Syrup

by Max Barry

  She shrugs this off, taking a brief appraisal of the apartment. “Can we go somewhere?”

  “Take me away,” I say, as if she hasn’t already.

  café revelations

  “So,” she says, looking me over. I suppress a shiver. “How have you been?”

  I’m momentarily caught between lying and telling the truth, then berate myself. Three months ago, I wouldn’t have hesitated. “Oh, fantastic. Losing Fukk was a blow, of course, but I try to look at it as a learning experience.” I shrug. “I’ve got a couple more projects on the go; naturally Fukk was just one of many.”

  “Good.” 6 looks relieved, sipping at her lattè. Perhaps she was worried I would tell the truth.

  “And you?” I brace myself.

  “Well,” she says cautiously, “I’m frantic on Fukk, of course, working ninety hour weeks.” She throws me a glance but I think I’ve managed to remain deadpan. “It’s chaos to get this product on the market for summer.”

  She doesn’t have to spell it out for me. I’m guessing they’ve changed her title to New Products Marketing and Operations Executive, raised her to $200,000 and asked her to please pick out a nice car and send them the bill.

  I manage to say it. “And how’s the launch going?”

  “As expected,” 6 says, still careful. I interpret this to mean: I’m ahead of schedule, I’ve got a $10 million budget and I meet daily with the CEO. “The CTs did ... very well.” Now 6 is saying: I’m pretty sure we’re going to make unbelievable amounts of money.

  “So.” It’s hard to keep the bitterness out of my voice. “I guess the board wasn’t fazed by discovering that the guy who sold them Fukk wasn’t the guy who owned it.”

  Almost tenderly, 6 says: “No.”

  I put down my lattè. “I see. So everything’s going great. Everyone’s happy. Coke is going to release the biggest hit soda of the decade, you’re shimmying up the corporate ladder and Sneaky Pete is probably vacationing in Hawaii with my money.” I gesture wildly at the upmarket café and clientele around me. “Then I guess the only reason you brought me here is to rub my nose in it.” I actually stand up at this point, and though I can’t say for sure, I think my eyes are blazing with righteous anger. “I think I’ll leave before you stiff me with the check.”

  “Scat,” 6 says, looking pained, “sit down.”

  I don’t want to, but with 6 looking pained at me it’s hard to resist. I decide to sit down only with a cutting remark, but then I can’t think of one and end up just sitting.

  Then something beautiful and astounding happens.

  6 says, “Scat, I need you.”

  6 reveals all

  “I’ve been shafted on Fukk. They’ll probably take me off it before the end of the month.”

  I gape. “Shafted? How? Who?”

  6’s deadly eyebrows sharpen into a frown. I’m sure that if she turned these weapons onto whoever knifed her, she could slice him into little pieces. “Actually, it was your friend. Sneaky Pete.”

  “What?”

  She only throws a tiny shrug, but it’s enough to tell me she’s furious. “I didn’t even know he was in the game. I thought he screwed you for the money and vanished.” She scowls at her lattè. “A couple of months ago, I find out Coke has hired him to work alongside me on the launch. I protested, of course, took my complaint to the CEO. No good. He’s their new golden boy.”

  “Bastard,” I say wonderingly.

  “Two weeks ago, I figured that for all practical purposes, he’s doing my job. He’s going to take full credit for the success of Fukk.”

  I almost choke. Not only does the guy get three million dollars for the rights, but he grabs a top marketing job in the best marketing company in the world and snares responsibility for launching a surefire hit. I can’t help but admire that.

  “I’ve been asked to work on something else,” 6 says, disgusted. “The summer campaign for Classic Coke.”

  I blink. “That sounds like a promotion.”

  She shakes her head. “Our ad agency has already finished the design work. Coke wants me to ... implement. Logistics. Space negotiations.” Her face blanches.

  “Oh.” I think for a moment. “So ... what exactly do you need me for?”

  6 sips her coffee, watching me carefully. I get little shivers up my back.

  “I’m not going to do what they want. I’m going to redesign the summer launch. With your help.”

  She sets down her coffee.

