Chapter 3 - The Agency

Ever wondered what would happen if you mixed a free bar with the staff and clients of London’s largest ad agency?  If you haven’t, close your eyes and try to imagine now.  What does that carnage look like, smell like and sound like? 

 

Okay, here’s the thing … don’t get me wrong because I like a good drinking session as much as anybody, but I’m thirty-two years old.  I’m not seventeen.  I drink enough to get to a happy place and then I stop.  I’ve learned that the day after the night before can still be salvageable if I don’t go overboard.  And I hate being sick.  I’ve had more than my fair share of Saturdays spent in bed with a head that feels like Ozzy Osbourne has held a concert in it at the same time that a herd of elephants has taken a crap in my mouth.

 

But that’s just me.  Apparently my colleagues haven’t had the same epiphany.

 

As we walk into the converted warehouse venue adjacent to the O2 Arena that Barrett McAllan Gray has hired for the evening, I feel like I’m walking into a scene from Cirque de Soleil.  No expense has been spared, whether it is acrobats swinging from trapezes on the ceiling, servers-on-stilts dressed as ‘sexy’ clowns, an actual real-life carousel has been placed in one corner and one side of the room has been transformed into a casino.  The casino zone has become the guy hangout as all I can see around the roulette table is a fence of black tuxedos.  And as for the carousel … what do you get if you mix intense spinning with people who’ve been drinking all night?  Seriously, whoever thought that was a good idea should be given the job of scrubbing the puke off it at four a.m.

 

The party started long before we got here and most of the junior staff who weren’t at the awards show are already shitfaced.  As we pass the dance floor I notice that a couple of our more sexually adventurous younger colleagues appear to be eating each other alive and I catch Ethan checking out ‘perky’ Adele from reception �" the twenty-year-old whose breasts defy gravity almost as much as they defy her boyish frame.  How do you get tits like that when you have no hips?  The only possible answer is via the implantation of silicon and I wonder how much we pay our receptionists because I always thought those things were expensive.

 

One girl I don’t recognise has one leg wrapped around the waist of Jack from IT.  She’s so far gone I wonder if she realises his hands are up her skirt.  Then, I watch as she drags him into a corner and leaps into his arms, gyrating against his crotch like a monkey scratching its arse on a baobab tree.  I figure she knew.  I find myself tutting a ‘they’ll regret that tomorrow’ and realise how much of a boring maiden aunt I’ve become.

 

“Ha, looks like the kids are having a good time,” says Ethan, partly mirroring my thoughts, as we leave the dance floor behind us and walk towards an area populated by our management team and our top clients.  I realise a ‘them’ and ‘us’ divide has naturally taken place and I’m glad I’m on a side where I don’t have to think about IT Jack’s wandering hands.

 

Max looks around the venue and his face contorts with disgust.  “It’s like a walking advertisement for syphilis in here.”

 

I start to laugh.  “An ad for syphilis?  Wonder if we could win an award next year for knocking out one of those.”

 

“Well, get your phone out and start filming because there’s the perfect inspiration, over there.  Holy f*****g s**t, just take a look at where Jack Shipley’s hands are now!” He wraps his arm in mine and covers his eyes with his hand �" leaving just enough space between his fingers to peep out.

 

I don’t want to look, but I can’t help myself.  I momentarily worry about gyrating girl’s safety, but I notice she’s vanished and Jack has turned his attentions elsewhere.  Yup, there he is with his hands down his own pants.  The rest of the IT department seem to be amused at whatever the hell he’s doing and I can see that IPhones are out and I know Jack’s antics will be getting uploaded directly to Facebook at this precise moment.  Dirty little s**t.  He helped me recover a corrupted file on my external hard drive just yesterday and now I know where his hands like to take a visit, I’ll be asking for a new keyboard on Monday.  I make a mental note to never ever call for help from the IT helpdesk ever again.

 

“Ah, here she is the woman of the moment.”  I feel Malcolm Barrett’s hand on my elbow as we leave the unsavoury display on the dance floor behind us and join the group of executives, directors and managers.  “Quentin Hibbard, may I introduce you to our star copywriter and one of our most talented creatives, Miss Violet Archer.”

 

I smile warmly, but inside I feel embarrassed and angry because yet again Malcolm has completely ignored Ethan.  I shake Quentin’s hand as a stilt-wearing sexy clown bends down and offers all of us a glass of champagne from a tray.  I’m impressed with her balancing.  Carly Hayes is with this group, accompanied by her sulky slapped-arse face.  Stella, Daniel, Ridley and a host of Quest execs I don’t know are also present.

