Dumb Blond

Chapter 11

Brian sat down at his desk at Kinnetik.  He had spent yesterday afternoon schmoozing a new customer, and he had been victorious.  He snapped open his briefcase and pulled out the papers that had been signed with the new client.  Ted could make the final arrangements.  Brian had made the deal.

The new client was an up and coming cosmetics company called Blush.  They were mainly in the northeast and were looking to expand throughout the United States with the potential of going international in the not too distant future.  Brian had liked the CEO.  She was a smart, savvy businesswoman.  Brian could see her taking the company far, especially with Brian’s help.  It would be a lucrative deal for both of them.

Brian glanced at the clock on the wall.  He was in early.  It was not yet seven a.m.  Soon his employees would be dribbling in.  Cynthia should arrive any minute.  She would be surprised that he was already there.  He had been coming in later ever since…

Brian refused to complete that sentence.  He would not think about the Dumb Blond.  Shit!  He was thinking about him.

Brian shook his head.  The whole situation was ridiculous.  Brian Kinney was a loner.  He fucked whoever he wanted, whenever he wanted.  He had had Justin whatever his name was, and that was done.  It was over.  He needed to get on with his life.

He stood up and walked over to the Eyeconics boards.  He had come in early because something had been bothering him about the boards.  He thought he knew what it was.  He studied the first board carefully.  He knew he was right.  He walked over to his phone and dialed the art department. 

“Yes, Boss,” Mick’s familiar voice said.

“Good, you’re here,” Brian said.  “Come to my office.  I need you.”

The line went dead and Brian knew the artist was on his way.  Mick entered the office moments later and waited for Brian to explain what he wanted.

“I want you to make up another set of these boards but change all the blue to purple,” Brian instructed.

“What purple?”

Brian explained the color he had in mind.  “When you’re done, bring them here and we’ll see which looks better.”

“Right,” Mick replied and headed out the door.

Brian watched him go before going back to his desk.  He had just sat down when Cynthia appeared to go over the schedule for the day with him.  He gave her the good news about the new client.  They discussed the presentation for Eyeconics and Brian told her about the changes in the colors that Mick was working on.  She seemed to like the idea.

Brian asked her to send Ted in when he arrived.  Then he got to work on his preliminary ideas for the Blush account.

“Boss?” Ted said from the doorway a little while later.

Brian looked up from his computer.  “Enter.”

“I hear we have a new client.”  Ted sat down in the chair across the desk from Brian.

Brian nodded.  He handed Ted the contracts that had been signed the day before.  Ted flipped through them.  “Have you got the Eyeconics contracts ready?” Brian asked after a minute or two.

“Yes, got them ready before I left yesterday.”

“Good.  I want this deal signed, sealed and delivered before the Eyeconics people leave the building.”

“How did you like the boards?” Ted asked as he turned to look at them.

“They were okay,” Brian replied.  “Mick’s changing one of the colors as we speak.”

“Oh?  I thought they looked great.”

“That’s why you don’t run this company,” Brian said tersely.

“Point taken.  Anything else?”

“I’d like you to sit in on the Eyeconics meeting.”

“Okay.”

Just then Mick appeared with an armload of boards.  Brian waved him in.  “I made the changes,” he said as he carried them over to the easels.  “I think they look great.”

Brian smirked just a little bit.  He knew he had a good eye.  He hoped he liked the changes as much as Mick seemed to like them.  He wanted to hear what Ted thought as well. 

“Cynthia, come in here,” he said into his phone.

Mick was setting the Fluke boards on the floor and placing the Eyeconics boards side by side so that they matched up and the color change would be most evident.  He saw the note on one of the boards with the blue color.  He pulled the post-it off before setting its purple mate beside it.  They all stood back and looked at the boards, noting how they compared to each other.

“The purple is the one,” Cynthia said immediately.

“I like it better too,” Ted agreed, “even though I don’t have the eye the rest of you do, and I don’t run the company.”  Ted looked over at Brian and saw the smile playing around the corners of his mouth.

“I already said I like the purple the best,” Mick affirmed.  “Good call, Boss.”  He was playing with the post-it note that he had pulled off the Eyeconics board.  “Here’s your note,” Mick said, handing it to Brian.

Brian frowned as he took the note.  “Didn’t this come off the Fluke board?” he asked.  Mick shook his head.  Brian looked more closely at the note thinking it was the one he had placed on the Fluke board.  This note said:

Maybe a different color, like purple instead of the blue.

“Where the fuck did this come from?” Brian demanded.  “I didn’t write this.  I’ve never seen it before.”

“Sorry, Boss,” Mick said.  “I just thought you had when it was what you asked me to change.”

“This looks like the same writing as the note that was on the Fluke ads,” Brian said studying the post-it carefully.  “And it’s not my handwriting.”

Cynthia was looking over his shoulder.  “It sure isn’t.  This is much more legible,” she observed.

“Thanks a bunch,” Brian reacted.  “I’ve still got the note from the Fluke boards,” he said walking to his desk.  He pulled open the top drawer and held the two notes side by side.  “I’m no handwriting expert, but these are the same.”

“So who the hell is doing this?” Cynthia asked.

“Nobody will admit to it,” Ted supplied.

“I don’t think it’s anybody from the art department,” Mick said.

