by Richard Hine
I could interrupt Susan to inform her that Old Henry is dead. New Henry has taken his place. New Henry is ruthless. He’s not afraid to fire good people like Ben purely to send a signal. New Henry is confident. He thinks big, seizes opportunities and brings in new talent like Judd.
But that wouldn’t be exactly true. Old Henry would have eliminated Ben in exactly the same way: cuts needed to be made. Ben wasn’t Henry’s kind of guy. And Jeanie certainly fed him enough bogus data to justify the decision.
I don’t interrupt Susan because there’s really no point in doing so. She’s not looking for a dialogue, just a sympathetic ear. All she wants from me is an occasional grunt or supportive word to create the semblance of two-way communication. I indulge her for a few minutes because her presence and agitation is reassuringly familiar.
“Don’t get me wrong, Russell,” Susan is saying. “You may be great at what you do, but you know jack shit about events. You know what I’m saying?”
It occurs to me that everything Susan is saying is absolutely correct. She is a woman of extraordinary intelligence, vivacity, insight, experience, loyalty and commitment. Unfortunately for her, the company places absolutely no value on these attributes. It’s too late for me to help Susan. But if I’m not careful, I will become her in another ten years.
I make a clucking sound. It’s hard to disagree with Susan’s conclusion that everything Henry’s doing—hiring Judd, firing Ben, killing so many of Susan’s projects—is utterly ridiculous. She gave Henry a piece of her mind this morning. But as usual, Henry didn’t listen.
“Let them fire me next,” she says. “I’ll take the severance package. You know what I’m saying?”
I reach across the desk and put my hand on hers.
“Yes,” I say. “I know exactly what you’re saying.” Her hand is round and warm, like a trapped mouse. Her wedding ring scratches against my fingers as she jerks it away.
“I’ve got to go,” she says and hurries from my office.
In the aftermath of a director-level firing like Ben’s, it’s foolish of me to even attempt to get any actual work done. This is a time when my peers need to gossip and my existing staff needs to hear from me. Most of all, Ben’s people, the new members of my team, need me to reach out and reassure them that we will find the right way to navigate this transition.
But my instinct is to hide. After Susan leaves, I tell Barbara to cancel my weekly staff meeting and reschedule my ten o’clock brainstorm with Judd. Livingston Kidd has to be my number one priority, I tell myself. Everything’s at stake. Randy Baker’s freaking out. Losing this business will ruin his year. He’s clinging to the hope that he and Henry can still turn things around. Which means it’s time for me to kick it into gear. I should have delivered a draft of the presentation to the art department yesterday. Now, there’s no time to lose.
I take a deep breath, turn to my computer, open a new document and start tapping out an outline for the presentation. This is when I do my best work. Things just flow. I’m in the zone.
“Do you need to get that?” says Martin. I haven’t noticed him come in or the fact that my phone is ringing. I look at Martin, at the phone, at the screensaver that indicates at least five minutes of inactivity. The ringing stops. At some point, I realize, I veered out of the zone and started thinking about Erika Fallon. The image of her crushed and wounded toes had stayed in my mind. In my new role as her boss, I began to wonder how I might help relieve her suffering by removing her shoes and peeling off, one by one, the tiny round bandages. In homage to Ben, I imagined a tasteful, spa-like treatment room. As the scene began, Erika Fallon was seated in her pedicure chair, wearing a plush, $340 bathrobe. I gave a cameo role in my fantasy to Natalie Portman, looking especially fierce with her close-cropped, V for Vendetta haircut. Dressed in an esthetician’s uniform, she stepped forward with the bowl of hot, scented water into which I gently guided Erika Fallon’s feet. The hands on the clock sped up to indicate the passage of time, and when they slowed down again, Sienna Miller appeared to hand me a thick, fluffy spa towel with which to wrap Erika Fallon’s rejuvenated feet. And then suddenly I was alone with Erika Fallon, squirting a healing massage lotion into my hands. “That tickles,” she said, giggling and pulling away. But then she relaxed, leaned back in her loosely tied cotton robe, and stretched her foot toward me again. I grasped it more confidently and she murmured her appreciation as my fingers massaged her toes and my thumbs started kneading the soles of her feet. I was tracing my fingers around her ankles, moving slowly up her calves when Martin entered my office.
