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“No, mom, no. That bar is the last memory of daddy that remains with us. We can never sell it. We can’t sell it. Never ever!” I shake my head, as the inevitable becomes apparent.
“But sweetie…” My mom on the other hand is too old to fight for things.
“Mom, I promise — I’ll figure something out. I promise. Just give me a little more time. Please, Mom,” Carrie pleaded. I’m not going to abandon my father’s labor of love.
“Okay, sweetheart. I wish you luck. And you wish me some courage, because I'm going to have to let a couple of guys go,” My mother sighs.
“It’s okay, Mom,” I fake courage. “When things are good again, we can hire them back. They’ll understand, don’t worry about it,” I force a smile onto my face.
My thoughts are slightly distracted by a commotion in Max’s office. Looking through the glass wall, I see a woman, jabbing fingers in his face while the muffled sound of her aggressive voice leaks through.
“I guess so,” Mom replies. “When are you gonna come visit me?”
“Huh? Oh soon, Mom. Very soon.” My attention is still fixated on what’s going on in Max’s office. Lillian, Max’s secretary, rushes out and walks toward me. What was this about? Why is she coming over here?
Lillian looks straight at me as she approaches the workstation. This involves me.
“Okay, Mom, I gotta go. Love you,” I blow a quick kiss to my mother and hang up just as Lillian, out of breath, bends over to talk to me.
“You're wanted in there. Now!” she says excitedly and turns to head back immediately.
“Lillian!” I rush after her. “What is this about?” But Lillian just shrugs her shoulders.
“...After all that I've done for you, Max. All the stories and the leaks I've sent your way. The first opportunity you get, you go ahead and screw my client. You goddamn well know that if such a story is to come out, you call the publicist first. How badly is this ship of yours sinking that you need a pitiful exclusive like this to sell copies?”
The crude woman is going on and on, her finger still in Max’s face. The situation in the room is overwhelming. I’ve never seen Max so intimidated by anyone before. He always seemed like a fearless person, who always has things in order and is in control of every situation. But now, he has no power.
“Shauna…” He’s trying to pacify the woman.
“Don’t Shauna me, you jerk. This is not going to go well for you. I run the biggest PR shop in L.A. Do you really want to mess with us? This could mean no access to any of our clients. Can you afford such a big screw up, Max? Doesn’t matter because you already messed up big.”
The woman is scary. If she’s pointing fingers at Max’s face then she really must be someone important. She seems like someone who’s waded through the bullshit of L.A. and made h
er way to the top nonetheless.
“Shauna, please. Give me a moment to speak,” Max holds his hands out in defense. Shauna just sits on a chair and crosses her arms, as if to say, ‘entertain me.’
“That model, Ana, she was the one who called us to give the story. Carrie, here, is the writer who wrote the story,” Max points to me. “And she’s new so she didn’t know, she just went ahead and wrote the piece.”
“I don’t give a shit, Max. You went ahead and approved the story. You're the big dog in this shit shop,” Shauna explodes.
“It was one of my assistant editors, Shauna. Not me. You know I would never do that to you. Carrie is new and didn’t know better. That’s all. We all make mistakes.” He smiles a thin smile.
“Honey, you have no idea how badly you’ve fucked up,” Shauna snorts at me.
Throughout this exchange I’ve been standing still as a stone, watching Max lying outright to save his ass. He’s the one who was excited about the story. He’s the one who assigned it to me, and he’s the one who made one of the feature writers spice up the copy I wrote after the interview. And now he’s blaming it all on me. Why would he do this? This is a side of Max that I’ve never seen before. A mean side that I never thought existed.
I’m speechless. I look at Max for support but get none.
“Look Shauna, we’ll make it up to you.”
“You're goddamn right you will!”
“How about this—how about we run an extended piece on David for our monthly edition and put him on the cover. We can run an interview, an extended profile, et cetera.” Max smiles.
“... And refute the current article you published with the model,” Shauna adds.
“Shauna…” Max starts to protest.
