by J. J. Murray
“Where are you from?” he asks.
“Salem, Virginia.” Oh shoot. If he checks up on Corrine’s background, I’ll be sunk!
“Thought I heard a little twang in your voice.” He takes a sip of iced tea. “Yep, you’ll be going up against Tom Sexton. Ever hear of him?”
I blink. “Um, yes sir.” But Tom’s supposed to be on a plane to Detroit and then he’s supposed to get on another plane to Australia to go scuba diving with Corrine. Wait a minute. Tom was just here, maybe in this very chair, so he obviously has no intention of going to Detroit. Or he is going to Detroit only later today. What was he calling to tell Corrine? And why didn’t he tell her about this?
“Miss Ross?”
Oh yeah. I have a meeting. I look up. “I know him well, Mr. Peterson.” Okay, not as well as I’d like to know him. I mean, we’ve only been talking together on the phone for five years! “He’s very good at what he does.” And I sometimes unwittingly help him because I let my ideas just ... go. And what about that? I just helped him with something he needed for Detroit, so maybe he doesn’t have to go to Detroit? What is going on?
“They say he’s a tough nut, a real sharpie,” Mr. Peterson says. “I hope you’re sharper than he is.”
I just hope I don’t run into him! “I won’t let you down, Mr. Peterson. How should we proceed?”
“Well, I’ll be back up here two days before Thanksgiving.” He smiles. “Freda, that’s my wife, she’ll be accompanying me. She’s always wanted to visit here. Never got around to taking her. And then, you and Mr. Sexton will put on a show for us. Mr. Sexton has already graciously offered one of the conference rooms at Harrison Hersey and Boulder for the meeting. Is that acceptable?”
That isn’t fair! But you just can’t shout something like “That isn’t fair!” to a potential client. “I could also make the same offer, Mr. Peterson.” Which isn’t going to happen because I don’t have that kind of power. Think! “Why don’t we meet at a neutral location, a hotel conference room, perhaps ... here.” Corrine and I pitched Jamaica and Kmart, my two wins, right here at the Millennium! “I’ve used the presidential suite here at the Millennium before. It’s on the fifty-fifth floor, and it has an amazing view of the city.”
He narrows his eyes. “You know I’m staying here, right?”
“No, I didn’t know that.” Lucky guess?
He points at his steak with his fork. “This is the best rib eye I’ve had in years. My wife would like it here, too. Not too fancy. Great views, like you said. Sure. I’d agree to a meeting here. Why don’t you set that up? I’ll let Harrison Hersey and Boulder know.”
Because I can’t! Corrine had to set up the meetings we had here before. “Perhaps you could set up the meeting for us, Mr. Peterson.”
He squints. “You want my business, right?”
Oops. What did I say? “Yes sir.”
“And yet you want me to do a little legwork for you?”
Oh. That’s what I said without saying it. Never put the client to work. Hmm. “Yes. If you set up the meeting, this will show both parties your impartiality before we go to war.”
Mr. Peterson smiles, and it’s a genuine smile. I haven’t seen many of those around here lately. “I like your style, Miss Ross. But what if that other outfit doesn’t like it?”
Then I’ve already won a small battle in the war, Mr. Peterson. “A neutral location evens the odds a little.” I smile. “I, um, I don’t wear a suit or drive an expensive car.”
He laughs. “I see your point.”
He’s warming up to me. What does Corrine do next? Oh yeah. She travels. My legs start shaking again. I am about to go a lot further than I’ve ever gone before. “I will also be touring your plant in Georgia early next week. What day suits you?”
“You’re coming down my way. What for?”
“I want to immerse myself in your product, Mr. Peterson.” Wow. I’ve just used one of Corrine’s standard lines. “If I’m going to sell it, I have to know it from the tires up to the handlebars. Would Monday be acceptable?”
He smiles. “Sure. Monday’s just fine. In fact, I think Monday would be the best possible day for you to visit.”
I stand. “I don’t want to take up any more of your time, Mr. Peterson. I need to get further along on this project.” Hey, my legs are sturdier than they were before. I’m doing this! “How can I reach you should I need to know more of the particulars?”
