5. Life is a Highway
Life is a Highway
O ne of Sharpe’s longest-standing clients, Jensen Productions, approved the overall look for their latest campaign last week.
Cassie and Kellan spent the morning gathering high-resolution images and making photo selects.
Cassie aimed to upload as many assets into SARAS and obtain Leah’s sign-off for the final Style Guide by the end of next week.
Then she could focus on training Kimberly without the additional stress that always came with starting a new campaign.
And with that work finished, Cassie could pass her to Kellan and the coordinators for several hours daily to “assist” with the training.
Cassie stared at the spinning upload indicator for the latest batch.
“Maybe I should think about moving on…” Sighing, she tried to shake the thought away.
She loved working at The Sharpe Agency. It was one of the smaller agencies, but that size allowed her to expand her knowledge in ways she couldn’t have imagined possible.
SARAS, otherwise known as Sharpe Asset Retrieval and Approval System, was the perfect example of that.
She had developed it during her second year with the company.
She had been the department assistant back then and the project led to her first promotion.
In fact, over the past thirteen years, she oversaw numerous enhancement projects.
And like SARAS, many of them were deployed not only to the New York office but to Sharpe corporate.
Her willingness to take on additional projects and her ability to excel at them had led to multiple promotions.
That experience, according to Leah, had put Cassie in the running for the Senior Creative Director position. However, in the end, it proved to be irrelevant. It didn’t matter how fast you ran if you couldn’t enter the race. Or if the race was rigged from the start.
Still, she had a family here. Leah had been the sole Creative Director when Cassie was hired. But that title didn’t begin to cover it. Mentor, confidant, cheerleader. Those told the true story of their relationship. They had built the team, their work family, together.
When there had been an opening for a creative coordinator a few years post-graduation, Cassie had petitioned vigorously on Kellan’s behalf.
They had demonstrated their exceptional talent as a creative addition immediately.
Cassie was promoted to Creative Director a year later, while Kellan received the same promotion a couple of years after that.
The department consisted of eight folx now—the Senior Director, then creative directors Cassie and Kellan, plus two designers, two coordinators, and a department assistant.
As a team, they were responsible for producing all the creative assets used by the media companies they had on retainer, as well as returning and newly acquired clients.
They worked with their client’s marketing teams to develop compelling campaigns and produce unique materials that broke through the clutter.
They oversaw photo and video shoots, created assets from scratch, and licensed stock assets, as needed.
They were a small team, but highly regarded.
They’d been competing with larger agencies for years; their reputation and nimble attitude kept them a step ahead.
They had worked together for years and had become a well-oiled machine.
Another reason to not bring in someone from the outside. Ugh!
The morning passed in a blur, the pace making it easier for Cassie to forget what was coming.
She sat in the conference room, eating lunch with Kellan.
Over the years, this had become an afternoon ritual on asset day .
This space often doubled as a lunchroom since management had argued that they didn’t need an official one as most employees sat outside in the small courtyard or walked the block and a half to the beach.
But Cassie preferred this space… it was closer to her office, and she could work through lunch if she chose to and not be stuck at her desk.
Kellan eyed her for several minutes, a smirk growing across their face. Finally, Cassie bowed her head in defeat, pushing her mostly empty salad bowl toward them. “Just ask your question, Kellan, before you bore holes directly into my brain.”
“No need for such drama, Cass. I was just wondering what, or should I say WHO, is responsible for that smile that’s been on your face all day?”
“I have no idea what you are talking about,” Cassie quickly retorted, jerking her head up to face Kellan. Shit, have I been smiling all day?
“Oh, no, no, no my friend. You have been Debbie Downer ever since—” Kellan cut themselves off, clearing their throat. “Well, for weeks, anyway. And then all of a sudden, this morning, you’re smiling again. Really, truly smiling. I’ve missed it, to be honest.”
“I smile all the time,” Cassie retorted, but it lacked bite.
“You used to. But, come on. You have to admit, you haven’t been your normal bubbly self.
” Kellan’s voice softened as they continued, “And believe me, I get it. It’s perfectly valid with everything that has been going on.
I just want to know what brought that beautiful smile back, so I can make sure it keeps happening. ”
Embarrassment colored Cassie’s cheeks. “I met someone last night. Well, not met, met them. I played them. Against them.” She shook her head, gathering her thoughts. “They were on the hockey team I played against last night.”
“Oooohhh… so tell me all about Sporty Spice,” Kellan cooed and waggled their eyebrows.
“Kellan! Do not call them that!”
“Fine,” they said, drawing out the word as long as possible. “Please tell me about the person that is making you grin like a fool.”
“You just can’t help yourself, can you?” Cassie stared back at them. Kellan was quite adept at using silence as a weapon and calmly waited for Cassie to continue. “Lexie. Their name is Lexie.”
“So you did meet them?”
“Not exactly…” Cassie hedged before breaking down and giving Kellan a blow-by-blow account of her evening. Dreamily, she added, “They have the most stunning blue eyes. But with short, dark brown hair,” she added, a slightly confused look contorting her face.
“I thought you were more of a blonde hair kind of gal?”
