by Richard Hine
“Russell,” he says, looking at me over his computer, “thanks for stopping by. Just let me save this.” He taps a few buttons on his keyboard, then closes the screen and pushes the laptop aside. He leans forward. “Jesus. I spent all afternoon reading some more of the historical files. I saw your name on a WICTY project memo. You should have told me you were already a big player last time around.”
I shrug. “I came in at the back end. Put a few slides together. Then they pulled the plug.”
Judd looks at me closely. “So tell me, Russell. I guess we might as well be frank. What the hell have I gotten myself into? Am I doing the right thing taking this on? Or should I just quit now and cut my losses?”
I search for the kind of language Judd might understand. “Well,” I tell him, “we do need new ways to monetize our value proposition.”
“Let me come right out with it. I don’t like to spin my wheels. There are other things I could be doing. Sure, I’m interested in broadening my base of industry knowledge. But we both know the real action for branded content is in cross-platform integration. Without the online and mobile plays, the newspaper story just doesn’t excite advertisers. Am I missing something? I don’t want to take on a project that’s doomed to fail.”
“You said it yourself this morning. Our existing business models are broken. We need a new way to leverage our strategic assets. If we can’t change our corporate structure, all we can focus on is the daily newspaper business. And if our editors don’t start attracting younger readers soon, we’re all dead. Everything’s riding on the D-SAW project. Of course, we do have a major hurdle in that our own readers hated the concept last time around. But that’s why you’re here. Henry and Jack have a lot riding on this.”
“OK, Russell,” says Judd, pushing back in his chair and putting his hands behind his head. I notice sweat stains in his armpits and I’m reminded of an old antiperspirant commercial. This is the moment when the word UNSURE would have been slapped across the screen. “Let’s just say you had a new prototype to work with. Let’s say you had three million to throw at the problem. What would you do? More focus groups? Online research? What would you spend more on: product development or creative testing?”
Despite myself, I’m tempted to tell him that more focus groups would be a waste of time. We know our customers. We know what they want. More important, we know what they don’t want. As for the younger readers we need to attract, it’s hard to imagine that gathering them in a room, disconnecting them from their iPods and cell phones, getting them hopped up on M&Ms and soda, and cross-examining them for two hours about a concept as alien to them as a newspaper will yield any useful information.
I make a special effort and resist the urge to tell Judd what I’m thinking. “Wow,” I say instead. “Three million? Completely discretionary? That’s unheard of around here. Do me a favor. Let me think about it.”
And here’s what I think:
Three million. Sounds familiar. That’s exactly how much Henry and Jeanie have just pulled from me and my colleagues—the team they are relying on to keep the current business on track. And they’ve given it all, no questions asked, to a thirty-five-year-old newspaper neophyte who doesn’t have a clue what to do with it.
Three million, I’d like to tell Jeanie, could buy us a hell of a lot of bathrobes.
CHAPTER NINE
One of the funny things about my work life is how I spend all day being as nice as humanly possible to people I wouldn’t otherwise choose to socialize with. By the time I get home, my cheerful battery has run down. My kindness settings have been changed. “Pleasant” is no longer my default option.
That’s why, when I arrive home to find my wife wiping a strange brown lump in the middle of the living room floor, I don’t say, “Hi, Sam. You look great. You can’t imagine how much I missed you today.” Instead I say, “Jesus. What the hell is that?”
“Isn’t it amazing?” Sam stands up, smiling excitedly, a bottle of all-purpose cleaner in one hand, a darkly stained cloth in the other. She loves this stuff in a way I don’t quite understand.
The fact is, she does look—she always looks—great. Wearing just a sweatshirt and some flannel shorts. Hair pulled back in a rubber band. Her legs and feet are bare. Maybe I should go out and come in again. But it’s too late for that.
“I thought you were buying a rug.”
“I’m still thinking about the rug. When I saw this piece, I told Shila I just had to have it.”
“This piece? What is it?” I ask again. “It looks like an elephant turd.”
Sam rolls with that one. “It’s a footstool, I think. We could use it lots of different ways.”
