by Terry Fallis
“David, wake up! You know what she’s got, and how far down the road she is. Right now she’s only ever feeling pain and how slowly time passes. There is no ‘feeling better’ any more. And there won’t be.”
And there it was. It hit me so fast, so hard. I’d always managed to keep it at bay, but not any more. It was right there on top of me. I suddenly felt twice my own weight, as if I’d landed on Jupiter, and the lump lodged in my throat felt positively planetary. I squeezed my eyes shut as hard as I could to keep my face dry, and breathed deeply through my mouth. I felt Lauren’s hand slide into mine. Even though I’d moved back to Toronto weeks ago, she could see that I’d finally arrived.
Before I left, I tried again to visit with Mom but she was oscillating between light sleep and medicated stupor. Neither state lent itself to conversation. So I just sat on the bed for an hour and tried to remember what she used to look like.
Of course, Lauren was right. I’d been AWOL on the home front since returning from Washington four weeks ago. I’d only managed a couple of visits and even then I’d been preoccupied. I’d tried to explain the inner workings of the contest to my mother, if only to make sure I had it straight, but she nodded off in the middle. And it may not have had anything to do with her disease or treatment. I pledged to carve out more time for my mother and sister. I just didn’t know where it was going to come from.
It had been an exhausting month or so since winning the account. Amanda and I, along with a great team of young and dedicated PR pros from whom I was learning a great deal, worked nearly around the clock to get ready for the launch news conference. I was more focused on bringing the contest to life, while Amanda and Diane worked on finalizing the actual plan, budget, and contract. The Canadian plan document was beautiful when finally printed and bound. It was quite different from the U.S. plan, largely because our country is quite different from the U.S. Beyond the disparity in populations, there was a raft of state jurisdictional anomalies that dictated a more complex approach south of the 49th parallel. While the Canadian plan covered more ground geographically, it was simpler to implement, and I was relieved about that.
What had taken the most time was hammering out the contest rules and regs. With NASA’S blessing, we signed a non-disclosure agreement and then a partnership contract with National Lottery Corporation (NLC) to help us develop and run the contest in Canada. NLC was satisfied with the global accounting firm TK had contracted to oversee the contest mechanics in both countries. In fact, they had already worked on several national contests with Emily Hatch, a big wheel from the Toronto office of Borden-Bennett. Emily would ensure that the Canadian rules and regs were honoured to the very edge of every serif on every letter of the law. The word “stickler” seemed to have been created in honour of Emily.
After I had briefed the Canadian Space Agency (CSA) very, very unofficially, NASA had approached them officially with the contest idea. NASA was thrilled that the CSA jumped on board so quickly. I was not surprised in the least. Why wouldn’t CSA be there? The contest would give the agency national, continental, and even global exposure which could lead to more funding from the feds in the same way that NASA was gunning for more dollars from Congress. It was a win-win, and I knew CSA would see it that way. They signed on fast. In the negotiations, NASA hemmed and hawed and finally agreed to assign a Canadian astronaut to the mission as a kind of escort for the Canadian contest winner. We’d pushed for this and it made sense for us, strategically. The CSA’S polling showed that public interest in space peaked when a Canadian astronaut was flying. I learned later that putting a Canadian astronaut on the mission was hardly a major concession. As it turned out, Martine Juneau, a very impressive Canadian mission specialist, had already been scheduled for the flight anyway. How magnanimous of NASA.
The phone in my cubicle emitted its funny sound and I saw “NASA” pop up on the little screen on my phone.
“David Stewart.”
“David, it’s Kelly Bradstreet.”
Uh-oh. What had I done? I was still a little nervous dealing directly with the client. Amanda and Diane had handled most of the NASA liaison, so I was a little concerned to hear from Kelly directly.
“Um, hi Kelly,” I stammered. “Um, it looks like we’re right on track here. All systems are go for the launch next week … to, er, coin a phrase.”