“So,” he says, standing at my window, fiddling with the cords of my venetian blinds. “Ben is the latest sacrifice.”
Martin swings the cord so it taps against the window, and says without turning to look at me, “What do you make of all this, Russell?”
“I don’t know,” I say. My hands feel sticky. “Things are weird around here lately.”
“Do you know how old Ben is?” asks Martin.
“No,” I say. I don’t usually ask older guys at my level to reveal their age. It’s the younger ones who concern me. “Forty-one, forty-two?”
“Ben’s forty-five,” he says meaningfully.
“Wow,” I say. “He looks good for his age.”
“I finally got the call from Barney Barnes,” says Martin, picking up Lucky Cat and shaking him a little. “He wants to create a new position. Executive creative director in the lifestyle group. Overseeing new launches and development projects.”
“Jeez. Are you going for it?”
“I don’t know,” says Martin. “You know the history. If I quit to go over there, there’s no coming back.”
“Fuck,” I say. “What can I tell you?”
Martin moves toward my desk and slides into the chair still warmed by Susan’s tirade.
“I know people are going to say I know shit about fashion. But that’s not why they want me. They have enough twenty-five-year-olds already. Barney says he needs a grown-up, someone in their late-thirties who can train people and talk to him about strategy.”
“Well, it sounds like a great opportunity.”
“It’s a big step up,” says Martin.
“You’ve got to grab these things before you turn forty.”
That one floats right by Martin.
“And who’s to say I even have a future if I stick with what I’m doing?” he says. “Look what happened to Ben. You know as well as I do that Henry doesn’t stand up for his people. He could throw any one of us to the wolves tomorrow.”
“I can’t argue with you on that.”
“People are going to say I’m just a pussy-hound. But that’s not what this is about.”
“I’m with you,” I say. “The lifestyle group’s the only part of the company that’s growing right now. It’s the best career move you could make. You have to think about yourself and your future. Plus, all those hot young chicks in their tight little outfits definitely need someone who can provide some discipline.”
“That’s exactly the kind of shit I don’t want.”
“Why do you care? You’ll be like the cool college professor. Just don’t abuse your position when your students start developing crushes.”
I’m bullshitting again. But Martin smiles at the prospect. He talks more about the great opportunity he’s being offered. He needs to hear himself say it out loud a couple more times to feel fully comfortable with the idea. I’m already wondering what this news will mean for the rest of us. If Henry promotes from within—I’m sure Liz Cooke could do the job—he’ll have one less person to fire.
As he leaves, I ask Martin to close the door behind him. Chitchat time is over. I have to shut out all distractions. Saving the Livingston Kidd business is going to be a near-impossible task. I need to get to work. But even as Martin is closing the door, Jeanie Tusa slips under his arm and rushes to my desk. Martin rolls his eyes at me, then closes the door anyway.
“Congratulations!” says J
eanie, smiling broadly to display her overly bleached teeth. She’s wearing one of those clingy tops I thought were sold only in young people’s stores. I suspect she’s still high on endorphins from her early-morning workout with Luis, her Peruvian personal trainer.
“For what exactly?”
“Henry’s put you in charge of events! Isn’t that cool?”
“I’m not sure I’m there yet. I’m still kind of adjusting to the news about Ben.”
“Well, I’ve got lots of ideas. I’d love to help.”
