Breene, K F - Growing Pains 01 (8 page)

He’d hunched over the computer for
another fifteen minutes, a look of concentration on his face, before he showed
her a finished project just shy of miraculous. It was easily better than what
she remembered of the art stuff. The colors weren’t the same, but were cohesive
because they contrasted perfectly.

Ben explained something about a
color wheel or palette or something, but it was Greek to Krista. All she knew
was that the slides had a distinct “pop” that pleased the eye and also highlighted
her graphs and bullet points. Sean apparently thought so, too, since he was
devouring the first slide with a critical eye.

While Sean was distracted, Krista
jumped quickly into an explanation of the slides. It turned out she had
practiced enough to get through it in front of Sean without a hitch. He asked a
couple of insightful questions, but mostly let her explain the ins and outs of
what she’d previously devised. When she was finished she backed away from
him—he’d moved too close again and it was causing a weird humming in her
body—and waited for any questions.

“Okay,” he looked up at her. His
eye contact lingered a little too long before he said, “I have what I need.
Thanks.”

Sean walked away with his head
bowed over his notes, thoughtfully tapping the side of his notepad. He paused
in front of the other salesman, then straightened up, his voice a low murmur.
That was about the time Mr. Sleazy-O looked up and caught her eye. With a
pronounced grimace, she tore her eyes away, now intently focused on her
fingernail. She was careful to keep her butt pointed at the wall.

“Okay, everyone.”

The tone change dragged Krista’s
eyes upwards.

The transformation nearly took
Krista’s breath away. Sean stood in the middle of the room, straight and broad,
owning his body and the space around it. He seemed taller, somehow; superior.
He was radiating authority as he moved, drawing eyes to him as though they were
attached to a fishing lure and being reeled in.

With the last swing of his
shoulders, he planted his feet in a power position and faced his staff. Without
being able to help it, unable to ignore the swelling of her groin and the
desperation to be touched, Krista’s eyes raked down his body. Wanting him
inside her. Wanting to surrender to him so badly she broke out in a sweat.

It was at that moment Sean’s eyes
swiveled to her, taking in the last of his troops before giving direction. When
his eyes connected with hers, he hesitated for a brief second, his eyes
widening ever so slightly. He couldn’t pause long, though, with all eyes on
him.

“Let’s all gather near Krista,” he
said waveringly, his voice wistful, lacking the control his body showed. His
brow knit in confusion for a brief second before he tore his eyes away from
hers.

“On that desk,” his voice got
stronger, calmly commanding. “Please have everything organized and squared
away. I’ll bring them in. Yes?”

Seeing that they would all comply,
Sean and the other salesman left to receive the clients.

Krista made herself small, huddled
against the wall, as the three other team members headed her way. The first to
reach her was a middle-aged woman with long, graying hair. She had large, red
glasses and a frumpy brown suit. Krista couldn’t help but stare at her shoes,
which were those plain, glossy black tennis shoes that nurses wore. Why she
thought those shoes, worn with a suit, still classified her outfit as business
attire Krista did not know, but this woman did not seem to care about it in the
slightest. She swung four loose poster boards, covered in font and graphics,
onto the desk.

Next came her sister-at-arms, the
other marketing person. She was also middle-aged, also had a frumpy suit, but
was at least wearing something resembling proper shoes. They were open-toed,
though. Through the hole poked out a large, unpainted, yellowing toenail.
Krista shuddered, looking up immediately.

Finally came a well-groomed guy in
a feminine suit. He was possibly in his late thirties, but he was Filipino, so
he could have been 100 for all his perfect skin would show it. He had a laptop
so Krista figured he would demonstrate the art mock-ups she had seen in Sean’s
office.

And there they were, a rag-tag team
of four, each completely different from the other, except for the Ronald
McDonald sisters. The only thing that made them better than Research was that
they didn’t stink.

“He is so cute, isn’t he?” The man
was saying, turning on his computer.

“Yes!” the lady with giant red
glasses said. Her glasses actually matched the suit of the other frumpy
marketing person. “All the girls rave about him! He is a little too young for
me, though. He could be my son!” She laughed in a high-pitched twitter that
crawled under Krista’s skin and laid eggs.

