Evelyn snuck out of PLU at noon that Friday, after an intense and tiring argument with Arun and Jin-ho. The Habsburg founder was unhappy with the membership numbers, and Arun and Jin-ho called her into one of the conference rooms to discuss it. They wanted more traditional marketing, they said; Evelyn should do whatever it took to get the numbers up.
“Like what?” she’d asked. “You want me to buy mailing lists from real-estate records in tony neighborhoods? Do you know how expensive those are, and how much unsolicited mail those people get? The point of this site is that it’s selective. If you want mass, you can go to MySpace, and even Facebook isn’t restrictive about colleges anymore. We don’t need to copy what they’re doing.”
“We need something else,” Arun had said. “The one-off events you’ve held have been expensive and haven’t resulted in big yields.”
“It’s a long-term strategy. At this point we shouldn’t be doing huge events with huge numbers. If you want to spend on a real launch party, terrific. I’ll happily get behind that. But that’s going to be in the hundreds of thousands of dollars and I don’t think we have the budget for it. The smaller events are relatively cheap and are building buzz: we’ve been on Page Six, we’ve been in Styles, and the members we have are purely A-list: Bridie Harley, Caperton Ripp, Camilla Rutherford, Preston and Bing Hacking, to name a few. That’s precisely where we want to be.”
“Ulrich feels the numbers should be higher by now,” Arun had said.
“Ulrich is Swiss and, with respect, in his seventies. We’re going after American twentysomethings. He’s going to have to trust us.”
“One of my buddies works in the Rangers front office,” Jin-ho had said. “You should talk to him once hockey season gets going. They’re pros at comarketing.”
“The Rangers? Are you kidding?” Evelyn said. “I don’t think providing foam fingers as men knock out each other’s teeth screams elite. We’re trying to prove that this is a site for the highest social strata. If we do something off-brand now, we lose them. They can smell error. They can smell weakness.”
Arun had twisted his lips, then smiled; he was nicer than Jin-ho. “Okay, Evelyn, but like it or not, we all work for Ulrich, and if he says we get the numbers up, then we get the numbers up. It doesn’t have to be a Rangers game, but you’ve got to figure something out.”
Evelyn had folded her arms, not wanting to commit to anything. When she’d seen Arun and Jin-ho leave the building at noon, headed for some Vegas bachelor party, she’d strode out onto the street, hitting the pavement so hard she made dents in her heels, to meet Camilla at Takashimaya, a Japanese department store on Fifth.
It was quiet as a library in there when Evelyn found Camilla on the second floor, examining a travel nail-care kit encased in crocodile. “This is cute, don’t you think?” Camilla said when Evelyn arrived. Evelyn felt like her head was emitting clouds of steam.
“What?” asked Camilla.
“Work,” Evelyn groaned. “They won’t listen to a thing I have to say.”
“Who won’t?”
“The co-CEOs. Arun and Jin-ho.”
“Whoosie and whatsit? Who are they?”
“Stanford grads. Random Stanford grads, I might add. Jin-ho buttons his top button, and Arun unbuttons to, like, three or four buttons, so we can all share in his chest hair. Yet they think they know more than I do about what to do for the site.”
“That’s cray-cray. Ignore it!” Camilla said gaily. “My acupuncturist says we have to dismiss all negative energy in our lives. I want leather sandals.”
As though Camilla had summoned a genie, a white-haired man approached. Evelyn let her eyes slide over him, mimicking the frostiness with which Barbara had always treated salespeople, and expecting Camilla to do the same. Instead, Camilla leaned in.
“Hello!” said Camilla, as if the man were a favorite uncle. “How are you? Isn’t it beautiful outside today? I love your tie pin. I’m hoping for some sandals. Size seven.”
The man gave her a gap-toothed grin that made him look sweet and alive, not like a laid-off office worker who could only find a job selling ladies’ shoes. This was the magic of Camilla. “Sandals,” the man repeated, and headed into the back. He returned with three large boxes and squatted below Camilla.
“You’re too funny,” Camilla said, as he fastened one pair on her feet.
“I’m sorry,” Evelyn said. “I’m still thinking about this work thing. They actually mentioned doing a marketing event at a Rangers game today.”
“Ew. I don’t want my profile on there if there are going to be sports people on it.”
“No, no no no no. They’re not actually going to do it. I’m not going to let them. I will preserve the site, I promise.” Evelyn couldn’t lose Camilla as a member, and she quickly formed a new idea. “Members should come from people like us, per the site name. I was thinking they should do something with, say, the new crop of debs.”