Just then Bruce leaned over and picked a sesame seed off her arm and put it into his mouth. He continued to nod at her, listening to everything she said, but it was such a completely strange thing to do, she could barely finish her sentence. "It's . . . it's . . . just not going to do the group, um, or the agency any good to have something, uh . . . bad out there," she said, now totally flustered. "Making us look . . . bad." She wondered if her face looked as flushed as it felt.
"I know what you're saying," said Bruce. "I agree. But we're backed against the wall with this client. We've had this talk before. We're stuck with them. It's going to be up to us, actually you, to sell them something that's better than what they've been doing. This is your job. To do something great."
Ana's speech had blown up in her face. She just sat there nodding way too avidly. She half assumed that she was close to being fired.
Then Bruce smiled at her, that beam of warmth radiating from him. He put his last bite of burger in his mouth, chewed it briefly, then nodded to himself. "I'm gonna get a calvados. Calvados?" he asked Ana. Before she said anything, he turned and waved down the waitress. "Two calvados, please." Within seconds, it seemed, a snifter appeared before her. Ana let it sit there, next to her half-full bourbon stout. She actually desired something stronger, but it was already nine thirty and the evening, while partially enjoyable, had already gotten way too weird, especially with the sesame seed incident.
It was one of the most curious invasions of personal space she had ever experienced; both random and silly, while so strangely intimate that her face still felt flushed. She supposed it was a kind of violation—but it was just a sesame seed. It wasn't like the time at her very first agency job when some old-school account executive who still drank his lunch every day came up behind her in the break room and honked her right boob. (Replete with sound effect.) She turned around and threw a steaming-hot cup of coffee right in his face. She was ready to kick him in the balls too, but he was already screaming and flailing around on the ground. Ten years earlier, the incident may have gone unpunished (or she would have lost her job for inflicting third-degree burns on a coworker), but luckily for her, it was right around the time that some of the first sexual harassment suits were starting to make the local news and the agency was terrified that the newbie junior art director was going to sue. It turned out to be the last straw for the AE. They had been looking for a reason to can his drunken ass and Ana was it. She did not feel bad about it in the least. In fact, she still regretted not kicking him in the balls.
It wasn't like that. But the sesame seed incident colored the whole evening in such a way that left her feeling absolutely unmoored. And, well, though she was kind of ashamed to admit it, a little aroused. Was it odd that, when she thought about it, she had kind of liked the intimacy of the gesture? Two fingers of Bruce (which sounded strangely like a seventies chop-socky film) touching her skin, plucking off a plump little seed, excited her in some inexplicable way. Now, finally capitulating to that calvados in front of her (Bruce on his second), the liquor burning away all concerns, the evening seemed to skitter off in a way that she was not sure she could control. Yet part of her couldn't help but to think that was just what she wanted.
Later, back at the hotel, they had a final nightcap. (Bruce was very big on the nightcaps, she realized. They'd had two "one last ones" at the HopCat. He clearly loved the idea of one last drink, as if that proclamation was some sort of inviolable rule. You could not have one more after that. Then when you did, it made that next nightcap, that next one last one, taste all the better.) In the elevator, her head muzzy with strange beer, strong apple liquor, and a final something at the bar (what was that?), when Bruce asked her to hit the 3 button, she realized that his room was on the same floor as hers. (He had headed for the lobby bathroom when she checked in.) Walking down the hall, she saw that her room was two doors down from his. Even then, drunk as she was, she wondered if it was too much of a coincidence, that maybe he had planned it; and when she stopped at her door, Bruce stopped with her. Not saying anything, he put his hand to her face (that hand now not feeling unfamiliar against her skin) and kissed her.