“You want me to remain impartial till the show?”
I nod.
“Then you’re on your own, Miss Ross, from this point on.”
Just where I like to be. “Will you be in Georgia on Monday?”
He nods.
“Perhaps we’ll see each other there and I can meet your wife.” I get another idea. “No offense, Mr. Peterson, but I could really use some home cookin’.” Did I just drop a G? I did. My hair is falling way down. “I’ll be looking you up for a recommendation.”
“Fine, fine.” He stands and offers his hand, and this time he shakes my hand.
“Let the competition begin, Mr. Peterson.”
He lets go of my hand. “And what an interesting competition it will be, Miss Ross.”
On my way back to MultiCorp, my sturdy legs turn into marmalade. What have I just gotten myself into? Not only have I successfully impersonated my boss, but I’ve also just invited myself to Georgia! I rest against the base of the Millennium, staring out at that cross. “Thank You, Jesus, for getting me through that, and if it’s not too much trouble, keep Your eye on me for the next twelve days.”
Okay. Breathe. My stomach is grumbling! I need quesadillas! Take stock, take stock. Corrine is out of the picture for two weeks. My heart is slowing already. Tom, who may be watching me right now, is my competition. Hmm. A worthy adversary. He has to be handsome. I look around and don’t see any remotely handsome men. For all of Corrine’s ways, she would not be seen with an ugly man of any race. And I’m going on a trip! My first! But as her! I really don’t know enough about these bikes to sell them. The key to the whole campaign has to be down there. One day in Georgia, then eight days to get the presentation going.
Wait. Mr. Peterson wants the finished copy of everything to run the day before Thanksgiving! I don’t have that kind of time! I don’t have the technical support to produce all that and somehow keep it a secret from Mr. Dunn! Wow. Harrison Hersey and Boulder is going to kick my tail.
I look to my right and squint. Is that the woman whom I helped without helping this morning? What are the chances? I approach her. “Hi again.”
She turns and smiles. “Hello there. I made it to Manhattan.”
“Yes, you have.” I wish I had her camera for what I have to do. I wonder if I can borrow one from production. No, because then they’d ask why, I’d say “never mind,” they’d start some rumor or other, the whispers would travel to Mr. Dunn ...
“You’ve changed clothes,” she says.
I look at my furry coat. “Yes. I had lunch with a client.” Sort of. He ate, I watched. Such a ... homespun guy. I have to run a homespun campaign. What could be more American than the pulled-up-by-his-own-bootstraps story? Mr. Peterson has made the best bicycle money can buy, the highest quality, American-made, good for you, good for the environment ... too expensive for normal people to actually own.
“May I take your picture?” she asks.
I blink. “You want to take a picture of me?”
“Yes. With that cross in the background.”
Oh, the ironies here. Well, Miss Cross is in the background now. I pose. “How’s this?”
She takes the picture. “Marvelous. What’s your name?”
I am not nor will ever be Corrine Ross. “Shari with an I, Nance no Y.”
She actually writes it down! “Thank you.”
“Enjoy your visit to Manhattan,” I say.
“I will,” she says. “You, too.”
I don’t exactly know how to take that. I hope I’ve made it.
Chapter 9
“How did it go?” Tia asks as we exchange jackets. “It went,” I whisper. “I have twelve days to get a fully produced ad campaign going and without a production team for some high-end bicycles that I would never buy.”
Tia clasps her hands together. “This is so exciting!”
I blink. “Did you hear what I said? Fully produced, as in ready for air, ready for print.” Geez, all this is going to be too late to get into any December magazines. Blow-ins to newspapers are an option, but most people throw them away because they’re so annoying. The Internet! Geez, I almost forgot the Internet! I am severely losing it.
“If there is anyone I know on God’s good earth that can do it, it is you.” She places me in her comfortable chair. “Shari, you must relax.”
Relax. Right. “I may need your help. I mean, what if Mr. Peterson calls? I can’t keep answering my own phone twice, right?”
