Front: Regret giving your phone number out after a few too many drinks?
Inside: Honey, stop whining and be thankful that someone besides the New York Times subscription office is calling you.
Front: Have a crush on a guy you’ll probably never see again?
Inside: Honey, that’s okay. At least this way he’ll never crush YOU.
Front: What’s worse than a really bad first date?
Inside: Honey, realizing you’re out of ice cream when you get home.
Maybe if K.A. Marketing ever fired me I could get some work writing ads for high-calorie dessert products?
CHAPTER NINE
Saturday morning I got up early and read the paper over two big bowls of Lucky Charms. When I was finally ready to face the day, and my father, I pulled on a pair of jeans and sneakers, with a navy blue Cal Berkeley sweatshirt, then grabbed the car keys and headed outside. I pulled my hair back into a low ponytail and tried to remember where I was parked. Where the hell was the car? I was forever forgetting where I had put it. Once I was convinced that it had been stolen and was about to call the police, until, of course, I remembered that it was parked right around the corner.
I stood still for about thirty seconds, closed my eyes, and concentrated. Then it came to me. I headed two blocks south to the corner of Steiner and Pine and spotted my green Saab. I jumped inside, threw my purse onto the backseat, and headed for Sacramento.
I flipped through the stations until I found a U2 song. Have you ever noticed that if you give it about four minutes, you can always find a U2 song on the radio? It’s really quite amazing.
Halfway through “Beautiful Day,” my cell phone rang. I dug it out of my purse and glanced down at the caller ID: Davey. I flipped the phone open and put the hands-free earpiece in my ear.
“Hey, Davey, what’s up?”
“Waverly, you got me all shook up.” It was practically a yell.
“What?”
“C’mon, Bryson, don’t be cruel. Please, let me be your teddy bear.”
“Davey, are you listening to your Elvis greatest hits CD again?”
“It’s now or never, you know.”
“All right, Mr. Mason, what can I do for you today?”
“Okay, okay. Now I promise not to take too much of your precious Saturday,” he said. “I just wanted to see if you could send your last few status reports to my personal account. There’s something wrong with our server, and I can’t access my JAG e-mail from home.”
I swallowed hard. “You’re reviewing our status reports on a weekend? Why?”
“Nothing major. I’m just putting together a PR presentation for our sales team, and I need to have it ready Monday morning.”
“For the sales team?”
“Yep. Gabrielle Simone requested it Friday afternoon, but I didn’t get to it.”
“Sales wants a PR presentation?”
“What?” he said. “You’re cutting out.”
“What?” I said. “You’re cutting out.”
“What?”
“What?”
“Can you hear me now?”
“What?”
“Caller, are you there? Waverly from San Francisco, you’re on the air.”
I laughed. “I hear you now. Tell me this, Davey. Why does the cell phone coverage in Silicon Valley, which is supposed to be the technology capital of the entire world, SUCK SO MUCH?”
“I’m not sure. But assuming your call to the complaint line doesn’t get dropped while you’re on hold for two hours, I’m sure some friendly customer service guy in India will tell you there’s nothing he can do about it.”
“All right, I’ll send you the reports tonight when I get home. But I’m billing you extra for this, Mr. Mason.”
“Miss Bryson, I would expect nothing less.”
“Bye, Davey.”
Two hours later I pulled into the Valley Pines complex and wound my way around the dusty streets to my dad’s double-wide in the back. I thought about the first (and only) time I’d brought Aaron there. He’d been so sweet about it, but he was clearly uncomfortable, and the image of his nine-hundred-dollar coat hanging next to my dad’s orange hunting jacket will be forever burned in my memory.
The dust floated up around my car as I pulled into the gravel driveway. When it settled, I kept my hands on the steering wheel and looked out the window at the flower pots lining the walkway up to my dad’s trailer. Bright violas and pansies, healthy and full of life. As I did every time I saw them, I wondered how my dad could be so nurturing to his plants yet raise a daughter who wondered if he even liked her that much.
