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She wasn’t trying to seduce me, she just did it effortlessly. I was drawn to her and couldn’t explain it. It was a distraction and was getting in the way of my work. I was a proud workaholic. I was born with hustle, and I made my first million at twenty-one. There was no reason to slow down, and I could always do things bigger and better. Give back more to my community, give others a leg up. Those goals were too important to let them slip through the cracks while I thought about the moment in the hall when I’d told Hailey I knew she’d go far in her career. She had beamed, just a soft smile at her lips but her whole being looking lit from within at the simple acknowledgement of her excellence and skill. I wanted to light her up like that in more ways than one.
I could get addicted to making her smile, to taking her hand and holding it. When she had followed along behind my sister, hugging my parents, I had steeled myself for a hug from her. Not a real one of course, not the sort where I could fold her in my arms, inhale the coconut scent of her fair hair, but the kind of detached, perfunctory embrace you give in the receiving line at a wedding. I was ready to respond with only a one-armed, pat on the back hug that was neither familiar nor affectionate.
Then she had surprised me by offering her hand for me to shake, both formal in its way and diffident, almost shy. I had taken her hand and held it, covered it with my other hand as if to keep it. I met her eyes, saw the heat flicker there along with something that looked like fondness. We had shared a connection then, the link between us as we were joined both by our hands and a gaze that warmed and confused me. I wanted to pull her closer, lay her hand on my chest and bend to kiss her mouth. It was such a powerful urge that I had to hold myself in place by force of will.
I was not allowed to kiss the woman or touch her or take her to bed. It didn’t matter what I wanted or even what she wanted. It was an impossible situation. I’d seen too many friends fall prey to the temptation of the forbidden and watched them struggle and suffer as their ethics and their desires waged a war. No matter how happy Kyle said he was with Mindy and the twins, I’d known what it cost him, the psychological pain he endured knowing that he compromised his integrity. Kyle, the most honorable guy I had ever known, had compromised his deeply held values in exchange for a woman, for a wife and family.
He’d alluded to how much he hurt Mindy, how he put her through hell while he was making up his mind if he could allow himself to be with her in any real way in spite of the hypocrisy it would expose. His reputation as a feminist, a prominent West Coast women’s studies professor who violated the balance of power to fall in love with one of his own students. I’d been incredibly judgmental about it in the beginning.
Once I got to know Mindy as more than an attractive grad student who had turned my friend’s life upside down, I respected her and apologized for the way I had reacted
I shouldn’t have judged him for it, knowing him to be a good man who held himself to high standards. I just didn’t think it was for me, crossing that line. I’d lose some self-respect I couldn’t get back. So, I was telling myself, essentially, that Hailey Thomas was a remarkable woman, intelligent and hardworking and funny and beautiful, but she wasn’t for me. She wasn’t worth losing myself over, just because I was foolishly attracted to her and liked her beyond all common sense. I knew better, and I was old enough to behave better rather than acting on any feelings I had toward her.
That was why my head was in the clouds. Because I fucking liked Hailey more than I’d ever liked any other woman in my life. Because I wouldn’t sell my soul to have a fling with her, and I was definitely old enough to know that students didn’t screw their professors in search of a long-term relationship.
I’d be compromising my values for a brief affair with a woman who would forget me. Left with what would probably be an embarrassing assortment of deeper feelings for her, I’d be far worse off than I was now. Because for me to even consider getting involved with her, I was already in too deep. I could betray my professional ethics, lose respect for myself, and end up with, if not a broken heart, a severely bruised one. No. I had too much to lose, and I wasn’t willing to pay that price.
The choice was to suffer now under the weight of hopeless yearning for her or suffer later after my honor and reputation were in tatters and I’d lost her for good. Misery now was shorter-term and wouldn’t leave me with regrets. So, I had to remind myself about it every hour or so when my thoughts drifted back to Hailey. Not for me. The price was too high, and the ROI was pathetic, I told myself, with a rueful laugh. Only I would decide that a steamy affair had a pitiful return on investment of time. It was possible I was already too far gone.
I had to get my shit together before everyone started noticing that I was distracted and off my game. I drank my coffee and at lunch I went to the gym for a quick workout to clear my head. Aaron saw me but I only waved and kept my ear buds in. I didn’t want to have a conversation about what was bugging me, especially with Aaron, the only other holdout in our little group. I had a presentation today, my pitch for the household cleaning products account. I had to have my head on straight.