“I have you covered. I will route all your calls through me. I will be you, you will be her, and Corrine will be gone.”
I almost laugh. “I may not be in the office as much.”
Tia nods. “Just like her.”
“And, Tia,” I whisper, “I need to go to Georgia on Monday, and I have to make them think Corrine is going. Can it be done?”
She exhales. “Putting Corrine in two places at the same time is kind of tricky. She is barely in one place at any time. I know, we can make her sick for a day. I would really like to do that. I would like to make her vomit all over one of her fancy dresses. Make your reservations, Shari. I will just delay Miss Ross’s vacation for a day.”
Will one day be enough? I have to fly out, tour the plant, and fly back, and I will be stressing the entire time. “Um, I’ll need two days.” Corrine would take three.
“She will be sick for two days then.” She winks. “No problem. Now, shoo! Go. Win this account.”
Back at my desk, I start to stress, and when I stress, I make notes. I write “What could go wrong” on the top of a page.
(1) Get fired or lose my job (or get prosecuted!) for impersonating my boss, misusing MultiCorp funds, and lying to a client
That’s a stopper. Not much more needs to be written than that. My career could end in less than two weeks, and I could be back in Virginia—or in prison?—with my tail between my legs. It has its allure, but ...
No. I can’t let that happen. Okay, let’s get practical.
(2) Can’t meet deadline
Oh, I’ll meet that deadline if it’s the last thing I do. And it might be the last thing I do here. How am I going to produce all this? Geez! I mean, I know people in production, but I don’t really know them well enough to get them to hook me up. And mainly, they don’t know me. All those geeks ever did was stare at Corrine’s cleavage, and they bent over backward for her. I don’t have her cleavage. The fewer people who know about this, the better anyway. So who can I use who will keep it all on the down low? I may have to hire someone using my own money, and with the amount I have in savings, I’d have to hire someone as desperate as I am.
(3) Can’t create decent ads
Corrine just runs my PowerPoint presentations with a script, and the production staff, which understands art, film, and print, does the rest. They’re the real geniuses and geeks who really do all the work. We’re just the idea people. A single PowerPoint won’t cut it this time, especially if Mr. Peterson wants the campaign going national the very next day. I need to design billboards, magazine ads, T-shirts, and web banners, and I also need to produce radio and TV commercials of fifteen and thirty seconds. I know nothing about editing, and I can’t draw a lick.
I can doodle. Hmm. A doodled commercial? How hard can it be to doodle a bike? I could doodle a cartoon. But then it wouldn’t show the actual product.
I have to get one of those bikes. Mr. Peterson might let me borrow one. I’d have to have it shipped up here on Monday, or maybe I could fly one back with me. If I had a camera, I could film while riding to work. That’s what I can do. I can tape a camera to a bike helmet or attach it in some way to the handlebars. I’ll have to take a day off and ride around. That would require a lot of editing, and once again, I don’t have any way of doing that.
I shake it off. I’ll just cross that bridge when I come to it.
I get out a calculator. If I go, say, fifteen miles per hour across the Brooklyn Bridge and it’s about six thousand feet across—I’ll never make it all the way across in time. I hit a few more buttons. At fifteen miles per hour, I can only go three hundred and thirty feet in fifteen seconds, six hundred and sixty feet in thirty seconds. That might be enough time to capture the Manhattan skyline ahead and to the left of me. But where can you go three hundred and thirty feet on a bicycle in New York City in fifteen seconds and not get hit by a bus or a taxi? I’ll ... I’ll figure something out.
Geez. I have to figure something out.
(4) Can’t think of memorable slogans or taglines
I have never had trouble being creative in the past. Those “hooks” just came to me. But when I think about this expensive bike ... nothing. Nada. Zip.
Use what you’ve learned from your classes, Shari. Personalize this product. What do you know firsthand about bicycles? Well, I rode a bike back in Salem when I was a kid. It was red and had plastic red and white ribbons dangling from the handgrips, reflectors everywhere, a little “Sherry” license plate (Mama couldn’t find a “Shari”), and knobby tires. I felt free on that bike. Freedom. That might be a good theme. No. I can’t say “feel free again” while riding a bike that costs two thousand bucks. “Free your mind”? No, that sounds like an ad for anti-depression medication. “Land of the free”? Ain’t nothin’ free in this country anymore.
