The next six years were the best of Harriett’s career. Together, she and Nelson made a formidable team. He did the schmoozing. Harriett did most of the thinking. Because she brought in the business, she knew every account in the agency. When an idea popped into her head, she would give it to a creative team who could make something out of it. She had a talent for convincing them they’d come up with it first. That was how she met Chase. He was one of two copywriters assigned to a pitch she was leading. The other guy was a prick, so Harriett slipped Chase an idea she’d been working on. She inserted it into a conversation, repeating it twice to make sure he caught hold of it. After that, Chase always talked through his work with her. When they were alone, he called her his good luck charm.
Harriett did well in advertising. At forty-eight, she was still employed, with a mid-six-figure salary. People whispered that she’d be the next president of the agency, though she never encouraged such idle chatter. Chase, though, was a phenomenon, racking up awards and pulling in millions each year. Harriett couldn’t quite pinpoint when he’d stopped thanking her in his acceptance speeches. Most likely around the same time he began an affair.
When Chase left her, Harriett had had every right to be furious, and she was. But she also felt oddly restored. She took three weeks off as an experiment. In twenty-five years, she’d never taken such a long vacation. She spent the time in her garden, ignoring the emails that continued to accumulate in her inbox. For the first time in ages, she shared none of herself. Only when her magic began to return did she realize just how much she’d given away.
It was almost six when Harriett was called into Max’s office. When she arrived, he gave her a hug.
“How are you, my dear?” he asked. “How was vacation? You’re looking tanned and rested.”
Harriett knew his game. Pretend nothing’s happened and shoot the shit for ten minutes until tempers cooled. She’d fallen for it so many times.
Two years earlier, she’d accepted Max’s job offer, hoping to replicate the work relationship she’d once had with Nelson. What Max lacked in talent, he more than made up for in charisma. Max was the kind of man who made other guys feel like they belonged to an exclusive club. Harriett wasn’t invited, of course, but that was fine with her. While Max and the clients fluffed each other’s egos, she could get good work done. When she’d arrived at the agency, it was hemorrhaging accounts. The two of them together had saved it. But Max still believed he was running a one-man show.
“What’s up, Max? I want to get home, and I know you didn’t call me in here to discuss my tan.”
“Chris came to see me earlier. He says you don’t like the Pura-Tea work.”
“It sounds like you’re asking for my honest opinion. Is that what you really want?”
“Of course,” he insisted.
“I saw four executions. Three left no impression. The fourth was one of the most offensively sexist spots I’ve ever seen. And I once pitched a beer brand from Brazil.”
“The Pura-Fide execution?” he asked, as though he couldn’t quite believe it. “I thought it was funny—and you have to admit that the structure is clever. I showed it to my wife. She laughed her ass off at the reveal.”
That was a lie. She knew his wife. The woman hadn’t laughed in years.
“Your daughter is how old? Seventeen?”
His megawatt smile dimmed considerably. “Come on, Harriett.”
“Seriously, Max. I grew up watching stuff that taught me that women who enjoyed sex were whores. That we should try to be who men wanted us to be—not who we really were. It fucked me up. It fucked up a lot of the women I know. Is that what you want for your kid?”
“So this is personal.”
“Of course it’s personal. Everything is personal. Anyone who tells you it isn’t is trying to screw you over.”
“Well, Chris is worried that you and he may not be able to work together. You’re going to need to smooth things over. Let this one go, Harriett.”
How many things had she let go? How much of herself had she already given away?
“Why me?”
“Because you’re wrong.”
“I’m a woman in the target audience. I’m also a woman with twenty-five years of advertising experience who hasn’t lost a single new business pitch in two years. And you’re telling me that I’m wrong about this?”
“Yes,” he said. “You don’t know what younger people find funny.”
It was a low blow, but she’d been expecting it. “If you say so. But I won’t present that ad to a client.”
“The way things are going, you won’t have to.”
Harriett’s laugh seemed to throw him. “You haven’t won a piece of new business without me,” she said. “You need a win now to justify bringing your boy in from London. I’ve heard you’re paying him five times my salary. Won’t look good if he falls flat on his face the first time out. You sure you want to risk it?”
“You know, you’re not as good as you think,” Max said.
No,” Harriett agreed. She’d known he’d get mean. She’d been waiting for it. “I’m better.”
His lip curled into a snarl, and Harriett glimpsed the fear that lay beneath his contempt. “You may not believe this, but there’s a reason I’m CEO of this agency and you’re not.”
Harriett laughed again. She saw how it infuriated him and laughed even harder. “Oh, I believe it. There is a reason, but it has nothing to do with talent.”
“Chris Whitman is worth a dozen of you.”
“You’re afraid of me,” Harriett observed. It was hard to believe it had taken her so long to see it. “That’s why you have to keep me in my place.”
“I’m afraid of you?”
“Yes, you’re afraid of me because I’m better than you are. And if you give one talented woman the power she deserves, another will follow. Then another. And together they’ll show that their way is better. Then your whole fake fucking world will come tumbling down.”
Harriett picked up a One Show pencil and tossed it to him. “You wouldn’t have this if it weren’t for me.”
Max caught the golden pencil and promptly hurled it at the wall, where it left a satisfying gash in the drywall.
Next Harriett tossed a Silver Lion, followed by a Webby. “Or these.”
They hit the wall as well.
“I made all of this happen. Without me, they’d have put you out to pasture a long time ago.”
“Fuck you, cunt,” he snarled.
The door opened and two security guards appeared just as Max was prepared to hurl another Lion. “You better walk me out,” she advised them. “If this asshole does anything to me, I’ll own the whole place.”
That evening, she kicked off her shoes on the train and didn’t bother to slip them back on when they reached the Mattauk stop. As Harriett strolled home from the train station barefoot in the rain, she knew the neighbors were peeping at her through the blinds, and she didn’t give a rat’s ass. She felt totally free for the first time in her life.