Today is our big meeting with Cuddles, and I’m so nervous, I could throw up.
The last time we met with Cuddles, I was nervous but in an excited sort of way. I knew my campaign was incredible, and I felt one-hundred percent confident. Today I feel none of that confidence. My only hope is I can fake it.
Somehow I haven’t been on my game lately though. Ever since the night of that dinner I missed two months ago, it’s like I can’t keep anything straight. Earlier in the week, I completely missed an important meeting even though it was right in my calendar. I misplaced an entire folder of baby photos and had to ask Cuddles to fax them to me again. Denise had to come in to scold me on two separate occasions for not responding to Cuddles’s emails. Also, I became violently ill from some banana pudding baby food I sampled.
I could use another week for this meeting, but that’s not happening. It’s today—like it or not.
Monica has loaded up my presentation on the laptop connected to the projector in the conference room. I have to say, Monica has been a rock star lately. Given how scatterbrained I’ve been lately, she’s doing an amazing job picking up the slack. Ever since I missed that meeting on Monday, she’s started printing out daily itineraries to leave on my desk in the morning, she’s been highlighting important emails in my inbox, and she’s arranged a gourmet lunch for the Cuddles execs at the meeting.
Yes, she’s still friendly with Sam. He swears they haven’t gotten together again for coffee, but I still see her text messages popping up on his cell phone. Also, her last OB/GYN appointment coincided with a meeting I absolutely couldn’t miss, so Sam ended up accompanying her by himself. I tried not to let it bother me how happy he seemed after that appointment. It’s about the baby—not about Monica.
I’m sitting in the conference room, chugging coffee as I chew on my fingernails, when Jed Cofield and his minions arrive. I’m worried Cofield is going to be cool to me after I missed answering several of his emails, but he
comes right over to me and shakes my hand. Although I notice he doesn’t hang onto my hand any longer than necessary.
“Good to see you again, Abby,” he says. He flashes his teeth at me. “I expect you’re going to dazzle me yet again today.”
I do my best to return his smile. “Naturally.”
Confident. Act confident.
I usually don’t even have to tell myself that. It’s become automatic to follow Denise’s lessons to project an image of complete confidence. Even when I start to suspect I’m wrong about something, I’ll plow forward with my shoulders squared, and you would be amazed how often that’s effective. But today I’m not sure I have it in me.
“I always tell everyone,” Cofield says, “that Abby Adler—she’s the best. You want to sell your product, she’s the one.”
“I appreciate that, Jed,” I say.
And I smile confidently. I should be confident—I have an excellent track record. There’s no reason to doubt myself.
My confidence doesn’t waver again until Denise enters the room. She strides right up to me, her ice-blue eyes regarding me with barely repressed disdain. She’s been witness to every single one of my screw-ups lately, and she’s not impressed.
“Abigail,” she says. “I’ll be in the back to lend my expertise if needed.”
The subtext is painfully obvious: I’m going to stay in the room in case you mess up.
The last person to enter the room is Monica, carrying a plate of gourmet sandwiches. She’s wearing a vivid red blouse paired with a black skirt that shows off what are some really very nice legs. Between her boobs and her legs, every red-blooded male in the room swivels around to stare at her. Cofield’s mouth is hanging open. I wonder if Sam were here, he’d be staring too.
Monica is now close to six months pregnant, but she’s still able to hide it with creative clothes pairings. For example, her red blouse hugs her breasts, but is loose around her midsection. I expect in another couple of weeks, she won’t be able to hide it anymore at all. Which means that as painful as it will be, I’m going to have to give up Monica. Nobody at work can know about our arrangement.
When everyone is seated and has chosen a sandwich, I can begin my presentation. With their product information and the baby photos, we’ve written the copy for and designed a website to display their baby food. We’ve been going back and forth on it for months, and now I’m showing them the near-final version. Even as late as last night, Monica and I were going over a list of slogans to find the best one.
“Obviously the real website will be interactive and we’re working with our tech people on that,” I say, “but I just wanted to show you what we expect it will look like.”
I give everyone in the room a chance to look at the image I’ve flashed on the screen. In spite of my issues recently, I worked very hard on this website. I hope they appreciate it.
Jed Cofield is the first to speak. I was hoping he’d say something enthusiastic, but instead he frowns at me. “Um, Abby?”
“Yes?”
“This isn’t what we talked about at all.”
All eyes in the room are suddenly staring at me. This isn’t what we talked about at all. What does he mean by that? I incorporated absolutely everything he told me. How could he say something like that?
“What do you mean?” I ask carefully.
Cofield shakes his head. “These weren’t the babies we discussed using. Remember—I said we needed a more diverse selection. Also, I said I wanted to have the toddler foods at the top and the stage one foods at the bottom.”
