Agency_A #MeToo Romance Read online

  “I know that if I worked for one of them and dated the other it would drive them both crazy, but having both with either of them also seems perilous,” I said.

  My sister rolled up her sleeve and descended on the floor to play with Patrick before there were purple crayon streaks all over.

  “Just make sure you lead them both on and make it all as painful as possible.”

  It wasn’t often that I found myself in a situation that elicited teasing from my sister, which really told me that I was straying into treacherous territory.

  My mother had woken up for a while but was never really lucid, and we’d left in the middle of the afternoon. I spent the ride back in silence, wondering if I cold really go through with telling Keenan that I was leaving Mouse Roar to work with Seth. I’d been taking a hard edge toward Keenan, who I imagined was trying to make my career take a back seat so that in our relationship I could play second fiddle. Some of the things Cassie had said were starting to sound truer.

  But handing myself over to Seth was sure to be an entirely different can of worms.

  Getting down to work on Tuesday was starting to seem like an appealing option, and after apologizing to Keenan for the ultimately unnecessary absence he so graciously granted, I was eager to dig through everything that had been waiting for me. It turned out there was much less than expected, and that was because Keenan and Lena had divided most of my usual work.

  “Hey, thanks for taking care of so much while I was gone,” I said to Lena when I passed by her workspace out on the floor.

  “It was nothing, a nice change of pace,” she said.

  “Well, it was a load off my shoulders,” I said. Lena smiled back.

  Thanking Keenan turned out not to be nearly so straightforward, mostly because I discovered he wasn’t in his office.

  “Has anyone seen or heard from Keenan?” I asked everyone on the floor, drawing only blank stares. The kitchen, ground floor lobby, and even the garage were empty. The parking space he was most likely to use had an ugly green Honda Element in it.

  I went back to my office and began checking other places for messages. There was nothing in my email. He hadn’t posted anything on Facebook, but as I clicked around a little something caught my eye. Once I saw it, I couldn’t look away.

  Right there in front of me was an ad from Connoisaurus, the giant conglomerate that Keenan started his company to work with before getting tossed out in an embarrassing public presentation when they announced their new competing business. Now they were offering something called Clarion Call, digital marketing services for startups, small businesses, and larger companies with emerging web initiatives.

  I read the ad text above a bright and colorful picture of a smiling woman at a computer in an office as my blood began to freeze.

  “Growing your business isn’t easy, but it’s a lot less difficult when you have the expertise of one of the web’s most dominant companies on your side. Go with the name you know, and leave your competition in the dust.”

  I stared at the screen for a few minutes feeling like the walls were closing in around me. I remembered how Keenan had reacted when Connoisaurus barged in on his territory before, seeing it as a hopeless situation and nearly resigning himself to being out of business. Now I had to guess he felt like his best hope for redemption was going to slip away as well and he had nowhere to turn.

  A phone call to Keenan went unanswered, as did countless questions running through my mind. Should I say something about this to the staff? Would our orders immediately dry up at what was obviously a huge media push that managed to get right in front of my eyes nearly as soon as I’d turned on the computer? How would Keenan take it and what would he do next?

  I chose instead to continue trying to learn what I could about our big, new competitor and discovered an interesting tidbit. Although our current customers like Mana Foundries hadn’t received any sort of solicitation to jump ship, Connoisaurus did have a partnership already that made me clench my fists. Interlink House was listed as an advertising partner, meaning that Gary Polling had either purposefully been troublesome to get us to drop him and leave him space to take another offer or had quickly found a way to get back at us. I wouldn’t have put it past him to convince Connoisaurus to enter this market to begin with, just to be nasty.

  After an hour of stewing and handling meaningless busy work I began to contemplate going to Keenan’s apartment to try to see what was happening to him. But before I’d gotten up, the elevator doors opened and he stalked through the office’s entryway like he was about to go on a rampage.

  I stepped out of my office to approach him, but he stopped as soon as he got to the first workstations.

  “Can everybody hear me? Stop what you’re doing and listen up. In case you don’t know, my old friends at Connoisaurus got it into their heads to take another crack at their favorite whipping boy. They’re in their offices laughing at me, expecting me to roll over and die. But it’s not going to happen. It’s going to be different this time. I’m sorry for being late but I was coming up with a plan.

  “We’re not going to be playing defense. It’s time to take the fight to them. We’ve got twenty people and they’ve got thousands of people, but that doesn’t really matter if we hit them where it hurts. Let’s get the marketing team to focus on getting our media contacts in here to talk about this. We’ll need website tweaks to take this head on. I’m going to reach out to Connoisaurus directly on a recorded line, try to get somebody to say something vicious or personal that might not play well in public. The gloves are coming off.

  “And Sarah, could you step into my office?”

  He walked brusquely, barely giving me time to nod as he went by, but that was the way it needed to be and how I wanted him to handle it. He was fully capable of tackling this and had the passion for it too. As I followed him into his office, I realized that he didn’t really need me here to tell him to do what he already knows, and it just wasn’t my fight even though I felt the sting that Mouse Roar was once again under siege.

