by Sue Margolis
“No problem. Bye, Morris.”
“I like a woman with a really big arse,” Morris said.
“Really?” Mr. Levinson chuckled and looked at Cyn. “You know, on second thought, maybe Morris and Mrs. Levinson would hit it off.”
Morris was no better on car journeys than he was at being carried. Cyn covered his cage with the towel in an effort to calm him down.
She arrived at PCW just after nine. Two or three people saw her drive into the office car park. Of course they all noticed the ad, and the jokes started flying faster than you could say anal fissure.
A bit of her wished she could have left the car at home, but even if she hadn’t had Morris’s cage, she would still have needed to drive. Everybody at PCW drove to work because the office, a converted warehouse in Shoreditch, was a bleak fifteen-minute walk from the tube.
Inside, the place was more industrial workspace than traditional office. The rough brick walls had been painted white and covered with gigantic arty photographs and brightly colored abstracts. There were light wood floors and two metal and wire staircases that led to either end of a mezzanine floor where the directors had their offices. The twenty-foot-high ceiling was supported by a lattice of polished metal girders. Workstations were dotted about the perimeter.
In the middle of the space was an absurdly long, rustic wooden table that was used for meetings and conferences. If people needed to meet in private, they could adjourn to one of four small trailers that were parked as if they were in a campsite in the country. There was also a “thinking area”—a garden hammock on Astroturf—and a “play area” complete with pinball machines, snooker table and miniature trampoline.
The idea was that “creativity and vision” were exchanged in a fun, fluid, informal way. There were no doors and no partitions, and no appointments were needed to see the bosses. A few people like Chelsea insisted on wearing suits, but mostly people slouched around in jeans and Juicy Couture track bottoms.
The entire operation was, to say the least, self-consciously trendy. Most of the staff, Cyn included, saw the trendiness for the gimmick it was. The media was less cynical. Umpteen magazine and newspaper articles had raved about PCW’s “egalitarian management style” and the fact that 10 percent of the agency’s work was for charity, which it usually undertook pro bono. Stella McCartney had been their first big client. Soon, other young cutting-edge fashion designers, dot-com entrepreneurs and other corporates with a social conscience were following in her wake.
Cyn walked into the building and put Morris’s cage down on the big conference table. “OK, now you sit there quietly. If you’re good I’ll bring you some apple later on.” God, she was treating him like a person, as if he really understood. The table was in a major thoroughfare, which meant Morris would get lots of attention from people passing by. It was only when he got bored or frightened that he started his mad chatter. Of course everybody at PCW knew about Keith’s mynah bird and nobody would have found Morris’s perfect imitation of Keith moaning on about needing a shag anything other than hysterically funny. It was the fact that Morris tended to do his impersonations at the shout that eventually drove people mad.
Cyn was thirty when she joined PCW, so, like Chelsea, she was a fair bit older than the other junior copywriters. After university she did an internship at the Daily Mail, but quickly came to the conclusion that spending days stalking adulterous game show hosts wasn’t for her.
When the Mail offered her a full-time job, she turned it down and spent four years nannying in Europe and Australia. Finally she got the nightmare job in Hong Kong.
By the time the two youngest Clydesdale children had started school, Mimi was quite happy for Cyn to work part time for other families, as long as she was there to pick the children up from school.
It was around this time that Cyn’s interest in advertising began. She had found some extra nanny work during school hours, but not enough to keep her occupied. With time on her hands she started reading. When she got fed up with books, she would flick through magazines. She realized that when she read magazines she always stopped to study the advertisements. It was the same when she watched TV. Instead of going out to make a cup of tea when they came on, she stayed to watch. She found herself analyzing bland soap powder or toothpaste commercials, trying to work out precisely why they were so successful. She found herself staring up at billboards, criticizing the slogans and thinking up ways they could be improved.
