Charitable Getting: Chapter Six
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originalsam_backupETA 10/1/10: This is a FIRST DRAFT of Charitable Getting. Please see this post for the index to the second and most current draft.
CHAPTER SIX
"Okay, check this out, I figured it out," Ian said on Thursday morning, holding up his knit hat and waving it in front of Cee.
"What did you figure out?" she asked.
"How to put a hat on one-handed by myself," Ian told her proudly. "You do like this..." he clenched the edge of the hat between his teeth, then pulled the rest of it up over his face and down across the crown of his head. "Nen oo leggit go..." he opened his mouth wide, reached back behind his head, tugged the hat down, and pulled the front up until his eyes were visible again. "And, hat!"
Cee applauded, which was flattering. "Good lateral thinking."
"Well, I try," Ian told her, taking off the hat and laying it down on his desk. He smoothed his hair and looked up when Zoe entered from the elevators. "Good morning!"
"Ian, I have a mission for you," Zoe said, soberly. Ian composed himself to be professional as she carefully took a nondescript box out of her bag and placed it on the desk.
"Does it involve the post office?" he asked, suddenly worried.
"No. It involves baked goods," Zoe hissed.
"Ohhh...kay..." Ian relaxed slightly, then frowned. "Wait, no. I still don't understand."
"Your mission, should you choose to accept it, is to distribute these cookies to the staff," Zoe said. "They are molasses crinkle chocolate chip."
"I can't just put them out on my desk?" Ian asked. "I have a bowl for such occasions."
"There are enemy agents who are waiting to intercept these cookies," Zoe insisted, taking a slip of paper out of her pocket and passing it over. It was a printout of photographs from the staff webpage -- Erin and Jess. They had melodrama-villain mustaches drawn on. "These operatives will attempt to bogart the supply train."
"Ah," Ian said, biting his lip as he stared down at the photographs. He flashed the paper at Cee, who snickered. "I see. I accept your mission, madam."
"Good luck!" Zoe told him. "This message is self-destructing...now!"
She made a sort of boom-sizzle-boom-pop-fizz noise as she walked back towards her desk. Ian watched her go, head tilted.
"I don't think I'm ever going to get used to being subjected to that kind of shenanigan while wearing a tie," Ian said thoughtfully.
"Cookies!" Cee commanded. Ian opened the box cautiously (just in case) and carried them to her desk.
"SARAH," Ian yelled.
"I KNOW!" Sarah yelled back. He heard, faintly, some order barked at the interns to 'stay put and try not to pee on anything' and then Sarah came down the hall to join them. Ian turned to offer her the box, eliciting a yelp of indignation from Cee, who apparently wasn't done yet.
"So what's your strategy?" Sarah asked.
"I thought I'd send you with emergency rations for Legal -- that includes one cookie each for the interns, poor children, and you will give them eight minutes to eat them," Ian said sternly. "Then I'll make a run to the Creative pod, nip past Outreach, drop some for Roxy and some for Finance, double-back for Jess and Hanna, and deliver the last ones to Erin as a fait accompli."
"You'd better come with me to Legal," Sarah said. Ian opened his mouth to ask why, and saw The Eyebrow.
"Okay!" he agreed hastily, and followed her down the hall. When they reached Sarah's desk, she glanced at the interns to be sure they weren't eavesdropping.
"Did you notice John?" she asked softly.
"His presence, or something in particular?" Ian said.
"His clothes."
"How did you notice his clothes? You're on the other side of the office from him."
Sarah made a vague gesture.
"His clothes are nice. At least I think so," Ian protested. "A little informal, maybe, but he's a writer."
"They're the same ones he was wearing yesterday -- don't look, dolt!" Sarah said, as Ian turned to glance down the hallway. He turned back quickly.
"Scandalous," he grinned. "Guess he spent the night at Cee's. It's a nice change from the copier room, I suppose."
"Spending the night is a big deal," Sarah said. "That's moving towards grounds for a committed relationship. Especially at her place."
"What? Why?"
"She's the girl. Boys don't like to spend the night out of their element. It's a control thing."
Ian frowned. "That's not sexist, is it?"
"That's an observation on the male personality."
"How committed are we talking here?" Ian asked. "I thought staying the night just meant, it's fucking cold in Chicago in the winter."
Sarah gave him what he was sure was a pitying look.
"So young and innocent," she said, patting his head. "You go hand out cookies now."
Ian scowled and re-ordered his hair as he walked down the hallway. He gave Cee a friendly, super-casual passing wave, and tried to make sure she couldn't read his mind in his face. He was about to continue onwards in his cookie-delivering rounds when the elevator dinged, so he closed the box and set it on his desk, waiting attentively for whoever-it-was to walk into the office.
Ah. Union Arms himself. Ian frantically flipped through his mental contacts list for the name.
"Mr. Byron," he said, immensely pleased with himself. "Good morning, sir."
"Good morning!" Mr. Byron boomed. "Chilly out, isn't it?"
"It is," Ian agreed. "You're here to see Mr. Sparks?"
"I'm a little early," Mr. Byron said. Ian gave Cee a slight nod, and she got up from her desk to check on Sparks, who was probably creating a new theory of marketing based on cat physics or something.
"Cee's checking on him now," Ian said. "Take your coat? Coffee, water, soda...?"
"I'm fine, thanks, stopped at Starbucks on the way here," Mr. Byron said. "Hey, I hear your people are in talks with Shelter House. They horning in on our game or what? You know we compete with them for donors."
"I wasn't aware, Mr. Byron, but I'm sure SparkVISION can help both of you to improve your donation levels," Ian said. Some days, being a receptionist and being a used-car salesman had very little to separate them, he thought.
"Well, we'll see if Sparks is that diplomatic. Listen, if it's all right, I was wondering if I could go back and say hello to a friend of mine. Anna?"
"Let me just call and see if she's at her desk," Ian said, holding up a finger. He knew she was, but he felt warning her that Sugar Daddy was in the house might be wise. He picked up the phone.
"I know you have cookies," Anna answered.
"Anna, Mr. Byron was wondering if you had a minute," Ian said.
"Hoshit, that's right, he's here. Uh. Uh. Can you tell him I died?"
Ian considered this. "No, I don't think so."
"Okay. Send him back. I'm going to go sew John's mouth shut," Anna said, and hung up. Ian replaced the phone on its stand.
"She'd love to see you," he said, beaming. "Straight back that way, she's on the left."
"Good man," Mr. Byron told him, and disappeared down the hall.
"Did he just call you 'good man'?" Cee asked, reemerging from Sparks's office.
"Technically true, but linguistically troubling," Ian said.
"Sparks needs five minutes. He's making himself pretty." Cee grinned.
"That's fine, Union Arms is re-seducing our copywriter. Hey, did you hear anything about us landing the Shelter House account?"
"I knew Sparks wanted to meet with them. He was in early this morning. Teleconference, maybe? Do you know what they want?"
"I can't imagine," Ian said. "Didn't they just issue a new ad campaign? I should know this stuff."
"Nobody knows everything," Cee said.
"I know everything," Sarah called. "What's the question?"
"Shelter House," Ian said. "What do you know?"
"Be right back." Sarah stood up from her desk and headed in the direction of the bathrooms. Ian and Cee exchanged blank looks. The phone rang.
"If this is Sarah, I'm officially creeped out," Ian said, picking up the call. "Good morning, SparkVISION front desk, how may I help you?"
"Hi, this is Harriette Burton," said a voice on the other end. "To whom am I speaking?"
"Ah, this is Ian," Ian said. "Front desk reception."
