by Ann Bauer
March 18, 20--
Pope Vincent to Lead the Catholic Church
White smoke poured from the Sistine Chapel today when Chilean Cardinal Alejandro Antonioni was named the new pope.
The first South American pontiff in history, he has taken the name Pope Vincent in honor of St. Vincent de Paul, the seventeenth-century priest who dedicated his life to serving the poor.
Pope Vincent looked timid, hesitating a moment on the balcony of St. Peter’s Basilica before stepping out to greet the huge crowds gathered in the square below.
“I ask a favor of you … pray for me,” he said, explaining that the 114 other cardinal-electors “went almost to the end of the world” to find a new leader.
A Jesuit, Pope Vincent has spent his life as a priest focusing on service to the poor and marginalized. He is known for favoring simple vestments, driving his own seven-year-old car, and refusing the luxuries afforded bishops in the Catholic Church.
“What the church needs most today is the ability to heal wounds and to warm the hearts of the faithful,” the new pope said, before blessing the cheering crowd.
From: Isaac Beckwith
To: Forgiveness Team
Re: Pope Vincent
Okay, people, I hope you’re studying up. This is what we’ve been waiting for, and let me say, in case you haven’t figured it out already, Pope Vincent is throwing a monkey wrench (what does that phrase even mean? Abel???) into the marketing plan for F4Y.
Remember, we’re basing audience response among former Catholics—our primary market at launch, according to Joy’s Opportunity Landscape—on people feeling distanced and disillusioned by the Church. But this new pope may change the game. I wish I could tell you I saw this coming. But never in my wildest dreams did I think the conclave would elect a guy like this.
First, he’s a Jesuit. Literally that means he’s part of the Society of Jesus, a band of priests that wears rags and lives in poverty, serving the poor and the sick. These are the saints who wash the feet of the homeless. They consider themselves “soldiers” in the battle to make this world a better, more godly place. These guys rescued hordes of Jews during the Holocaust! Bottom line: Jesuits rock. Great historical PR.
Second, people love him already. Think Obama, November 5, 2008. Pope Vincent is the great white hope, so to speak. Right now, Catholics are a little high on his goodness. They’re relieved to be done with the old, cranky bad pope and feeling better about who they are.
What does all this mean? A) We may have to change tactics. For instance, we might have to remove all references to the Church. B) We’re going to reassess how to talk about Father Gabe. We might want to drop the priest connection altogether. Or we might go ahead and tie him to the Church but do it carefully, with reverence. I’ve got a couple focus groups working 24/7 to tell us which. C) We’re going to delay launch by three days. I think it’s ill-advised to go out there the same week as this papal election. So let’s start fresh next Monday. By that time, we’ll have more information and a revised creative brief.
Any questions, please see me or Madeline personally. I cannot stress this strongly enough: YOUR DISCRETION IS CRITICAL. Don’t talk about F4Y to anyone—and by anyone, I mean your wives or husbands or brothers or sisters or one-night stands. If you need to talk to someone, call me. Midnight, 4 a.m., I don’t care. Just keep it between us.
Also, if you have any weekend plans, cancel them. We’ll be revising straight through, Friday to Sunday. No excuses. Let’s get this sucker launched!
IB
From: [email protected]
To: Jill Everson
Subject: I’m going to get fired!!!!!!
Mommy—
Before you get upset, I want you to know you should be proud of me. I did the right thing and called some people about what Madeline and Isaac are doing with Father Gabe. It’s lucky Daddy is a lawyer because I violated my non-disclosure agreement and I probably could get sued, but it was worth it and I know you’re going to think so, too.
I’ll be honest. I’ve been drinking tonight. Cosmos, because I was feeling very Carrie and Samantha and remembering how we went to the first Sex and the City movie together back when I was in junior high. I was with the whole Forgiveness team tonight. We worked till like 9:30 then went to McGill’s for a “planning session,” which was really just a big drunkfest. Scott was there, too, but we totally avoided each other.
I don’t think I really explained everything that happened, so I’ll start at the beginning. A few days ago, Madeline asked me to drive Fr Gabe to the bookstore where he works. (I know that sounds strange, but he does.) So we got in Madeline’s car and he was really tense because he’d just had a forgiveness session with some older woman who got v. angry and stormed out.
