Tornados are not a terribly common natural disaster in San Francisco, and so I was somewhat shocked at the state of affairs when I walked into the damage control meeting the next day. We really should have called the weather channel to report this unique phenomenon; I had never realized it was possible for so many people to rapidly whirl around you without them being propelled by a cyclone.
“Where have you—”
“—seven different news stations—”
“—employee morale at an all-time low!”
“Is the wedding still—”
“—potentially devastating for the company, not to mention—”
“—been trying to get into contact with you—”
“We’ve been saying ‘no comment,’ but—”
“Jennings is the critical—”
“—have to get in front of this!”
Faced with a bunch of near-screaming hyperactive businessmen hopped up on sugar, caffeine, and I-didn’t-want-to-know-what, I did the only thing I could do.
I clapped my hands like a goddamn kindergarten teacher.
Surprisingly, this worked, either because of the bone-deep memory of kindergarten disciplinarians or because everyone was just shocked that I had dared treat them like children.
Before anyone could ponder that too deeply, I took a breath, and also, control of the meeting. “First things first. What have we tried so far?”
There was some shuffling of feet, and after some teeth-pulling it turned out the answer was ‘not much.’ There had been a noncommittal official statement about the separation between personal and private lives, but with Grant and me both going incommunicado, no one had been willing to step up to bat and risk proposing some big gesture.
I felt guilt twist my stomach as I remembered those long, lazy hours at the beach, while these people had been sweating bullets.
That sympathy evaporated, though, with the devious suggestions that began pouring out of these people’s mouths like sewage out of storm drains: “Deny, deny, deny—”
“—know an actor who’d take some cash to say it was him—”
“—we can get a background check on these girls, dig up some dirt on those sluts and throw the limelight on them—”
“—he goes up onstage, makes a tearful speech about how he regrets framing Mr. Devlin—”
“—call the press and make it clear that if coverage doesn’t cease, donations to their newspaper will be!”
“Stop it!” I threw my hands up in the air. “None of these are doable. Setting aside the fact that they’re all morally reprehensible, none of them would work on Jennings. He’s not going to be fooled by any half-assed smokescreen. Now, tell me, does anyone have an idea that might work for him?”
Silence. Then, in a small voice:“We can contend that Mr. Devlin was drugged—”
“No,”Grant said,“not that.”Then he wavered.“Well, maybe—I mean—dammit, we have to do something. Anything, but—oh, damn it all to hell, no! We’re not saying that!” He slammed his fist down on the table, before whirling to his feet and out the door.
I was after him like a flash, but I was too late to save the section of the wall his fist was already hammering into dust.
“Stupid, stupid, stupid, corrupt—”
I grabbed his arm, and he sagged immediately to avoid pulling me into the wall with his fist.
“Hey,”I said softly.“Hey. Stop it. You’re hurting yourself.”
“How could I have been so stupid?”he whispered.“It was just supposed to be a bit of fun, I knew they had the camera but I didn’t think, I just didn’t think, I never think and it all goes to hell—”
“You can’t blame yourself, Grant—”
“How can I not blame myself? My stupid need to get my dick wet is threatening hundreds of jobs.” He sagged, almost fell forward, letting his forehead rest against the edge of the hole he’d made in the wall.“You told me to take itseriously, and now I do, and I don’t know what to do. How do people live like this? How do they care about things all the time and not go stark raving mad?”
“Well, sometimes they do go mad,”I said, reaching up to rub his back slowly.“But most of the time, they talk to their friends, and they help each other see that nothing is insurmountable.”
“This feels insurmountable,”he said, but his eyes closed as I rubbed his back, and his voice relaxed, slipping into its broad Australian vowels. It made him sound so young.“How do we distract from something this big? Jennings isn’t going to listen to some song and dance while our house is on fire.”
And somehow, just like that, I knew what to do.
“We don’t distract,”I said, feeling the warm glow that spreads through your body when you come up with an idea you just know is right.“We don’t dodge. That’s what everyone expects us to do, the sleaze move.”