 

Quentin is the CEO and founder of Quest, and an unfeasibly tall silver-haired man whose face is chiselled with the lines of age and importance.  “Lovely to meet you Miss Archer.  I must say we have been delighted with the work you’ve done for us over the past couple of years.  You’ve got such a great feel for my company’s vision.  I want to publicise your win across all of our social media platforms and I think both our PR teams should join forces to get this in the press first thing Monday, do you agree Malcolm?” 

 

Malcolm nods his head and a wide smile beams from under his bushy grey moustache. 

 

Quentin then puts his hand on my shoulder, giving me a friendly pat.  “Very well done, young lady, very well done.”

 

He’s old school, so I brush off the ‘young lady’ as sweet rather than patronising.  Ditto the literal pat on the back.  “Thank you and please call me Violet,” I say before tugging Ethan’s suit jacket forward and shoving him in front of Quentin’s nose.  “This is Ethan Fraser, he’s the art director on your account.  We worked together on all of your advertising and the award is as much his as it is mine, if not more so.  He comes up with all of the great ideas.  All I do is find the right words to bring them to life.”

 

It is clear from Quentin’s reaction that Malcolm has never mentioned Ethan’s name to him before.  This makes my blood boil because he works damned hard and he has been directly responsible for many of the agency’s greatest achievements.  I watch as Ethan steps forward to shake Quentin’s hand and I can see his face is flushed pink and he’s clenching his jaw tight.  I know he’s angry and I wonder how he’s holding it together.

 

Stella Judd steps forward, her close-fitting silver sequined dress reflecting the dazzling blue of her eyes and the shiny platinum of her cropped hair.  “I know I speak for everyone at Barrett McAllan Gray when I say that Ethan is the most talented art director in the city.  All of Quest’s print ads, as well as the look of your TV ads, have started life inside his brain.  I don’t know where he gets his ideas from!  We’re very lucky to have him.  He followed my team’s client brief to the letter and both he and Violet will hopefully be working on your account for many years to come.”

 

Remember I told you I had a bit of a girl crush on Stella?  Well now you know why.  She scowls at Malcolm as if he were a dog who’d been caught pissing on her flowerbeds.  And she’s not finished yet.  “Did you not get around to telling Quentin about Ethan’s work on his company’s account, Malcolm?”

 

Malcolm’s smile remains fixed to his face, but his eyes are telling a different story as he shifts awkwardly from one foot to the other.  “Erm … no … in fact Quentin and I were mostly talking about Quest for Life and how the campaign took off once Violet’s copy went viral.”

 

Stella shoots him an ice cold glare as she takes a sip of her champagne.  “Oh I see.  I’m pleased it’s a case of the conversation not having moved onto art direction, because if you were deliberately overlooking the contribution of one of your most valuable employees, then that would make you a dick, wouldn’t it?”  She laughs as she talks and her voice is even, balanced and commanding.

 

Most of us are trying to hold our laughter in, but there’s always one who lets the side down.  Would you be surprised to learn that the awkward silence is punctuated by a misplaced and alarmingly high-pitched ‘he-he’ from none other than Max Wolf? 

 

No sooner does Max tumble then, like a house of cards, the rest follow and soon the senior directors and partners are all battling to stifle their giggles.  Malcolm clears his throat, downs his drink and walks away, his eyes fixed contemptuously on Stella as he goes.  I make a mental note that Stella is who I’d like to be when I grow up.  I don’t know anybody else who could pull off roasting their boss alive so spectacularly.

 

Stella is now centre stage and she turns around in the centre of the group, takes another glass of champagne from the sexy-stilts-clown and glides her hand through her tussled blonde hair.  “Well, that was fun,” she declares before tucking her arm into Daniel Noble’s and shooting him a wink.  “Ah, look Dylan Best has made it over from New York.  Daniel, I need you to meet him.”  She starts to lead her best account director away to another group surrounding a tall, good-looking black man with a neat beard and a sparkling smile.  “Hope to catch up with you later.  Gentlemen, ladies.”  How’s that for an exit?  Seriously, if I could channel that woman’s class and attitude, I reckon I’d have the world at my feet.