“Do we need another footstool? How much was it?”
“Shila let me have it for forty bucks.”
“What did she pay for it?”
The last remnant of Sam’s smile fades. “She had it on sale for one-twenty.”
“Wow. That’s like getting an eighty-dollar bonus. Except for the fact you’re out forty dollars.”
“That’s so like you.”
I sit on the couch, throw my suit jacket on the cushion next to me.
“Can I put my feet on it at least?”
“No. I just cleaned it.” Her mouth is set in a firm line.
“Maybe we should just lie down for a while. We don’t have to do anything.”
“I’m not having sex with you. I don’t want to get all sweaty.”
“Come on,” I say. “If you start using the No Sweat Clause, we’ll never have sex ever again.”
“What do you mean, the No Sweat Clause?”
“It’s that catch-22 you always use. You don’t want sex when you’re already sweaty. And you especially don’t want sex if you’re not sweaty, in case it makes you sweaty.”
“What are you talking about? Where do you come up with this stuff?”
“I don’t make it up. These are your rules. If you’re worried about perspiration, we could try it with a sheet between us.”
“I just washed the sheets.”
“I’ll turn on the air conditioner.”
“Then you’ll want me to cook you dinner.”
“I don’t care about food. We’ll order Chinese.”
“I don’t want Chinese. I don’t want to hear you complain we’re spending too much money ordering in.”
“It’s OK,” I say. “If times get tough, we’ll sell the footstool.”
“Maybe you were right. I don’t think I want to have sex with you ever again.”
“OK. What shall we have for dinner?”
“I have half a sandwich in the fridge. That’s all I need.”
“So what shall I do?”
“Whatever you want.”
“OK. Hand me the remote.”
Sam throws the remote at me, walks to the kitchen with her cleaning products. I kick off my shoes, turn on the TV.
A few seconds later, Sam comes out of the kitchen and heads down the uncarpeted hall toward our bedroom. At first I think she’s ignoring me completely, but she stops, retraces her steps and snaps, “Get your fucking feet off that thing.”
Day twenty-nine of my reclaimed virginity. I wake before the alarm. Get dressed in the dark. Head out to work half an hour earlier than usual.
Sam and I somehow got through the rest of last night, mainly by avoiding each other. I watched TV. Sam went to the bedroom for about forty-five minutes, called someone on the phone. Her mother, I think. I used my cell phone to order a pizza, half with broccoli and extra cheese, the way she likes it. She emerged from the bedroom, and in a silent gesture of détente, I handed her the remote. I brought two trays from the kitchen and we ate together on the couch, using paper plates from the pizzeria. She forgot about her half sandwich and made me sit through a marathon of British TV on BBC America. I went to bed midway through the third back-to-back episode of her favorite gardening show. I was asleep by the time she joined me.
On my way to the subway, I flip open m
y cell phone and dial Fergus’s office number. He won’t be there. Even on a normal day, it’s way too early for him. And I know he closed the new issue of Vicious Circle last night.
I leave a message inviting him to lunch then snap the phone shut and try to organize the important, early-morning questions I have banging around in my head. I’d love to sit down with Fergus and ask him: Are you actually happy with how your life has turned out, or is your contented family guy persona some kind of act? Did you plan all this responsibility, or did it just happen that way? Where have you deposited all your huge, naïve, premarital ambitions, your dreams of potential greatness? Do you and Julie still fuck on a regular basis? If yes, how regular? Who initiates? By the way, what do you think of me these days? Truthfully. Does it annoy you that I make so much money helping sell ads to the kinds of corporations whose pathological pursuit of profits you find obscene? Do you think I’m a sellout? Do you think it’s OK that Sam doesn’t want a career anymore? What if I told you that she doesn’t want to sleep with me either? Does that change your answer? Do I have a right to demand more sex? On what basis? Because she loves me, or because I pay for everything? Or should I be the one who accommodates her? Should I accept her lack of desire and live without sex just because I love her? And if I did accept that, shouldn’t I still insist she get a proper job?