Okay, relax. Get on the bike. You’re riding to work. You’re flying by pedestrians, zipping around taxis and buses, and getting to work on time. Then you have to find a place for it, maybe chain it somewhere to a lamppost or a bike rack. I can’t remember the last time I even saw a bike rack. Hmm. Or you carry the entire bike into your office. Riding the elevator while holding a bike? That would annoy people in the elevator, maybe mud, slush, or pigeon poo on the tires. Your bike will stink up the office.
Such nice images.
Hey—“Get to work on time for a change” might work. No. This is where I’d put newspaper clippings of local “bike versus vehicle” accidents onto Corrine’s desk. I’ll think of something. It will come to me.
Random thought: a bumper sticker that reads, “My other vehicle is a Peterson bike”?
Too random. And too snobby.
All I have to do is whisper something to myself this time.
(5) In over my head, competition too stiff, out of my league with Harrison Hersey and Boulder and Tom Terrific
Tom and his team will be slick. Perfect, probably. But brilliance isn’t always perfection, or so Corrine tells me. I’ll just have to be more creative than they are. Maybe they’ll miss the boat entirely. Maybe they’ll go snooty when Mr. Peterson wants homespun. Maybe they’ll hype the environmental end too much. Mr. Peterson is a businessman, old school. He wants to make money. He seems old-fashioned, conservative, full of American values, and he might even be a Republican. I’ll have to research him along with his company. Maybe his company is an extension of his personality.
I look around and see administrative assistants scurrying, account execs worrying, no one talking above a whisper, some even doing long-distance sign language to each other. Mr. Dunn is most likely locked in his office. Ted is glued to his computer monitor.
I am effectively alone as usual.
It’s time to do some heavy-duty research.
According to the Peterson Bicycles website, Mr. Peterson made his first bike frame in his garage when he was nineteen. I could say he’s “the Bill Gates of bicycles.” No, that would tick off Apple users, and after Microsoft’s last lame ope
rating system, it might tick off PC users as well. Mr. Peterson raced his own homemade bike at the University of Georgia during his freshman year and scorched the brand bikes: Murray, Schwinn, Huffy, and Ross. He dropped out of college after his sophomore year, developed some family land north of Macon, and built his first plant, which looks like a long, low barn. Over the years, it has expanded quite a bit. The first production models rolled off the line in 1969. Sales are impressively steady, only a minor dip in 1980 for some reason. What happened in 1980? I run a search. Hmm. I guess I can blame Reagan, “Just Say No,” jelly shoes, mullets, “Word,” breakdancing, and spandex. Their mountain bikes sell well, and Mr. Peterson even has a few “name” riders use his bikes for BMX races, triathlons, and long-distance races. He sponsors twelve road races around the country every year. That has to eat into his profits, but I’m not here to judge how a multimillionaire spends his money. I’ll bet he gets plenty of orders when his riders win those races. Hey now. He has a contract with the U.S. Olympic cycling team through 2016 and is bidding for an extension. “Peterson Bicycles: Bring home the gold.”
No. I know I’m biting off somebody. Relax. It’ll come to you, Shari.
I finally find out why these bikes are so expensive. Every single nut, bolt, wire, spoke, rim, seat, accessory, and brake assembly is made down in Georgia at his plant. Only the tires come from elsewhere. Mr. Peterson is such a throwback. He doesn’t even order accessories from other suppliers to ease his workload. He cuts out the middle man—like I’m cutting out Corrine—and he profits nicely.
I hope I do, too.
I run a quick check for bicycle recalls. Wow. I didn’t think there would be so many. Bad frames, forks, handlebar stems, brakes, U-joints, and seat posts. But not a single recall for Peterson Bicycles for the last twenty years. None. Okay, that’s a major selling point. These things are built like tanks. They last. They survive. “Peterson Bicycles: built for the next millennium.”
