Bad Publicity

by Joanne Sydney Lessner

  “Thanks, but I don’t have a monologue,” she demurred.

  Graham winked. “When in doubt, just write one yourself!”

  Delphi returned with the graybeard. In a stentorian voice, he announced his name, Walter Fox, and his pieces: Willy Loman and Polonius.

  Graham made a show of looking at his watch. “It’s getting late. Let’s just cut to the chase and hear the Hamlet, shall we?”

  Walter nodded and launched into Polonius’s famous litany of advice to the departing Laertes. Walter’s voice was resonant and impressive, but, strangely, he was less compelling than timid little Gary. By the time he reached “Neither a borrower, nor a lender be,” Isobel’s mind was wandering back to Jason Whiteley. She could tell from Delphi’s squirming that she, too, was bored. Graham’s long mane was bowed in front of her, and Isobel was glad that he had skipped the contemporary monologue. Despite the fact that Walter was, on the face of it, more appropriate for the part, she doubted his Willy Loman would have been as good as Gary’s.

  “‘This above all: to thine own self—’” Walter paused. Delphi, Isobel and Graham looked up expectantly.

  Walter dropped his hands. “I’m sorry,” he said, shaking his head in confusion. “Line?”

  The words burst from Isobel without thinking. “‘—be true!’”

  Walter gave her a sheepish but grateful smile, and Delphi giggled under her breath, “Well, that was a real Woody Allen moment!”

  “‘To thine own self be true,’” Isobel repeated quietly.

  She was proud that she had correctly remembered a line of Shakespeare. But more than that, she was proud that she had hewn to that advice once before in a difficult situation, and she knew that, despite her friends’ warnings, she would not hesitate to do so again.

  SIX

  Isobel was surprised and secretly pleased to learn that her presence was requested at the mandatory staff meeting the next morning. The accordion wall separating conference rooms B and C had been opened, forming a space just large enough for the sixty or so employees of Dove & Flight Public Relations to squeeze into. That included everyone from Angus Dove and Barnaby Flight down to the back shop staffers who handled mailings, database services and accounting. For Isobel’s private purposes, it couldn’t have been better.

  Armed with a cup of Starbucks’ finest, Isobel arrived at the conference room just before ten. Even though the coffee pot had been replaced, she had decided to ingest only outside food and drink until her suspicions were allayed. Those who were already gathered were buzzing quietly, and, for the first time, she realized how many people at the firm she still didn’t know. Just as she was pondering how best to meet them all, a lanky, buff man with closely cropped iron-gray hair blocked her path. He wore a baseball jersey, and, improbably for January, Bermuda shorts.

  “My fair lady Isobel, melodious songbird, your reputation precedes you,” he said, doffing a faded red baseball cap.

  Isobel wasn’t sure whether to be alarmed or amused. “Not another Shakespearean, are you?”

  “Not I, indeed! Jimmy Rocket, at your service. I merely pine, on a daily basis, for the lost, lissome loveliness of the English language.”

  “Is that your real name?”

  He pulled a face. “Sadly, yes. James Earl Rocket. I briefly considered the possibility of Francophilic pronunciation for the latter portion of that unfortunate moniker, but I think it lacks a certain quelle heure est-il, don’t you?”

  Before Isobel could think how to respond, Katrina joined them. “Hey, Jimmy.”

  Jimmy tipped his cap again. “The ravishing Ms. Campbell! Och, aye, lassie, there’s a moose loose aboot the hoose!”

  “Jimmy, you get weirder every day. And I’ve told you, my family is English. Save your burr for Angus.”

  “Nay, lassie, he’ll only consider my burr a slur!”

  “Who is he exactly?” Isobel asked Katrina as they found seats.

  “Jimmy Rocket. He’s a throwback to an era that never actually existed, but Barnaby loves him. Jimmy’s his assistant.”

  “Seriously?”

  “Barnaby won’t part with him for anything. Jimmy may be eccentric, but I’ve never seen anyone type as fast as he does. He also has a practically photographic memory, and he’s ridiculously organized. In his dreams, he’s Babe Ruth. In reality, he wouldn’t make it onto a pro baseball team for the same reason he’d better hope Barnaby never sacks him.”