"Ian, hi. I'm calling on behalf of the Beckett family fund. We're a privately-funded foundation for college students. I had a couple of questions I wanted to ask about SparkVISION."
"Well, if I can't answer them, I can definitely connect you to someone who can," Ian said. "Are you interested in SparkVISION as a consultant?"
"I'm surveying several firms at the moment. I understand you're headed up by a Mr. Bo Sparks?"
"That's correct. I can put you through to his admin -- "
"These are just general questions, I'm sure you can answer them. Do you like working for Mr. Sparks?"
Ian eyerolled for Cee's benefit. "Yes. He has a very unique take on donor interaction. We really strive to be on the cutting edge of new fundraising philosophy."
"I understand you're very interested in social media. That's the direction we're trying to move in."
"Well, that's one way of putting it," Ian said, as Mr. Byron returned from traumatizing Anna. Cee gestured for Ian to stay where he was, and went to take Byron's coat. "We're very respectful of the impact of social media on culture. We try to make sure it's used to the best purpose for both fundraisers and donors."
There was a small laugh down the line. "That sounds like a party line. Come on, Ian, you can tell me honestly. Is it really true, or is it just all talk?"
"No, ma'am, it's absolutely true," Ian said. "We're a wired office, and we do our best to integrate the internet as much as possible in most of our clients' strategies."
"SparkVISION has a blog, yes?" Harriette asked.
"We have two," Ian said, watching as Cee showed Mr. Byron into Sparks's office. "One is a business blog aimed specifically at other industry professionals, and the other is focused on our volunteers and those interested in news about SparkVISION."
"Who maintains those? Who writes the entries, I mean."
"It depends on the post, and on who's free," Ian said. "We have two staff writers, as well as interns and legal consultants; sometimes we feature guest volunteer writers."
"Does Mr. Sparks ever write a post personally?"
"Occasionally. Mainly he guides the discussion of what we want to publish."
"And does he keep a blog?"
"On the SparkVISION site? No, though he'd probably like the idea," Ian said, amused at the mental image. Lots of animated gifs, no doubt.
"What about a personal blog?"
"You'd have to ask him. If he does, he doesn't talk about it with the staff."
"Does your staff follow this blog, NonProphetBlog dot org?"
Ian laughed. "Yes, it's one of many we follow, to keep current on local and national trends."
"Does SparkVISION have any kind of relationship with it?"
"Um. Relationship?"
"Do you comment? Or interact with Non Prophet at all?"
"No. Well. I don't comment to him, I don't think anyone else here does, at least not under their own name. Sparks is always pleased when SparkVISION is mentioned, though. If you're working on a fund for college students, digital outreach is definitely the way to go. I can connect you to our resident IT professional, if you like."
"I'll get back to you on that. Thank you, Ian, you've been very informative," Harriette said, sounding satisfied.
"My pleasure, ma'am. Call anytime," Ian said, and hung up. "That was weird."
"Weird?" Cee asked.
"Okay, so here's the deal with Shelter House," Sarah interrupted, coming up the hallway. "Their last campaign was a huge fundraiser, but not cost-effective. Way too much money spent on the consulting agency. They're looking to retrench -- they want a smaller, more streamlined kind of place, like ours."
"Really," Cee said, intrigued.
"But they want to make sure that our campaign is going to be...respectful," Sarah said. "You know. I mean we can go a little wild sometimes. Can you imagine Sparks trying his glad-handing routine in the middle of a shelter for battered women?"
"That's not fair," Ian protested. "Sparks wouldn't be a dick."
"No, but he's -- just really cheerful, all the time, and sometimes it's not the time for it. Anyway, they want to be sure we can take it down a notch. Something serious and heart-rending," Sarah continued.
"Put John on it," Cee suggested. Sarah grinned at her, and she blushed. "What? He's good at serious and heart-rending."
"Hey, you're Sparks's PA, you tell him," Sarah replied. "Anyway, they're deciding today."
"Where did you get all this in the last five minutes while you were in the bathroom?" Ian asked suspiciously.
"I never reveal my sources to novices," Sarah said loftily.
"I'm not a mistress of the black arts yet," Ian told Cee sadly, standing and hoisting the box of cookies onto his cast, balancing them precariously. "Okay, I'm going to deliver...things."
He set off down the hall, watching for Jess, whose cube pod was right next to Creative. When he reached Anna's cube, he leaned over the partition. She looked a little dazed.
"So, how's December?" he asked.
"What?" she said.
"How's December, May?"
"You are so unfunny," she complained. "He confuses me."
"Oh?"
"He's kind of a dick," Anna confided. "But every time I see him he does one thing, one charming or sexy thing."
"It's the double-jointed, isn't it," Ian asked.
"It might be the steaks. Ian, the steaks are so good."
"It's hard to sacrifice morals for sex and beef," Ian agreed sympathetically. He popped the lid off the box of cookies and edged it over the wall. Too late he thought about signaling her to be quiet; his good hand was holding the box, so he held up his cast, pointed his index finger, and made the shush gesture as best he could. She stared at his finger in confusion.
"Cookies!" she said, looking down at the box. Ian thudded his head against the ridge of the cubicle wall. "Who brought cookies?"
"Cookies?" Jess asked. She leaned out of her cube. "ROXY! ERIN! COOKIES!"
"Way to go, Ian," Zoe said, from behind Anna. She took a handful of the cookies and dropped them on Anna's desk, then just barely beat Jess out for another handful for John.
"Oh, here, Ian, let me take that," Jess said. Ian tried desperately to cling to the box but he was only one man. Jess, triumphant, turned around and offered some to Erin.
"Roxy, run!" Ian yelled.
"Why?" Roxy yelled back.
"Cookies!"
"LOW CARBING," Roxy shouted, sounding annoyed. Ian thought of Naomi, who didn't even know the cookies existed yet, and made a frantic last-ditch gamble.
"They're sugar free!" he yelped, and when Jess looked at him in confusion he wrestled the box back.
"Really? They taste great," John said, sampling one. Ian smacked the lid down on Erin's hand when she reached for another.
"Save some for Naomi," he said, clutching them to his chest. "Zoe, you owe me."
"I'm not the one that spilled the beans!" Zoe exclaimed.
"Wait a minute," he heard Anna say, as he took off at a reasonable speed for Naomi's desk. "These are molasses cookies. You can't make sugar-free molasses cookies. MOLASSES IS SUGAR!" she yelled, and Ian laughed to himself as he rounded the corner and made his getaway.
***
"Trent! Come in," Sparks said, ushering the Executive Director of Union Arms into his office. Sparks had read many books on management and client relations, and his office reflected that -- it was large, but only so that it could accommodate the two overstuffed chairs near the window. His desk, smallish but radiating power, was mainly used to stash his paperwork and hold his computer (and his yogurt raisin snacks in the bottom drawer).
Bo Sparks had no need for outward displays of power. He was secure in his position: handsome, brilliant, and successful. People always thought it was egotistical to think so highly of oneself, but by most measures of such things it was simply a fact. He had done a lot of good in his life, and expected to do a lot more before his time was up -- starting with what he felt was truly excellent advice for Trent Byron and Union Arms.
"How are you?" he asked, as he led Trent to the chairs and flopped down in one.
"Busy as usual, this time of year," Trent replied, sitting in the other chair and folding his hands. "What the hell did you do to your receptionist, Bo?"
"What? Oh, the cast," Sparks laughed. "Ian did that to himself. He's young. Fast. When he learns to slow down, I expect great things from him."
"He's a receptionist."