 

The group breaks down into a myriad of different conversations and Ethan slowly drifts off into the crowd leaving me alone with Max.  Social events like this is where Ethan shines like a diamond in a goat’s arse.  He networks the party like a pro, greeting clients with high-fives and spinning them one-liners and hilarious anecdotes in the way only he can.  Max and I watch as he moves onto the dance floor, working his charm with the junior members of our creative team who all clearly think he’s the mutt’s nuts.  Another of Ethan’s enviable skills is that he’s equally as comfortable dancing the Macarena with the interns as he is talking shop with managing directors and CEOs.  Ethan’s gregariousness is something me and Max have a snowball’s chance in hell of emulating so we do what we usually do at parties �" we plant ourselves close to an anonymous wall and we take up root.

 

“Erm … do you want to dance?” asks Max, with the wary look of a nervous man plastered across his face.

 

I laugh.  “Nah, are you shitting me?  I’d rather stick pins in my eyes.”

 

“Good.  I can’t dance to s**t music like this.  It’s like a f*****g school disco.”

 

I notice that the undone bowtie Max had been sporting all night has now vanished and I can’t help but smile at his peculiarity.  At our peculiarities.  We’re the nerd and geek of Barrett McAllan Gray �" two square pegs who’ll never fit into a round hole no matter how hard we try.  But do we really want to fit?  I’d like to say ‘hell, no’ but sometimes, I want nothing more than to feel accepted and be normal and I know Max feels the same way.

 

“So why were you late tonight?” asks Max.  I lower my eyes, not wanting to talk about my earlier silliness.  “Violet, I know you weren’t held up in traffic �" I checked the roads.”

 

“You checked the roads?” I’m surprised, but I shouldn’t be.  I wonder if he’d started ringing around London’s A&E departments too.

 

“Yeah it’s easy.  I have this app on my IPhone.  It’s called RouteChecker.  I have the status of every road in London at my fingertips … do you want to see? … you should get it, it’s …”

 

I grip his arm, signalling I’m good with the app and he doesn’t need to continue.  There’s silence as he waits for me to speak.

 

“I didn’t want to come,” I say finally as I run my fingers awkwardly around the rim of my champagne glass.

 

Max doesn’t ask me why.  He knows who I am and he understands me.  All he does is nod his head and smile kindly.

 

“Ethan talked me into it … well guilt-tripped me into it … I felt like s**t.”  I sigh as I remember our conversation in my flat.  He’d told me I was spoiling the night for everybody.  I hated feeling like I was letting him down �" letting the agency down �" but he should understand by now that I’m not like him and my reaction to having to go to that bloody awards show was typically ‘me’.

 

“You think about these things too much, you know?”  Max leans in close and his balding head shines fluorescent pink under the venue’s circus lighting.  I wonder when he’ll start shaving what’s left of his wild scarecrow hair as he’s starting to look a lot like Doc Brown from Back to the Future.

 

“Yeah, yeah, I know.  I’m the world’s greatest over-thinker of everything.  How do I stop doing that?  It’s not like I can order my brain to stop thinking.”

 

“Meh, I know and mostly thinking about stuff isn’t such a bad thing, but sometimes you’ve just got to switch off and let things run their course.  Don’t fixate, don’t worry, don’t fret, just go with it and have faith that’ll it’ll turn out okay in the end.  And tonight turned out better than okay … you won a f*****g AdAg award, for Christ’s sake!”

 

I laugh as I glance over to the table where I left the hideous chunk of glass on a stick.  “Yeah, I guess we did good.  I just wish … well you know sometimes I wish I wasn’t who I am.  I’d love to be able to enjoy myself like everybody else seems to be doing instead of having my head jammed full of thoughts I don’t want to think about.”

 

“Hey, stop … no … never think like that.  I’d have nobody I’d want to talk to if you weren’t being you.  Holy hell, it’s better that you think, and wonder, and care … he doesn’t …” he motions over to the dance floor where Ethan seems to be delighting the junior staff with his very own version of Gangnam style.  “Just look at him, man.  What the hell does he think he looks like?”

 

“But don’t you think life is easier his way?”

 

“Sure, life’s easier when you have no depth to your soul.  Is that what you want?”

 

Of course it isn’t.  But, I know Ethan has depth to his soul.  If he didn’t then I wouldn’t see his face every time I listen to a love song and I wouldn’t think about him every time I need to pull beautiful words from my heart.  Could a person without a soul make me long for him so much that it hurts?  I know what it is to grieve and I know this heartache sometimes feels worse.  At least grief gradually becomes easier with time.

 

Max leans over and kisses me on the cheek.  “And on that note I need to pee.  Jesus this is a long night.  Be right back.”  He disappears into the swarm of black suits and sparkles.