  “Which is…?”

  Katrina leaned over. “He’d never pass the mandatory drug testing.”

  “Ah,” said Isobel. “So, um, how was your interview with the police yesterday?”

  “About what you’d expect. What was my relationship with Jason Whiteley, and where was I just before you found him. But it was pretty half-hearted. They seem to think it was natural causes.”

  “And what do you think?”

  Katrina shrugged. “I just hope we don’t lose the account.”

  She turned to greet Liz Stewart, who had joined them, and as Katrina and Liz added their voices to the chattering chorus, Isobel surveyed the room for other faces she recognized. There was Dorothy Berman, an attractive woman in her late fifties with the kind of gleaming silver hair that Isobel wouldn’t mind having someday. Isobel didn’t know much about her except that she handled the healthcare clients, and she had a husband who was a lawyer and a son who was a dentist. Although Isobel had done a bit of file drawer cleanup for Dorothy, most of her time at Dove & Flight had been claimed by Aaron, whose financial services team didn’t have a junior associate. Dorothy had her own junior, Penny Warren, the sweet-faced girl whose phone Isobel had used to call 911. Isobel and Penny filled the same role, which amounted to a combination of secretarial and basic client work, since only the senior partners had administrative assistants. Within the working groups, everyone was expected to answer his or her own phone, and any menial tasks that needed doing were assigned to the most junior member of the team. Isobel hardly minded, but she wondered if Penny did.

  Penny caught Isobel’s eye and flashed an eager smile. Isobel leaned over to Katrina.

  “Does Penny always wear headbands that match her outfits?”

  Katrina smirked. “Sadly.”

  “Where did she go to school? Lilly Pulitzer U?”

  “Holyoke. She transferred from Barnard. I bet they booted her for wardrobe violations.” Katrina nudged Isobel. “Here comes trouble.”

  Isobel followed her gaze and saw Kit Blanchard, another senior associate, take a seat behind Aaron. Petite and stacked, Kit wore stylish outfits that emphasized her figure, still impressive after three kids. Her long highlighted hair was pushed back with a pair of Prada sunglasses, despite the season. It suddenly struck Isobel that Dove & Flight, notwithstanding the men at the top, was predominantly a female operation. As she looked around, she marked a clear two-to-one ratio.

  “Why are there so many more women than men?” she asked.

  “PR attracts women,” said Katrina. “Probably because it’s a ‘relationship business,’ and we all know how good men are at relationships.” Katrina inclined her head knowingly. Next to her, Liz snickered.

  Isobel turned again and saw an elderly man with beagle jowls leaning against the wall by the door. From behind large square glasses that had surely gone out of style before she was born, his rheumy eyes roved over the assemblage with the same kind of scrutiny to which Isobel was privately subjecting everyone. He wore a dour expression on his heavily lined face and was dressed far more formally than anyone else, in an expensive suit that had seen better days and a red pocket square.

  “Who’s that guy?”

  “Oh, that’s Wilbur Freed,” Katrina said with a dismissive gesture.

  “I’ve never seen him before,” Isobel remarked.

  “You wouldn’t. He’s a first-class lurker. His job is to keep a tight rein on company subscriptions, but mostly he just sneaks around from office to office distributing news clips.”

  “Why doesn’t he jus
t email them?”

  “Wilbur doesn’t believe in email,” Katrina said. “He barely believes in electricity.”

  “He’s a walking anachronism, but he’s an old friend of Angus’s,” Liz added. “Those Scots are nothing if not loyal.”

  At that moment, Barnaby Flight clomped to the front of the room, with Angus Dove trailing him stoically.

  “They’re certainly the odd couple, aren’t they?” Isobel whispered.

  Katrina nodded. “Seriously. I sometimes think the only reason they joined forces is the bird imagery in their names.”

  “There are two things I want to address today,” Barnaby said without preamble. “I won’t keep you long, because I know you’re busy. At least, you’d better be.” The nervous communal giggle seemed to satisfy him, and he continued.