Three hours later, I was back at my desk, head in my hands. It was bullshit. My pitch had been stellar. I had a rebranding design that would take this familiar name into the next decade by wedding its solid reputation with a sleeker, more modern packaging and personality. The VP of marketing I pitched to said it was ‘thorough’ but the overall vision ‘seemed stale’ and they wanted to go in another direction.
Another direction? My company, REM, was on the cutting edge of the industry, with a robust social media presence to monitor the trends and track the preferences of the emerging demographics. Stale? It was infuriating.
Paul, my head of Digital Marketing, arrived in my office on my request. I briefed him on what had happened. Paul scratched his goatee. He was about twenty-five and probably still got excited that he had to shave, I thought dismally. I showed him highlights of the pitch.
“It’s awesome,” he confirmed. “But the colors you used are a little old-school. I’m not trying to be critical, but you asked for my input. The whole plan you set up is very detailed and complete and impressive. But the way it looks is—outdated. It doesn’t look brand new or like it’s responsive to dominant cultural trends. Are you selling this to a millennial mom? Or do you want anyone under thirty-five to look at it?”
I tried not to scowl at him. “Okay, this is the kind of feedback I need. It sucks and I want to fire your adolescent ass for saying it, but it’s useful,” I said wryly.
“That’s what I thought. But you hired me and promoted me because I have good instincts and I know how to play to the audience in the emerging markets. Meaning, we have to skew younger on this one.”
“You’re right.”
“Here’s an idea. What if you open the rebranding pitch up to your class? See if they have any suggestions you want to bring on board. Fresh eyes, and all that.”
“That’s not a bad idea. I’ll have to have Hamilton draft a release form for them to sign, saying that if their ideas are used they will be compensated by REM at a specified rate and receive a personal recommendation letter as well in exchange for their work, the rights to which would be property of Rick Esperanza Marketing…just to make sure the university is indemnified and no one steals student work and uses it for profit,” I said, making notes quickly.
“Are you going to meet with the brand again for a second shot?”
“We’ll see if I have anything to shoot with,” I said, making plans to introduce the idea to my 200 level students.
CHAPTER11
HAILEY
Atwo-week break? That’s what it meant to me. Two entire weeks of not having to dodge Josh because Professor Esperanza was suspending our group work, granting us an extension so we could focus on a ‘micro-project’ as a whole class. The collective groan had been loud when he announced a new assignment, but when he held up a hand and began to explain, I for one had some enthusiasm for the project.
Whoever came up with the best ideas for rebranding some common household stuff would get extra credit in the class as well as being invited to the actual pitch meeting where the ideas would be presented. There was some legal talk of intellectual property, and a form was provided for those of us who wished to participate. It was optional, he stressed, and the top student would receive both credit and compensation although the ideas themselves would become the exclusive property of REM. We could list it on our resume—instrumental member of pitch team for a major marketing firm. It would be the prestige and networking that was the true compensation, not the fifty bucks or whatever we were agreeing to sell our ideas for. Hell, I would’ve given my ideas away for a chance to walk into that pitch meeting, to see how it was really done, getting to observe the best of the best in action.
Professor Esperanza informed us that we needed to submit our release forms by the next class period after we had time to think it over. I had already scrawled my signature across my copy. He gave us additional information on the company and the direction they seemed to want to go.
“I got shot down,” he said with a half smile. “My initial presentation was deemed ‘thorough but outdated’ so I’m enlisting you to consult on the account. You’ll gain experience—in some cases, like the presentation I just mentioned—you’ll learn something about yourself that you need to work on. An opportunity for improvement. I need to recruit fresh eyes and new ideas for this assignment, and rather than wringing my hands about being called outdated, I want to overcome my issue with being out-of-touch.”
I really admired his ability to admit how the initial pitch had gone wrong. He took responsibility for being off-base and was seeking to remedy that instead of giving up and deciding they were just a bad fit for his firm. That resilience, that creative flexibility and emotional maturity made me want to participate even more, not just for my own gain of prestige and credit for my resume, but to help him. As we filed out of the room, I dropped my form on his desk.
At work, I filled Maria in on the opportunity.