Finally I got out of the car and walked up to the screen door. I knocked lightly, holding his birthday present behind my back. It was a new game of Scrabble. My dad loved Scrabble, and when he was in a good mood I loved playing it with him. Playing Scrabble and Boggle were staples of my childhood memories and probably had more to do with my high SAT verbal scores than some of the English classes I took in high school, where many of my classmates had never given college a second thought. Sometimes I wondered if my dad would’ve been happier if I hadn’t either. Not everyone is college material, he’d said when I’d told him I wanted to go.
I knocked again. No answer. I waited, then knocked again.
Then I noticed that his truck wasn’t in the driveway.
I looked at my watch. It was 2:05. I’d told him I’d be there at two to take him out to lunch for his birthday.
I pulled out my phone and called his landline. I could hear the ring ring ring inside. No answer, no answering machine. And he didn’t have a cell phone, so that was the end of that.
I sat in my car for nearly thirty minutes, then finally got out and propped his present behind the screen door. As I was walking back to my car, his neighbor came out of her trailer and sat down on the rocking chair on her porch.
“Why, Waverly, how are you doing, dear? Come on over and say hello.” Mrs. Williams had lived next door to my dad since the day he’d moved in, which had been practically the same day I’d left our tiny house for college. It had been more than twelve years, yet somehow she always looked exactly the same: plump, rosy-cheeked, and smiling, like everyone’s favorite grandmother.
I smiled. “Hi, Mrs. Williams. I’m good, how are you?”
“I’m fine, dear. Looking for your daddy?”
I nodded. “It’s his birthday. We were supposed to have lunch. Do you know where he is?”
“I saw him a couple hours ago gettin’ in his truck. He said he was heading to Thunder Valley to blow off some steam—didn’t say about what though.” She laughed. “I didn’t know it was his birthday. Maybe he’s just angry at getting older. I know I am.”
“Thunder Valley?” I said. “What’s that?”
“A casino, dear, over at the Indian reservation.”
“He’s at a casino?”
“I think so, love. Do you want to come inside for some coffee? Maybe he’ll be back soon.”
I shook my head and looked at my watch. “It’s really sweet of you to offer, but I think I’ll just get going.”
She crossed her short arms on top of her massive chest. “It’s a shame you can’t stay. We don’t see enough of you around here.”
“Oh,” I said, kicking some gravel. “I’ve been really busy.”
“Your daddy loves it when you come by, you know.”
I looked up at her. “He does?”
“Sure does. He’s always talking about you and your big job in San Francisco.”
“He is?”
She nodded. “You come back again soon, okay, dear?”
“Okay, I will. I promise. Bye, Mrs. Williams.”
“Bye, love.”
I looked back at my dad’s pristine potted flowers, then drove back to San Francisco.
I got back to my apartment around five o’clock and lugged the Christmas tree I’d bought on the way home into the living room. Every year, I told myself I should go to one of the many gorg
eous tree farms along the hills of the Peninsula and cut one down myself for the experience of it all, but on my You know you’re a real grownup when list, cutting down your own Christmas tree was on a par with buying a house. So as usual, I’d just stopped at Target.
I headed downstairs and dug around in my basement storage closet until I found my tree stand and all my new and old decorations. I hauled everything back upstairs and plopped it all on the couch. Then I went into my office to e-mail Davey our reports and picked up my landline to call McKenna. The stutter dial tone alerted me to a new voicemail.
“Hey, baby, it’s your old man. I’m sorry I missed you today, but I had a hot lead on a horse. You know how it goes, gotta strike when the iron’s hot, right? Anyhow, thanks for the Scrabble set. You’ll have to come back soon and teach me some of those big city words you love so much. Bye, kiddo.”
Ugh. At least he didn’t ask me for money this time.
I deleted the message and called McKenna.
“Hey,” she said.
“Hey, I’m back.”