What happened next was a blur of sensations. Her pulling back for a moment (and it was only a moment) before she crushed her lips against his. Bruce's hands reaching behind her, against her back, grasping her waist, reaching up beneath the Western shirt she was wearing, his hand against the skin of her back, that part of her back that had not been touched by any other man in a long time. And it was that feeling of skin against skin that allowed her to allow Bruce to push her against the hotel door and hold his body against hers. Her hands were moving as well, one inside his shirt, one down along the front of his jeans. She felt the thickness there, heard him sigh deeply. Then his hand at the front of her jeans, moving hard against the seam, against her repeatedly, then up to her waist, tugging the metal button at its eyelet.
"Open the door," whispered Bruce after he undid the button, starting to slide the zipper down.
"All right," Ana said, actually managing to speak.
"Let's go inside." Yet another hand cupping her right breast. What were all these hands doing? Where were hers? Oh yes. There.
"I know you want to," he said, kissing the underside of her chin, a place not accustomed to the attention.
Someone thinking for her was not what she wanted, even though he was right and she did want to open the door. "Just a second," she said, her hands shaking, fumbling for the key card that she had slipped in her side pocket. Ana turned her back to Bruce while she tried to insert the card in the lock.
His hands quickly found their way back to where they were before, on her breast and at her zipper. She inserted the key card again, and the three small lights above the slot flashed red, then she tried once more. Red. Then again. Red. Red. Red.
"Hurry," said Bruce, his index and middle fingers brushing against her clitoris, making it harder for her to concentrate.
"I'm trying," she said, bumping back into his erection.
She kept her eyes focused on the tiny lights above the slot, and then inserted the card one more time. She waited for the three small lights to blink green, and when it finally did, she twisted down hard on the handle till the bolt made a loud thunk and pushed open the door.
At the sound, Bruce tried to move the both of them into the room, but just then she pushed him back hard, out into the hallway.
"I can't do this," she said, panting. She slipped through the slim opening she had given herself and quickly turned to shut the door behind her. "I have to go. Go away. I'll see you tomorrow."
Closing the door, she caught a flash of his face in the narrowing column between the door and the jamb. He was just standing there, looking at her in stunned disbelief. The boy with the lost puppy, breathing hard, face reddened with alcohol, suppressing something else entirely.
"Ana," he said to the closed door. "Come on, this is crazy." He banged on the door. "I know you want to do this."
Inside, she turned from the door and clutched herself, trying to stop shaking, knowing he was still there, knowing that she could get him back inside in an instant, and that a part of her wanted that. Then there was the other part that wanted to get away from what she wanted.
After a breathless minute, Ana finally heard his footfalls down the hallway and knew she was alone. She had never seen this side of herself before. Nothing like this had ever happened to her in all the time that she and Joe had been together. Not even close. She never thought herself capable of it. She was boring and monogamous and she liked it that way. She was too guilty a person to have an affair or whatever this was. Her conscience beat her up about everything. (Lately it had been knocking her around pretty good for being in advertising.) She knew she was going to think about this too much, especially given her lack of tolerance for infidelity in other people. You either commit or you don't. If you don't, fine, but don't act like you do when you don't. She had subtly cut people out of her life when they
had revealed themselves to be unfaithful spouses or friends.
And now she goes and does this?
It wasn't so much what had actually happened (even though what had happened was plenty and she was still processing it right now, heart galloping, stomach churning, head spinning with alcohol, not to mention the unmistakable dampness between her legs), but that she would allow it to happen in the first place. It seemed like proof of what she had been thinking about last night, another sign that she was becoming someone she didn't even recognize.
* * *
After an uneasy night's sleep, complete with the bed spinning, a sweaty scramble to the bathroom to vomit (fumes of fruit and bourbon), and four thirty a.m. mind-racing spells of guilt, self-hatred, and fears of solitary nursing-home death, Ana got up at ten past six and pushed everything from her mind out of sheer survival: she had to get ready. She downed three ibuprofen, showered, dried her hair, put on makeup (extra concealer, please), dressed in the clothes she had brought for the meeting (a gray wool dress that she had loved, a totally overpriced indulgence from Anthropologie, now forever tainted by the memory of this trip), packed her suitcase, and quietly opened her door and rolled it down the hall, praying that Bruce would not hear her pass. Once in the elevator (superfriendly hotel employee engaging her in needless niceties; vague smile as she concentrated on the glowing rectangle of her iPhone as if waiting for an urgent message), she allowed herself some small sense of relief.
