Bad Publicity

by Joanne Sydney Lessner

  “Stick out your can, mama. Here comes yo’ back door man!”

  Liz laughed and reached under her desk for the wastepaper basket. She dumped the contents into Jimmy’s bin.

  “For the shredder,” Liz explained over her shoulder.

  “As you were!” Jimmy saluted with his free hand and pulled the door shut behind him.

  Isobel shook her head. “I just can’t get over him. Why do you have two doors, anyway?”

  Liz rearranged her chair and swung her legs back onto the desk. “Only the group heads get windows. The more junior you are, the farther away you are from any source of natural light. But you’re also closer to the bathroom, which for me in my current predicament is eminently preferable. The second door is just a bonus.”

  “Where does it come out?”

  “By the kitchen.” Liz winked and held out her crackers.

  Isobel accepted the offering. “So what’s really behind this merger? Is it what Barnaby said?”

  Liz nodded as she crunched. “Probably. I mean, at his age, the thrill of living from retainer check to retainer check has to be long gone. He wants to play with the big boys, and ICG can hand him the kind of Fortune 500 companies he’s spent his whole career chasing. This is his last chance to kick it up a level before he retires.”

  “What about Angus?”

  “My guess is Angus would be just as happy to leave his nameplate on the door until it can be buried with him.”

  Isobel pulled her ponytail tighter and leaned forward. “Can I ask you something?”

  “Sure.”

  “Why were you guys nervous about meeting with Jason Whiteley yesterday?”

  Liz frowned. “Who said we were nervous?”

  “Katrina.”

  Liz swung her legs off the desk, knocking her crackers to the floor in the process. She ducked down to collect them, and when she sat up again, Isobel had the distinct impression that Liz had been gathering her thoughts as well as her snack.

  “There was a little dust-up a few weeks ago, and this was our first meeting since then. We weren’t sure what Jason was going to say.” Liz chuckled as if it were all no big deal. “We were half convinced he was going to fire us. Or at the very least, slash our retainer.”

  “What happened?”

  Liz’s expression darkened. “It was really Aaron’s fault, although he’ll never admit it. We pitched an important new exec of theirs named Cal Erskine as a spokesperson on Brazil. You know, consulting in an emerging market. Turns out Erskine has experience in emerging markets, but he’s never set foot in Brazil. Not only that, Schumann, Crowe & Dyer doesn’t have a single office anywhere in South America.”

  Isobel grimaced. “That’s not good.”

  “Gets worse. John Fothergill, the São Paulo bureau chief of the Wall Street Journal, interviewed Erskine, and the story we were hoping for turned into a slash-and-burn piece on the company for putting themselves forward as experts in Brazil when their guy couldn’t even name the capital.”

  “Ouch! What was the fallout?”

  “Well, that’s what we were going to find out yesterday. The thing is, it wasn’t just that Fothergill made the company look bad—he tore apart Erskine personally.”

  “Why was it Aaron’s fault?”

  Liz flourished her milk carton. “Because I asked him point-blank what specific experience the guy had in Brazil. He admitted that he had none, but insisted it didn’t matter. He said emerging markets are emerging markets, and it’s transferable knowledge. He basically gave me the old, ‘the client’s signed off on it, so just do your job and don’t ask questions, you silly girl’ routine.”

  “I gather Aaron doesn’t care much for working women,” Isobel observed. “Against his religion?”

  “I imagine that’s part of it, but he’s also ambitious, and his family and religious obligations make it harder to climb the old corporate ladder. They finally made him a senior associate, but how much farther can he reasonably go? He can’t be a director if he isn’t willing to stay late at the drop of a hat for deal work.”

  “But what does that have to do with women?”

  “He’s jealous of anyone who’s unencumbered, and if it’s a woman, it’s adding insult to injury. Someone like Katrina can leave him in the dust. He can tolerate me a little better, because I’ve got my own automatic glass ceiling.”

  “How so?”

