Perfect on Paper (25 page)

Ahhh, yes. I had heard him calling my name that day but had acted like I hadn’t.

“Oh, yeah, I broke my ankle on New Year’s Eve. But I’m okay now. Thanks.”

“Party accident?”

I shook my head. “Nothing that exciting. Jogging accident, actually.”

He continued to run next to me, and I wondered if he was going to follow me all the way home. “Hey, speaking of parties, I’m having one in a couple weeks. It’s an all-black theme. I’m getting black lights to decorate the place, and I bought black food dye for my special punch. Watch for the Evite,” he said.

“Okay, Brad, thanks. Hey, I’m going to finish my jog this way, so I’ll catch you later.” I dashed away on another path before he had a chance to reply. I just couldn’t be bothered with Brad Cantor at that moment.

Black punch? That was one party I would definitely not be attending. Maybe I could clean out my refrigerator that night. Or shoot myself in the head.

The next morning, I woke up early and stood in front of my closet, wondering what to wear to my meeting. A suit was a must, but I normally wore jeans to work, so I didn’t know how to pull it off without looking like I was sneaking out for a job interview or something equally suspicious that Mandy would certainly suspect. I hadn’t mentioned the Honey Notes to anyone at work for the same reason it had taken me so long to let McKenna and Andie read them: fear of being ridiculed (plus the fact that every other publisher in the United States apparently thought they were stupid). But the last thing I wanted to do was start rumors that I was interviewing around, so I was planning to tell Kent and Jess about the cards that morning to avoid any possible misunderstandings.

I finally chose a button-down striped orange, black, and red fitted polyester blouse with a flared collar. Then I grabbed my favorite suit: a fitted black crepe jacket with matching pants that had a slightly flared leg. I thought, or at least I hoped, that the outfit would look hip and trendy, but not too funky. I decided to wear my wire-rimmed glasses with my hair pulled back into my standard low ponytail but with a deeper side part. My goal was to look smart yet not nerdy, stylish yet professional, attractive yet serious.

I looked in the mirror before heading off to work. Could I pull this off?

At twelve thirty, with Jess’s approval and Kent’s congratulations, I left my office and headed in the direction of Smithers Publishing, just six blocks away. I couldn’t believe how nervous I was! I was literally shaking in my boots. Actually, I was shaking in my sling-back heels.

My appointment was at 1 p.m., but I highly doubted they would offer me anything to eat, so I decided to stop into Uncle Ken’s Bagels for a snack. As the cashier was giving me my change, I heard the ring of my cell phone. I dug it out of my purse and looked at the caller ID: Davey. I didn’t have time for a catch-up conversation right then, so I sent him to voicemail. “Bye-bye, Davey,” I said and tossed the phone back into my purse.

I walked out of the store and headed in the direction of Smithers Publishing. I made it about ten feet before something hit me in the back of my head.

“What the …?” I put my hand up to my head in a panic. Was I bleeding? Had I been shot? I felt no pain at all. Had I been crapped on by a pigeon?

Then I looked down and saw what had hit me lying on the sidewalk: a sesame bagel.

“What the …?” I said again.

“You are SO busted, Waverly Bryson!”

I turned around and saw Davey standing in the entrance to Uncle Ken’s Bagels, holding his cell phone up in the air and cracking up.

“Oops, sorry, Davey.” I walked back toward him. “I’m in a hurry and thought I’d just let you leave a message.”

He put his arm around me and gave me a squeeze. “Wow, you look rather stylish this afternoon. Why are you so dressed up?”

“Just a meeting.”

He narrowed his eyes. “A press meeting?”

“Not really.”

“Client meeting?”

I shook my head.

“New business pitch?”

“Not exactly.”

He took a step back. “Wait a minute, you’re not going on an interview are you? Are you ditching me?”

I laughed. “Ditch you? Never in a million years.”

“You promise?” he said.

