by Ali Parker
I sat in the conference room, waiting for Elon to show so we could start the meeting. With the board’s decision, we would have to have him present for everything we had to do. It was now a team effort, but after a few minutes of him still not making a showing, I stood up and sighed.
“You guys relax for a minute,” I told the team. “I’m going to have to go find Elon.”
“Check the lounge,” Dalton said. “His caffeine intake has gone up exponentially since the Cartier ad. He’s probably in there drinking from the coffee maker. Mondays are a bitch.”
I shook my head and laughed, walking out of the conference room and down to the lounge. I walked inside, but there was no one in there, and the normal mug that Elon used was still sitting on the drying rack from Friday. I figured he had picked up his own coffee, so I left there and walked down to his office. His secretary was on the phone, so I stood there awkwardly waiting to talk to her.
“Hey,” she said, hanging up the phone. “What can I do for you?”
“I came to get Elon,” I said. “We’re starting our team meeting, and I know he wanted to be there for that.”
“Oh,” she said, looking at the planner. “He’s not here.”
“What do you mean? He knew we had this meeting,” I said.
“He got a call from a possible client this morning and headed straight over to them,” she said. “He never even came into the office. I am not sure how long he plans on being, but it’s a big client, so who knows how long things could take.”
“Great,” I said, looking over at the room full of people.
“Do you want me to call him?”
“No,” I sighed. “It’s okay. We’ll just have to continue without him. I don’t want to interrupt him with a client.”
With a client. Yeah, right. I knew very well Elon was trying to avoid me at all costs. He may be with a client, but I doubted it was anything that important that he would see them before even coming to the office. His avoidance was going to make everything that much more awkward when we finally did sit down to talk to one another. I didn’t understand why a grown ass man, the CEO of a multimillion-dollar marketing firm, would be so chicken that he couldn’t even come to me and talk. He had to make up some kind of excuse to avoid me, prolonging the damn inevitable. In order to keep his company, he was going to have to work with me, and in order to work together, we had to at least sweep that shit under the rug and start over again, something I couldn’t do if he was constantly running without even coming back to the office.
I headed back to the conference room, figuring I was going to have to run the meeting myself. It wasn’t like I hadn’t done it a hundred times before, but I was just really hoping to get some good input to the team on how the whole project ended up going. It meant a lot more when the owner of the company gave everyone a gold star than it did when their low-level boss patted them on the back. Either way, the meeting had to go on, and we were going to need to go through the different things that we could find that really slowed the project down. We did it every single time, trying to lessen the amount of time spent on the next project whenever it came our way.
I walked back into the conference room and stood at the head of the table, waiting for everyone to quiet down. When everyone had their seats, I pulled out my notes and looked over the bullet points quickly. Dalton gave me a confused look, and I shrugged my shoulders, realizing I wasn’t the only one who’d noticed Elon hadn’t shown up.
“Thanks for coming, everyone,” I said, smiling. “First, I want to tell everyone how amazing they did on this last project. Through your dedication, hard work, and talent, we managed to really make the Cartier an account. The CEO is more than happy with the project and will be putting in future orders with us. Thank you, guys, for doing your best. It really made me proud to be your leader.”
“We all worked hard,” one of the team members said. “But to be honest, the majority of the final touch magic that made it such a success was whatever graphics guy you brought in. He was probably the best that we’ve seen in the company in a long time. We were all blown away by the talent that was brought to us.”
Everyone started talking to one another, worried about what we were going to do on the next project without a technical graphic artist on the books. The worst thing was, I really didn’t have an answer for them. Marcus had saved all of our butts, but he wasn’t interested in joining the company, and we just got the request to the recruitment department to fill the position. Until then, we were back in the same place we were before Marcus had saved the day. We could have all the clients in the world, but without that position filled, they would get nothing but a raw copy of the design. It was not the best place to be in, with or without any big client projects to work on. This was exactly why it was important for Elon to be at this meeting, so he could calm everyone’s nerves and get them pumped up for whatever client came next. Without him, though, I was just one of the team, wondering myself what we were planning on doing.
“Okay, guys, settle down,” I said, raising my hands. “I know the technical graphics position isn’t filled yet. We haven’t had time until this morning to get recruitment on it, but we aren’t going to be out of an artist forever. We have a constant roll of applicants coming into the company on top of the recruiters who, as those of you who were recruited know very well, are very good at their jobs. We will have someone of Grey’s talent, if not better, coming in very shortly.”
“We should get someone of the ringer’s talent,” someone shouted with others nodding in agreeance.
“And that is the goal, always, but that person isn’t interested in working with the company. He just did us a favor,” I said, noticing the disappointed faces around the room. “But you guys need to remember that he didn’t make this project a success. It was a collective effort, so even if the new person doesn’t meet those standards, we all make up for that in our expertise and good eyes for the projects on the tables. I would not stand here today if I didn’t have that kind of faith in all of you. You are what has made this company a success. You are what has made that project a success. It was not just the work of one person.”
