by J. J. Murray
“But you’re pursuing me now.”
“Because the time is right,” he says.
The time is right. I want to believe it.
“Corrine blew LA, didn’t she?” he says. “And don’t ask me how I know.”
I wasn’t going to ask him.
“You gave me the hint when I called you, and it was correct. Corrine is not nor will ever be Mae West. Guess who’s representing Carlo Pietro now?”
This makes sense. “Harrison Hersey and Boulder.” I am still confused. “So you figured.... I wish you’d just get to the point!”
“Look, Shari. The light is fading, and I don’t have enough pull for someone to turn on the stadium lights. Let me do a few more takes, and I’ll see you in about ninety minutes.”
My heart is so cluttered right now, and my mind is closing in on itself. “Just ... just don’t wreck.”
“I won’t. You be careful on your walk home. Bye.”
I look around the stairwell. Wasn’t this the place I shouted in triumph a half hour ago?
“Crap!” I yell this time.
The echo escorts me all the way down to my floor.
Chapter 22
My phone quiet, my thoughts loud, I spend the rest of the day adding Mr. Dunn’s ideas to my own. I go to Ink Imprints’ website and design my T-shirt online. Corrine and I have used them before, they promise a five-day turnaround, and best of all, we still have an account with them. I select chocolate, city green, and yellow haze, a Splash font, and put “No matter where you ride, you’re home” on the front, “Get lost in America” on the back. I find and upload a simple black-and-white Peterson bicycle graphic for the pocket and order one in each size in each color from youth to adult. I debate whether to send them to my apartment or here and decide on here. No one will bat an eye when they arrive, and Tia signs for all the packages. I don’t want to make any waves. I fill out and send a PO electronically to Ted, and in only half an hour, my T-shirts are on order.
I leave exactly at five—a rarity—and power walk home. I know I’ve set a record. Since it’s only 5:45, I have time for a quick shower before starting dinner.
And I have no food.
Okay, I have no fancy food. I have a pound of ground beef, a one-pound box of elbow macaroni, and two eight-ounce blocks of sharp cheddar. The tomato on the counter is overly ripe, but it will at least add some color. I boil the macaroni in my largest pot while frying the ground beef, adding my whole arsenal of spices to the meat: seasoned salt and pepper. I am a simple person. As soon as the macaroni is al dente—I know a little about cooking—I dump it in a colander to drain. I return the drained macaroni to the pot, add a stick of real butter, grate the cheese over the macaroni, and add the tomato and ground beef. I turn the heat to medium-low, slap on a lid—done.
Now all I need is a man to eat it.
And said man better give me a better explanation for what he’s done.
And an apology.
There’s not much to tidy up in my mostly secondhand apartment. I found most of what I own—coffee table, lamp stand, couch, secretary table, TV stand, multicolored bamboo rug, bed, nightstand, kitchen table and two chairs, and framed pictures of old Brooklyn sprinkled throughout my four-hundred square feet—by browsing used furniture at open air markets and KJR Collectibles over on Dekalb Avenue. Other than the IKEA addition and a massive bookcase holding several hundred paperback books, I don’t think there’s anything new anywhere in this apartment.
Other than my new attitude.
Which I’m about to give to a man who stole my idea and my bike.
Tom arrives a half an hour late and stands in my doorway wearing a black helmet and holding his suitcase in one hand, the bike with the other, a camera bag slung over his right shoulder. Dirt speckles the wheels, his pant legs, and even his sweatshirt. He does not smell like oranges and lemons. Musk and funk, yes.
Two white neighbors from a few doors down, whom I have nicknamed “Trixie and Bubbles” because they often entertain three and four men at a time, walk by checking out Tom’s booty. I give them a squinty smile, they roll their eyes, and Tom steps inside.
He hands me a camera bag, I take it, and I step aside.
“Where do I put it?” he asks.
I do not respond. I am the queen of the silent treatment. No man has ever beaten me at this. I hang the camera bag on a hook by the door.
