Truth in Advertising (4 page)

Saffron is wide-eyed and stunned and scared and nodding slowly.

Pam says, “One more thing. I don't like your name. So I'm going to call you Barbara for the rest of the shoot. Now go away and tell Raphael to learn what an F-stop is.”

Saffron scurries away.

Another woman walks up to Pam and has what appears to be a massive amount of baby spit-up on her shirt.

Ian says, “I have bad news for you about your blouse.”

Pam says, “Who are you?”

The woman says, “The baby wrangler. We have a problem.”

Ian says, “We got that part.”

The woman says, “The baby's puking like crazy.”

Pam says, “What about the backup baby? So far we've only shot this one from behind.”

“Yeah, I know,” the wrangler says. “But there was a bit of a screwup and the casting agency sent . . . they sent a black baby.”

I say, “Chris Martin is not going to like this.”

Pam doesn't blink twice. She takes out her cell phone and calls the casting agency. Into the phone she says, “It's Pam Marston for Sandy.” Away from the phone: “Barbara!” Saffron comes running, wide-eyed, an eager, terrified little Marine ready to follow Pam's orders into battle.

Alan and Jill, our account execs, finally reappear.

Alan says skittishly, “You want the good news or the bad news?”

No one says anything.

Alan says, “Okay, that's good because there is no good news. So I'll move right to the bad. We're using the wrong diapers.”

Pam stares at Alan in a way that could not be mistaken for friendly.

Alan says, “These diapers are for infants. We need the Diaper Pants for toddlers.”

Ian covers his face. I look to the ceiling, in hopes of a ladder being lowered from a waiting helicopter.

Pam says, “We've been shooting since 7:46
A.M.
It's 11:32. Do you know how much film we've shot?”

Alan says, “A lot?”

“A lot, Alan? We're shooting thirty-five-millimeter film, haircut. One-thousand-foot mags. Eleven minutes a mag. Two dollars a foot to process. That doesn't include transferring or color correcting. We've blown through eight mags so far today. That's eight thousand feet of film that's useless.”

Alan says, “I missed a lot of that.”

Pam says, “Try this. The client just spent thirty-six thousand dollars on nothing.”

Alan says, “That's very bad.”

Pam says, “Wait. Are the diapers we've been using that much different? How different-looking can diapers be?”

Jill says, “Dramatically different, Pam. That's the Snugglies touch.”

Pam says, “Jill. Say another word and I will drown you in a toilet.”

Pam puts the phone to her ear. “Sandy. Pam. I have a black baby.”

A woman approaches, one of Gwyneth's assistants.

“That's so beautiful,” the assistant says. “I wish more people would break down the color barrier. Are you Pam?”

Pam nods and says into the phone, “Sandy, I'm going to call you back in sixty seconds.”

Gwyneth's assistant says, with a big fake smile, “I think there might be some mistake. We see here on the schedule that this is a two-day shoot?” She slowly shakes her head no. “We were under the impression it was just one day.”

Pam says, “What? No. No, no. No, it's definitely two. We need her for two. We went over all of this with you guys. Like, twenty times.”

The assistant, still smiling, says, “I know, but that's not going to work because she's on a plane tonight to Berlin. The new M. Night movie.”

Ian says, “Is it about diapers?”

The assistant says, “Sorry.” But she's not sorry at all. She turns and walks away. Everyone stares at Pam.

Pam says, “There are so many filthy, filthy words I want to say right now.”

She turns to Alan. “Talk to the client. Fix this blue-purple-gay thing. Do
not
tell them about the scheduling thing. Go.”

He snaps into action, and Jill follows him.

Pam turns to Saffron. “White baby, then M. Night. Ian. Come with me.”

I stand alone as three people attend to Gwyneth's hair and makeup. I watch the director of photography and the second assistant camera loader change lenses. Gaffers adjust huge lights nimbly, quickly. I appear to be the only person on the set with nothing to do.

My phone rings. The display reads
Martin Carlson
.