Eventually Cyn decided she wanted to come home and find a job in advertising. But she refused to leave the Clydesdales’ children until she had found a replacement nanny. It wasn’t hard. Marcia, an old friend of Barbara’s whose husband had just left her, was desperate for “a fresh start” and was looking for a nanny-housekeeper job abroad. Marcia, who was in her late fifties, had raised four children of her own and was endlessly patient, loving and maternal. She flew out for an interview. Within five minutes the children were jumping all over her. The Clydesdales hired her on the spot. Cyn stayed on an extra month to help with the changeover, and the last she heard Marcia was still there and had no plans to come home.
Cyn’s interview at Price Chandler Witty hadn’t gotten off to a good start. It was a scorching hot day and she had decided to wear her new Monsoon flip-flops, which matched her pink skirt. Before she left, she had painted her nails and moisturized her legs and feet, which were tanned from having spent a week sunbathing in her parents’ back garden. She’d bought the cream in Selfridges. A woman at one of the cosmetics counters had seen her looking at it and had then spent a solid ten minutes rubbing it into various bits of Cyn’s person in order to demonstrate how richly nourishing and rehydrating it was. Of course by then, after all the trouble the woman had gone to, Cyn had felt compelled to buy it—even though she thought it had a rather tacky feel to it.
It was only on the long walk from the tube to the office that she realized that all the pavement dirt was sticking to her feet. When she arrived they were nearly black. There wasn’t time to clean herself off in the ladies’ room, so she spent the entire interview trying to hide her feet under the chair.
If that wasn’t enough, Messrs. Price, Chandler and Witty—who were playing on one of the pinball machines when she arrived and greeted her with “we are so totally chilled out” mockney accents—suddenly seemed to sharpen up and made it clear they had their doubts about a candidate who had left it until she was thirty before deciding to make a career in advertising. Graham Chandler lay back in his chair, hands behind his spiky gelled head, and suggested that her outlook on life was less than focused. “You see, focus is what it’s all about.” Then Phil Witty started asking her what she knew about brand building (not a lot, really), balance theory (umm, something to do with equilibrium?). What about awareness-consideration-reaffirmation-confirmation-action-reinforcement theory? (Right. Well, you’ve sort of got me there.)
At this point Andy Price took off his narrow rimless specs, leaned forward and asked her if she knew there was such a thing as white salmon. She frowned, wondering where on earth this was leading, and said she didn’t. “Well, there is. Now, this is a true story. In the twenties, a fish canning company in Alaska got landed with tons of salmon, which for some reason was white. Now, as you know, salmon is either pink or red, but they managed to shift all their white salmon in record time and make a huge profit, thanks to a brilliant advertising slogan. Can you guess what that slogan might have been?”
Jeez. How in the name of buggery was she supposed to know? “God, well . . . I mean . . . hmm.” By now she realized the whole thing was hopeless and was on the point of getting up and leaving.
“It’s not easy,” Andy Price said, giving her a sympathetic smile. “Look, why don’t I put you out of your misery?”
“No, hang on.” An idea had come to her. In a flash—in one of those “Holy-Riddler-Robin-Gotham-City-is-saved-fetch-the-Batmobile” moments—she had it. “OK, it would have to be something about white salmon being superior to the p
ink or red . . . What about ‘The salmon that doesn’t turn pink in the tin’?”
Price, Chandler and Witty sat there stunned. Andy Price picked up a red rubber stress ball and kneaded it a couple of times. “Bloody hell. That’s right,” he said. “That was the exact slogan. Come on, you must have heard it somewhere.”
She assured them she hadn’t. The three men exchanged gobsmacked glances and said the job was hers if she wanted it. “The post is junior copywriter, the money’s pretty crap, but we offer excellent opportunities for promotion.”
“Yes, please,” she said.
Her hope that people in the office would tire of the hemorrhoid one-liners after a couple of hours couldn’t have been more in vain. Like Hugh, they immediately christened the Smart Car the “Butt-Mobile” and not one of them got remotely fed up—even when the jokes became really infantile. All morning people kept trying to outdo each other by making more obscure pile references. Work was “really piling” up. Carpets had “a really soft pile.” “Ooh, what’s that terrible noise outside. Could it be a pile driver?”
