by Terry Fallis
“Okay, now I’m going to need the complete and unvarnished truth from you both,” I said through a clenched jaw. “Were either of you freelancing this story to the Sun? Cause I’ll be very, very angry if you have. This threatens the whole program and makes us all look incompetent. And why wasn’t I informed about this earlier?”
I’d never spoken to them in this tone before. But it was necessary.
“David, of course we didn’t throw this to the Sun. Why would we do that? Read the rest of the piece. It didn’t come from us,” Diane replied, with Amanda backing her up with such vigorous head nodding, it gave me a sore neck just watching it.
“We’re just as shocked as you are. Read the rest,” Amanda urged, pointing to the story that still lay where I’d thrown it.
I calmed down, managed to remember to wheel the chair back under me before dropping back into it, and pretended to read the story as they both sat and watched me. I shook my head a few times, groaned once or twice, and did the forehead-rubbing thing a few more times for good measure. When I thought enough time had passed for me to have read the entire story, I sighed, sat back, and looked up at the ceiling for a moment or two before turning my eyes back to them.
“We’ve got to get on the blower to Blake and NASA before they find out about this in their morning clips,” I suggested. “This story is going to be hot for the next few days at least. It’s just the Sun today, but by mid-morning, everyone is going to pile on. I bet CTV and CBC will send vidcams out west to track down Landon. This could be huge.”
“I already have a call in to Crawford. He’s our first priority,” Diane replied. “That is, if we all still have jobs by the time we hear from him.”
“At least Landon doesn’t seem to be behind this,” I said with relief. “She’s so cut off out there. Besides, she wouldn’t begin to know how to orchestrate this.”
“No, the story seems to have originated with the guy who was going to fly you in,” Amanda said. “Chatter … something or other.”
Oh, right. I nearly forgot about that part.
“That bastard!” I shouted in rekindled rage. I smashed my fist onto the desk, apparently launching Amanda’s pen into the air where it traced a graceful arc and bounced off my head on the way down. I hadn’t even noticed it was airborne.
“David, calm down!” Amanda said.
“He screwed me! Nobody told me I should have been using an alias! Shit, shit, shit!”
They’d never seen me this way. I’d never seen me this way. Probably because I’d never actually been this way. Then Providence shone, and as if planned and rehearsed, the receptionist noticed me in Amanda’s office as she walked past. She stopped and poked her head in, waving a pink message slip in my general direction. She handed it over and slipped back to her post. Serendipity, right on cue.
“It looks like one Sarah Nesbitt from the Vancouver Sun was trying to reach me while I was up north scattering my mother’s ashes.” I held up the message, and then to complete the charade, checked my BlackBerry. “I thought that name was familiar. It seems she emailed me on Friday night but I never opened it. Shit, shit, shit!” I shouted, my fists clenched at my sides, and what I hoped was a kind of crazed serial killer look plastered on my normally quite placid face.
“David, relax! Please.” Diane joined the fray. “No one is blaming you for this. But we do have to decide how we’re going to handle it, and we haven’t much time.”
So far, so good. Silence reigned for a moment or two so, I filled it with heavy breathing in my best impression of calming down.
“Maybe we should wait and see how Canadians respond to the story, but I think they’ll be in Landon’s corner almost immediately. Everyone loves an underdog,” I began with brow furrowed. “I don’t see how we can go ahead and draw another name when the world knows, or will certainly soon know, that Landon Percival is already our lucky winner. NASA and Turner King would be crucified if she weren’t at least given a chance.”
I hope I hadn’t pushed my luck and moved too quickly to my end-game.
“I fear you’re right,” Amanda agreed. “I think the only way to divert attention from the fact that we couldn’t even protect the identity of the winner will be to announce her fast and focus on what a great Canadian story Landon Percival really represents. Then the Sun’s big explosive exclusive will turn into a Landon Percival love-in.”
“Precisely!” was the word that flashed in my head, though I didn’t release it audibly. Instead, I went with something else.
“Hmmm, interesting analysis.” I cupped my chin in my right hand, creating what I hoped were cavernous deep-thinking lines in my forehead. “Yes, I think you might actually be on to something there, Amanda. It might be our best, perhaps our only, option.”