Before I could go on, everyone’s attention was drawn over to the door as Elon opened up and walked in. I sighed, thankful he was there to interrupt that train of thought because everyone was starting to get a bit antsy. He smiled big, walking up to the front and nodding his head at me.
“I guess I will turn it over to Elon now,” I said, sitting down.
“Hi, everyone,” he said, looking like he had no idea what he was about to say to the team. “It looks like after my meeting this morning, we all have a whole lot of work to do!”
He clapped his hands and smiled, wooing the team with his usual charismatic mood, but I wasn’t fooled in the least.
Chapter 28
Elon
The ride back to the office was nothing like the ride there the first time around. My adrenaline was pumping, and my excitement was at a level it hadn’t been since Friday before the board meeting. I had landed a very profitable project, one that we would have to nail in order to make any more happen. It did have the opportunity to backfire in my face, but I had complete confidence in my and the team’s ability. I took the elevator up to the top floor and walked over to the secretary.
“Where is everyone?”
“In the conference room for the team meeting,” she said, nodding that direction. “They were looking for you, but you were gone, so they started without you.”
“Perfect,” I said, rubbing my hands together. “I’m expecting a contract this afternoon, so please let me know as soon as it gets here.”
“Of course.” She nodded.
I walked over to the conference room and could see Amanda talking to the team. Nerves ran through me after having almost forgotten about the awkwardness between the two of us. Regardless, we had a job to do, and we had no time to waste. I walked inside and stood there, letting her finish her sentence.
&n
bsp; “You are what has made that project a success. It was not just the work of one person.”
Everyone looked over at me and smiled, and I could tell she was giving them a pep talk. I did my best not to look at Amanda, but I couldn’t help but glance in her direction. She cleared her throat and looked over at me.
“I guess I will turn it over to Elon now,” she said, sitting down.
“Hi, everyone,” I said, not having thought about what I was going to say before I got up there. “It looks like after my meeting this morning, we all have a whole lot of work to do! I just finished with a client meeting, someone we actually picked up by referral from the Cartier ad campaign.”
“That was fast,” Dalton said. “It’s not even out of advertising yet.”
“I know,” I said excitedly. “But they’re good friends with the CEO of Cartier and saw the final product this department presented to him. It was a lucky catch, and I’m sorry I was late for this meeting, but when I got the call this morning, I didn’t think that I could turn down the opportunity to meet right then and there. Unfortunately, in this business, when you snooze, you lose, so I wanted to get over there as fast as possible.”
“Who is the client?” Amanda asked.
“It’s Jonesbrook Jewelers,” I said excitedly. “Anyone here ever heard of them?”
“They did the jewelry for Angelina on the red carpet last year,” Dalton said.
“Yes,” I said, pointing at him. “And they do specialized pieces for all of the stars and major motion pictures. They’re an appointment-only high-end jewelry store with their corporate office located on Seventh.”
“Are they the ones with that diamond ring on display in the window that’s as big as my head?” one of the graphic artists asked.
“That is them.” I laughed. “And they’re willing to give us one ad as a trial. If we do good, they’re willing to sign a long-term contract with us, which means all of their public ads as well as the catalogs and the inserts that go in the bags for the stars at all of the awards shows. They’re also paying double for this project.”
“Wow,” everyone started to say, talking back and forth.
“We have to report to them more often than most clients, but the first milestone is this Friday, where they’re looking for a full workup of our ideas,” I said.
“What about technical?” someone asked. “We can’t even do the preliminary workup without them. It’s vital to the project.”
“I know you guys are nervous about that part of it,” I said. “But I need you to have a little faith in me. I will take care of that and get someone in here who can do a stellar job with the team. Even if we have to hire a freelancer for the project, it will get done, and we will put out a killer display on Friday for this man. He’s not excitable like Cartier, and he has a lot of experience in the business, so he’s going to be a tough critic. That’s why it’s more important than ever for you all to put your fears aside and focus on what you have to do to make this a success. We’re going to be meeting once, if not twice, per day to make sure we’re staying on the right timeline for this. We can’t miss this deadline. It’s the first one with him, and it will show him whether we’re up to the task or not. For us, it’s vital, but for him, it’s just a marketing firm. There are hundreds of them out there. We want to blow him out of the water with this.”
I glanced over at Amanda who was staring up at me, looking like there was something completely different on her mind. I needed her to get focused on helping me get the team in line, but I knew what that meant. That meant we were going to have to talk first, and I wasn’t up for it quite yet. I took in a deep breath and looked around the room, seeing that everyone was excited but wary at the same time.
