She sat alone in the large, outer office waiting for him to summon her inside the inner sanctum of business and marketing expertise. She had her portfolio on her lap, felt a great confidence in her readiness. She had prepared her paperwork carefully and she was ready. Her fingers drummed, almost silently, on the grained leather of the case in which her work rested easily, sealed in plexi-pages or tucked neatly into the large pockets, available for closer scrutiny. She was ready.
She had been waiting almost an hour already and that was disturbing her peace of mind. Her appointment had been for 1:30 and now, she noted as she checked her best wristwatch, the silver and platinum one with the thirty-eight diamonds that Mikhael had given to her, it was 2:27. The quiet, almost imperceptible tick of the ornamental watch grew ominously loud. Hastily she pulled down the sleeve of her blouse and the jacket over it, trying to smother that irritating sound. It was too loud, she said inside her head, and surely the receptionist could hear it now too. She put her right hand over the sleeve, over the sleeve, over the watch and tried to contain the noise inside the palm of her hand. It didn’t work. In fact, it seemed louder than ever.
Now her teeth were clicking in time to the watch’s faithful timekeeping tick. "Tick. Click. Tick. Click." It was all she could hear now, all, that was, until the blood pumping into her brain began to pump in a rhythmic counterpoint to the watch and to her teeth. She was sure she had reached the hour by now and she listened to the miniature symphony she was now making, all by herself: "Tick, pump, Click. Tick, pump, Click." It was too much to bear.
She stood up, ready to leave. It was clear now that he wouldn’t see her. He had kept her waiting for an hour. It was time to leave. She stepped away from the chair she’d been sitting in for so long. A single step was all she’d need to free herself from this anxiety, this noise; she was sure of it. But a single step wasn’t enough after all. She took another, and another, was three steps away from the chair. The blood pumping in her mind lessened in intensity. That was good. That was very good.
She turned to face another direction, a half-turn, not a full-turn. She was looking at the window that separated this room from the outer hallway She took two steps in that direction and noticed that her teeth were no longer clicking in response to the sound her timepiece made. There was just the tick now, just the tick. She walked slowly toward the glass door, there in the center of the glass window. She was close to it, safely close to it when her watch ceased its tiresome, ceaseless ticking. She reached for the knob in the glass door, a handle really, not a knob she noticed. A brass handle with a crystal inset that helped to hide it from view. She touched it, held it, moved it slowly, silently downward, releasing the barely visible latch set into the framework around the vast, wide window.
"He’ll see you now, if you’re ready," said the receptionist. "He’ll see you now."
"I don’t think so," Freddy replied.
"Is there a problem? He’s ready to meet with you."
Freddy turned to look at the other woman.
"I’ve been here for over an hour already," she said.
"Yes. He’s ready for you now."
"I..." she stopped without making a statement. She realized she was still clutching the portfolio to herself and that her hand was now gripping the leather with a claw-like intensity. She relaxed her hand and with the other one took the two plastic handles in a firm grasp and she let the sample book drop to her side. She took a large step forward, toward the receptionist’s desk. "I’m ready," she said.
The receptionist stood up and moved to a large oak door in the wall behind her desk. Gesturing toward it, she said to Freddy, "this way, then, please."
Freddy nodded once and moved quickly past the woman and into Marc Pope’s office. He was behind his desk with his back to her, but the instant he heard the door moving on its hinges he swivelled about, looked at her in the doorway and stood up.
"Hello there," Pope said with a grin growing on his face. "Come in, please, and find a seat."
"Where?" Freddy asked him. "Which one?"
"Doesn’t matter. Wherever you choose to sit, I’ll sit nearby." He smiled fully now revealing an excellent set of perfectly straight, well-matched teeth. Freddy nodded at him, quickly surveyed the room and chose a green and gold Captain’s chair with its back to the window. The light would be good for her and for her drawings, she thought. Marc Pope drew up a similar chair directly next to her, but not between her and her light source. She noted that he had clearly made this choice and she admired him for it.
"Shall we have a look, now?" he asked her. She nodded and unzipped the portfolio, opening it across her lap. He reached over and took one of the handles with his fingers and he slowly swept it across her lap and onto his. They were sharing the book now. His knee moved carefully in her direction, finally just barely touching hers.
Freddy sighed once, then looked away, taking in his desk and the window once again. She heard him turning a page and then another before she dared to look in his direction once more.
"I like this one very much," he said. Freddy looked at it, not recognizing it for an instant and then, suddenly, understanding what it was.
"Thank you," she said. "That was created for the new pillow campaign for the goose-down people."
"Yes, I can see that. It’s very clear."
"Thank you again," she said. "Notice, if you haven’t already, the way the two pillows rest on each other."
"Yes. Very sensual. Sexual even."
"Yes. It’s meant to imply to even the most casual observer that the pillows are doing the work for the people whose heads will rest there."
"It’s very nice work."
She nodded at him and smiled. She didn’t want to keep saying "thank you" over and over and over like a parrot with only one carefully learned phrase.
