Bad Publicity

by Joanne Sydney Lessner

  “Here, use mine.” Isobel handed over the menu and her phone.

  “I think you’re getting hung up on coincidences,” Delphi said. “Hello? Yes, that’s us. Scallion pancakes, one moo shu beef, one kung pao chicken. Brown rice.” Delphi hung up. “Half an hour, but you know it’ll be here in ten minutes.”

  Isobel’s phone rang in Delphi’s hand, and before Isobel could wrest it from her, Delphi answered.

  “‘How now, wit? Whither wander you?’”

  “Give me that!” Isobel snatched her phone back. “Hello? This is Isobel.”

  “Not Rosalind?”

  Isobel paused, confused by the reference and by the British-accented voice she didn’t recognize. “I’m sorry, who is this?”

  There was a sigh on the other end of the phone. “How easily one forgets the smile-tapped heart.”

  Isobel groaned. Not another one. “Is that Shakespeare?”

  “No, it’s Fremont. I just made it up on the spot.”

  Isobel felt a delighted flush. Hugh Fremont, the audition pianist from Phantom. Surprise of surprises, he had called.

  She shot a glance at Delphi who was eyeing her quizzically.

  “That was my roommate,” Isobel explained. “She’s a bit of a Shakespeare nut. Emphasis on the nut.”

  “No, no, it was refreshing,” Hugh said. “It’s been a long time since anyone called me a wit.”

  “It’s nice to hear from you.”

  Isobel turned away, but Delphi stalked her, panther-like, mouthing, “Who is it?”

  “I meant it when I said I’d like to hear you sing under better conditions,” Hugh said. “I’m putting together a little cabaret of my own songs. I’d like to try you out on a few—if you think that might interest you.”

  “Definitely! I love singing new music. I’m so flattered that you thought of me.”

  “Yours was one of the more memorable auditions of the day.”

  Isobel winced. “For all the wrong reasons.”

  Hugh chuckled. “I wouldn’t say that. Are you free tomorrow evening? I’ve got studio space uptown. Can you meet me around seven?”

  “Sure,” Isobel answered, her voice brimming with excitement. Under normal circumstances, she might have tried to check herself, but it was her exuberance that had caught his attention in the first place. She wrote down the address on Claremont Avenue, near Manhattan School of Music.

  “I did my Master’s there and never left the neighborhood,” Hugh explained. “So I’ll see you then?”

  “Yes, looking forward to it. Thanks so much for calling!”

  Delphi downed the rest of Isobel’s Diet Coke with a loud sucking noise and slammed the can down on the counter. “Who, pray tell, was that?”

  Isobel gazed up at the ceiling to short-circuit an imminent rush of giggles, then contained herself and looked at Delphi.

  “I think it was Romeo.”

  EIGHTEEN

  “I don’t know what you see in that Spice girl.”

  Jayla swiveled her barstool to face James, her eyes brimming with challenge. He thought back to the last time he’d been in this bar, when Isobel had told him she believed in him, and then ignored his advice and taken herself back to Dove & Flight.

  “It’s all in your head,” he said gruffly. “Now that you’ve met her, you can see she’s not my type.”

  He wished Isobel had at least warned him that she and Jayla had met. He might have been better prepared. Better yet, he wouldn’t have asked Jayla to meet him for a drink. He’d struggled with the decision to begin with, but he had come to feel a strange sense of responsibility for Isobel.

  “Go back to what you were saying before,” he continued. “The police say there was nothing in the coffee?”

  “Yes. They came back to us, wanting to know if we had any information about where Jason was earlier that morning. They still don’t believe it was accidental.”

  That much James knew from Isobel’s foray into the medical examiner’s office, but he didn’t want to let on to Jayla.

  “What did you tell them?”

  “There wasn’t much to say. Jason didn’t come into the office that morning. He went straight to Dove & Flight for his meeting.”

  “But that doesn’t mean he didn’t go somewhere else first,” James pointed out.

  Jayla rolled her eyes. “Obviously. He could have gone anywhere: the gym, a diner, an AA meeting.”

