I'll Be Your Everything (23 page)

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Authors: J.J. Murray

BOOK: I'll Be Your Everything
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“I know, I know,” Tom says, “and I know how you feel, right? I was in the same position. I had to act, too.” He sighs. “At first, I was so upset with you. Why couldn’t you have waited two more hours? But then, I was glad you did.”
Huh?
“When I saw you through that window down in Macon, it was like kismet, fate, luck, serendipity, whatever you want to call it. There you were. It was destiny.”
I rest my head against the window, the cold seeping through the pane cooling off my brain. At least I’m
somebody’s
destiny. “You could have busted me out, cost me my job, and
then
handed me this contract.”
He joins me at the window, sliding his big old paws around to my stomach. “You wouldn’t have accepted.”
I bump him with my booty. “I would have been pissed at you. And humiliated in front of some really nice people. And word would have gotten out, and no one would have hired me in this city ever again.” I turn into him and bang my head against his chest. “So why did you let me play the role? Why did you let me play Corrine?”
“I wanted to see you in action, and I’m not disappointed at all. Shari, you would run rings around ninety-nine percent of the account execs at Hairy Ads.”
I stop banging. “And the other one percent?”
“That would be me.”
Ah. Of course.
He holds me out from him, his hands on my shoulders. “And now I have the
ultimate
diabolical plan.”
“I have a plan, too.” If I tried to punch him, I’d swing and miss. His arms are almost as long as my body!
“There are far too many holes in your plan,” he says.
I know I have holes in my plan, but they are little holes, and they have been sealing themselves. “Such as?”
“Mr. Dunn will be at the meeting, right?”
“Yeah? So?”
“And Corrine
won’t
be at the meeting. Isn’t that your plan?”
I turn away and look out the window. “Right. I was going to run the show by myself. I was going to show Mr. Dunn I had what it takes.”
“Mr. Dunn used to work for Harrison Hersey and Boulder.”
I whirl around. “No, he didn’t.”
He nods. “He doesn’t talk about it or even have it on his bio. Your Mr. Dunn was in the junior exec program at Hairy Ads about thirty-five years ago, only he didn’t make the cut. They let him go.”
Which is probably why he wants to stick it to “HHB” so badly.
“And if Corrine, Dunn’s ‘star,’ isn’t there to give him a chance at victory ...”
I step around him and go to the kitchen. “I know I could pull this off without her, Tom.” I open the pot and see a sticky, cheesy mess that actually smells kind of good. I stir it a few times. “I know I could.”
He sits on the table again. “You probably would if you got the chance, but there are no guarantees that Mr. Dunn will even give you a chance.”
“He’d have no other choice but to use me, Tom,” I say. “What else could he do?”
Tom sighs. “I’ll be blunt then. The CEO of an advertising agency can’t let a lowly administrative assistant take on Harrison Hersey and Boulder by herself.”
“I’m not lowly, Tom.” Just short.
“I know you aren’t, Shari, but that’s not the point. No matter how fantastic you are, word will get around that MultiCorp has lost faith in its senior account executives. Current and potential clients don’t like to hear that. Mr. Dunn would have to cut you off to save face.”
“He’d cut me off to
spite
his face,” I say. Shoot. Tom makes too much sense sometimes.
“And what about Mr. Peterson? He thinks you’re Corrine Ross. While a lot of advertising is built around carefully constructed lies, you cannot legally misrepresent who you are when contracts are in the balance.”
“I’ll just explain to Mr. Peterson why I did it,” I say. “He’ll understand.”
“Will he?” Tom asks. “This is a churchgoing man, a straight shooter. You weren’t straight with him. You might have the better ideas, but he’ll dismiss them because you lied to him.”
He’s right, but I don’t want to give up just yet. I open a cupboard and take out two bowls, slamming them onto the counter. “But I
want
to do this, Tom!”
“And you will. Just hear me out.”
