Syrup (10 page)

6 takes a breath, then hits the EMERGENCY STOP button. The elevator stops so fast I almost hit the ceiling. Before I can recover, 6 is in my face, holding me by my lapels. Despite myself, I’m stunned by her proximity. I’m undone by the spice of her breath.

“You’re talented, okay?” She actually looks angry. “You have real genius. I’ve never said that to anyone before.” Her huge black eyes drill me. “You might be the best marketer I’ve ever met.”

She kisses me.

Hard. Fast. Devastating.

6 breaks away, and I gasp for air. White spots come over and peer into my eyes to make sure I’m okay. My nerves leap around, saying, “What the fuck was
that?”
and for a second I’m sure 6 has taken the opportunity to punch me hard in the guts. When she starts the elevator again, I have to grab the wall to avoid falling to the floor.

The doors slide open but 6 doesn’t move. She just says, “We can do this, Scat. We are going to do this.”

I believe her.

Three million-dollar ideas per year. Three.

I don’t even switch on the computer. I search through the desk drawers until I find a sheaf of paper and a pen, and I start writing.

I write copy. I draw pictures. I write TV-spot scripts. I don’t review anything, I don’t edit anything, and I don’t throw anything in the trash. I just churn through page after page, and I don’t stop.

Three million-dollar ideas per year.

When 6 delivers my cucumber sandwiches at noon, I don’t have time to talk to her; I just take the food with my left hand and keep writing with my right. 6 watches me for a moment, then withdraws.

I go nonstop until 4:30, when 6 visits me again. She looks as nervous as I’ve ever seen her. “Scat, it’s time. Whatever you’ve got, we need it now.”

I take a long, slow breath and flip to the start of my pad.

And I start reviewing.

“Calvin and Hobbes” is my favorite comic strip in the world.

I’m a bit of a fan of “Robotman,” too, and I can’t go past a “Dilbert,” but neither of them can really match it with “Calvin and Hobbes.” Because “Calvin and Hobbes” is true.

The strip has a great range, but my favorites are the cutting insights into the marketing industry and America’s marketing culture. Bill Watterson, the creator of “Calvin and Hobbes,” hates marketing. You don’t need any more proof of this than the fact that he’s never allowed any “Calvin and Hobbes” merchandise: no coffee cups, no lunch boxes, no T-shirts. He’s deliberately turned his back on the opportunity to make a great deal of money in order to preserve the integrity of his strip. Now that’s impressive.

Bill was also known for taking frequent sabbaticals from his work. It’s difficult for a cartoonist with commitments to the daily papers to take a break, because the strip risks losing its spot in the papers, but Bill did it again and again.

I’m guessing, but I think Bill did it to keep his art honest. I think Bill couldn’t stand the idea of having to submit a strip he’s not completely happy with just to meet a deadline.

Because, sometimes, you just can’t force it.

“Well?” 6 asks. Her voice is tight and strained. I look up and see her face is ashen.

“It’s crap,” I say dully. “It’s all crap.”

The word
crap
hangs in the air between us for a few seconds. 6 stares at me as if I have betrayed her.

“No,” she says. “There must be something. There must—”

“6—” I throw the pad with all its pathetic ideas onto the desk with disgust. “I couldn’t do it. I just couldn’t do it.”

6 hangs her head.

“I’m sorry,” I say.

She looks up at me, and her face is absolutely white. “I need to make a call.” She reaches over my desk and picks up the phone, dialing an extension from memory. She waits for a long time before speaking, so I guess she’s got voice mail. “Mr. Jamieson, this is 6 at four-forty-five on Friday the Twenty-eighth. I would like to tender my resignation from Coca-Cola.” She swallows and takes a long second before continuing. “I have failed to perform satisfactorily in managing the launch of the summer Classic Coke campaign, which will now be at least four weeks late. Through my mismanagement, I have endangered the profitability of the company. I have no excuse.

“Thank you for the opportunities you have shown me at Coca-Cola, and please accept my humblest apologies.

“Good-bye.”

We stand in the parking lot for a long time.

Well, I stand in the parking lot. 6 sits in the parking lot, paces the parking lot and stares at the parking lot.

“Uh, 6,” I say again. “Maybe we should be going.”

She stares at me expressionlessly. Then she turns back to the black Coke tower.

I clear my throat and look around nervously.

“I’m finished,” 6 says suddenly. “I’m
over.”

I sigh, which is apparently a bad reaction. 6 rounds on me, her eyes narrow slits.
“You,
”she spits. “I thought you had
ideas.”

“Oh, Christ,” I say, disgusted. There are a couple of business suits walking by, but I ignore them. “You might not have picked this up on your little self-obsession trip, but
you’ve
just screwed
me.
I sure didn’t ask you to pull me down the toilet with you.”

“You little shit,” 6 says, as if this is a fact of great wonder. “You
loser
.”

I turn and walk away.

I’m pretty sure she’s going to call after me, but even so I’m almost a hundred feet away before she does it. This gives me enough time to make mental bets on what I think she’ll say, and I’m pretty confident about:
“Scat! Wait!”

“Asshole!”
6 shouts.

That would be a pretty decent breakup, if all my clothes weren’t still at 6’s apartment.

I have to hold the buzzer down for about a minute before Tina picks up. “Hello, Scat,” she says warily. “Hi, Tina,” I say, letting an edge of contrition leak into my voice. Given that they’re my only worldly possessions right now, I really am pretty keen to get my clothes.

There is some scuffling, then another long pause. I suspect that Tina is holding her hand over the microphone and receiving instructions from 6. Eventually she says, “What do you want?”

“Just my things. I’ll get them and get out.”

More scuffles and pauses. “Maybe we don’t want you in here.”

