What Was I Thinking? (13 page)

“Why yes, Pete, you are right. After all, you
are my lord and master.” I widened my eyes and looked up at him mock-adoringly.
It worked. Everyone laughed, the subject got changed, and I didn’t have to get
into the argument—or sort out how I really felt on the topic.

The whole week was a big ball of stress. The
only variety was what the stress was about. Sometimes it was budgets, sometimes
it was schedules, sometimes it was inter-office politics…the variety was
wonderful.

There was one tiny glimmer of non-stress. Bert
emailed an invitation to dinner for Friday. He wanted to take me to Truffles,
out in Ladue. Other than that, total stress-ball.

The worst of it was when word came back from
the focus groups on the new Luxury Garden moisturizer. Apparently, none of the
customers had a good word to say about it. The first we lowly cube-dwellers
knew about it was when the market research researchers showed up to make their
presentation to the top brass.

Usually, that’s a classic advertising/marketing
event, as in, lots of food, money, flashy graphics, and unrelenting
cheerfulness. This time, we arrived one morning to find the doors to the
boardroom closed, with a sign saying “no entry” taped to the outside. No one
came or went all morning, until Lindsey tapped on the door to announce that the
catered lunch had arrived.

Snarls emanated from behind the door, and then
it opened a crack. She whispered the news, the caterer stood fidgeting behind
her, and there were more snarls. The door opened, Lindsey and the caterer
wheeled in his cart, and then they both scooted right back out, closing the
door as if they were trapping a dragon behind it.

How do I know all this? You couldn’t avoid
knowing. That’s one of the many drawbacks of modern office design. There’s no
privacy at all. Everything is in view and in earshot from virtually everywhere.

Finally, around three, the doors opened, and
all of us pretended to be hard at work at our computers, while listening for
all we were worth for any clue of what was going on. I couldn’t pick up
anything useful. I doubt anyone could. There wasn’t much sound except footsteps
heading away, and office doors slamming as the various managers and researchers
retreated to their lairs.

A few minutes later, we were summoned, via
urgent email, to a department meeting for U.S. Marketing. That was Campbell and
those of us who reported to him, both in the regular organization and within
the Gibson Girl special team. It also included three other managers at
Campbell’s level and their staffs, each focused on slightly different
approaches to our market, and, presumably, resentful that Campbell had won the
big campaign.

The meeting was ugly, as anticipated. Campbell
barked out that we had bad news from the focus groups and then instructed the
researchers to explain. Moods in the room seemed to vary from angry to
terrified
. If anyone was calm enough to analyze the data and
sort out an approach, it wasn’t apparent.

What was apparent was that the focus groups
said they wouldn’t buy the product under any circumstances. In spite of myself,
I got caught up in the presentation. The more charts and graphs displayed and
the more snippets of focus-group conversation played back over the sound
system, the more interested I got. It seemed to me that the key point was
not
that our message was bad or that our
packaging wasn’t exciting, but that the product absolutely didn’t do what the
message promised.

When it was Q&A time, I lost my head and
tried to point that out. “It seems apparent that the participants didn’t so
much dislike the marketing approach as they were disappointed in the actual
product. Do you think—
”

Four voices shouted me down.
At
least four.
Apparently I was stupid. The conversation continued without
me and there was a lot of discussion about how we were going to change the
wording in the ads and on the new package to make the customers like it better.

I lost my head and tried again. I stood and
addressed the group. “I think
,
if we pay attention to
what the customers are telling us here, it is
not
that they’re turned off by yet another pitch for an
age-protective skin regimen, it’s that they find the application of our prep
cream
painful.
You’ve shown quote
after quote from women saying the initial application stung, or hurt, or
burned. Why don’t we go back to Chemistry and see if that can be improved?
Surely the customers will be more likely to stay with the product if the first
experience with it—that very first application of the prep cream—is pleasant
rather than painful.”

“
Thanks,
honey,” said
one of the market researchers. Sean, I think his name was. “But the science has
already been done
by the scientists
.
You’re here to figure out why your packaging is screwed up, not play science
club.”

Campbell weighed in. “Does anyone have any thoughts
on
marketing
to share with us? But
thank you so much, Addie.”

I sat down, my face stinging. I hated my job, I
really did. And I knew I was right. The data was all there in front of them,
and they were ignoring it. Something was wrong with the formulation and if we
were successful with the first roll-out of the product, selling thousands of
units nationwide, we would just have an enormous recall and PR disaster on our
hands once all the buyers actually tried it.

I needed to get out of there. Not only did the
job make me miserable, but it put me in the position of supporting things I
knew were wrong.

I told Bert about it over dinner Friday, and he
was comfortingly indignant over the way I’d been treated. He was also baffled
that management was resistant to looking into the actual problem. I shrugged
and told him that was common.

“It’s about saving face. Nobody, in the whole
chain of people who made the decision that the product was ready for market can
admit to having been wrong. I suppose
it’s
human nature.”

“But the sooner they acknowledge and fix their
problem, the less trouble in the long run! Surely they are smart enough to
realize that? No?”

“I don’t know. Sometimes it seems nobody is
that smart. But it’s depressing to talk about my job. Let’s talk about
something else. Have you had any other requests for history consulting lately?”

His face lit up. He was a very handsome man.
“Not consulting as such, but I’ve had a request to give a series of talks about
the World’s Fair and the Olympics the same year. They are to be held in the
auditorium of the art museum. That was built for the fair, you know.”

