Reluctantly Charmed (13 page)

“What?” His eyebrows creased.

I took a deep breath and swiveled my seat back to my computer screen.
Remember what he does
, I thought.
Porn. I shouldn’t even be speaking to him. What would my mother say?

“I have work to do,” I said sternly out of the corner of my mouth.

“Of course.” He looked at me, puzzled, no doubt, that my friendly demeanor had changed so quickly. “I didn’t mean . . . Right.” He seemed to stretch a little and become even larger. “We’ll be off, so.” He rubbed his hands down the front of his jeans. “Right.” He turned. “C’mon, Setanta. Bye, Kate.”

“Bye.” I sat seething, watching him lumber through the office, his shoulders hanging low and his boots stamping, as Setanta loped along beside him. Infuriating.

I turned to Matthew to see if he’d heard the conversation, but he was intently staring at his computer screen. He looked stressed, his face pinched. Chubby but still pinched. His eyes looked serious.

“I don’t think you’re going to like this.”

I sat down and tried to brace myself for whatever he was going to say.

“There are two things. Well, there are three,” he said.

“I’m ready for it.” I closed my eyes, prepared for the reckoning.

“There’s this.” He produced a newspaper from behind his back and handed it to me. It was open to page ten. There was a large photograph of me from the night before—those paparazzi fellows worked fast.

I examined it closely. In the photo I looked pale and had a double chin.
I thought these things were photoshopped
.

I stretched my neck self-consciously and felt my eyes widen as I read the caption: “A quiet night at the cinema for Kate McDaid. Kate, who publishes the Seven Steps, is being hailed as a modern-day witch. She’s put a spell on us, that’s for sure.”

The breath was pulled from me. My head started to spin.

Matthew quickly handed me a glass of water.

I took a sip. “There’s my picture, and they’re calling me a witch. They are seriously calling me a witch.”

“How did they know you were there?”

“I dunno. They were just there when we came out of the cinema. They pounced. It all happened in about twenty seconds.” I took a deep breath. “The other two things—does it get worse?” I half laughed.

“No, that’s the worst.” He picked up the paper and flicked back a few pages. “But that Maura Ni Ghaora has written another article. It’s not too bad, but she does mention you again.”

A blur of black-and-white print swam in front of me. I’d read it later. He was right: it did feel tame in comparison to a color photograph.

I drained the glass of water. “And behind door number three?” I smiled at Matthew.

“The Little Prince wants a work-in-progress meeting this afternoon. He’s flying in from Stuttgart.”

OH NO!

“No warning. No nothing.”

Matthew shook his head. “We’ve got four hours.”

“Shit.” All thoughts of fairies, paparazzi, or TV-star parents fluttered from my mind.

“We’d better—”

“I know. I’ve booked us a room.”

I scooped up pens, paper, notebooks, markers, and crossed the
office floor with Matthew, aware that my brain might explode at any point.
Chocolate, chocolate, chocolate. Think, think, think.

“Need any help?” Marjorie piped up from across the office. She pushed herself away from her desk, ready to run toward us.

“Got it covered, thanks, Marj,” Matthew shouted back.

Marjorie shuddered slightly.

Matthew smirked over at me. “She hates Marj,” he whispered.

“You know where I am,” Marjorie said, looking hopeful.

He gave her a thumbs-up sign. “Hope the cold sore clears up soon.”

She quickly put her hands to her mouth and sat down.

“She must have kissed everyone in the art department
and
the studio. The whole ninth floor has cold sores. It’s like an epidemic,” he muttered to me.

Or a spell
, I thought.
Their mouths are struck with sores, for no cure there can be
. I shivered slightly.

Once we were in the conference room, I pulled out my markers and got to work.
STARSHOOT
, I wrote in block capitals across the giant whiteboard. Then I stood, mouth pursed, looking at Matthew.

“Right. Good start.” His face was pulled so tight, he looked like he might snap.

“Right.” And we stared at each other for a long time.

“Em . . .” Matthew clicked his fingers in the air. He looked like he was getting something. “No. It’s gone.”

“What was it? It doesn’t matter if it’s not right. We have to start,” I said, watching the straws I was clutching slip through my fingers.

“Starshoot—packed with crumbly goodness.” He shook his head. “Told you.”

