That New York Minute (4 page)

Garrett peeled off to the left,
ignoring the few greetings called out to him. Rachel took some hope from
that. He really was useless with people.

She headed to her own office,
her progress slowing as she stopped to answer Alice’s question about the
storyboard she was working on, to inquire after Natasha’s boyfriend’s torn
Achilles tendon, to congratulate Talia on her engagement and admire the
ring.

At last she was in her office.
Rachel stopped still, and surveyed all the things that anchored her here.
Her Carolina beech desk, her red leather ergonomic chair, the whiteboard
where she and the team spent long evenings brainstorming, the glass wall
that allowed her to look out on “her” domain.

“How’d it go?” Haylee, the team
admin, walked in behind her, a small sheaf of mail in her hand.

The mailroom, where Rachel had
started, was now officially titled the communications center, handling
actual letters and packages only a small part of its work.

“Not great.” Rachel perched on
the edge of her desk and forced a smile. “I failed to fire on all
cylinders.” For now, she would respect Tony’s request for confidentiality
about the imminent sacking of two of the executive creative
directors.

“That’s not like you.” Haylee
fiddled with the cord of the window-blinds until they were wide-open,
exposing the view of Madison Avenue far below.

“I said something to Garrett
that put me off balance.” Rachel nodded in acknowledgment of Haylee’s small
sound of surprise—Haylee hadn’t expected Garrett to be on the list, either.
“A stupid joke about his mom, and it turns out she’s dead.”

Her distraction might have even
worse consequences than she’d feared. How many of the partners would deem
her unworthy of even her current job based on today’s performance? The
sooner Garrett quit, the better.

Haylee grimaced. “Oh, yeah, his
mom died in that plane crash.”

Rachel frowned. “No, it was
cancer.”

“Uh-uh,” Haylee said with
complete certainty. “It was a plane crash. One of those scenic flights…at
Thanksgiving, maybe five, six years ago? I asked Garrett about his family
back when he joined, and he told me. Poor guy, he’s still pretty cut up
about it.”

Rachel froze.

Garrett’s sob story about the
chemo and the Doris Day movies and “the difference between a miserable day
and an okay one”…
He’d made it up?

Why?

What kind of person would lie
about his mother’s death?

She scanned the work area beyond
the glass wall, where her colleagues, the hardest-working group of people
she knew—people she might soon be forced to leave—bustled around. Then she
saw him.

Garrett, chatting to Julie, a
junior creative—one of
Rachel’s
junior creatives—his face a study in determined
friendliness.

Julie looked overwhelmed…then,
when Garrett touched her shoulder lightly, she peered up at him through
demurely lowered lashes.

What the—?
Before she even thought about what she was doing,
Rachel had crossed to the glass wall, banged it hard with the palm of her
hand.

“Rachel?” Haylee
said.

Julie looked up, waved and
returned to her work. Garrett swiveled to face Rachel. Their eyes
met.

The events of the past twelve
hours flashed through her mind. Last night in the bar, this morning’s
elevator ride, the meeting, her guilty discomfort, her distraction, the way
she hadn’t fought back when her work was questioned. What had Garrett said
in the elevator?
“You don’t react in the moment.
That’s your weakness.”

Last night took on a whole new
significance. Garrett had known he would see her in this morning’s meeting
and he’d set out to humiliate her. Still, she could have recovered from
that. But this morning, he’d spun her that garbage about his mother knowing
it would set her off-kilter.

That one minute—that New York
minute, as he called it—had changed everything.

Rachel didn’t have it in her to
hide her outrage. Garrett took careful observation of her rigid posture, her
hand still slammed against the glass, her doubtless heightened
color.

One side of his mouth
curled.

What kind of person lies about his
mother’s death?

Not a person…a Shark. A slimy,
ruthless predator.

And the blood in the water was
hers.

CHAPTER FOUR

G
ARRETT
WATCHED
HIS
FATHER
approaching, plowing through the crowded bar like a frigate through a flotilla of pleasure craft.

Garrett drained his beer glass. The beer here at O’Dooley’s was on tap, rather than the bottled beers favored by the other bars in the locale. “Here comes my date,” he told Clive Barnes.

