Chapter 10
SOPHIE
‘The usual,’ she says, handing me a cup.
‘Thanks, but I didn’t get you anything,’ I tease.
‘You can buy me lunch.’
‘But Drew’s taking us to lunch today.’
‘Then we’re even,’ she replies.
We’re not, of course – we never are. She’s constantly spending her ‘hard-earned cash’ (as she likes to call her divorce settlement) on those she loves.
‘So, ready?’
‘Ah, yep,’ I reply brightly, doing my best to quell the mounting nerves.
After a false start on Saturday night, I promised myself I’d watch Home for the Holidays yesterday afternoon with Harlow – refresh my memory, start teasing out themes and motifs, and prepare for today’s kick-off meeting. Because I’m a pro.
But even with Harlow as a buffer, I couldn’t do it.
That scene with Stevie and his dad kept running through my mind and every time I got to the father-son hug, my breath would catch and tears would gloss my eyes. Harlow caught me blowing my nose and I told her some rubbish about allergies. I’m not sure she believed me.
But now I’m armed with nothing more than cobbled-together search results and a handful of scenes I watched on my phone during the train ride in. If I were a Girl Guide, I’d have to hand all my patches back.
Jane takes me at my word – maybe the first time I’ve ever fooled her – and heads towards the conference room. I’m two steps behind when I reach for her shoulder.
‘Jane, hang on a sec…’
She turns around, looking at me expectantly. The nerves coil tighter.
‘You all right?’ she asks, her face now a picture of concern. ‘Hmm, you’re not. Come on.’
She redirects me back into my cubicle and leans in close. ‘What’s going on? Is Harlow okay?’
‘Oh yeah, it’s nothing like that. I… Did you watch it? Home for the Holidays?’
‘Course – what do the kids say? I understood the assignment.’
I snort softly. ‘I’m not sure they’re saying that any more, but it doesn’t matter. Jane, I didn’t watch it.’
‘Oh, don’t worry,’ she says with an amused waft of her hand. ‘You’re a single mum – you’re busy. Drew will understand.’
‘Maybe… He did ask me specifically.’
‘Do it tonight then.’
She goes to leave, but I place a hand on her arm.
‘I don’t know if I can.’
‘Okay,’ she says, putting down the coffees and meeting my eye. ‘This isn’t a fitting-it-in thing, is it?’
‘No, it’s a grief-grenade thing. That movie is an emotional minefield – well, the first ten minutes are. That’s as far as I got.’
The tears return, stinging my eyes, and I exhale slowly, catching the sob before it bursts out of me.
‘Oh, babes, I’m so sorry,’ Jane says, pulling me in for a hug.
I let her, even though hugs sometimes make it worse when you’re trying to get a grip. This time it helps, and I ease out of her embrace.
‘Thanks.’
I sniffle a few times and run the pad of my ring finger under my eyes.
Jane regards me closely. ‘You should tell Drew,’ she says.
‘What?’ I gasp. ‘No – no way. It’s bad enough he won the account over me – and that I have to be his deputy – I’m not giving him more ammunition.’
‘Ammuni— He’s not an ogre, Soph. He’s not going to do a victory lap of the office if you come clean – especially if you tell him why.’
If she’d said that a week ago I would have scoffed at her, but now I’ve seen another side to Drew. Maybe Jane’s right.
I glance at the clock – 9.02 a.m.
‘Gah, we’re late. Grab those and let’s go.’
‘It’s Drew – he won’t care,’ she says, picking up the coffees. She’s probably right, but it’s bad enough that I’m unprepared. I don’t want to be tardy as well.
‘I care,’ I say, striding off. ‘Come on.’ Jane follows close behind as we half-walk, half-sprint through the maze of cubicles to the other end of the office.
‘My fault we’re late!’ Jane declares, overtaking me and barging into the conference room. ‘I was desperate for a coffee – but I brought you an Americano.’
‘Oh, thanks, Notso. I appreciate it.’
He takes the coffee from Jane, giving her a smile that makes his eyes crinkle at the corners, and I send her a silent thank you for taking the blame.
‘So, let’s get started,’ says Drew, setting his coffee down. ‘Take a seat anywhere…’
I glance around the room and I’m impressed. There are brainstorming prompts written on the whiteboards, market research graphics onscreen, and more sticky notes in more colours than you can shake a sticky note at. I love sticky notes.
Jane and I sit across from each other and Drew slides two bound booklets down the table like he’s playing shuffleboard. He nearly sends my latte flying – just when I was marvelling as his professionalism.
