Title Unknown
Here is another scene from my new book:
As I pull up into my parking spot, I notice the spot beside me if full. Strange. That spot’s been vacant since I started working here. I take out my Blackberry and scroll the hundreds of emails I’ve gotten already this morning and pay no attention to where I’m going. As if on autopilot, I walk to the elevators, up to the sixth floor and down the corridor to my office.
“You have a meeting in twenty minutes,” my assistant tells me.
“A meeting? Since when?”
“Since five minutes ago.”
“Shit.” I run into my office, throw my stuff on my desk and start jumbling through my things. What am I looking for? I poke my head out the door. “What is the meeting about?”
She shrugs. “Mr. Kelly didn’t say. Just said to be there in twenty minutes. Bring a notebook, you’ll be fine.”
I nod. Bring a notebook. I have to be prepared! I need to have everything I need! Well, if he didn’t tell me about the meeting, I mustn’t need anything important. I look quickly through my emails and phone messages to make sure I didn’t miss anything about a meeting this morning, but I find nothing. So, I take a pad of paper and a pen and walk down to the board room.
As I walk in through the glass doors, everyone turns and smiles at me. God, I love my job.
“Good morning, Ellie.” Janice says to me. She smiles.
“Good morning.”
Janice was my old boss. Steven was the marketing manager and Lucie was the PR team leader. I surpassed all of them to get where I am and none of them seem to care too much. It was as if they knew all along that I would one day be their boss and they couldn’t care less that the position hadn’t been given to them.
“Good morning, everyone.” Bellows Mr. Kelly from the front of the room.
Everyone smiles.
“I’m sorry for the late notice for the meeting, but some decisions were made late last night. Decisions about our company that I think will be very beneficial.”
Decisions? Big decisions? Why don’t I know about these decisions?
“At my networking dinner last night, I was introduced to someone who knows the ins and outs of a company like ours. He understands the interior and exterior of how we function. He understands the issues we face in times like these. The recession has hit us hard. Although we have still managed to keep our company at number one, thanks to Ellie, our numbers have decreased dramatically. This man has tens of bestsellers and I’ve been trying to hook him for months now.”
I can’t help but interrupt. “I’m sorry, sir.” I say trying not to sound as annoyed as I am. “Why were we not notified about this venture?”
“Good question.” He sits sideways on the one of the desks. “He wasn’t supposed to be there. I was meeting with a team of writers from another company to talk about a merge.”
The whole room gasps.
He holds his hands up. “Don’t fret, there will be no merge – thanks to the man I met last night. He was walking by our table and I recognized him. After my meeting, I confronted him.”
I take a sip of my water, trying to suppress my hostility. It’s not that I feel like this company is mine, but I do feel as though he went over my head on this one. I do realize that, in hindsight, this is his company, but I am the one who finds the bestsellers. I should have been contacted.
“We talked over whiskeys and scotches and I finally got him to agree to at least considering the position. He hasn’t promised us anything. He says he’s afraid that if he joins a company as large as ours that he will be selling out. Now, to explain his position, if he does so choose to stay on with us. He will not simply be a writer. He will be a writer, an ideas fabricator and an editor.”
“I’m sorry?” I ask, trying not to sound too angry. That’s my job! Well, except the writing part.
“He’s going to be hired on as assistant vice president. However,” he says looking straight at me, he can probably feel my negative vibes. “He will be, more or less, his own division in the company. We will hire on a few more ideas manufacturers who will be a part of his team. So, in essence, we will have two separate departments. One will be the current, ongoing department where we hire writers, conjure up ideas, and publish children’s books. This department will still be led by Ellie. The other department will consist of the new guy as the leader, an ideas team and will be published under his name with our company logo. As opposed to the children’s books being published under our company name. Also, he will be writing tweenie books.”
“Tweenie books? You mean, like, young teenager books? Mr. Kelly, with all due respect, that’s not our target market.” I tell him.
“Well, it is now.” He says to me. “In this hostile market, we need to expand. We can’t keep going the way that we’re going or there won’t be any jobs left in five or six years.”
I want to talk to him privately. I am livid that I was not approached on this subject. Although this is not my company and I don’t have any stocks invested, I do know what works and doesn’t work in the market. And I don’t feel that this is going to work. I look over at Steve, head of the marketing department, whose job it is to decide what is good for the market and what isn’t and he looks just as pissed as I do.
“That’s all for now.”
“We aren’t going to meet him?” Lucie asks.
