Page 35 of Meet Me at Midnight

“How are the mock slides coming along, Jay?” I ask, directing my attention to him.

“Good.” He nods, looking down at the screen of his laptop as his fingers quickly scroll through whatever is on the screen. “I got confirmation from Ned in Content, and he anticipates rough first drafts will be ready by end of week.”

“Did you manage to get him the font changes we decided on yesterday?”

Jay frowns and fidgets with his pen. That’s a no if I’ve ever seen one, but I get it. We’re fucking swamped right now. My team alone is responsible for nearly thirty campaigns, not including Midnight, and that means burning the wick at both ends.

I can hardly fault Jay for a mistake I could have made myself just as easily.

“Get those to him by today, okay?” I request. “Otherwise, the mocks are useless. If we can’t see the vision completely, we might as well be blind.”

“And if he says that will delay us?” Jay questions. Uncertainty sits in his eyes, and I smile to break some of the tension.

“I think we need to go ahead and anticipate a delay. But push him to get it to us by early next week.”

The last thing I’m going to do is ream his ass. Now, if he doesn’t manage to get the mock slides updated at all, that’s a different story. But Jay is reliable, and I’ve never found it conducive to productivity—or, most importantly, creativity—if the members on my team have chests full of anxiety because they’re afraid of me.

Leadership is a delicate balance of encouragement and accountability. And an iron-fisted ego isn’t the way to achieve that. I have my father to thank for that knowledge. He’s a great leader because he doesn’t inspire his employees to have confidence in him. He inspires them to have confidence in themselves.

Now, Chris McKenzie is another story. He’s harsh most of the time, and if it weren’t for my father’s true understanding of leadership, I honestly don’t think Banks & McKenzie Marketing would be where it is today. They’re the definition of a good cop-bad cop dynamic.

“Will do,” Jay agrees, typing out an email as he talks. “Sorry about that, Beau. I can’t believe I forgot.”

“No worries,” I answer, clasping him on the shoulder. “We’re all ten feet under right now, Jay. Setbacks and mistakes are goingto happen, and we’d rather them now than at the charge to the finish line.”

Jay nods, and I move my attention to Laura, who sits directly across from me at the conference table. “How many versions of copy do we have?”

“At least fifty so far,” she answers. “Though, most of our focus has been for the digital space, so character limit is prohibitive. Should I get something else going for print and editorial?”

“Yes. I’d like to see at least twenty long-form. I’m pretty confident we’ll get placement inCosmo, Elle, Men’s Daily, Fitness, andGood Housekeepingfrom our past connections, but I want to have this in every major magazine on shelves. When Susie Somebody picks up her airplane read in Hudson News, I want Midnight to be unavoidable.”

She nods. “I’ll get with Luke this afternoon.”

I roll through the rest of my team, asking for updates from Harry, Eddie, and Madeline as I go, each member assigned to different tasks related to our Midnight campaign.

When I ask Madeline about the progress she’s made with our Public Relations team in the viability of getting specific influencers and celebrities to join our campaign, I can’t stop myself from silently wondering how her lunch with Seth McKenzie went the other day.

Did she talk a little too much about our campaign? Spill the beans on the direction we’ve chosen to go? And, if yes, will that affect our pitch, come end of December?

As much as I’ve enjoyed the messages with my Mystery Woman, I could do without the mental unrest. I don’t want to have doubts influence my decisions with my team. It’s a weak take as a commander and not at all how my father taught me to do business.

I need to be able to be confident and decisive, and looking over my shoulder for the next double agent would affect my ability to do that positively.

“Oh, Beau,” Eddie chimes in. “Alice just sent me a rough cut for the commercial.”

All right, Beau. Time to tune out the noise.

“Let’s see it.”

He turns the screen of his laptop to show everyone at the table, and with one click of his finger, the screen comes to life.

A dark night sky with moon and stars is the only thing in frame until an attractive woman with long, dark hair and smoky eye makeup steps onto the screen. “There’s no curfew at Midnight,” she whispers, a little smile on her lips.

The screen flashes to a handsome man in a suit as he fixes his cuff links and then looks directly into the camera. “There are no rules,” he says before the woman is back in the frame next to him.

She lifts her finger to her lips and smirks. “Shh… Don’t tell anyone.” The Midnight logo appears on the screen behind them and pulls forward, fading them out into the background as they embrace each other.

It’s alluring and intriguing and exudes a tangible scale of wealth—all things that sell.

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