‘Oops, sorry,’ he says, and I give him a lipless smile.
‘Right, so I thought I’d take us through projected sales figures and the budget – get the boring stuff out of the way – then I’ll walk you through the campaign. In the lead up to lunch, we’ll unpack the Home for the Holidays brand and after lunch, we start spit-balling.’
I blink at him and when I glance at Jane, her mouth looks like a cat’s bum.
‘Ideate,’ Drew clarifies. He drops his gaze and opens his booklet, staring at the first page as if it’s written in Sanskrit.
Jane and I exchange another look. Hers says, Aww, bless, and that’s when it hits me. Drew’s nervous. We all know he likes to work alone, but surely he’s led a team before?
He swallows hard, his Adam’s apple bobbing. Hmm, maybe not.
‘Okay,’ he says, glancing up, ‘if you’ll open your booklets…’
In unison, Jane and I turn to page one. Drew takes us through the projected impact to Hargreaves’ seasonal sales figures and the campaign budget. My eyes water at Max Stirling’s daily rate; it could pay off my mortgage and I’d still have half a mill left over. It’s also a super-tight schedule.
But like Drew said, none of this is the exciting part – essential, but not super inspiring. So, when we move onto the campaign concept, I sit up straighter, fixing my eyes on the screen above Drew’s head.
‘So, there’ll be four commercials,’ says Drew. ‘Sorry, adverts.’
‘Don’t worry, Drew, we speak fluent American,’ Jane teases. ‘We know what a commercial is.’
I press my lips together, smothering a laugh.
‘Yeah, yeah,’ says Drew, laughing at himself. His shoulders, which have been up around his ears since we started, finally settle into place and I snigger along with him and Jane.
He advances the slide and overlapping photos of Stevie’s childhood home fill the screen.
I steel myself for the inevitable twinge which will send me right back to Saturday night, but there’s nothing.
Maybe this is how I protect myself against Home for the Holidays – in bite-sized chunks. Starting with photos of the house.
‘Three of the four commercials will be shot in a replica of Stevie’s childhood home,’ Drew continues, and Jane squeals with delight, shimmying her shoulders in a little chair dance.
‘I can’t wait,’ she tells us. ‘I’ve already put feelers out.’
‘For?’ asks Drew.
‘The film’s original production designs. I’ve got an in at Global Productions.’
I’m not surprised – Jane has more connections than the London Tube map. If we still lived in the days of the Rolodex, hers would be crammed with an eclectic who’s who.
I asked her about it once, after she secured permission to shoot an ad inside the National Gallery.
She replied, ‘My marriage to Colin gave me three things of worth – Angus, the love of my life, a stupid amount of money – seriously, I’ll never have to worry about it again – and introductions to the most incredible array of people you could possibly imagine. ’
‘Holy shit, Notso,’ says Drew, his eyes alive with delight, ‘that’s the kind of thing that wins Arrows.’
Drew’s words are like whacking my funny bone on a doorframe. I shouldn’t care that he’s motivated by accolades – lots of people are extrinsically motivated – but if this is his primary motivation for doing his best, then that would be… well, disappointing.
Which is judgey as hell – not to mention hypocritical. My main motivation for landing the account was the bonus.
‘Soph?’ says Jane.
I blink, shaking my head sharply to clear it.
‘Sorry?’
‘Drew has a question,’ she says and I look at him.
‘I was wondering… Do you think we can get away with shooting the airport commercial here or will we need to shoot in the US?’
‘Let’s explore the first option,’ I reply as if I’ve given it careful consideration – I haven’t – and Drew nods along. ‘I mean, if anyone can turn Stansted into Chicago, it’s you, right?’ I ask Jane.
‘Piece of cake,’ she replies immodestly – though not unearned.
‘Great,’ says Drew, clapping his hands together. He advances to the next slide, a montage of airports disappearing, replaced by a giant ‘1’.
How long was I zoned out for? Get it together, Sophie.
‘Okay, so this is the first commercial…’ says Drew.
I focus, and while he talks us through it, I begin losing myself in imagery and fragments of dialogue that roll across my mind’s eye like subtitles on a screen.
A sensation simmers deep within and when Drew wraps up the concept for the fourth advert, I’m positively fizzing. This campaign is going to be brilliant fun. And Lorraine was right – we are a terrific trio.
But the next question from Drew is like a needle scratching across a record, and the fizzing abruptly stops.
‘Sophie, how would you describe Home for the Holidays’ place in the canon of family movies?’
