by Ali Parker
“Hey, buddy, why don’t you go play in your room for a bit, so I can talk to your mom?”
“Okay,” Mikey sighed. “But don’t be forever.”
“Promise,” he said, crossing his finger over his heart.
“So,” he said, watching Mikey run to his room. “Why do you look like the house is falling down around you?”
“Mikey told me he didn’t want presents because we were having financial issues,” I said, plopping down on the stool. “I feel like the worst mother in the world.”
“First of all, you didn’t actually think you could keep the problems of the world away from him forever, did you?”
“No, I guess not, but I was hoping for at least a little more time.”
“You’re an amazing mother, Amanda,” he said. “If you were a shitty mom, do you think I wouldn’t step up and say something to you about it? You know I don’t hold back when you do something terrible.”
“I know,” I sighed. “I just want him to enjoy his childhood.”
“And he does,” Dalton said, smiling. “That little boy loves you so much, he doesn’t know what to do with himself most of the time. If you were trying to raise a good boy, with good values, and a big heart, then I would say you nailed it.”
“But what does it say for me when he decides to give up birthday presents because he’s worried about my bank account?”
“It says he pays attention to you. He pays attention to when you’re happy, stressed, sad, whatever, because he loves you more than anything in this world. He knows you’ve got this, and he’s trying to help in the only way he knows how,” he said.
“He shouldn’t have to feel that way,” I said.
“But he does, and you can’t change that,” Dalton replied. “He’s growing, watching the men around him, and he probably feels he needs to step up, and he’ll do it whether you like it or not. All you can do is reassure him and then keep doing what it is you do best and that is being an excellent mother and caregiver to him. Do you know what Mikey and I talk about most when you’re away, and I’m watching him?”
“Halo?” I smirked.
“That’s a close number two but not quite high enough,” he said. “He talks about you, about how much he loves you, about how proud he is of you, and how good of a mother you are to him. He talks about other moms he sees with his friends, and he wonders why they don’t show their kids they love them like you do. He sees everything, Amanda, but mostly, he sees you and the kind of woman you are.”
“The kind of woman I am?” I said, shaking my head. “I am the kind of woman who can barely pay the bills, who misses the important things like robotics presentations and school plays because I work so much.”
“You’re a single mom,” he said. “No one ever said it would be easy, but you make the best out of what you have.”
“I just feel so overwhelmed,” I sighed. “So completely and totally overwhelmed. I don’t think I’m going to be able to keep my mother on life support. That’s where I am right now, having to choose between food on the table and keeping my mother alive. It’s one of the worst choices anyone could ever be asked to make. Not only that, even without those bills, I’m struggling to make ends meet. It’s like it never gets better. It only gets harder.”
“You know what your mom would want you to do,” he said.
“It doesn’t matter what she would want me to do,” I said. “I love her. I can’t let go of her. I can’t give up on her. It’s been one of the most trying times of my life, and I don’t know how I’m supposed to get through it. I feel helpless and hopeless.”
“You just need to keep moving forward, even when it feels like you’re moving backward,” he said.
“God, work,” I said, rolling my eyes. “That just adds to the stress of the whole situation. Ever since I told Elon about Diamond Marketing, he’s pushed me away. I knew I shouldn’t have gotten close to him, to begin with. He’s acting like I was trying to get away from him, not that I was considering a different job for my family’s sake. I have to go to work on Monday and try to work alongside him like nothing ever happened.”
“Then do it,” he said. “I’m serious. You need this job more than anything in the world. You need this job to get yourself out of the hole you’re in, no matter what you decide to do about your mother.”
“But it’s going to be weird between us,” I said.
“Then suck it the fuck up.” He smiled. “You have to go to work on Monday, your head held high, your motivation at a thousand, and work past the awkwardness between the two of you. Amanda, you have no other choice. It’s time to suck it up.”
Chapter 26
Elon
If I had been moving any slower that Monday morning, I would seriously have been going backward. Despite the pep talk between Marcus and me, I was dreading walking into the offices and facing Amanda. I sat in my car outside of the building pretending to look at different files, doing everything I could to stall. It was my company, and I was too chickenshit to go up to the offices and start my day. I knew I would have to talk to her, or at least speak to her in passing, and the thought made my heart beat fast and my palms sweat. We hadn’t ended things on a good note the last time I saw her, and to move on, there would have to be an awkward conversation, one that I was just not ready to have, no matter how important I knew it was.
I closed my file and put it in my briefcase, glancing up at the driver who was trying not to look in the back, wondering what the hell I was doing. I was acting like a child, not accepting my fate, not accepting that I had to do what had to be done. I was about to open the door when my phone rang, and I didn’t recognize the number.
“Hello?”
“Mr. Truitt,” the man’s voice said. “This is Ely Thorp with Jonesbrook Jewelers.”
“Mr. Thorp,” I said, sitting back. “Nice to hear from you. How can I help you?”
“I’ve heard some really good things about your company and the ads that you’ve been producing,” he said. “I was calling to see if I could set up a meeting with you as soon as possible.”