“Not today. There are still some things we need to iron out. I just thought I would sit you all down so that we’re all on the same page.”
“I wish I was contacted sooner.” I mumble.
“You’re being contacted now.” Mr. Kelly says to me.
I feel a stab in my heart. He has never talked to me like this before. Never looked at me like that before. Am I being phased out? Did I do something wrong?
I gather my things with shaky hands, my mind clouded with thoughts of suicide.
“Ellie, Lucie, Steve, my office, five minutes.”
Great!
“With all due respect,” I hear Steve saying as I approach. “Deciding what is good for the market and what isn’t is my job.”
I walk into the office and shut the door. Lucie and Steven are crowded around his desk on a warpath. Mr. Kelly is sitting in his chair facing forward, his face stone cold.
“With all due respect, Mr. Hooble,” Mr. Kelly says to Steve, which is a big deal because he never calls anyone by their last name. “You don’t own this company, I do. I went to university for marketing and PR,” he looks over at Lucie, “So I know how to read charts. I know what the market is like. I’ve been in this business decades longer that either of you have, I know what I’m doing.” He looks up at me finally and motions for me to take a seat.
Lucie and Steven are quiet. Neither of them have a rebuttal.
“Now, if you’ll excuse me, I need to talk to Ellie alone.”
Without a word, the two others leave and I’m left feeling like I did four years ago when I was sitting in this exact chair thinking I was about to get fired.
“Dane,” I say when he seems he’s not going to say anything. “I have to say, I’m a little surprised this wasn’t discussed with me first. I know this is your company and I know you have a lot invested in it, but I just would have liked to have been involved in this decision. This affects my job future. I mean, am I still safe in the position? Am I being phased out?”
He leans up in his chair quickly as if I’d just lit a fire under his bottom. “No, no. That’s not what this is. I couldn’t do anything I do without you. You’re my wing woman. I need you.”
“Then what is this?”
He brushes his hands through his hair. Suddenly, he looks older than he did five minutes ago. He looks sad, stressed and tired. “Yesterday morning, I got a letter from the bank. We’re in debt. We’ve been hiring too many writers, paying too many freelancers and not making enough money to support these payouts.”
“Oh, my God, Dane. I didn’t know.”
“How could you? Nobody knew. I had an emergency meeting with some networking executive that have some stalks in the company last night. Believe me, my wife wasn’t too pleased that I was working on a Sunday night, I’ll tell you that. We went through every available option. The one option that made sense was expanding. When I saw him walk by, it was fate. I had to pounce; I felt it was my only option.”
I nod, completely taken aback. This was definitely out of left field. “Who is this guy, anyways?”
“Me,” says a deep voice from behind me.
I whip my head around recognizing the voice but wanting it so badly to be someone else. Anyone else.
“No,” I say to Mr. Kelly. “No. This will not do. You have to find someone else.”
Mr. Kelly looks at me with large eyes. “What do you mean? He’s perfect!”
“He is not perfect! I can’t work with him! It just won’t do!”
“Do you know each other?”
“In fact, we do.” Kayden says as he walks into the room, smiling.
“Oh, dear.” Says Mr. Kelly. “I guess you don’t like each other.”
“I like her just fine." he points his tumnb at me. "She, on the other hand, hates my guts.”
Ugh. “It has nothing to do with personalities, Dane. You know as well as I do that I remain professional at all times. I just simply cannot work with him.”
“You see now why I couldn’t accept the position right away?” Kayden says, sitting on the chair beside me.
“I do.” Mr. Kelly says. “Seems we’re in a pickle.”
Suddenly, Kayden’s words flow through my ears. “Wait, what? You didn’t accept the position yet because of me?”
He nods. “I wanted to have this meeting first. I wanted to make sure that it wouldn’t affect your job at all, me working here.”
I’m stunned. “Why?”
He laughs. “This is your job. You love this job. I don’t want to get in the way of that.”
“Very noble.” Dane says.
“Oh, you shut it.” I tell Dane. “You two planned this meeting to try and convince me to agree to you working here.”
Mr. Kelly laughs. “See? I had you in my mind the entire time.”
“You knew I knew him?”
“I didn’t know you hated him.”
“I don’t – ugh.” I sit down in my chair and cross my arms like I’m seven. I look at Mr. Kelly. “You suck.”
He laughs again. “Why don’t the three of us go out for lunch and discuss things.”
I roll my eyes. “Fine.”
“Fine.” Says Kayden.
“Oh, shut up.” I say and stalk out of the office.