“I do know. I don’t think you can avoid knowing
if you spend any time at all in St. Louis. It must have been quite a place that
year.”

“Oh, it was!” he assured me earnestly. He saw
me smiling, and said, “
or
so the history books tell
us. Do you know…?” and he was off.

It was very interesting stuff. Amazing things
were happening here a little over a hundred years ago. I relaxed into letting
him tell me all about his passion, and just enjoyed the food and the
conversation.

When the check came, I reached for it. He
reacted as if I’d slapped him. He went white and gaped at me.

“What are you—? You can’t do that!”

“Of course I can,” I said, opening the folder.
It was a lot, but I’d known that when I’d agreed to come, and he had done all
the paying so far.

“No, no, you really can’t.” I put down the
folder and studied him. He seemed genuinely upset.

“Yes, I really can,” I said, firmly. “You have
paid for everything we’ve done together, and it’s not right. It’s more than my
turn to pick up a check.”

He looked at me as if I’d spoken in Hindi. He
tilted his head a little, as if to view my face from a different angle, and
looked at me carefully before speaking. “I do not understand a lot of things
about you, Addie, and I have no wish to offend your sensibilities, but I truly
wish to pay. Please allow me.”

Well, since he put it like that! I put the
folder down on the table and let him take it. I didn’t understand him either, but
he seemed to be generous in addition to his other fine qualities. “Thank you,
then,” I said, smiling a little.

“The pleasure is entirely mine,” he replied,
with that smile that changed his face from classically handsome to to-die-for.
I smiled back. I couldn’t help it.

“You’re looking exceptionally lovely tonight,
Addie,” he said quietly.

I was surprised and could only smile in reply.

We left a few minutes later and drove through
the quiet streets back to my apartment. We had the windows down and a slight
breeze blew in. Traffic was calm—or at least I thought it was.

I began to notice that Bert wasn’t
participating very actively in the conversation. It took him a long time to
answer anything I said, and he didn’t have much to say. I wondered for a moment
if he were upset with me, but I looked over to ask, and saw that he had both
hands on the wheel, gripped tight, and he was peering forward with every
evidence of tension and fear. Maybe he wasn’t comfortable driving through the
city at night. Some people aren’t.

I settled back and rode quietly the rest of the
way. I had nothing so important to discuss that it couldn’t wait until he was
relaxed.

He parked in front of my building with an
audible sigh of relief, and stepped around to open my door. I saw him coming
and remembered to wait and let him. I didn’t need the help, but he was so polite.

Thinking of polite—what was going to happen
when we got to the door? I liked him more and more, but I wasn’t getting any
better at reading him.

Well I was memorizing a few things, at least. I
remembered that it scandalized him to be invited in, so instead, I just turned
and thanked him for dinner when we got off the elevator.

“You’re very welcome,” he said, quietly,
smiling down at me and taking my keys to unlock my door. I looked up,
transfixed. I don’t know how long we just looked at each other, standing close
together. Then he raised a hand to my face and, gently cupping my cheek, bent
his head and kissed me softly.

It was entirely different from our earlier
kisses. It was quite chaste, with nothing touching but our closed lips and his
hand on my cheek, but it was no less effective. I found I was trembling, ever
so slightly, as he drew back.

“Good night,” he whispered, turned the key, and
pushed the door ajar.

“Good night,” I replied, equally quietly,
searching his face. No, that wasn’t a hint that he wanted to come in. Good
night was all. “Good night, Bert,” I said again, and went inside.

Chapter Eight

Last Straw—and Then a Few More

The weekend went downhill from there, but then
again, what wouldn’t? You don’t get many moments like that in a lifetime, or at
least I didn’t.

The toilet stopped up, and plunging it didn’t
help much, but I was able to get it to flush slowly that night. In the morning
it was worse, so I got out the
Liquid-Plumr
—
and
read the instructions where it said
in big print that it could not be used on toilets.
Great.
I had to call the landlord. He wasn’t happy about it, and he didn’t mind
letting me know.

He took his sweet time getting there, too. It
was almost noon by the time he got there and mid-afternoon before he admitted
that he couldn’t fix it himself and would have to call a plumber.

“Yeah, I’ll have to get a plumber in here on
Monday. I don’t know what you did to that thing, but it’s good and fucked up.”

“I did nothing to it, and I need a plumber
now
,” I argued.

“You want a plumber at weekend
rates,
you pay for it, lady!” He stomped out, leaving me
with a semi-disassembled bathroom and a headache.

I sighed and did what I should have done in the
first place. I found a plumber in the Yellow Pages, agreed to the extortionate
weekend rate, and got my toilet fixed. I would argue with the landlord later.
Right now I needed a functioning bathroom.

Thanks to waiting around for the landlord and
then for the plumber, I spent all day Saturday hanging around the apartment
with nothing to do but get caught up on chores. So I went through my bills,
both paper and electronic. No matter how you looked at it, I had some serious
money trouble. Car repairs, plumbing repairs, regular bills, overcharge on
Visa…I didn’t have any idea how I could pay for it all.

I was an idiot to stay in that hotel just
because of an early meeting, and I was an idiot to have a car wreck. I
shouldn’t be allowed to run my own life. No one could screw up as thoroughly as
I had.

When at last the plumber was gone, with the
remains of my checking account, I used the bathroom with a great sense of
relief. While I was in there, I went ahead and took a shower and shampoo. I
hadn’t wanted to this morning, with the stopped-up toilet right there, and now
I really needed it.