  “Do you want me to close the door?” I asked, my hand on the knob.

  “It doesn’t matter,” he said. I left it open.

  “You probably also noticed that Gary Polling is helping them out,” I said. Keenan nodded, glowering.

  “I’m sure he’s giving them a great rate too, like what he promised us. I doubt there were any sexual favors required among the terms either,” he said.

  “Let’s forget about him and focus on what we need to do,” I said. “But I want you to know I’m proud of how you’re handling this.”

  Keenan brushed off the compliment with a shake of the head. It had annoyed him.

  “All I have to do is tell my story as loudly as possible. I bet I could even get some TV news interviews in addition to the web stuff. That’s low-hanging fruit. There are a lot of people out there who need to know about a big company attempting to crush a small one for the second time. They all cover Connoisaurus anyway, but mostly it’s about their product launches and their various investments. It’s time to start a new narrative about what they do to the businesses they’re trying to serve.”

  I nodded, glad at least that something had come up to fully eclipse everything that had gone on with Seth at the bar. But with this new challenge I had a clear picture of what I would be doing for the next several years here, and battling a big corporation in the advertising market wasn’t what I wanted my life to be about.

  But for right now I was still right here.

  “What do you want me to do?”

  At least that managed to get Keenan to look at me. His attention was too trained on this to even touch on the unresolved issues of our relationship, and that bothered me too.

  “Did you see their actual ads on Facebook? Most of them feature women and it goes without saying that women are their primary targets for this. Maybe you can reach out to some women’s groups, some women’s business groups and begin making our case.

 
“Yeah, but…”

  “And that reporter from the Times might want to do a follow-up with you, since this could undo everything you did before,” Keenan said quickly.

  “I wouldn’t say that at…”

  “But the biggest thing is going to be continuing to find new clients and building our base. Maybe there’s a way to reach new companies as soon as they’re formed, or we can run some sort of contest like a thirty-day sales challenge.”

  Keenan hadn’t ever cut me off like that before. I was glad he was excited and motivated, taking charge and all that, but he hadn’t ever forgotten to listen to me. I had to speak loudly to say what was really on my mind.

  “Seth offered me a job running the company I created for him and I’m thinking about taking it.”

  The dumbstruck look on Keenan’s face gave me a fleeting sense of satisfaction that I’d finally gotten his full attention. That threatening to quit was the only way to get Keenan to focus on me made me think that I’d even been taken for granted a little.

  “Wait, what? You’re joking,” he said, but I shook my head.

  “Yeah, he wants me to continue running OurCoin full time. He’s going to need someone dedicated to it if it’s going to have a serious chance of catching on,” I said. Keenan looked at me skeptically.

  “You’d really go and do that?”

  I sighed, knowing I needed to put down my other card and finally tell him how I felt.

  “I know you want me to work here and all, but I’ve been realizing that working with advertising, managing staff, it’s just not something I’m really passionate about.”

  “And working with cryptocurrency is?”

  I could understand the deeply uneasy look on Keenan’s face. These were things he’d never heard before and it wasn’t surprising that they didn’t make sense right away. It had taken me a long time to arrive at this perspective, and I still didn’t know what I was going to do, but now was the time to start talking about it.

  “Well, no, not exactly, but it would be something new and different,” I said, some of my conviction waning against the practical realities of the position Seth wanted me in.

  “Let me get this straight,” Keenan said, still cringing. “You’re not thrilled with your job here, so you’re going to take a job with him that you also expect to end up hating. That doesn’t sound like a great plan to me.”

  I sighed, knowing there were streaks of truth there.

  “I said I’m thinking about it. No decisions have been made. I don’t know what I’m going to do. You have to know that I appreciate everything you’ve done for me, but up until now in my life I’ve really had no choices about what I do. I had to do whatever I was told, but now I feel like I actually have options and can try to engineer my own life.”

  Then there were all of the things I still couldn’t say. In no way could I tell him that Seth’s job was going to pay substantially more. The money wasn’t the most important thing. Trying to persuade Keenan to see me as more than just an employee was part of it too, but saying that straight to him would create a poor impression. It would sound like I was changing jobs simply because of my romantic aspirations, putting my career in the backseat, which wasn’t the case.

  Keenan shook his head a little. He appeared in pain.

  “But you just heard what’s going on with Connoisaurus. If you’re looking for something new and different, that’s what you’ll get here. We’ll be doing all kinds of new and different things to compete. There’ll be chances to get out and engage with more people. More community building and events. I just don’t get why you’d want to leave. We need you here.”

  I wasn’t entirely prepared for this, and it did seem to weaken my argument. I sighed.

  “I know you think you need me, but I was just gone for ten days and it turned out you all did great without me. If you want someone who can quickly step into my shoes, promote Lena. We have other programmers now and she knows the staff and our business better than anyone. I don’t have any kind of magical set of skills that can’t be developed in anyone else with a decent work ethic and the right motivation.”

