Russell Wiley Is Out to Lunch

by Richard Hine

  RICHARD HINE

  A NOVEL

  RUSSELL WILEY IS OUT TO LUNCH

  The characters and events portrayed in this book are fictitious. Any similarity to real persons, living or dead, is coincidental and not intended by the author.

  Text copyright ©2010 Richard Hine

  All rights reserved

  No part of this book may be reproduced, or stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without express written permission of the publisher.

  Published by AmazonEncore

  P.O. Box 400818

  Las Vegas, NV 89140

  ISBN: 978-1-935597-14-8

  For Amanda

  “I often wonder what future historians will say about us. One sentence will suffice to describe modern man: he fornicated and he read newspapers.”

  —Albert Camus, The Fall, 1956

  CONTENTS

  CHAPTER ONE

  CHAPTER TWO

  CHAPTER THREE

  CHAPTER FOUR

  CHAPTER FIVE

  CHAPTER SIX

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  CHAPTER NINE

  CHAPTER TEN

  CHAPTER ELEVEN

  CHAPTER TWELVE

  CHAPTER THIRTEEN

  CHAPTER FOURTEEN

  CHAPTER FIFTEEN

  CHAPTER SIXTEEN

  CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

  CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

  CHAPTER NINETEEN

  CHAPTER TWENTY

  CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

  CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO

  CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE

  CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR

  CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE

  CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX

  CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN

  CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT

  CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE

  CHAPTER THIRTY

  ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

  ABOUT THE AUTHOR

  CHAPTER ONE

  New York City, Fall 2006

  “I’m still asleep,” says Sam.

  It’s the kind of thing she says on a morning like this. When she feels me lying in bed three minutes after I’ve silenced the alarm. When she senses me, curled next to her, mimicking her shape without actually touching her. She doesn’t want to move in case it encourages me.

  Another minute goes by.

  I put a hand on her hip, wiggle myself an inch or two closer. She sighs. I kiss the back of her head, savoring the smell of her coconut conditioner.

  “Get off me,” she says.

  She slides out from under the comforter and makes her way to the bathroom. I don’t get up. I wait. The toilet flushes, and as she pads back to bed I catch a glimpse of her: slightly tangled, shoulder-length hair; baggy purple T-shirt; a flash of white cotton panties. She slithers into her former position, adjusts her head against her pillow.

  “Can’t we just cuddle?” I say.

  “There isn’t time. Don’t you have a meeting? I haven’t brushed my teeth.”

  I know better than to argue any of these points. Sam and I have been together more than sixteen years, married for nearly thirteen. I don’t remind her that in our early days together finding time for sex was never a problem. Or that I’ve survived being late for dozens of meetings. Or that once upon a time even morning breath possessed certain aphrodisiac qualities.

  I roll away, sit on my side of the bed. My mind feels foggy, my vision is blurred. I grab my glasses and walk, head down, to the bathroom.

  I shave slowly, cutting through the foam with one of those disposable triple-bladed razors. Sam used to hang out with me in the bathroom some mornings and tell me how sexy it was to watch me shave. I can’t remember the last time she did that.

  I do remember the last time we had sex. Twenty-five days ago. One of those unsatisfactory occasions where I came and she didn’t and it was my fault for not holding on long enough and whoever said love means never having to say you’re sorry was proved wrong again. Despite that failure, I’d be happy to try again. I’m willing to practice more. To try and do it right next time.

  Twenty-five days. Nearly four weeks. I’m not supposed to be keeping tabs anymore. But so what if I do? Days without sex is an important statistic—the kind that used to matter to Sam as well as me. Before we were married, even when we lived six hundred and fifty miles apart during senior year, we had an agreement never to let more than a month pass without having sex with each other. Whenever necessary, we each drove six hours to meet halfway at a roadside motel just outside Harrisburg. We’d make love in the shower, on the armchair, on the bathroom counter, on the bedroom floor. We’d drink beers, eat shortbread cookies and inspect each other’s bodies for crumbs. We’d sleep on the gray-white sheets, go out for pancakes, then head back to the room to take full advantage of the hours and minutes we still had left. When we parted, I’d drive home weak but elated, listening to the Pulp album that reminded me of the semester we’d shared in London. Every time I unpacked my bag, I’d find a piece of Sam’s clothing stuffed inside—panties, a bra, a single white sock. I kept these items in my bedside drawer.

  Our relationship was easier to navigate then: a twelve-hour roundtrip came with a built-in guarantee. Nowadays, even though we sleep just inches apart, our love life requires far more elaborate maneuvers. Sex has become something we build up to slowly, not something we do on a whim. For Sam, things have to happen in a certain yet inexplicable order. It’s as if she’s got the whole thing choreographed in her mind, but every time I put a foot wrong the music stops and the whole dance has to begin again.

  I step into the shower stall and blast myself with water that’s hotter than I usually like.

  I towel off and stand naked in front of the bathroom mirror. I’m thirty-seven years old. My eyesight sucks. In the blurred reflection of my upper body I see the face of a cartoon dog—my nipples make two eyes above a round, belly-button nose and jowly, hanging cheeks. I put my glasses back on, hoping to make the face disappear, but the effect lingers.