As we were driving, Father Gabe loosened up with me and started telling me things about his childhood and how he felt about the pope. It was nice and I started to really like him. That’s when I had this brainstorm about making him into a “forgiveness hero,” making that his brand. It’s the kind of creativity a strategist doesn’t usually get to contribute, so I was really proud. But I stupidly told Scott, who STOLE my idea! That was the day I broke up with him and maybe you’re thinking I got what I deserved because what we were doing was dishonest. Well, don’t think I haven’t thought of that! I do feel guilty for sleeping with a married man. But you have to remember, Scott lied to me when he told me how unhappy he was and made it sound like he was definitely leaving his wife.
Anyway, this morning I saw the older lady in the elevator and asked her what happened w Fr Gabe. At first she told me it was none of my business and I said fine, I was only trying to help; then she said she was sorry, but it still made her upset. She paid for a forgiveness, but then she got into the room and Fr Gabe refused! He said he wouldn’t forgive her at all and he wouldn’t give her a good reason so she thinks the whole thing is a rip-off b/c she’s been trying to get ahold of Isaac to get her money back and he hasn’t returned her calls.
Part of me was on the side of admiring Father Gabe. I mean, this woman must have done something really terrible if he wouldn’t forgive her. I really believed this was about his integrity. But then, after we had a photo shoot (where he looked really hot thanks to the haircut and glasses I suggested), I found him making out with Madeline!! Seriously, they were going at it right on the table in the conference room. And this is while the new pope was being announced! I mean, there was white smoke coming out of the chimney, and I thought, “Oh, Father Gabe shouldn’t be missing this,” so I went to find him and that’s when I saw them. It was so gross. Madeline is practically your age. No offense.
Then, after all that, Madeline came into the room where we were all watching TV. It was right at the moment when Pope Vincent was coming out to talk and bless people. But she made us turn it off so we could work another 29-hour day. Later, I saw her talking to Isaac (he’s the PR guru from Texas), and next thing you know we’re getting this memo that says the pope is all bad news for us because he’s a Jesuit and Catholics might like him enough to stick with the Church instead of confessing to Fr Gabe.
Well, I’d just gotten to a boiling point where the hypocrisy was making me furious. So I told Candy that I had a really bad period and I needed to go home and change my clothes, maybe take a nap, so could she cover for me? And she did. She watched my email and sent vague answers that said things like, “On a research call right now. Can I get back to you in 30 minutes?” Then I took my iPhone (thanks for still paying the bill for that, by the way) and went to a coffee shop a few streets over and called every newspaper and TV network I could think of.
The first two were like, “Yeah? So what’s the big deal? There’s a priest starting a business in Chicago. Doesn’t sound like news.” So I got an iced mocha, and I tried to figure out how Isaac would talk to people about this. So the next call I made, I kind of spun the whole story about how it was the very same week that the new pope was elected and Mason & Zeus was going
out with this very anti-Catholic start-up and did that seem like just a coincidence?
I lucked out this time because the woman I was talking to said her station wasn’t really interested but I should call the religion reporter at the Chronicle. She even gave me his direct number. So I called and talked to this guy who sounded like he was about 100 years old, but he said, “Oh, yeah, Gabe McKenna …” and it turns out this guy covered it when Father Gabe left the priesthood. And here’s the amazing part: He also remembered that there was some cover-up, like a police record on Father Gabe. And I said that makes sense, because there’s something wrong with him and I think he’s a total manipulator.
Finally this old dude said he was going to find the business reporter, the guy who covers stuff like advertising, and maybe they could work this from two angles and come up with a story, because it sounded interesting. But they absolutely had to have someone who was willing to speak on the record. Without it they’d look stupid, like they were just harassing a Chicago-based business, plus an ex-priest who never hurt anyone. And I said fine, I’m done with Mason & Zeus anyway. They’re all liars and cheats.
