Chapter 28 Des
DES
One week later, I’m pacing and sweating in my office.
Today is the day of the Silq Cosmetics pitch.
The marketing team should be arriving any minute to a conference room filled with pastries and a fruit platter.
Outside, it’s a gloomy early November day.
The colors of fall are giving way to bare trees and the impending winter bleakness.
My team and I go through the pitch, analyzing every detail, leaving no stone unturned. Craig sits on the couch, his leg bouncing with nerves. Lisa analyzes every slide like she’s a scientist looking for atoms.
This week was stressful, but at least I was able to blow off steam by fucking my husband.
If I thought Tanner was hot before, he was the human equator in the bedroom.
I can barely keep my hands off him. We brush against each other in the kitchen when pushing the kids out to school, and next thing I know, I’m pulling him onto the couch for a quickie.
We had two more lunch breaks in my apartment, too, making me reconsider selling the place.
And then there are times when I watch him read Lulu a bedtime story or cheer on Davy at his hockey game, and my heart gets so full it may explode. I am filled with gratitude at the crazy twists and turns of life that brought us together.
Craig snaps a finger in front of my face.
“Focus!” he says.
I glare back, and all seven feet of him turn white. I stand up from my desk.
“Sorry.” He looks at his shoes.
“Unless there’s a martini in your hand, your fingers aren’t allowed to get that close to my face again.”
Lisa laughs. “Des is still in the honeymoon phase.”
She may be right. I hold back a sloppy grin. Maybe it’s because I refused romantic relationships for my whole life, but being with Tanner has turned me into a fucking puppy dog.
“We all need to focus. How is the ad copy?” I ask, pacing in front of my wall, covered in ideas and notes. “Let’s go over it one more time.”
Don’t Hide Who You Are. Enhance It. says the sign we had made up with our proposed tagline.
Our conversations about using makeup to conceal eventually turned to the more positive flip side.
Use Silq Cosmetics to enhance your best assets, to show off the contours of your face that make you uniquely you.
Bring out the fullness of your lips, the color in your eyes, the angles or roundness of your cheekbones.
You are one of one; let Silq be your megaphone.
“I love it,” says Craig when Lisa reaches the final slide.
“Never fall in love with your own work. Never lose that objectivity,” I tell him.
“It’s good. I’m really proud of this. I’d buy Silq for my daughter,” Lisa says. “How about you?”
Right. I have daughters. My daughters will be wearing makeup. Lena already is. “Me, too. I never want them to feel like they have to wear makeup to look like someone else.”
I can’t protect them from all the horrors of the world; I just have to hope that Tanner and I can give them the necessary armor so they can protect themselves.
“You know, Des. I don’t think you would’ve come up with this campaign before you had kids.” Lisa knocks her elbow against mine. “Isn’t it funny how those little critters can change you?”
“Yeah.” I chuckle to myself, letting my eyes drift to the family photo debacle.
I have kids! And they’re wonderful! I mean, they’re pains in the asses, but also wonderful!
“Let’s huddle.” I signal for them to come close.
“Look, we’ve worked our asses off for weeks on this.
I am impressed at everything we’ve done.
Know that whatever happens, we left it all on the field.
We have a great pitch, a great insight that their company will jump at if they’re smart. That’s all we can do.”
One of the unexpected highlights of my job is getting to mentor my junior staff. I love watching them grow and develop. Craig could barely string a cogent sentence together when he first interned here, but over the past year, he’s become a great copywriter.
“Knock, knock.” Stan enters the office, twisting my stomach into a tighter knot of nerves. “How are we feeling?”
“Good,” I tell him. “Silq would be fucking idiots not to hire us. They’re not going to find a pitch like this from other agencies.”
“I love the confidence, Des.” Stan fixes his bowtie. “I’m going to be there with you.”
Stan supports his teams, and I know he’ll only interject if he really has something to add.
He’s not the kind of boss that loves hearing himself talk.
But I also know he’ll be judging me. This pitch is make or break for my career.
He wants to see if I’m creative director material.
If I bomb in front of a huge potential client, that’s it for me.
But no pressure, right?
“You got this,” he says to me, and it almost sounds like a warning.
Speaking of people who love to hear themselves talk, Kyle struts into my office. He’s never good news, but the way he’s smiling puts me on high alert.
“I wanted to wish you good luck, Des,” he says.
“Thanks.”
“It’d be a shame for you to bomb this presentation because you’re a liar.”
Sweat pricks at the back of my neck. My heart pounds in my ears. “What the fuck are you talking about?”
“Kyle, they have a big pitch today. They need to focus,” Stan says.
“I’m sorry, Stan. I know this isn’t the best time, but I’m very concerned that we have a con artist working here. Wouldn’t you want to know if someone you worked with, someone you were thinking of handing the company to, was conning you?”
