Truth in Advertising (9 page)

The point is that I never made it to Simon Pearce that day to return our last engagement party gift. Nor any day after that. I kept it. I do not know why, exactly, but I needed to hold on to it, even if only for the imaginary dinner party I would have with my imaginary wife, where one needs an obscenely expensive gravy boat.

•   •   •

The phone startles me. I see the display, the area code before the number. 617. Boston. It's Eddie. It has to be. I watch myself watch the phone ring, like someone in a movie, and think, as I do when I'm watching a movie like that,
Answer the phone!
A tingling in my stomach, in my palms.
Answer the phone, it's your brother, for God's sake
. But I continue to hesitate. Because it's Eddie. Because of who Eddie's become. Because it's about my father. And maybe he's alive and maybe he's dead and there's a one in a million chance he's come back to beg forgiveness but I'm sorry, old fella, there's a statute of limitations on forgiveness. At least with the Irish.

The ringing stops.

I go back to the obits and read about a pioneer in DNA research who won a Nobel Prize. I read of an economist who was noted for his “mathematical rigor.” I read of the inventor of the Bundt pan. Unlike the other two men, there is no photo of him. Instead, there is a photo of a Bundt pan. He was eighty-six. This is how he is remembered to
the world. I wait for the red light on my phone that signals a message but it never appears.

•   •   •

An e-mail informs me that there is a problem with Doodles.

Doodles are a chocolate candy with toffee in the center. They are one of the oldest candies in America. Chances are good that you have eaten them. We have been their ad agency for many, many years. Doodles and Chew-gees and Gooshy Gum. One of the company's newer products, Joy-Jellies, which is selling very well, is handled by an agency across town. We would very much like that business. Last year alone, those four products earned two-point-eight billion dollars worldwide. The Chinese love Doodles and they love Joy-Jellies but they detest Gooshy Gum, whose name, we learned not long ago, is roughly the equivalent to the Chinese word
shit
. People here take Doodles very seriously. The company needs a new rip. (A rip is a rip-off of video footage from other TV commercials and sometimes movies that we share with the client at the start of the production process as a guide to the kind of thing you'd like to shoot for them, or sometimes just to make them happy:
“Hey, look! We stole these images from an award-winning Nike commercial and from
Mission: Impossible III,
among many, many others to show you how great your candy is.”
We also steal music we could never, ever use. U2, Coldplay, The Rolling Stones. It's akin to me sharing
The Great Gatsby
with someone as a guide to my writing.)

Another e-mail—agency-wide—reminds us about the holiday party, which this year is being held . . . next year! In another time, in a far different economy, long, long ago, the company holiday party was a special affair. Not so this year. My admittedly unscientific poll has shown that people have laughed it off but one gets the sense they're hurt. People work hard. There are many people here for whom a party is a nice thing, a special thing, a thing to get excited about, perhaps an excuse to wear a pretty dress. It shows that the company you work for—that you invest so much of your life in—cares just a little bit. I do not generally think of a Tuesday morning as a great time for a holiday party, but our parent company does. There are several
reasons they think this way. One is because the cost of renting a greasy-smelling banquet hall in a Times Square hotel at this time slot is far less. Another is fewer people will drink at a party at 10:00
A.M.,
limiting any potential liability when, say, a male employee, perhaps after six too many Stoli-and-tonics, “accidentally” pulls his penis out of his pants and runs around screaming, as was the case last year. Less alcohol means less cost (a theme?). And, perhaps most importantly, fewer people calling in sick the next day. The e-mail reminds us that the party begins at 10:00
A.M.
with speeches by Frank, Dodge, Martin, and a special keynote by Keita Nagori, the aforementioned son of the agency's new owner. Brunch and dancing to follow.

•   •   •

Later in the morning the office fills with the hum of the workday: the R2-D2 of electronic phones, the light tapping of laptop keyboards, the quiet buzz saw of copiers and printers, conversations muted by the carpeting. Light days today and tomorrow, the agency closing at noon on Christmas Eve.