I’d been gone like two hours, so I had to call Candy and say the cramps got so bad I had to make a hot water bottle and take six Advil, but I’m finally on my way back. And she was sympathetic, but she said Madeline was looking for me and I should hurry. I’d been planning to go somewhere and buy a different pair of pants so Candy wouldn’t think I was just using her, but at that point I decided it wasn’t worth it, I should just go back and see what happened.
So it was after five o’clock and I knew I’d be in big trouble. I went into the office and found Candy right away to thank her and promise I’ll take her to lunch next week—which I’m probably not going to do because I doubt I’ll still be working there. But she was very sweet and said I should go find Madeline and tell her the truth (which was actually a lie) because like five people had noticed I was gone. And SCOTT, that jerk-face, was making a big deal about how everyone else was staying late but there seemed to be different rules for me.
But when I went to Madeline’s office she was actually nice to me, which was kind of confusing b/c it could have been real or she could have just been worried I’d tell everyone at the office about her kissing Father Gabe. She said she appreciated my hard work and told me how valuable I was to the team and I was starting to regret talking to the reporter, but at the same time I could feel my phone vibrating over and over and I knew he was trying to call me back.
By this time it was about six o’clock. We had dinner where they served bad, soggy pizza and talked about strategy for about an hour. We were going to go out with a whole alternate ad campaign that doesn’t use words like “absolution” (because it’s too religious)—this was Scott’s idea. But I said I think it’s a mistake because you want your advertising to be consistent, and we can’t have one billboard saying one thing and another one saying something else. I mean, does Nike say “Just Do It!” in New York but something else entirely different in DC? No.
Then the most amazing thing happened: Madeline said I was right and she told Scott to stick with the campaign we have, just tweak the language a little. Also, it turns out they’re interviewing like three guys to back up Father Gabe and one of them is an ex-priest but two of them are like ministers or rabbis, I’m not sure. Afterward, Isaac came up to me and said, “Good work,” and I decided right then that I wasn’t going to call the Chronicle back for sure.
Only you’re probably wondering why I still think I’m going to get fired? Because after we got to the bar, finally, after working till nearly nine, and I had a little more to drink than I should have, I went into the ladies room and checked my messages. And you’re not going to believe this. The reporter had left two voice mails and a text telling me that he was going to put the story about Forgiveness4You in Thursday’s paper, along with information about Father Gabe BEING A COCAINE DEALER. I swear, that’s exactly what he said.
And maybe it was the Cosmos, but it all just totally added up in my head: the business, the scene with Madeline, the way I can’t get a read on Father Gabe. Now this drug thing. So I texted back yes, they could go ahead with my quotes and use my name, and then I went back out to the bar and had one more drink—because I didn’t want to look suspicious—before I left. (Of course, I took a cab.)
So I just wanted to warn you and Daddy before the story hits. And I need to confess a few things. My new apartment overlooks the lake, it costs $3,200 a month, and Rebecca moved out last November, which I never told you b/c I knew you’d be mad. Also I got a little behind on my credit cards. All to say, if I get fired I’m either going to need to come home for a while or $12,000 to tide me over. Maybe both. But you’ll get every penny back. I think I’m pretty good at my job, and if it weren’t for all the craziness going on around me, I might have been promoted to associate director next year.
I’m going to bed now. And I’ll probably be hung over in the morning, so if you want to call me please don’t do it till after noon.
xoxoxoxoxo
Joy
XII
DURING THE YEARS I WAS IN THE MONASTERY—AND AFTERWARD, as a novice—I also attended Narcotics Anonymous every Tuesday and Thursday night. But I hadn’t been to a meeting for a long time. I left NA around age thirty, when the group’s version of a higher power began competing for authority with God the Father, insisting that my sobriety was more important than anything—including my faith in Him. Defecting was a dangerous decision. I’d been clean in the interim. But I wasn’t, as they say, “working the steps.”
And though I’d never been to McGill’s before, it was strikingly familiar. Nostalgic even: the tattooed bartender who doubled as a bouncer, the jittery fellow hanging out by the men’s room. Seventies country-rock on the now-digital jukebox, swivel stools with scarred vinyl, and everywhere the wet doggy smell of beer and sweat. Social media was a complete mystery to me, but here was a culture I knew.
