Derailed

FOUR

Something was up.

Eliot informed him their credit card client was coming in to speak with them. Or, more likely, to scream at them.

Blown deadlines, poor tracking studies, unresponsive account executives — they could take their pick.

Even though the actual reason was the same reason it always was these days.

The economy.

Business simply wasn’t good; there was too much competition, too many clients with too many options. Groveling was in, integrity out.

This was going to be a visit to the principal’s office, a sit-down with Dad, an audience with the IRS. Where he’d have to stand and assume the position and say thank you, sir, too.

One look at Ellen Weischler’s sour expression when he walked into the conference room pretty much confirmed this.

She looked as if she’d just tasted curdled milk or sniffed something odious. He knew what, too. The last commercial they’d done for her company was a triumph of mediocrity. Badly cast, badly written, and badly received. It didn’t matter that they’d recommended another one to them. That they’d begged and pleaded and, yes, even groveled in an attempt to get them to choose a different board. It didn’t even matter that the first cut of the commercial had been almost good—clever, even hip—until the client, Ellen in particular, had meddled with it, changing copy, changing shots, each succeeding cut more bland than the previous one, until they’d ended up with the current dog wagging its tail five times a day on network buys across the country. It didn’t matter because it was their spot, and the buck — or to be perfectly accurate, the 17 percent commission on the $130 million account — stopped there.

There being, of course, Charles.

He greeted Ellen with a chaste kiss on one cheek he thought better of halfway into his lean — thinking you should probably shake hands with she who was about to deck you.

“So . . . ,” Ellen said when they’d all taken their seats. All being Charles, Eliot, two account people—Mo and Lo—and Ellen and hers. So, the way Charles’s mother used to say it when she’d found a Playboy under his bed. So. A so that demanded explanation and certainly contrition.

“I guess you’re not here to raise our commission,” Charles said. He’d meant it as a joke, of course, only no one laughed. Ellen’s expression stayed sour; if anything, she looked worse than before.

“We have some serious issues,” Ellen said.

We have some serious issues, too. We don’t like you telling us what to do all the time. We don’t like being repudiated, belittled, ignored, screamed at. We actually don’t like sour expressions. This is what Charles wanted to say.

What he actually said was: “I understand.” And he said it with a hangdog expression he was perfecting to the point of artistry.

“It seems like we talk and talk but no one listens,” Ellen said.

“Well, we — ”

“This is just what I mean. Listen to me. Then speak.”

It occurred to Charles that Ellen had transcended angry and gone straight to rude. That if she were an acquaintance, he would have already walked out of the room. That if she were a client worth significantly less than $130 million, he would’ve told her to take a hike.

“Of course,” Charles said.

“We all agree on a strategy. We all sign off on it. And then you consistently go off in other directions.”

Those directions being wit, humor, entertainment value, and anything else that actually might make a consumer sit up and watch.

“This last commercial is a case in point.”

Yes, it is.

“We agreed on a board. We said it was going to be done in a certain way. Then you send us a cut that’s nothing like what we agreed to. With all this New York humor in it.”

If she’d uttered a profanity, c — t, say, she couldn’t have looked more distasteful.

“Well, as you know, we’re always trying to make it — ”

“I said listen. ”

She’d definitely entered rude and might actually be edging into humiliating. Charles wondered if this was something one was capable of recovering from.

“We have to send cut after cut back to you just in order to get it to the board we originally bought in the first place.” She paused and looked down at the table.

Charles didn’t like that pause.

It wasn’t a pause that was finally inviting a response. It wasn’t even a pause meant to let her catch her breath. It was a pause that portended something worse than what preceded it. The kind of pause he’d seen from girlfriends before they dropped the ax and dashed all hope. From unscrupulous salesmen about to get to the fine print. From emergency room interns about to tell you exactly what’s wrong with your daughter.

“I think maybe we need a change of direction,” she looked up and said.

Now what did that mean? Other than something bad. Was it possible she was firing the agency?

Charles looked over at Eliot, who, strangely enough, was looking down at the table now, too.

Then he understood.

Ellen wasn’t firing the agency.

Ellen was firing him.

Off the account. Ten years, forty-five commercials, not an insignificant number of industry awards — it didn’t matter.

The answer was no. You couldn’t recover from this. Eliot could, but he couldn’t. And it seemed to him that Eliot must’ve known, too. You don’t take a step like this without informing someone in advance.

Et tu, Brute?

No one was speaking. The pause wasn’t merely pregnant, it was pregnant with triplets — angry, bawling ones; something Charles was scared he himself was about to start doing — just lay his head on the table and begin crying. He didn’t need a mirror to know he was turning bloodred. He didn’t need a psychiatrist to know his self-esteem had taken a mortal hit.

Ellen cleared her throat. That’s it. After repeatedly admonishing him for speaking out of turn, she was waiting for him to say something after all. She was waiting for his resignation speech.

“You don’t want me on the business anymore.”

He’d meant it to sound emotionless and maybe even slightly defiant. But he’d failed. It sounded whiny and defensive, maybe even pathetic.

“We certainly appreciate all the great things you’ve done,” she began. Then he kind of tuned out. He was thinking that a ballsy company, a ballsy president, might’ve stood up to them — said we pick who works on your business here, and Charles is the guy. Maybe. If the account were less significant, if business were better, if they all weren’t spending so much time on their knees.

But Eliot was still staring down at the table, doodling now as a way to give him something to do while Charles was being publicly eviscerated. Or perhaps he was just doing the math — $130 million versus Charles Schine — and coming up with the same answer every time.

Charles didn’t let her finish.

“It’s been fun,” he said, finally striking the right note, he thought. World-weary cynicism with a touch of noblesse oblige.

He exited the conference room engulfed in a kind of hot haze; it felt like walking out of a steamroom.

And into an entirely different climate. Word had spread. He could see it on their faces, and they could see it on his. He barely acknowledged his secretary, walked into his office, shut the door.

Later, after everything fell apart for him, it would be hard to remember that it all began this morning.

In this way.

As for now, he sat behind closed doors and wondered whether Lucinda would be on the train tomorrow.