"I expect great things of all my staff. I hire them because of their potential. In ten years' time, you'll see John's name on the bestseller list," Sparks enthused. "And Anna's and Zoe's on gallery walls. Sarah will be working with some of the top diplomats in the country, or maybe out of it. Erin will probably be running my main competition. So on, so forth. I don't know what Ian will do, but I imagine it will be spectacular somehow."
"You'll need new staff," Trent pointed out.
"So it goes. When you hire the best, you don't expect them to stick around forever."
Trent nodded. "And what has your best come up with for me?"
"Ah!" Sparks reached for a box of files next to the chair. "I'd like to go over with you what our process was for this."
"You can't just give me a list of new names for the organization?" Trent asked.
"It's a little more complicated than that. Do you have time?" Sparks glanced at him as he arranged the files. "If not, we can meet later."
"No, I have the time," Trent said. He looked irked. Sparks wondered if he should offer him a yogurt raisin snack.
"So we started out to identify what exactly the name Union Arms triggers in peoples' minds, both those who are thinking of it as a charity and those who are thinking of the words objectively," Sparks said, passing him a handful of studies. "We worked with street teams -- ugh, by the way, never again, they don't hire nice people -- and focus groups. I spoke to a professor of language semiotics about it, actually, really nice woman, you'd be amazed at some of the stuff she told me. Gave me a copy of her book -- here, take it and read it."
Trent ignored the book, flipping through the studies, so Sparks set the book down on the little table next to the chairs.
"We also did work with name, logo, and ad recognition. Your logo is highly visible and indicative, but on a symbolic level...well, your people were right, it's militaristic. On the other hand, despite a general trend towards dissociating the military from charitable work, people think that a charity that's organized like a military unit must be very efficient. Do you remember that ad from a few years ago, the television one you did, with the drummer boy and the homeless man?"
"Oh yeah. Filming that was a bitch," Trent said.
"I don't doubt it. It made an impact, though. People still remember it. And, when polled, ninety percent of people who give to charity on a regular basis recognized your name. Only four percent of those who didn't recognize you thought you were in some way associated with the military."
"You did all this in six weeks?" Trent asked.
"I outsourced a lot of it. Nobody needs a big organization anymore; a few mouse clicks and you can have poll results in a week. I've listed the expenses..." Sparks passed him another sheet.
"Bo, listen, this is fascinating, but I just want the results," Trent said.
"Sorry!" Sparks laughed. "I'm getting there. Just a few more statistics."
Trent rolled his eyes.
"You know I love numbers," Sparks said, feeling a little defensive. "My point is, most people who are inclined to give know your name and your logo. Of those who don't regularly give, seventy percent recognize one of those two, and that rises to eighty if they see your ads."
"I'm glad to see the numbers," Trent told him. "I just want to know what they mean for the rebrand. I could have done the polls myself."
"Ah, but the trick is in knowing what questions to ask, and how to interpret what you get," Sparks said, taking a deep breath. Trent, he knew, was not going to respond well initially to this. "Which is why you're paying me to tell you this: don't rebrand."
Trent sat forward. "What?"
"I know, I know, it sounds like a punchline in a Letterman monologue, but I'm telling you this in all honesty, based on hard data. If you re-brand, you are going to lose annual and occasional donor dollars."
"Are you fucking kidding me?" Trent demanded.
"I have examples here -- reams of them," Sparks said hurriedly, thrusting more paper at him. "A dozen or more not-for-profit organizations who rebranded and then had to revert, or subtitle their new brand. Look at this one. The Society for Peace. They rebranded to just Society -- which is a genius brand on its own, but nobody knew what they were for or who they used to be. Now they're Society, formerly The Society For Peace, and people think they aren't even for peace anymore. I can show you others."
"I paid you twenty grand to tell me how to rebrand," Trent growled. His face was getting red. Sparks noticed, with mild worry, a vein pulsing in his forehead.
"I can't conscientiously recommend a rebrand. You paid me for good advice," he said. Trent threw the papers aside, littering the shining hardwood floor of the office. "Listen, let's discuss this -- "
"I'm not going to discuss this," Trent shouted.
"If you speak to some of your people, have them go over the data -- "
"Fuck the data! Twenty grand down the toilet!"
"I'm trying to offer you guidance -- " he rose as Trent stomped to the door and wrenched it open.
"Fuck your guidance too!" he yelled. Beyond him, in the lobby, Cee spun around in shock. Ian looked up from his computer. "You're a hack, Sparks. A con man!"
Sparks saw Cee's mouth make a little 'o' of surprise.
"I'll have your ass for this," Trent said, and poked him in the chest. Actually poked him in the chest. Sparks, for a second, thought about grabbing his finger and breaking it, but he took a deep breath instead.
"Any time you'd like to go over the accounting and the results, let me know," he said coldly. "I think you'd better leave, Mr. Byron."
"I AM LEAVING!" Byron shouted. Cee had backed away from the doorway, halfway down the hall, and Sparks saw that Ian had his finger on the security call-button. He gave Ian a quick headshake as Byron turned to go.
The doors of SparkVISION's front lobby were glass, and opened inward; the handles, however, were the same on either side, and had resulted in more than one person trying to open the door the wrong way. Sparks watched in horror as Trent Byron stormed through the lobby, reached for the handle, shoved, and slammed into the still-shut door.
"Pull," Ian said, gently, softly. Byron shot him a hard glare, pulled the door, and ran into the hallway just as an elevator was opening. Erin walked out; Byron walked in, checking her in the shoulder as he went. She turned for a second, startled, and then turned back to the lobby.
"What the hell happened?" she asked. "He looked like he was about to bite through his veneers."
"He called Sparks a con-man and a hack," Ian said, horrified.
"I think," Sparks said, speculatively, "That Trent Byron might need some anger-management education. Maybe there's a webinar he can attend."
"Jesus, look at your office," Erin pushed past him into his office, where paper was strewn everywhere. "Did you tell him you're doing his wife or something?"
"He's not married," Sparks said.
"Oh man, I need to go tell Creative what just happened," Ian announced, taking off down the hallway.
"Tell them it wasn't my fault!" Sparks called after him, as half the staff appeared from their cubicles, crowding around Ian.
"He didn't take it well, did he?" Sarah asked, putting her head in the doorway. "Did I hear him call you a fuck?"
"Hack," Sparks said, starting to pick up the paper and re-shuffle it into order. It weighed on him, when a client didn't like what he had to say. "Cee, call Hanna. I need her to help me clear this up and sort everything into a binder."
"Yeah, of course," Cee said, and he heard her pick up the phone. "Naomi? Hanna's with you today, right? Can you spare her?"
"I told him," Sparks said, bending over to pick up the first poll report, "that Union Arms shouldn't rebrand. He didn't even want to look at my data."
Erin rubbed his arm reassuringly. "But you were right, right?"
"He didn't like it," Sparks said.
"He wasn't paying you to tell him something he'd like," Erin pointed out.
"Maybe he was," Sarah said. "In his mind, I mean."
"He shouldn't have poked me," Sparks muttered. "Or shoved Erin."
"I'm going to go check the contract," Sarah said. "I want to make sure our ass is covered. I'll look into Chicago assault laws, too, just in case."
"Union Arms is enormous; twenty thousand dollars isn't even a drop in the bucket to them," Sparks continued. "And what I told him was worth twenty grand."
"This is going to be awkward for Anna," Cee said to Erin.
"Oh -- " Sparks felt awful, suddenly. "Listen, tell everyone, nobody is to be mean to her or to Byron when we see him again. It's not professional or nice."
