The skirt was the reason she was the last of her colleagues to walk through the door of the new creative director’s office. She’d been informed of his hiring at the beginning of the month, but he’d arrived while she was on vacation, and she had yet to meet him in person. She entered the room to find him already holding court. Chris Whitman was Scottish, like Max, the agency’s CEO. He and Max had worked together back in London, and now Max had brought his protégé to New York at enormous expense. The agency had been on a winning streak for two years, and after they’d doubled their billings, their holding company, which had previously squeezed every spare cent from them, decided it was best to let Max do as he liked. They and the press attributed the agency’s success to Max’s swashbuckling leadership. He was tall, dark, and rugged. No matter the setting, he wore the same uniform of black T-shirt and jeans. He fit the ad world’s picture of a renegade genius. The fact that the agency’s winning streak hadn’t begun until Harriett was brought on as new business director was deemed a coincidence. When Max decided he needed a “partner in crime,” it never occurred to anyone but Harriett that he might already have one.
Harriett took Chris’s measure from the doorway. He was attractive but short. Max liked to have good-looking people around him, but he was careful not to hire anyone taller or more talented. Chris didn’t share the CEO’s height or bombastic personality, but their egos appeared to be a perfect match. Like his boss, Chris seemed perfectly at home in New York with a group of American sycophants hanging on his every accented syllable.
There were four men in the room, all a few years younger than Harriett. When she appeared in the office, they glanced up with unease. Her presence always altered the energy of the room—like a teacher returning from a bathroom break or someone’s mom showing up at a keg party.
Chris paused in the middle of the tale he was telling and turned to Harriett. “So how long will he be?” he asked.
Movement on the couch caught Harriett’s eye. Andrew Howard, the head account guy, was squirming. “How long will who be?” she asked.
“Max,” the CD replied with a touch of exasperation, as though trying to make sense to a sweet but dim-witted child.
“Why would I know when Max will get here?” Harriett kept her voice cool and pleasant.
The creative director looked around at the men gathered in his office. Suddenly, none of them wanted to meet his eye.
“Who do you think I am?” Harriett asked. She knew. She just wanted to hear him say it. He thought she was an admin. If she’d played along, he might have asked her to bring him a cup of coffee.
Three months earlier, their exchange would have shaken Harriett’s confidence. What about her appearance made him mistake her for support staff? Did she lack gravitas? Did she look unsuited for her job?
The head of client services leaped to his rescue. “Chris, this is Harriett Osborne, head of our new business department. She’s been on vacation for the past few weeks.”
“Oh, of course!” Chris made a beeline for her, hand outstretched, no trace of shame or contrition anywhere on his face. He seemed to have no clue he’d committed a faux pas. “What an honor to finally meet you in person. I hear you were married to Chase Osborne. He does the Little Pigs ads. I’m a huge fan of his. The man is a genius.”
“I’m sure Chase would agree with you,” Harriett replied. “I’d pass on your kind words, but I don’t see him much anymore. He’s too busy fucking the head of his production department.”
The men in the room appeared to stop breathing. They all knew it. They would have filled Chris in the moment she left the room. But none of them expected her to beat them to the punch. Harriett grinned broadly. For years, veneers had disguised the natural gap between her two front teeth. During her vacation, she’d decided to get rid of them. Now they were all staring at the gap, struggling to remember if it had been there all along. It was fun, she thought, to keep them wondering.
“I believe we’re all here to talk new business.” Harriett took a seat in one of the office’s white leather chairs that no woman would have chosen. “And I’m the new business director. We don’t need Max for this, so let’s start. Who’s running the meeting?”
“I am.” Andrew Howard slid forward on the couch. He was a smarmy little asshole, Harriett thought. He couldn’t have cared less about the quality of the work, but he possessed a remarkable homing instinct for steak houses, golf courses, and strip clubs. Max liked him because he kept the clients happy—and happy clients didn’t call Max. “While you were out, we were invited to take part in two pitches. First up is Pura-Tea. It’s a new line of sparkling teas from Coke. They want to bring women over thirty back with the promise of great taste and health benefits. They’re pretty confident in the strategy, and they’re keen to see work. Chris and his teams have a few things to show us.”
“Anyone actually try the product?” Harriett asked.
“Yeah,” said the strategist. “It underdelivers on taste, so we’ve focused on health benefits.”
“Are there any real health benefits?” Harriett asked.
“No sugar, great hydration, and loaded with antioxidants.”
“What the fuck are antioxidants?” Harriett joked. “Anyone know?”
Andrew snorted and shrugged. The others in the room shook their heads.
“So basically we’re selling shitty carbonated water with a few vitamins thrown in.”
“That’s why they need advertising,” Chris chimed in. “Shitty carbonated water won’t sell itself. We’re going to convince these women it’s what they’ve been missing all their lives.”
Harriett spun around to face him. “So brilliant,” she gushed. Men in advertising loved to explain how it all worked. “Max said you were a genius. I can’t wait to see what you’ve got. Is that it?” She pointed to a tall stack of foam boards lying facedown on Chris’s desk. The message was clear. She wasn’t interested in a lecture on advertising.
The smile he gave her wasn’t terribly warm or friendly. She made sure the smile she offered in return was pure light and joy.
“Yeah, so I have four ideas to show you this morning.” Chris grabbed the first board off the stack on his desk and turned it over to reveal an illustrated frame from a video ad. A very young woman in a very small bathing suit lay by a glistening blue pool surrounded by forest, a bottle of Pura-Tea on the rocks beside her.
“Fuck, this isn’t the spot I wanted to start with. Andrew, can you rearrange these like I asked?”
As Andrew leaped from the sofa like a well-trained puppy, Harriett pointed at the image of the bikini-clad girl.
“You said they’re going after women over thirty. How old is the woman in the picture supposed to be?” Harriett inquired. “The illustration makes her look sixteen.”
“It’s meant to be an aspirational image of our female audience,” Chris explained. “Fit, gorgeous, and healthy.”
It was funny, Harriett thought. Twenty-five years in advertising, and the aspirational female had never changed. It was always whoever the art director wanted to screw. And, equally serendipitously, she could only be found in places the creative team wanted to travel.
“Women over thirty don’t aspire to be sixteen,” Harriett said. “We can be fit, gorgeous, and healthy at any age. Plus, once we hit thirty, a lot of us can afford a fuck-ton of overpriced iced tea.”
“Let’s not get hung up on the casting right now,” Chris said, handing the boards to Andrew. “Just imagine our heroines the way you’d like to see them.”
“As badass bitches who keep the world running and never get their due?” Harriett asked.
Chris glared at her. “Sure,” he said. “Why not.”
“Great!” Harriett said. “I love it already.”