  James ignored the dig. “Did they check his calendar?”

  “The only thing there was his ten o’clock meeting at Dove & Flight and a two o’clock conference call.”

  They sat in silence for a moment. Jayla stirred her vodka cranberry, and James clinked the ice in his Coke glass.

  “I don’t know why I’m telling you any of this,” she said finally.

  “Well, I appreciate it.”

  She sighed and pushed her glass away. “No, that’s not true. I do know why.”

  James looked at her expectantly. She lowered her eyes and carefully folded a corner of her cocktail napkin.

  “Michael and I are getting married.”

  In spite of himself, James felt a pang at this news. Jayla had once wanted to marry him, though he could never understand why. He had never wanted to marry her. He knew he should be happy for her that what had started as a meaningless affair with his buddy Michael had led to this. Marriage was all-important to Jayla. He should have been relieved, but instead, he just felt sad. Because he knew she didn’t love Michael. Not the way she had loved him.

  He managed a smile and patted her hand. “Congratulations. It couldn’t happen to a nicer guy.”

  Her eyes flicked up and met his. “Guy?”

  “Michael is lucky. You’re a great catch, Jayla. For the right person,” he added quickly, seeing the flash of accusation in her eyes.

  She withdrew her hand and shifted on her barstool. “Anyway, I thought you should know. Will you come to the wedding?”

  James smiled. “I’d like that.”

  “But don’t even think about bringing Isobel.”

  As if he would ever be that suicidal.

  “Another round?” For a change, the bartender’s intrusion was welcome.

  He glanced at Jayla who nodded. “Yeah, thanks.” James watched the bartender move away. “You know, I don’t know much about what Jason’s been up to these last few years. It’s not like we stayed in touch. Obviously, he was doing well for himself at your firm. Was he married?”

  “No. As far as I know, he was perfectly happy playing the field.” Jayla sucked up the last of her drink and released the straw back into the glass. “He went on a few dates with Katrina Campbell from Dove & Flight, but I don’t think it went anywhere.”

  James cocked his head with interest. “Really? First I’ve heard of that.”

  Jayla shrugged. “Why would you?”

  “Did he ever date anyone else he worked with there?”

  Jayla shook her head. “Nah. One’s married and preggers, and the other’s a dude. No, I take that back. You can’t really call an Orthodox Jew a dude.”

  “Did Jason get along with them?”

  “Well enough, until the Brazil thing.”

  “What was that?”

  “They sent out a pitch that exposed us to a reporter in a very damaging way. We were going to fire them until Clark Schumann—he’s the head of the firm—told us we couldn’t.”

  “Why?”

  “Dove & Flight is being acquired by our parent company. The word came down from on high that we had to give them another chance.”

  “But except for that, Jason got on with them all right?”

  “Well, there was one incident with Aaron Grossman that I know about.”

  As the bartender set down their drinks, it struck James that Jayla must really feel guilty about marrying Michael to be speaking so freely and for so long.

  “You gonna tell me the story?” he asked.

  She took a long sip of her new drink, gave a satisfied smile
, and leaned forward. “Jason and Aaron were having lunch—this was right after we hired them—and Aaron ordered a salad. When the waiter brought it, Aaron was going on about something and not really paying attention. Jason noticed that the salad had bacon bits on it. Not only did he not warn Aaron, he actually laughed when Aaron ate a few bites before he realized it.”

  James cringed. “That’s not right.”

  “You know it,” Jayla said. “Aaron still had to make nice because we’re a client, but he was always very cool toward Jason after that.”

  “Is that everyone at Dove & Flight?”

  “Everyone who counts. Jason met Angus Dove when they pitched us the business, but Aaron, Liz and Katrina were our team.” Jayla slapped her hand on the bar. “Wait, I forgot Kit Blanchard. She’s his sister-in-law. No, wait, let me get this right. Kit is married to Jason’s brother’s wife’s brother.”

  “That’s not a sister-in-law. That’s—I don’t know what that is. An out-law.” He laughed at his joke, but Jayla didn’t so much as curl a lip.

