Nate had offered to make the call instead of me, but I had declined. It was bad enough I had dragged us all into the shit in the first place, the least I could do was have the decency to carry out my own dirty work, to help get us out. And boy was it dirty. But as I hung up the phone, I was not entirely convinced of the logic of me having made the call.
I was pretty sure a call from one of the other partners wouldn’t have elicited the same level of passive aggression from her. Not that I hadn’t deserved her ire, after my behavior in the past twenty or so hours. On the other hand, she had emailed me and only me to tell me about our progression in the pitch process, so clearly she was “happy” to deal with me. Like she said, we were both going to have to be professional and see past our history. Easier said than done, of course.
Fuck! This woman had me churned up, and not in a good way. If my life were a movie I would have shoved all of the papers off my desk and onto the floor right now, but this was real life, and there were no papers on my desk. That wasn’t how I rolled. Neat and minimalist all the way both at work and at home. Instead, I settled for bashing the edge of my desk repeatedly with my palm, while yelling fuck at the top of my lungs.
Thank God for soundproof doors—when we’d had the building fitted out, we had provided for all our future needs to a tee. Soundproof offices with switchable privacy glass were useful for more than just moments of anger, as Raine had so frequently demonstrated—the man was about as subtle as a punch in the face when it came to his illicit office activities.
I flicked Melissa’s email to the rest of the guys, and then fired off a message to our “Gods” chat group.
ME: “Raine’s office, NOW. And we’re gonna need a LOT more single malt.”
Minutes later, as we all assembled in Raine’s lounge area, I broke the news.
“So, I spoke to Melissa”—the word still sounded so foreign when referring to her— she’d always just been Mel to me.
“Beyner would like to progress to the next stage of the pitch process with us.”
I wished I’d had a camera to catch the looks of utter incredulity and disbelief on their faces.
“The fuck did you just say?” Every now and again, Nate let his smooth slip. This was clearly one of those times.
“You heard me. I called her as planned and basically broke up with Beyner, like we discussed. When I’d finished, she directed me to an email sent almost an hour earlier outlining how much they had loved every aspect of what we shared with them yesterday—the strategy, the ideas, even the motherfucking room staging. All of it.”
“Wait and this was sent after you besmirched her character?”
“Listen to Charles Dickens over there. Dillon, sometimes I swear you’re exaggerating this English business just to amuse us ‘Yanks.’”
“Why would I bother? Unless it was to get into someone’s pants, in which case, I’d dust off the Hugh Grant and Colin Firth impressions faster than you can say ‘affable rogue.’ But let’s be clear: I don’t and never have wanted into any of your pants. This is just me. Anyway, what the hell is wrong with besmirch? It’s a perfectly good fucking word.”
“Absolutely. It’s a great fucking word, if you’re a duke in Edwardian England. Not so much if you’re Strategy Partner of a Brooklyn ad agency.”
“Regardless, my question stands. She said she wants to carry on working with us even after you insulted her?”
“Yeah.”
“So how the hell did that go down?” Raine interjected.
“Oh, don’t worry. It wasn’t pleasant. She was cold as ice as she handed me my balls. She basically told me she hated my guts, but that she was also enough of a grown up not to let our personal issues tarnish our professional relationship. All the while intimating that I was too much of a fucktard to do the same.”
“Bravo!” Little Lord Fauntleroy was clearly impressed.
“Chick’s got more balls than all of us put together.”
“You said it Bumble. She really fucking has.” Nate must really have been shocked at the news from Melissa—he even forgot to look pissed off at being called Bumble.
“So how did you leave it with her?” I turned slightly to address Raine again.
“Well, when I finally managed to form a coherent sentence using words of more than one syllable, I thanked her for the opportunity, and told her that it would be our pleasure to continue to the next phase of the pitch. What else was I going to say that wasn’t going to make things awkward as shit? Or should I say, more gut-wrenchingly awkward than they already are?” I turned to Nate once more, jerking my chin in his direction.
“Man, tell me you haven’t sent out that media release yet. Please.”
“Brother, timing is a bitch. You won’t believe me when I say that I had the email all prepared and ready to go. My finger was literally hovering over the Send button, but I stopped when I heard your ding in the chat group. I could have sent it before coming here, but something told me not to. I don’t know what.”
Thank fuck.
“Must be your women’s intuition, or whatever. You always were in touch with your feminine side, right?” I winked faux conspiratorially in Nate’s general direction.
“Maybe, but that’s not what your mom says when I’m in touch with her feminine side.”
“Yeah, no wonder Melissa wondered if I was capable of conducting myself like a grown adult male, when I’m surrounded with you clowns 24/7.”
“So what’s next?” Though by far the flakiest and most wild and “free range” of all of us, Raine did have occasional moments when he was fully in tune with reality. I guessed this was one of those times.
“I told her we would review everything she sent us—namely specific feedback to the strategy and creative work—as well as instructions for the next phase of the process. I’ve forwarded the email to everyone.”
“You don’t think she could be baiting us, do you?” Ever analytical, Dillon often came up with a new angle on an old issue—normally from left field.
“How do you mean?”
“Playing with us. Well, you, I mean, really. Is there no chance she could be stringing us along knowing she has no intention of appointing us, then dropping us at the last minute. The longer it goes on, the more time, and money invested, aka wasted, and the more egg on our faces if and when we lose the pitch. Are you sure she’s not just exacting ultimate revenge by setting us up for an almighty fall?”
I rubbed at my chin, deep in thought. It’s definitely not something I would have considered if he hadn’t raised it.
“Look, it’s a possibility, I mean, anything’s a possibility, when all is said and done.”
I was going to immediately jump in and say that there’s no way she’d do something like that, it just wasn’t like her. But then if somebody had told me she’d ghost me for twelve years then then lie about the reasons why, I would have said she wouldn’t do something like that, either. I guess I’d never really known her then, and I sure as shit didn’t know her now.
“I will say this though, from her tone on the call just now, I’d say it’s more likely to be the other way around. That she would hire us solely for the purpose of demonstrating her moral superiority and to make me look and feel like an immature jerk if I can’t play nice in the sandbox with her.”