Page 50 of So Not My Type

“I know. I’m a little nervous to be honest.” Ella dipped her pinkie in the frosting and licked. “I keep refreshing my email to see if something came in overnight, but nope.”

Yesterday, they had multiple meetings with the creative leads to do internal final approval. And not surprisingly, but also not welcome, they asked for a few tweaks before they sent it to the client for initial approval. The team had worked themselves to the bone and created some pretty cool images and copy. But. And Ella would never tell anyone, especially since this was the first ad she’d ever worked on, something wasn’t landing with the images. But she was a PM, not a creative, and Sophie mentioned so many times to trust the team.

“Do you think we should pre-set a meeting with the client?” Ella asked.

Sophie’s head tilted side to side. “It’s always so hard to know. When Malcolm gets in, let’s see if he thinks we should do a placeholder. It looks terrible if we move the placeholder because we couldn’t get our shit together, but would be equally as terrible if we couldn’t get all the right people in a room because we were delayed.”

“Got it.” Ella bit into the cupcake and murmured an approval. “Love your outfit today. You look amazing.”

Sophie’s face screamed“swoon”as she patted the frayed-edged, scissored neckline of her David Bowie sweatshirt. “Ah. This old thing?”

Within an hour, voices boomed around Ella, as the team forwent a formal meeting space and resorted to shouting across the open workspace.

“Insta and Facebook updated and sent.”

“Banner ad, initial approval. Sending to our contact in legal for a quick peek before the meeting.”

“Conference room changed for an increase of team members.”

“I’ll send the agenda if you want to recap for the web team the digital-display update.”

“Web producers approved dimensions. Sending ticket over now.”

Ella’s head spun, but the energy was intoxicating. This modern-day Mad Men-type feel, where caffeine flowed and heels stomped, and the pinging of instant messages became a symphony in the background. She stole glances at Sophie, marveling at the way her lips pouted when she was in deep concentration, how her fingers typed at rapid-fire speed, and how she peeked up and did a quick scan of the room, then winked at Ella, who melted under the split-second motion.

Clap, clap, clap.Her dad’s signature palm smacking broke up the chatter and folks quieted. “All right, guys, we’re getting close to the finish line here. The leads are knee-deep in presenting to the VP right now.” He stomped over to Sophie and checked his watch. “Sophie. Burning the midnight oil—er, the middayoil, I see.”

Sophie sat upright. “Yep.”

“I told the program manager to circle back with you right after the meeting concludes.” He pivoted on his heels and pointed at the lead producer. “Joel! Can I get…”

As he thumped to the nearest table, his words became lost in the oblivion. Ella leaned toward Sophie. “I gave him that one.”

Sophie’s nose scrunched. “You gave him one what?”

“For the bingo card.” Ella took so much pleasure in Sophie’s jaw dropping she was inclined to take a picture. “I told him to work in the words ‘circle back,’ ‘finish line,’ and ‘synergies.’ Two out of three isn’t bad.”

A red stripe raced up Sophie’s neck. “I, um, not sure what bingo card you’re?—”

“Like he doesn’t know.” Ella cut her off with a smile. “He’s known about this game forever and made it a personal mission to drop as much business jargon as possible. We used to google things he could say, or when we watched a workplace movie and a good one came up, he’d jot it down in his little notebook. I think it’s like his contribution to the office shenanigans.”

Sophie’s mouth remained open before her lips lifted into a smile. “Your dad just became one of the coolest leaders, ever.”

Ella had appreciated this trait in her dad, thinking it took a lot of humility to essentially be the butt of a five-year-long joke. Her dad may have the emotional intelligence of a ferret, but he took his work seriously. He wanted to keep up morale in the way that he knew how. Even though he fell flat sometimes, he at least tried.

Two hours flew by, coffee was drunk, refilled, drunk, and refilled again. Knuckles popped with the fatigue of typing. Ella nearly broke out in a sweat with the fevered pitch. She wasn’t even sure when they ate, until she realized a half-eaten slice of pepperoni pizza was on her desk, and she vaguely recalled a manager tossing them some food on the way to a meeting.

When the leads rejected a headline for not being “punchy enough”—whatever the hell that meant—the whole room groaned, and some seriously creative spins on the f-word funneled through the air. She booked an emergency working-session conference room while Sophie literally jogged down the hall to knock on the door of the legal team.

The time clicked away, three o’clock ganging up on them. Her heart thudded in her chest. Landing this today was critical. If not, they were in serious danger of not executing on time, and the real possibility occurred of Sophie and the other team members not going on the cruise. She glanced at Sophie, her cheeks red, her lip ring tucked firmly between her teeth, all lightness and warmth gone as she dashed to and from group to group, with her laptop tucked under her arm.

Malcolm burst into the room and cupped his hands. “Approved!”

Approved? Likeapprovedapproved?

Sophie slumped in her corner, her face like she finished a marathon. She gripped Ella, her fingers fanning across her arm. “It’s done. Oh, thank the sweet baby advertising angels for looking down upon us during our time of need.”

The energy in the room shifted from scowls and groans to cheers and sighs. “Approved?” Ella glanced at two creatives hugging each other, and Malcolm patting a guy on the back. “But what does that mean?”

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