  I walk back into the bedroom.

  “Do you think I’m fat?” I ask Sam. Now that I’ve showered and am focused on getting out the door, she can allow herself to display more signs of consciousness.

  “No,” she says. “Of course not.” We both know that using the F-word can damage a relationship.

  I pull back the curtain, trying to find some socks that will match the pants I plan to wear. I make the mistake of giving Sam a side view of my gut as I bend over.

  “I just think you should work out more,” she says. “I worry about your health.”

  That’s a good one. The worry-about-your-health angle never fails.

  “Would you want me more if I lost some weight?”

  “Jesus, Russell,” she says, turning away from me, pulling the comforter tighter around her.

  I never ask Sam what she does after I leave each morning, but my working assumption is that once I kiss her on the head she drifts gently back to sleep for at least another hour.

  The F-train is crowded, but there’s a middle seat no one wants: an orange sliver between two passengers whose ass sizes exceed the MTA space allowance. I wedge myself between them and pull my newspapers from my messenger bag. It’s a small gesture. But whenever I’m surrounded by iPod listeners, BlackBerry users, Sudoku addicts and anyone looking to either shake me down or inspire my religious conversion, I immerse myself in a newspaper. Not just to create a barrier between me and my fellow commuters. Not just to fly the flag for the company that employs me. I happen to think a newspaper is a convenient, wireless, handheld device. On a good day it might even tell me something I don’t already know.

  I conceal
my New York Times inside the first section of the Daily Business Chronicle and start reading. It’s my way of reminding any media planners who might get on the train that the Chronicle still exists, even if its readership among the under-forty crowd is in sharp decline.

  The news is all bad. Our future’s in the hands of scoundrels and fanatics. I skim the headlines, searching in vain for signs of hope for subway riders, New York City dwellers, American citizens at home and abroad, the entire God-fearing Christian world, people of all religions, agnostics, atheists, the planet we all must share. I read about the rescue effort underway halfway up an Oregon mountain. Three overconfident climbers are stranded. They ignored the weather forecasts and now about twenty people have to risk their own lives trying to save them. I imagine myself as a rescue worker, being lowered from a helicopter, buffeted by chill winds in the blinding snow. I can’t resist the urge to slap the face of the first man I reach: “Fuck you, you stupid fuck!” I scream. “Look at all the trouble you’ve caused. I could be at home in my mountain lodge right now. Relaxing with a nice hot chocolate. Feeding my faithful St. Bernard. Tiptoeing around my gorgeous but indifferent wife.”

  I fold the paper and reflect for a while. I’m not sure what motivates mountain climbers anymore. It’s either heroism or idiocy or both. It’s not as if the mountains haven’t been conquered before. And we already have all the business metaphors we need.

  Three years ago, when my company still spent money on such things, Jack Tennant, our division’s president, hired a mountaineer to talk to us about “Peak Performance.” Her claim to fame was that she was the first one-armed woman to climb Mount Everest.

  She stood alone on the stage of our company’s auditorium talking about the teamwork required for such a complex expedition. She paced backwards and forwards against a backdrop of projected images from the climb. She told us all about the planning, the preparation, the different kinds of expertise required to achieve the ultimate goal. Until she held it up, it was impossible to tell which was her artificial hand. Reaching base camp was relatively easy, she said. The gang was all there. Tents were set up. You had plenty of supplies—food, clothing, medical equipment. But when the time came, she, the leader of the expedition, said good-bye to the team and, with only a trusty Sherpa to carry her camera and flag, set out alone for the final push.

  “Aim high,” she said as her final, twelve-foot-tall image was projected on the auditorium screen. “Reach for the top. Dream big dreams. Set yourself unattainable goals. Because with teamwork you can transform the unattainable into the achievable.” After her speech we clapped enthusiastically and then lined up as she signed leftover copies of her once best-selling book. We weren’t expected to read it, but I did spend ten minutes looking at the pictures. There were three pages devoted to the surgeries, rehabilitation and technological advances that made her arm so functional. But I wanted to see what the Sherpa looked like. The only place I could find him, he was partially obscured in a group shot.

  I emerge from a side exit at my midtown subway stop, and as I wait for the light to change, I raise my eyes to study the impressive high-rise building where I work. People still call it the Burke-Hart Building, even though Burke-Hart Publishing—the company that founded the Daily Business Chronicle—is now only a small division within the Ghosh Corporation.

  I cross the street and walk across the mini-plaza that creates a public space in front of my building. This plaza is swept and hosed each morning to erase all traces of the tourists, skateboarders, lovers and bums who congregate here at different times during the day and night.

  I pass through the revolving doors and walk toward my elevator bank. Two workmen on ladders are adjusting the four-foot-tall letters suspended on barely visible wires behind the main reception desk. These letters are new. They spell out G-H-O-S-H in the eye-popping purple and yellow logotype that serves as a reminder that our company name—and the name of the Ghosh Corporation’s founder and CEO—should always be pronounced “gauche,” never “gosh.” This hanging logo is just one part of the worldwide corporate rebranding being executed at all of the old Burke-Hart offices.