  Liz gestured to her belly. “I don’t have a wife at home to take care of Eleanor when she arrives. When I factor in childcare, it doesn’t make sense for me to work, since I’ll never advance to the salary that would make it worthwhile. The difference is, I’m not bitter about it.”

  Isobel absorbed all of this. “So Jason Whiteley was going to throw you all under the bus at the meeting yesterday?”

  Liz nodded. “In all likelihood. That’s why Katrina was dreading it.”

  “Why Katrina?”

  Liz took a deep breath. “She was the one who sent Fothergill the Brazil pitch. Fothergill wrote back something like, ‘I think the fact that Schumann, Crowe & Dyer consider themselves experts in Brazil would make a great story.’ If you read between the lines, you can tell he’d sniffed out their lack of expertise and wanted to expose them. A more experienced eye would have caught on to what he was planning, but Katrina didn’t pick up on it.”

  “That’s pretty subtle. I’m sure anyone would have missed that.”

  “Maybe yes, maybe no. Point is, she had a chance to nip it in the bud, and she didn’t.”

  “And Jason is dead,” Isobel mused. “So now what?”

  Liz shrugged. “Who knows? Maybe we’ll lose the account, maybe we won’t. I suspect we won’t.”

  “Why not?”

  “Because Schumann, Crowe & Dyer is also owned by ICG. We’re going to be sister companies.”

  Curiouser and curiouser, thought Isobel, as she left Liz to her milk and crackers and wandered back to her desk to pretend to update a press list. A merger, a heart attack, a little bad publicity…

  There was definitely more going on at Dove & Flight than met the eye, and Isobel was more determined than ever to figure out what.

  EIGHT

  “So, who was it?”

  It didn’t occur to James that the voice was addressing him, so he ignored it, continuing to grunt and sweat as he heaved the barbell high over his head.

  “You don’t answer your phone, and you don’t answer live people, either!”

  James let the barbell drop. It took a moment for his eyes to focus on Weight Girl, who was standing in front of him, her hands on her straight, shapeless hips.

  “I thought I heard a mosquito buzzing.”

  She smiled triumphantly. “So you do speak English. I just wanted to know who kept calling you yesterday.”

  He wiped his hands on his shorts. “None of your business.”

  “I know. I was just curious. It seemed important.”

  “How do you know what it seemed?” he asked, annoyed. “It was a ringing phone.”

  “Well, you don’t have to be an asshole about it.”

  James started another set of reps, willing her to go away, but she remained by his feet, regarding him with an expression that was either hurt or amused, possibly both.

  He hauled himself off the bench and mopped the sweat from his brow. “What are you doing here anyway?”

  “Isn’t that a little racist?” she asked snidely.

  “Look, I grew up in this neighborhood and I’m telling you, you’re the minority. I’m not saying there are no white people up here, but if they’re here, they’re here for a reason.” He snapped his towel for emphasis.

  “I’m at Barnard.”

  “So why don’t you use their gym?”

  Her eyes darted to her feet and she shrugged. “It’s never open when I need it. Besides, I’m not really all that comfortable there.”

  “Why’s that?”

  She looked up again. “Don’t take this the wrong way, okay? But sometimes I f
eel like a token.”

  He raised a skeptical eyebrow. “At Barnard? But not here?”

  She crossed her arms and her expression changed. “My folks are dead and my aunt raised me on welfare. I got a full scholarship to school. I don’t exactly fit in.”

  So being poor was her sin. Being from the ‘hood had been his.

  “Aren’t you going to ask me what year I’m in, what I’m majoring in, and all that?” she asked, when he didn’t respond.

  “I figure you’ll get to it eventually.”

  To his surprise, she didn’t volunteer the information. “What do you do?” she asked.

  “Work out. When people let me.”

  “I just wanted to make sure you were okay.”

  James thumped his barrel chest. “Don’t I look okay?”

  “Like I said the other day, your abs need work.” She prodded him in the stomach and he doubled over reflexively at her touch.

  Fuming, he watched her stalk off toward a cluster of guys who greeted her far more enthusiastically than she deserved. He reached for his barbell again, but he was suddenly weary. As he passed Weight Girl on his way to the locker room, he overheard her chattering at a studious-looking man with medium-dark skin.