I swipe my MetroCard and head down into the swarm of irritable, Manhattan-bound workers on my Brooklyn subway platform.
My plan is to eat breakfast at my desk and get focused on the Livingston Kidd proposal that’s at the top of my WIP list. I stop in at the second-floor cafeteria. Coffee. Juice. Scrambled egg wrap. The spicy kind. All loaded onto a disposal cardboard tray.
It’s eight fifteen. Most of the early crowd does what I’m doing. They get breakfast to go. But after paying there’s only one way out: you have to walk through the nearly deserted cafeteria. I scan the large room. There are only a few tables occupied by solo Chronicle readers or small groups from the lifestyle group talking about the return of taupe. Over at a table by the window, Ben Shapiro and Erika Fallon are hard to miss. And even harder to ignore.
“Yoo-hoo,” calls Ben, waving a little more than he needs to to get my attention. He’s wearing a turquoise shirt, open at the neck. I wander over, trying to be discreet in the glances I throw in Erika’s direction. I stop a little short of their table.
“Hi, guys,” I say. “What are you doing here?”
“You know me,” says Ben. “I’m up when the cock crows.”
Erika shakes her head. Her hair, I notice, is especially lustrous in the morning light. “We’re just catching up on a few projects. Why don’t you join us, Russell Wiley?”
“Project number one,” says Ben. “We need to decide about Mr. Judd Walker. Is he a suitable candidate for the irresistible but impossibly hard-to-please Erika?”
I chuckle and give Erika my most rueful, wide-eyed look. “I don’t think I can go there. Plus, I came in early because I have an urgent—”
“Shush, shush, shush,” says Ben. “This is urgent. Sit. We need the straight man’s perspective.”
“OK, I’ll sit. But don’t expect me to get drawn into any inappropriate conversation. Anyway,” I say absentmindedly, “isn’t Judd gay?”
“Negatory, my friend. He scores a zero on my homometer. And in case you didn’t know, little Miss Erika’s milkshake has already brought him out to the yard.”
“Ben!”
“Really?” I say, biting into my sandwich, trying to appear only moderately interested.
“We had one conversation,” says Erika. “He seems cute.”
“Hmmm. I thought the cute ones were usually gay.”
“Gay or married,” says Erika.
“Or both,” says Ben. “But let’s not go there. Anyway, a little birdie apparently told Mr. Judd about our DC event next week. Suddenly he’s planning his own trip down there, telling Erika he’d love to join us if the dates line up.”
“Really?” I say again. “He’s a fast worker.”
“He sure is,” says Ben. “But is he worth breaking the rules for?”
“Rules?”
I sip some juice through my straw and watch Erika’s expression as Ben explains. “Apparently young Erika has imposed some highly restrictive rules on her love life. No wonder she’s going through such a dry spell.”
“Maybe Erika Fallon just intimidates people,” I say.
“Thank you, Russell Wiley.”
I tip my coffee cup to her in reply.
“Maybe so,” says Ben. “But when you rule out two-thirds of the male population, you make getting laid way too difficult.”
“Ben!” says Erika again.
“I’ll be your witness,” I tell her, “when you report him to HR.”
“That won’t be necessary,” says Ben, who proceeds to articulate and offer commentary on Erika’s three rules for dating:
1. No married men.
2. No coworkers.
3. Never, ever with your boss.
“Imagine if I tried to live like that,” says Ben.
“I’ll tell Henry to stop leading you on,” I say.
Erika laughs.
“Puh-lease,” says Ben. “The question is, does Judd qualify as a coworker if he’s actually a consultant, not a member of staff?”
I think for a moment, trying to come up with a counterargument that doesn’t make me sound too petty or jealous. “Well, that sounds like a technicality,” I say. “He has been given an office. And he will be coming in every day like a regular employee.”
“Phhhww,” says Ben.
“Plus,” I say before he can go on, “isn’t it a slippery slope? If Erika Fallon breaks the rule for Judd, won’t every other single man in the office feel they have the right to ask her out in the future?”
