Changes of Heart

by Liza Gyllenhaal

  “Yes, son,” Walter answered gently. “Of course. Christ, if I’d known the damn rug was going to cause such a scene, I’d have never lugged it up here in the first place, believe me.”

  A week later, Walter was gone, leaving Zach a note that said, “Thanks for everything, kid. Got a call from an associate in Chicago that could mean big things for me if I play my cards right. I’ll call you when I’m on my feet out there. Keep up the studies. That’s the boy. Walter.”

  Zach told himself that he didn’t care, that he was relieved to have the old son of a bitch out of his apartment. But Zach told his friends that his father’s luck was suddenly looking up and that he’d moved to Chicago for an indefinite period.

  “You must be disappointed, Zach,” a girlfriend commiserated on the night of Zach’s commencement from City, “that your father couldn’t be here. He must be so proud.” Zach had graduated, as he had promised himself he would, at the top of his class. After the ceremony, he found himself surrounded by friends, teachers, and girlfriends, and yet he felt almost overwhelmed by a wave of loneliness. He hadn’t heard from Walter since the day he’d left. He had no idea where he was.

  “Walter sent his best,” Zach replied casually. “He’s awfully tied up with this new business venture in Chicago. He’d have been here if he could.” And a part of Zach actually believed that.

  It was easy for Zach to find a job. Though his teachers gave him glowing references, Zach himself—tough and smart, but also unexpectedly humorous and kind—was his own best recommendation. He started out in the accounting department of a retail men’s store, began to take night classes to get his certification, and was soon promoted. And then promoted again. He switched to advertising in the early 1980s, just at the beginning of the big merger years. It was a decade custom-tailored to financial wunderkinds who didn’t blanch at a certain amount of risk-taking. Zach thrived.

  As far as his many friends were concerned, Zach was the only child of a widowed father who traveled around the world on business. Zach didn’t actually lie about Walter, he just didn’t make too much of a fuss about the truth. In fact, Walter did drop in to see Zach from time to time. He was always drunk then, and usually destitute. And he’d spend, as he did that first visit, a month or two pulling himself together … and then he’d be gone again. Zach was never sure when he opened the door to his Upper West Side apartment, whether or not he’d find Walter sprawled out on his couch, snoring and filthy. He never knew when next he’d have to cope with the sad fact of his father’s existence. Zach never stopped believing he could change Walter, or help him change himself. If only, if only … he told himself. Zach spent so much of his time wishing things were different … and pretending everything was fine.

  Janie was right, Zach knew, when she told him to look at his own life, worry about his own problems. After their argument, he felt himself slipping into a depression. Was that what he sensed coming on? The lengthening shadows of despair? He hadn’t seen Walter in over a year, didn’t know if he was alive or dead. He found himself missing Walter … and longing for his love and approval. He was a success story, after all; he was one of the most respected and frequently feared men on Madison Avenue. But who really cared? Despite all he had achieved, he found himself worrying that—like father, like son—in his heart, where it truly mattered, Zachary Dorn was nothing but a loser too.

  Chapter 11

  Afterward Janie couldn’t remember exactly when the restlessness set in, although it must have started around the time she and Zach stopped being close. Because Dorn & Delaney changed for her after that, and she no longer felt she belonged to the big happy family Zach had so hoped he could create.

  “What’s the matter, star?” Michael asked her one afternoon when they were alone in his corner office. A group of them had just finished going over the creative presentation for a new business pitch scheduled for the following week, and Janie had been the last to leave. She was sorting through the boards.

  “Matter with what, Michael?” she replied. “The stuff is great—City Slickers is going to love it. It’s funny and a little wild, just what they wanted, I think. Don’t you?” City Slickers, an account prospect that was asking for presentations from five competing agencies, was a hot new chain of retail stores specializing in funky, low-priced clothing. They’d gotten a firm foothold in Manhattan and were now looking for an agency that could help them expand nationally. The creative team on the pitch—Janie and Melina—had devised a print campaign for upscale magazines in the top five metro markets. There were four ads in the series—each visual set in a different, but obviously chic watering hole, club, or restaurant—and all the models were to be photographed from the back wearing, of course, City Slicker clothes. The headline read, “You are what you wear.”