"Yeah, but he shoved Erin," Sarah said.
"We will be the bigger people," Sparks decided. "If you meet him at an event, be polite and walk away fast. If he calls about wanting the data, we'll courier it over to him. If Anna wants to keep seeing him, I want you all to respect that. Nobody should be mean to Anna, she's delicate."
There was a yell from down the hallway.
"She's not that delicate," Erin said.
"Regardless, we will be utterly professional," Sparks straightened his tie to emphasize his point. Hanna appeared behind Cee in the doorway. "Hanna, I'm glad you're here. We need to pick up all this paper and make sure it's ordered and indexed."
Hanna looked wide-eyed from Cee to Sarah to Sparks.
"Come in, I'm not going to poke you," Sparks told her. "Right now let's just get it off the floor, then I'll show you how it all goes together."
Erin and Sarah left the room; Cee did too, but she left his office door open. Sparks took the binder Hanna offered him and began piling paper in it. He heard Ian return to his desk, and a sort of serene-but-wary quiet settle on the office, broken only by Hanna's paper-shuffling and the occasional ring of the front-desk telephone.
***
Beermaki was packed that evening, but the SparkVISION staff were regulars and Cee had called ahead. When they arrived, there was one long table made up of three smaller tables pushed together, covered with signs bearing the Beermaki crab-and-beer logo announcing that it was RESERVED FOR SPECIAL GUESTS. Ian circled the table with one of the little sushi forms, checked off what everyone wanted, and turned it in while Hanna fetched the beer. By the time the food had arrived, Sparks still hadn't said much more than "Where are my chopsticks?" and had, after staring at his food for a while, gone to get another beer.
"I'm worried about him," Cee said in an undertone to Jess.
Jess pushed a piece of pickled ginger around on her plate with her chopsticks, thoughtfully. "He looks all right. I mean. He looks sad, which is weird because it's Sparks, but everyone gets sad sometimes."
"It's not that," Cee told her. "He blew off a function tonight. He just sent Erin. Sparks never blows off parties."
"I think, that being the case, he can probably afford to miss one," Naomi observed, from Cee's other side. "He's coming back, act cheery."
Sparks returned from the bar with three bottles, passing one to Sarah and one to Ian. He sat down heavily in his chair and picked at the label on his own.
"I think this is what failure feels like," he announced finally. The rest of the table exchanged glances. "I'm very unaccustomed to failure. I don't like it."
"I don't think you should see it as failure," Jess said. "I tell our youth volunteers that it's not failure if you gave it your best. It's just a learning experience."
Sparks gave her a mournful look. "Does that work?"
Jess sighed. "Sometimes."
"Have you noticed that John doesn't actually smoke?" Ian said randomly, peering through the window at the Creative trio standing outside.
"What do you mean?" Hanna asked.
"He just goes out there and stands around with Anna. Zoe too. It's like a vicarious smoke break. It's weird."
Most of the table looked up and out the window. Anna was standing with John and Zoe, getting lightly dusted by snow as she gesticulated wildly, a cigarette in one hand.
"Well, it gets them out of work for five minutes. Gets the creative juices going, I guess," Jess said.
"How do you think she is?" Sparks asked. Anna flailed a little and nearly thrust her cigarette into the eyeball of a passing stranger.
"Coping?" Naomi said. There was more hope than confidence in her voice.
"The good news," Sarah announced from the end of the table, where she'd been absently eating and sipping her beer while paging through a large binder of legal documents, "Is that we're on pretty solid ground. Listen to this: ARTICLE III: ADVISORY CAPACITY. In addition to providing the resources detailed above, Company is retained to offer nonbinding advice regarding methodology of donor cultivation, and to implement Client's decisions and methodology. Client has final say on all marketing decisions including use of brands and logos."
Silence.
"What does that mean?" Hanna asked in a small voice.
"It means that as long as we support our advice, it's not our fault if they don't listen to it," Sparks said. "We don't have to implement anything without their go-ahead. So as long as Trent stays pissed off at me, we don't have to do anything."
"He's still got ten grand of our money," Naomi said. "They haven't paid the second installment."
"How much of that remaining payment have we already spent?"
"About a thousand dollars."
"Give it until after the holidays," Sparks said. "Give him time to simmer down. We'll go after him for the money then, but if we don't get it I'm comfortable writing that and the profits off as a loss. Taking on Union Arms is no good for anyone."
"What if they sue us?" Cee asked. "I heard words that sounded an awful lot like angryspeak for 'I'll see you in court'."
"Oh, countersue," Sarah said. "He assaulted two of our people. We can sue for damages and medical expenses -- "
"I'm not going to the hospital because some guy poked me in the chest," Sparks said.
"What if you develop long-lasting respiratory issues?" Sarah asked. "You should see a chiropractor. And I bet we could get Erin to cry in a deposition. That's emotional distress."
"We're getting a little ahead of ourselves," Sparks said. "Let's just see how this unfolds."
The sleigh bells tied to Beermaki's front door rang out as Creative came back inside. Everyone was suddenly interested in their sushi. Anna sat down, took Ian's beer away from him, and drank deeply.
"I'm dumping him," she announced. Immediately everyone relaxed.
"Well, thank God," Naomi said.
"I hope you appreciate I just gave up trips to Paris and top sirloin," Anna added.
"I'll drive you to Springfield and buy you a hamburger," Sparks offered.
"What's in Springfield?" Anna asked.
"Good hamburgers?" Jess suggested.
"And the Lincoln Presidential Library," Ian said. "It's not as good as the LBJ one in Austin, though. That one has a talking animatronic LBJ. He tells jokes."
"That sounds horrifying," Sarah said.
"I'm officially changing the subject from Union Arms," Sparks announced.
"I just did that," Ian pointed out.
"I'm changing it again, then. I'm tired of talking about being sad. So! Tomorrow! Our first event with Nations In Need!" Sparks said brightly.
"Did you just get emotional whiplash?" Naomi asked Sarah.
"Chiropractor!" Sarah said, eating the crab stick out of her roll.
"The theme of this party is Getting To Know You," Sparks said. "We're not doing any actual fundraising, though of course everyone with Nations In Need is prepared to take donations. The point of tomorrow is for you to meet the staff and their biggest donors, so I want everyone to be getting a feel for things. Ask questions. Be interested."
"Banners are in," Zoe announced. "I'm hanging them in the restaurant tomorrow."
"The party room is ours, and the food's taken care of," Cee added.
"I want at least one person from Creative there," Sparks said. "John and Anna, you can arm-wrestle for it."
"Ten bucks on Anna," Naomi called.
"Are we arm-wrestling for who gets to go, or who gets to stay home?" Anna asked.
"Figure it out between yourselves. Naomi, you're mandatory."
"Yes boss."
"Zoe and Sarah, you're optional, but the food is good. Ian..." Sparks gave Ian a hopeless look. "I need you there, Cee can't make it. But try not to flash your mortal injury around too much."
"Kitchen lurker per usual," Ian said. "Can I have Hanna and the interns?"
"Great band name," Jess laughed, elbowing Hanna.
"Yes you can," Sparks said. "So everyone knows where they're going and what they're doing?"
"Yes, boss," they chorused. The other diners in Beermaki looked up in mild alarm.
"Excellent, then I'm declaring shop-talk off-limits until tomorrow," Sparks said. "So, what's everyone doing for the holidays with the very generous day and a half off I'm giving you?"
***
Chapter Seven
CHAPTER SIX
"Okay, check this out, I figured it out," Ian said on Thursday morning, holding up his knit hat and waving it in front of Cee.