  “You and I are going to produce the best ad in marketing history.”

  okaaay

  I stare at 6. She stares back at me, those dark eyes sizing me up.

  “Are you offering me a job at Coke?”

  “No,” she says immediately. “I can’t do that. No one at Coke can know about this until it’s done.”

  “I see.” I think about this. “So you’re effectively against the company. If they find out you’re trying to replace the campaign they’ve spent months developing, they’ll can you.”

  6 hesitates, then nods.

  “In fact, even if you do come up with something special, they could can you for pure insubordination.”

  “That’s possible,” 6 admits.

  “And, given that summer begins in under two months, I guess you’ve got maybe four weeks, at most, to produce this thing.”

  “Actually,” 6 says, “you’d be surprised at how far we work in advance. ”

  I wait.

  “The concept has to be finished this week.”

  Her eyes start to widen fetchingly so I look down at my coffee to steady myself. When I look up again, I’m ready.

  “So,” I say, “what you’re telling me is that you want me to work on a doomed project with an impossible deadline for no tangible reward.” I give 6 what I hope is a sardonic smile.

  6 says, “I need you, Scat.”

  “Okay,” I say quickly.

  the benefits of a tertiary education

  It would be hard to tell, from this encounter, that I scored an A—in MKT 346: Business Negotiation.

  a no-holds-barred confrontation with cindy

  Cindy arrives home around three A.M. “Hey, ” she says, sounding pleased.

  I look up from my writing. “Hey.”

  “Dressed,” she says approvingly. “Shaved. Even active.” She comes over and kisses me on the back of my neck. “You look dangerous, Scat.”

  “Uh, thanks,” I say.

  Cindy stands behind me silently for a minute. I’ve already sunk back into my world of Coke bylines when she says, “I knew we could do it, Scat. I knew we could pull you out of this one.”

  “Yeah,” I say absently. I have started to wonder about the beach: about variations on a giant inflatable beach ball. I am thinking about this ball rolling through a major American city, with people running and screaming.

  Cindy walks around the table to face me. There’s a strange expression on her face, and it’s so unfamiliar that it’s a second before I recognize it. Then it dawns: Cindy is looking at me as if she is impressed.

  “Cindy—”

  “Scat, ”Cindy says, her eyes shining.

  “Whoa, Cindy.” I abruptly realize that this is going to turn very ugly very quickly. “I think ... we need to talk.”

  “I think,” Cindy says, smiling, “that it’s past Scat’s bedtime.” She fingers the buttons on her uniform.

  “Cindy—” I search for the words I need: words to tell her how much she’s helped me, how much I appreciate everything she’s done to rebuild me over the past three months, and how that means I don’t need her anymore.

  “Cindy,” I say gently, “I’m back.”

  cindy rebuts

  By the time I get downstairs, most of my stuff is already strewn over the lawn. I try to catch the remainder as it sails down from the second-floor apartment window.

  “Son of a whore!” Cindy screams.

  “I’m sorry!” I grab my jeans before they drop into the gutter. Somewhere in
the night a dog barks happily.

  “Bastard!”

  I look up, but nothing else seems to be on its way. I collect as many of my clothes as I can and wrap them into a manageable bundle. When I look up again, I catch a glimpse of Cindy peering through the blinds.

  “I’ll call you!” I shout. It’s pathetic, but I can’t think of an alternative.

  I’m halfway down the street and wondering where the hell I’m going when Cindy’s reply drifts to me on the hot night breeze.

  “Okay ...”

  6

  So, once again, I am homeless.

  Buy Now, Pay Later

  mktg case study #4: mktg groceries [1]

  SPREAD THE MOST POPULAR ITEMS (MILK, CEREAL, SODA) THROUGHOUT THE GROCERY STORE SO CUSTOMERS PASS BY AS LARGE A RANGE OF GOODS AS POSSIBLE. SHIFT THE LOCATION OF GOODS REGULARLY TO KEEP CUSTOMERS WANDERING.

  Saturday night in the big city

  I realize very quickly that I’ll have to call on 6’s assistance for accommodation. Since I happen to be doing her a tremendous favor at this time, I figure my chances should be pretty good.