“The bike?”
I shift my eyes to the left.
He shifts his eyes to the right. “The bathroom?”
I nod.
In a moment, I hear the helmet rattling around in the tub. Tom steps into the kitchen. His hair is a mess, and I just know his hands are dirty. “What smells so good?”
Not you. I go to my skinny couch and sit.
He starts to speak and stops. He looks at his hands. “I’m a mess.”
I do not disagree.
He washes his hands and uses a paper towel to dry them. “I did thirty-five takes, Shari.”
Do not say my name.
“Um. I need a shower, huh?”
I do not disagree.
He steps over to the pot on the stove, lifting the lid. “My favorite foods. Beef, pasta, and cheese.” He replaces the lid. He smiles at me. “Um, when will it be ready?”
I curl my legs under me on my skinny couch. I do not tell him it will be edible in half an hour, and I do not tell him that I will not be edible or even touchable until he fully explains himself.
He sits a few feet from me on the couch. “Hi.”
I nod.
He looks around at my stuff. It takes him five seconds. “You have ... an interesting place. What’s that?” He points at my IKEA purchase.
My bonus from last year.
“It’s boxy,” he says. “It looks like wooden steps.”
I sigh. It is the first sound I have made.
He nods. “You’re pissed.”
I nod.
“Oh.” He stands and browses my books, pulling several out and reading the back covers. He puts them back haphazardly.
I am not amused. I had those books in a semblance of order. I like order. I like things to go the way I plan them, and here he is, ruining my books and everything else in my life!
He leans against my kitchen table. “Okay. Um. Let’s talk.”
I still have not heard “I’m sorry” or “I was a fool” or “What I did was wrong.” I have not seen him get on his knees and grovel. Tom will be talking to himself.
He hops up on the kitchen table, and I am so glad it’s solid oak. “I know I should have consulted you before using your idea. I know it was the wrong thing to do.”
I may actually speak to this man tonight. But he’s still not groveling.
“I called a guy who knew a guy, and I got into Yankee Stadium, so I went for it. It won’t happen again.”
I nod. It’s time for me to talk. I have so much to say. How best to phrase my anger? I wish I had a pillow to throw. “So, Tom, are you going to explain your master plan to me and include me in it, or are you just going to go for it from here on out?”
He wrinkles up his lips. “I’m sorry. I should have included you. It won’t happen again, Shari.”
That’s right. It won’t. “I want you to put it all out there, right now, from start to finish, and don’t leave anything out.”
He has the nerve to smile. “You’re the smartest person I know. I thought you would have figured it all out by now.”
What the—! “But the plan keeps changing!”
He swallows that smile. “And you keep adapting, Shari,” he says softly.
“I’m tired of having to adapt, Tom!” I want to punch him, but I’m afraid I’ll break something important, like all of my knuckles. “This is my life we’re talking about, man. I have everything riding on this.”
“So do I, Shari.” He joins me on the couch.
I look away. “Just ... explain everything to me, okay? I don’t want to get burned anymore.”
He nods. “From the beginning then.” He leans back and rests his arms on the back of the couch. “Corrine really messed up in LA. I figured, finally, she’s finished, but this Peterson thing drops into both our laps right after.” He looks at me. “Hairy Ads chose me because I ride a Peterson bike to work.”
Figures. At least Harrison Hersey and Boulder has some sense. If MultiCorp ever represented a hiking boot company, they’d go to Corrine, who has never worn hiking boots in her life.
“So, I’m about to go head-to-head with her,” Tom continues, “and it would be the perfect time to humiliate her.”
Say what? “We would have done just fine, Mr. Sexton. Remember, I would have been working with her.”
He shakes his head. “No, you wouldn’t have.”
“You’re not making sense.” Again!
“You would have been working with me.”
He’s still not making sense. “How?”
“I have been a senior account exec at Hairy Ads for eight years, and I have been entitled to have an administrative assistant working for me, but I’ve never used one.”
“Because you like flying solo. Like today.”