Phoebe comes into my office with two coffees, something she does most days. I am hard at work. I'd begun, but did not complete, my expense report, as I got distracted by a Google search for information about Mexico but somehow find myself reading a long story about Brett Favre's childhood.

“There's a new receptionist on nine,” she says.

“This is not a great lead sentence,” I say. “ ‘Call me Ishmael' is a great lead sentence. ‘Mother died today. Or maybe it was yesterday' is a great lead sentence. ‘There's a new receptionist on nine' needs work.”

“She's a former Miss Black Deaf America.”

I say, “Much better.”

“I'm serious.”

“I don't know what that means.”

“It means she's deaf and beautiful.”

I say, “Would you rather be deaf or beautiful?”

“Neither. Wait. Beautiful.”

“The other four senses of the deaf are far more highly attuned than the average person.”

“Is that true?”

“I have no idea. I hear perfectly well.”

Phoebe asks, “What sense would you lose?”

“Touch.”

“You say that very quickly. You're sure? Never feel softness, texture?”

“Touch is overrated,” I say.

Phoebe says, “You'd give up touching the curve of a woman's hip?”

“Okay. I see what you did there. Umm . . . hearing.”

Phoebe says, “No music?”

“I want all my senses, but I also want that thing where your other senses are more highly attuned because you can't see or hear.”

Phoebe looks at me and says, “Stop.” She says it gently.

I'm touching my scar, the small one along my jawline. I got it when I was a kid. I'm self-conscious of it. Phoebe knows that.

She says, “Did you hear about Tom Pope?”

“Tell me.”

Tom is an associate creative director who sits a few offices away.

“I heard from Jackie who was out with Erica at what's-it-called across the street that Tom was at the bar with that new account girl.”

“The stunning one?”

“The stunning one.”

“Not his wife, in other words.”

“Definitely not his wife. They were making out. At the bar. Like openly making out. This is across the street! Tom gets so drunk that he puts his head on the bar and the stunning one strokes it. People are watching them now. He puts his hand up the back of her blouse. He gets up and walks into the hostess stand, almost knocking it over. The hostess picks him up, asks if he's all right. He says he's fine. Then he walks out onto the street and in full view of the entire restaurant, pukes onto the sidewalk.”

Why is there a part of me that secretly enjoys hearing about this? Why is there a tingle of excitement at someone else's misfortune, poor decision, emotional duress? Is it because somewhere in my own psyche I understand poor, sad Tom Pope's actions, his need for
attention from an attractive young woman as he grows older? Is it because I recognize this as a cry for help, a longing for something that's clearly not happening at home? Or is it because it's just plain funny when a grown man makes a horse's ass of himself in public and then vomits freely?

Phoebe says, “Promise me you'll never be like that.”

I say, “If he keeps this up he could be a partner in no time.”

Then Phoebe says, “Would you miss me if I left?”

“You mean, like, left my office?”

“Left. Quit.”

“You thinking of leaving?”

“Yes. No. Maybe. I'm getting a little bored.”

Ian has stuck his head into my office and says, “Can I come with you? I'm bored, too.”

I say, “The entire agency may come with you.”

Ian says, “I'm headed to Chubby Feet.”

This is not an insult by Ian. Nor is it a form of Tourette's. This is the name of the company where we color-correct commercials. After you've shot the commercial, edited the commercial, you then primp it for air. This takes place at highly specialized companies in New York and Los Angeles, usually in formerly industrial buildings in TriBeCa or West Hollywood or Santa Monica. Often they are simple raw spaces, open concrete floors and walls with modern sculpture, an array of death masks perhaps, a flat-screen TV that shows nothing but waves hitting the beach. In the middle of the room there is almost always a Ping-Pong table. Soviet-era posters might adorn the walls. Sleepy-looking young people wander the halls, their hair unwashed and bedraggled, their pants low on their hips, ironic writing on their T-shirts (
I
'
M NOT GAY BUT MY BOYFRIEND IS
). And in the semi-darkness of the editing suites with their double-paned soundproof glass doors, there sit exceptionally expensive computers and software systems manned by industry-famous men with one name. Luke. Rush. Anton. They provide exceptional lunches.

