Now and Yesterday

by Stephen Greco

  Meanwhile, said Jonathan, there were sessions with Connor Frankel to schedule and further medical treatment to endure. Apparently, the first phase of treatment had been gruesome—more so than Jonathan had originally let on. He’d had radioactive metallic seeds implanted in his perineum and begun a kind of chemical castration to reduce the hormones thought to be fueling the cancer, all of which left his body rashy and tender. The doctors were going to keep this up for a while and monitor the results. On the night he attended Peter’s party, Jonathan had just started to feel the side effects of the castration drug—chiefly, hot flashes and “breast tenderness.” The back pain from the cancer itself was also increasing. Yet other than this, he said, he was “fine.”

  “This may well be my first comedy,” said Jonathan.

  “I wonder if I could be as brave as you are,” said Peter.

  “Brave has nothing to do with it. You just get on with it. By the way, I’m hoping to get you up to the house in Hudson this spring. Maybe in March or April? I wanna spend some time up there, if this hormone thing doesn’t flatten me, and even if it does I’ll definitely want some company.”

  After the call, Peter returned to the body-and-bath aisle. He was examining a bar of soap from Brazil, listening to dZihan & Kamien’s Freaks & Icons, and thinking about botanicals, when the woman he’d noticed earlier approached him.

  “Excuse me, are you thinking about buying that?” she asked. She was a pleasant-looking woman with a gentle manner.

  “Yes, I am,” said Peter, removing his earbuds.

  “May I tell you? You should get it,” said the woman.

  “Oh, yeah? It smells amazing.” He was hoping she might say something further that could be useful in his research.

  “That’s tangerine, I think,” said the woman. “I use that soap all the time.“

  “You do?”

  “I like a bath sometimes, instead of a shower. Very soothing. I don’t know why, there’s just something about that scent that really sends me.”

  “Nice. Tell me, where does it send you?”

  The woman laughed.

  “Straight to heaven,” she said.

  This delighted Peter. The woman wanted nothing but to offer a friendly observation, and Peter was touched by her kindness, instantly enchanted by her generosity in sharing such a personal pleasure.

  People can be such treasures, Peter thought. I must hang on to that! What a beauty! I hope she’s as happy as she seems.

  “Have you been to Brazil?” the woman asked. “My husband and I try to go every year and see something different. This year we went to Curitiba.”

  “Interesting. I’ve been to Rio a few times, but that’s it. My loss, I’m sure.”

  “There’s always next time. You should really see more of Brazil, take it from me. They’re amazing people—it’s an amazing culture.”

  “Thank you so much,” said Peter as the woman began walking away.

  Thanksgiving was cold and rainy. Peter spent the day at the home of one of his straight friends from the office, for an annual dinner the man and his wife gave for folks who happened to be in town. It was a fun gathering, but Peter was attending alone for the first time since breaking up with Nick and felt a little odd-man-out-ish. It was still cold and rainy on the following Monday, when Peter and Laura were scheduled to have lunch with Henderson McCaw. Over the weekend Peter had read through the dossier Tyler had compiled and was surprised by a number of items—McCaw had studied law at Yale, his father had been a friend of Jesse Helms, he and his wife were big supporters of the arts, he played the cello—though of course there was no reason why any of this shouldn’t be so. Peter felt prepared, but arrived at the office that morning definitely not looking forward to the meeting.

  The lunch was to take place in the company’s private dining room on the twenty-fifth floor. Both Laura and McCaw’s people thought that was a better choice than a public place, though Laura was thinking about privacy and McCaw’s people about security. Among the reasons why Peter liked the plan was the tiny convenience of not having to walk seven blocks in bad weather, wearing a pair of good shoes.