"What did you figure out?" she asked.
"How to put a hat on one-handed by myself," Ian told her proudly. "You do like this..." he clenched the edge of the hat between his teeth, then pulled the rest of it up over his face and down across the crown of his head. "Nen oo leggit go..." he opened his mouth wide, reached back behind his head, tugged the hat down, and pulled the front up until his eyes were visible again. "And, hat!"
Cee applauded, which was flattering. "Good lateral thinking."
"Well, I try," Ian told her, taking off the hat and laying it down on his desk. He smoothed his hair and looked up when Zoe entered from the elevators. "Good morning!"
"Ian, I have a mission for you," Zoe said, soberly. Ian composed himself to be professional as she carefully took a nondescript box out of her bag and placed it on the desk.
"Does it involve the post office?" he asked, suddenly worried.
"No. It involves baked goods," Zoe hissed.
"Ohhh...kay..." Ian relaxed slightly, then frowned. "Wait, no. I still don't understand."
"Your mission, should you choose to accept it, is to distribute these cookies to the staff," Zoe said. "They are molasses crinkle chocolate chip."
"I can't just put them out on my desk?" Ian asked. "I have a bowl for such occasions."
"There are enemy agents who are waiting to intercept these cookies," Zoe insisted, taking a slip of paper out of her pocket and passing it over. It was a printout of photographs from the staff webpage -- Erin and Jess. They had melodrama-villain mustaches drawn on. "These operatives will attempt to bogart the supply train."
"Ah," Ian said, biting his lip as he stared down at the photographs. He flashed the paper at Cee, who snickered. "I see. I accept your mission, madam."
"Good luck!" Zoe told him. "This message is self-destructing...now!"
She made a sort of boom-sizzle-boom-pop-fizz noise as she walked back towards her desk. Ian watched her go, head tilted.
"I don't think I'm ever going to get used to being subjected to that kind of shenanigan while wearing a tie," Ian said thoughtfully.
"Cookies!" Cee commanded. Ian opened the box cautiously (just in case) and carried them to her desk.
"SARAH," Ian yelled.
"I KNOW!" Sarah yelled back. He heard, faintly, some order barked at the interns to 'stay put and try not to pee on anything' and then Sarah came down the hall to join them. Ian turned to offer her the box, eliciting a yelp of indignation from Cee, who apparently wasn't done yet.
"So what's your strategy?" Sarah asked.
"I thought I'd send you with emergency rations for Legal -- that includes one cookie each for the interns, poor children, and you will give them eight minutes to eat them," Ian said sternly. "Then I'll make a run to the Creative pod, nip past Outreach, drop some for Roxy and some for Finance, double-back for Jess and Hanna, and deliver the last ones to Erin as a fait accompli."
"You'd better come with me to Legal," Sarah said. Ian opened his mouth to ask why, and saw The Eyebrow.
"Okay!" he agreed hastily, and followed her down the hall. When they reached Sarah's desk, she glanced at the interns to be sure they weren't eavesdropping.
"Did you notice John?" she asked softly.
"His presence, or something in particular?" Ian said.
"His clothes."
"How did you notice his clothes? You're on the other side of the office from him."
Sarah made a vague gesture.
"His clothes are nice. At least I think so," Ian protested. "A little informal, maybe, but he's a writer."
"They're the same ones he was wearing yesterday -- don't look, dolt!" Sarah said, as Ian turned to glance down the hallway. He turned back quickly.
"Scandalous," he grinned. "Guess he spent the night at Cee's. It's a nice change from the copier room, I suppose."
"Spending the night is a big deal," Sarah said. "That's moving towards grounds for a committed relationship. Especially at her place."
"What? Why?"
"She's the girl. Boys don't like to spend the night out of their element. It's a control thing."
Ian frowned. "That's not sexist, is it?"
"That's an observation on the male personality."
"How committed are we talking here?" Ian asked. "I thought staying the night just meant, it's fucking cold in Chicago in the winter."
Sarah gave him what he was sure was a pitying look.
"So young and innocent," she said, patting his head. "You go hand out cookies now."
Ian scowled and re-ordered his hair as he walked down the hallway. He gave Cee a friendly, super-casual passing wave, and tried to make sure she couldn't read his mind in his face. He was about to continue onwards in his cookie-delivering rounds when the elevator dinged, so he closed the box and set it on his desk, waiting attentively for whoever-it-was to walk into the office.
Ah. Union Arms himself. Ian frantically flipped through his mental contacts list for the name.
"Mr. Byron," he said, immensely pleased with himself. "Good morning, sir."
"Good morning!" Mr. Byron boomed. "Chilly out, isn't it?"
"It is," Ian agreed. "You're here to see Mr. Sparks?"
"I'm a little early," Mr. Byron said. Ian gave Cee a slight nod, and she got up from her desk to check on Sparks, who was probably creating a new theory of marketing based on cat physics or something.
"Cee's checking on him now," Ian said. "Take your coat? Coffee, water, soda...?"
"I'm fine, thanks, stopped at Starbucks on the way here," Mr. Byron said. "Hey, I hear your people are in talks with Shelter House. They horning in on our game or what? You know we compete with them for donors."
"I wasn't aware, Mr. Byron, but I'm sure SparkVISION can help both of you to improve your donation levels," Ian said. Some days, being a receptionist and being a used-car salesman had very little to separate them, he thought.
"Well, we'll see if Sparks is that diplomatic. Listen, if it's all right, I was wondering if I could go back and say hello to a friend of mine. Anna?"
"Let me just call and see if she's at her desk," Ian said, holding up a finger. He knew she was, but he felt warning her that Sugar Daddy was in the house might be wise. He picked up the phone.
"I know you have cookies," Anna answered.
"Anna, Mr. Byron was wondering if you had a minute," Ian said.
"Hoshit, that's right, he's here. Uh. Uh. Can you tell him I died?"
Ian considered this. "No, I don't think so."
"Okay. Send him back. I'm going to go sew John's mouth shut," Anna said, and hung up. Ian replaced the phone on its stand.
"She'd love to see you," he said, beaming. "Straight back that way, she's on the left."
"Good man," Mr. Byron told him, and disappeared down the hall.
"Did he just call you 'good man'?" Cee asked, reemerging from Sparks's office.
"Technically true, but linguistically troubling," Ian said.
"Sparks needs five minutes. He's making himself pretty." Cee grinned.
"That's fine, Union Arms is re-seducing our copywriter. Hey, did you hear anything about us landing the Shelter House account?"
"I knew Sparks wanted to meet with them. He was in early this morning. Teleconference, maybe? Do you know what they want?"
"I can't imagine," Ian said. "Didn't they just issue a new ad campaign? I should know this stuff."
"Nobody knows everything," Cee said.
"I know everything," Sarah called. "What's the question?"
"Shelter House," Ian said. "What do you know?"
"Be right back." Sarah stood up from her desk and headed in the direction of the bathrooms. Ian and Cee exchanged blank looks. The phone rang.
"If this is Sarah, I'm officially creeped out," Ian said, picking up the call. "Good morning, SparkVISION front desk, how may I help you?"
"Hi, this is Harriette Burton," said a voice on the other end. "To whom am I speaking?"
"Ah, this is Ian," Ian said. "Front desk reception."
"Ian, hi. I'm calling on behalf of the Beckett family fund. We're a privately-funded foundation for college students. I had a couple of questions I wanted to ask about SparkVISION."
"Well, if I can't answer them, I can definitely connect you to someone who can," Ian said. "Are you interested in SparkVISION as a consultant?"