Amanda seemed pleased. Diane stared into space as she pondered what came to be known as “Amanda’s idea.” Then she nodded affirmation, but looked very scared while doing it. Then the whole desk vibrated as if struck by a very targeted earthquake. Diane snatched her BlackBerry from the desk.
“Incoming!” she said as she scanned the small screen. “Okay, we’ve got a call with Crawford at 11:00,” Diane said. She eased herself forward and off the chair for the short drop to the floor. “We’ll do it in my office.”
She then swept out of the room. And having witnessed it, I can report that it’s difficult to sweep out of anywhere when you’re not quite five feet tall. But she made it work.
“Okay, thanks, Amanda. I’ll see you in Diane’s office at 11:00,” I said as I sat back down and waited for Amanda to leave too.
“Um, you’re actually sitting at my desk,” she said.
“Oh, right,” I mumbled, leaping back to my feet and moving towards the door. “Sorry.”
“David?”
I stopped and turned to her as she settled back down in her own chair. She narrowed her eyes a tad.
“You’re not playing us here, are you?”
“What? Amanda, how could you even think that?” I protested. “As far as I can tell, this story broke for two reasons, and two reasons only. Google, and Chatter what’s-his-name’s loose lips. End of story. Well, I guess I mean beginning of story. That’s all it took,” I explained, trying not to sound too defensive.
I paused and then continued, lowering and softening my voice for the home stretch.
“Besides, I’ve just returned from scattering my own mother’s ashes. I haven’t eaten in three days or looked at my BlackBerry until just now. I’ve got 150 thank-you notes to write and there’s something I can’t identify growing on a pizza slice in my fridge. I’m a mess. I only came in to work to get my mind off of the last week. Which reminds me, it really was very kind of you to come to the visitation. It really meant a lot to me.”
She smiled so slightly I almost missed it, and then she nodded. I made good my escape. I felt bad about my subterfuge but I didn’t know Diane or Amanda well enough to trust them yet. If they knew what I was doing behind the curtain, I wasn’t yet convinced they wouldn’t just hand me over to Crawford Blake on a silver … operating table, my nether region prepped.
While it was risky to fan the flames further from my own very exposed cubicle, I really didn’t have a choice, and time was running very short. In the next three hours or so, I did it all from my BlackBerry, not trusting my networked office computer. I hit the Do Not Disturb button on my office phone, but used my shoulder to hold the silent receiver to my ear to discourage drive-by drop-ins. I opened a phony YouTube account and uploaded five minutes of Landon Percival strapped into her homemade human blender. Then, from my newly created and fingerprint-free Gmail account, I sent an anonymous email, including links to the Sun story and the YouTube clip, to the Canadian Association of Retired Persons. The aptly named CARP was the leading advocacy group for senior citizens in the country, and when they were on the offensive, well, they could be very offensive, and very effective too. I also activated Landon’s Facebook fan page and went ahead and set up an untraceable Tw
itter account with the handle @Landon_in_space. The first tweet pointed to the newly live Facebook fan page and included Landon’s full name. I wanted those searching Twitter to have no difficulty finding her. I re-tweeted my initial tweet a few times, directing it in each instance to the most influential Canadians in the Twitterverse. I sent a second set of tweets that linked to Landon’s whirligig YouTube debut. I knew that would get us some traction and kick-start a following.
After three hours hunched over my BlackBerry with my head acutely tilted to clamp the prop-only phone to my ear, my BB was hot and smoking, I had muscle spasms in both thumbs, and my neck was in dire need of acupuncture or at least a cervical collar. But in those three hours, I was able to put the communications infrastructure in place that I hoped just might launch Landon Percival into orbit. And by 10:30 that morning, it was already getting a workout.
