Page 10 of Kiss and Makeup
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Dad was definitely right about me. What kind of future CEO got lost trying to find his own company buildings?
I hadn’t been to this particular location in years. I doubted Dad came out here often either; no administrative business he would be involved in happened here. Plans were made and deals were struck at the main office or at some midway meeting place, then carried out at the studios where our directors, video editors, camera and sound crews, and actors worked to create a professional product that had turned Cruise Media into an empire.
The point was that most employees involved in the administrative aspect of things never visited the studios. Maybe it wasn’t such a surprise that I had to circle the block a couple times before I realized where to park.
The door of my Mercedes-Benz slammed shut just hard enough to make me wince, but I didn’t pause to look back. It wascold.The kind of cold that froze the tip of your nose and made you reevaluate the decisions you’d made in life to reach a point where you had no choice but to work out in the cold.
Heated air reached into the frozen winter and pulled me under the “Cruise Media 1307” sign and through the door. The informal sort of waiting room and reception desk finally jogged my memory just a little. Hopefully, the rest of the layout of this place would come back as I went through the tour…
“Good afternoon. Sorry, I’m late, ran into more traffic than I expected this side of town.”
Nervousness had followed me like a lingering chill since I had found out I would be seeing Kristen again today. Seeing her again so soon… how could I not be nervous?
But then, I heard her voice. My nerves settled, inhibitions at giving a tour of a building I hardly remembered faded away, and I just wanted to talk to her—even if it was only about this building, our contract, and nothing else—so I could keep hearing that voice.
“I only just got here myself,” I reassured her, holding out a hand to take her heavy coat. “There’s a place to hang them behind the desk.” Her confusion cleared and she passed me the coat. I hung hers and mine, surreptitiously checking behind the desk for any sort of directory or layout information while Kristen adjusted her clothes and rummaged through her handbag. A laminated floor plan sat on the top of a couple notebooks in the first desk drawer I checked. I snatched it up immediately. “Ready?” I asked, rounding the side of the semi-circle desk with the floor plan.
“Yes, please lead the way.” Kristen tucked a small spiral bound notebook and a pen into her long red jacket. Even in college, she had loved to dress like that. Beautiful, professional, classy, but always with that flash of color that popped with personality.
“Great. Okay, so this is the reception room, but we don’t usually have someone at the desk unless we’re holding auditions for parts in some of our commercials. You can just walk straight through and down the hall, and most of the important rooms are back there.” The tap of her heels eliminated the need to check visually that she followed me. “The creative director who will be handling your holiday campaign, Madison Klein, is actually already here wrapping up with another client. She should be done before I finish showing you around.”
“Perfect, I have everything she should need here.” The black leather handbag swung as Kristen raised it.
The ease with which I found myself listing the purposes of various rooms and the processes Cruise Media would implement to handle our contract had me furrowing my brows at myself. Every time Kristen asked a question, I had an answer—to my secret delight…
She noticed it. Sometimes she would step past me, examining something as I talked, and give me this little quizzical glance like she couldn’t understand something.
The last little scratch of Kristen’s pen on her notepad marked the end of the tour. “Thank you. Your facilities are perfectly satisfactory, and I look forward to collaborating with Cruise Media.”
“Wonderful. Madison should be finished in a few minutes, if you’d like to wait.” Words like “wonderful” didn’t occupy my vocabulary outside of polite conversation, and I hated that I had to use it with Kristen. She was just so focused and efficient… even cold. I had hoped, after the surprise of our meeting yesterday wore off us both…
But she only said what she needed to say. Her heels clicked away and her manicured fingers penned neat notes. It was clear, I was just another part of her job.
Maybe that was why my chest ached, despite the successful tour. So close, yet so far…
Kristen sat, folding one leg over the other, but I remained standing. She didn’t want me to hang around, and I didn’t want to push things just yet. As this project took shape, I would find time enough to—
“Xavier.”
A miscalculation. Everything I’d just gone through to convince myself not to push things just now had been a miscalculation. Because that, with its softness and quiet question, was Kristen’s I-want-to-talk voice.
“I know I said I wanted to keep this business, but I would like to know about your role in Cruise Media. I mean—” Her hesitation changed her from the head of BeautyBee’s marketing department to a person with vulnerabilities. “Last I saw you, you were pretty into football. And I am pretty curious why the CEO’s son is overseeing a contract this closely after it was signed.”
Two regrets haunted me, two little pieces of my past that I couldn’t forget. Kristen was one—I’d never recovered from losing her. The other… “I tore my ACL playing football.” Her eyes widened. “Yeah, it sucked, but it helped me focus on Cruise Media.” A lie, of course, one that Kristen didn’t need glasses to see through. I just didn't want her to feel sorry for me. All the apologizing here should be on my end.
Kristen didn’t let my words stand. “You loved playing football.”
I sat down on the bench beside her, but not too close. “Yeah, but coming back after that would have been too hard. Cruise Media was my only option. I really do want to handle your campaign quickly and effectively,” I promised quickly, aware I’d just made it sound like I regretted becoming part of my father’s company. “I need to.”
Those last three words barely stirred the air, but Kristen picked up on them. “You need to?” she echoed. “What do you mean?”
A good question. I had hoped she wouldn’t ask it, though. But… this could be a good thing. I couldn’t lie to her, tell her honestly that I had already changed. Instead, as we worked together, she could watch how hard I would try to change.
“My father isn’t exactly pleased with my… contribution to Cruise Media. This contract is—” My eyes roamed around the studio. “I need to handle this well, which is why I’m overseeing it in person. Speaking of which,” I broke off to smile at Kristen, “why is the head of the marketing department of a company like BeautyBee Cosmetics taking tours of locations for commercial shoots?”
“Oh, that.” Kristen smiled and it was full, beautiful, and genuine. “I guess you could say my boss also isn’t too happy with something I did. BeautyBee put a lot—everything—into the budget for this campaign. I’m going to personally ensure things happen according to plan this time.”
A moment of quiet, shared determination crossed the distance between us.
Kristen didn’t just want this contract to work. Her career, her future, even just her professional pride—something important to her rode on Cruise Media meeting her expectations and needs.
Now I knew that this time I could keep my promise to myself and my father. Kristen needed this just as badly as me. For her, I could do anything.