  “That’s how we found them in the first place,” she went on. “We were looking for a PR firm, and Jason recommended them because of Kit. But I don’t see why any of this matters. We know he wasn’t poisoned at Dove & Flight, so why do you care? Your precious Isobel had nothing do with it.”

  “How about you?” he shot back. “What was your relationship with Jason Whiteley?”

  In a swift movement, she grabbed her purse from the bar and slid off her stool, her almond cat-eyes wide with fury.

  “You can be a real asshole, you know that?” she hissed. “Thank God I’m marrying Michael. You are so not worth it!”

  Lord, save me from my own big mouth, he thought as he watched her brush aside a hapless waiter who was blocking her path to the door. Maybe he and Isobel had more in common than he thought.

  NINETEEN

  The rumble started down the hall and rolled toward Isobel’s desk, gathering additional voices until it finally erupted into loud, creatively turned F-bombs from the small group gathered around her centrally located computer.

  Kit Blanchard shook her exquisitely highlighted head. “Five points in ten minutes!”

  Dorothy Berman gazed at the screen in wonder. “I’ve never seen anything like it.”

  “We are so screwed,” Liz said under her breath.

  “Who made the calls yesterday?” Aaron asked, looking around. His voice trembled and his face was deathly pale under his black beard. “Who confirmed the reporters covering MacBride’s?”

  Isobel meekly held up her hand. “I did.”

  The group pulled away from her as one, eyeing her with a mixture of pity and horror.

  “Katrina asked me to take care of it,” Isobel added quickly. The others shifted their gaze to Katrina, who seethed in Isobel’s direction, but Aaron kept his eyes fixed on Isobel.

  “What exactly did you say to the guy at the AP?”

  Isobel held up her hands in self-defense. “I—I just asked if he still covered the company. That’s it!”

  “Did you give your name? Did you say you were from Dove & Flight?”

  “No! I used caller ID block, and I didn’t say who I was or why I was calling, just that I wanted to confirm his contact information.” She looked imploringly at Katrina. “I don’t understand what’s going on.”

  “The AP reporter ran a story late yesterday afternoon, saying a call from Dove & Flight confirmed suspicions that MacBride’s was preparing to sell off their consulting business,” Katrina said in clipped tones.

  Isobel felt the color drain from her face. “But Jayla said specifically that MacBride’s didn’t want any publicity at all!”

  “And this is why!” Aaron pointed a quivering finger at Isobel’s computer screen. “MacBride’s is publicly traded. The stock price is moving. It shot up as soon as the market opened.”

  “But isn’t a higher stock price good for them?” asked Penny Warren, who Isobel suspected had spent her sick day shopping for a new matching outfit.

  Aaron gave an exasperated sigh. “Not when they’re trying to sell the company! Now it’s going to cost more, which might make Schumann, Crowe & Dyer balk. On top of that, it’s a phony lift. MacBride’s will shoot down the rumor, and the price will crash, but by that point it will be too late to do the deal. It’s terrible for them.”

  “And terrible for us,” Liz said, as the air was rent by the groaning complaint of the spiral steps. “Here it comes,” she added, unnecessarily.

  “What in holy fucking hell happened?” Barnaby’s bellow ricocheted off the walls, preceding his appearance, which reminded Isobel of a water buffalo stampeding to an oasis.

  “I just got off the phone with Tony Campbell. You all know who that is!” He glared at the group, letting his eyes rest on Katrina. To her credit, she held his gaze, but Isobel saw that her right leg was trembling. “I get it. You don’t want Dove & Flight to merge. But who the fuck is trying to sabotage the deal?” He railed on. “First that preppy little twit croaks over his coffee, and now MacBride’s stock price is through the roof on a rumor that came from our company! The ICG merger is on the skids—unless somebody can twist daddy around her little finger and get him to change his mind!”

  There was an audible gasp and every eye was on Katrina. She took a deep breath, opened her mouth to say something, then turned on her heel and marched down the hall. Her office door slammed, and Liz muttered, “That was ten flavors of wrong.”