  Like the rest of the advertising company’s complex, the executive dining room had been designed with a theme meant to be amusing and provocative—in this case, something out of Brideshead Revisited . The room was a modern paraphrase of English-country-home splendor: a double pedestal dining table in mahogany with ten chairs, a polished brass chandelier, striped wallpaper. On the wall hung a vast painting of a naval battle, which for presentations, Peter knew, slid aside to reveal a flat-screen TV. Touches of cheeky irony were supplied by the decidedly nontraditional color scheme—bold blues and browns, with a touch of burnt orange—and a colorless Plexiglas replica of a first-century Roman statue of Diana, on a Plexiglas pedestal.

  When Peter arrived in the dining room five minutes early Laura was already there, with her assistant, checking on details. Four places had been set at one end of the table, with traditional china, silver, linen, and stemware.

  “Right on time,” said Laura. “Very good.” She was dressed in a crisp black suit, with black heels, and seemed in a buoyant mood.

  “You look terrific,” said Peter. “Everything ready?”

  “Absolutely. I hardly ever use this room, but I think it’s going to be great fun.”

  She gave some instructions to a waiter, who then disappeared into the kitchen. Then the assistant, on her phone, announced that McCaw’s car had just pulled up in front of the building. Laura sent the girl down to the lobby, to meet him.

  “They’re early, too. Goody!”

  “It’s just him and his strategist, right?”

  “That’s all. And you and me, kid. Just a little lunch—easy! Meet and greet.”

  “We’re not presenting, they’re not presenting.”

  “No, no. We just wanted to chat and get to know each other a bit.”

  “Oh, charming.”

  “They want to meet our star player.”

  “Oh, well.”

  “It’s ours to lose, Peter. All we have to do is listen.”

  “Lunch with America’s favorite demagogue. What a treat.”

  “Let’s be nice, shall we? This could mean a hundred million in billings.”

  “Has he told you any of the broad strokes yet?”

  “On creative? No. Only scope of work–type stuff, which I showed you.”

  Peter took a breath and exhaled.

  “Let’s see what the man has to say,” he said.

  They chatted about another client for a minute, and then, in a great sweep of energy, Henderson McCaw strode through the door, accompanied by two of his people, all in gray suits. One of them, an assistant, proceeded immediately to the kitchen, accompanied by Laura’s girl.

  A food taster? thought Peter. Really?

  “You must be Laura,” said McCaw, extending his hand. They hadn’t yet met in person.

  They shook, then Laura presented Peter, and McCaw introduced Sunil, his strategist and adviser. They had just flown up from Raleigh, where McCaw lived.

  “Good flight?” said Laura. “It looks nasty out there.”

  “No problem at all,” said McCaw. “My pilot is a Gulf War vet. As long as there’s no enemy fire, we’re fine.”

  Everyone laughed.

  “Are you staying in town for long?” asked Peter.

  “We go back tomorrow. My wife is seeing a matinee this afternoon, and tonight we’ve got this big fund-raiser, over at the Waldorf.”

  “Ah, yes,” said Peter. “We’ve been hearing a lot about that.”

  McCaw looked squarely at Peter.

  “And I’ve been hearing a lot about you, my friend,” he said.

  Peter smiled modestly. McCaw was much taller and better-looking in person than he appeared on television. What seemed fleshy about his face and neck onscreen was, in person, more like the muscularity of a linebacker going gracefully to seed. He looked younger, too, than his forty-seven years.
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  “Good things, I hope,” said Peter.

  “Enormously good things.”

  Laura seemed happy to hear this.

  “We’re so grateful you could make the time,” she said.

  “We had to meet the guy who made a talking car more American than Uncle Sam,” said Sunil.

  “Is that what we did?” said Peter.

  “The seventh most successful campaign of all time, according to Advertising Age.”

  “OK, it was catchy,” said Peter.

  Everybody laughed again.