The companies have uniformly bizarre names that bear no relation to the business they are in. No Stan Whaley's Plumbing and Heating
Supplies here. Instead, Chubby Feet, Hey Gary!, Ham Sandwich, and Super Happy Good Time. The receptionist at this last one, a perpetually fatigued-looking young woman named Petrol, must say the company name hundreds of times a day. Often she answers the phone by saying, in a voice that suggests otherwise, “Super Happy.”

Who's to say why they choose these names. It is, I think, in the worlds of advertising/entertainment, the almost manic pursuit of hip. This is crucial. Who's hip, who's cool, who's
the guy
? The problem is that by the time I've heard who's hip/cool/the guy, they're no longer hip/cool/the guy. They're mainstream/accepted/cliché. The key is to be just ahead of the hip curve, which I have never ever once been. Where does one go to learn of this hipness and coolness? My father wore zip-front cardigan sweaters. Not cool. Kurt Cobain wore zip-front cardigan sweaters. Cool. Why? Could be his use of heroin and his playing of the guitar. But what
is
cool? What is
hip
? My sense, after a lot of thought, is that if you have to ask, you'll never know. Also, it would be gauche and profoundly
un
cool to ask how these post-production houses came up with their clever names or why they simply didn't call themselves Alan's Post-Production Services. When I'm there I say things like “Hey, man” and “Hey, dude,” even though I don't use the words
man
or
dude
in normal conversation. In this way, along with my uniform of blue jeans, Blundstone's, and short-sleeve T-shirt over long-sleeve T-shirt over short-sleeve T-shirt over a life vest, I believe I can be seen as cool.

Ian says, “Come over if you want lunch. I doubt I'll be back. Or call me later if you need. Also . . . I'm hearing rumors of another round of layoffs.”

Phoebe says, “I've heard them, too.”

“All rumors are true,” I say.

“Who said that?” Phoebe says.

“I did. Just now.”

“I thought so,” she says. “It doesn't make any sense.”

“I know. But it sounds good.”

Ian says, “Did you hear about Tom Pope?”

We nod and Ian shakes his head and leaves.

I turn to Phoebe and say, “So wait. She's deaf
and
she's a receptionist? She answers phones?”

“No. Just greets people. She speaks. Like Marlee Matlin.”

“We hired a person who can't speak well to greet people and we're a multinational communications company?”

“Well, now that you put it that way.”

I say, “Is she beautiful?”

“Who?”

“Miss Deaf Black America?”

“Gorgeous.”

“Does she look deaf?”

“You're an idiot.”

“The blind look blind,” I say. “I'm just wondering if she appears particularly oblivious to sound.”

Phoebe has stopped listening. She's leafing through an
Us Weekly
while I casually scan CNN.com.

I say, “So, you heading to Boston?”

Phoebe says to
Us Weekly
, “Yeah. Taking the train Thursday.”

“You excited?” I say to my computer screen, which is currently displaying a story about the Fox channel premiering a show called
Naked Housewives
.

“I love Christmas. On Christmas Eve, if it's cold enough, we all go skating. There's a pond at my dad's country club with a hut and they build this big fire and there's hot chocolate and, because it's all WASPs, there's also gin and beer. And then we have dinner at the club and go to midnight mass. In the morning my mom and I go to a women's shelter in the city and hand out gifts, help serve breakfast. Then later we have dinner at our house and open presents.”

“Same here. Almost exactly. But without the skating. Or the family part. Or the dinners. Or the volunteering. Or the getting-together parts. But the gin and beer is identical.”

“Did you call your brother?”

“Yes.”

“You lie.”

“Only to clients.”

•   •   •

Late in the afternoon, Jill, the Snugglies account exec, calls.

She says, “There is a serious problem with the Old MacDonald animatic.”

She and Alan have me on speakerphone. They ask if they can come down to my office. I call Ian. Fifteen minutes later we all sit in my office. Jill closes the door.