  “My girlfriends and I, when we were, like, twelve, we used to sit around and imagine what kind of guys we’d marry, and which of us would marry first, and then the rest of us and in what order.”

  “This is a gym, not a pick-up joint,” James snapped.

  His shower failed to relieve his grouchy mood, so he tried to resign himself to feeling unsettled—a new lesson of sobriety—as he headed toward the community center where he attended AA meetings. It was on Broadway and 120th Street, not far from his old stomping ground. Having abandoned his workout early, he had a few minutes to kill, so he headed four blocks south to the Columbia campus. He paused outside the main gate and peered in at College Walk, which was bustling with early evening activity.

  Students hurried by in small groups or by themselves, and James was suddenly aware of a deep, gnawing sadness. He had been given a golden opportunity—a top education on a football scholarship—and he’d blown it because of the booze. He had planned to be a lawyer. He’d wanted to go back to his old Harlem neighborhood and hang out a shingle at affordable prices. An alternative to Legal Aid: the personal touch, from a brother who could have gone anywhere, but had chosen to come home. Now he was bouncing from temp agency to temp agency, although he’d held on at Temp Zone for four months, a record for him. He knew it still wasn’t too late to go back to college and then on to law school. His dream may have been deferred, but it wasn’t an impossible one. He watched a student stumble over a flagstone and drop a stack of books. The thought of racking up student loans as a twenty-eight-year-old sophomore made James feel more like a failure than ever. He pushed aside his fantasy of college and trudged on toward his meeting.

  The blue and white linoleum floor of the community center common room was marked with oily black streaks where chairs had been dragged into a circle. James spotted his sponsor, Bill, a slender, wispy-haired man whose sad eyes looked sadder than usual. James sat down next to him and patted him on the back.

  “Hey, man. You okay?”

  Bill gave a strained smile. “Had the kids this weekend. Tough to let ‘em go.”

  James nodded. There wasn’t much to say. Bill was divorced, and his wife had fought visitation until he agreed to go to AA. It was impossible to make up for lost time, although Bill tried hard. Probably too hard. After every visit, he was plunged into fresh despair that tested his sobriety.

  “What’s up with you?” Bill was always happier to talk about James’s problems than his own.

  “Too many aggravating females,” he said, thinking of Jayla, Isobel and Weight Girl. “Shit! Here comes another.”

  Felice Edwards, a plump, curvaceous woman who twisted her hair into a different, Escher-like pattern every month, was making a beeline for James. Felice had been the head of Human Resources at Isobel’s first temp job—the bank where the secretary was killed. James had taken her out on two disastrous occasions and then coerced her into AA. Despite his protestations, Felice continued to believe he had an ulterior motive in getting her sober.

  “James!”

  “Hello, Felice,” James said, as coolly as possible. “Would you excuse us? We’re having a private conversation.”

  Her smile faded. “I just wanted to tell you I got a new job.”

  “Good for you.”

  Felice scowled. “You’d better be nice to me, or I’ll use another temp agency when I need help.”

  It was easy to ignore Felice, but harder to turn his back on the finder’s fee that came with reeling in a new client.

  He threw up his hands and shot Bill a glance of mock helplessness. “All right, you got me. So where is it you’ve landed now?”

  “I’m working for the city. Office of the—”

  Before she could finish, the day’s chairperson, a heavy-set Hispanic man in his thirties, stood and called the meeting to order.

  “I’ll call you,” Felice whispered. She crept away and joined the clutch of women she usually sat with.

  Great, thought James. Snagged again.

  As he listened half-heartedly to the others relate their daily struggles against alcohol, he wondered, not for the first time, what it was about him that attracted these uppity women who thought they knew what was best for him. They were all so goddamn smug and superior, and they didn’t know him at all. And yet they somehow managed to get him to do things he didn’t want to do. Felice had made it impossible for him to ignore her next phone call, Weight Girl’s nosiness had cut his workout short, and Jayla had nearly roped him into a marriage he didn’t want.