He reaches out and rubs my shoulder. “I think I’ve landed.”
That’s so nice to hear, but I’m still angry. Okay, I’m not as angry as I was. He’s landed. Does that make me an airport? A runway? Okay, I’m angry again. I roll my shoulder away from his hand.
“Shari, I was about to hire you away from her, just when Corrine needed you most.”
He would have hired me? “I thought you wanted to ask me out.”
“I did, but I had to get you away from Corrine first.”
I am still so lost! “But you could have done that two years ago!”
“I know, I know, and it’s the biggest mistake I’ve ever made.” He pulls an envelope from his pocket. “I even wrote up a contract.” He hands me the envelope.
I open it up and see ... Whoa. I would have been making double my salary! I check the date on the contract. “You had this ready to go last Friday?” The day I decided to become Corrine! Man, I jumped the freaking gun! Wait—no! He was slow on the draw!
“Yes. I was going to give this to you on Friday.”
Wow. I would have jumped ship so fast that MultiCorp would have burn marks on their carpet. “But why didn’t you give this to me on Friday? If you did, none of this would be happening right now.”
“Australia happened.”
“What?”
“Corrine called me from Delmonico’s and invited me to Australia. While I assumed that you’d be working your butt off for her on the Peterson thing, I also figured that she wouldn’t be doing anything but waiting for me, and I had never had any intention of seeing her.”
Man, that’s cold. “You ... played her into thinking you’d come out there?”
“I wanted you and our future that badly, Shari. Can you blame me?”
Of course not. I’m worth having. But it’s still right cold. “But you certainly have gone to a lot of trouble, Tom. Whatever happened to the direct approach? You know, like in the old movies. Just walk in and sweep me off my feet.”
“I have thought so much about doing that. I even saw myself doing it and Cringe going ballistic. But then I decided doing that would only make her suffer for a day, she’d find a new assistant, the show would go on—and I’d still be working for Harrison Hersey and Boulder.”
“But with me as your assistant, right?”
He turns to me. “I have never looked at you as an assistant, Shari, only as an equal. My dream was to begin my own agency, with you by my side, but I didn’t know exactly how until Corrine went to Australia.”
My mind is so cluttered right now. “But she’s not in Australia anymore. She’s in Hawaii now, still hoping you’ll come visit.”
Tom smiles. “Hawaii?”
“Yes.” And this is cold of me. “I convinced her to stay in Hawaii so she can rest up for you.”
He nods. “She should probably get some sun in Hawaii to fade some of those jellyfish scars. At any rate, I wanted to turn Corrine into a hot mess. No matter how well you prepared her, and no matter how decent your production was, she would have been basically clueless when she returned.”
And she would have sucked up the Q&A for sure.
“And after winning Peterson,” Tom continues, “then I would steal you away in the fallout.”
“What fallout?”
“Corrine would have blown two easy accounts in a row. Once is usually enough at Harrison Hersey and Boulder. And even if MultiCorp kept her, though I don’t know why, she might have fired you for not making her shine.”
What a ... Machiavellian plan. “You really thought all that would happen?” My plan actually makes more sense than his plan does!
“Yeah. It was a simple plan, too. But then ...” He shakes his head at me. “You happened.”
Oh yeah. I messed it up. I became my own boss.
He massages my neck. “I didn’t figure in a million years that you would impersonate Corrine. People don’t generally impersonate people they despise.” He slides closer and massages my right thigh. “You screwed up my somewhat complicated, thoroughly diabolical, but ultimately rewarding plans.”
“I had plans of my own, Tom.”
“If you had waited only a few more hours ...”
“I ... I had to do something.” I remove his hand from my thigh, stand, and walk to the window. “I had to, Tom. I mean, I was just stuck. Peterson was calling, and Corrine wasn’t available, and anyway, I’ve been wasting my time taking these stupid MBA classes that haven’t taught me a single thing, I’ve been making someone else the star and getting no credit—I had to act.” Wow, that was some performance. I should be in a soap opera.
