Once Bitten. Clare Willis
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Название: Once Bitten
Автор: Clare Willis
Издательство: Ingram
Жанр: Зарубежная фантастика
isbn: 9781420113723
isbn:
I couldn’t resist the obvious answer. “How about some fresh blood?”
Theresa laughed dutifully and veered off toward the Kerouac Room.
I made this quip because our new clients were vampires. Macabre Factor consisted of a twenty-something Goth couple who were into the vampire club scene in San Francisco. They started out creating makeup that they used on themselves; chalk-white base tinged with blue, fine-tipped red liner to outline the veins in the neck, and fake fingernails in shades of green, gray, and blue. But when they showed up with real fangs and topaz eyes friends and admirers began clamoring to buy their products. Thus a business was born, with cosmetics manufactured in Sweden, contact lenses from China, and a dentist in Los Angeles with an exclusive contract to manufacture custom fangs that attached to your canines like dental crowns.
I rushed down the hall to my office. All of the assistant account executives have real offices, as opposed to cubicles, which makes us feel very grown up, but every door has a narrow glass window next to it so our bosses can check up on us as they walk by.
For two years Macabre Factor concentrated on selling only to their own kind through their website. But they had recently decided to expand their client base, and with many of the highest rated shows on TV this season featuring an undead creature of one sort or another, the market research showed that they had picked the perfect time. I wasn’t sure where the capital was coming from, since Macabre Factor was a small company, but it was going to be a big launch.
This morning we were going to pitch our preliminary ideas for their campaign. Had Lucy been here this morning my job would have been to show up early and set up my computer as a backup in case Lucy’s went on the fritz, follow along as she gave the pitch and supply any details she might have forgotten, and make sure everyone’s coffee cup was full. But I had done a lot of the background work on this account, so with Lucy absent I was hoping Dick might let me manage the meeting. It occurred to me that if anything bad had happened to Lucy I was to feel awfully guilty. In fact I already did.
I threw my coat over the Aeron chair and shoved aside the pile of illustrations that I had been going over last night. The logo for Unicorn Pulp and Paper was a unicorn surfing on a ream of copy paper and we’d been choosing a personality for the new iteration. There was a classical unicorn, a chubby unicorn, a mean-looking unicorn with a drill-like horn, and an angelic unicorn whose horn resembled an upturned ice cream cone. In my dreams last night the mean unicorn had skewered the angelic unicorn like a shish kebab.
When I turned on my computer the screen was cluttered with files, just like my desk, and the floor behind my chair, so I wasn’t surprised when I couldn’t immediately locate Macabre Factor. But after I did a search for it and turned up empty-handed, that was when I really began to panic. I’d spent five years working as an actor before starvation drove me to the ad business and one of my biggest fears then was forgetting my lines, imagining myself staring into the footlights like a stroke victim. This was the ad agency equivalent.
I opened my email and began searching through the two hundred and eighty three messages in my inbox. We’d emailed the Macabre Factor illustrations back and forth dozens of times between Accounts and Creative but my email showed no evidence of it. At this point I started having another creeping feeling. This one was suspicion. I allowed myself to use a curse word that I was raised never to utter, but I was alone and in this case it was justified.
I might have accidentally deleted a file, I could admit to that. But I did not go through two hundred and eighty three emails and trash every one pertaining to Macabre Factor. No, it was clear I had been sabotaged.
Dick Partridge’s office was three doors down from mine. I knocked and went in without waiting for an answer, since I was already late. As VP of Consumer Product Advertising Dick had earned a large corner office with windows facing the turning cogs of progress in buildings across the street. It wasn’t a view of San Francisco Bay, but it was much nicer than my blank wall. He also had space for a round table and four chairs, which was where I found Dick, Les, and Kimberley.
“Good morning, Angie,” Dick said, looking at his watch conspicuously. “I trust you have a good reason for your dilatory behavior, so let’s leave it at that, shall we?”
We’d have to, since I had no idea what he was talking about.
Dick Partridge talked like he had cotton balls in his nose and a stick up his you-know-what, using the longest words he could find to express the simplest ideas. Today he’d made the unfortunate choice of wearing a pink Oxford shirt. He looked like a pimple ready to burst.
Next to him, writing industriously, was Kimberley Bennett, my fellow assistant account executive. She was also my roommate, although we never came to work together because Kimberley kept earlier hours than I think is healthy. Kimberley looked like Hollywood’s idea of an advertising executive: blond hair (fake, but not so you’d know) to her shoulders, big blue eyes, and an hourglass figure. To complete the image she wore skirts so short and heels so high she looked like she was on stilts. The black A-line skirt I was wearing ended sensibly at mid-calf, grazing the tops of my black leather boots. No sense competing when the game is fixed.
Les Banks, the graphic artist, looked up from his BlackBerry to give me a nod and a smile. Because Les was a “creative,” he was allowed a laxity of attire that would never be tolerated in the account executives, who are known as the “suits.” Today he was wearing black jeans and a black T-shirt adorned with a grinning skull. His buzz-cut brown hair revealed a perfectly oval head, both ears sported gold hoop earrings, and he had a tiny rectangle of facial hair under the lower lip which, when I first saw it, I thought was the result of neglectful shaving but later realized was a fashion statement. I secretly thought Les was quite good looking. In boring meetings I would sometimes fantasize about what his half-inch-long hair would feel like rubbing over my stomach. I managed a smile for Les, despite my misery.
“What did I miss?” I tried to sound peppy.
“We just convened,” said Dick. “As you are all aware, the clients are arriving instantaneously. We probably should have postponed, but of course nobody could have apprehended Lucy’s absence. Speaking of which, I’m sure no one wishes to arrogate her duties, but if she’s not back by tomorrow we’re going to have to discuss an emergency distribution of her clients. I’ve already set a meeting for ten o’clock in the Ferlinghetti Room. Which we’ll cancel if Lucy surfaces, as we trust she will. So, Kimberley and Angie, I guess this will be your chance to fly solo. Are you ready?”
Kimberley jumped in before I’d even opened my mouth. “Oh, yes, Dick, the presentation is completely ready.”
“Well, I would certainly like to attend, but my presence is required by a major client,” Dick said. “So you three are going to handle Macabre Factor this morning.”
Kimberley batted her eyelashes at Dick. “Dick, since Lucy isn’t here, someone is going to have to take the lead. I’d like to volunteer. I coordinated the market research and I’m the most familiar with the account. And I’ve got the presentation right here on my laptop, ready to go.”
Kimberley was the most familiar with the account? I cursed silently, but I couldn’t really blame her. We had both been laboring in Lucy’s chain gang for months; of course she would be plotting a break out as well. The only difference was that she didn’t care if there was collateral damage. But there was nothing I could do without making myself look like a faker, a whiner, or a tattletale.
I looked at Les, expecting him to be claiming his free ticket to the ladies’ mud wrestling show that was about to begin, but he was busy digging dirt out of his fingernail with the cap of his pen. I made СКАЧАТЬ