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id! Rita, really? A barista?” He scoffed. “All right. Well, then, as a consumer, just make your best guess.” He leaned back in his chair, crossed his arms, and waited.
Something inside me snapped at his rebuff. I straightened in my chair and grabbed all the pictures. I might not be an ad designer, but I know what works and what doesn’t and I’d even taken some photography classes in high school. So I decided to play ball and began thrusting the pictures back across the table at him. “Well, for starters, the exposure is all wrong. They look fuzzy in print which isn’t going to translate well, especially online. It’ll pixilate. The set-up on this one is all wrong, confusing to the eye. Naturally, a consumer’s eye is going to travel from left to right, so you want your product’s aligned in a way that will complement that pattern, with your most prominent and eye-catching image.” I paused to consider the last page.
“This one,” I said. I pointed to a purple bottle that looked something like a genie lamp before pushing the final page at him. “Well, this one just looks like something from a campaign for feminine products. Like a douche…perhaps.” I paused and relished in the horrified look on Rita’s face. If you fed me to the wolves, I’d bite right back.
“Does that answer your question, Mr. Brighton?”
He clenched his jaw but his lips curved up and gave the faintest hint of a smile.
“So, Rita, tell me. How is it that a barista who has only been on your work force for two days sees all the flaws? And your design team, which you have assured me is only made up of the best and brightest in the industry, who not only created this garbage in the first place, can’t see it when I explain it to them endlessly, in great detail, over numerous phone calls, emails, and these ever-so-pleasant meetings?”
“I will relay your concerns, Mr. Brighton. I assure you, this will all be taken care of by tomorrow,” Rita answered. Her voice was thin.
“No. That’s not good enough this time. I want her.”
What the…? Before I could even open my mouth to object, Rita answered. “Mr. Brighton, Allison isn’t even a part of our design team. She is part of our IT department. She works with Bryce.”
“IT department? Then why the fuck is she even in this meeting? What are you trying to pull?”
Rita sighed. “I had hoped that she would be able to see the ads with fresh eyes, as you had requested, and that she might be able to provide feedback to lay to rest some of your more pressing concerns.”
Her eyes turned on me as she spoke, looking as though she wanted to reach across the table and throttle me.
“I’m sorry, I didn’t…uhm…realize that,” I said, turning my eyes away from her intense stare.
“Well, it doesn’t matter what department she works in. I want her on my account from now on.”
“I—I can’t. I mean—I haven’t even finished my paperwork and I still have a mountain of training—” I tried to rationalize to them both. Everything was moving a little too fast for my liking.
“We can worry about that later, Allison.” Rita’s eyes flashed at me, daring me to say one more word. She turned back to Mr. Brighton and offered a fake smile. “She’s all yours.”
The finality of the words shivered through me as I caught the smile of satisfaction on Mr. Brighton’s face.
“Excellent. We will do great things together.”
Chapter Three
I had barely had two seconds to sink into my chair back at my desk before my phone rang.
“Hello?”
“What the hell happened in there?” It was Bryce.
“Let’s go to lunch. I’ll explain it all once I have a margarita in my hand.”
“Deal. Meet you downstairs in ten.” With that, he hung up.
I grabbed my clutch that held my debit card, driver’s license, keys and a solitary lip gloss and headed for the elevators before any more problems could crop up.
Please don’t let him be in the elevator, I mentally pleaded as I halfway jogged to catch the last one as the doors were shutting. I let out a huge sigh of relief when I stepped inside and it was empty. One floor down, it stopped, and two women stepped inside, not even bothering to smile or stop their conversation as they boarded.
“–but I mean did you see him?” the first woman said.
“No! I’m so jealous. It seems like all the fun happens as soon as I step away from the desk. Why was he even here? Normally we all get bombarded with warning memos before one of his visits,” the second paused to pout.
“Oh, who knows? He always has a stick up his ass about something.”
“Well, I would love to get my hands on that ass and help him remove it.”