I get two somewhat shiny spoons from a drawer. “First you say I will, then you say I won’t. I am not a yo-yo!” I fill both bowls and spin one in front of him. I sit in a chair, while he picks up his bowl and starts to eat.
“That’s a nice image,” he says between bites. “You’re not a yo-yo.”
“I’m under a lot of stress, Tom.”
He smiles. “It’s good to know you can think on your feet.” “I’m sitting down now.” I take a bite. Not terrible. Pretty bland. Needs salt. I add some. Better.
“You’ll be on your feet in a second,” he says.
What?
“Shari, um, you see, for my new ultimate plan to work, we first have to get, um, we have to get Corrine to come back.”
I don’t jump up. “No,” I say calmly, wanting so badly to jump up! Wow! What’s Tom smoking?
“Yes,” he says, finishing his last bite. “We need her back in the office on Monday morning.” He goes to the pot and spoons out another bowlful.
“And why do we need her?” I ask.
He smiles. “To do what she does best. We need her to mess things up.”
Now I jump up. I wave my spoon at him. “That’s what I’ve been trying to avoid!”
He slides into my seat and pulls me to his lap. I go willingly because I like his lap a lot. “Picture this: Corrine comes in after ten days away from the office, and you dump everything on her. Peterson, the deadline, the meeting. Everything. Can you picture it?”
I close my eyes. “Let’s see, she’ll be left-breasted, she’ll be darker, she’ll still be pining for you, she’ll probably be wearing Jason Wu, poor man, and then I’ll say, ‘By the way, we have a finished product presentation to give tomorrow at two o’clock. Just came up. Didn’t want to bother you while you were in recovery. You ready to do some storming?’” Hey now. That might be fun.
“And how will Corrine most likely react?”
I open my eyes. “If she doesn’t immediately escape to an expensive restaurant for lobster Newburg, she’ll ... she’ll freak.” Oh my! I am beginning to
love
this plan. I take a huge bite and chew it loudly. “Then she’ll accuse me of withholding information. She’ll scream at me for ruining her. She’ll throw the ultimate wench fit, and everyone will finally see the wench she is.” I smile. “She’ll ... go ... off.”
“And what will
you
do? I’m sure you’ve had this fantasy.”
“Well, first of all, I will smile in her face the entire time. I’ll also do happy dances under my desk. And then, I’ll, um, I’ll tear up my notes into confetti. No. I’ll already have them shredded into confetti and just hand her a plastic bag. Then I’ll ... I’ll put fingerprints all over her Plexiglas shield.” I kiss his lips even though they’re cheesy. “Then I’ll tell her I’ve stolen you away from her, and then I’ll quit.”
“Precisely.”
That sounds ... wonderful, but ... there’s this problem called rent, utilities, food. “So ... I’m suddenly unemployed. That can’t be good.”
Tom finishes his second helping, dropping his spoon into the bowl. “What’s the first thing Corrine will do after you leave?”
Get something to eat? No. “She’ll panic.”
“Okay. She panics. Then what will she do?”
She’ll call the client. “She’ll call Mr. Peterson and ask for an extension.” That he’ll
never
give. Oh, man, this plan is the
junk!
“And when Mr. Peterson says something like, ‘No, Miss Ross, I guess I’ll just have to go with Hairy Ads if you can’t swing it ...’ ”
“She’ll ... she’ll go to Mr. Dunn.”
“Would she
really
go to Mr. Dunn?” he asks.
No, she wouldn’t. She’d have so much to explain to him that she couldn’t possibly explain. “No. She avoids him all the time, especially when she has screwed up.” I’m beginning to see where he’s going with all this. “Then Corrine will call me. She’d try to get me to come back.” This plan is getting more and more delicious.
“And what will you do?”
“I get to tell her off again!” Joy! Sheer bliss!
“One problem, Shari.”
No joy? No sheer bliss?
“How else are you going to get into the meeting with Mr. Peterson? You don’t work for MultiCorp anymore.”
Oh yeah. Shoot. “So I’d
have
to go back to work for that wench?”