I sigh heavily. Somewhere in 6’s apartment a door closes. Then Tina whispers, “Come on up, Scat,” and the security door clicks open.

Tina is waiting for me at the top of the stairs, mascara-and eyebrow-ring-free. She’s wearing an old tracksuit and, in all, looking disturbingly normal. “She’s in the bathroom.”

“Fine. She doesn’t even need to know I’m here.”

I start to walk inside but Tina grabs my arm. I look at her, surprised, and she gives me one of those
I-don‘t-believe-it’s-this-stupid
looks. I seem to have a bit of a knack for attracting women who specialize in these looks: I could name a long list of teachers, ex-girlfriends and shop assistants.

“Scat,” Tina says. “She’s in the
bathroom.”

I am obviously missing something. “Yes ...”

Tina shifts her weight impatiently. “You have to
comfort
her.”

“Whoa,” I say, freeing my arm from Tina’s grip. “I don’t think you understand what happened at Coke today. We didn’t part well.”

“Whatever,” Tina says. “Trust me on this. She needs you.”

I can’t help it: I laugh. It comes out just right—cynical, hardened and really pretty scathing. “Tina, I’m through with being needed by her. I don’t know if you’ve noticed this yet, but being needed by 6 is not a good thing.”

“Men, ”
Tina says disgustedly, and pretty unfairly in my opinion. She stalks into the apartment and I follow her.

My clothes are neatly piled by the sofa, so I go over and scoop them up. “This is all I need. Nice to meet you, have a good degree, bye.”

Tina lets me get to the front door. “Don’t you want your razor?”

I stop.

“It’s in the bathroom,” she adds helpfully. “Seems like a nice one.”

I take a few deep breaths and work up a seriously evil glare by the time I turn around.

“Oooh,” Tina says.

“Tina,” I say steadily, “will you please get my razor for me?”

“Hmm, let’s see ...” Tina says. “No.”

“Okay.” I dump my clothes in the doorway. “Fine.” I march resolutely to the bathroom door, set my lips in a tight line, and rap three times. I don’t knock, I rap. Firm, authoritative raps.

I’m braced for another
Asshole
or perhaps a
Fuck off,
and the long silence is something of a relief but also something of a concern. I resist a grimace as I try the handle.

It turns. The door swings open. 6 is sitting on the rim of the bath.

She looks fine, which stops me a little. I had expected red eyes, maybe disheveled clothes, at least an attractive sniffle. But she looks as composed and cool as if today had never happened.

“I just want my razor,” I say.

“So get it,” 6 says.

“I will.” I sidle past her to the sink and pick up my razor, which looks a little lonely among the jungle of 6’s and Tina’s mysterious sprays and bottles.

Then there’s a little pause, and in it I realize just how easy it is for me to walk out of here and never see 6 again. I only have to say,
Well, see you,
and she’ll probably ignore me and I’ll just walk out. And that’ll be it. No more 6.

It’s that simple.

I stand there and hold my razor.

I say, “You know, if you’re not doing anything ...”

“‘Not doing anything’?” 6 says, her eyes narrowing. “You mean, like working?”

“Oh—no. I mean ...” I sigh. “Come on, 6. We’ve spent a week working eighteen-hour days. We’re both strung out. So let’s ... let’s just go out somewhere.”

She arches an eyebrow. I’ve noticed that 6 is very egalitarian with her eyebrows: sometimes the left gets to arch, sometimes the right. “You want to go out?”

“Yes,” I say. “I think it would be good for us. Both of us.”

6 lets long, silent seconds pass, as if this really is a judgment call. Could go either way. “Fine,” she says.

REVIVE A ROCK STAR FROM THE ‘60S AND APPEAL TO BABY BOOMER NOSTALGIA. NEVER FAILS.

There’s a southern-style restaurant called Billy Ray just two blocks down from 6’s, and since I can see from the street that they have a well-stocked bar, I suggest we go in.

“Here?” 6 says, wrinkling her nose. “It’s
southern.”

“Yeah,” I say, thinking fast, “but it’s secretly ironic.”

“Really?” she says, suspicious.

“You bet,” I say. “It was in
Vanity Fair.”

Inside, however, it quickly becomes obvious that Billy Ray is a big mistake. Their booths each represent a particular southern state, and the waitress leads us straight to Georgia. Squeezed among the pictures of Martin Luther King Jr. and someone I think is Jimmy Carter is a banner happily proclaiming “The Home of Coca-Cola!” and next to our table there’s even a big Coke machine. “Uh,” I say to the waitress. “Could we get another state? Louisiana, maybe? Or even Texas?”

“Sorry,” the waitress says, with a truly frightening hybrid accent. “Georgia’s all we got left. Texas always goes first, on account of the hats.”

“Oh. Of course.” I glance at 6. “I guess this is okay, then.”

“Can I get y’all somethin’ to drink?”

“Scotch and ... water,” I say, pulling out of a Coke reference just in time.

“A Bloody Mary,” 6 says. “A tall one.”

“Y’okay,” the waitress says, which I think is pushing it. She scribbles this down on a little pad.

“6,” I say carefully, “you should take it easy tonight.” Then it occurs to me that maybe 6 shouldn’t take it easy tonight: that, in fact, if 6 doesn’t take it easy tonight, she might just hold forth about her childhood and all the shitty men she’s ever known and end up in my arms attempting giggling, unsteady kisses. “Unless you feel you should. You know, to blow off all that crap at Coke.”

“Coke is history,” 6 says shortly. “I’m thinking of the future.” She abruptly glances at the waitress, who is still hanging around. “Something you need?” 6 demands. The waitress blinks and snaps closed her little pad, then heads over to three men in Texas, who are demanding Lone Stars and making jokes about cowgirls. 6 turns back to me. “The smartest option now is consultancy.”

I blink. “Really? With which firm?”