He’s right. He did say all that to me. And I made the changes. Except when I look at the screen displayed overhead, I realize the image does not reflect any of this. I see the first baby in the image is the kid with red hair that sticks up, which I specifically remember Cofield saying was an “ugly baby” because I got offended by his calling any baby ugly. But here is Cofield’s “ugly baby,” staring me right in the face.
Oh my God, did I put the old images in my presentation? Oh no.
I can’t believe I did that. What a stupid mistake. And to not even double-check it before a major presentation in front of the Cuddles executives… what is wrong with me? I must be losing my mind.
“Um…” I shift between my feet, trying to figure out how to play this like it isn’t a huge mistake. I’m not sure if there’s a way. “Right, so these are the first images I used, so I could show you how much better our new design is.”
“Okay…” Cofield says.
And now everyone is waiting for me to show them the new design. “I need a few seconds to load it,” I say. “Sorry.”
I’m not fooling anyone. Monica has to come to the front of the room to help me load the correct images, and it’s a complete mess. I can feel the anger emanating off Denise, who is doing her best to placate the Cuddles people while I attempt to salvage the meeting.
It takes twenty minutes, but I finally get the right image on the screen. Okay, fine—it was a bit of a snafu, but the important thing is, I’ve got a great website for their product. That’s all that matters.
“I don’t know, Abby…” Cofield is saying. Jesus Christ, now what?
“Yes?” I say, as calmly as possible.
“I don’t love that slogan.” He shakes his head. “Cuddles Baby Food— nothing is more important than your baby’s tummy.”
“What’s wrong with that?” Aside from the fact that it’s terrible. I couldn’t come up with anything better.
“It’s clunky,” he says. “Clunky?”
“I want something that rolls off the tongue,” he says. “You know?”
Denise is giving me the stink eye from across the room. I wrack my brain, trying to remember the list of slogans I had saved on my computer.
There are others they might like better. If only I could remember…
“How about,” Monica says suddenly, “Cuddles Baby Food—because your baby deserves the best.”
The slogan rings a bell. It’s from the list of rejects from last night.
Cofield turns to stare at the woman who’s been serving him coffee and helping with the projector. A slow smile curls across his lips. “Actually, I like that.”
Monica beams. “Really?”
“Yeah!” He nods vigorously. “It’s clean, simple… and it guilt trips the parents into paying a little more for our baby food.” He leans over to grin at
Denise. “This girl here is a gem.”
“Well, I can’t take credit,” Monica says quickly. “It was on Abby’s list.
She’s really the one who came up with it.”
“Yes, but you’re the one who knew it was right for us,” Cofield says. “That’s half the battle.”
“Very true.” Denise smiles warmly at my assistant. “You know, Monica is one of our rising stars here at Stewart.”
She… is?
The meeting is salvaged, but I don’t feel good about any of it. Cofield was supposed to love my presentation. Instead, somehow Monica stole the spotlight with my slogan. When the meeting ends, the people from Cuddles are chatting her up like she’s the one in charge. Meanwhile, Denise grabs me by the arm so hard, it feels like she might yank it out of the socket.
“What was that, Abigail?” she hisses in my ear so the Cuddles people can’t hear us. “You almost blew it. Are you on drugs or something?”
“It was an honest mistake,” I mumble.
Her ice-blue eyes meet mine. “People get fired over honest mistakes.” “It all worked out okay.”
“Yes, thanks to your assistant.” Denise shakes her head. “I don’t know what’s going on with you lately, Abigail. Perhaps something in your personal life.” That’s an understatement. “But you need to turn it around. Fast.”
“It won’t happen again.” “No. It won’t.”
Denise gives me one last ice-cold look, then turns on her heel to speak with Cofield, a bright smile now transforming her face. I can’t remember the last time Denise has smiled like that at me. She’s right that I’m the one who screwed up today, but it’s not like she’s making things any easier.
Monica goes to the back of the room to clear away the coffee and I join her. If things keep going the way they are now, soon my only responsibility will be bringing coffee to these meetings.
No. That’s not true. I’d be fired first.
“I hope I wasn’t out of place speaking up just now,” Monica says as she wipes a coffee stain off the table.
“Of course not.” I force a smile. “You saved the meeting.” She smiles back. “You think so?”
“Sure,” I tell her, even though it kills me to say it.
“Monica!” Denise calls to her. She’s standing by Cofield and the other men from Cuddles. “Come here and join us for a moment!”
“Uh…” Monica glances at the leaky coffee pot and the cups scattered everywhere. “Let me just get this cleaned up.”
“Nonsense,” Denise says. “Abigail will clean up. We’d like to speak with you.”
I watch in disbelief as my assistant goes to speak with the executives while I tidy up the coffee. I feel sick. I’d been grateful to Monica for rescuing me during the meeting, but now I wish she’d just left me to flounder.