  “I wasn’t talking about the work,” Michael replied, collapsing into his leather swivel chair. “I was talking about you. You seem … distant these days. What’s up?”

  “Oh, nothing, Michael,” Janie muttered. “And, well … everything.” She sat down in the chair facing him, and looked across the desk at him speculatively. He hadn’t changed much in the nearly four years she’d known him. He had lost a little hair, that was true, and put on a bit of weight. But his patience and honesty never seemed to waver. Unlike Zach who knew everything there was to know about his employees’ personal lives, Michael kept his distance. It wasn’t that he didn’t care, Janie knew, he was just deeply involved with his own concerns—a wife and growing children. He kept them separate from his job.

  “You can tell me about the everything, if you like,” he told her, glancing down at his watch. “If you can squeeze it into half an hour. My younger daughter’s in a ballet recital this evening. Bound to be the high point of the Englewood Cliffs cultural season.”

  “It won’t take long,” Janie replied. “I think I’m just itchy. I’ve been here over four years, Michael, did you know that? And it’s been wonderful … lovely. But … but…”

  “You looking, Janie?” Michael interrupted her. “You taking your book around?”

  “No,” she admitted. “Not yet. But I am beginning to wonder if I should. I mean, I hate to even think about it. I don’t know how I’d get along without you all.”

  “Listen, Janie, you’d be fine,” Michael assured her. “I doubt you’d be as loved … or as comfortable. It can be a tough, ugly business, believe me. But sometimes you need to face that in order to grow. Hey, don’t get me wrong,” Michael added, seeing the hurt expression on her face. “I don’t want to lose you. Not at all. You’re my right-hand person, you know that. On the other hand, I’ve been around the block a few times, and I’m not interested in nailing you down. I want you to keep getting better. I want you to learn. Sometimes you’ve got to leave in order to do that, I know.”

  “I’m not saying that, Michael,” Janie protested. “I don’t really want to go … I just need a change of some kind. Oh, I don’t know. Forget it.” She stood up, but Michael waved her back down again.

  “Just one question, okay?” Michael asked. He rubbed his forehead and looked out the window at the hazy skyline. “It’s none of my business, and I don’t want any details, but does this sudden, uh … cabin fever have anything to do with my esteemed partner? Because if he’s hurt you in any way, then I think I have the right to know.”

  “Zach? No,” Janie replied forcefully, “not directly. It’s me, Michael. My problem. Listen, I’ll sort it out. Don’t worry.”

  “But I do, Janie.” Michael sighed. “And worrying happens to be something I do very well. Let me think about this, anyway. Maybe I can come up with an idea that will help.”

  His solution, put into effect the following week, was that Janie and Melina would do the City Slickers presentation. Alone.

  “Just the two of you,” Michael told the women when he called them into his office the following Monday. “I think it’s perfect. You’re both about the same age as the City Slickers executives, s
o you’ll have greater rapport. I want the meeting to be light, entertaining, fun. I’m afraid Zach and I would add too much extra weight, unnecessary baggage. And I want it to be all your show, your thinking and execution. You have until Thursday to pull your act together. What do you think?” he concluded, looking from Melina to Janie.

  “I think it’s terrific,” Melina responded immediately, flashing Michael a smile. It was she, after all, who had played little birdie and warned Michael that Zach had antagonized Janie somehow. She made her concern seem totally selfless when she suggested it was time to give their star art director greater responsibility, more freedom. She couldn’t have written the resulting script better herself, she thought proudly.

  “What does Zach say?” Janie responded. “He hasn’t missed a presentation yet that I remember. Somehow I can’t imagine him being all that thrilled about us taking over here, Michael.”