“I heard he was dating a girl from
Development. Apparently he is a wonder in the sack,” the man said
conspiratorially.

“Oh, Roger, stop it!” said Glasses.

“I heard the same thing.” This from
Red Suit. She fanned herself with an open mouth, apparently trying to feign
some sort of sexy pose with her hip stuck out and her chest popped up. It was
gross.

Normally Krista wouldn’t be so
detail-orientated in her judgments, but this was a presentation. Could they not
pull out, or buy, a better suit? Did the guy, whose suit was professional, even
though it was made for women, need to wear bright pink loafers? Where did he
even find bright pink loafers?

It occurred to her that Dell must
have taken all the best, most experienced employees, leaving the rag-tag team
for this account. She wondered again why Sean was mixed up in it. He would’ve
been better hitting heavy with the big boys. Surely they wanted their best
salesman to close the deal with a big account?

The gossip was interrupted by loud
guffaws. Sean was leading in the clients.

They were all white, middle-aged
men with big stomachs and balding heads. Sean led them, still laughing, to
seats around the oblong table. They sat and stowed their briefcases before they
looked up and glanced at the crew in the corner. Krista got another flutter of
nervousness.

Oh God, I should have peed before I
came up here.

The two marketing ladies and the
guy seemed bored with the proceedings. They barely looked at the clients.
Instead, they murmured to each other and fiddled with their props. But then,
they didn’t have to use el bano. Nervous pee was seriously the worst. Besides peeing
one’s pants, obviously.

From a seat at the end of the
table, Sean started talking about a new approach he was working on that would
reach a younger audience. Words didn’t matter. Sean was spellbinding. His
charisma lit up the room, drawing all eyes to him as he outlined the company’s
plan. The clients were focused, nodding, agreeing with him on all points.

When he was done dazzling his
audience, Sean introduced the first creative person, who was to lead off the
campaign. As Glasses made her slow way to the presentation area, Sean jumped up
to help her with her images, talking with the clients about a new spin on
graphics. The other salesman sat down one seat away from a client sporting a
fantastic comb-over, letting Sean work his magic. He certainly didn’t need any
help.

Judging by the graphics, which
looked out of date but not hip and vintage, Krista thought Sean was blowing
smoke about a new spin. She hoped the clients didn’t share that view.

Glasses faced the clients with a
vague look in her eyes, and began talking in a medium-paced monotone. Her voice
barely rose and fell with beginnings and endings of sentences. She might’ve
been making a point, or beginning a new idea—no one knew, because she was so
droning and boring that it was painful to actually listen to her words.

Sean stepped in immediately, adding
dramatic pauses and a dynamic to the delivery based on when he emphasized her
information. He was the glitter to her club scene. The cross to her savior. He
was the only reason the clients weren’t already leaving.

The hilarious part was that Glasses
was missing all of this. She stood with the same pose, droning on, seemingly
unaware of her surroundings. She was perfectly still except for her mouth.
Worse, she wasn’t even looking vaguely at the clients anymore, she was
honest-to-God staring out the window, probably wishing she were somewhere else.
It was like she was a film; whenever Sean wanted to interrupt, he pushed pause.
Then, when he hit play again, she seamlessly continued as though no time had
gone by. It was spectacular only because it was so weird. Forget her dress code
choices; she was so far removed from professional Krista wasn’t sure how she
still had a job.

After an eternity, Glasses stopped
talking. She gave Sean a brief glance, then turned to grab her stuff. That was
it. All done.

Krista stifled a giggle. So. Weird.
How did Sean deal with these people on a regular basis?

Next up was Red Suit. Sean carried
her boards and got a grin and thank you for doing so. She stood in front of the
clients, got introduced by Sean just as Glasses had, and started up the
engines. Red Suit—Krista liked that name better than Betty—at least looked at
the clients when she spoke. She wasn’t much better in her delivery, but she
smiled a couple times and shifted every once in a while. Sean still had to
help. He still had to dance around her words and brief pauses, basically giving
the presentation for her.