  “It was genius,” said McCaw. “Listen, I have to tell you a funny story about one of those cars, same make. We were up at our lodge in the Adirondacks, one winter, cross-country skiing, with my family. We had a driver, but at the lodge my dad did all the driving. I heard about this party I wanted to go to, but didn’t want anybody to know, so I asked our housekeeper if I could borrow her car, and she said yes. I must have been, oh, fifteen. I had my learner’s permit, thought nothing of driving around Winston-Salem, where we lived. Anyway, wouldn’t you know it? I smashed up the car, coming home from the party, and was damned lucky to survive.”

  “Ooof,” said Laura.

  “My dad was furious. He had to go out the next day and buy the housekeeper a new car, and charged me monthly payments for two years, until I paid him back.”

  “Lesson learned,” said Laura.

  “Lesson learned, indeed,” echoed McCaw, chuckling.

  “I never heard that,” said Sunil.

  “And how was the party?” asked Peter, silencing everyone for a second.

  “See, that’s why I like this guy,” said McCaw. “He’s got his eye on the ball.”

  McCaw gave Peter a warm clasp of the shoulder.

  “Seriously, I’d like to know,” said Peter.

  “The party was great, Peter,” laughed McCaw. “I got the girl—Aggy McClatchy. Well worth the monthly installments.”

  It was a dubious point, but somehow McCaw made it seem charming. And Peter immediately grasped the essence of McCaw’s personal appeal. He was kind of a bully, though a friendly and mannerly one. He had a big personality and wanted to be persuasive, and was able to be so because he seemed so affable and open. He was ready to engage anyone in his purview, which somehow came across—even as he clearly expected to dominate that purview—as generous, rather than peremptory. The habit of smiling and locking people into a sincere gaze with blue eyes helped.

  “Shall we sit down?” said Laura.

  As they approached the end of the table where the settings had been laid, McCaw noticed the chairs.

  “Are these really Hepplewhite?” he said. Neither Peter nor Laura knew whether the furniture was reproduction or real, or part of some corporate patrimony inherited from one of the core company’s founders, both legendary, old-school ad men.

  “Are you a collector?” asked Laura.

  “No,” said McCaw, “but my grandparents were. Strictly American is what they were interested in—Duncan Phyfe, Samuel McIntire. It’s all in a museum now, but it was neat to learn about that stuff when I was a kid.”

  McCaw’s dossier had said that his family had been rich for generations—tobacco money—but it had neglected to characterize them as patricians. His wife came from old East Coast banking and mining money. It was key, Peter thought, that McCaw didn’t come off establishment in the media and he must be making an effort not to do so.

  Clever, Peter thought—to come off like a raging populist.

  The waiter appeared with the appetizer, a carpaccio of yellowtail with crispy shallots. At first, conversation ambled amiably from the high cost of taxis, to the amount of office space in lower Manhattan, to the large number of trees per capita in the city of New York. Then McCaw turned to take in his surroundings.

  “This is such a cool room,” he said. “It’s right out of those sixties New York movies—you know, where Tony Randall or Gig Young plays the neurotic executive.”

  “God, remember neurotic?” laughed Laura.

  “Are you a movie fan, Mr. McCaw?” asked Peter.

  “Absolutely,” said McCaw. “Please—call me Hendy. I love those movies. What always impressed me was that so many of them were about the media and advertising. The message seemed to be how much fun life would be, if we could all just grow up and get with the new, cool ways. And look—we grew up! We’re all part of that world, now. It’s all there is.”

  “Interesting,” said Laura.

  “That’s kind of why I’m here, having lunch with you nice people. I need your expertise. Look, I know advertising has become more sophisticated than it was in the days of Mr. J. Walter Thompson, but your industry is still telling stories people want to hear. What did you call it, Sunil?”

  “Creating discourse around desire,” said the strategist.

  “That’s all I do,” said McCaw.

  McCaw paused for a moment. Peter, remembering they were there to listen, decided against jumping in.

  “What’s really changed, profoundly, are people,” said McCaw.

  Laura nodded her head.

  “How so?” she said.