  However, since it’s nearly four, I decide to wait until morning to call her. I trudge around the backstreets of Santa Monica for three hours, past countless alleys, doorways and small inviting parks, all of which are already occupied by people with tight grips on bundles of clothes even smaller than mine. At dawn, I’m so exhausted and desperate for a shower that I can’t wait any longer, and I find a pay phone, dial 6’s number and hope.

  She picks up on the fourth ring. “Hello?” Her voice is like honey smeared across velvet pajamas.

  “6! It’s Scat. Gorgeous morning, huh?”

  There is a pause. “Hello, Scat,” she says cautiously.

  “6, there are some things we need to discuss,” I tell her importantly. “How about I come over?”

  “You, come here?” 6 says, alarmed.

  I quickly recheck my words in my head, to make sure they didn’t come out: Let’s make mad passionate love. I’m pretty sure they didn’t. “Uh, yeah.”

  “No.”

  “Oh.” This puts a dent in my plan: I had expected to get in the front door. I tremble briefly on the verge of asking her why I can’t visit, then chicken out. “Oh. Then ... somewhere else?” I look around. “How about a coffee on the beach? I’m at Watchers in Santa Monica.”

  “Fine,” 6 says, and hangs up.

  I put down the phone. “Okay,” I tell myself. “Okay.”

  It feels good to be okay.

  scat and 6 go to the beach

  I decide to sit on the stone wall separating the sidewalk from the beach so I can see 6 drive up. I’m very interested in what sort of car she’s driving because I think it will reveal some insight into her personality. After all, I don’t have a car at all, and that reveals plenty about me.

  However, when 6 arrives an hour later I’m surprised to see she’s walking. She’s also wearing cute white shorts and a thin black tank top so unnerving I have to grip the wall. She spots me and heads over.

  “Hey,” I say. “Walking?”

  “I like to walk,” she says shortly.

  “How un-Californian of you,” I offer daringly. 6 ignores me.

  We sit down at a small cozy café looking out over the ocean and order lattès. 6 slings her impressive satchel, which has again simply materialized, over the back of her chair. “So?”

  “Right,” I say. “Well, I haven’t come up with the most brilliant ad in the history of marketing overnight, if that’s what you’re wondering.”

  “Oh.” For a fleeting microsecond, she actually looks dismayed. “No. Of course not.”

  “But I do want to talk about a couple of things. First, you have to get me inside Coke.”

  “Yes.” 6 has obviously anticipated this. Almost every great ad ever written has come from research, and I’m certain she knows this.

  “That’s not a problem?”

  “No.”

  “Oh. Of course not.” I can’t help myself; I’m homeless and I haven’t slept in twenty-four hours. “Let me know when anything ever fazes you.”

  6 stares at me, utterly unfazed.

  “I mean,” I continue, a little hysterically, “when we’ve produced this amazing ad and you use it to destroy everyone who has ever threatened you, what are you going to do next? What could possibly turn you on?”

  6 turns and looks out over the ocean. I abruptly realize how far I have stepped over the line of cool detachment and open my mouth to apologize. Then 6 says: “Success.” She turns back to me. “Just like you, Scat.”

  scat confesses

  During the second lattè, I begin my pitch to move in.

  “You know ...” I say mysteriously. “There are some things you should know about me.”

  6 raises an eyebrow.

  “I don’t really have a Porsche,” I confess. “I just borrowed one for the dinner.”

  “Oh,” 6 says, genuinely surprised. Her other eyebrow shoots up to join its sister.

  “Were you impressed?” I ask sneakingly.

  “No.”

  “Just a little?”

  “No, ” she says, crossing her arms. “An expensive car doesn’t mean anything.”

  “I’m glad to hear that,” I say truthfully, “because actually, I don’t have a car at all.”

  “Oh,” 6 says, sounding a little depressed.

  “In fact,” I say, “I don’t have a place to live anymore. I’m homeless.” I try 6’s wide-eyed trick back on her, but she stares it down impassively. “So ... if you have any ideas, I’m open to suggestions.”