  “First, I want to settle what happened yesterday. It was a terribly unfortunate accident, but the police have confirmed that Jason Whiteley died of a heart attack, and that’s the end of that. Now, I don’t have to tell you how rumors fly—we’re in the rumor business, for God’s sake—so I ask that you all be discreet. Please resist the temptation to gossip about this with everyone you know.” He surveyed his staff. “I’ll be frank. It doesn’t matter if Whiteley died because he blew his nose too hard—it doesn’t look good. And we’re about to be all over the news for another reason. We don’t need more slop for the pigs.”

  At this, a hushed murmur ran through the crowd. Barnaby held up his hand to silence it.

  “Which brings me to the main reason for this meeting. Angus and I have been in negotiations for some time now with ICG, International Communications Group. I’m sure you know who they are. They own several distinguished companies in a variety of communications fields, including two other PR shops: Fisher Health Strategies and The Peterson Group. ICG is looking to expand its reach into the niche areas we specialize in, and we will be announcing later today that we have entered into an agreement with them. ICG is buying Dove & Flight.”

  Everybody began talking at once. Barnaby clapped his meaty hands for attention.

  “First off, nothing will change.”

  “Bullshit,” Liz Stewart fake-coughed into her hand.

  “We will not be eliminating any jobs, and we will not be relocating our offices. At some point during the year, we will merge with The Peterson Group, which specializes in consumer PR. Not our strong suit, as you well know. Our companies will complement each other nicely, and when that secondary merger is finalized, the combined entity will be known as Peterson, Dove & Flight.”

  The mutterings grew louder, and Barnaby raised his voice this time, instead of his hand.

  “We all know that the financial security that comes with being part of a corporate family means giving up the independence of a privately-owned, self-determining shop. But Angus and I are getting older. Angus faster than me.” He glanced at his diminutive partner, who stood next to him, silent and tight-lipped. “We built this business on the strength of our names and reputations, and we want what we’ve built to outlast us. Our legacy and, to be blunt, your employment depend on this merger. Angus and I are very excited about what this means for us and for you.”

  Isobel looked at Angus, who looked anything but excited.

  Liz leaned across Katrina and said, “I’m just shocked that they bothered to tell us, rather than letting us read about it in the papers. Communications experts are terrible at internal communications. It’s like the cobbler’s kids going barefoot. Right?”

  Katrina was sitting rigidly in her seat between them, staring straight ahead.

  Isobel nudged her. “Katrina?”

  Katrina shook her head slowly. “I can’t believe he didn’t tell me. How could he not have told me?”

  “Come on, we all know Barnaby has a thing for you, but he wasn’t going to tell you before the rest of us,” Liz said.

  “Not Barnaby. My dad,” Katrina said in a hollow voice. “ICG is my dad’s company. He’s the CEO. I’m going to be working for my father.”

  “What the hell do you want?”

  James didn’t have a good answer for that. He had felt compelled to call Jayla, his ex-girlfriend, at her office at Schumann, Crowe & Dyer, but now that she was barking in his ear on the other end of the phone, he wasn’t exactly sure why.

  “I, um, heard about Jason Whiteley and wanted to make sure you were okay.”

  “Why wouldn’t I be?”

  Compassionate as ever, thought James.

  “I thought you might be upset.”

  “I liked Jason,” Jayla admitted. “He was an aggressive, horny little bastard, but he was always decent to me.”

  “They say it was a heart attack,” James said.

  There was silence on the other end of the phone. Then Jayla asked, “How do you even know about this?”

  He paused. “We have a temp at your PR firm.”

  “It’s that little white bitch you’re hot for,” Jayla snarled.

  “How many times do I have to tell you, there is absolutely nothing going on between us!”

  “Mmm hmmmm,” crowed Jayla.

  From the first, Jayla had willfully misinterpreted his interest in Isobel. Besides, he had sworn off women altogether when they broke up, largely because he was still working on being sober.

  “I was wondering…was he sick or anything?” James asked.

  “Jason? I don’t think so. He seemed perfectly healthy to me.”

