The magazine would give me the title of Chief Revenue Officer, which sounds made up and probably is. The sales force—all ten people—would report to me. Yes, you can call it what it is. I’d be a sales manager for a city magazine. This is not what I want to do. It is far beneath my skill set. If I must, I will take this job. Put a huge spin on it to anyone who asks and then find something suitable. I don’t want to do this, put this lowly job on my résumé. But I can take it, if I must. It’s just that there is so much money sitting across from me, why should I have to stoop so low?
“I have looked, and interviewed. As I said, I have several offers I’m weighing. I will negotiate them all and select the best package. I’ll announce something soon,” I answer. My champagne glass is long empty, and I need a drink. With the waiter both ignoring and hating me, I will most likely be devoid of a beverage for the remainder of this miserable meal. I scan the restaurant, the tables nearest to us and make eye contact with a young, stout woman who is the waitress for the next table over. She nods in acknowledgment of my wave, as if she’ll be right over. Hopefully, our waiter hasn’t warned her off.
“So that’s your plan, then?” Mia says. Her arms are folded across her chest, and she’s leaning forward, like a principal at school who has called you into her office so you can create your own punishment. Who would comply with that? I wouldn’t. “Your severance, if you received any, has been gone for a while. Our accounts are all almost empty. You don’t feel any sense of urgency?”
This meal will go on record as the longest dinner ever. I fight the urge to check my wristwatch—it’s a sleek Apple Watch but if I don’t turn my wrist exactly the correct way the display remains black and I must quite obviously push a button on its side to illuminate the damn time. I long for the olden days of watches that simply told you the time. I wonder where my old Nashville watch is. Unfortunately, I never did get the bloodstain off the band.
It’s fine. I already know time is moving as slowly as my youngest son when you are waiting for him to complete a task. I appreciate patience is a virtue and applaud those who have it, as long as they stay out of my way. Here we are, though, the money/job question. But it’s fine. As noted, I have been expecting this.
“I did receive some severance, as a matter of fact,” I say. That is a lie. When you’re fired, you don’t receive much. They gave me two months’ pay as a token gesture. Whatever. You just get called into the idiot HR woman’s office and told you are fired. Your things are packed up into boxes by strangers. Security guards escort you out of the building as if you were going to go postal or something. As if you knew you were to be fired and had brought a gun with you. But you didn’t, because these people are sneaky. No, they don’t give you warnings, I suppose, so you can’t bring a gun and blow off the head of the droopy-eyed, twelve-year-old-looking head of HR. I hate HR people. I never really had closure with mine, come to think of it.
She sat behind her desk, pointing to the chair in front of her. Her name was Rebecca More. The entire space behind her was filled with potted plants, like an untamed nursery, and smelled like fertilizer. The plants blocked the window so the effect was a perpetual cloudy day. This was not, of course, our first meeting. She had called me in almost three months earlier to inform me that a coworker had filed a harassment claim against me. I had been stunned. Two reasons. First, her outfit. I mean, we were supposed to be the top advertising agency in the region and this woman was wearing, I kid you not, something straight from Kmart. Black polyester pants, a light pink blouse that barely stayed closed over her gigantic breasts. Her droopy eyes were accented by black cat-eye shaped glasses. I almost started to laugh, thinking the creative team had tricked me into a television commercial shoot right here in our offices. Rebecca More could not work at Thompson Payne. She wasn’t cool enough.
“Sit down, Mr. Strom,” she said, motioning toward the white leather chair. I sat, playing my role.
“Call me Paul,” I said, pouring on the charm. I looked around her office, trying to find the creative team’s hidden cameras behind one of the potted palms. Any moment one of the young guys from that department would appear, his hair pulled back in a ponytail, and say, “We got you, man.”
“Is something funny, Mr. Strom?” Rebecca asked. I bit my bottom lip to keep the grin off my face. Perhaps this wasn’t a commercial shoot. No problem. She would be putty in my hands by the end of the meeting, that’s what I had thought.
“How long have you worked at the agency, Rebecca? Welcome,” I said.
I could tell by her head-tilted snarky look that was the wrong thing to say.
“I’ve been with the agency as director of HR for two years, Mr. Strom. We have been in meetings together. But that isn’t important. This is a formal warning. You are to have no unnecessary contact at work with Ms. Caroline Fisher. You are to cease inviting her on to your account pitches. She was given the option to take this a step further, but she is giving you a chance here, Mr. Strom.”
Rebecca closed the file on her desk, my file I supposed, and placed her glasses on top of it.
I sat across from her and blinked. I wasn’t so much shocked as angry. How dare Caroline, someone I’ve helped grow and prosper at the agency, turn on me? We had something special at first. Something rivaling the connection Mia and I had. I know she felt it, too. Caroline had been new to the agency, new to town. I’d noticed her the day old Mr. Thompson was showing her around. But her second day, she was on her own. She needed a mentor, someone to show her the ropes and I would gladly apply for the job. When I saw her walking across the parking lot, I headed for the elevator and wouldn’t you know it, we ended up sharing a ride up together. Just the two of us.
You know by now I have a type. Thin, young, long hair. Caroline is no different. She has long, dirty-blond hair that swings past her shoulders, green eyes and she wears tight jeans, high heels and blazers to work. She takes my breath away.
“You’re head of account services?” she asked once I’d introduced myself in the elevator. “That’s my dream job. I mean, someday.”
She blushed, uncertain if I’d take her gunning for my job the right way. I didn’t feel threatened, of course. Just turned on. Really turned on.
“Well, to prep for your eventual takeover of my position, how about if I assign you to the essential oil account? It’s our most fun consumer-facing account at the moment.” I offered the position as I imagined rubbing Caroline with lavender oil, her shoulders, her thighs.
“That would be amazing, thank you, Mr. Strom,” she said.
“Call me Paul.” I shook her hand as the elevator doors opened, holding it a bit longer than usual. The sexual energy was there. It had been a promising start.
And then, boom. Once she found out I was married, suddenly I was a stalker. We had been working long hours on the essential oil account, preparing for the big pitch when my secretary interrupted, explaining my wife was on the line and it was urgent. It wasn’t. Mikey had a fever, that was it. But it was enough. After I took the call, Caroline had changed.
I tried to joke around with her, put my hand on her shoulder like I had before the call. She shook it off.