“Relax, David, I’m not calling with a problem. You guys are doing a great job. Smooth sailing so far. I wish your D.C. office was doing as well. They’re still a few steps behind trying to pull it all together,” she said, taking me off the hook. “I’ve learned through several discussions with Diane that this whole contest idea really came from your brain. Based on your presentation during the pitch, I’d suspected but wasn’t sure.”
“Well, it’s a team effort.”
“Yeah, yeah. I know you cooked this up and I just wanted to say thanks for such a great creative idea. NASA has never been known for their out-of-the-box PR savvy and I really wanted to change that. Your idea may just start to turn the ship around. So, well done.”
“Thanks, Kelly. Here’s hoping it all goes according to plan.”
“Well, if it doesn’t, at least I know who to ream out,” she said.
Silence ensued.
“David, that was a joke.”
We’d just put the rules to bed, finally securing agreement from all parties, including the heads of the CSA and NASA and Emily Hatch. When Emily’s legal hotshots at Borden-Bennett had finished drafting the full set of regulations governing the contest, it might as well have been written in Lithuanian. Emily was kind enough to provide simultaneous translation as I waded through the hefty document. I doubted the North American Free Trade Agreement was any longer or more indecipherable. While we would certainly use the lengthy legal document as our regulatory bible, I had to draft something for public consumption that outlined the contest rules. The only real change Emily insisted upon from the basic rules we’d come up with ourselves had to do with the way people could enter the contest. We’d just assumed that Canadians would have to enter online. Emily’s view was that if the contest was truly to be open to all Canadians, we had to allow entries from those who did not have access to a computer and a high-speed Internet connection. So we permitted mail-in entries as well.
My phone sounded again. I recognized the number immediately.
“Minister, what a surprise,” I said.
“Hello, David. I figured I’d never be able to reach you now that you’ve left the cushy Ottawa life and gotten a real job. But here you are picking up on the first ring.”
“Old habits die hard, Minister,” I replied. “How’s my successor doing?”
“Well, we didn’t really think the job warranted a full-time position so my driver is filling in on a trial basis.”
I laughed, and so did she.
“Actually, we snagged an ex-journalist from the Halifax Chronicle-Herald to fill your shoes and she started last week,” the minister explained. “She used to have the science beat, but print is still hurting, so her position was about to be phased out. We’re glad to have her.”
I’d already heard this news and thought it was a good move.
“I remember her. I think you’ve made a great hire.”
“I think she’ll do well. I mean, the job’s not that hard anyway, right?”
The minister and I had always had this kind of back-and-forth bantering relationship, and I’d considered it a good sign that she was comfortable joking around with me. I was glad she still felt that way.
Enough kibitzing.
“David, I’ve just been briefed on this citizen astronaut idea that NASA is pursuing. I’m not surprised that you had a hand in it. So run it by me again without all the big words the CSA egghead was using, will you?”
“Sure, Minister,” I started. “Simply put, we want to rekindle the public’s enthusiasm for the space program by giving average citizens an opportunity to fly on the shuttle and do a few turns about the Eart
h on the International Space Station. There’ll be one American citizen and one Canadian on the scheduled flight this fall. They’ll be trained over the next few months in Florida so that the lucky winners can perform some modest mission-related tasks while in orbit. We don’t want them feeling like human cargo. Then they’ll return safely to Earth and become instant celebrities. Our lucky Canadian will probably end up on a cereal box and perhaps even snag a reality TV show. Ultimately, NASA’S goal is to re-engage the citizenry and turn that public support into dollars from Congress. The folks at the Canadian Space Agency have similar goals and are hoping the Minister of Finance will send them big bucks in the next federal budget. That’s it in a nutshell.”
“Okay, got it. Now take me through the mechanics,” she continued.