Chelsea came in about twelve. She’d spent the morning visiting a client.
Cyn noticed her about fifteen minutes later, standing at the coffee machine. She decided there was no point going on the attack—at least not yet. First, she would listen to what Chelsea had to say.
“So,” Cyn began lightly, “did you happen to notice my Smart Car in the car park?”
“God, sweetie, what can I say?” Chelsea said, raking her highlights. “Everybody’s talking about it. I am so, so sorry. I was certain both cars were going to be carrying ads for painkillers or something. It was a complete shock when the guy at the showroom gave me the Stella McCartney car. I feel really bad. It’s awful the way everybody’s making fun of you. I’d give anything for it to be me. If it hadn’t been for this excruciating abscess on my tooth, I would have waited until the next day to go to the showroom.” She gave a sudden (rather theatrical, Cyn thought) wince and brought her hand to her jaw. Then she explained that the only appointment she could get at the dentist had been precisely when they were due to pick up their cars.
Hang on, Cyn thought, this didn’t make sense. “But if you were in so much pain that night,” she said, “how did you manage to go and pick up the car?”
“I was on extra-strength painkillers. I figured it was the lesser of two evils. The pain was bound to be worse the next morning. I talked to the people at the showroom at about four that afternoon and by pure chance one of the cars had already arrived. It just happened to be the Stella car. I’m so sorry I didn’t phone you. I just forgot. I think it was probably the pills making me feel a bit weird. I don’t know how I managed to drive home.”
“But you’re all right now?”
“Oh, you know,” she said with another grimace, “the pain comes and goes.” Then her face broke into what Hugh would no doubt have described as a martyred smile. “But I’m dealing with it.” Cyn didn’t know what to make of her story. She knew what Hugh and Harmony would think—that Chelsea was putting on an act and that she had taken the car on purpose.
“You know, I feel so guilty about this whole thing that I just phoned Stella’s people to see if it would be OK for us to swap cars, but they said there would be a problem with the insurance. I didn’t quite understand, but apparently . . .”
“That’s OK,” Cyn said. “Don’t worry. I’m going to phone the Anusol people in a minute. I’m sure I’ll get it sorted out.”
“You sure? What can I say?”
“It’s OK,” Cyn said, “you don’t have to say anything.”
Cyn had been completely thrown by Chelsea’s thought about wanting to swap cars. Now she didn’t know what to think. She was still dithering, wondering whether to let the whole thing go or just come out with it and say, “Look, Chelsea, I’m not sure I buy any of this toothache nonsense. I think you have a problem with me and wangled it so that you got the Stella car,” when Graham Chandler interrupted them.
“OK,” he announced, “show-and-tell session in trailer one at two o’clock.” He sounded a bit irritable, Cyn thought. No point mentioning the Anusol ad to him and seeing if he would phone the company to try and persuade them to tone the ad down a bit. He clearly had more urgent matters on his mind. She knew it wasn’t just work pressure. He was also exhausted. Three months ago his wife had given birth to IVF triplets, and judging by the dark circles under his eyes, they still weren’t sleeping. “Hang on,” Cyn said to Graham, “I thought that meeting wasn’t until the day after tomorrow.” After a brainstorming session the previous week, Graham had sent everybody away to “think wild” about ways of promoting the new Droolin’ Dream low-fat doughnut. It was agreed that those thoughts would be discussed at the next show-and-tell meeting.
“I know what I said,” Graham said briskly, “but things have changed. I’m off to New York this evening. This Droolin’ Dream account is worth a fortune. We need to get some ideas up and running before I go.” Andy and Phil had been in New York for a couple of months setting up PCW NY. Apparently Andy had phoned a couple of hours ago to say things were going seriously wrong with the attorneys and Graham’s presence was needed urgently.