I trolled through the Canadian media online and was reminded just how fast big stories spread in this country. All major news media websites, including CBC, CTV, Global, the Globe and Mail, Ottawa Citizen, Toronto Star, the Halifax Chronicle Herald, and the Calgary Sun all carried stories about Canada’s rumoured citizen astronaut. It wouldn’t be long before the story was picked up south of the border. The YouTube clip, still only three hours old, had already attracted 256 views and the number was growing rapidly as the major media sites discovered it and embedded it directly in their stories. Canadian Press, our leading wire service, ran a story that would surely be picked up in dailies across the country the next morning. The Facebook page had already registered 213 Likes, and somehow, the @Landon_in_space Twitter stream had attracted 164 followers in about 20 minutes. Finally, at five minutes to eleven, I had a quick scan of CanadaNewswire, the site that disseminates news releases electronically to media outlets across the country and around the world. I found what I was looking for. CARP had issued a news release at 10:42 with the following headline:
CARP URGES NASA TO LAUNCH SENIOR CITIZEN ASTRONAUT
Like a prison-break fugitive, I looked around me to make sure no one had been observing my extracurricular efforts. Then I rose and sauntered out of my cubicle for the call in Diane’s office, the next big play.
Amanda was already seated as I dropped into the second guest chair in front of Diane’s desk.
“Let me take the lead on this,” Diane instructed. “Crawford talks a good game about making TK a flatter organization, but in the end, he’s still very conscious of seniority. I think he can only process opposing views if they’re delivered by someone who at least approaches his own rank. I can push back. You can’t.”
“No problem,” I said, without disguising my relief.
Amanda eventually nodded in assent, but wasn’t as pleased with the directive. Diane dialled and put the call on the speaker.
“What in the name of all that is fucking holy have you all done up there?” said the voice, leaving pure malevolence hanging in the air. “You all have fucked it up, but good.”
“Good morning, Crawford,” interjected Diane. “I gather you’ve seen the Sun story.”
“How did this happen? I ask that you pick another winner. You all try to argue to have this fucking ancient old biddy climb aboard the shuttle. So I direct you a second time to pick and qualify a new goddamned winner. But you say you can’t do it until this week for some lame-ass reason. And then mysteriously, miraculously, seemingly out of no-fucking-where, this story breaks. Now what the fuck am I supposed to think?”
“Crawford, we’ve known each other a long time. We’ve always been honest with one another. And I have to say, I’m not thrilled with your tone and what sounds like an accusation on your part that we’re somehow not being team players on this and are going our own way. That is not what is happening here. You’ve obviously read the piece so you know that we had nothing to do with the story. A small-town gossip who knows his way around a search engine put two and two together, fed it to a very good and very enterprising reporter who assembled disparate leads and circumstantial evidence into a wholly accurate story. The only thing that might have prevented this, I repeat, might have prevented it, is if David had used a phony name to charter a float plane in remote B.C.”
“Then why the hell didn’t he?” he demanded.
“Crawford, reality check, please. We’re a PR agency, not the CIA. It never occurred to me and I doubt very much if it would have occurred to you. Did your people pull the cloak and dagger routine when vetting the American winner?”
“I handled the American winner personally so that there was no chance of botching it,” he said pointedly.
Diane scowled and flipped him the bird, which would have had more impact had we been video conferencing. Amanda was so steamed she was vibrating in her chair, itching to enter the fray. Diane gave her the stop-sign hand. Diane was very good with her hands.
“Crawford, let’s focus on what we’re going to do now to resolve this. We can do the autopsy on how it happened later. And we do have a recommendation …”
“I know exactly how we’re going to resolve this!” Crawford shouted into the phone. “You are going to issue a news release dismissing and denouncing the Sun story and reiterating that the Canadian winner will be announced by NASA within the week. Then you are going to pick another goddamn winner!”
Diane picked up the phone so we could no longer hear Crawford’s tirade.
“Crawford, calm yourself and please listen to reason, for the sake of the client. The Sun story is breaking across the country. Unfortunately, we’re in a bit of a slow news cycle up here right now, so this is going to go big. All the major news outlets are leading with it online and CP has already put a story on the wire about it. If you check CNN.COM, you’ll see it there as well. This will not go away just because we pick another winner. We’ve got to make lemonade here.”
She paused again, presumably so Crawford could tear a few more strips off her. She remained calm, holding the phone away from her ear and rolling her eyes.
“Crawford, read the piece again. This woman actually has an amazing story. It’s a very Canadian story. We have no doubt that the public is going to be behind this Landon Percival woman one hundred per cent. She’s a perfect Canadian citizen astronaut on paper, other than the age factor. She’s a doctor, a bush pilot, and she applied to our astronaut program nearly thirty years ago and was rejected as too old. This has all the makings of a Hollywood blockbuster. You couldn’t make this stuff up. It’s priceless.”