Clive took one look at Admiral Dwight Calder’s uniform—service khakis, suggesting there’d been no high-powered meetings today—and much-decorated chest, and stood. “I feel like I should salute,” he said out of the corner of his mouth, though the admiral would never hear him over the din of the Friday-night drinkers.

“Don’t encourage him,” Garrett said.

Clive polished off his beer. “Time I went home to Wifey.” He nodded to Garrett’s father as he left.

“Who was that?” his father asked. He pulled out the chair Clive had vacated and sat.

“A colleague.”

Dwight frowned. “He was wearing a pink shirt.”

“I have one just like it at home,” Garrett lied. He cursed his own childish reaction. When would he learn not to rise to his dad’s narrow views? “You want a beer?” he asked.

“Thanks.” Dwight glanced around the bar. “So, this is the kind of place you hang out.”

Garrett signaled to one of the waiters, distinctive in green polos with a shamrock motif, to bring two beers. “Sometimes.”

Not often, actually. He wasn’t much of a social drinker, and drinking alone didn’t appeal—last night excepted. But when his father had asked to meet tonight, Garrett hadn’t wanted to commit to a whole meal. He’d suggested his dad meet him here at seven, giving him plenty of time for the “drink and chat” that Clive had suggested.

Neither he nor his dad was a fan of small talk, so they waited for their beers in silence.

Garrett pondered his conversation with Clive, who’d been keen to understand how genuine Garrett’s interest in the partnership was.

The truth? He’d initially refused to let his name go forward because a partnership smacked too much of losing his independence. But his refusal had niggled at him. He wasn’t sure if he’d done the right thing. At the last minute, he’d decided he might as well keep his options open.

This morning, his knee-jerk reaction to Tony’s announcement had been to quit. He didn’t doubt for a second that he could outperform both Rachel and Clive, but that wasn’t the point. He hated that kind of manipulation.

But even worse, he hated to display his emotions in public. He would quit on Monday, right after he told Tony, in private, what he thought of KBC’s idiotic plan to save money. Garrett wasn’t about to hang around in a firm that thought so little of him it would toss him out on a whim. Always be the first to leave—the philosophy had served him well.

He would walk out of KBC with no regrets. Last night, two bottles of champagne had convinced him the partnership was something he could do on his own terms. This morning had proven him wrong, and that was fine. Like he’d told Rachel yesterday, “Let it go.”

Of course, he’d been aware of the irony of those words. Aware he was drinking in a futile attempt to
let go
himself. He’d failed, as he did at this time every year, to stem the rising tide of regret. Of bitterness.

Rachel’s situation had seemed blessedly uncomplicated, compared with his own inner turmoil. It was obvious her boyfriend was dumping her; equally obvious she was hanging on for dear life. Begging.

Twice in his life Garrett had begged.
Big mistake.

The waiter arrived. He set down two beers and a bowl of nuts, picked up the old glasses and started to leave. Dwight cleared his throat significantly, then lowered his gaze a fraction to indicate a ring of liquid on the table. The waiter muttered an apology as he wiped the table, double-quick.

Garrett took a slug of his second drink of the night, which at last took the edge off the headache he’d been squinting through all day. He just wanted to get through this meeting, or whatever it was, and go home to bed.

His father cleared his throat again, but this time it wasn’t in lieu of a spoken command. “Many happy returns of the day.”

His dad would never say
Happy Birthday
if he could find a more formal alternative.

“Thanks.” Garrett forced himself to respond reasonably, instead of saying something inflammatory like,
What do you care?

A woman carrying a guitar squeezed past their table, followed a moment later by two guys, one of them also lugging a guitar case. Must be the band, headed for the small stage in the far corner.

“Did you. Do anything special?” Dwight asked. He never said
um
or
uh,
so any hesitation sounded like a full stop. “Thirty is. A milestone.” He took a quick drink.

Two hesitations in the space of a minute. What was going on?

“I got shortlisted for partner at KBC today,” Garrett said, buying himself time to work out his dad’s agenda.

Why had he said that? What was the point of telling his father about a promotion that he didn’t intend to stick around to get? It wasn’t as if Dad would be impressed.

He braced himself for a lecture about getting a “real job.” Namely, one in the armed forces, one that mattered.