“How’d it go?”
“It didn’t.”
“You didn’t go?”
“Oh, I went,” I said.
“What?”
“I went, but it didn’t go.”
“Okay, you lost me.”
“He wasn’t there,” I said.
“What?”
“He wasn’t there. I drove two hours, then waited for a half-hour, and then his neighbor told me he’d gone to a casino.”
“You’re kidding.”
“You think I’d kid about something like that?”
“No, of course not. I’m sorry, Wave.”
“Hey, what can you do, right? So are you ready to come over?”
“Yep. Did you get the chocolate mint bells?”
“Of course. The holiday playlist is all queued up, too,” I said.
“Cool. I’ll go pick up Andie. We’ll be over in a bit.”
I hung up the phone and looked at the empty tree in my living room. For as long as I’d lived in San Francisco, McKenna and Andie had helped me decorate my tree and apartment for Christmas. We’d eat chocolate mint bells, listen to holiday music, and, cheesy as it sounds, get in the spirit. It was strange now that I thought about it, but even the one Christmas I’d been with Aaron, they had been my decorating committee. I don’t even think he joined us that night.
A half-hour later I took their drenched raincoats and umbrellas.
“When did it start raining? Thank God I already brought the tree in,” I said.
They walked through my living room and sat down at the kitchen table. Andie shook her wet head and ran her fingers through her short hair. “This is ridiculous. I walked three blocks with an umbrella, and look at me.”
“It’s so nice and cozy in here. Do you have anything hot to drink?” McKenna said as Frank Sinatra sang “Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas” in the background.
I hung their things up on the coat rack and walked into the kitchen. “It must be raining puppy cats out there. And if you can believe it, I do have something to drink. Coffee, tea, or hot chocolate?”
“No real drinks?” Andie said.
“Oops,” I said. “Of course. Would you like some red wine?”
Andie nodded. “That’s my girl.”
“I’ll have tea, please, with lemon if you have it,” McKenna said. “And did you just say that it must be raining puppy cats out there?”
I nodded.
“And what exactly is a puppy cat?”
“It’s a small cat, you know, like a puppy.” I held my hands in front of me about six inches apart.
“Do you mean a kitten?”
“Yes, exactly,” I said, nodding. “I’ve just noticed that I like the word puppy cat better than kitten. Sounds more descriptive.”
McKenna rolled her eyes. “I don’t even know how to respond to that.”
We started pulling the decorations out of the boxes on my couch and got to work. I grabbed a pair of scissors and cut the tags off my new ornaments. I held up a large silver ball. “Okay, let’s talk about how proud of myself I am for getting these decorations. This will be my prettiest tree ever!”
McKenna stood on a chair to hang a string of lights above the built-in bookshelves and looked down at me. “Hey, you haven’t told us about the date last night. Which Darren was it?”
“Oh, yes, do tell,” Andie said, unwrapping a chocolate mint bell.
I made a face. “Ugh, so not worth a conversation. Wrong Darren, wrong personality, wrong time to agree to a Friday night date. Wrong, wrong, wrong.”
“So I guess we won’t be meeting him anytime soon?” McKenna said.
I pulled a wine-colored ball out of the box and hung it on the tree. “I think the chances of that happening are about as good as the chances of finding Aaron on my doorstep tomorrow morning with a rose in his mouth and my dad standing next to him offering his blessings.”
“Has Aaron called you yet?” Andie said.
I shook my head. “Nope. And now that I ran into him, I don’t think he ever will.”
“So . . . what, you’re just going to never talk to him again?” McKenna said.
I put my hands on my hips and frowned. “I guess not. I have no idea.”
“And what about cute Mr. Trainer Guy?” Andie took a sip of her wine. “Are you ever going to talk to him again?”
I raised my eyebrows. “Jake? I wish, but I just don’t know how I would.”
“You never know what might happen,” McKenna said.
