Chapter 8 #2
Wow. No preamble or thanks, just straight into it.
Did she want to know why he was firing her?
It probably wouldn’t be logical, and that might drive her more nuts than not knowing.
Best just to accept his decision and get to moving on.
If he wouldn’t change his mind for a woman with a family and an ill husband to support, he certainly wouldn’t care about for a single woman with no dependents, no matter how gigantic her student loans were.
“Jason’s a good choice. I like his work. ”
Jason was a terrible choice. How had Jason and his teenaged acne-face missed the house-cleaning to stay and take over her portfolio?
She couldn’t really accuse Franklin of discriminating against her on the basis of her age.
He wouldn’t have given her a job at all if that was his problem, so had one of her clients complained about the way she’d handled their account?
Maybe it was about her sexuality. A couple of clients had hit on her, and she’d knocked them back.
Franklin didn’t seem like he was part of the old boys’ network, but the threat of losing a multi-million-dollar account could make most people flexible with their morality.
“Exactly, right? Jay-Jay is amazing. I think he’s going to be one of the GOATs in this business.”
“Sure.” The only way Jason might be the greatest of all time would be in using the greatest number of words to say nothing at all. His pitches were baffling, which she assumed was why he had such few clients.
“But Jay-Jay wasn’t a good fit for this.” He tapped his blue-painted fingernails on the bright pink folder on the table beside him. “But you’re going to be perfect, like the missing piece of a jigsaw puzzle you find on the floor under the table. You’ll slot into this project just like that.”
She’d never been described as a dust-covered, discarded puzzle piece before, but he wasn’t firing her, and Mindy was wrong.
“What’s the project?” she asked without missing a beat.
No need to quiz him on the house-cleaning or make him aware of her self-doubt.
It was every person for themselves in this place, and she got the feeling they’d all happily climb over each other’s incapacitated bodies to get to the top.
He pushed the folder toward her. “Take a look. I don’t have the words to do it justice. It’s going to be ground-breaking though.”
Rosie put her iPad on the table. She picked up the folder and flipped it open.
“A new tool company?” Of course she’d be perfect for this: everything about her from her flawlessly manicured nails to her three-inch Manolo Blahnik slingback pumps screamed DIY and screw-y fix-y things.
Pairing his marketing execs with items they’d likely never touched in their lives was a funny way to go about revolutionizing advertising.
She’d have to spend a week researching which tools did what before she even began to think about how to sell them.
“Not just any tool company,” Franklin said. “This one wants to focus on women and the LGBTQ community.”
More interested now, she flicked through the glossy pages of shiny tools, sets, boxes, and bags that were available in every color of the rainbow, and then there were the exclusive hand-torched range where no two tools had the exact same finish.
They were pretty, sure, but beyond the obvious, she still didn’t see Franklin’s logic in wanting her to lead the project.
He insisted on his execs using every product he gave them to market for at least two weeks.
She could think of some uses for the ones with the smooth long handles, but that would be a very different campaign to the one the tool company would be expecting.
Still, their budget was huge for a new account, and it might be just the challenge she needed to really kickstart a love for her new career.
“You can see why I thought of you, right?” He bounced up from his chair and offered his iPad.
Because a femme lesbian woman who’s only interested in the kind of nails she has on the end of her fingers and toes would be perfect to convince other women just like her to buy the hammery things used for a totally different kind of nail. It was obvious why she’d gotten the account, yes.
But when she looked down at the screen, it did indeed become obvious why Franklin wanted her to handle this company, and her excitement stirred at the prospect.
Staring up at her was a picture of herself, Lori, Shay, and the rest of her team standing in front of the vintage car Elodie Fontaine had just bought at auction for an eye-watering $1.
5 million. How he’d gotten the photo, she couldn’t imagine and didn’t really want to know, but Shay’s garage could be at the center of her campaign.
Shay could be her poster girl because she was the kind of femme lesbian woman who did use all these tools and more, and she’d mentioned they were already getting a high proportion of gay male clients in there who were tired of their treatment at old-fashioned, toxic masculinity garages.
Rosie’s mind fast-forwarded to the photoshoot, and she sighed deeply. Happy times to come.
“I love it,” she said and handed his iPad back to him. “What’s the deadline for the proposal?”
“Yes! I knew you would! Fist bump!” he yelled.
She flashed her nails. “If I make a fist, I’ll slice my palm open.”
He opened his hand out. “High five then!”
She did that with a smile. Just a few minutes ago, she’d thought she was about to be canned. Now she was going to be paid to spend more time with Shay, and she’d get to dress her up for some sexy photo shoots. Rosie wasn’t going anywhere. Suck on that, Mindy Fletcher.