  “I’ll handle Zach, okay?” Michael told them. He didn’t mention that Zach would be on a business trip to California that Thursday, or that Zach was under the impression that Michael would be in charge. By the time Zach got back, Michael reasoned, the presentation would be made, the account (he hoped) won, and a lot of water already passed under the bridge he’d have to cross with his partner. He knew from experience that it was best to present Zach with faits accomplis than to try to argue for his positions. In verbal forays, Zach was always triumphant.

  “Come on, Janie,” Melina coaxed, steering her by the elbow, “we’ve got a lot of work ahead of us.” She smiled over her shoulder at Michael as she led Janie out of the room, her trim derriere sashaying behind her. Michael watched them go, thinking what an unlikely pair they made. Janie—sweet, openhearted, oblivious to other people’s faults but forever conscious of her own physical ones. Melina—swift and streamlined, her eye on the main chance, her heart, as far as he could tell, available for resale to the highest bidder. He neither liked nor trusted Melina, and he saw right through her charade with Janie, and yet he admired her spunk and drive. She gave off sparks, some that hurt, he knew. But if anyone at D&D could recharge Janie’s motivation, it would be Melina.

  Michael didn’t reckon on the price he might have to pay.

  They dressed in clothes from the City Slickers spring line, pieces that wouldn’t actually be shipped to the retail outlets for another month or two. Janie handpicked the wildest cuts and most colorful fabrics from the showroom, creating ensembles that couldn’t help but offer a certain shock value when seen in action for the first time by their creators. Janie, who was long accustomed to an eclectic mode of dressing, insisted on styling both of their “looks.” She had Melina put on the blue silk kimono-style mini with a purple and red crushed velvet vest, then added silver and gold bangle bracelets up her right arm and dangled an elaborately tiered earring from her left lobe. She brushed Melina’s hair up into a ponytail and secured it in a nest of plum-colored crushed velvet ribbon from the vest fabric.

  They got ready at Janie’s apartment, knowing that Michael would have a coronary if he saw them leave for the presentation dressed as they intended.

  “Lord, Janie,” Melina said, stepping back from Janie’s full-length bedroom mirror. Her tailored pearl gray Anne Klein suit hung neatly on the back of the door. “I look like something from the East Village.” She turned sideways and gave herself another once-over. “I look almost … dangerous.”

  “Good,” Janie called from the bathroom where she had retreated to dress in privacy, though Melina had stripped down to her lacy underthings without a moment’s hesitation. “That’s what we’re aiming for, right? The late-night club scene? We’re supposed to be on the cutting edge of fashion, Melina. Coordinated pumps and handbags just won’t do.”

  “I know.” Melina sighed. “You’re right. Now what about makeup? I suppose you have your own ideas there, too?”

  “Right,” Janie said, coming into the room dressed in a pair of black-and-yellow-striped pencil pants and a flowing off-the-shoulder red-and-white polka-dotted blouse. “I’ve got my kit right here.”

  “And you,” Melina added, “look like something that just escaped from a harem … I didn’t realize you had such cleavage, honey.”

  Janie glanced down, blushing at the blouse that managed to conceal flaws and suggest only fulsomeness. “Is it too much, do you think?” she asked nervously.

  “Hell, no,” Melina asserted. “Not if you’re asking me to walk around in broad daylight in this.”

  The took a taxi to City Slickers’ main offices on West Broadway in SoHo, barely being able to fit the presentation cases and themselves into the narrow elevator that creaked precariously as it carried them upward seven floors.

  “Now remember,” Janie whispered as they stepped off into a huge loft space that had been painted all black, “keep those sunglasses on through the entire thing.”

  “May I help you?” asked a pale-faced receptionist. She was young, waiflike, and though dressed in a flashy array of City Slicker creations, her appearance was positively tame next to Melina and Janie.

  “We’re from the agency,” Melina replied laconically. “We’re here to do this presentation thing.”

  “The advertising agency?” the receptionist asked. “God, I was expecting yet another trio of blue-pin-striped-and-pink-shirted wimp-mobiles. Nice to see some fresh faces.”