It was only after Graham had gone that Cyn noticed that Chelsea was looking strained and rather pale. “You OK?” she said, thinking that maybe this tooth abscess was for real after all.
“It’s OK, I’ll be fine when the antibiotics kick in.” But something about the expression on Chelsea’s face left Cyn thinking that it wasn’t just the tooth that was troubling her. Cyn was certain she was seeing something in Chelsea that she had never seen before. It was hovering about her eyes and looked remarkably like panic.
“So,” Cyn said, “I bet you’ve got loads of ideas to take into this show-and-tell session.”
“Oh, a few, maybe,” Chelsea said, minus her usual smug smile. It occurred to Cyn that for once in her life, Chelsea was scared that her ideas would be found wanting. God alone knew why. They had never been found wanting in the past. Chelsea was clearly taking this promotion thing so seriously that it was starting to get to her. All that stood between her and it was winning the Droolin’ Dream doughnut account. Of course there was always the possibility, Cyn thought, that she, Cyn, might win the account and then the promotion could be hers. Remote as the possibility was, Cyn still had some faith in herself.
She had never quite understood the way Chelsea’s creative mind worked. At initial briefings when it was announced that a client was looking for a new advertising campaign and that PCW had been invited to pitch for it, Chelsea remained uncharacteristically quiet. While everybody else threw initial thoughts and ideas into the pot, she would simply listen. It was only days later—at the show-and-tell meetings—that Chelsea came into her own and stunned people with her brilliance. Like everybody else at PCW, Cyn assumed that Chelsea simply had one of those brains that worked best when she was alone and not under pressure.
“Anyway,” Chelsea said, “I should get going. I’ve got some calls to make.” With that she walked off, still looking distracted.
Cyn sat down at her desk and checked her e-mail. The first was from Keith Geary saying he was going to be in South Korea for at least a couple more weeks and he was sure she wouldn’t mind hanging on to Morris. “Hmm, all the same if I do,” she muttered, thinking about carting Morris all the way home and having him in her kitchen for another fortnight, yakking away at full volume about his lack of a sex life. She wrote a reply to Keith:
No prob. Me and Morris great pals. Have you managed to get a shag yet? Morris says it’s been three months. XXX Cyn.
She giggled and pressed send.
Then she phoned Anusol. When she finally located the person she needed to speak to—a woman named Lisa Patterson—all she got was her voice mail. The message included her e-mail address. Cyn decided to bash out a quick e-mail. But try as she might, she just couldn’t get the tone right. It was vital not to appear demanding or ungrateful because
it could threaten PCW’s relationship with the company. It took nearly an hour before she felt she’d hit the right note. Finally she let it go.
“Pile of mail for you.” Luke, the office runner, was standing next to her holding a stack of letters, which he dumped on her desk.
“Cheers, Luke,” she said with a smile, refusing to rise to his teasing. Realizing he wasn’t going to get the reaction he wanted, he replaced his headphones, turned his Walkman back on and loped off. When she looked up a few moments later, he was moshing next to the water cooler.
As she started to open her mail, she noticed Chelsea was on the phone. She seemed quite frantic. Cyn thought maybe a client was giving her a hard time and decided to go over and offer to get her a cup of coffee.
“Charlie, please,” Chelsea was saying, pressing her eyelids with her fingers. “I know I said it wasn’t for another two days, but things have changed. I really need for you to do this. No, it can’t wait. I’m desperate. Yes, I know it’s the middle of the night in L.A. I’m sorry, but this is the last time. I promise . . . Please, Charlie—for me . . . What do you mean, you can’t? Can’t or won’t? . . . Oh, all right then, screw you.”
“You look as if you could do with a cuppa.” Chelsea was red in the face. She jumped when she saw Cyn.
“No, I’m fine,” she snapped. “Totally fine.”
“You sure?”
“Perfectly. Why shouldn’t I be?” Cyn was completely mystified. She couldn’t begin to work out what was going on. Chelsea was always so composed and in control. Cyn had never seen her so agitated. “If you say so.” Cyn turned to go.