Before I can object, Jeanie is sitting in my guest chair, throwing off ideas for extravagant parties she thinks we should be creating for customers. When Jeanie’s not selling us out to Henry, she spends a large part of her workweek trying to ingratiate herself into the team. In this role, she wants us to perceive her as Jeanie, the creative, fun-loving accountant, not afraid to cut loose and challenge those nerdy, green-eye-shade stereotypes. It’s obvious she’s unaware what a lousy job she’s doing with our department’s finances if she thinks she has time on her hands for frivolous stuff like this.
Jeanie is saying the Chronicle needs to throw more celebrity-packed events, the kind that get covered on the local TV news and written up in the gossip columns. Her vivacious side has taken over. Sometimes I wish she had an inner number cruncher she could get back in touch with.
“Jeanie, these are great concepts. Ben would have loved to do events like these. I always thought it was a question of budget.”
At the mention of Ben, Jeanie stops waving her arms in the air and parks her hands in her lap.
“Did you know that Ben was over budget at fourteen different events in the past twelve months?” says Jeanie. “That he gave approval for a dozen bottles of Cristal to be served after the bar had closed down at Hank’s Christmas party last year?”
Suddenly, Jeanie’s vindictiveness shines through a little too clearly. She knows Henry and Hank were both there to authorize the champagne.
I sit back, grasping the arms of my chair. “You know what, Jeanie?” I say. “I’m probably going to need your help with more than ideas. Do you think you could start auditing more of our events? I mean personally checking them out. Hank’s party especially. And any others you could possibly spare the time for. I hate to impose. But unless you’re there to keep an eye, it’s going to be hard to know if we’re spending our money wisely.”
“I could do that,” says Jeanie. “You know me. I’ll do anything for the team.” And she’s smiling and bubbly and back in full nose-scrunching mode.
Before she leaves she turns at the door and stage-whispers, “Don’t tell Henry. But I’ve put an extra twenty thousand in your T&E for next year.”
Jeanie disappears, and I open my printer tray and grab a stack of paper. I can’t take any more of these interruptions. I’m going to the cafeteria so I can get some work done.
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
The back corner table of our staff cafeteria is one of the first hiding places I discovered when I joined the company. Out of sight of the cashiers. Far away from the minimal midmorning traffic. I have about an hour before the early lunch crowd will start drifting in to break up my concentration.
Sometimes I work better by abandoning my computer and literally putting pen to paper. I scribble quickly, shuffling pages around, watching the presentation I’m writing take shape in front of me. The change of location has helped. I’m in a groove. My head’s down. Things are finally starting to flow. And just when I think absolutely nothing can distract me, Erika Fallon giggles in my head. My pen hand freezes in midair. The giggling stops, but I don’t know whether I should spend the next few seconds questioning my sanity or struggling to recapture my interrupted thought.
Then Erika Fallon says, “Don’t worry. You’ll get used to it.” I look up. The voice isn’t inside my head. Erika Fallon is sitting several tables away. With Judd.
Judd waves at me, and Erika Fallon turns and says, “Oh hi, Russell Wiley.”
“Hi guys,” I say with a casual nod. I begin retracing some of the words on the sheet of paper closest to me.
Erika Fallon and Judd are having coffee. Two single colleagues taking a break together. In a quiet corner of the cafeteria. Nothing wrong with that. There’s no reason anyone should jump to any conclusions.
“So what do you do for fun?” I hear him ask.
She leans into his space and speaks softly in reply.
“Jeez!” says Judd. He laughs. “How did you get into that?”
I guess I should be happy that Erika Fallon has gotten over her upset about Ben so quickly. Resilience is a good character trait. But the interruption has ruined my flow. I wait a minute, then gather all my papers into a single pile, not caring if they get out of order. I need to get back upstairs and start typing this up.
In the elevator it occurs me that Ben’s T&E budget must have been way more than the twenty thousand dollars extra Jeanie’s given me. She acted like she was doing me a favor. In reality I was getting stiffed.
