Page 27 of And They Had a Great Fall

“Shit,” she said, unable to say words beyond the singular expletive. As she read the chain, Jake leaned over her shoulder to see what had happened.

E: I just got word from the sticker manufacturer. Their estimate for new adhesive is three to four weeks. Minimum.

E. This is a problem. You know we don’t have that much of a buffer on the timeline. We won’t get enough stock out to retail and we’ll be delayed on shipping pre-orders.

E. I looked into pivoting to other manufacturers, but they’re quoting me an even longer timeline.

E. Let me know when you’re available to talk. We should discuss this tonight.

E. Kat, sorry to keep texting you, but are you there? I know we need to loop in Will ASAP. I thought you might want to tell him.

E. Kat?

E. Okay, I’m just going to loop Will into this situation and start a group chain.

W: Emily, please write all this up and construct a worst-case scenario timeline. Kat, please let us know when you are available so we can talk live. I think it’s 8:00 p.m. DMK time, so hoping we can chat tonight.

W: I talked to Poul, CEO of Denmark. You will meet him tomorrow. Instead of going through the Denmark launch plans, he is going to work with you on solutions.

W: Please make this your #1 priority.

W: He will meet you at the office at 8:00 a.m. sharp. I haven’t heard from you, but assuming you will be there.

Tears pricked her eyes. She hadn’t been available when this had blown up, and Will had had to take over, giving Emily direction and getting in contact with the Denmark office. She slammed her phone down. She’d been MIA and made her boss step in.Get your head in the game,she internally berated herself.This is not a vacation. She started packing her bag, throwing things in at a rapid pace. She had less than a half hour to get to the PathMobile offices to meet with Poul. A tear fell, and she brushed it away with a shaky hand. “I can’t believe this happened,” she said to herself. “I fucked up.”

“Kat …” Jake started, approaching her like a wounded puppy. “You didn’t fuck up. You were sleeping. On a Sunday.”

She glared at him and zipped up her overstuffed bag. She didn’t want him to make her feel better. She wanted the situation to have never happened. She snatched up her phone and shot off a text to Will and Emily with an apology, an explanation, and a confirmation that she would meet with Poul this morning.

“I called a car for you,” Jake said. “It’s waiting downstairs.”

“Thanks,” Kat said as she grabbed her bag and ran out the door.

chapter twelve

Her car pulled up to the PathMobile Copenhagen office at 7:58 a.m. It was a midsized regional office housing a sales and marketing team. It was not uncommon to launch products in the Denmark and Ireland offices prior to the US to work out glitches and get initial consumer plus retailer feedback. Kat had interfaced with Poul, the Copenhagen CEO by way of global leadership meetings, but they had only directly spoken a few times. Poul was a favorite of the board and a personal friend of the founder. Until this morning, she was looking forward to getting to spend time with him. Today, however, she was feeling off her game and scattered. Not the impression she wanted to make on someone so important to her future. In a futile attempt to calm her mind, she took a few deep breaths before opening the car door.

Poul was standing just inside the entrance when Kat walked in the building. He greeted her with cool efficiency. She shook his hand and Poul led her straight through the office and into a conference room. She sat down at the vast wooden table and pulled her laptop out of her bag. She expected Poul to sit across from her, but he sat down in the chair next to her and swiveled toward her.

“Will called me last night,” Poul started. “Walk me through the issue.”

Kat tilted her laptop toward Poul and walked through the issue affecting units that either had not been sealed or were sealed with faulty stickers. She showed Poul the numbers that were currently available for the early-launch global markets and those that would need to be shipped out directly to retail in the US. With the potential three-week delay on the new adhesive, they were still at a deficit. They could either delay the US launch by three weeks, which would certainly mean missing their unit projections and wasting locked marketing dollars,orthey ran the risk of lengthy shipping delays, resulting in bad consumer sentiment and costing them additional sales.

They both agreed that neither option was a good one, and Poul offered to mobilize the Denmark team to brainstorm solutions. He called a meeting for an hour later and asked Kat to prepare comprehensive briefing documents to get the team started. Leaving Kat to prepare, he rushed out of the conference room.

Jake didn’t feel how strongly he was clenching his jaw until Garren said, “Let’s try it,” and he released the tension. He’d brought his notes and sketches to the meeting with Garren, and they were fanned out across the table.

Garren flipped through a few of the sketches, pulled one out, leaned back, and looked at it closely. He tossed it in the middle of the table. “Jake let’s test this. I want to see how you play this version of Tom.” He radioed the production crew to set up on the back part of an empty lot, just to see how Jake’s interpretation played on screen.

They walked out of the production tent together, heading to where a small crew was setting up with a few handheld cameras, boom mics, and basic lighting. It wasn’t meant to be part of the final print—just enough for Garren to decide if he agreed withJake’s characterization. If so, it could mean some reshoots of earlier scenes, so it was imperative that their visions aligned.

“It looks like the break was good for you,” Garren said offhand. “You were busy.”

“Yes,” Jake said. Hewouldelaborate, but he was already getting into Tom’s head and scrolling through an iPad to the section of the script they would be testing. The setup didn’t take long.

As Jake became Tom, he felt himself slip away, believing for a moment he was a man who just wanted to slide through the world unnoticed and live his life with the sole purpose of dissolving into the background. There was a very physical aspect to how one would move through a world when trying to disappear while still living.

Jake conveyed the complexity of Tom’s fear and self-loathing through his physical presence. Of course, eventually, Tom would become the unlikely hero—strong, witty, and commanding—but that would come later. It was critical to the story arc to capture the more nuanced Tom in the beginning of the film. It would add power to the transformation for the audience.

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