He turns me around so that I’m straddling him. “Yes.” He starts massaging my lower back.
“But ...” Oh, that’s nice. “But I’ll go back with what? My notes are confetti, though I’m sure I could remember everything. Corrine and I would have to do rush jobs on designs, some footage, but nothing finished or polished. We’d only have Monday afternoon, we’d have to do an all-nighter... . We’d get crushed.” Squashed. Flattened. Pancakes for everyone. “But I have more pride than that, Tom. I’d try to come up with something decent.”
He pulls me even closer, working my shoulders. “I know you would, Shari. And your pride is what I like about you most. Okay, your booty is fine, too, but ... oh, and your thighs. Like vise-grips.”
“Don’t change the subject.” But keep rubbing my shoulders while my legs wrap around your booty. “And while all this is going on, what will you be doing?”
“
Our
stuff.”
“But what Corrine and I would piece together would essentially
be
our stuff.”
He pulls up my shirt and works his fingers into my lower back. “Would it?”
Mmm. I have hot hands on my back. He’s pressing all the right buttons now. “It would have to be. That would be all we had.”
He works me just under my shoulder blades. “Unless ...”
I can’t think when he’s doing that. “Unless ...” Hey now. That’s certainly sneaky. “Unless I feed her the worst possible ideas and all the wrong facts and figures, the wrong demographics. . .” More lies. Man. “We could literally fill that conference room with poop.”
“You’re so colorful.” He works his fingers lower.
I start to squirm. “And then you would show them our stuff, win the account ...”
He lifts me into the air and sets me on the table. “No.”
“No?”
He rubs on my thighs. “I would add more poop to your poop.”
This table is cold! “Why? And why did you put me up here?”
He looks away. “I was, um, I was ... you know.”
I nod. So was I. I felt him getting excited. I slide back onto his lap. “It’s okay. It’s actually a compliment.” I lift up my shirt, he returns his hot hands to my back, and all is well with the world again. “So why are you adding more poop to our poop?”
He digs his fingers dangerously close to my booty. Whoo. “It’s the best kind of payback. I’ve actually been working on my last presentation for Harrison Hersey and Boulder for a long time. It’s already in the can and ready to go.” His fingers sneak below my panty line, and my booty quivers. “It has nothing to do with bicycles, I assure you. It has everything to do with everything that’s wrong with Harrison Hersey and Boulder. It will be a masterpiece of nonsense.”
“But they’ll fire you.” And though he’s only teasing me, he’s about to light my booty on fire.
“It’s what I’m counting on.”
“That’s ... that’s crazy.” I pull myself back up onto the table to cool off. “But Mr. Peterson will be so angry and confused. He’s such a nice man.”
He reaches for me, but I scoot farther away. “We’ll get to Mr. Peterson in a minute,” he says. “Once I’m fired, you’ll probably get fired. If you don’t, you have to quit again.”
My booty is getting cold, but I’m still not following him. “So in this scenario, we’re not one but
two
unemployed people who have an ad campaign that no one will ever see.”
“Only Mr. Peterson will see it,” Tom says, “and then Methuselah’s Breezy Hiccup will have its first client.”
“How can we guarantee that?” I ask. “What if Mr. Peterson won’t listen to us after the horror show we’ve put him through?”
He stands. “I like this table. Just the right height.”
I’m glad I bought it.
He takes off his sweatshirt, the tightest T-shirt barely on him underneath. “He’ll listen to you, Shari. He likes you. He gave you a bike. And once he sees what we have for him, he will love it, sign the papers, and take us out for rib-eye sandwiches.”
Don’t stop with the sweatshirt, though that T-shirt leaves nothing to my imagination. “I don’t know, I mean, what about the legal ramifications?” That has to be the first time in my life that I have said the word
ramifications.
I must be nervous. “Technically and legally, the campaign we’re creating belongs to our agencies, not to us. It’s proprietary information, and we’re using company time to collect it.”

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