  “Did he still drink a lot? Do you know if he did drugs?”

  “What is this, a police inquiry?” Jayla snapped. “And why are you calling me, anyway? I thought we weren’t speaking.”

  “How’s Michael? You still seeing him?” James asked, trying to keep her on the line.

  “None of your goddamn business,” she shot back.

  James had walked in on one of his best buddies hard at work between Jayla’s legs, and that had been the last straw. He hadn’t spoken to either of them since. Until now.

  “Right. Okay. Forget I called. I just thought maybe somebody killed Jason.”

  “Yeah. Wait—what?!”

  He smiled. That had certainly gotten her attention.

  “Like you said, he seemed healthy. Unless it was the booze.”

  “Oh, I get it. You’re worried the same thing might happen to you,” Jayla said shrewdly.

  James ignored the bait. “Do you know anyone who had it in for him?”

  There was silence on the other end of the line.

  “Only you, baby,” Jayla said finally.

  He should never have told her about getting kicked out of Columbia and Jason getting off scot-free. It was just like Jayla to file away a piece of information like that to use against him when the moment presented itself.

  “Anyone else? Anyone at work?”

  “Not everyone liked Jason. But not everyone likes you either, James.”

  “We’re not talking about me.”

  “Oh, my mistake,” she said sweetly. “I didn’t realize there was another topic.”

  “Come on, Jayla!”

  Jayla let out a long, frustrated exhalation, and James could imagine her resting her head in her hands, her beautiful long dreadlocks falling in front of her face and brushing against her luxurious eyelashes.

  “I’m sure there were people who had it in for Jason, but it was cardiac arrest, right? So why are you asking me?”

  Because Isobel put a bug in my ear, that’s why.

  “Don’t you think it’s a little weird for someone our age to have a heart attack?” he pressed.

  “Maybe he was born with a heart defect. What do you care, anyway?”

  He had no good answer for that. Jayla was feeding him the same arguments he had given Isobel when she had raised these questions.

  “You know what’s wrong with you, Jayla? You’ve got no compassion or curiosity.”

  He could hear her cursing as she slammed down the phone.

  James paced to his door and opened it. He contemplated
getting another Coke from the office fridge, but decided against it. He’d already polished off two in the past hour.

  What a hypocrite, he berated himself. Here I made Isobel promise not to nose around asking questions, and what am I doing? Exactly what I told her not to do.

  Then again, he thought as he gave in and made his way down the narrow hall to the kitchenette, knowing Isobel, she had probably found a way around her promise by now.

  SEVEN

  Nobody at Dove & Flight was getting any work done. The combination of a death on the premises and a merger announcement had pretty much guaranteed what Katrina usually referred to as a “spa day.” The atmosphere put Isobel in mind of a backstage farce, with everybody ducking in and out of each other’s offices, spreading rumors, making predictions, and repeating the same conversations over and over, embellishing the details with each retelling.

  The only person not participating was Katrina herself. She had taken an early lunch right after the staff meeting, and by two o’clock she still hadn’t returned. After bopping past several open doors where she didn’t quite feel comfortable dropping in for a chat, Isobel alighted in Liz Stewart’s office. Liz had her feet up on her desk and was sipping milk out of a small carton.

  “This is my post-lunch lunch,” she explained. “I’m trying for the ‘six small meals a day thing,’ only it’s turning into six large meals.” She held up a packet of crackers. “I’m attempting to cut meals two and four down to size.”

  “Do you know what you’re having?” Isobel asked.

  “Mmmm…girl,” Liz mumbled through a mouthful of crackers.

  “Do you have a name picked out yet?”

  Liz swallowed. “My husband wants Olivia, but we’ll have to save that for number two.” She touched her belly gently. “She’s going to be Eleanor, after my sister.”

  “That’s a lovely name,” Isobel said. “What happened to your—”

  A sharp knock on the wall behind Liz’s chair made Isobel start. “I never noticed there was a door there!”

  Liz’s lip curled. “Only one person ever uses it. Wanna guess who?” She wheeled her chair to the side and opened it to Jimmy Rocket, who was holding out a blue plastic bin.