It’s costing us an arm and a leg. The expenditures are alarming, to say the least. I’m paying rent on a warehouse that should be staffed. Only, there’s no fucking staff to fill that room because Momma Bear is trash.
The problem is that we need Momma Bear as a hedge. It offsets the tax burden on my already high salary. My accountant says I don’t spend enough. I tell him there’s nothing to buy. I’ve bought it all. I already own three houses, two of which are just fucking sitting there, collecting dust. I have the most expensive Mercedes on the market. I spend out the ass for Sammy’s school.
The shareholders share concern about some negative press effecting the stock prices. I can ease that fear, but I need to keep the shitty magazine. I better find a good reason.
“I’ll figure it out,” I say. “Just give me ten minutes. I’ll return with a master plan.”
“You always do,” he says.
When I hang up the phone, the car in front of me finally inches up far enough to allow me to pass through. I speed around the corner and glance up at the Space Needle in the distance. Today’s going to be fine, I think.
I park in the first space I get and take the elevator up six flights. When I hear the booming voices of aging men bleed through the mirrored doors, I put on a sly smile and cool eyes. It’s a look I perfected about fifteen years ago, when I was just starting out.
The door opens to cheers. Brian tosses me a drink all the way from the other side of the room. I catch it perfectly, and he joins me.
“Come up with anything?” he whispers.
“Nothing,” I mutter. “We are one hundred percent fucked.”
“Lucky us,” Brian mutters. “In this scenario, am I the top or the—”
Someone shouts. Jim, a shareholder I couldn’t care less about appears in front of me with a wild smile that demands conversation. “There he is! Sharpshooter.”
Sharpshooter? Not sure what that means, but I go with it, tossing down some beer before mentally preparing myself to get slammed around the office by a bunch of too-old-to-party men.
“He always looks like a winner, doesn’t he?” Brian asks the room.
Jim takes hold of the space between my neck and shoulder, pinching right down on the nerve. “Damn straight, he’s a winner. Otherwise, why would we be here?” he growls, teeth gnashing.
His spit flies everywhere.
The truth is, I lose all the time. In some ways, it’s better to look like a winner than actually be one.
For a while, the meeting goes as planned. They drink for a while as Sandra gives a bolstered earnings report showing the longevity of all the company’s combined. The message is: believe in me. I won’t let you down. If you don’t believe in me, believe in my team. They’re working around the clock to save the day.
Unfortunately, the shareholders are not as stupid as they let on. They may not know a damn thing about culture, but they know money. They came to talk about the Seattle project.
Jim is staring right through me. “Are you done?” he asks.
Shit.
“Sure. I can be done,” I mutter.
Jim is older, but he’s a tough son of a bitch that does most of the talking. Within the hour, he steers the conversation from the drinks to a cold inquiry on our individual expense reports. This is only the halfway point, too.
He collects the loose sheets of paper and calmly reorganizes them. “Says here you’re spending thousands every month on this office, as well as the one in Manhattan,” he says.
I want to say it’s for my daughter because the only way I can be a good father is to honor her wishes. Kids respond well to that. Old men like Jim aren’t so easy to please. They want to own the world, and even that isn’t enough for them.
I’m staring at Jim’s bewildered face, wondering how a man’s nose could grow to get so big. “Is that all?”
He closes his folder and gives a smile pleasant enough to distract from the real inquiry taking shape. “We need to know what your plan is here,” he says. “Otherwise, you’re going bye-bye, and we’ll sell all the other loser catalogues. Do you understand me?”
Bye-bye? Is the threat really that big? Doesn’t really matter if it is or isn’t. If they feel it necessary, they could kick me from the company. They used to be easier to please.
My brain scrambles to steer this meeting back to where it should be. “I’ve got a plan for Momma Bear,” I say.
Jim raises a brow. “Oh?”
I start nodding, making eye contact with my photographer and friend, Brian. “Isn’t that right?”
His eyes widen, and he nearly drops his beer bottle, but he manages to give my life a decent save. “Oh, yeah. He was just telling me on the phone, actually. Something to do with school.”
Jim leans back, apparently pleased. His smile teases for more. “Hm. Explain it then, Marc,” he says.
Feeling my forehead start to sweat, I chuckle. “Oh, yes. Well, it’s pretty simple.”
I’m so screwed.
My day was hijacked by Sammy’s school. If I had the morning to decompress, I might have brought a better opening, but I didn’t. All I have in my quiver is my quick thinking, and I’m starting to wonder if it’s better to scrap it altogether.
I can’t do that. The board would throw me under a few dozen school busses before letting out the drivers to get a few swift kicks in. What I can do is lie and hope the project falls
