Page 53 of Cuts like a Knife
To his credit, Drew laughs a little himself before going on.
“I know it sounds ridiculous. You’re not wrong. My job — the job of making them happy — that’s relatively simple. You learn what they expect to get out of a campaign and then you get it for them, if you can. Or if you can’t, you manipulate them into being happy with getting something else instead. You flatter them. You acquiesce. You act as a go-between so that the clients never know that the creative team thinks they’re a—holes and the creative team never knows that the client thinks they’re overpaid teenagers.”
“You’ve always been a charmer. I guess that’s your strength,” I say178.
“So people tell me,” Drew says, sounding tired, which is unlike him. “It’s exhausting sometimes. The job — the business — it hasn’t really been what I expected. I’m grateful, for sure, but that doesn’t mean that I love the work. The part I actually enjoy is learning about the different industries. Different places, like this one. And like, with Claire and the her show — Deb Laughlin’s TV Network, right? That was obviously completely different than working with Siskro, the food guys. But in both cases, there is so much to learn.”
“Sounds like you’re wasting a lot of time on stuff that’s outside you job description,” I say.
“I don’t know about that. Keeping myself sane isn’t a waste of time. But you’re right about one thing — a lot of what I do is way outside my job description. Truthfully, I don’t even have a job description. Make the clients happy. That’s the job description. And sometimes …” he trails off.
“Sometimes?” I prompt?
“Sometimes making them happy makes me pretty distinctly unhappy, let’s just say that. But, like I said, at least there’s a lot to learn, which is nice. Keeps my brain from atrophying anyway.”
Drew’s face has gone serious. He’s rubbing his temple, like he has a slight headache. His eyes aren’t twinkling and for once, he isn’t flirting. He’s just talking. It’s really weird, frankly. I always thought Drew was perfectly happy at work.
“I always thought you loved what you were doing,” I say, almost tentatively. “Like, it seemed to suit you. You seemed so good at it. Natural.”
Now it’s his turn to snort.
“Yeah, I know. Everyone’s always told me so.” His frustrated mood seems to evaporate as quickly as it appeared. The twinkle returns to his eyes and he flashes me his signature knowing smile. God, it’s sexy. “Don’t get me wrong. It’s a good gig in a lot of ways. The money is great. I thought I’d like it a lot more when I first started, and I don’t, but that’s fine. It just probably won’t be a forever career for me.”
Wow. Blithe. How? I don’t feel that way about work at all. Maybe because I’m older. At my age, when you’ve worked for awhile at one thing, you have that one thing on your resume. One thing. Nothing else. Like, I technically have three jobs on my resume, but they all amount to the same thing. Words. That’s what I do now. I write words. And it’s not like making a career change is easy. At some point you cross an invisible time line and after that, you can’t just start over179.
I open my mouth to ask Drew to elaborate, but before I can, he lobs another question at me.
“So you didn’t like the food? But when I saw you in the restaurant, with that guy, your plate looked empty.”
“You saw me?” I say.
“Yeah, I was keeping an eye on things.”
“Okay, stalker.”
“Hardly. I was doing my own thing, don’t worry. I just happened to notice you.” He waits a beat before going on. “I always notice you.”
“Stop.”
“Stopping.” He smiles. He is always such a damn flirt. But then he changes tacks. “So who was the guy?”
“What guy?”
“The one you were sitting with? Your date.”
“Good lord. Methuselah? They put us together randomly. He’s some ancient reporter. From Sentinel, apparently. He ate all my food as well as his.”
“Wow. Really?”
“I guess he was really hungry.”
“Not the food. Wow about the Sentinel. I mean, who was he? What’s his name?”
Annoying. See? Even Drew — a supposedly jaded ad man — cares about this kind of thing. The publication you write for definitely matters. It matters a lot. Even to people outside the industry.
“It’s just Sentinel, you know. Not the Sentinel. And I don’t know,” I say.
“You don’t know?” Drew seems puzzled.
