Page 57 of Fractured (Not Quite a Billionaire)
Hope
I should have known the score from my so-called “interview,” which had happened before Hemi and I had left on vacation. Before I’d left the publicity department, clearing out my desk with a pang that was nothing but irrational, considering how mixed my experience had been there.
I’d never been a natural at publicity the way Nathan was. It seemed to me that you had to have an inborn confidence I didn’t possess to do that job, a breezy assurance that everybody in the world would love you. Or at least you had to be able to fake it better than I’d ever been able to manage.
Let’s face it, I was a worker bee. Being the queen was in your DNA, or it wasn’t. I thought it might be in Karen’s, but it certainly wasn’t in mine. I wasn’t a mouse, but it was going to be a long, long time before I was a lion.
Too many animal metaphors. Time to pull it in and get realistic, which, fortunately,wasmy specialty.
Unfortunately, I hadn’t met my boss yet. That interview of mine had been with Henry Delacroix, Hemi’s marketing director, a lean man with a shock of white hair and a penetrating stare to rival Hemi’s own. He’d aimed it at me from across his desk and barked, “So. Copy writing, or what?”
“Uh…” I’d said, feeling horribly self-conscious and trying not to show it, knowing I had “CEO’s Girlfriend” all but stamped on my forehead. “I don’t know much about copy writing, to be honest, though I’d give it my best shot. I’ve been doing administrative work in publicity, and I’d be happy to help out with that to start. It would probably be a good way for me to learn, and for both of us to get a feeling for how I could contribute down the road.”
That sounded good, right? I’d thought it was pretty good for the spur of the moment.
Henry clearly hadn’t. “Nobody wants to do administrative work. Everybody wants to write copy. If they don’t want to decide strategy, that is, after they took that class in college and all.”
I’d done some staring of my own then. That was one advantage of sleeping with Hemi Te Mana—you got a whole lot of opportunity to study the master at work. I might not be able to manage “intimidating,” but I could just about pretend “cool.” I wasn’t desperate, either.If it doesn’t work out,I’d promised myself before this meeting,I can go somewhere else.Never mind the fightthatwould cause.
“Let’s get one thing straight,” I’d told Henry. “You might feel like you have to hire me, but I’m not taking the job unless it’s something I’m qualified for, and unless you’re going to be honest with me about how I’m doing. Otherwise, I’ll stay where I am, in publicity. I don’t have a bachelor’s degree, so fortunately for you, Ididn’tlearn marketing strategy in college. I’m not here for decoration, and I don’t have an ego. I just want a job.”
He’d looked at me some more, and I’d lifted my chin and concentrated on not flinching until he’d finally said with a sigh, “Why me. Why ever me.”
“Maybe,” I’d said in Hemi’s best silky tones, “because Hemi thought you were an honest man, and that you wouldn’t treat me differently just to suck up to him.”
His face hadn’t changed, and the silence had stretched out some more. “That sounds good,” he’d said at last. “We’ll wait to see if you mean it.”
“Yes,” I’d said. “We will. I’m not the boss’s idiot nephew. If I’m not working out, I expect to hear how I can improve. I can’t fix it if I don’t know. Meanwhile, here I am. Marketing assistant. Helper. Trainee. You can waste your budget, or you can put me to use.”
Ha. I was so not a mouse. Of course, that was easier when you had the shadowy form of the CEO standing behind you, but we’ll just ignore that inconvenient truth.
And that was all very well, except that I wasn’t actually working for Henry. When I showed up at eight at his corner office, I found that everybody else in the department already seemed to be at work, and that my spot was going to be in Digital Marketing. Working for Simon Campbell, to be exact, a somewhat twitchy guy who looked even more nervous at the sight of me. He installed me in a cubicle that was closer to a window than any marketing assistant had any right to expect and said, “We’re mainly working on the launch of the new Colors of the Earth line, but you’ll know all about that.”
“Ah, not so much,” I said, and hurried to add, at his look of surprise, “Give me something to do, though, and I’m sure I can get up to speed.”
“Oh. Well.” He was all but shifting from one foot to the other. “I have some web copy to proof, if you don’t mind.”
“Sure. Just tell me exactly what you want me to do.” I was about to give him my I’m-a-lowly-employee speech, too, but I was opening my laptop, he saw my ring, and the conversation was pretty much over right there.
“We’ll have a break at ten,” Simon said. “Introduce you to the team.” And bolted.
I did my best to put aside the idea of a team coffee break to introduce a new assistant. Maybe they were friendly up here, or maybe it was something else. Well, I’d just have to show that I didn’t expect special treatment. I couldn’t expect everyone to get the memo in five minutes. I’d have to wow them with my natural charm, or, more likely, put my head down, do my job, and ignore what anybody thought until they figured it out on their own.
The work, at least, turned out to be all right. The copy was for Hemi’s new line, and even though I hadn’t even seen the designs yet, I was enjoying learning more about it. I’d been there when he’d gotten the inspiration for it, at a restaurant table in San Francisco, talking to me, and wasn’t that a comforting thought?
The copy was all about the land and the sea, about rock and water and sky and trees and timelessness. About New Zealand, in other words. It was a little florid for my taste, but who was I to judge?
At ten, the entire Digital Marketing group and what looked like half of the rest of marketing crowded into the biggest conference room. A command performance, I guessed, or curiosity, or both. A tray of bagels sat virtually untouched in the center of the table as a gaggle of relentlessly stylish and undernourished women, interspersed with a few equally lean men, went straight for the black coffee and the occasional piece of fruit, except for the ones who murmured “Carbs” and passed even on the watermelon. And nobody talked to me, much as I smiled and made eye contact.
The atmosphere was more than awkward, and even the coffee tasted bitter. I set my cup aside and dove daringly into the pile of Evil Bagels. I was starving, and I was weird anyway, so why not?
That was why, though, I had a mouth full of cream cheese when Simon broke into the muted conversations going on around my Cone of Silence to say, “Excuse me, everybody. Announcement. As everyone knows, we have a new employee today.” He gestured to me. “Please welcome Hope Sinclair. I’m sure she’s going to be a lot of help to us, and I’m also sure that everybody here will helpherin any way she needs while she’s with us.”
While she’swithus? It was too bad cream cheese was so gluey, too, because it felt like it took me a full minute to swallow my bite. “Uh—hi,” I finally said with a wave. “It’s good to be here. Thank you for that, um, welcome.”
A tall, striking woman named Gabrielle, an assistant manager of something or other with a daringly close-cut natural hairstyle and Nefertiti features, said, “I can’t help but ask. You don’t mind, do you? Why did you change departments? I’d have thought publicity was—Well.” She laughed, but it didn’t sound mocking, not really. “Perfect for you, right? High visibility? Helpful to the, uh, company? So why the switch?”
“Observation post.” It was a barely audible murmur, coming from a brunette with a faint smile on her face, and I saw a few more smiles being covered by hasty sips of coffee. What, I was a spy?