 

I’m left alone and all of a sudden I feel a rise of panic in the pit of my stomach because I’ve got no idea where to put my useless body.  I consider staying put and waiting for Max, but judging on past experience it could take between two and two hundred minutes for him to actually get back to me and there’s decent odds on him not coming back at all.  He’s as flaky as a redhead with sunburn.  I briefly consider seeking out Ethan, but he’s still dancing, so that’s a definite no.  The third option �" I could ‘network’ �" and surprisingly, that’s my least favourite option of all three.  God I hate this feeling.  Maybe I’ll just sneak out a side door and go home.  I’m sure nobody would notice.

 

Or I could take a trip to the loos too?  Yes that would kill some time.  I walk off in the same direction as Max, but I take a wrong turn and end up in the ladies cloakroom.

 

Not a bad move in itself.  However, totally becomes a bad move when I find myself standing in front of Carly Hayes and a rather dishevelled Ridley Gray.  They’re both pink, sweaty and I’m sure there’s been some kind of clothing mishap as Carly’s gold dress is pulled so high over her hips that I can see her knickers.  She pulls down the skirt of her dress when she sees me and her green eyes burn into my skin.  She looks spaced out and I figure she’s high on something other than having had �" or almost had �" sex in a public place.  Ridley is buttoning up his shirt and his usually sleek, gel backed hair is ruffled and sticking up in a dozen different directions.

 

I freeze as it hits me.  And I don’t mean I just stand still in the room.  I mean I stand still looking stupid with my mouth wide open as if I’ve just caught Santa coming down the chimney.  But this isn’t a ‘jolly fat guy bringing me presents’ kind of surprise.  No, this is a ‘s**t there’s an elephant in my living room and it’s just taken a crap on my carpet’ kind of surprise.

 

I spin around on my heel and walk out of the cloakroom as fast as I can, but as soon as I’m through the doors I feel my shoulder getting pulled back and I’m pushed against the wall.  And I’m staring into Carly Hayes’s piercing green eyes, her nostrils flaring as if she’s a bull ready to charge.

 

“What the hell do you think you’re doing?” I yell as she glowers at me, her gold dress merging seamlessly with the dark peach skin of her overly made-up face.

 

“I’m making sure you keep your mouth shut,” she spits back at me.  She snarls in my face like a wolf protecting her cub and I realise that although there is often a lot of beauty in the hearts of people the world labels as ‘unattractive’, the woman standing in front of me right now �" despite her obvious skin-deep beauty �" is one of the ugliest human beings I’ve ever had the misfortune to encounter.

 

I inhale a deep breath, hold my head high and raise my eyebrows.  “And if I don’t?”

 

She flicks her mane of gold curls behind her shoulder and she narrows her acrylic-lashed eyes.  “If you don’t you’re either off my account or I start to make life very difficult for you.  I know you hate me and I know you’re jealous.  You should try finding yourself a life or see if you can work on some of that ridiculous arrogance.  I mean it really is ridiculous that you have such a high opinion of yourself.  Everybody knows you’re not half as smart as you think you are.  All you do is glue yourself to Ethan Fraser like a leech �" a parasite �" sucking the blood out of him.”

 

I have no words, so I smirk at Carly as if she’s nothing and then I walk away.  She has the manners and common decency of a pig, and I have no desire to get in the mud with her.

 

She doesn’t follow me, but she doesn’t go back inside the cloakroom either.  I see a glimmer of gold stride off in the direction of the dance floor and I sigh in relief.  Women like Carly baffle me.  Have you ever met her type before?  Somewhere in their past they’ve fooled themselves into thinking that yelling with an ugly mouth full of venom equates to having some kind of superpower.  They wield their weapon �" their toxicity �" and they are fed by reaction.  I’m sure Carly will be striding around the dance floor right now believing her ‘all guns blazing’ swagger has put me in my place when the truth is I walked away because I realised what she was in seconds and she is nothing to me. 

 

I forget about finding the toilets and walk back to one of the bars for a glass of water, although I wonder if now might be a good time to sneak off home.  My encounter with Carly has left a bitter taste in my mouth and although I took the higher ground and walked away, I suddenly can’t stop thinking of ways to get back at her.  Some of them I wouldn’t dare to repeat.  I know that ignoring Carly’s attempts to hurt me and letting her insults roll away like rain on a window pane would be widely reported as the ‘best revenge’ by those who create internet memes, but as I cook up one delicious plot after another, I begin to question that.  Surely the best revenge is revenge.  If I could make Carly Hayes feel the way she has just made me feel, then I’d be as happy as a flea in a monkey house.  Sometimes you need to make your own karma because the universe doesn’t always play fair and dish up what’s deserved.