Martin is English and famous in the advertising world and came to our agency about eighteen months ago and changed what was a wonderful place to work, if by work you mean
not work very much
, into a place where you have to work, if by work you mean
work
, a lot, nights, weekends. Martin loves meeting on Sunday afternoons to review work. His arrival has not gone over well.

Our previous creative director was a legend in the business. Ron Spasky. Ron lived in what was most certainly one of the heydays of advertising. Budgets were large, clients listened, you could scream at
people and still keep your job. Who's to say what caused his downfall. A misfire in the synapses, too much stress, bad wiring. Or just too many years of repugnant living. Like so many clichés in the business—men nearing fifty who dress far younger than their years, keep guitars they do not play in their expansive offices, wear bizarrely large wristwatches—Ron's real downfall began with his hair, which seemed to have a direct line to his penis. The more hair he lost, the younger the women he dated, to the point where he began dating a twenty-four-year-old junior producer, the unfortunately named Fiona Finkel. Fiona was a curvy woman, a woman who knew the power of her sexuality over men of a certain age, an age when the supple elasticity of young female flesh can be mind-altering. She was promoted, rather abruptly, much to the dismay of others who had worked far longer and knew much more. One thing led to another, the other being working late with Ron, the odd late-night drink, a ride home in his car service, dinner at out-of-the-way places where coworkers—or anyone else, really—might not see them. During those late dinners way downtown and sometimes on Arthur Avenue in the Bronx (“Why are we up here?”) she would, using her foot, play with his Cialis-assisted erection through his trousers under the table. She had never before seen an American Express Black Card.

Later, Ron left his wife of many years, his wife who had increasingly found herself alone late at night, wondering when her husband was going to get home from the office, leaving him a little something on the counter, a note under the plate, Saran Wrap protecting the sandwich, the chicken leg, the piece of homemade cake.
I miss you.
Surely his wife's mind drifted during the boring sitcoms that she watched after the children were fed and bathed and read to. Wandered from her quotidian life in Katonah to his exciting one in the city, in the company of young, interesting, attractive people. She wondered why he never invited her to join him for the occasional event. She could get a sitter, she'd told him. You'd be bored, he'd told her. They say she was on antidepressants for some time, her heart and ability to trust a kind of roadkill now. They say Ron found himself a particularly vicious divorce attorney, left her with very little, and certainly without pride.

Powerful Ron and curvy Fee (her preferred name, the irony simply too rich) wed on a beach somewhere. Friends from the city, from advertising. Great sums of money were spent. Small, fancy hotels. They'd called the island's only helicopter service late one night because they wanted a tour under the full moon.

But that little black card does not come cheap. And so it was that one day a few years ago, in the agency's main conference room, Ron stood up in a meeting and began removing his clothes, not saying a word, not changing an iota, one witness said, the smile on his face. I'm told he continued presenting the idea (I believe it was for batteries). Later, when the police arrived, he refused to get dressed and was led out of the building and into a waiting police car on Sixth Avenue wearing around his buttocks and manhood his secretary's canary-yellow cardigan, the one she kept on the back of her chair for summer days when the building's air conditioning was too cold. She urged him to keep it.

Now, one hears stories of Ron and Fee's rocky marriage, of her forward ways on television commercial shoots with young men who are rising in the agency, while her formerly powerful husband is at home, surrounded by specially made soft gardening implements, where he tends to their tomato plants and, on good days, is allowed to walk the dog. In the afternoons he is given cookies.

Since Martin's arrival I have tried to show my worth by enacting what I like to call The Finbar Dolan Campaign for Creative Director, Long-Term Success, and Renewed Self-Esteem. (A long and not particularly interesting title, to be sure, especially from someone who's supposed to be good at writing exactly these kinds of things.) How have I enacted The Plan? I have done this by getting in at 9:30-but-closer-to-10 and leaving around six, with a midday pause for a long lunch. Also by acting as a respected mentor to the other creatives in my group, which is not technically my group, nor do they really see me as a mentor or even listen to me. My great hope (as I believe is reflected in the clever titling of my plan) is to be promoted this year to creative director. It is an important milestone in one's advertising career. You go from merely creating ads—concepting, writing, art directing—to overseeing, critiquing,
criticizing, and most often shooting them down. It is something I feel I could be good at. It would also be a bump in salary. It would mean the respect of others at the agency. Which is not to say I don't have enormously high self-esteem or that I rely on the opinion of others. (I don't and I do.)