"I'm surveying several firms at the moment. I understand you're headed up by a Mr. Bo Sparks?"
"That's correct. I can put you through to his admin -- "
"These are just general questions, I'm sure you can answer them. Do you like working for Mr. Sparks?"
Ian eyerolled for Cee's benefit. "Yes. He has a very unique take on donor interaction. We really strive to be on the cutting edge of new fundraising philosophy."
"I understand you're very interested in social media. That's the direction we're trying to move in."
"Well, that's one way of putting it," Ian said, as Mr. Byron returned from traumatizing Anna. Cee gestured for Ian to stay where he was, and went to take Byron's coat. "We're very respectful of the impact of social media on culture. We try to make sure it's used to the best purpose for both fundraisers and donors."
There was a small laugh down the line. "That sounds like a party line. Come on, Ian, you can tell me honestly. Is it really true, or is it just all talk?"
"No, ma'am, it's absolutely true," Ian said. "We're a wired office, and we do our best to integrate the internet as much as possible in most of our clients' strategies."
"SparkVISION has a blog, yes?" Harriette asked.
"We have two," Ian said, watching as Cee showed Mr. Byron into Sparks's office. "One is a business blog aimed specifically at other industry professionals, and the other is focused on our volunteers and those interested in news about SparkVISION."
"Who maintains those? Who writes the entries, I mean."
"It depends on the post, and on who's free," Ian said. "We have two staff writers, as well as interns and legal consultants; sometimes we feature guest volunteer writers."
"Does Mr. Sparks ever write a post personally?"
"Occasionally. Mainly he guides the discussion of what we want to publish."
"And does he keep a blog?"
"On the SparkVISION site? No, though he'd probably like the idea," Ian said, amused at the mental image. Lots of animated gifs, no doubt.
"What about a personal blog?"
"You'd have to ask him. If he does, he doesn't talk about it with the staff."
"Does your staff follow this blog, NonProphetBlog dot org?"
Ian laughed. "Yes, it's one of many we follow, to keep current on local and national trends."
"Does SparkVISION have any kind of relationship with it?"
"Um. Relationship?"
"Do you comment? Or interact with Non Prophet at all?"
"No. Well. I don't comment to him, I don't think anyone else here does, at least not under their own name. Sparks is always pleased when SparkVISION is mentioned, though. If you're working on a fund for college students, digital outreach is definitely the way to go. I can connect you to our resident IT professional, if you like."
"I'll get back to you on that. Thank you, Ian, you've been very informative," Harriette said, sounding satisfied.
"My pleasure, ma'am. Call anytime," Ian said, and hung up. "That was weird."
"Weird?" Cee asked.
"Okay, so here's the deal with Shelter House," Sarah interrupted, coming up the hallway. "Their last campaign was a huge fundraiser, but not cost-effective. Way too much money spent on the consulting agency. They're looking to retrench -- they want a smaller, more streamlined kind of place, like ours."
"Really," Cee said, intrigued.
"But they want to make sure that our campaign is going to be...respectful," Sarah said. "You know. I mean we can go a little wild sometimes. Can you imagine Sparks trying his glad-handing routine in the middle of a shelter for battered women?"
"That's not fair," Ian protested. "Sparks wouldn't be a dick."
"No, but he's -- just really cheerful, all the time, and sometimes it's not the time for it. Anyway, they want to be sure we can take it down a notch. Something serious and heart-rending," Sarah continued.
"Put John on it," Cee suggested. Sarah grinned at her, and she blushed. "What? He's good at serious and heart-rending."
"Hey, you're Sparks's PA, you tell him," Sarah replied. "Anyway, they're deciding today."
"Where did you get all this in the last five minutes while you were in the bathroom?" Ian asked suspiciously.
"I never reveal my sources to novices," Sarah said loftily.
"I'm not a mistress of the black arts yet," Ian told Cee sadly, standing and hoisting the box of cookies onto his cast, balancing them precariously. "Okay, I'm going to deliver...things."
He set off down the hall, watching for Jess, whose cube pod was right next to Creative. When he reached Anna's cube, he leaned over the partition. She looked a little dazed.
"So, how's December?" he asked.
"What?" she said.
"How's December, May?"
"You are so unfunny," she complained. "He confuses me."
"Oh?"
"He's kind of a dick," Anna confided. "But every time I see him he does one thing, one charming or sexy thing."
"It's the double-jointed, isn't it," Ian asked.
"It might be the steaks. Ian, the steaks are so good."
"It's hard to sacrifice morals for sex and beef," Ian agreed sympathetically. He popped the lid off the box of cookies and edged it over the wall. Too late he thought about signaling her to be quiet; his good hand was holding the box, so he held up his cast, pointed his index finger, and made the shush gesture as best he could. She stared at his finger in confusion.
"Cookies!" she said, looking down at the box. Ian thudded his head against the ridge of the cubicle wall. "Who brought cookies?"
"Cookies?" Jess asked. She leaned out of her cube. "ROXY! ERIN! COOKIES!"
"Way to go, Ian," Zoe said, from behind Anna. She took a handful of the cookies and dropped them on Anna's desk, then just barely beat Jess out for another handful for John.
"Oh, here, Ian, let me take that," Jess said. Ian tried desperately to cling to the box but he was only one man. Jess, triumphant, turned around and offered some to Erin.
"Roxy, run!" Ian yelled.
"Why?" Roxy yelled back.
"Cookies!"
"LOW CARBING," Roxy shouted, sounding annoyed. Ian thought of Naomi, who didn't even know the cookies existed yet, and made a frantic last-ditch gamble.
"They're sugar free!" he yelped, and when Jess looked at him in confusion he wrestled the box back.
"Really? They taste great," John said, sampling one. Ian smacked the lid down on Erin's hand when she reached for another.
"Save some for Naomi," he said, clutching them to his chest. "Zoe, you owe me."
"I'm not the one that spilled the beans!" Zoe exclaimed.
"Wait a minute," he heard Anna say, as he took off at a reasonable speed for Naomi's desk. "These are molasses cookies. You can't make sugar-free molasses cookies. MOLASSES IS SUGAR!" she yelled, and Ian laughed to himself as he rounded the corner and made his getaway.
***
"Trent! Come in," Sparks said, ushering the Executive Director of Union Arms into his office. Sparks had read many books on management and client relations, and his office reflected that -- it was large, but only so that it could accommodate the two overstuffed chairs near the window. His desk, smallish but radiating power, was mainly used to stash his paperwork and hold his computer (and his yogurt raisin snacks in the bottom drawer).
Bo Sparks had no need for outward displays of power. He was secure in his position: handsome, brilliant, and successful. People always thought it was egotistical to think so highly of oneself, but by most measures of such things it was simply a fact. He had done a lot of good in his life, and expected to do a lot more before his time was up -- starting with what he felt was truly excellent advice for Trent Byron and Union Arms.
"How are you?" he asked, as he led Trent to the chairs and flopped down in one.
"Busy as usual, this time of year," Trent replied, sitting in the other chair and folding his hands. "What the hell did you do to your receptionist, Bo?"
"What? Oh, the cast," Sparks laughed. "Ian did that to himself. He's young. Fast. When he learns to slow down, I expect great things from him."
"He's a receptionist."
"I expect great things of all my staff. I hire them because of their potential. In ten years' time, you'll see John's name on the bestseller list," Sparks enthused. "And Anna's and Zoe's on gallery walls. Sarah will be working with some of the top diplomats in the country, or maybe out of it. Erin will probably be running my main competition. So on, so forth. I don't know what Ian will do, but I imagine it will be spectacular somehow."