If Krista were the client, she
would definitely think this was rinky-dink. She’d say no just because they didn’t
have it together. But these guys were apparently still listening, not bothering
to look at Red Suit, just waiting for Sean to tell them what they needed to
know.

Too soon it was over. Which
meant…her turn.

As Sean carried the boards back, he
glanced at her in anticipation, expecting her to head up front. Since she only
had her laptop, and didn’t need help carrying that, she excused herself around
Pink Shoes and headed to the podium where she quickly plugged in her computer
and made sure everything was displayed properly on the large screen behind her.

Show time!

Krista exhaled all the wind out of
her body with a half-controlled release of tension. With the small plastic
remote in a white-knuckled grip, she turned to the clients with a smile.

Sean was off to the side, lazily
leaning back against a cabinet with his legs crossed and arms in a pose of
relaxation. He went from participant to audience. As his gaze slid over her
body, she felt like she should have a pole instead of a laptop. It was disgusting
and discontenting at the same time.

Trying not to be daunted, she
lifted her chin as she met his eyes, silently asking if he was going to
introduce her. He looked back with a closed-off expression that spoke volumes.
She was on her own.

So be it.

Turning to the panel, ignoring the
rising panic of stage fright, she brought up her first slide with a click of
the remote. “Hello, my name is Krista Marshall, and I’ll be walking you through
some numbers and research that support our ideas for this campaign.”

Besides the guy with his greasy,
black comb-over, there were two other guys. One was average looking with brown,
fluffy hair and stubble on his chin, and the other was older with
salt-and-pepper hair and a suit jacket that didn’t quite fit.

Fat man in a little coat…

Krista smiled animatedly to hide
the anger and borderline humiliation at the looks from Sean and the other
creepy sales guy, who was taking this opportunity to molest her with his eyes.

Luckily, instead of acting like the
two guys who were supposed to be on the same team as Krista, the clients all
wore respectful expressions, each looking her in the eyes. Slightly relieved,
she breathed out a smile-encrusted sigh and let her mannerisms relax as she
started her lecture on numbers, figures, and all things boring in the marketing
world.

Throughout the slides she paid each
man equal attention, choosing her own pace to match their interest level. She
rarely had to speed up, because their attention never wavered. They were
focused and interested, nodding politely with each point she made and returning
her smile when she gave one. Well, two of them did. The third was
straight-faced, but still maintaining focus. He looked back and forth between
her and the slides, occasionally writing something down.

At the end of her lecture she
paused and asked for questions. The man who hadn’t smiled, Mr. Comb-over,
asked, “I noticed all your figures rotate around a demographic slightly older.
Do you have anything that hits a little closer to what we’re going for?”

Good question.

She had no idea.

She looked at Sean, expecting him
to jump in. On average, her company didn’t go after a younger crowd. From what
she’d seen while looking through historical information in their giant
database, the company didn’t have as much experience marketing to that
demographic. Based on the fact that this younger crowd was Sean’s idea, and
because he didn’t tell her anything about it, she had absolutely no idea how he
hoped to succeed.

And apparently he wasn’t planning
on enlightening her or the clients, because he stood there, staring at her. No
change in posture except for being slightly more rigid. Not very helpful.

Fine, if he wants me to do his job,
he can eat the repercussions.

She put on a confident expression
that she had perfected in college in order to hide the complete bullshit she
spewed at a professor, and lied. “To date, with this type of product, we’ve
been working mostly in the twenty-five to thirty-five demographic.” She used a
cool, level voice. She was desperately trying to hide the crippling lack of
knowledge. “Now, however, that market has changed, and we’ll be using our
cutting edge approach to graphics, advertising niches, and already established
connections in the sports world to aim lower. Aim for a younger crowd. We already
do this with a number of our other products, so it is just a matter of tweaking
our system, integrating your product, revamping the look, and inundating all
those impressionable young minds with our message.” She smiled brightly as she
said the last few words, aiming for humor to cover the tide of rabble that fell
in clumps out of her mouth.