I sat at the end of our long table—now mostly empty as people were up milling and dancing—gripping a sticky mug full of some kind of ale. This was one of the only ways bars had changed since my youth: everyone, it seemed, was now brewing their own craft beer. No more weak, flat, urinous Schlitz; even dive bars like this one had huge stainless steel vats and served home brew with names like Genius and Barking Frog. I had opted for the former.
The noise was crushing and I sank into it, exhausted, relieved. There were ten months—literally forgotten now—when I lived only at night in places like this, alighting at dawn to sleep at my mother’s house through the daylight hours. A vampire. That was my other calling, and I imagined myself now if things had gone differently, the man I might have become.
At forty-two, my other self might be a customer of the jittery man—or, more likely, his boss. That Gabe would go out into the fray, catch Joy and laugh off the scene she’d walked in on earlier. He would sit next to Madeline, one arm flung casually behind her shoulders. He would offer to take her home at the end of this endless evening, decipher her dress, and mount her in the back of a cab.
Just as I was picturing his/my hand disappearing into the warmth under her skirt, the television over the bar shifted to an image of the new pope, grinning and waving, his round elfin face wearing my grandfather’s jutting chin. This man would understand my conflict, I was fairly certain. His face was without costume, full of wonder. Finally, just after I’d departed the Church, one of the good guys came in.
Bleary, I imagined picking up a phone to tell the pope about what I did to Aidan, about what I wanted to do to Madeline, about my fleetingly impure and confusing thoughts regarding Jem. Even better, I could buy a plane ticket to Rome! I still knew people there. One of them might help me get an audience, and it would go differently this time. Forget what the man in the back of the bar was selling. What Pope Vincent had was a different kind of drug—less immediate but more powerful when it worked.
“Mind if I join you, Father?” Scott
shouted. It was the only way to communicate in this place.
I nodded, and he sat in the chair to my left. We had hardly spoken prior to this moment, and I looked at Scott as if for the first time. He was boyish and blond and big-muscled, like an actor in a television show about surfers. If I were to close my eyes, I’d picture him with a shark’s tooth around his neck.
Instead, I tilted my head and scanned the crowd, picking out my Mason & Zeus colleagues. Ted, small and dapper with his thin, striped tie. Isaac, leaning his tall, hard body against the bar. Candy and Joy moving like shiny little stars among the cloddish beer-swilling patrons. They looked ready to be cast in a movie about young professionals in the big city. I flashed drunkenly on the scene where I had stood, newly shorn and wearing someone else’s glasses in my Superman pose.
“I slept with her, you know. Joy?” I turned to Scott who was looking down at his left hand, the gold circle on his ring finger dull. “I cheated on my wife.”
I nodded, secretly admiring his oxen approach. “Yes, I know.”
“You do? Man!” Scott rolled his lazy eyes up to the ceiling, and I could see what he was thinking as clearly as if it were printed across his forehead: Even the priest heard about me and Joy? That’s it. I’m dead.
“I didn’t mean to. Really. I never …” He paused and gulped from his glass. “Okay, there was one other time, but that was years ago when Dana was pregnant. Never since then. ’Til …” He tipped his head in Joy’s direction. “Her.”
He stopped, looking darkly miserable. But I couldn’t decipher if it was related to infidelity as a concept, or to Joy herself.
“She’s, like … witchy,” he shouted in my ear, then looked around as if he’d been caught at something. “Is that a word?”
“Sure.” I clapped him mildly on the arm. A guy gesture. “Very Shakespearean.”
“Yeah,” he said. “Like that. I mean, I wasn’t planning on doing anything. Sure, I’d noticed her in those short little skirts and the FM heels.” I let this one pass, assuming I’d find out later what radio had to do with women’s shoes. “But I was being good, keeping it in my pants. Sorry, Father. Then one night I was working late. The baby had been up like nine nights in a row, and I was toast. Couldn’t get anything done during the day. So I stayed by myself after work on a, um, Tuesday, I think. And I’m at the copy machine, printing out a deck when Joy comes up next to me. Like this close.” He held his hands maybe three inches apart.