Syrup (6 page)

“Sneaky Pete,” I say, struggling a little. “That’s my money.”

He shrugs expressionlessly. He turns away, and for a second I think he’s going to turn
Oprah
back on. Then he says, “That’s business.”

My jaw drops: I actually feel it go. “You—you would—” The thing that’s really getting me here is that Sneaky Pete is the sort of guy who, if he was stuck at a nightclub with no money, would rather go thirsty than borrow from someone (well, Sneaky Pete isn’t the sort of guy who would be stuck at a nightclub with no money, but if he was, that’s what I think he would do). Up until three hours ago, I would have described him as the most honest person I had ever met. If, three hours ago, I had been forced to construct a list of the people most likely to steal three million dollars from me, Sneaky Pete would be flat against the bottom, right underneath my parents. “You’re really doing this? You’ll actually stab me in the back for money?”

He turns. In his shades, I see my own face reflected. “Scat,” he says, looking vaguely disgusted, “I don’t want money.”

On some level, I understand where he’s coming from. But it’s not a very high level and I don’t think I can really articulate it.

The bottom line is that although Sneaky Pete would never screw me over for money, he will betray me for business. He leaves me little piles of the change I forget to take out of my dirty clothes because it would be heinous to take it, but he will sign the deal with Coca-Cola and bank my three-million-dollar check.

Somehow, this all makes sense within the moral system of Sneaky Pete. I can almost understand it.

But not quite. I throw Sneaky Pete out of the apartment, and when I find a pair of his sunglasses between the sofa cushions, I drop them on the floor and step on them.

I feel vindicated, if not quite satisfied, about getting rid of him until the landlord calls me up and reminds me that the lease isn’t in my name but Yuong Ang’s. So, actually, I can’t throw him out. I can only throw myself out.

So I do.

Which, of course, leaves me with nowhere to stay.

Cindy arrives home, still wearing her cute flight attendant uniform. The apartment is dark, so she wanders around switching on lights for a couple of minutes before spotting me on the living room floor.

“Scat.” She studies me, pulling long, dangerous-looking clips out of her hair. “How are you?”

“I’m insane.”

“Oh,
” she says happily. She leans down and gives me a tight hug. I’m too drained to return it. “That’s
good.
Isn’t it?”

“I’m not sure,” I say, trying to keep my voice steady. “I’ve been sitting here for eight hours, trying to work out if insanity is an improvement on suicidal depression. I still can’t tell.”

“Oh,” Cindy says, less enthusiastically. Her eyes narrow. “What are those? In your hands?”

My voice breaks a little. “My Calvins.” I try to hide them under my buttocks.

“Oh, Scat. I’m sorry.” She begins gently scratching my head. I can’t help it: I feel better immediately. It’s a weakness of mine. “
I
know what will make you feel better.”

“Cindy,” I protest, “I don’t want any head scratchies. Really.” I am lying through my teeth.

“Well, I’ve got something even
better
.” Her voice makes me look up. She’s smiling, like she’s guarding some kind of secret. “What do you want most in all the world?”

I sigh. “Fame. Fortune. General adulation. I want my Fukk back. I want to be invited as guest speaker to Stanford to present on how I developed it. I want a short article in
Time
and a front-page feature in
Marketing
.” This brings back just how badly I want these things. I feel it so desperately that I almost—almost—feel like getting up and entering the real world again. “I want to be invited to Microsoft premieres and Coca-Cola boat parties. I want to be
successful
.”

Cindy is silent for a moment, so I guess her surprise is something smaller, like maybe a cheesecake. “What do you want if you can’t have that?”

“Cindy, that’s
all
I want. If I can’t have that then I’m just going to sit here and go crazy and I’d appreciate being allowed to do it in peace.”

Cindy squats down in front of me, pressing on relentlessly. “Would a visit from a special friend cheer you up?”

“Let’s have sex,” I say suddenly. I reach out to her imploringly.

“Scat
, ”she says, getting exasperated. In a flash of insight, it occurs to me just how low I have sunk. Three months ago, I was pretty smug about how I’d never taken advantage of my friendship with Cindy. Now she’s turning me down.

“Scat,” Cindy says. “We don’t have time. She’ll be here any minute.”

“Who?”

“Your
special friend
.” Cindy stands up and regards me, hands on hips. “It’s time you got back to your life.”

“Who’s my special friend, Cindy?”

“I mean,” she says, walking into the kitchen, “it’s not that easy to look after you, you know.” She pours herself a glass of something, throws it back, pours another one. “Frankly, it’s become a bore.”

“Cindy,” I say patiently, “I’m very grateful to you. I really am. But I do just need to change the subject back for a second, because if someone is visiting me, I really need to put some clothes on.”

“Oh, sure!” she yells, really upset. “You just do what you want! Don’t worry about me and
my
needs!”

The buzzer sounds. I sit there uncertainly for a moment, fingering my Calvins, but when Cindy says, “Yes, 6, come on up,” I bolt for the bedroom.

She is still stunning. This I cannot get over.

I mean, we all have our little fantasies, right? But they don’t last. You see the object of your desire a year later and think:
Whoa, did I think that was cute?
It’s a fleeting thing, is my point. A momentary deception of perception.

But 6 stands there in her blinding white miniskirt and smooth black business jacket with her hair like a cape of midnight, and she’s captivating.

“Scat,” she says. Reminders: dark eyes, lips like a rubber dinghy.

I am wearing pants, a shirt and a jacket that mismatch so badly I’m hoping 6 will mistake them for cool. I haven’t had time to even attempt the shoes, but I have one sock on my right foot and am holding the other in my left hand.