“Everyone here has a specific job that they do, a specific talent that makes them an extraordinary asset to this team,” I said with a serious tone. “You are all capable of Cartier-level advertising, if not better, and I have complete faith in you. If I didn’t, I wouldn’t be standing up here in front of you giving you this news. I know it seems daunting, but so did Cartier, and look what we did with it. I need that level of excitement, that level of confidence for this project as well. I will sanction all the overtime we need after this target has been met and we are given the go-ahead, but we need to first hit that target to the best ability we can muster. Are you guys in this with me?”
“Yeah,” they said, picking up the excitement.
“Are you sure?”
“We got you,” Dalton yelled out.
“Awesome,” I said, clapping my hands. “I will get the preliminaries emailed over to everyone in about fifteen minutes, and then, let’s get to work.”
Everyone started talking excitedly, grabbing their things and heading out of the office. I picked up my briefcase, pulled the notes I had taken from the email I received, and stopped Dalton. I handed him the paper and smiled.
“Would you mind getting this typed up and sent out to everyone?”
“Sure thing, boss,” he said, glancing back at Amanda and then back to me.
When everyone had left the office, I stood there cleaning up the conference room. I took down the notes from the Cartier project and erased everything off the dry erase board. I turned back to the desk and picked up the trash and tossed it in the bin, realizing that it was the first time I had stayed behind to clean up after a meeting. I was usually the one who just left it for the others to do. Maybe I was growing with the team more than I had realized. I was so busy cleaning up, though, that I didn’t even notice Amanda standing in the doorway.
“That’s an impressive client,” she said, startling me.
“I didn’t know you were standing there,” I said, grabbing my chest.
“Sorry.” She chuckled. “You looked intent on cleaning, so I waited.
“What’s up?”
“There’s been a lot that has happened since last Thursday,” she said, walking back into the room. “And I wanted to see if you had the time to talk to me before we got everything started? I think it’s important that we clear the air before diving into this project. Both of our minds have to be on what we’re doing.”
“I couldn’t agree with you more,” I said with a smile, putting my bag over my shoulder. “But I have a really important phone call I need to make. The board is going to want to hear this from me before the contract gets sent over. I promise we can talk afterward. I’ll come and get you when everything has settled, and we can talk in peace and quiet.”
She didn’t say anything, just nodded her head and watched me as I walked leisurely out of the office. I could feel her staring at me as I walked away, and part of me felt bad about shoving her off like that. I knew I was going to have to talk to her. I had known it since I’d woken up that morning, which was the whole reason I had taken the meeting with the client so quickly. I just wasn’t ready for it yet. I wasn’t in the mindset to delve that deeply into a conversation with her. Maybe it was because I knew it would be uncomfortable, but part of me knew it was also because I was afraid of what she was going to say. I wasn’t ready to hear her downplay what was going on between the two of us, or face the fact that I had screwed it up so badly.
Avoiding her was what I had planned on doing, but I couldn’t do that forever. A couple of more hours wouldn’t make or break the situation. I went to my office and set my stuff down, picking up the phone and calling Eliza at the board. I told her about the new client, the stipulations, and the amount of money they were going to pay for the first project. She was ecstatic and told me that she would be calling the other board members immediately to report the information to them. I knew it was going to chap Clayton’s ass, and I wished that I could be there to see his face when he heard about it. He had brought in clients over the years but nothing like the two I had back-to-back, and all while he was trying to burn me at the stake.
When I got off the phone with them, I went right to work starting to list out my ideas for the project. I researched everything I could ab
out the company, but finding out what their normal presence in the public was, I found to be more difficult than I had expected. Unlike Cartier, they were not at all interested in the average Joe or whether the average Joe afford anything from their showroom. From the sound of it, they didn’t dip below fifty thousand on any item, and there was no financing option. It was the kind of place that only ever ran black cards and had a safe in the back protected by six armed guards. They were looking to keep their same historic feel, the one they’d had since the fifties when they were drenching Elizabeth Taylor in diamonds and opening their third store in the US. Now they were worldwide but still dealing with the same level of clients.
By the end of the day, I was spent, and I had completely forgotten to get Amanda to talk to her. I pulled up my bag and started to pack it, stopping when I heard a knock on the doorframe of my office. I looked up to see Amanda walking in and shutting the door.
Fuck, I was definitely in for it.
Chapter 29
Amanda
He hadn’t even attempted to come get me after his phone call to the board. I tried to tell myself it was because he got lost in the new project, but I knew he was avoiding me. It wasn’t like I was chomping at the bit to have this conversation. I just wanted to get it over with so that I, too, could get on the ball with this new client. We were going to have to work together. That was just the fact of it, but in order to do so in the most efficient way possible, I was going to need to get this issue over and dealt with. He was acting like a child, going out of his way to stay away from me, putting me off until later. Well, I wasn’t having it anymore.