I say, “Martin.”

“Fin.”

“Martin.”

Martin says, “How goes it on the coast?”

“We're in Queens, actually. Which is certainly a coast, but not the one you were thinking of.”

Martin says, “And Gwyneth, Fin? Stunning?”

“Stunning,” I say.

Martin says, “Met her once. She might remember me.”

“I mentioned you to her,” I lie. “She remembered.”

Martin cackles. “I
knew
it. Did she say where that was?”

“She didn't. You sound strange, Martin.”

“Yoga, Fin. Standing on my head at the moment. Secret to life. Releases tension. Have you tried it?”

“No, but I masturbate a lot. Does wonders.”

Martin says, without a hint of a laugh, “Humor. Very good. Hearing reports of black babies, Fin, of unhappy clients.”

How does he know these things?

“Just rumors, Martin,” I say. “We had some issues earlier but things are better now.”

“Good to hear. Creative directors take care of these things. Bull by the horns.”

Creative directors.

Martin says, “I have some excellent news of my own, Fin. Big oil.”

I say, “That's great. Except I'm not sure what you're talking about.”

“Petroleon, Fin. Head man's an old chum—we were at Eton together. Not happy with their current agency. Want to avoid a formal pitch. Meet and greet, see if the chemistry's there. Oh, Christ.”

I hear a thud and then moaning.

“Martin?” I say.

Muffled, somewhat at a distance, I hear, “These
bas
tard walls!”

I hear a hand grabbing the phone, rubbing the mouthpiece.

“Martin?” I say again. “You okay?”

“I don't feel pain, Fin. Anyway. He's only in town a short time. I'd like to bring in one of our top creatives.”

This is turning out better than I had hoped.

Martin says, “Except none of them will be around Thursday because of the holiday.”

“Oh,” I reply cleverly.

“I'm joking, Fin. I think you could be the man for this. Might be a nice change from diapers.”

“You said ‘change' and ‘diapers.' That's funny.”

“Are you available Thursday?”

“This Thursday?”

“Yes.”

“My flight leaves Thursday, Martin.”

“Morning or afternoon.”

“Afternoon,” I say, sensing my mistake immediately.

“No worries, then. Knew I could count on you. You, me, Frank, Dodge. Top brass, Fin. The big leagues. Win this and write your own ticket.”

I say, “Wait. Isn't Petroleon the one responsible for the big spill in Alaska awhile back?”

“And you're perfect, I suppose? Don't mention the spill. Very sensitive about it.”

“Are they doing anything about it?”

Martin says, “About what?”

“The spill.”

“Of course. Deeply committed to change. That's why they're hiring a new agency.”

I say, “Excellent.”

Martin says, “Snugglies client happy?”

I say, “I guess.”

Martin says, “Don't guess, Fin. Make sure. Keep them happy. Keep your job. Humor.”

The line goes dead.

A twenty-two-year-old from craft services with spiked hair walks up with a tray of small paper cups of coffee.

“Mocha cappuccino?”

I say, “I have a degree in English literature.”

The kid stares at me.

I say, “My thesis was on Eliot's ‘The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock.' I won an award for it. That's a lie. I almost won an award for it. Or would have, perhaps, if I'd finished it and submitted it, which I didn't.”

The kid continues staring.

I say, “‘Let us go then, you and I, when the evening is spread out against the sky, like a patient etherized upon a table.'”

I say, “I wanted to write. I wanted to write poetry. To touch people's hearts and open their minds. I wanted to live by the sea, England perhaps, teach at an old college, wear heavy sweaters, and have sex with my full-breasted female students.”

The kid stares some more, his mouth open a bit now.