She reached across the portfolio and turned two more pages, smoothing them out as she laid them careful on his side of the book. She reached into the plexi-page and pulled out a large, folded piece of foolscap. She unfolded it three times, spreading it out across the entire folder, smoothing it once again.
"I’ve seen this," he said. "Oh, not this, of course, but the real thing, the double billboard on 45th Street. It’s very impressive."
"You can see here what I was doing, what I was going for" Freddy began and her explanation for her choices spilled out of her in one, two, three and four syllable words. As she continued to speak she became more verbal and more intelligent. Within moments she was feeling like herself again and that felt good. She could tell that her confidence in her work and in herself was paying off. Marc Pope was smiling and nodding and patting the drawing in front of him. Freddy felt all right again. All those nervous energy sounds that had caused her grief were gone, contained in their various sources. She was selling herself and doing it well.
"Can I ask you a question?" Marc Pope said suddenly, clearly about to change the subject.
"Of course," Freddy replied, then regretted it. Usually when someone asked her that question they had something specific in mind and ordinarily that something was about Mikhael and the damn chair. She didn’t really think that Marc Pope was going to ask her those questions, but she knew it was possible.
"The chair..." he said, and she instantly put up her hand to stop him from going any further.
"I don’t talk about that," she said.
"Oh. No. You misunderstand me," he added quickly. He was thumping the drawing on their twin laps. She turned to look and he was gesturing at the small collection of furniture in her drawing. "This chair, this one here. It seems out of place with the other pieces."
She looked at the item he was pointing at. "Oh, that," she said. "Yes, it does throw the picture off kilter but that was the goal. Look at the piece again and tell me what draws your eye, Mr. Pope."
He turned to look at it. Instantly he said, "The two lamps and then the drapes."
"Exactly," she said exultantly. "That’s the goal here. The chair, placed where it is, draws your focus to the floor lamp behind it. It’s shade, matching the other one over here, draws your attention to it and then across the drawing and what lies between those lamps is the drape. You can’t help but see them as your eyes pass over them to meet the other lampshade. The chair, so unattractive and place as it is, takes your attention, but you forget it through the symmetry of the other two pieces and your eyes and mind are focused on the curtain. That’s what we’re selling here."
"It doesn’t take that long to work, though," he said.
"No, of course not. It shouldn’t. That’s the goal."
"Very successful," he said.
"Thank you."
"I think I’ve seen enough. I want you for this job."
Freddy was folding up the paper drawing and tucking it back into its plexi-page holder. She didn’t want to seem too eager, answer too quickly. But she wanted the job desperately and she felt he knew that.
"I’d like to work for you," she said simply.
"Is that eagerness I hear?"
"No. Just agreement."
"It sounded like eagerness to me."
"You know, Mr. Pope, I waited an hour for this chance to show you my work. If that doesn’t connote eagerness, I suppose, nothing would."
"That’s right."
"So I’ll have to admit I am eager to take on this job."
"It will mean a lot of traveling, you realize."
"I do."
"You won’t be able to stay in New York for very long. I’ll need you over there, in Europe."
"It would be nice to get away from here for a while."
"Yes, I suppose it would." He smiled at her again. "Especially after what you’ve been through these last few months."
"Oh. You do know about all that."
"Of course I do." His smile waned a bit. "The whole city must know."
"Yes, I suppose so."
He had returned now to his desk and she was sitting, still with her back to the sun, looking at him.
"How soon could you be ready to get over there?"
"A week, I think. I’d have to spend some time with my mother, of course. This is going to be a shock to her, my leaving town, leaving the country actually."
"Take two weeks. We’re not in a rush. We want this done right, Fredericka."
The sound of that name, so formal and unused by anyone other than Mikhael made her shudder involuntarily. "Freddy, please. It’s... easier for everyone."
"All right, Freddy."
"Two weeks? Are you sure, Mr. Pope?"
"It’s fine. We have a bunch of arrangements to make. Your passport and visa, your accommodations, a staff to support your work." He paused and she had the remarkable sense that his smile was detaching itself from his face and moving toward her. He had turned his head slightly, moving his gaze from the full sunlight behind her to a point more closely aligned with her shoulder. "And please call me Marc from now on. We’re colleagues."
He stood up and extended his right hand in her direction. She stood up instantly and held out her own, dropping the portfolio to floor as she made her unanticipated move.
"Oh, dear," was all she could say. She couldn’t take a step toward Marc Pope with her papers now scattering around her, but she couldn’t afford, she felt, to leave him awkwardly standing there waiting to shake her hand and seal the deal.
"Indeed," he responded, still smiling. "Well, one of us ought to do something about that."
"Yes, of course." She squatted down and quickly pulled things back into her book. She reached over the far edge, finding the zipper and, still squatting, she closed and sealed in her work. As she rose to her feet, the portfolio clutched in her left hand, she saw that he was still waiting, still standing with his arm outstretched. She grabbed his hand with her right hand and gave it a less than tentative, single. affirmative shake.
"Two weeks, Freddy. Then London."
"London," she said, smiling back at him. "I’m looking forward to that."
END OF PART TWO