After checking out, stashing her suitcase with the bellman, and grabbing a nonfat latte from the weird German-style coffee shop (more hyperfriendliness from barista, people in Grand Rapids preternaturally cheerful; she hated it), Ana texted Bruce to let him know that she was downstairs and ready to head over to WomanLyfe. The meeting was supposed to start in an hour.
As far as she knew, they were about five minutes away from the place, but she needed time to think. She could still not quite believe the events of last night. She knew she had been fairly drunk, but not that drunk. As she sipped her coffee, Ana allowed herself to think again about everything that had happened, and carefully constructed in her mind a hierarchy of worry.
First and foremost, she felt crushingly guilty for kissing Bruce. She hadn't kissed another man in that way since she had been with Joe. That said, she knew it had just been a kiss and she had stopped everything before it got completely out of control. Yet she was having a hard time reasoning away that simple kiss. Then she remembered that along with the kiss, there had been more kissing. A lot more kissing. Oh, right. Then there was the touching, which she hadn't really participated in, and had only allowed for a very short time. Oh, wait . . . yes, she had participated in the touching. Quite a lot of that as well. That had definitely happened, her hands far below the equator. Was it crazy to try to determine just how guilty she really needed to feel? On a one-to-ten indiscretion scale, was this maybe a four? Okay, maybe five, but it couldn't be much worse than that. The touching. The consensual touching. Did that move it up to a seven? Or even an eight? No, it couldn't be. There would have to be some form of actual sex before it got into the eight-point range. What was Joe going to say? Surely, he would forgive a kiss. Yet it was a lot more than a kiss. If she decided to tell him. Ana wasn't sure that was ever going to happen. Still, the idea of living with this made her feel sick inside. She was not this type of person.
Secondly, she was worried about how this was going to affect her job. She had no idea how Bruce would act when he came down. (Still no text back.) For all she knew, she would be summarily dismissed from her job. Then again, she better not be fired or the agency was going to get a massive surprise: she would sic a lawyer on Edward Cherkovski so fast he wouldn't know what sued him. So she'd probably get to keep her job. Still, Bruce could be a dick about the whole thing. Ana could be silently punished, demoted, given nothing but horrible jobs from now on, treated like shit so she'd want to quit. Yes, that was how things worked—they just made it bad for people they didn't want there. There were plenty of stories like that in every agency she had ever worked.
Even if none of this happened, things would definitely be weird. Right now, it felt like her best plan of action was to act like the whole thing never happened. Needless to say, she would never, ever go on a trip with just Bruce again. The whole thing was a huge mistake. She wouldn't even allow herself to be alone in a room with him. That meant she would have to tell Adrienne about this. She was not at all looking forward to that.
Which brought her to number three on her hierarchy of worry: All evidence seemed to indicate rather strongly that she had wanted what happened last night to happen. That she had enjoyed it. Telling herself that she was drunk was only going to work for so long. Adrienne always said that alcohol doesn't change people; it makes them more like themselves. This made her feel worst of all. She remembered now how much she had wanted to open that door and let him in.
Just how much did intention count? This was the question that worried her the most.
Her iPhone blipped with an incoming text: On way down. CU in 5.
* * *
Ana's plan to act as though nothing at all had happened was working surprisingly well. There was no mention of the previous night's occurrences during coffee at the hotel or on the walk to WomanLyfe. She and Bruce had merely gone over what they were going to talk about at the meeting. Luckily, there actually wasn't much for her to do. It was really more of a chemistry meeting for her. Her job was to be likable: "Hi! So nice to meet you!" Brisk handshake, direct look into eyes of shakee. "I'm Ana, one of the creatives who will be working on your account!" Smile, smile, smile.