“Okay, here we go. Any Canadian over eighteen can enter online or via snail mail. It’s free to enter but you can only enter once. If entrants are caught submitting two entries, both are eliminated. Each valid entry is then assigned a number. The winner is not chosen by some celebrity thrusting her hand into a big drum filled with slips of paper. Too much could go wrong. Rather, a computer uses a random number generator to yield the winning number, which is then matched with an online or paper entry. If everything looks legit, we have ourselves a citizen astronaut, provided of course that a honking big liability waiver is signed. Of course, we vet them before the name is made public just to make sure we haven’t randomly selected a sadistic serial killer to represent all Canadians on the space station. That might make for a great horror flick, but I doubt the prime minister would approve. If the candidate isn’t found to be keeping human limbs in his freezer, he’ll be approved for the program, but not necessarily for the mission yet. Then we announce the American and Canadian citizen winners, before sending them to Florida for some intense civilian astronaut training. After that, if they’re up to the rigours of the training program, both citizens will be cleared for the mission. Finally, overseeing it all is a very by-the-book accountant from Borden-Bennett who is rumoured to suffer some kind of a seizure whenever she sees someone jaywalk or jump the queue at the movies. You don’t want to mess with Emily Hatch. So that’s it, from liftoff to splashdown.”
“Well, it sounds fantastic. What a great idea,” she said warmly. “So we’re up for it, but before we all have a group hug, I do need you to hear me out. If anything goes south, I mean anything at all, I do not want, repeat, do not want our government to wear it. Am I coming in loud and clear?” This was the real reason the Minister of Science and Technology had called.
“Crystal clear, Minister,” I responded. “You want to bask in the reflected glow of a great Canadian moment, but disappear without a trace if something goes terribly wrong, leaving NASA to pick up the pieces.”
I wondered if I’d pushed our relationship too far by characterizing it in that way. I need not have worried.
“You were always a quick study, David,” she said. “That is exactly what I want.”
“And that’s exactly why we’re not inviting you or any other elected official to participate in the launch news conference next week,” I explained.
“Right. Makes sense,” agreed the minister. “I’ll chat with the prime minister about it, but we’re on board.”
My ex-boss and I chatted for a few more minutes before she had to bail for her next briefing.
With the launch news conference a week away, we had secured final approval on all of the materials we’d prepared, including the media advisory, news release, contest backgrounder, plain language rules and regs, bios for the head of the Canadian Space Agency and the overachieving Canadian astronaut, Martine Juneau, and the website where Canadians could find all the information they needed about the Citizen Astronaut contest and, yes, enter the contest.
I’d written some of the materials myself and edited the rest. I was pretty pleased with the work we’d done. But there was some tension in the air as we struggled to get it all done. Amanda was really cracking the whip to keep us just a hair ahead of our strict work-back schedule. For the juniors doing the heavy lifting on the account, fear of Amanda appeared to be a great motivator, although it often led to loathing. Had any of them heard Amanda utter the words “God, I am such a bitch,” as I had, they would probably have agreed.
On the Monday before the Wednesday launch news conference, we media-trained Martine Juneau and her boss, Armand Gelinas, the head of the Canadian Space Agency. I was to be an observer in the session and had provided our lead media trainer, Robert, with insight and tough questions to use in the simulated interviews. I’d seen Martine in dozens of interviews and had no concerns about her media skills. Armand, on the other hand, had always struck me as a bit jumpy. I’d been in countless briefings with him while I’d been on the minister’s staff, and I still couldn’t quite figure him out.
The idea was to rehearse the launch news conference with the two of them, as well as practise the one-on-one interviews and media scrums that would follow the newser. We wanted the best media coverage we could get, so preparing well made sense. I’d often helped my minister prepare for media interviews but I’d never seen how a PR agency goes about training their clients. I was about to find out.
“David, let’s go,” urged Amanda as she snaked her head into my cubicle. “They’ll be here any minute and you don’t want to miss this.”
