as I stood up. “It’s nice to meet you, Shane. I’m Waverly Bryson.” I was a little stunned at how huge he was in person. He offered his hand, which was about three times the size of mine. He had light brown eyes and a flawless complexion the color of, well, the mocha I was drinking.
Just then Davey Mason and Kent walked in behind him.
“Top of the morning, Waverly,” Davey said, looking up and down at my outfit. “And can you please fetch me a double tall latte and a scone?”
“Don’t start,” I said, pointing at him.
He laughed. “I see you’ve met our guest of honor?”
I nodded. “Yep, we go way back to about one minute ago. Hey, how was the King?” Davey and Penelope French had flown in from JAG’s San Francisco headquarters a couple days earlier to oversee the setting up of the booth, and Davey had popped over to Graceland for a visit. Yes, Graceland.
He sat down next to me. “It jailhouse rocked, Bryson. Did you get your goodie basket at the hotel?”
“Yes, what a great idea,” I said. “I already inhaled a bag of cashews. I doubt anything will be left of that basket by the time I check out on Saturday.”
He scratched the back of his head and nodded. “At first I vetoed the idea, but I changed my mind when Penelope pointed out that the same bag of cashews in the minibar would cost my marketing budget five dollars. At Costco they’re only a buck.”
Perfect on Paper: The (Mis)Adventures of Waverly Bryson Page 3