  Then there was Isobel. She got him to do things without even having to ask, which made her far and away the most exasperating of them all.

  NINE

  One of the first lessons Isobel had learned after moving to New York was that if you don’t show up three hours before an audition starts, you don’t get in, which meant that for an audition scheduled to begin at ten o’clock in the morning, the desired arrival hour became an ungodly one. In the winter, with a reluctant sun and sub-zero temperatures, the ritual became nothing less than torturous, especially when the audition studio was still locked.

  Nevertheless, Isobel bounded out of bed at six thirty the next morning primed for adventure. This was no ordinary audition she was heading for today: it was an Equity audition. A Broadway audition.

  The notice had appeared in Backstage the week before, announcing an open call for replacement principals in Phantom of the Opera. With her classically trained soprano and innocent ingénue looks, Isobel knew she was perfect for the role of Christine, the Phantom’s paramour. No matter that she wasn’t yet a card-carrying member of Actors’ Equity, Phantom had been running on Broadway for so many years that Isobel was confident most eligible union members had presented themselves and been passed over, leaving room for her to wangle her way in. Even so, she knew she’d have to wait awhile for a break in the traffic. She had planned ahead, arranging with James to send someone to fill in for her at Dove & Flight for the day.

  Isobel tried to maintain her excitement and energy as she made her way uptown in the freezing predawn to the Actors’ Equity building on West 46th Street. Sure enough, by the time she arrived, there were fifteen hardy souls ahead of her. She took her place in line, grabbing the last tiny square foot of space inside the vestibule, knowing it wouldn’t be long before the line snaked out the door and down the street.

  “I’m non-Equity,” she whispered confidentially to the woman in front of her. “Do you think I’ll get seen?”

  The woman stared blearily at her. “Go home.”

  When the building opened at eight o’clock, the line surged inside and rearranged itself on the stairwell. Isobel spent the next hour trying to fight off fatigue by running through all her audition songs in her head. Finally, at nine o
’clock, the Equity lounge on the second floor opened up. One by one, the actors filed past a squat old broad with a shellacked boot-black beehive and rhinestone-studded glasses, who was guarding the entrance to the lounge at a small podium.

  She stopped Isobel with a wizened hand dripping with cocktail rings. “Card?”

  “I don’t have one,” Isobel said, “but I was hoping I could get into the Phantom audition if it isn’t too crowded.”

  The woman indicated two metal folding chairs at the top of the stairwell. “You can wait there.”

  “Can’t I wait in the lounge?” Isobel looked longingly at the rows of padded chairs and the bulletin boards dripping with casting notices.

  “Not without an Equity card.” The monitor nodded admittance to several actors who brushed past Isobel disdainfully.

  “Do you think I’ll get seen?” Isobel asked, for the second time that morning.

  “They gotta see every Equity actor who signs up. If that happens before five o’clock, they might see you if they feel like it. But they don’t have to.”

  “But they have to stay until five, don’t they?”

  “Yeah, but they can sit in the room and pick their noses if they want. This is a union audition. They don’t have to see you.”

  The woman adjusted her gaudy glasses and turned her attention to the next several people, who flashed their colorful ID cards with the identifying masks of comedy and tragedy. Isobel eyed the procession of little cards with envy. Getting into Actors’ Equity was a notorious Catch-22: you had to have a union card to get into a union audition, but the only way to get a union card was by getting a union job. Still, there must be some way to go about it. Presumably, the actors walking proudly by her were not born with Equity cards tucked under their umbilical cords.

  Realizing she had little choice, Isobel made herself as comfortable as possible on her metal chair and watched the procession continue. After a while, having reassured herself that she knew every verse of every song she’d ever sung for anyone, she settled for people-watching. As eleven o’clock approached, she felt her energy sag. She needed a snack, lunch even. After all, she’d been up since six thirty, and she’d long since finished the one granola bar she’d brought. But she was loath to leave her post, lest her moment come and go. She approached the monitor.