His father surprised him by saying, “Good.” He took another drink of his beer. Not his usual measured pace.

“If I get the partnership—”
shut up,
Garrett warned himself,
stop right there, you’re not doing this
“—I’ll be chief creative officer.” Dammit, the alcohol he’d consumed over the past twenty-four hours had loosened his mouth.

Dwight’s glass thudded onto the table. “Chief
creative
officer?”

This was why Garrett should have stopped.

“What would anyone there know about being an
officer?
” his father asked. “About discipline and structure?”

“Nothing at all,” Garrett said with heartfelt relief. His father’s rigid adherence to
discipline and structure
were what had driven them apart, and Garrett’s choice of career had done nothing to fill the gap. Dwight derided the advertising industry as frivolous, billions of dollars spent giving people choices they didn’t need. As far as he was concerned, there was only one way to do anything: his way.

As Dwight leaned forward the four metal stars on his collar denoting his rank, polished to a high gleam, caught the light. “Wouldn’t a job like that involve commanding a team?”

“Leadership is part of it, yes.” Might as well give his father enough rope to hang him.

“You don’t have the right attitude for that,” Dwight said. “You need to blend authority with a genuine interest in your men.”

“I’m definitely not interested in men,” Garrett agreed, using flippancy, guaranteed to drive his father nuts, to mask his annoyance.

Without knowing the first thing about it, Dwight had decided Garrett didn’t deserve the promotion. Garrett was tempted to prove him wrong. To stick around, win the partnership. Then quit, which would give Tony and the other partners a lesson in how not to run a partnership selection.

Not worth the hassle, he decided. There were other agencies he could go to right away. Lots of them.

Dwight was inhaling noisily, his face turning slightly purple. If Garrett had been one of his father’s “men,” he’d have feared imminent court-martial.

“If you want to learn leadership, Garrett, you should get a real job,” Dwight said. “You could make something of yourself.”

Here we go.
Garrett drained his glass, glad he hadn’t been naive enough to think they could survive a whole meal. He stood. “See you around, Dad,” he said, confident it was highly unlikely. Madison Avenue might not be far from USUN, the United States Mission to the United Nations, where his father was an adviser, but their paths never intersected.

“Sit down,” Dwight ordered.

Yeah, right. Garrett wasn’t about to start obeying his father’s commands at this late stage. He left the role of the “good son” to his brother, Lucas.

“Please,” Dwight said.

Garrett stared.
Dad learned a new word.

When his father pointed at the chair, he sat down again.

Dwight closed his eyes for a moment before he spoke. “I know this is a. Difficult day for you.”

“But not for you?” Garrett asked.

Irony was wasted on his father. “That’s why I wanted to see you.”

His birthday, the anniversary of his mother’s death—not everything he’d told Rachel had been a lie—had been a difficult day every year for the past fifteen years. This was the first time Dwight had acknowledged it. “Are you sick?” Garrett asked.

It would surely be divine retribution for the lies that had Rachel so riled, if his father suddenly confessed to a terminal illness. Not that Garrett felt the least bit guilty about Rachel. He’d done her a favor, telling her a plain truth last night. This morning, she’d got up his nose with her superiority and her dismissal of his abilities. She’d reminded him, in fact, of his father.

Only she’d been far easier to topple than Admiral Dwight Calder. She didn’t have the backing of the U.S. Navy to make her feel infallible.

“I’m not sick,” Dwight said.

Relief rushed through Garrett. He tilted his chair back. “Then why are you here?”

Over on the far side of the room, the band was running a sound check. In another five minutes, there’d be no possibility of conversation.

“It’s time you and I made more of an effort with each other,” his father said.

Garrett’s chair thumped back on to all four legs. “Are you going to tell me this was your idea?” he asked calmly.

“Stephanie suggested it,” Dwight admitted.

“Tell your wife to butt out.” Garrett kept his voice even, masking the upsurge of anger. He didn’t know why Stephanie should pick now, after all this time, to take an interest in his relationship with his father. He didn’t
want
to know.

A whine of feedback came through the amplifier on the tiny stage, hurting his ears.

“She’s your stepmother,” Dwight said with icy control.

But 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.”

* * *

R
ACHEL
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.