She had to stop again to listen.
“Hold on, Crawford, stay with me. Our strong recommendation is to kill all this speculation and controversy and give Canadians what they surely want. We need to have NASA announce that Landon Percival is in fact the Canadian Citizen Astronaut contest winner and will be flying aboard the shuttle if, and only if, she can complete the training program. That’s how we turn today’s unexpected story into a win for us and a win for NASA.”
Diane stopped talking and looked at us. Then she tilted her head a bit.
“Hello? Crawford?”
Then she held the phone away from her ear again.
“Okay, I’m sorry. I thought we’d lost the connection,” Diane said. “No, it’s fine. You go right ahead and think. I’ll wait.”
She gave us a hopeful look and then bided her time, tapping the desk, as Crawford apparently mulled over what I thought was the only way to go. Several minutes passed until Diane suddenly sat a little straighter in her chair.
“Yes, we can pull that off overnight. Just gen pop though, right?”
She paused again. Other than the classic Bob Newhart routines, I really hated hearing only one side of a telephone conversation.
“Yes, we can do an online gen pop panel of a thousand Canadians and have you the results mid-afternoon tomorrow. We can make the final call then. Yes, that seems fair.”
More silence.
“Crawford, we wouldn’t have won this business otherwise. We need him to make it go. And don’t forget, NASA asked for him
.”
She gave me reassuring looks as she parried what was clearly my execution order.
“Look, Crawford, you run D.C., and I’ll run Toronto. Okay? He stays.”
After the week I’d had, learning that Crawford Blake wanted me toasted barely even registered. I no longer really cared. Frankly, I probably should have been fired and certainly would be if my morning’s behind-the-scenes work were ever discovered.
After a few more pleasantries, Diane hung up and then collapsed on her desk, banging her tiny fists on the glass top. Amanda and I were beside ourselves with curiosity.
“Okay, we’re not dead yet,” Diane reported, lifting her head and pushing herself back into a sitting position. “Crawford hates to reverse himself, but as I’ve said before, he’s not a complete idiot. Despite his anger, I think he was starting to see the logic in our recommendation. But we have to do a quick and dirty overnight poll to prove to him that Canadians are four square behind our girl Landon and that we’d be in for a rough ride if we rejected her. If the numbers are strong enough, I think we just might avoid having to pick a new winner. So we have a twenty-four-hour stay of execution. Let’s not waste it.”
“David and I can rustle up a few questions and get our guys in research to pass them through our online panel tomorrow,” Amanda proposed.
Diane nodded.
“Can we wait as long as possible in the day before hitting the online panel?” I asked. “We want tomorrow’s media coverage to have had its impact before we pop the questions.”
“Good idea,” Diane replied. “We can get top-line numbers in minutes after the panel closes, so let’s wait to start it until early afternoon.”
Amanda and I spent the rest of the day together working through the questions we would pose to the online panel of average Canadians across the country. It was the first time I’d really spent an extended period of time with her. It was nice. She was nice. Really. The hard professional edges she kept sharp in more formal business settings seemed to soften when we were working one on one after everyone else had gone home. It was almost as if the real Amanda emerged after dark. I’d noticed it first when we’d gone for a drink a while back. It was a shame that she seemed to feel that only “tough Amanda” could succeed at TK. I actually made her smile several times and caused her to burst out laughing at one point. Unfortunately, the laugh came when I was taking the inaugural bite of my take-out dinner. The greasy barbecue-sauce–covered chicken breast squirted out from between the obviously well-lubricated buns. Luckily, I caught it deftly, with my lap, so it fouled my Hugo Boss suit rather than the ugly green carpet. I learned that spending ten minutes vigorously rubbing your crotch with a damp dishrag while your colleague laughs hysterically is an excellent bonding exercise. I doubt I’ll ever be able to wear the suit again, and I reeked of barbecued chicken for the rest of the evening. On a positive note, I was escorted all the way home that night by three stray dogs and a family of hungry raccoons that clearly favoured southern cuisine.