I sighed. “He’s so cute. When he smiled at me at that basketball game, or at least when I think he smiled at me, I felt all melty inside.”
“Melty? Is that even a word?” McKenna said.
“I have no idea,” I said.
“So you’re never going to talk to either one of them again?” Andie said.
“I have no idea,” I said.
“Well who are you going to talk to?” Andie said.
I frowned. “I don’t know. I have no idea.”
“What do you know, Miss Puppy Cat?” McKenna said.
I unwrapped a chocolate mint bell and tossed it in my mouth. “Apparently, I know nothing.”
CHAPTER TEN
The Friday before Christmas I ran into Kent in the office kitchen. He grabbed my arm, nearly knocking the Snickers I had in my hand to the floor.
“I have some good gossip, Waverly, fantastic gossip.” He looked down the hall to make sure no one could hear him.
“Oooh, I love gossip. What is it? What?” I filled my mug with coffee and sat down at the round table in the middle of the kitchen. “Well? Don’t leave me hanging.”
He walked over and shut the kitchen door, then sat down next to me. “I heard a rumor that Paige Beckerman is going to make a big announcement after the holidays.” Paige Beckerman was the CEO of K.A. Marketing. She was based in our New York office.
“And?”
“If everything works out, she’s going to announce that we landed a major account.”
“A major account?”
He nodded. “A very major account, and we won’t even have to pitch it.”
“No pitch? Why not?” Winning big accounts in the world of public relations and marketing without a pitch was extremely unusual. Clients were notorious for making agencies jump through hoops of fire before finally making a decision, and the whole painful process was often stretched out for months and months.
He lowered his voice. “Word is, the head of marketing at Adina Energy called Beckerman himself and told her he wants K.A. Marketing to handle all their publicity and events. Apparently, word on the street is that we’re the hot agency for product launches, and they want us.”
I sat back and tried to absorb what I had just heard. Adina Energy? No way. Adina Energy was one of the biggest brands in sports and was quickly becoming one of the biggest brands in anything. It was seemingly everywhere, the Brad Cantor of brands.
; “You’re kidding.” I took a bite of my Snickers.
“Nope. Not kidding. It should all happen by the end of January. And guess what else?”
“What?”
“There’s a very good chance we’ll be handling the campaign out of this office.”
I dropped my Snickers on the table.
“Really?” I said.
“Yep. That would mean us, Waverly. This could make our careers. After this we’ll be able to write our own ticket in sports PR, especially you, as the account lead.”
When I got back to my office, I took a deep breath and thought about the news I’d just heard, the news that, as Kent had said, could literally make my career. I tapped a pencil on my desk. Would I be running the account? I was the most qualified person, right? But then why hadn’t Jess told me about it yet? Was he being coy because of the Super Show fiasco? Or was it just a rumor? Hmm … the scoop on what could be the biggest account of my life would have to wait until after the holidays.
But I had a very good feeling about it.
Several hours later, I was at the Kilkenny holiday party with McKenna, sitting at the bar with a plateful of appetizers and two beers in front of us. The place was packed, and it was hard to hear each other over the music and the chatter of the crowd.
“What time did Hunter say he’d be here?” I said.
“A little after nine o’clock.”
“I still can’t believe he’s going to be chief resident. I’m so impressed.”
She smiled. “I know, I’m really proud of him. And so relieved too. And I’m so proud of you for getting that big account! We’ve got to celebrate.”
I put my beer down on the bar. “Hey, now, let’s not count our chickens. We don’t even have the account yet.”
“But if you do, you’re pretty sure it’s going to be yours to run, right?”
I nodded. “It should be, but nothing’s been confirmed yet.”
“But it looks good, right?”
I smiled and thought about the great work we’d done for JAG over the years, especially the recent launch of the Shane Kennedy shoes. I’d put in a lot of solid hours on that account and was proud of the results. “Yeah, I think so.”
Perfect on Paper: The (Mis)Adventures of Waverly Bryson Page 12