"You'll need new staff," Trent pointed out.
"So it goes. When you hire the best, you don't expect them to stick around forever."
Trent nodded. "And what has your best come up with for me?"
"Ah!" Sparks reached for a box of files next to the chair. "I'd like to go over with you what our process was for this."
"You can't just give me a list of new names for the organization?" Trent asked.
"It's a little more complicated than that. Do you have time?" Sparks glanced at him as he arranged the files. "If not, we can meet later."
"No, I have the time," Trent said. He looked irked. Sparks wondered if he should offer him a yogurt raisin snack.
"So we started out to identify what exactly the name Union Arms triggers in peoples' minds, both those who are thinking of it as a charity and those who are thinking of the words objectively," Sparks said, passing him a handful of studies. "We worked with street teams -- ugh, by the way, never again, they don't hire nice people -- and focus groups. I spoke to a professor of language semiotics about it, actually, really nice woman, you'd be amazed at some of the stuff she told me. Gave me a copy of her book -- here, take it and read it."
Trent ignored the book, flipping through the studies, so Sparks set the book down on the little table next to the chairs.
"We also did work with name, logo, and ad recognition. Your logo is highly visible and indicative, but on a symbolic level...well, your people were right, it's militaristic. On the other hand, despite a general trend towards dissociating the military from charitable work, people think that a charity that's organized like a military unit must be very efficient. Do you remember that ad from a few years ago, the television one you did, with the drummer boy and the homeless man?"
"Oh yeah. Filming that was a bitch," Trent said.
"I don't doubt it. It made an impact, though. People still remember it. And, when polled, ninety percent of people who give to charity on a regular basis recognized your name. Only four percent of those who didn't recognize you thought you were in some way associated with the military."
"You did all this in six weeks?" Trent asked.
"I outsourced a lot of it. Nobody needs a big organization anymore; a few mouse clicks and you can have poll results in a week. I've listed the expenses..." Sparks passed him another sheet.
"Bo, listen, this is fascinating, but I just want the results," Trent said.
"Sorry!" Sparks laughed. "I'm getting there. Just a few more statistics."
Trent rolled his eyes.
"You know I love numbers," Sparks said, feeling a little defensive. "My point is, most people who are inclined to give know your name and your logo. Of those who don't regularly give, seventy percent recognize one of those two, and that rises to eighty if they see your ads."
"I'm glad to see the numbers," Trent told him. "I just want to know what they mean for the rebrand. I could have done the polls myself."
"Ah, but the trick is in knowing what questions to ask, and how to interpret what you get," Sparks said, taking a deep breath. Trent, he knew, was not going to respond well initially to this. "Which is why you're paying me to tell you this: don't rebrand."
Trent sat forward. "What?"
"I know, I know, it sounds like a punchline in a Letterman monologue, but I'm telling you this in all honesty, based on hard data. If you re-brand, you are going to lose annual and occasional donor dollars."
"Are you fucking kidding me?" Trent demanded.
"I have examples here -- reams of them," Sparks said hurriedly, thrusting more paper at him. "A dozen or more not-for-profit organizations who rebranded and then had to revert, or subtitle their new brand. Look at this one. The Society for Peace. They rebranded to just Society -- which is a genius brand on its own, but nobody knew what they were for or who they used to be. Now they're Society, formerly The Society For Peace, and people think they aren't even for peace anymore. I can show you others."
"I paid you twenty grand to tell me how to rebrand," Trent growled. His face was getting red. Sparks noticed, with mild worry, a vein pulsing in his forehead.
"I can't conscientiously recommend a rebrand. You paid me for good advice," he said. Trent threw the papers aside, littering the shining hardwood floor of the office. "Listen, let's discuss this -- "
"I'm not going to discuss this," Trent shouted.
"If you speak to some of your people, have them go over the data -- "
"Fuck the data! Twenty grand down the toilet!"
"I'm trying to offer you guidance -- " he rose as Trent stomped to the door and wrenched it open.
"Fuck your guidance too!" he yelled. Beyond him, in the lobby, Cee spun around in shock. Ian looked up from his computer. "You're a hack, Sparks. A con man!"
Sparks saw Cee's mouth make a little 'o' of surprise.
"I'll have your ass for this," Trent said, and poked him in the chest. Actually poked him in the chest. Sparks, for a second, thought about grabbing his finger and breaking it, but he took a deep breath instead.
"Any time you'd like to go over the accounting and the results, let me know," he said coldly. "I think you'd better leave, Mr. Byron."
"I AM LEAVING!" Byron shouted. Cee had backed away from the doorway, halfway down the hall, and Sparks saw that Ian had his finger on the security call-button. He gave Ian a quick headshake as Byron turned to go.
The doors of SparkVISION's front lobby were glass, and opened inward; the handles, however, were the same on either side, and had resulted in more than one person trying to open the door the wrong way. Sparks watched in horror as Trent Byron stormed through the lobby, reached for the handle, shoved, and slammed into the still-shut door.
"Pull," Ian said, gently, softly. Byron shot him a hard glare, pulled the door, and ran into the hallway just as an elevator was opening. Erin walked out; Byron walked in, checking her in the shoulder as he went. She turned for a second, startled, and then turned back to the lobby.
"What the hell happened?" she asked. "He looked like he was about to bite through his veneers."
"He called Sparks a con-man and a hack," Ian said, horrified.
"I think," Sparks said, speculatively, "That Trent Byron might need some anger-management education. Maybe there's a webinar he can attend."
"Jesus, look at your office," Erin pushed past him into his office, where paper was strewn everywhere. "Did you tell him you're doing his wife or something?"
"He's not married," Sparks said.
"Oh man, I need to go tell Creative what just happened," Ian announced, taking off down the hallway.
"Tell them it wasn't my fault!" Sparks called after him, as half the staff appeared from their cubicles, crowding around Ian.
"He didn't take it well, did he?" Sarah asked, putting her head in the doorway. "Did I hear him call you a fuck?"
"Hack," Sparks said, starting to pick up the paper and re-shuffle it into order. It weighed on him, when a client didn't like what he had to say. "Cee, call Hanna. I need her to help me clear this up and sort everything into a binder."
"Yeah, of course," Cee said, and he heard her pick up the phone. "Naomi? Hanna's with you today, right? Can you spare her?"
"I told him," Sparks said, bending over to pick up the first poll report, "that Union Arms shouldn't rebrand. He didn't even want to look at my data."
Erin rubbed his arm reassuringly. "But you were right, right?"
"He didn't like it," Sparks said.
"He wasn't paying you to tell him something he'd like," Erin pointed out.
"Maybe he was," Sarah said. "In his mind, I mean."
"He shouldn't have poked me," Sparks muttered. "Or shoved Erin."
"I'm going to go check the contract," Sarah said. "I want to make sure our ass is covered. I'll look into Chicago assault laws, too, just in case."
"Union Arms is enormous; twenty thousand dollars isn't even a drop in the bucket to them," Sparks continued. "And what I told him was worth twenty grand."
"This is going to be awkward for Anna," Cee said to Erin.
"Oh -- " Sparks felt awful, suddenly. "Listen, tell everyone, nobody is to be mean to her or to Byron when we see him again. It's not professional or nice."
"Yeah, but he shoved Erin," Sarah said.
"We will be the bigger people," Sparks decided. "If you meet him at an event, be polite and walk away fast. If he calls about wanting the data, we'll courier it over to him. If Anna wants to keep seeing him, I want you all to respect that. Nobody should be mean to Anna, she's delicate."