“I just… I don’t know. I don’t think I’ve ever seen someone with blue eyes like that without having blonde hair…” Cassie’s voice faded, a distracted look taking over her face before she caught herself. “I can’t seem to get their face outta my head.”
“So, when will you see them again?”
“I’m not sure. Maybe Saturday. Obviously, we won’t play the same team so soon, but they should be playing sometime before us since we have the late game this weekend.”
“Well, you deserve to have some fun. Go get ‘em, girl! ”
“Oh my God,” Cassie sighed exaggeratedly. “Tell me about your Tuesday night.”
“Why? Torturing you is much more fun.”
***
Wednesday and Thursday passed in a similar fashion. Cassie and Kellan spent the mornings locking finals and uploading them to SARAS. They ate lunch in the small conference room and in the afternoon, they reviewed roughs, provided feedback, and confirmed delivery specs.
Friday morning they headed straight to the conference room, put the delivery checklist up on the large, mounted TV, and planned out the next week.
Cassie felt good. They were on schedule, and she was looking forward to going to the hockey rink the next day.
Thankfully, Kellan had moved on to the next rumor, deciding to keep Cassie up to date on what they dubbed Downton Accounting: Drama on the Second Floor.
They had just finished updating Cassie on the on-again, off-again, and apparently on-again relationship of two junior accountants, when Cassie’s phone dinged. “How do you know all this?” she asked, unlocking her phone. “They’re a totally separate company.”
“A magician never reveals their secrets,” Kellan replied, a knowing gleam in their eyes.
“Okay, David Blaine, lunch is here. Why don’t you magic up drinks and plates while I run downstairs and grab it.”
Five minutes later, she was back with a steaming bag of food from their favorite Chinese place. And sure enough, there were plates and two cans of soda in front of Kellan, a smug look of I told you so on their face.
“So, are you looking forward to working with our new boss?” Kellan asked, piling their plate with orange chicken and rice.
“Ugh, seriously, don’t get me started Kell,” Cassie replied. “I can’t believe I have to fucking train her.”
“Them.”
Confused, Cassie responded, “Huh?”
“Them. Their pronouns are they, them.”
“How do you know that? I’ve been researching—” Cassie stopped, stuffing an egg roll in her mouth before she could say anything else.
“Researching?” Kellan chuckled. “Is that what that’s called? I thought it was called stalking?”
“Shut up,” Cassie squeaked and then cleared her throat as she threw a fortune cookie at Kellan’s forehead. “I was just trying to see if I could find out any info before they got here. I wasn’t stalking!”
“That’s what she said,” Kellan quipped, not even acknowledging Cassie’s death stare. “And what did you find out?”
“Not much really. Their social media presence is basically non-existent. A few posts here and there, but mostly liking and re-sharing other posts. And even those are from a few months ago.” Cassie chewed for a moment.
“And the only photos I could find were ancient. All of them were from five years ago or more. It’s like they’re in the witness protection program or something. ”
“Ooooh. I love a good mystery. So, what do they look like?” Kellan asked, now fully as interested as Cassie had been.
“I think you mean what did they look like… long blonde hair. Bleached, I think. Blue eyes. Athletic. A little taller than me based on the photo I saw of them with their dad.” Cassie shrugged .
“Pretty? Cute? Single?” Kellan asked as they wiggled their eyebrows, punctuating each word with a stab of their chopsticks.
“Dude, seriously. Did you not hear anything I just said? How the heck would I know if they’re single?” Cassie huffed.
Kellan smirked. “So no kissy or lovey-dovey photos?”
“Wow. You need to get laid.”
“I think the lady doth protest too much,” Kellan replied with a laugh. “So really pretty, then?”
“Sometimes I wonder if we are actually having the same conversation or if you’re having a completely different one in your head.”
Kellan stared at Cassie for a couple of minutes, eyebrows raised.
After a few more minutes of silence, Cassie finally caved and responded, “Oh my God! What is it with you and your silent stares of death? Yeah… I mean, they’re nice looking, I guess.”
“You guess?” Kellan snorted. “You guess…? Come on… Blonde, blue-eyed equals babe, right? And if I’m not mistaken, your type.”
As Cassie continued to shoot daggers at them, Kellan kept on. “And you said athletic. Does that mean they have muscles? You’ve got to give me more than that, I’m trying to paint a mental picture here!”
“Seriously, Kellan?” Cassie stood, anger bubbling under the surface. She grabbed her plate and headed back to her office.
Kellan quickly followed. “You know, you don’t have to train them. They’ve been doing this job for a while now. Besides, we could use a fresh set of creative eyes. It might be nice to do something completely different from what we have done in the past.”
Sighing, Kellan cast their eyes downward. “I know how badly you wanted the Senior Creative Director position. And I think you would have been amazing, but I have to believe things happen for a reason. Who knows, this could be one of those moments in time that changes everything for the better. ”
“Can we just get back to work? I don’t want to talk about them anymore.
” Cassie grumbled as she put her headphones on and pulled up her latest Spotify playlist. A clear indication to Kellan that this conversation was done.
Maybe if I’m lucky I’ll get hit by a bus.
Ugh. I already hate you, Kimberly Sharpe.