“Why not!” says Ben. “Let’s open the floodgates instead of bolting all the doors.”
I sip my coffee and say, “My advice to you, Erika Fallon, is to wait a while. Maybe when you get to know Judd better you won’t think he’s so cute after all. Why break the rule now when you can always break it later?”
“That’s a good idea,” says Erika.
“That’s a terrible idea,” says Ben. “You need to flirt with him like crazy and make sure he gets his butt down to that hotel in Washington next week.”
“I can do that,” says Erika. “Flirting’s easy. Especially when you know someone’s off limits. You can relax with them. Isn’t that right, Russell Wiley?” She fixes me with her warm brown eyes and waits for me to come right back at her with something witty and profound.
“Er, I guess so,” I say.
“Russell,” says Jeremy Stent, bursting eagerly into my office. “I have this fantastic idea I want to run by you.”
It’s 9:01. I’m still not fully recovered from my breakfast experience. My spicy egg wrap isn’t sitting well in my stomach. And the sight of Jeremy isn’t helping.
Jeremy’s a smart misfit who hasn’t managed to gel with his colleagues or understand why the work he produces, which makes perfect sense to him, is completely unusable based on the way we like to do things around here. The best thing about Jeremy is that he’s only been with us three months. Which will make him easiest to fire when the layoffs come.
“What does Pete think?” I ask, knowing already that Pete Hughes, Jeremy’s nominal boss, has not yet been zapped by Jeremy’s latest brain wave.
Jeremy’s eagerness to come up with new ideas would be endearing if he could just stop his ego from showing. In his junior role he needs to be respectful and supportive to his immediate supervisor. And not barge into my office and attempt to dazzle me with ideas that, while new to him, I’ve invariably seen before.
“I wanted to bring it to you first,” he says in a tone that manages to sound both obsequious and patronizing.
I should just tell him to get back to work. To do what he’s told. To stop trying to come up with ideas we haven’t asked him for. I need him pr
oducing the work that will justify his meager salary and his inflated self-opinion.
But I indulge Jeremy and listen to him as best I can. He thinks he has devised another great money-saving idea for the company that would also be astonishingly easy to execute. There’s only one problem with it: Jeremy’s idea would require Burke-Hart’s business and lifestyle groups to work together with a spirit of selfless cross-divisional partnership. In Jeremy’s utopian worldview, he imagines somehow that both sides would be willing to put the overall good of the company ahead of their individual priorities.
As soon as that level of impossibility is established, I start to lose interest. My mind wanders. It becomes harder and harder for me to concentrate on the exact details of what Jeremy’s saying.
I try to quantify the sources of my distraction.
Five percent is pure nostalgia. Jeremy’s reminding me of my own idealistic youth. When I thought it was possible to make a meaningful contribution to the corporate world. That my ideas would be listened to and my memos read. There was a god we worshipped then. A powerful god called Synergy. He was a god who promised us a bright, harmonious future. But that god was the devil in disguise. He’s dead now. We are no longer allowed to mention his name.
Twenty percent is the fact I haven’t had sex in twenty-nine days. It’s causing something to build up inside me. And not just physically. There’s a resentment taking hold, a sense that I’m being taken advantage of in ways I never consciously agreed to. Something has changed between Sam and me. What used to be a dance now feels more like hand-to-hand combat.
Thirty percent is the residual impact of spending twenty minutes this morning in the company of Erika Fallon. Her bottom teeth are slightly crooked, I noticed. But crooked in the most delightful way.
The remaining forty-five percent of my distraction revolves around Judd and the thought of him flexing his MBA muscles for Erika. I shouldn’t care. I’m a married man. It’s not as if Erika Fallon and I could ever be together. But if she is going to be with somebody, she needs to choose someone other than Judd. Lucky Cat understands. I had a quiet conversation with him this morning. I told him I didn’t want to become the kind of bitter, tormented person who can’t stand to see other people having fun. But still, I pointed out, I have to draw the line somewhere. Lucky smiled at me wisely. I think he could really empathize with what I was feeling.