“6, it’s ... stunning to see you again.”

She shrugs this off, taking a brief appraisal of the apartment. “Can we go somewhere?”

“Take me away,” I say, as if she hasn’t already.

“So,” she says, looking me over. I suppress a shiver. “How have you been?”

I’m momentarily caught between lying and telling the truth, then berate myself. Three months ago, I wouldn’t have hesitated. “Oh, fantastic. Losing Fukk was a blow, of course, but I try to look at it as a learning experience.” I shrug. “I’ve got a couple more projects on the go; naturally Fukk was just one of many.”

“Good.” 6 looks relieved, sipping at her lattè. Perhaps she was worried I would tell the truth.

“And you?” I brace myself.

“Well,” she says cautiously, “I’m frantic on Fukk, of course, working ninety hour weeks.” She throws me a glance but I think I’ve managed to remain deadpan. “It’s chaos to get this product on the market for summer.”

She doesn’t have to spell it out for me. I’m guessing they’ve changed her title to New Products Marketing and Operations Executive, raised her to $200,000 and asked her to please pick out a nice car and send them the bill.

I manage to say it. “And how’s the launch going?”

“As expected,” 6 says, still careful. I interpret this to mean:
I’m ahead of schedule, I’ve got a $10 million budget and I meet daily with the CEO.
“The CTs did ... very well.” Now 6 is saying:
I’m pretty sure we’re going to make unbelievable amounts of money.

“So.” It’s hard to keep the bitterness out of my voice. “I guess the board wasn’t fazed by discovering that the guy who sold them Fukk wasn’t the guy who owned it.”

Almost tenderly, 6 says: “No.”

I put down my lattè. “I see. So everything’s going great. Everyone’s happy. Coke is going to release the biggest hit soda of the decade, you’re shimmying up the corporate ladder and Sneaky Pete is probably vacationing in Hawaii with my money.” I gesture wildly at the upmarket café and clientele around me. “Then I guess the only reason you brought me here is to rub my nose in it.” I actually stand up at this point, and though I can’t say for sure, I think my eyes are blazing with righteous anger. “I think I’ll leave before you stiff me with the check.”

“Scat,” 6 says, looking pained, “sit down.”

I don’t want to, but with 6 looking pained at me it’s hard to resist. I decide to sit down only with a cutting remark, but then I can’t think of one and end up just sitting.

Then something beautiful and astounding happens.

6 says, “Scat, I need you.”

“I’ve been shafted on Fukk. They’ll probably take me off it before the end of the month.”

I gape. “Shafted? How? Who?”

6’s deadly eyebrows sharpen into a frown. I’m sure that if she turned these weapons onto whoever knifed her, she could slice him into little pieces. “Actually, it was your friend. Sneaky Pete.”

She only throws a tiny shrug, but it’s enough to tell me she’s furious. “I didn’t even know he was in the game. I thought he screwed you for the money and vanished.” She scowls at her lattè. “A couple of months ago, I find out Coke has hired him to work alongside me on the launch. I protested, of course, took my complaint to the CEO. No good. He’s their new golden boy.”

“Bastard,” I say wonderingly.

“Two weeks ago, I figured that for all practical purposes, he’s doing my job. He’s going to take full credit for the success of Fukk.”

I almost choke. Not only does the guy get three million dollars for the rights, but he grabs a top marketing job in the best marketing company in the world and snares responsibility for launching a surefire hit. I can’t help but admire that.

“I’ve been asked to work on something else,” 6 says, disgusted. “The summer campaign for Classic Coke.”

I blink. “That sounds like a promotion.”

She shakes her head. “Our ad agency has already finished the design work. Coke wants me to ...
implement.
Logistics. Space negotiations.” Her face blanches.

“Oh.” I think for a moment. “So ... what exactly do you need me for?”

6 sips her coffee, watching me carefully. I get little shivers up my back.

“I’m not going to do what they want. I’m going to redesign the summer launch. With your help.”

She sets down her coffee.

“You and I are going to produce the best ad in marketing history.”

 

 

 

 

I stare at 6. She stares back at me, those dark eyes sizing me up.

“Are you offering me a job at Coke?”

“No,” she says immediately. “I can’t do that. No one at Coke can know about this until it’s done.”

“I see.” I think about this. “So you’re effectively against the company. If they find out you’re trying to replace the campaign they’ve spent months developing, they’ll can you.”

6 hesitates, then nods.

“In fact, even if you do come up with something special, they could can you for pure insubordination.”

“That’s possible,” 6 admits.

“And, given that summer begins in under two months, I guess you’ve got maybe four weeks, at most, to produce this thing.”

“Actually,” 6 says, “you’d be surprised at how far we work in advance. ”

I wait.

“The concept has to be finished this week.”

Her eyes start to widen fetchingly so I look down at my coffee to steady myself. When I look up again, I’m ready.

“So,” I say, “what you’re telling me is that you want me to work on a doomed project with an impossible deadline for no tangible reward.” I give 6 what I hope is a sardonic smile.

6 says, “I need you, Scat.”

“Okay,” I say quickly.

It would be hard to tell, from this encounter, that I scored an A—in MKT 346: Business Negotiation.

Cindy arrives home around three A.M. “
Hey
, ” she says, sounding pleased.

I look up from my writing. “Hey.”

“Dressed,” she says approvingly. “Shaved. Even
active.”
She comes over and kisses me on the back of my neck. “You look dangerous, Scat.”

“Uh, thanks,” I say.

Cindy stands behind me silently for a minute. I’ve already sunk back into my world of Coke bylines when she says, “I knew we could do it, Scat. I knew we could pull you out of this one.”