So far, Bruce was not acting the least bit different than he had the day before. It was uncanny. But then, she should have known. He was a man. Thus, much better at acting as though nothing improper had happened, rather than acknowledging it, which could lead to discomfort of a physical or emotional nature. Denial was the psychological currency of the male. Acceptable anywhere, in any situation. What? That never happened. Forget about it. Still, it was eerie how easy it was for both of them.
The only tough part of the meeting was talking to Karin. Ana didn't know if the woman was tweaked about her and Adrienne at the last meeting, but she definitely detected a certain frostiness.
"What do you think the tone for the advertising should be?" Karin asked Ana, midway through the hour they were all to spend together.
It was the kind of question that felt like trouble, though she remembered Adrienne asking the same question to Karin back at the agency. Ana recalled some vague brand-oriented blather about approachability, which she could easily repeat, but she wanted to really answer this question. Whatever her answer, Ana sensed that she would be walking through a minefield.
"I think the tone should match your company," she began. "Caring, pro-woman, spiritual—"
"We're not pro-woman, we're pro-family," Karin snapped.
Okay, it hadn't taken very long to step on a mine. Ana considered the comment carefully. "Well, by caring about women, you are in turn caring about families. Because the women are generally primary caregivers for the families, right?" Ana saw some of the other people at the table nodding in agreement.
Karin's tone grew sharper. "But we're not some sort of feminazi organization that stands for all the wrong things."
First, Ana felt the heat rise in her ears, and then she realized that Karin was consciously baiting her. Just knowing that calmed her down considerably. She had fallen into too many traps in the past twenty-four hours; this was not going to be another one. Ana took a slightly theatrical breath, as though she was giving this query the utmost consideration, placed her elbows on the table, then pushed her palms together, looked away, then straight back at Karin. "Here's what I meant: Your organization wants to help women be healthier, happier, more spiritually aware, right? You want them to take care of themselves, so they in turn can take better care of their families, correct?"
"Of course."
"Well, you're being pro-woma
n, even if that phrase may have different meanings to different groups. And before we get into a big semantic argument, I have to say that we would never use that term. Besides, being pro-women isn't about how any group defines it. It's about how you define it. That's the reason you're advertising. To create your own definition out there in the marketplace of what it means to be a woman. But first you have to give women some hope that they can change their lives. The women we want to reach need an ally. They're overworked, underappreciated, and undernourished, physically and spiritually. They need someone that's pro-them. And that's your company."
Ana looked around. Everyone at the table was nodding like a roomful of promotional bobbleheads. Ana stared at Karin. The woman didn't look pleased, but she was nodding right along with them.
* * *
Later in the car, Bruce was in full boss-mode. Ana was relieved to have the meeting behind them and to have Bruce (and her) acting in an appropriate manner again. Hopefully, they could fill the entire trip home with work stuff. She remembered that she had her laptop and reached over to the backseat to grab her computer bag. It felt good to have it on her lap. She felt protected—not from Bruce, but from herself. She did not currently trust her instincts.
"That was good, how you avoided Karin's trap like that," he said.
Ana unzipped the bag, pulled out her laptop, and flipped it open. "Okay. So it felt like a trap to you too? I thought maybe it was just my paranoia."
A half laugh from Bruce. "Oh god, yes. It was a trap."
"Why would she do that?"
He shrugged. "I don't know. But I'm already starting to get used to it from her. Clients just do that sometimes, especially ad managers. Half of the time they're the reason we lose accounts. The ad manager ends up throwing us under the bus to save his own job. Even though they hired us for our expertise, they're constantly trying to prove that they know more than the agency. They want to set us up as elite snobs who can't come close to understanding the core audience better than them."
The Narcissism of Small Differences Page 17