My mouth goes dry, my limbs stiff. There’s a certainty in Kyle’s glare that makes me want to throw up.
“What do you mean?” Stan asks, sounding a teensy bit receptive. “Des is a con artist?”
“Yes. His ‘marriage’…is a SHAM. It’s all a lie he’s using to project this family man image in the hope you’ll promote him.”
“Kyle, get the hell out of my office,” I say with a low voice to intimidate him, but my words sound hollow, and he knows it. “Tanner is my husband.”
“Legally yes. You went to the courthouse and got a quickie wedding. How funny that right around when Stan announces his retirement, you became a husband and stepdad.”
“You checked on my marriage license?”
“It’s public record.” He shrugs.
“Why are you digging into Des’s marriage?” Craig asks. “That’s creepy AF.”
“What’s creepy AF is that Des enlisted his friend Tanner Chance to be his husband, and forced his kids to lie for him.
Tanner and Des played hockey together in high school.
They play on a hockey league today. They’ve been friends for a while.
And we’re supposed to believe that they are suddenly in love?
” Kyle scoffs. He prowls around my office, strengthening his grip on the upper hand.
“And there’s more! Because this isn’t just a lie to get a promotion. This is insurance fraud.”
Oh shit. Shit, shit, shit.
The team looks at me, as does Stan. His forehead creases with concern. Kyle’s never been this convincing in a pitch, but I guess there’s a first for everything.
“I checked with Tanner’s old employer. He was recently laid off.
And a week later, he and Des are getting married.
One week later,” Kyle stresses, his head shading into a strawberry.
“Hmmm…a single dad with four kids who’s about to lose his employee insurance plan out of nowhere marries his friend, whose company has great benefits?
I don’t know about you, Stan, but that smells like insurance fraud to me. ”
Kyle sits on my desk. I want to punch the smirk off his face. I still can’t move. I thought Tanner and I were being smart, but we were the dumbest fucking guys thinking this scheme would work.
“We have two friends who hatched a plan. You give me insurance, and I’ll give you an instant family to impress your boss.” Kyle shakes his head in disgust. “Am I getting all this correct, Des?”
“Fuck you,” I spit out. How long has he had this figured out? He naturally waited until today to make sure I bombed the pitch.
Kyle softens his stance and walks up to Stan.
He puts a hand on Stan’s shoulder. “Stan, I am so sorry I had to bring this bad news. I know my timing isn’t great, but as soon as I discovered this web of lies and deceit, I had to tell you.
You are a man of honor. If Des will go to these lengths to secure a promotion for himself, what else is he capable of? ”
Nobody speaks. My office goes dead silent. People have gathered from the hall to rubberneck.
Stan looks to me, but I can barely keep eye contact. I stare at the rug like a fucking chump.
“Thank you for making me aware of this,” Stan tells Kyle. He claps him on the shoulder.
“Anything for you, Stan.” Kyle puts his hand over his heart.
“I had been struggling with who to promote to creative director. But after hearing this, you’ve made it remarkably easy to choose Des.”
I whip my head up. Craig and Lisa’s eyes go wide. Huh?
“What?” Kyle asks, all the wind leaving his body.
“The fact that you would concoct this gross, hateful story just to knock Des out of the running for creative director shows me that you are not a team player. Maybe if you’d spent less time searching for Des’s marriage license, you would’ve had more time to land a big fish like Silq.”
“S–Stan, you can’t be serious. I’m not the one who’s lying!” Kyle’s voice short circuits into a high-pitched yelp. “Des and Tanner are in a fake marriage. They’ve pulled the wool over your eyes, over all of our eyes!”
“Let me tell you something, Kyle,” Stan says, adding some old school spice.
“I went to their house. I spent time with them, before your kids decided to act like demon spawn. I saw two men who are madly in love with each other, and a stepdad who is crazy about his kids. You can’t fake the love that was in that house.
I’ve been on this earth for over seventy years.
It takes a lot to fool me.” He steps closer to Kyle.
“And you know who hasn’t fooled me? You.
I’ve had your number since the day you started here.
An entitled, smarmy individual. A nepo baby asswipe. ”
Craig guffaws a nervous laugh. My sentiments exactly. Like Tanner, Stan’s use of profanity is scant. When he drops an expletive, he’s either ecstatic or you’re fucked.
“Kyle, as one of my last duties as the boss…you’re fired.”
Kyle stands there like a chump, mouth agape. For once, no comeback.
I put a comforting hand on his shoulder. “And as one of my first duties as boss, it gives me great pleasure to tell you to get the fuck out of my office.”
My comforting hand turns into a forceful one, shoving him into the hall.
“Fine! I’m going to start my own agency then. You better be scared,” he says.
“Oh, Kyle. To quote my youngest: you are so delusional.”
I slam the door shut.