That New York Minute. Abby Gaines
they both knew that in this area, Dwight had never been able to control his son.
Garrett stood again, and this time, nothing would induce him to sit back down. “Goodbye, Dad.”
RACHEL WAS DECIDEDLY on edge early Saturday morning as she mooched around her Washington Heights condo—not a great area, but the best she could afford when she’d bought the place two years ago.
She’d been convinced Garrett would quit rather than give KBC a chance to fire him.
Yet when he left the office last night with Clive—worrying in itself—The Shark didn’t appear to have cleared out his desk.
Maybe he didn’t want to quit on his birthday, she thought, as she wiped the kitchen counter. If it was truly his birthday, and that wasn’t another lie.
She tossed the dishcloth in the washing machine, and set about plumping up the cushions of her giant sofa. She’d never have predicted Garrett would be interested in the partnership in the first place. What if he didn’t quit after all?
Their prospective client, Brightwater Group, was tickled pink at the prospect of not one but three fabulous ideas for their campaign, in exchange for giving feedback to the KBC board about the three partners designate. Rachel was beginning to feel like a contestant on America’s Next Top Ad Agency Partner.
She hated those shows. She wasn’t a crier by nature, but she cried when people got thrown out of the house, expelled from the island, kicked off the catwalk.
I could be next. She felt nauseous just thinking about it. If Garrett did stick around, his slimy behavior today had given her a heads-up that he wasn’t about to play fair. If he wants a fight, he’ll get it. She would put the work in, she would leave nothing to chance and she would win.
This would have to be her best campaign ever. She would have to be the best every step of the way. Starting with the meeting she, Garrett and Clive would attend at Brightwater’s offices on Monday.
Rachel usually handled briefing meetings with ease. But this time the client would be directly comparing her with Garrett.
What if they liked sleazy, lying, tardy but highly creative jerks?
What if the client asked some off-the-wall question, to which she would say her usual, “Hmm, you make an excellent point, Ben/Jerry/Jack. I’d like to think about that and get back to you.” While Garrett would produce some amazing spontaneous insight.
It didn’t bear thinking about. She needed to be even better prepared than usual, so she could at least look unrehearsed and intuitive. Okay, the logic was skewed … but that was what she had to do.
Starting right now.
An hour later, Rachel loaded her overnight bag into the trunk of a rented Ford Focus, along with a supply of Aunt Betty’s Apple Pies, courtesy of her very appreciative client—how many bottles of Calvin Klein fragrance had Garrett been given, huh?—and joined the weekend crawl out of Manhattan. Once she was through the Holland Tunnel, she stuck to the toll roads, and the traffic thinned right out.
It was only eleven o’clock when she pulled into The Pines Mobile Home Park in Freehold, New Jersey. She followed the loop road, if you could call the vaguely circular stretch of gravel a road, around to her parents’ trailer.
Her mom must have heard the crunch of her tires, because the door of the double-wide opened before Rachel switched off her engine.
“Hi, Mom,” Rachel called as she grabbed her bag from the backseat. She loaded up an armful of pies, then closed the door with her butt.
“Honey, did you tell us you were coming—oh, yum!” Nora Frye’s eyes lit up at the sight of the red-and-white pie cartons.
Rachel kissed her cheek and handed over the booty. “Kind of a last-minute decision—is that okay?” Cell phone reception wasn’t great here, and it was always a hassle to phone the trailer-park office and hope they’d get a message to her parents.
“That’s fine, though I guess we’ll have to cancel our trip to Paris,” her mother said gaily, leading the way inside. As she crossed the threshold, she raised her voice. “Burton, Rachel’s here!”
“Did he work last night?” Rachel asked. Her dad’s burly build meant he easily found a job as a security guard whenever her parents’ other schemes fell through.
“Got to bed at five,” her mom confirmed, “but he can wake up for you.”
Rachel followed her mom to the small kitchen area. While Nora filled the kettle Rachel had given her last Christmas and set it on the stove, Rachel dug in her purse to produce a pack of real coffee. Her mom set the jar of instant she’d been opening back on the shelf, and reached high for the French press, covered with a film of dust.
“So, what’s new?” Her mom squirted detergent into the press and began to wash it.
“I made the partner short list at work.”
Her mom gave a little squawk. “Hon, that’s fantastic!”
“I know. Thanks.” Just thinking about it had Rachel grinning. She pushed aside the “I might get fired” aspect as she found some scissors in a drawer and snipped the top off the coffee pack. When she was certain her mom wasn’t watching, she tucked a folded twenty-dollar bill in the back of the drawer.
By the time they’d carried their cups over to the table by the window, Rachel’s dad had emerged from the bedroom. He hugged Rachel before he pulled out one of the nonmatching chairs and sat. “That coffee for me, Nora?”
Her mom slid the third mug toward him. While she fussed with cream and sugar, Rachel took the opportunity to stuff another twenty down the gap between the seat pad and the back of the built-in banquette she occupied. Anything more than twenty and her parents would get suspicious.
Her dad took a sip of the hot coffee and let out a satisfied sigh. “Home is where the coffee is, right, Nora?”
“That’s right, hon.” Nora blew him a kiss.
Rachel tensed. Comments like that made her want to chime in with something like, “Home is where you put down roots. Where you decide to stick it out, no matter what.”
Rachel blew on her coffee so she wouldn’t meet his eyes and feel compelled to disagree. Pointing out their fundamental differences in philosophy only led to circular arguments that, despite being right, she never won.
“I’m hoping I can pick your brains,” she said, changing the subject. Her family came in very handy when she wanted to run ideas by them or have them try out a new product. It was her mom who’d said, “This is better’n I make, don’t you think, Burton?” the first time she’d tried an Aunt Betty’s apple pie.
Which had inspired the eventual slogan “As good as Mom makes.” Aunt Betty’s had seen a nice upturn in sales as a result of that particular piece of creativity.
In the past, Rachel had offered to pay them to be her own private focus group—it would help them financially, and she’d assured them KBC would pick up the tab—but they wouldn’t hear of it.
“I’m pitching to a group that’s taken over a bunch of private colleges,” she said. “They’ll be rebranding and relaunching them, along with a finance company offering student loans. But we’ll just talk about the academic side today,” she added quickly.
She’d learned not to discuss anything financial with her parents, however gently couched. I don’t think this email is actually from the president of Nigeria’s largest bank, Dad. Or, A hundred percent interest over three months implies a higher investment risk level than you might want to take.
Instead, she tried to hide enough twenty-dollar bills that they could afford a few small treats. Hoping it was enough to stave off the need to pursue instant riches.
“Sure, we can talk about