  “We’ve evolved, as a species,” said McCaw. “Desire itself has evolved—I’m not the first person to say this. Wanting is a kind of thinking, and human beings have definitely evolved some new ways of thinking—better ways, I think.”

  “Adaptation,” said Peter.

  “Bingo!” said McCaw.

  “Man, and I thought we were going to be talking about motherhood and apple pie,” said Peter.

  McCaw laughed good-naturedly and went on.

  “We’ve adapted to our ecological niche, and that niche has shifted drastically in the last generation, and continues to do so. Our lungs can’t breathe car exhaust—not yet, anyway—but in response to this barrage of new ideas and messages and information, we have become comfortable with doublethink, which is not nearly as bad as George Orwell made it out to be. We have cultivated the ability not to think at all, as in meditating, and exercising, and focusing on the inner self. All good, good stuff. And all of which, in my view, frees us to enjoy more kinds of knowing than ever before.”

  “I’m not sure what you mean by that,” said Laura.

  McCaw placed both hands on the edge of the table, palms down.

  “When we tell a good enough story, we change what people know,” he said.

  The look on Laura’s face showed she was trying to process the thought. Peter found the statement a distortion of the truth, but again decided to merely listen.

  “This is an enormous stride for humanity, if we are to survive, these new kinds of knowing,” continued McCaw. “I’m not saying it’s a better way, on any absolute scale. I mean, Christianity wasn’t better than being a Roman citizen; it simply worked better for people, psychologically. Faith answered more questions about a world that was changing massively for them. What I’m saying is that if we expect to survive in a world of ten billion people, we need to get beyond the, like, four original, caveman ways of knowing something. I’m sure Peter would agree with me.”

  “Well—I agree that the brain is evolving and we’re thinking differently . . . ,” said Peter.

  “But?” said McCaw.

  “But, well, who gets to tell people what they quote-unquote know?”

  “We do,” said McCaw.

  “But doesn’t everyone have that power nowadays?” said Peter. “My mother has a blog.”

  “Some people tell better stories than others.”

  Peter shifted in his seat.

  “All right, then,” he said, “so let me ask you what stories you propose to tell.”

  “I am hoping you will help me figure that out, Peter. I mean, I have a few ideas to put out there—you’ve probably heard many of them—but you’re the guys who can create the most powerful platforms for them, the most powerful engines. I came to listen to you.”

  Was this flattery? Was it true? Laura seemed to take McCaw’s statement as a good si
gn, and looked confident as she took a demure bite of a cheesy breadstick.

  “Listen,” said McCaw. “Some people call ‘Don’t tread on me’ stupid. Fine. Some people call me stupid. Fine. But some people call the folks who listen to me stupid, and that’s not fine, not at all. Because I happen to know that America is intelligent in about seventeen new ways. And that’s what I call a real opportunity for our culture, and for us, here in this room.”

  It was a shock for Peter to see how canny McCaw was. People looking inward, acting on what they “know,” rather than some external “truths”! It was exactly why his form of “take back America” populism was so popular, Peter thought, and what made it so close to the fundamentalism of Islamic terrorists. The entire conversation couldn’t have been farther from the common-denominator talk that Peter and Laura had agreed to stick to, when they went over their goals for the lunch. Specific truths and doctrines? Completely extraneous to the conversation—and Peter could just hear Laura reminding him that this was the case, too, with plenty of other clients.

  The main course arrived: steamed branzino, with oyster mushrooms, scallions, ponzu, and cilantro. The presentation was worthy of a photo shoot.

  “They told me you like seafood,” said Laura. “So we got one of the chefs from the Lure Fishbar to come up and cook for us today.”

  “Looks yummy,” said McCaw. “Is everyone as hungry as I am?”

  Polite enthusiasm burbled around the table, as they tucked in.

  “Your point about new kinds of intelligence intrigues me,” said Peter, presently. “I saw the interview you did a week or so ago, with the senator.”

  “Ah,” said McCaw. Laura opened her mouth, then closed it without saying anything.