Amanda and I had been getting along reasonably well since the pitch in Washington. I was still a little scared of her, but I thought I was beginning to understand her and feel more comfortable around her. When she began to accept that I wasn’t after her job, she lightened up and on several occasions actually displayed a sense of humour and a few other traits normally associated with human behaviour. I stood up and turned towards the back door of the boardroom. She grabbed my arm and spun me the other direction.
“Nope. We’re going to loiter out in the lobby to see them arrive.”
She walked me down the hall, still holding my arm as if I were being escorted out of a courtroom. We reached the lobby and sat down in the guest chairs as if we were waiting to be seen by someone important in the firm.
“Okay, we’re just going to hang here for a while and look as if we’re supposed to be here,” explained Amanda.
“You lost me, Amanda. Why don’t we just wait for them in the boardroom? That’s where the media training is taking place, isn’t it?” I asked. I noticed Eli from the mailroom off to the side of the elevators, a video camera resting on his shoulder, while Robert, from the office next to mine, a former investigative TV reporter, stood further in the shadows.
“Yes, of course the training happens mostly in the boardroom, but it actually starts right here, any second now,” Amanda said.
On cue, the elevator dinged, the door opened and out walked Martine Juneau and Armand Gelinas, right on schedule. Robert lunged in front of them as Eli ignited the sun gun on the top of the camera and thrust the lens well into their personal space.
“Mr. Gelinas, Ms. Juneau, can you confirm that we’re about to raffle off a seat on the next shuttle so an average Joe can visit the space station?”
Armand Gelinas opened his eyes wider than I thought physiologically possible. He may also have been on the verge of losing bowel control, as he turned to dash down the hall towards the men’s room. But he passed right by, swung open the Exit door, and by the sound of his footfalls, sprinted down the stairs. It was the kind of reaction you might expect if he’d been trying to evade gunfire. I finally allowed my eyes to wander back to the elevators where Martine was calmly engaged in what I know to be called an ambush interview.
“I’m afraid I can only confirm that we will be making an announcement next Wednesday about a future space shuttle mission,” explained Martine, while smiling sweetly into the camera. “I’m just not in a position to offer any more than that. But I can tell you that the Canadian Space Agency is very proud to be long-time partners with NASA in the exploration of space.”
“But come on, a ra
ffle? Are you really going to ask someone a skill-testing question and then let them strap into the shuttle and hit the launch button? What if something goes wrong?” Robert persisted.
“To reiterate, I’m simply not permitted to comment on rumours and speculation. I can confirm that there will be a news conference next Wednesday and I invite you to attend. At that time all will be made clear,” she concluded with a smile.
“Come on, Martine. We’ve got a copy of the briefing note. Your secret is out. We know the Citizen Astronaut contest is just about ready for prime time. What can you tell us about it?”
“I can certainly confirm that next Wednesday we’ll be holding a news conference to discuss an important initiative, and you’re invited to attend. But right now, I’m already a little late for an important meeting, so if you’ll excuse me,” Martine said as she sidestepped the camera and walked into the lobby.
To Robert’s credit, he did not pursue her further but disappeared with Eli through another door on the far side of the elevators. Martine glanced our way as she approached the receptionist and her eyes held mine as she probed her memory banks for my face.
“Hello, Martine. I’m David Stewart. I used to handle communications for the Minister of Science and Technology. You and I have met at CSA a few times,” I explained, taking her off the hook.
“Of course, David. I knew I recognized you. How are you – and what are you doing here?” Martine replied.
“Family matters brought me back to Toronto so I traded in life on Parliament Hill for life in a multinational PR agency. This is my colleague, Amanda Burke. She’s running the NASA account here in Toronto.”
Amanda beamed as she shook Martine’s hand.
“It’s an honour to meet you, Martine,” said Amanda. “And you rocked that ambush back there. This could be a short media training session if you’re already that good.”
“Well, I’ve done a fair bit of media over the years but I’m afraid my boss, Armand, may need some coaching, that is if we can find him. I have no idea where he bolted to. But from the look in his eyes, he might be halfway back to Ottawa by now,” she said with a chuckle.