I leaned my head back against the seat and closed my eyes in relief. Of course, I would meet with him. Hell, I would have met with the CEO of McDonald’s if it got me out of having to go up to the office and face Amanda. This was going to give me an opportunity to stall, regardless if it was childish of me or not.
“I would love to meet with you,” I said. “When is a good time for you?”
“I can meet anytime,” he said. “I’m just getting back from a vacation, so my schedule is pretty clear.”
“What about right now? I can come to your office. We can sit down cordially and discuss what it is you are looking to do,” I said, crossing my fingers.
“Hmm,” he said, thinking. “Right now, huh? You’re pretty available.”
“It’s Monday after finishing a big project.” I chuckled. “My schedule is pretty clear today.”
“All right,” he said. “Let’s meet now. Come on over to the corporate building on Seventh, come up to the top floor, and my secretary will be out front to meet you and bring you to my office.”
“Sounds great, sir. I will see you shortly,” I said, hanging up the phone.
I sat there for a second with a big smile on my face before looking at myself in the small mirror on the seat in front of me. I didn’t look quite as good as I usually tried to look during client meetings, but I didn’t care, as long as I was far away from the office. I fixed my hair and leaned forward to the driver.
“Can you take me to Jonesbrook Jewelry on Seventh? The high-end jewelry store there in the bottom of the corporate high-rise,” I said.
“Of course, sir.” The driver nodded. “I know it well. My wife wanted her ring from there, but as just a driver, they wouldn’t even let me through the door.”
“Leave it to the rich to limit their own money.” I laughed.
We headed over to the jewelry store, and the driver pulled up out front, opening the d
oor and letting me out. I looked at the large windows with high-end jewels strewn across the displays. It was the kind of store that only allowed you to come in by appointment. It used to only be by invitation, but I assumed that tough economic times forced them to open up their clientele base a little. They did all the designs for the major awards shows and half the jewelry worn in major motion pictures. I had never even been in there, and I was a multimillionaire. Of course, I didn’t really have much use for a place like that. I rarely bought anything other than watches, and even those, I usually forgot to put on when I left the house. I stood there staring at a diamond ring in the display window that I knew cost at least a half a million dollars. I shook my head and turned to the side doors leading into the lobby of the main building. This was going to be a big opportunity. I could feel it.
Cartier was a huge catch, but only because it was such a well-known name with such a huge amount of volume of ads throughout the year. They were a client that was mainstream, but this place was something that was well-hidden and on purpose. This place was the ticket to so many other opportunities, and I started to wonder how they had come across our name. We weren’t the most well-known marketing firm for places like that, but at the same time, we did cater to their kind of clientele. Amanda had helped me land the biggest deal in the company history, and only a couple of days later, I was being given the opportunity to possibly land an even bigger one. Maybe things were looking up after all, and maybe this kind of motivation would be enough to get Amanda and me on the same page again, at least inside the office. The board members were going to shit themselves when they heard about this if I could land it.
I caught the elevator up to the top floor, and just like he said, the owner’s secretary was waiting for me. She was exactly what you would think a billionaire’s secretary would look like. She had long blond hair, perfectly round, giant fake tits, and was wearing a tight skirt and blouse. She smiled at me as I exited and walked me back to Mr. Thorp’s office. When I went inside, he was on the phone, and he motioned for me to sit in the chair across from him. He was an older gentleman with frown marks burned into his brow. I looked around the office, which was just about as big as my penthouse and immediately realized there was definitely a difference in the money this man had versus what I had. I was in a whole new playing field.
“Mr. Truitt,” he grumbled, hanging up the phone and reaching for my hand. “Thank you for coming.”
“Not a problem,” I said.
I could tell this man was not used to being nice or excitable, and he took everything in a very serious tone. My normal charm wouldn’t really work on him, so I would have to pull out the big guns instead. He looked over at me, eyeing me from head to toe, and put his hands together.
“I have to say, I barely had heard of your company before,” he said with a straight face. “I am not familiar with anyone other than Diamond Marketing, but they haven’t seemed to have been able to keep up with our company image. I’m a good friend of Cartier’s CEO, and he called me the other day ranting and raving about the work you did on their newest ad campaign. It isn’t the direction I would take my company, but apparently, you gave him just what he wanted and more. That is impressive in this line of business.”
“Thank you, sir,” I said. “At Truitt Marketing, I have constructed the staff out of some of the best in the business. We wanted to work with high-end markets like yours, only instead of using the premade, generic templates and stale ideas like Diamond, we do everything from the ground up. We plant the seed, we grow it, and we move with wherever the client takes us. We cater every single client to their exact specifications so we’re sure they’re always getting a unique and eye-catching project every single time. We’re not the cookie-cutter marketing firm like so many others out there. I’m completely open and honest during the entire process.”
“I like candor,” he said. “It makes for a good working environment.”
“I agree,” I said. “I want the client to trust me with one of the most important parts of their business, so honesty is the best policy through and through. We look to build long-term relationships, not just clients in folders stuck away in the basement.”