  So far, so good, Janie thought. At least they had remembered the cardinal rule of pitching new business: know and pretend to love the product you’re being asked to hawk. Janie ran her hand lightly around the neck of her blouse, and smiled sweetly down at the receptionist.

  It was pretty much a piece of cake from there on in, as they assured Michael and Zach the next afternoon.

  “We found this incredibly hostile group waiting for us in the conference room,” Melina recalled. “Three very hip women and one slightly swishy guy who had obviously had it up to here with the MBA nonsense the other shops had been shoveling at them.”

  Michael, Janie, Melina, and Zach were relaxing in Michael’s office at the end of the day, sipping the requisite champagne with which Michael insisted the agency celebrate every new account. Even the staffers out in the bull pen were offered a glass, and Janie could hear the decibel level rising down the hall. Zach alone was abstaining, and though on his return that morning from L.A. he had stoically accepted the news that Melina and Janie had won the account on their own, Janie could tell he wasn’t thrilled about it.

  “ ‘We don’t want positioning strategies,’ the president of City Slickers, Fran Slick, told us,” Janie reported. “ ‘We don’t need any focus groups, or test-marketing, or trend analysis, okay?’ And thank God, guys, because Melina and I had already decided not to lead with the research data as we had first intended.”

  “What they had wanted all along was simply a good, strong look, the right headline. You know, exactly what we were able to provide,” Melina added.

  “You were lucky,” Zach told them sagely.

  “No, we were smart,” Melina answered. “We psyched out the situation. We knew what we were up to.”

  “You took some risks,” Zach observed, his gaze moving from Melina to Janie, then on to Michael. Janie sensed an unease spreading through the room.

  “Calculated ones,” Melina retorted, putting down her champagne flute abruptly. “You don’t sound very pleased that we landed this one, Zach.”

  “Oh, I’m pleased, all right,” he answered with his down-turning smile. “I just hope you also made it clear to the account that good strong creative alone is not going to help them capture four new metro markets. It may be boring. It may be old hat, but a certain amount of strategizing and research is important at a time like this.”

  “We’re not naive, Zach,” Melina retorted. “Of course we know that’s important. But it’s something we can bring into the picture later on.”

  “I never said you were naive,” Zach replied lightly, though there was a sheen of venom on his voice.


  “Come off it, you two,” Michael cut in. “We’re here to celebrate a job well done. We’ll concentrate on the marketing aspects at our first working session. There’s a lot to consider still. We need to put an account team together, we need to…”

  “I’m the account supervisor,” Melina asserted.

  “Excuse me,” Zach said, standing up abruptly. “And just who in hell are you to call the shots around here?”

  “I got the account, dammit, Zach,” Melina retorted. Her voice was taut and high, but she sat quietly in her chair, her legs crossed, her hands fingering the delicate flute.

  Zach paced the length of the room and turned around to say to Michael, “You see? This is the thanks you get. I told you it would backfire.”

  “Melina,” Michael began mildly, “you’re already overextended what with Chanson, Ramona, and Magic Moments. We’re ready to staff up for this one. We’ll bring someone new on.”

  “Another account person, fine,” Melina told him calmly. “But I want to be promoted to supervisor. I’ve put in my time here, Michael. I’m ready to make a stand on this one.”

  “You’ve put in a fucking six months,” Zach retorted. “That’s not real time. That’s a warm-up period.”

  “I warm quickly,” Melina replied with a small smile. “Or hadn’t you noticed?”

  “I refuse to discuss this further,” Zach told Michael. “I warned you, but you didn’t listen. I know you thought you were doing the right thing, but not everyone plays by your rules. No one,” Zach continued, his gaze slicing into Melina, “waltzes into this agency that Michael and I built from scratch and tries to create an empire behind our backs. Got that, sweetie?”

  “Oh, yes,” Melina said. She carefully placed her empty flute on the side table by her chair, stood up, and flicked an imaginary piece of lint from her skirt. “Now you get this. I’m out of here, as of today. And I’m out of here mad. And within the next week, everyone I know is going to hear about it.”