“I don’t understand.”
“I want you to come work for me.”
“In PR?”
“Public relations is beneath you?”
“I didn’t mean it that way.”
“Yeah, you did. For starters, we don’t call it PR here. ‘Strategic communications.’ But before you tell me to go fuck off, let me tell you how it’s going to play out. The moment our hero nails the nomination and becomes a serious player-and I think he will-some media dickhead is going to do a story about how you’re on his payroll. Never mind that nothing happened over there between you two-other than you both got blown up. He’s got a rep as a skirt chaser, and you’re a looker. I can even tell you what the line will be: ‘Chappaquiddick Two-this time on dry land, and the chick lived to go on the payroll.’”
“That’s ridiculous! And it’s not true!”
“It’s a ridiculous town.” Terry shrugged. “How long do you really think you’d last once you become the story? Maybe he’s basically a nice guy now. Think he’d risk his entire campaign on you? He doesn’t feel that guilty. No politician does. They’re born with Original Spin. And then what? You’re on your butt on the street. You think everyone in town is going to be lining up to hire you?”
Cass stared glumly at her food.
“How was the salad?”
“Not very good, actually.”
Terry smiled. “Told you to order the lobster. Think of the homeless we could have fed. Consider my offer. I’ve got a feeling about you.”
“You don’t know me.”
“I know you’re smart, young, and angry. Give me smart, young, and angry and I’ll move the world. I was all that, too, but I’ll save that story for another time. You should be angry. You’ve been fucked over pretty good for someone who’s still a kid.”
“I don’t want your pity.”
“Good. I’m not offering pity. You think I’m doing this because I’m a nice guy? That’s a laugh. Nah. I sense you’ve got talent. And I’m smart about that. I can spot a protйgйe a mile off. I’m into the molding thing. Rйsumйs like yours don’t come along every week.” He added, “And I don’t hit on the help, so don’t worry on that score.”
“I’ll think about it,” Cass said, her mind reeling.
Terry drove off in his Mercedes to his world of spin. Cass caught a taxi back to Capitol Hill. On the ride up, she looked at Terry’s business card. She reflected that it was the third ticket of admission she’d received in two years: the letter from Yale, the check from Randy, and now this. It was the smallest of the three, in more ways than one. From the ivory tower to Hill rat to PR chick. There was a death spiral for you. But then she got back to a sit-down lecture from Lillian over being late. As Lillian went on, and on, about Cass’s irresponsibility, Cass found herself daydreaming about the scenario Terry had limned for her and thought that the nightmare would, in all likelihood, begin with a call from Lillian to the media dickhead: You didn’t get this from me, but she’s on the payroll. So after Lillian was finished, Cass went back to her desk, where instead of answering a letter she wrote one, to Randy, thanking him for everything and resigning. She started at Tucker Strategic Communications the next day.
Terry had been right. She had talent. Less than ten years later, she was a partner in TSC. She had a nice apartment, a German-made car in the garage, and a beach condo in Rehobeth that she never used. Terry had been right, too, about her motivation, and now she had the means to pursue her real passion: instilling in members of her generation outrage against the members of the previous one and toward a government that still, in the language of her generation, didn’t “get it.”
Chapter 8
Cass sat at the long polished bird’s-eye maple conference table in the conference room of Tucker Strategic Communications, trying to stay awake, a fact not lost on her boss. The third time she dozed off, she almost slumped face first into her grande latte, risking third-degree burns.
“Cass,” Terry said, “why don’t you bring us all up to speed on the mink ranchers?”
“Um? Hm?”
“The mink ranchers? Our new client?”
“Oh. They’re…it’s going…aces.”
The Canadian Mink Ranchers Association had hired TSC after an antifur group smuggled a live mink into the private office bathroom of the editor of Glam magazine in New York. They did it over a weekend. By Monday morning, the mink was very hungry and very angry. After sinking its fangs into the editor, it went on a sanguinary rampage through the offices of Glam, causing an episode that still makes fashionistas shudder and twitch at the memory. The editor had to undergo a series of painful rabies shots-some mischievously suggested that it was the mink that should have been given the shots-causing her to miss Fashion Week, a disruption the effects of which were still being felt on Seventh Avenue and the world beyond months later. The first thing Terry did was to have the ranchers rename themselves the Royal Canadian Association for Humane Mink Cultivation and Conservation.
It was Cass’s account. And things were, yes, more or less “on track.” Normally, she’d have been up to speed, but because of yesterday’s Senate vote on raising the Social Security payroll tax, she’d been up until dawn, blogging away on CASSANDRA.
“When do we hear back from the Pleasure World people?” Terry said. Cass shot him a look that said, You know that I have absolutely no idea, so why are you asking me in front of the entire staff?
Pleasure World was the country’s largest chain of adult (which is to say sex) accessories outlets and thus the single largest purchaser of mink used not for coats, hats, or wraps. Terry’s notion was to get Pleasure World to join in a common-cause, pro-mink public service announcement.
Cass improvised. “They’re kind of busy right now getting ready for their annual trade show. It’s called ‘Expo-sure 2011.’ In Las Vegas, where else. Don’t worry. I’m efforting it.”
“Keep up the good efforting,” Terry said.
Several of the younger male staffers unselfishly volunteered to attend Expo-sure 2011.
The meeting broke up. After the others had left, Terry said, “You were certainly at the top of your game this morning. Next time we’ll videoconference you in from your bed.”
Cass sighed. “I’m on the minks, okay?”
“No big deal. I was just under the impression that since you’re a senior partner in the firm, you might be involved-even interested-in the profit-making aspect.”
“I was up late. The Senate vote on Social Security. I had a zillion e-mails and postings. I think we’re reaching a critical point here. I’m feeling a lot of anger out there.”
“Happy to be part of your infrastructure,” Terry sniffed.
“Why are you so bent out of shape? I’m the one who’s being asked to pay for your retirement. The Senate voted yesterday to raise my payroll taxes thirty percent. And because they didn’t want to offend the Wrinklies lobby-God forbid Boomers should have to pay their fair share-they only raised it on everyone under thirty-five years of age. So you can retire at sixty-two.”
“Fuck the minks. Vicious little bastards. Look, I was just yanking your chain back there. I know you’ve been working hard. You’ve been working too hard. Come on. I want you to go home right now, throw a few things in a bag, and go to that resort in the Bahamas. It’s an order.”
“Can’t. Too much going on. I’m calling for demonstrations.”
“What do you mean?”
“Demonstrations. Come on, gramps, you remember the sixties. A protest. The time has come. Yesterday’s vote in the Senate proved that. I’m calling for an economic Bastille Day.”
A look of incomprehension and alarm played across Terry’s face, like that of a ship captain upon being informed that a giant squid had just engaged in battle with the propeller-and was winning.