  “Ideas?” she says, as if she doesn’t understand what I’m talking about.

  “For places to live. I need somewhere to live.”

  “Oh,” she says, looking out at the sea again.

  “Do you know anyone? Anyone who might want a boarder?”

  “I don’t think so,” she says, as if the entire subject is vaguely distasteful.

  “Anyone ... such as yourself?”

  6 turns back to me, her eyes wide and outraged. “Absolutely not.”

  I reach out for her hand. She starts to move it but I snare her before she can get away. Her fingers are cool and smooth, and this would be a tremendously passionate moment if she wasn’t twisting them in my grip. “6, I wouldn’t ask if I wasn’t desperate. You’re my last hope in Los Angeles.”

  “No. ”Her eyes shift. “I live with a girl.”

  “You’ll hardly know I’m there.”

  “No. ”

  “6,” I say. “If I can’t find somewhere to live, I can’t work with you at Coke.” I suck in a breath. “I’ll quit.”

  6’s dark eyes scrutinize me. “No you won’t.”

  I blink. I check to make sure I’m serious. I am. “6—”

  She must see it in my eyes. “Don’t you have parents?”

  “Iowa,” I explain quietly.

  “Oh.” Another look of distaste flits across her face.

  I decide that this is a good time for a goofy, shit-happens grin, so I let one leak out.

  “Oh, Christ,” 6 says.

  the arrangement

  “This is how it will work,” 6 says. “Today is Sunday. You can stay five nights, and only five nights, which will take you until Friday, when we complete the project. Then you’re out.”

  “Okay.”

  “You won’t get a bed. You’ll sleep wherever suits me. You’ll have whatever blankets and pillows I give you. It might not be comfortable.”

  “Right,” I say, secure in the knowledge that anywhere in 6’s apartment has to be more comfortable than a doorway in Santa Monica.

  “You will assist in daily activities, including but not limited to cooking, cleaning and washing. You will make a proactive effort to ensure the harmony of the household.”

  “Sounds fair.”

  “Privacy,” 6 says. “You will not intrude on my privacy. If I want you out of the apartment for a while, you’ll
take a walk. If I want to play loud music at two in the morning, I’ll do it.”

  “Hmm,” I say. “I guess.”

  “And,” 6 says, eyeing me menacingly, “you’ll leave the toilet seat down. I don’t ever want to see the toilet seat up. If you leave the toilet seat up, our arrangement immediately terminates. Understood?”

  “6,” I protest, “that’s an instinctive action. I may not be able to consciously control that.”

  “If the toilet seat is left up, you’re out. Understood?”

  “I can try,” I concede.

  “You can do it,” 6 says.

  I say nothing. If this ever becomes a problem, I’ll protest that I never explicitly agreed.

  “And Scat—”

  “Yes?”

  She hesitates. “There are some things you should know about me.”

  mktg case study #5: mktg cereal

  BASE YOUR ADVERTISING AROUND THE INSINUATION RATHER THAN THE CLAIM THAT THE PRODUCT IS HEALTHY. HAVE SLICE-OF-LIFE ADVERTISEMENTS DEPICTING SLIM MODELS EXERCISING AND EATING THE PRODUCT. WHEN DONE PROPERLY, YOU DON’T EVEN HAVE TO LIE.

  a vision of 6

  6 quietly takes my arm and we stroll along the beach to where she is parked. It’s a low-slung Ferrari—powerful and feminine—and I silently approve. I slip inside and we roar down the PCH. We have witty, sparkling conversation, and 6 smiles at my jokes all the way to her beachfront apartment in Malibu. I can tell from the outside that this is possibly the most stylish apartment I’ve ever seen, but when the elevator opens on to her floor I am stunned at how amazingly cool it really is. It is a huge, airy, open-plan shrine to taste, money and sheer funkiness. I voice my approval and 6 smiles demurely and offers me a scotch. That night, when we’re both a little giggly, 6 looks into my eyes and says, “You know, Scat ... you may as well bunk in with me tonight.”