  Barnaby’s eyes shot over to her. “If we can’t sell the firm to ICG, that’s it—it’s over. We can’t afford to stay in business, because you people are crap at your jobs! And did I forget to mention that Schumann, Crowe & Dyer just shit-canned us? No surprise there. It’s one thing to kill a client. But there’s no worse crime in public relations than killing a deal!”

  And with that, he barreled down the hall, his heavy footfalls punctuated with expletive-laden grunts.

  Isobel felt like her insides were made of jello. “I swear, I didn’t say anything that wasn’t in the script.” She grabbed her papers from her desk. “Here. This is what I said. ‘Hi, my name is Isobel and I just wanted to confirm that you still cover MacBride’s.’ Then if they said yes, I said, ‘Can you just confirm your phone number and email address…” She shook her head. “Wait a minute. Was the AP reporter Bob Celauro?”

  “That’s him,” Aaron said.

  Isobel held out her press list. “Look at my notes. N/A. It wasn’t me who tipped him off. It couldn’t have been.” She looked around the group, her eyes shining with relief. “I never reached him.”

  TWENTY

  “This just doesn’t make any sense!” Isobel paced the perimeter of Liz’s office. “I know Aaron thinks I’m lying, but somebody else must have called the AP.”

  “It wasn’t necessarily someone from Dove & Flight,” Liz said.

  Isobel paused in her perambulations. “What do you mean?”

  Liz swung her booted feet down from her desk and rolled her chair forward. “Who else knew about the deal?”

  “Jayla and her team. And the people at MacBride’s, of course, but it sounds like this was exactly what they were hoping to avoid.”

  “Okay, what about Jayla? We know she wanted to be done with us, but she was getting pressure from above. Maybe she didn’t know another way to manage it.”

  Isobel plopped down in Liz’s visitor’s chair and leaned back. “Personally, I’d love to make Jayla the bad guy, but this will probably cost them a major piece of business. What could possibly justify engineering that kind of hit for your own company?”

  “Then who was it?” Liz ticked off the possibilities. “Aaron looked like someone had just groped his mother. Katrina, well, let’s just say that if she wants to sabotage the ICG takeover, there are other, more personal avenues open to her. Me? I don’t care enough. I’m out of here in a few months anyway.”

  “I don’t know.” Isobel sighed and stood up again. “I think I’ll take a walk. I s
till can’t bring myself to follow up on those stupid press releases. You want anything from the outside world? More crackers?”

  Liz held up a big box of saltines. “I’m good.”

  As Isobel hustled down Lexington Avenue, welcoming the bursts of cold wind, she contemplated what Liz had said regarding Katrina. Were there really other, more personal avenues open to her? Barnaby certainly seemed to think Katrina had enough influence over her father to steer the merger back on track. But from what Katrina had told her, Isobel doubted she had her father’s ear any more than she had his respect. So maybe she had seen her opportunity to derail the merger and seized it. If it was Katrina, she had set it up neatly by assigning the phone calls to Isobel. But she couldn’t have known that Isobel would be so meticulous in her note-taking. Sooner or later, the person responsible for the AP leak would be pinpointed.

  Isobel detoured over to Third Avenue, pausing to look in the window of a cheap boutique. A green flowered blouse caught her eye and she went inside to try it on.

  “But if it wasn’t Katrina, who was it?” she asked her reflection.

  “You need something in there?” called the clerk.

  “No, thanks! Just talking to myself.”

  She emerged a few moments later and draped the ill-fitting blouse over the counter.

  “Sure you don’t want that?” the clerk asked. “It’s cute.”

  Isobel shook her head. “No. And right now that’s just about the only thing I’m sure of.”

  The clerk held the blouse under her chin, and then ducked into the fitting room. Isobel left the store and walked back over to Lexington, where she stopped at Starbucks. The fresh air and unsuccessful retail therapy had done little to unfog her brain; it was time for the heavy artillery. Armed with a tall house blend, and unable to think of any more distractions, Isobel gave up and returned to the office. She set her coffee on her desk, and then followed the hall to the coat closet. As she approached, she became aware of raised voices behind Kit Blanchard’s half-closed door.