“I promise. Now I’ve really gotta go, or I’m gonna be late.” I turned and blew him a kiss. Then I was off.

The offices of Smithers Publishing were strikingly creative. The floors were a dark hardwood with a slight reddish hue. The high ceiling boasted an enormous skylight, and each wall was painted a different shade of green or yellow. Framed photos of book and magazine covers were staggered everywhere. Biographies, autobiographies, fiction, nonfiction, science fiction, cookbooks, home-decorating magazines. Was there anything they didn’t publish? I wondered how greeting cards fit into their product mix. I hadn’t been able to find anything about them on the company’s Web site.

I walked up to the front desk. “Hi there, I’m Waverly Bryson. I have a one o’clock?”

The 50-something receptionist with short white hair smiled at me. “Hello, Miss Bryson. Please have a seat. They’ll be out to get you shortly.”

I looked at my watch. It was 12:56 p.m. I wondered if the meeting would start on time. I stood up and asked the receptionist where the restrooms were, and she pointed down the hall to the left. I looked at all the photos lining the walls as I walked, and when I reached the ladies’ room, it was totally empty. The soft background music reminded me of my dentist’s office.

After a quick pee, I flushed the toilet and turned the knob on the stall door. I heard a weird click, and the door didn’t budge.

Uh oh.

I tried again.

Nothing.

Oh Jesus, it was broken.

Holy crap.

The biggest meeting of my life started in two minutes, and I was stuck in a bathroom stall in an empty ladies’ room. Was this a joke?

I didn’t know what to do. I jiggled and jostled and rattled and jiggled the latch some more, but it just wouldn’t move. Then I started yanking, which yielded similar results.

After two minutes of swearing at the latch, I looked at my watch again. I had to get out of there. I tried to yank the door open one last time, but it just wasn’t going anywhere.

Should I scream?

At 1:01, I decided to make a move. I closed my eyes and took a deep breath. Then I got down on my back and slithered under the door. Yes, slithered under the door. Yes, on my back. Yes, in my suit. Yes, like a snake.

Ick.

Once I made it to the other side, I stood up, washed my hands, smoothed out my suit, reapplied my lipstick, and fixed my hair. Then I took a step back and looked at myself in the mirror. Had that really just happened?

I turned and headed back out to the lobby. Thank God no one had walked in on me.

When I made it back to the reception area, I sat down, picked up a magazine, and pretended to read. Then I shook my head and chuckled. Sliding under a bathroom stall door on my back? Who does that? Sometimes I wondered if I was being secretly videotaped for some humiliation-related reality show. They could call it
Waverly’s Moments.

A couple minutes later, a Clay Aiken look-alike came out and extended his hand. “Hi there, I’m Wyatt Clyndelle, a senior editor here at Smithers. Thanks for coming in.” He looked about my age, or maybe a couple of years older.

“It’s nice to meet you, Wyatt. Thanks for having me.” I stood up and shook his hand, trying not to squeeze it too hard and thus appear too eager, or too soft, and thus appear too wimpy. There are few things in life that bug me more than a limp handshake.

“It’s our pleasure, Waverly. Please, this way.” He motioned for me to follow him down the hall to a glass-walled conference room. Inside were three other people sitting at a long, oval cherry table. The carpet was a plush cream color. They probably had to shampoo it every night to keep it clean, but it certainly presented an image of success.

Wyatt opened the large glass door, and the man and two women who were sitting at the table all looked up.

“Good afternoon, everyone. I’d like to introduce you to Waverly Bryson. Waverly, this is Emily Walton, head of our fiction department, Dean Paxton, our marketing director, and I believe you spoke to Becca Bentley on the phone?”

They all stood up to shake my hand, and as I was making the rounds Wyatt offered to make me a latte.

My ears perked up. “Did you say
make
? As in you have your own espresso machine?”

Emily laughed. “We don’t mess around when it comes to properly caffeinating our employees.”