  I like the new logo and the change it signifies. I’m not one of those old-timers who grumble about the fact that our heritage is being subsumed by a ten-year-old company known for its arrogant business dealings, aggressive outsourcing and love of bright, childish colors. These old-timers recall how the company used to be like family. People in senior management would walk around the floors. They would stop and chat. They would even remember your name. At meetings, speakers would routinely stir up corporate pride by saying, “We bleed green blood,” in reference to our original corporate color and their pride in a heritage dating back to 1923.

  Now our green logo is gone from the lobby. We read in our own and other newspapers how Larry Ghosh intends to return Burke-Hart Publishing and its flagship publication, the Daily Business Chronicle, to a new era of profitability. We read in management memos that we are looking to change the DNA of our division. We witness the influx of new managers, consultants and free-floating strategists—people who seem to speak a different language than we are used to and who measure success by different metrics.

  There’s no fighting change. And it’s not just our logo. The heart of our company has been transplanted. We aren’t supposed to bleed green blood anymore. People who do are out of touch.

  CHAPTER TWO

  My personal base camp is a two-windowed, north-facing office on the twenty-fifth floor. At first glance it’s a total mess. Every conceivable surface is covered with stacks of file folders, bound presentations, newspapers, magazines and assorted papers. The overall effect is chaotic, random-looking. But appearances can be deceptive. In reality, despite its dumping-ground appearance, my office is the visual manifestation of a highly alert, productive, creative and well-organized business mind.

  Lucky Cat waves at me from the windowsill. I walk over to him between the piles of work that rise from my floor. At the start of each day, I rub Lucky Cat’s paw and make a wish. Lucky was a gift from our Japanese design intern, Kiko Soseki. On her first day in the office, Kiko presented me with a gift-wrapped box and a note that read, “Dear Mr. Wiley, Please enjoy traditional Lucky Cat and special rice crackers from Japan, bringing happiness and good fortune.” The wrapping paper looked more expensive than the plastic object inside. I pulled the cat’s head off and tipped the crackers out of its stomach. They were dry and stale and I threw them away immediately. But there was something that drew me to the black shell of the cat itself. I played with it for a while, removing and replacing its detachable head, studying how the glued paper aligned when its face and colorful belly were put back together. I imagined that Lucky Cat possessed special powers. At the very least, I thought perhaps I could absorb something good from his hollow, manufactured cheerfulness. I found a spot for him on the windowsill, among my commemorative lucites and discarded promotional items. And that’s where he stays, opposite the door to my office, smiling at everyone who crosses my threshold, his paw permanently raised in welcome.

  “Please, no more than three interruptions before lunchtime,” I whisper today.

  I’ve found it’s best to manage my expectations in regard to Lucky Cat’s powers.

  I sit at my desk and scan my emails to confirm there’s nothing super-urgent to deal with. I launch my web browser and log on to the Ghosh Corporation intranet. Before starting the day’s climb, I like to make sure the mountains haven’t moved—that no one important has been fired and none of our business units has been sold overnight. Everything seems in order. So I swivel around to my actual desktop and try to reacquaint myself with the logic behind the mass of overlapping papers in front of me: mail, documents, file folders, sticky notes and paper scraps.

  The top layer of the pile relates to the Livingston Kidd account. It’s the biggest project I’m working on. Livingston Kidd is our largest financial advertiser. The partners who run the firm are the kind of old-school clie
nts we like: people who actually read the Chronicle. For years they’ve renewed their advertising schedule with scarcely a question. But Livingston’s going through a transition of its own. They recently hired a slick, super-confident marketing team from Citigroup. And their new guys are looking to do things differently from the people they’ve come in to replace. According to their media agency, they intend to “bring the Livingston Kidd brand into the twenty-first century.” Which means moving more money online and limiting newspaper advertising to just one title. The Livingston team has invited a Chronicle delegation to their New Jersey headquarters next month to present a “partnership review.” It will be our one and only chance to save the business. My boss, Henry Moss, the vice president of sales and marketing, will be making the presentation himself.

  The Chronicle can’t afford to lose Livingston Kidd. Financial advertising is the category we rely on most. Over the past several years, as most of our clients have shifted large chunks of their budgets to the internet, it’s the one area that’s held up best. Losing the Livingston Kidd business would be a huge psychological blow. In business terms, it would transform a year of moderate decline into a complete disaster.

  “Hey, pal,” says Henry. “What are you doing at lunchtime?”

  “Nothing,” I say. “I was hoping to make some headway on this Livingston Kidd proposal. I don’t have anything to show you just yet.”

  “That’s good. That’s good.” Henry sounds far away, distracted. He has me on speakerphone. I wait a couple of seconds.

  “Did you need me to do something at lunchtime?” I ask.

  “Yeah,” says Henry. “Let’s have lunch. I’ll see if Ellen can get us into Fabrice.”

  “OK. Do I need to bring anything?”

  “No. No,” he says. “Don’t bring anything.”