I stare at him.
‘Ah, I’d say it adeptly melds family and tradition… and nostalgia… it’s teeming with nostalgia.’
Why am I trying to bluff? Drew is a lot of things, but stupid isn’t one of them.
‘Okay, that’s a start,’ he says, his head tilting, ‘but can you go deeper? How about its place in popular culture?’
‘What do you mean?’
‘Well, which movies have hitched their star to the Home for the Holidays wagon? Or are straight-up derivative?’
I scramble for an intelligible response, but my mind goes blank. Unsurprising considering I only crammed for this kick-off on the way into the office this morning.
I glance at Jane who’s watching me closely – that concern again – then face Drew.
‘Okay, confession time. I didn’t get around to re-watching yet,’ I reply.
‘What?’ He stares at me for a beat. ‘But you said you would. I need you to be on top of this, Reid.’
Reid. We’re back to Reid.
‘I know. I… I’m sorry. I set aside time yesterday, but then Harlow wasn’t feeling well…’ The lie flies out of my mouth before I know what’s happening and Drew’s expression instantly changes.
‘Oh, god, the poor kid. Do you think it was the loaded fries at Puttshack?’ he asks. ‘That was a lot of melted cheese.’
He’s sympathising. I’ve let him down and he’s sympathising. Over a lie.
‘I think it’s just a bug.’ Compounding the lie. ‘She went to school today, so…’ Selling the lie with the truth. Shut up, Sophie.
Drew nods, then presses his lips together. ‘Well, tell her I hope she’s feeling better, okay? Maisie too.’
‘Yep – course,’ I reply, hoping we can move this along. I avoid looking at Jane because I’m positive she’ll be mouthing, ‘What the actual fuck are you doing?’
Drew checks his notes, reading and flicking, a deep frown settling onto his face. Seconds pass, then more and I start counting in my head. I get to thirty-two before he finally lifts his head.
‘Look, I hate to do this, but I think you’ll have to be on research. Just until you get up to speed.’
For half a second, I think I’ve misheard him. I must have misheard him.
‘Sorry?’
‘You know, keywords that will play well with the target audiences, so we land with parents and kids. Some A/B testing.’
‘I know what research is, Parker, but we’ve got junior staff who can handle that.’
‘We do, yes, but right now, we’ve got a senior creative who hasn’t done their homework,’ he retorts, raising his voice.
My lips part and I inhale sharply. Well, now I know. This collaborative facade of his – it’s all for show. Once a lone wolf…
‘Shit, sorry, sorry – that was out of line,’ he backpedals. ‘It’s not Harlow’s fault that she got sick and— Ah, shit.’
He runs his hands through his hair, a giveaway that he’s as unsettled as I am. But, even though I’ve lied, I can’t be relegated to keywords.
‘Look, Drew—’
‘Sophie—’ he says at the same time.
‘You go ahead,’ he tells me.
‘I’ll start with research,’ I say, ‘but I’ll expect to move on to scripting ASAP.’
I may have dropped the ball, then lied about the reason – not that he knows it’s a lie – but I’m a damned fine creative and I will not let Drew Frigging Parker bench me.
He doesn’t respond right away, but I maintain eye contact.
‘Well, we’re under the pump, so yeah, as soon as you can.’ He heaves out a sigh. ‘Look, I need a break. Let’s take early lunch,’ he says, rushing out of the conference room.
So, I guess the team lunch isn’t happening.
‘Sophie, what was that?’ Jane asks. ‘Why didn’t you tell him the truth?’
I stare at the tabletop a little longer, then look Jane in the eye. ‘I didn’t want to give him the upper hand.’
‘The upper ha— Soph, I’ve told you, we’re all in this together. Drew’s not going to lord it over you because Home for the Holidays triggered a grief grenade, as you called it. And you’ve been like a puppy in a puddle all morning – you’re excited about this campaign.’
This is straight-talking Jane – she’s not letting me off lightly. And rightly so. What the hell am I doing, lying about Harlow being sick? That isn’t me.
‘You’re right,’ I admit. ‘I am excited. And if Drew wants to ask a Michelin-starred chef to butter toast, then fine. I’ll find some way to add value.’
Jane’s expression softens. ‘I’ll watch it with you, if you like – the film.’
‘No,’ I say with a quick shake of my head, ‘I want it to be with Harlow. I’ll do it this week.’
‘You sure?’
‘No,’ I say with a wan smile.
Jane stares at me for a long moment, then returns the smile. ‘Come on, lunch is on me.’