“I’ll write it up. It’s a start. But we can’t lead with taste—seven
other bars on the market taste the same. We’ve got to think lifestyle, trendy, cutting-edge.” I started scribbling on the board, relieved to see the white space filling up.

“The chocolate of kings.” A half smile crept across his face. “Pr-Princes. Little Princes.”

We’d already put a number of slogans and ideas before the Little Prince. “Live it. Love it.” Or my favorite: “Choose joy. Choose Starshoot.” He’d knocked back all of them for one reason or another. It had begun to feel like we were no longer targeting the youth market but the Little Prince market, and we only had one consumer to please.

“What do Little Princes like?”

This was how Matthew and I worked: we joked, we played, and somewhere along the line we pulled an idea out of the hat. Normally.

“Shoes with heels, silk scarves.” Matthew was doodling while he was talking, drawing a caricature of the Little Prince with a huge head. “German sausage.” He raised an eyebrow and I laughed.

I started to sing “These Are a Few of My Favorite Things” in the style of Julie Andrews. “Saunas and schnitzel and bad Europop . . .”

“Mercedes and bratwurst and Hasselhoff . . .”

“Ah,” I interrupted. “They love him.”

“Still?”

“Didn’t he single-handedly end the Cold War?”

“I know he sang on the Berlin Wall when it was coming down.”

“That’s proof enough for me that he’s in the hearts of the people. He’s an honorary German.” We both laughed.

“He does transcend generations, but could he sell chocolate to the Little Prince?” Matthew’s laughter was verging on hysteria; his eyes were watering.

We dismissed the Hoff and came up for air three hours later. We had a few ideas, none of which felt right, all of which confirmed my doubts that we weren’t up to the task.

We headed for AlJo’s greasy arms and two comforting bacon sandwiches. Within seconds it felt like old times, as we sniggered behind plastic menus, debating the merits of egg mayonnaise sandwiches and cinema popcorn.

“What’s going on with you, Matthew? I never even told you that I liked your new T-shirt,” I said, feeling every inch a bad and distracted friend as he sat up proudly.

“This
is
new. A lot of my clothes have shrunk in the wash,” he said with a sly smile, patting his new chubby belly.

“Those damn washing machines.”

He went quiet and started shifting uneasily in his seat.

“You okay?”

He nodded, but chewed his lip so ferociously I knew he couldn’t be. A nerve rash crept up his neck. He took a deep breath. “I have a confession.” He looked down at his sandwich.

“Okay,” I said, feeling anxious. “Is it something bad?”

He nodded. “I just need to tell someone. I’m so ashamed.”

I took a deep breath. “It’s okay, Matthew. You can tell me.” I hoped I sounded genuine, but the truth was I didn’t know if I really wanted to hear his confession. He looked guilty. He looked like he’d really done a bad thing.

He mumbled something into his sandwich before taking a giant bite out of it.

“What?”

He said it again, a similar mumble.

I burst out laughing. “God, Matthew! For a moment there I thought you said you’d signed up for Internet dating.”

His whole body exploded into a nerve rash.

“Nooooo. What? You have?”

“I’m so ashamed.” He threw his two hands up to his face and rocked to and fro.

“But that’s . . . Why? Why would you do that?”

Matthew was a good-looking guy. He was an extrovert, he was funny, nice. Why in the name of God would he be online?

He shrugged and sighed heavily. “I’m at work all the time, all my friends are in couples. I’ve no wingman since Tom hooked up with that Aussie chick. I’ve spent my last four Saturday nights in playing Nintendo. I get set up with the same girls again and again. I keep thinking about phoning exes because I’m bored. Something had to give.” He looked defeated.

“But the Internet?” I shook my head in dismay.

“I know. I’d heard of a guy in America who met someone . . .” His voice trailed off weakly.

“America,” we whispered in unison. Knowing full well what that meant. Online dating works in other countries. In Ireland it’s viewed as being for the truly desperate, for those who have failed in normal social settings, for those people who are truly so unattractive that even the drunkest man/woman in the bar won’t take them home at the end of the night. It’s a public hanging. Anyone can find you on it: schoolfriends, your mother, grandmother, teachers, boss. They can all look at your profile online and wonder to themselves what happened to you along the way that you couldn’t get laid the way other normal Irish people do, with alcohol and witticisms.