“Wow, I could get used to this place,” I said, nodding.

Within minutes we all had various coffee drinks and pastries in front of us. We chitchatted a bit about the weather, and then Emily cleared her throat to end the small talk and officially start the meeting.

“Waverly, I’d like to thank you on behalf of all of us for coming in today,” she said.

“Oh gosh, it’s my pleasure,” I said.

She picked up her cappuccino and took a sip. “You may be wondering why we wanted to talk to you, given that Smithers doesn’t currently publish greeting cards.”

So
that
was why I hadn’t been able to find any information about their card division. I knew I was a bad researcher, but not that bad.

“I must admit I was sort of wondering about that,” I said.

“So how did you come up with the idea for the cards anyway?” she said.

I looked at my hands and realized it was the first time anyone had asked me that question.

“Um, well …” I said.

I looked up at the faces sitting around the table. They were all staring at me, awaiting my reply.

Should I just come out with it?

I took a deep breath. “Well, uh, actually I started writing them after my, um, after my fiancé called off our wedding.” I exhaled an entire cloud, and I was surprised at how liberating it felt to say those words out loud, even if it was to a group of virtual strangers.

“Oh,” Emily said.

“Um, uh, he used to call me
honey
,” I said, swallowing hard. “So it was sort of an effort to be a bit ironic, I guess.”

She nodded. “Well, I’m sorry things didn’t work out with you and your ex, but I can’t say I’m sorry that you came up with those cards.”

I smiled. “Thanks.”

“The truth is that we’ve been thinking about starting a card division for a while, and until recently we hadn’t been able to agree on a strategy. But when we saw your samples, something clicked for all of us.” She gestured to the others in the room, who all nodded.

I nodded along with them, although I don’t know why. Have you ever noticed that nods are like yawns?

“Waverly, we think your Honey Notes are just what we need to launch the card division of Smithers Publishing,” Emily said.

I looked at her and blinked. Um, what?

“You want to create a card division around my Honey Notes?” I said.

“Yes.”

“But I thought this was just an introductory meeting.”

They all laughed, and Emily smiled at me. “Well, since this is our first meeting, I guess it is an introductory one, but we want you to know that we’re serious about this. We think your cards are fantastic, and we don’t see the need to waste time beating around the bush. There’s nothing like them on the market right now, and we believe they’ll really strike a chord with single women, as will your reason for creating them in the first place.”

Wow. She had seriously cut right through that bush.

“If we can come to an agreement, we’d like to launch the cards this summer,” she said.

This summer?

“Um, wow,” I said. It was hardly a professional response, but I was in professional shock.

“There’s something else, as well,” she said.

“Something else?” It was a whisper.

She nodded. “When we saw the photo that you included with the cards, we decided that it might be fun to use you in the advertising campaign.”

“The photo I included with the cards?” I said, looking at everyone in the room. Given that it came from Andie’s photo collection, I could only hope I wasn’t holding up a big fat margarita, but I highly doubted it.

Emily nodded again. “We think putting a real face behind the cards will help create a hip, fun brand identity for them, and you certainly have the right face and the right image.”

“I do?” I said.

She nodded. “And meeting you in person has confirmed that you also have the right personality.”

“I do?” I said again, wondering how in the world they’d managed to get that impression. What was up with my caveman answers? A hair above grunting is hardly a winning conversation style.

She smiled. “You’re our Honey Notes poster girl, Waverly, what do you think?”

I felt a little light-headed and was glad that I was sitting down. I took a sip of my latte and looked around the room. Me, a poster girl for the hip? If these people had only seen me just a half-hour earlier, mopping the restroom floor with my discount suit.

“An advertising campaign?” I said.

“Yep,” Dean, the marketing guy, said. “We’re thinking print and billboards for advertising, plus a publicity tour to hit magazines, TV, and radio, plus the online communities and blogosphere. Maybe you can give us some advice on that side of things.”