There was a yell from down the hallway.
"She's not that delicate," Erin said.
"Regardless, we will be utterly professional," Sparks straightened his tie to emphasize his point. Hanna appeared behind Cee in the doorway. "Hanna, I'm glad you're here. We need to pick up all this paper and make sure it's ordered and indexed."
Hanna looked wide-eyed from Cee to Sarah to Sparks.
"Come in, I'm not going to poke you," Sparks told her. "Right now let's just get it off the floor, then I'll show you how it all goes together."
Erin and Sarah left the room; Cee did too, but she left his office door open. Sparks took the binder Hanna offered him and began piling paper in it. He heard Ian return to his desk, and a sort of serene-but-wary quiet settle on the office, broken only by Hanna's paper-shuffling and the occasional ring of the front-desk telephone.
***
Beermaki was packed that evening, but the SparkVISION staff were regulars and Cee had called ahead. When they arrived, there was one long table made up of three smaller tables pushed together, covered with signs bearing the Beermaki crab-and-beer logo announcing that it was RESERVED FOR SPECIAL GUESTS. Ian circled the table with one of the little sushi forms, checked off what everyone wanted, and turned it in while Hanna fetched the beer. By the time the food had arrived, Sparks still hadn't said much more than "Where are my chopsticks?" and had, after staring at his food for a while, gone to get another beer.
"I'm worried about him," Cee said in an undertone to Jess.
Jess pushed a piece of pickled ginger around on her plate with her chopsticks, thoughtfully. "He looks all right. I mean. He looks sad, which is weird because it's Sparks, but everyone gets sad sometimes."
"It's not that," Cee told her. "He blew off a function tonight. He just sent Erin. Sparks never blows off parties."
"I think, that being the case, he can probably afford to miss one," Naomi observed, from Cee's other side. "He's coming back, act cheery."
Sparks returned from the bar with three bottles, passing one to Sarah and one to Ian. He sat down heavily in his chair and picked at the label on his own.
"I think this is what failure feels like," he announced finally. The rest of the table exchanged glances. "I'm very unaccustomed to failure. I don't like it."
"I don't think you should see it as failure," Jess said. "I tell our youth volunteers that it's not failure if you gave it your best. It's just a learning experience."
Sparks gave her a mournful look. "Does that work?"
Jess sighed. "Sometimes."
"Have you noticed that John doesn't actually smoke?" Ian said randomly, peering through the window at the Creative trio standing outside.
"What do you mean?" Hanna asked.
"He just goes out there and stands around with Anna. Zoe too. It's like a vicarious smoke break. It's weird."
Most of the table looked up and out the window. Anna was standing with John and Zoe, getting lightly dusted by snow as she gesticulated wildly, a cigarette in one hand.
"Well, it gets them out of work for five minutes. Gets the creative juices going, I guess," Jess said.
"How do you think she is?" Sparks asked. Anna flailed a little and nearly thrust her cigarette into the eyeball of a passing stranger.
"Coping?" Naomi said. There was more hope than confidence in her voice.
"The good news," Sarah announced from the end of the table, where she'd been absently eating and sipping her beer while paging through a large binder of legal documents, "Is that we're on pretty solid ground. Listen to this: ARTICLE III: ADVISORY CAPACITY. In addition to providing the resources detailed above, Company is retained to offer nonbinding advice regarding methodology of donor cultivation, and to implement Client's decisions and methodology. Client has final say on all marketing decisions including use of brands and logos."
Silence.
"What does that mean?" Hanna asked in a small voice.
"It means that as long as we support our advice, it's not our fault if they don't listen to it," Sparks said. "We don't have to implement anything without their go-ahead. So as long as Trent stays pissed off at me, we don't have to do anything."
"He's still got ten grand of our money," Naomi said. "They haven't paid the second installment."
"How much of that remaining payment have we already spent?"
"About a thousand dollars."
"Give it until after the holidays," Sparks said. "Give him time to simmer down. We'll go after him for the money then, but if we don't get it I'm comfortable writing that and the profits off as a loss. Taking on Union Arms is no good for anyone."
"What if they sue us?" Cee asked. "I heard words that sounded an awful lot like angryspeak for 'I'll see you in court'."
"Oh, countersue," Sarah said. "He assaulted two of our people. We can sue for damages and medical expenses -- "
"I'm not going to the hospital because some guy poked me in the chest," Sparks said.
"What if you develop long-lasting respiratory issues?" Sarah asked. "You should see a chiropractor. And I bet we could get Erin to cry in a deposition. That's emotional distress."
"We're getting a little ahead of ourselves," Sparks said. "Let's just see how this unfolds."
The sleigh bells tied to Beermaki's front door rang out as Creative came back inside. Everyone was suddenly interested in their sushi. Anna sat down, took Ian's beer away from him, and drank deeply.
"I'm dumping him," she announced. Immediately everyone relaxed.
"Well, thank God," Naomi said.
"I hope you appreciate I just gave up trips to Paris and top sirloin," Anna added.
"I'll drive you to Springfield and buy you a hamburger," Sparks offered.
"What's in Springfield?" Anna asked.
"Good hamburgers?" Jess suggested.
"And the Lincoln Presidential Library," Ian said. "It's not as good as the LBJ one in Austin, though. That one has a talking animatronic LBJ. He tells jokes."
"That sounds horrifying," Sarah said.
"I'm officially changing the subject from Union Arms," Sparks announced.
"I just did that," Ian pointed out.
"I'm changing it again, then. I'm tired of talking about being sad. So! Tomorrow! Our first event with Nations In Need!" Sparks said brightly.
"Did you just get emotional whiplash?" Naomi asked Sarah.
"Chiropractor!" Sarah said, eating the crab stick out of her roll.
"The theme of this party is Getting To Know You," Sparks said. "We're not doing any actual fundraising, though of course everyone with Nations In Need is prepared to take donations. The point of tomorrow is for you to meet the staff and their biggest donors, so I want everyone to be getting a feel for things. Ask questions. Be interested."
"Banners are in," Zoe announced. "I'm hanging them in the restaurant tomorrow."
"The party room is ours, and the food's taken care of," Cee added.
"I want at least one person from Creative there," Sparks said. "John and Anna, you can arm-wrestle for it."
"Ten bucks on Anna," Naomi called.
"Are we arm-wrestling for who gets to go, or who gets to stay home?" Anna asked.
"Figure it out between yourselves. Naomi, you're mandatory."
"Yes boss."
"Zoe and Sarah, you're optional, but the food is good. Ian..." Sparks gave Ian a hopeless look. "I need you there, Cee can't make it. But try not to flash your mortal injury around too much."
"Kitchen lurker per usual," Ian said. "Can I have Hanna and the interns?"
"Great band name," Jess laughed, elbowing Hanna.
"Yes you can," Sparks said. "So everyone knows where they're going and what they're doing?"
"Yes, boss," they chorused. The other diners in Beermaki looked up in mild alarm.
"Excellent, then I'm declaring shop-talk off-limits until tomorrow," Sparks said. "So, what's everyone doing for the holidays with the very generous day and a half off I'm giving you?"
***
Chapter Seven
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no subject
Date: 2010-01-24 10:17 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2010-01-24 10:26 pm (UTC)a cigarette (of any type) that is dangling downwards burns faster than one held tip-up--hence the real issue with bogarting.
Now this I did not know! Interesting.
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Date: 2010-01-24 10:40 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2010-01-25 05:32 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2010-01-25 08:24 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2010-01-24 11:21 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2010-01-25 05:16 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2010-01-25 05:30 am (UTC)