Back at my desk, I have forty-five new emails, five new voicemails, a note on my chair from Judd asking me to call him, and another from Randy Baker asking for an update on the Livingston Kidd proposal. Nothing about my day is going right. I grab my jacket and head out to the street. Through Times Square and onto Forty-second Street. Past Madame Tussaud’s and through the doors of the AMC 25 Theater. I pick the one movie I’ve heard nothing about. A 12:10 show. The title gives nothing away. I sit in the partial darkness with a large Coke and popcorn combo, waiting for the lights to go down. It’s a Chinese movie. About a fisherman. Who’s about to set off on a long, lonely journey.
“Hey there, Wiley Coyote.”
“What’s up, Hot Mama?” I say, without looking up. For the past five minutes I’ve been trying to assemble my handwritten Livingston Kidd notes into some kind of order. The paper piles and other assorted detritus on my desk make it difficult to spread things out in a logical sequence. Either that, or maybe my ideas weren’t as well structured as I first thought.
The only person who calls me Wiley Coyote is Liz Cooke, one of the two senior designers in Martin’s group. She started calling me that a few years ago when we used to hang out a lot. Confiding in each other about our respective relationships. All platonic, of course. But with enough of an undercurrent to keep us both amused.
Something changed about three years ago, when I made director. We stopped collaborating directly on projects. Shortly after that she got engaged to her longtime boyfriend, Toby.
Immediately, we both forgot all the personal things she’d ever told me about Toby. The small things that drove her crazy. The big things that made her question their future together. We also forgot the comment she made the last time we were alone on adjacent barstools. She’d been silent for a while, looking thoughtfully at the hand with which she was holding her glass. “What I really need, Russell,” she said, her wrist tilted toward me, “is a man like you.”
Within a year of her marriage, Liz gave birth to a girl called Macy. She and Toby moved from the East Village to Pelham, closer to his parents. But Liz refuses to be defined by her new suburban/maternal existence. She’s thinner now than before she got married, with a new tattoo visible above her ankle and another that can be glimpsed occasionally on her lower back. She favors spaghetti-strapped tank tops with no bra beneath.
“There’s something I need to run by you,” she says, all businesslike.
“And I need to talk to you,” I say in a serious voice. “Could you do me a favor and give our intern Angela some instruction on our corporate dress code?”
“Can’t we just leave the kid alone? Listen. Have you heard anything about Martin leaving?” She looks at me intently. Her latest hairdo is short and spiky. She’s either oblivious to the way her ears stick out from her head like jug handles, or she’s choosing to accentuate the feature. After all, we live in an age when the new beauty icons are celebrated for their carefully crafted lack of perfection.
“Martin? Jesus. I haven’t got over the news about Ben yet.”
“So you don’t know anything about him going to work for Barney Barnes? Some big new job? Executive director title?” Liz crosses her arms in a way that lets her caress and pinch her wiry biceps.
“You know how this place is with rumors,” I say. “Martin probably started that one himself. Can you really see him over there? He knows shit about fashion.”
“Do me a favor,” says Liz. “If he is leaving, I want your support when I go for the job.”
“You want it? I’m sure it’d be yours in a second.”
Liz leans across the desk and says, “I just want to make sure that bitch Rachel doesn’t get it.”
I’m not the only one who hires people who piss off their coworkers. Nine months ago, Martin hired Rachel Felsenfeld after reading a Christopher Finchley article I’d given him on the topic of creative anarchy. Of course, he misunderstood some of the writer’s key points. Martin thought Rachel was a hot-shit designer. He liked the fact that she had attitude. But instead of creative anarchy, she’s delivered interpersonal disruption. Worse, her egotism and rudeness aren’t matched by her work, which is too safe and conventional—too newspapery-looking at a time when we need to make advertisers look beyond the fact that we’re an old-fashioned, ink-on-paper product. Rachel doesn’t realize that twentysomething media planners couldn’t care less about newspapers. They’re being bombarded with glitzy multiplatform proposals from media companies far bigger than ours. We need to show them new ways to look at the Chronicle—and visualize our message with a style that’s actually relevant to them.