  Keenan looked at me hard, and it seemed to me he was refocusing on me as someone who didn’t work here. How did that look to him? Was there anything else of interest he saw in me? Would he be too stung by my going to work with Seth that he wouldn’t bear to look at me anymore? I had no idea.

  “I just can’t believe it,” he said. “So I’m just supposed to wait until you decide you’re going to go now?”

  Despite his plaintive voice, I didn’t have all that much sympathy. If he found it made for an uncomfortable place being at the mercy of someone else’s whims, then he’d know how I’d felt pretty much every other day of my life.

  “I don’t want this to be difficult or cause problems for you. That’s not why I’m bringing this up or trying to evaluate my future. I just want what anybody else wants, a satisfying life where it feels like I’m able to make the biggest difference I can. And that’s something I have you to thank for. Without you, I’d be writing copy somewhere and falling further behind on my student loan payments.”

  We had a quiet moment in which we shared solemn looks with each other. It felt like a goodbye even though it wasn’t. After it was over, I would go back to my desk and get back to work, but things would be different because he would know that if I decided to stay it would be because I wanted to be here.

  Then he said something surprising.

  “Whether you work here or anywhere, I just want you to be happy.”

  I smiled warmly. If he figured out how endearing things like that were and kept saying them, I’d never be able to leave.

  CHAPTER 12

  When I got a call from Seth Tuesday night, I was already in my pajamas with my toothbrush in my mouth. I winced when I saw his name light up, but in truth I should’ve counted myself lucky. Patience wasn’t something I associated with Seth, and he’d held out an entire four days before contacting me.

  “Hey, did you think any more about my offer?”

  I put my hand to my forehead. The conversation with Keenan was still fresh in my ears, making it hard to think clearly about what I needed to do.

  “I have. I’ve been thinking a lot about it.”

  “And what do you say?” There was a note of nervousness to Seth’s deep voice. I knew he needed me and OurCoin was going to be ten times better off with me than it would be with Seth at the helm.

  “I need more time to think. It’s not easy to decide,” I said, closing my eyes in the hopes that he’d swallow that without too much of a fight, but what I got was worse.

  “If you’re not interested you can just say so and I’ll move on,” he said, his readiness to drop the whole thing stunning me a little. I was suddenly struck by the fear of missing out on this chance. It made me realize how I’d regret it if that door closed and all I had was my job at Mouse Roar and this apartment.

  “I’m really serious about the possibility,” I said, pleading. “I even told Keenan about your offer and that I was thinking about taking it.”

  The sound of Seth chuckling came over the line.

  “And how did he take that?”

  I had to laugh a little too.

  “About as well as you’d expect.”

  After telling him that I’d let him know as soon as I could, I got off the line and found myself smiling as I brushed my hair and continued getting ready for bed. It occurred to me that I actually had fun talking to Seth a lot of the time, and that despite all of his attitude he was pretty easy to get along with. A boss that I enjoyed talking with who gave me plenty of slack to handle things my own way didn’t seem like a bad situation.

  The next day I had another appointment with Dr. Alex, and as soon as I sat down in the little library I could immediately tell that something was different about her today. The pantsuit, her hair, and her expression were all the same. Her eyes were still placid and watchful, but there was just something about how she sa
t that was the tiniest bit off and hinted at some sort of tension. The serene sense about her was no longer there.

  “You’re looking well today,” she said, which also seemed slightly unusual. Dr. Alex wasn’t much for empty compliments and my guess was this was another covering tactic. It got into my head to figure out exactly what was going on.

  “Really? I feel like I’ve been even more of a mess than usual. I’ve been considering a career change and of course it’s been really stressful considering what I’ve been through with my boss. I told him that I wasn’t in love with my work there and he didn’t really get it. My mind has been bouncing back and forth trying to find a rationale that’ll guide me where I need to go, and I can’t help but wonder how you ended up where you are,” I said.

  Dr. Alex blinked a little and glanced around the room at rows of textbooks in some of the shelves.

  “Well, it’s been pretty straightforward really. I majored in Psychology in undergrad, went on for a degree in counseling, and now I’m here,” she said, but I shook my head.

  “I don’t necessarily mean that. You have your own practice and your office is in Manhattan. Surely there were other ways it could’ve gone, like at hospitals, college campuses, in a partnership, or just working at any of the countless other counseling centers out there.”

  After taking another moment to reflect, Dr. Alex looked me in the eyes, and it felt different than before. Something about these questions made me seem less like another patient to her.

  “It’s easy to say that it was natural for it to go this way in hindsight, but I suppose I did make some decisions that steered me this way. Not everybody that I graduated with does this, for example. I think the biggest drivers for me were a sense that I could take care of myself and a distaste for the kind of office politics I’d seen at a few places. Now it’s me and Sue, my receptionist, and we’ve been making this work for about fifteen years now,” she said.

  I weighed whether her factors pertained much to me, and although office politics sounded unpleasant in a general sort of way it didn’t hit me as the bane of my existence. I wanted to be able to take care of myself, but I didn’t see how that necessarily precluded me from working for someone else.