“I know, I know,” Tom says, “and I know how you feel, right? I was in the same position. I had to act, too.” He sighs. “At first, I was so upset with you. Why couldn’t you have waited two more hours? But then, I was glad you did.”
Huh?
“When I saw you through that window down in Macon, it was like kismet, fate, luck, serendipity, whatever you want to call it. There you were. It was destiny.”
I rest my head against the window, the cold seeping through the pane cooling off my brain. At least I’m somebody’s destiny. “You could have busted me out, cost me my job, and then handed me this contract.”
He joins me at the window, sliding his big old paws around to my stomach. “You wouldn’t have accepted.”
I bump him with my booty. “I would have been pissed at you. And humiliated in front of some really nice people. And word would have gotten out, and no one would have hired me in this city ever again.” I turn into him and bang my head against his chest. “So why did you let me play the role? Why did you let me play Corrine?”
“I wanted to see you in action, and I’m not disappointed at all. Shari, you would run rings around ninety-nine percent of the account execs at Hairy Ads.”
I stop banging. “And the other one percent?”
“That would be me.”
Ah. Of course.
He holds me out from him, his hands on my shoulders. “And now I have the ultimate diabolical plan.”
“I have a plan, too.” If I tried to punch him, I’d swing and miss. His arms are almost as long as my body!
“There are far too many holes in your plan,” he says.
I know I have holes in my plan, but they are little holes, and they have been sealing themselves. “Such as?”
“Mr. Dunn will be at the meeting, right?”
“Yeah? So?”
“And Corrine won’t be at the meeting. Isn’t that your plan?”
I turn away and look out the window. “Right. I was going to run the show by myself. I was going to show Mr. Dunn I had what it takes.”
“Mr. Dunn used to work for Harrison Hersey and Boulder.”
I whirl around. “No, he didn’t.”
He nods. “He doesn�
�t talk about it or even have it on his bio. Your Mr. Dunn was in the junior exec program at Hairy Ads about thirty-five years ago, only he didn’t make the cut. They let him go.”
Which is probably why he wants to stick it to “HHB” so badly.
“And if Corrine, Dunn’s ‘star,’ isn’t there to give him a chance at victory ...”
I step around him and go to the kitchen. “I know I could pull this off without her, Tom.” I open the pot and see a sticky, cheesy mess that actually smells kind of good. I stir it a few times. “I know I could.”
He sits on the table again. “You probably would if you got the chance, but there are no guarantees that Mr. Dunn will even give you a chance.”
“He’d have no other choice but to use me, Tom,” I say. “What else could he do?”
Tom sighs. “I’ll be blunt then. The CEO of an advertising agency can’t let a lowly administrative assistant take on Harrison Hersey and Boulder by herself.”
“I’m not lowly, Tom.” Just short.
“I know you aren’t, Shari, but that’s not the point. No matter how fantastic you are, word will get around that MultiCorp has lost faith in its senior account executives. Current and potential clients don’t like to hear that. Mr. Dunn would have to cut you off to save face.”
“He’d cut me off to spite his face,” I say. Shoot. Tom makes too much sense sometimes.
“And what about Mr. Peterson? He thinks you’re Corrine Ross. While a lot of advertising is built around carefully constructed lies, you cannot legally misrepresent who you are when contracts are in the balance.”
“I’ll just explain to Mr. Peterson why I did it,” I say. “He’ll understand.”
“Will he?” Tom asks. “This is a churchgoing man, a straight shooter. You weren’t straight with him. You might have the better ideas, but he’ll dismiss them because you lied to him.”
He’s right, but I don’t want to give up just yet. I open a cupboard and take out two bowls, slamming them onto the counter. “But I want to do this, Tom!”
“And you will. Just hear me out.”
I get two somewhat shiny spoons from a drawer. “First you say I will, then you say I won’t. I am not a yo-yo!” I fill both bowls and spin one in front of him. I sit in a chair, while he picks up his bowl and starts to eat.