“Okay,” I said, trying to gather my thoughts. “Is there anyone nice on it?”

He looked like he’d burst into tears. “I accidentally clicked into my cousin’s profile.”

“Oh dear God, this is worse than I thought.” Ireland being
Ireland, you’re going to know someone on the site, but a cousin? Oh, that took it to a whole new level.

“I’m supposed to go on a date next week. A date.” He said the words deadpan. I understood. Irish people don’t date. We don’t know how. We go out in groups, drink, and maybe by the end of the night kiss someone who either made us laugh or looked good. Numbers are exchanged, there’s an avalanche of text messages, and eventually there’s a meeting a week or so later somewhere loud, where there’s dancing, and all you can really hope for is that they’re not really bad-looking and they were funny, but either way there’ll be alcohol by the bucketload to dull all senses. Sobriety kicks in about six weeks along, when a decision is finally made as to whether or not there’s a relationship worth pursuing. That’s how we date. We don’t sit in coffee shops and ask each other about five-year plans or family situations. We get drunk and hope for the best.

“Who is she?”

“She looks pretty, but—” He shook his head. “She said LOL in her e-mail and she used those wink things.” He took a sharp intake of breath.

“It’s a whole new world.”

“I never thought I’d end up on the Internet.” He looked so sad, my heart broke a little.

“Hey, you’re just trying it out. It’s not forever.” I hoped I sounded supportive.

“I know. It’s tough out there.”

I wanted to tell him he was a great guy, and there was a great girl out there for him, but that would have sounded too clichéd and corny, and not like anything I’d ever say to him. So instead, I talked about work. “We should head back to the office to get ready for a true Starshoot whipping.”

“Will we pray to your aunt?” Matthew asked.

“Great-great-great-grand-aunt. And not funny.”

Half an hour later we stumbled into the boardroom. It was fully prepped as per the Little Prince’s demands: scented candles (vanilla only), sparkling and still water (no ice), lemon cordial in a glass jug, one elevated chair with two cushions, and five Bic pencils positioned on a clean notepad. Just the way Daddy liked it.

The Little Prince stomped in, the sound of his Cuban heels clicking ahead of him. Colin wobbled behind, chewing gum and looking anxious. The Little Prince definitely appeared taller. He was wearing a pinstripe suit, which I knew could give the illusion of height, but I could have sworn he just skimmed my elbow last time we met, and now he was hovering around my shoulder. His hair, blow-dried into a Texan bouffant, did add a good two inches to him.

He didn’t say hello.

We made greeting grunting noises at him. Colin leaned over the table and started to apologetically pour water.

“It is best just to proceed.”

More nodding, more grunting.

I rarely spoke at this type of meeting, overwhelmed by awkwardness, nerve rashes, and perspiration. Public speaking is not my forte. So we’d agreed that Matthew would present the concepts. He stood up, creaking his chair, and rearranged the notepad in front of him. He explained that we hadn’t had much time, it was early days—all the usual excuses. Then he produced our first concept: a kind of Calvin Klein black-and-white ad with whispering supermodels, very moodily lit, using words like
fusion.
The Little Prince said nothing. The second concept, which was a bit like a shampoo ad—sunny meadows, frolicking, laughing, glinting—was met with stony silence. By the third concept,
the Little Prince’s cheeks had entered the seventh stage of fuchsia. The fourth was greeted by a sharp intake of breath. Colin eyeballed Matthew and quickly shook his head, warning him to finish the presentation now. Matthew slyly hid concepts five and six under his notebook and sat down.

“Zis is all you can give me. Zis sheet.” The Little Prince slammed his hands flat on the boardroom table.

“Okey-dokey. It’s early days. These are not completed concepts.” Colin whistled.

“I understand zis,” the Little Prince raged. “But there is no idea, no heart.” For the record, the Little Prince spoke like that, like a fake German, even though he
was
German. It was like he’d just watched four World War II movies back-to-back, wearing knee-high boots with Alsatian dogs snapping at his heels.

Again we nodded enthusiastically and agreed. I felt about two inches tall, like I could squeeze into the Little Prince’s pocket. He continued to berate us, to kick us up and down the meeting room with his Cuban heels. He was shouting about firing the agency, the talentless agency. Layoffs and breadlines flashed in front of my eyes.