Page 52

“We want our men only drinking whiskey. That’s what we sell.”

Edmond leaned forward, his voice hopeful, like he could smooth this over. “Would it be a gay man or something?”

My lips ached between the sudden pressure of my teeth. “I didn’t delve that deeply into the location on the continuum of sexual interest of this fictional man in an ad that doesn’t even exist yet.”

The men stared at me, unmoved. Even Xavier.

“Have none of you ever enjoyed a fruity cocktail? Ever?”

They refused to admit it, so I offered up my second idea—the sexy one. They really didn’t like the idea of a woman faking anything. Their abhorrence of the idea was so strong that I found myself wondering what, exactly, these men were compensating for.

I spent that day’s meeting silent, my concepts unappreciated, and I was left to clean up their forest-killing mess again. So much for the glasses, but at least Booboo was happy.

That week was a blur of mysterious coffee and research into marketing campaigns that proved feminist without being too feminist. Apparently, none of the women in our ads could display any characteristics that distinguished them as different from a doormat.

I considered switching my focus. We could rebrand one of our products to appeal more to women. Maybe push Henley Classic with an apple cider bourbon cocktail. I thought of my New Old Fashioned again. Women would love that.

But it used Honey…

To make matters worse, a competing distillery a few towns over put out several social media posts of female employees drinking their wares tagged #WhiskeyWomenDontDrinkHenley. My team wanted to do nothing about it, but my sense of neener-neener wouldn’t be silenced, so I was compelled to stage a picture with Ivy’s help. She snapped me in a corner of the office where afternoon sunlight streamed through the windows onto a wooden bench against the wall.

We pulled the bench away from the wall, and she gave me a half-empty bottle of Henley Honey. I rested an arm over the back of the bench and tipped the bottle to my mouth without drinking. Ivy took a few photos, then examined the results on her phone. “Perfect!”

She doctored the photo with filters and effects until it had a vintage air. The sunlight slanted over my face and sparked in my eyes and in the bottle in my hand. The photo was warm and relaxed and golden. Even I wanted to be the girl in that photo, carefree and enjoying her buzz. In the way of marketing efforts, it wasn’t much, but I was floundering under all the suppression.

“Should we post it with WhiskeyWomenOnlyDrinkHenley?” I asked.

“Yes. And I’ll add WomenOfHenley. Maybe I could get all the female employees to do a picture.”

“All four of us, you mean?”

She laughed, a tad bitter. “You’re right. Maybe that wouldn’t look great.”

We headed to her office where I perched on her desk for a better view of the computer screen while she uploaded the picture.

“That photo is really great,” I said. “Maybe you should be in the marketing department.”

She waved a dismissive hand. “I focused on marketing in undergrad, but the real trick to pictures on social media is lighting and jealousy.”

I pointed at her screen, where the picture gleamed as if it had been professionally shot and Photoshopped. “That’s not marketing. That’s raw talent. I can’t do that.”

She turned to me, her green eyes leveling me with a frank stare. “Can’t never could, darlin’. Didn’t your mama teach you that?”

I laughed. “Audra Honeycutt takes the word ‘can’t’ as a challenge.”

She wiggled her eyebrows. “My kind of woman.”

Most of the comments on the post were positive. Some were skeezy. A minority continued the trend of women boycotting Henley.

If only they’d let me apologize…

At our pre-meeting the following Monday, I neglected to present my newest idea, which played into the “comparing people to drinks” vibe of the Ad From Marketing Hell—as I’d taken to calling it—but in a more favorable way. On the scale of quality ideas, it lacked refinement, but the men of Henley weren’t refined—with a few exceptions.

I pictured a woman smirking at the camera, holding a lowball of whiskey neat, with words stamped beside her. I’d rather be a shot of whiskey than your cup of tea.

My hopes at getting through to them were at an all-time medium.

We entered the private conference room, passing by Shep’s closed office door, and took our usual seats—me beside Ryan, facing off with my team like we were on opposite sides of a divorce settlement. Camden, unfairly sexy in a gray sweater that played up his eyes, was a few minutes late. “Apologies,” he said as he took his seat. “My call with Gray-Freeman took longer than I expected.”