“I have done some extensive research into your company and your past projects, and I can see that individual style you’re talking about,” he said. “I’m willing to partner with you on my next advertising campaign, and if it goes well, we can talk about a long-term working relationship. However, this is vital to my company, and I will want to be briefed on every step of the procedure from the preliminary brainstorming through the final project presentation.”
I wasn’t used to working so closely with a client, and one of the things I hated the most was being micromanaged. However, with the board breathing down my neck, I wasn’t sure I could argue with him on that request. I was about to speak up and tell him I would keep him in the loop as much as possible, but things moved at a very fast pace, but he began to talk again.
“I know that isn’t a normal request in this business, and I can see you aren’t the kind of man who likes to be managed like that,” he said. “But in order to drown some of that discomfort, I am willing to offer you a substantial increase in your normal charges for a one-time ad campaign.”
“All right,” I said.
“I will offer you three hundred thousand for one campaign, the first one, and then we can go from there,” he said. “I know that’s about twice as much as you would normally charge.”
“Wow,” I said, kind of taken back. “You have a deal.”
“Good,” he said, standing up and buttoning his coat. “I figured that would get your attention. I’m going to email you over the direction in which we’re looking to go with the ad and the tone I would like to see.”
“Excellent,” I said, standing up and shaking his hand.
“Put my number on speed dial and send me over a full workup on the options by Friday,” he said. “I will have the contract over to your office by the end of the day.”
“Absolutely, sir,” I said. “And I appreciate your business.”
He walked me to the door, and the secretary led me back to the elevator, handing me a business card for the company. I thanked her and got inside the elevator, waiting until the doors closed to let out a huge smile. Not only would this completely knock the team and the board off their feet, it would be the perfect project to jump headfirst into with Amanda. Having a deadline like that for the preliminary workup would mean we would have to get to work straight away, leaving little to no time for awkward conversation between the two of us. Maybe that was what we needed, though, just to jump back into work and have that help us work through our communication issues. I hoped it was. Otherwise, everything could be a complete disaster.
Chapter 27
Amanda
Seriously, if moving backward on that Monday morning were an option, I would have taken it. I didn’t even want to go to work, trying to make up excuses in my head as to why I couldn’t go in that day. Then I saw Mikey walking around in his pajamas, getting ready for school, and I remembered why I was choosing to work at Truitt Marketing in the first place. I had begrudgingly gotten dressed and headed into the office for the day. As I walked through the hall, past the pit, and toward my office, my stomach was in total knots, thinking about what was going to happen between Elon and me. We still hadn’t talked about anything, and I really wasn’t looking forward to that awkward conversation. He really had put me in a terrible mood, and I didn’t know what to do to get out of it. I guess it wasn’t him so much as it was me making myself even more anxious about working there.
“Hey,” Dalton said, popping out of his office as I walked past. “Come in here. I have a super important question for you.”
“Okay,” I said, walking in and closing the door. “What is it? What’s wrong?”
“Do these shoes match because if they don’t, I need to change them,” he said, watching me roll my eyes.
“Dalton, I really don
’t have time for this crap this morning,” I said, turning toward the door.
“Whoa, whoa, whoa, little miss snappy, what the hell has crawled up inside your ass and laid an egg?” he said, putting his hands on his hips standing in front of the door.
“Just the fact that at some point today, I am going to have to have a very awkward conversation with Elon, and I do not want to have it,” I said, starting to feel my heart quicken.
“You need to calm down,” Dalton said, rubbing the sides of my arms. “It’s not as bad as you’re making it out to be. You just need to stay calm and everything will be okay.”
I closed my eyes and breathed deeply, feeling his hands rub up and down my arms. Everything started to slow down, and my breathing normalized. Dalton was like a magic man, always having this crazy way of making me feel better, even if he was a bit nuts. I opened my eyes and looked at him.
“Better?” he asked.
“Yes,” I said, nodding my head.
“Good,” he said. “I’m going to need you to get a set of paper bags to start blowing into every time you have one of these episodes. My mother used to call my overexcitement panic attacks episodes. I got really used to breathing into paper bags every day.”
“What would I do without you?”
“Be homeless without a job,” he said. “I’d drop you a dollar in your cup, though. Don’t you worry. I’ve got your back.”
“I’m glad someone does,” I said. “Because I definitely don’t have control.”
“Go get ready for the meeting you need to be calling,” he said, opening the door. “Go on, scoot.”
“Yes, sir,” I chuckled, walking out of his office and down to mine.
I went into the office and put my things down, pulling out a notepad and scribbling down some notes for the meeting. I sent everyone a message letting them know to meet me in the conference room. I watched as people started making their way over for the team meeting, but I didn’t see Elon or get a response back on his messenger. I shrugged my shoulders and headed over to the conference room, setting up in my normal seat. Everyone was there talking excitedly, the news of the Cartier deal spreading around all weekend. I hadn’t had a chance to address everyone before leaving on Friday, but it was a good thing because I had been sidelined by the job offer and Elon’s initial response.