“It’s someone who can read my mind,” Brian said softly.  “I never even saw this note.  I asked for those changes because I thought the boards would look better.”

“This is the craziest thing,” Cynthia said.  “I just don’t get how this is happening.”

“That makes two of us,” Ted agreed.

“Fuck!” Brian said.  “We don’t have time to stand around discussing this.  Get to work, and let’s hope the Eyeconics people also like the changes.  Mick, take the old boards and dispose of them.  Put the Fluke boards back up so the Eyeconics people can see them.”

“I’ll help you, Mick,” Cynthia offered as they went to rearrange the boards.

“And I’ll get back to work,” Ted offered. 

“If only we knew what you did around here,” Brian said without looking at Ted.

Ted chuckled as he left the office.  He knew Brian was concerned about these messages, and truth be told, so was he.  Someone had access to Brian’s office.

*****

Brian walked over to the Eyeconics display and moved one of the easels ever so slightly.  The Eyeconics people would be there any minute.  He wanted everything perfect.  Brian looked back and forth between the Eyeconics boards and the Fluke boards.  They were very different but they were both excellent.

This business with the sticky notes being left on the boards was really bothering Brian.  He wanted to know who was behind the suggestions.  Whoever it was was an advertising up and comer.  Brian wasn’t ready to use the word genius to describe him, but he was certainly very clever and had an excellent eye for color.

Brian studied the Fluke boards and suddenly realized that his note to this creative prodigy was no longer attached to the board.  Had Mick removed it?  Or had the person who left this new message taken it off the Fluke board?  Brian thought it was probably the latter.

Who the fuck was doing this?

*****

Justin stood back and studied his painting.  It was awesome, if he did say so himself.  The only thing he had decided to add was a small and rather abstract profile of Brian’s head.  Nobody would probably recognize it except himself and Brian.  But that was okay.  The painting was his feelings.  It wasn’t important that anyone else really understand it.  Justin hoped what they would see, or rather feel, when they looked at the painting was the intensity of emotion, the passion, the heat.

“Sizzling!”

“Huh?” Justin responded without turning around.

“I could almost believe that you have some talent, Taylor,” Mark commented snidely as he studied Justin’s painting.

“Jealous much?” Justin asked in his own sarcastic way.

“Of you?  Never!”

“Then why bother saying anything?” Justin queried.  It would have been easier to ignore Justin’s work than comment on it.

“I give credit where credit is due,” Mark stated.  “This isn’t half bad.”

Justin smiled just a bit.  “Thanks.  I really like it too.”

“And you didn’t wreck it by playing around with it too much.  It is finished. Isn’t it?” Mark asked.

“Yeah, I think it’s perfect the way it is.”

“Hm, so what inspired it?” Mark questioned.

“Um, just came to me,” Justin said not wanting to reveal anything about his relationship with Brian.  Who was he kidding?  His non-relationship with Brian.  His fuck with Brian.  Make that his multiple fucks with Brian.  Justin felt the smile spread across his face.

“You met someone,” Mark declared.

“None of your business.”

Mark laughed.  “I bet you even believe in love.  How sweet!”

“Shut the fuck up, and go look at your own pathetic work,” Justin said being as nasty as he could be.  He hated being teased.  And he didn’t want to admit, certainly not to Mark, that he did believe in love.  His thoughts went immediately to Brian.  He shook his head telling himself that he had to stop this.  He didn’t love Brian, maybe lusted after him, maybe adored the way Brian had made him feel, but he couldn’t love someone he barely knew … could he?  He had a life and things to do.  Brian was a memory, a wonderful memory nonetheless, and that’s probably what he would always remain.  No probably about it – that’s what Brian would always be.  As much as Justin fantasized about more encounters with Brian, that was unlikely to happen.  There was no future there, Justin told himself.  If only his heart would accept that.

Mark laughed as he walked away.  He enjoyed getting Taylor’s goat.  But he did have to admit that painting of his was stunning.

*****

Brian snapped his briefcase closed and leaned back in his chair.  Almost everybody was gone from Kinnetik.  He had been finishing up the last part of his campaign for Blush.  The ideas would go to creative in the morning, and he should have some potential ads to look at by tomorrow afternoon.  The ideas had been flowing unrestricted while he worked on the campaign.  Brian loved it when that happened.  It hadn’t been like that when he was working on the Fluke campaign.

Immediately Brian thought about the slogan that had probably saved their bacon on the Fluke campaign.  He really wanted to know who was responsible for that.  It bugged him that no one seemed to know.  He believed his employees that they didn’t know the source, but the whole incident was so strange that it kind of unnerved him.  Who could be in his office when he wasn’t there … leaving these messages, brilliant messages?

Brian picked up his briefcase and was about to leave the office when a thought occurred to him.  He went back to the desk and grabbed a post-it note and a pen.  He wrote:

How do you like the purple?  I had already thought of changing that before I saw your message.  Contact me.  BK

He placed it on one of the Eyeconics boards with the purple colors.  He wondered if he would get a reply.  So far whoever was doing this was ignoring the “contact me” part of his messages.  All he was getting was suggestions for improvements.

Brian walked out of his office wondering if he would hear more from this unknown advertising prodigy.

*****

Wednesday morning there was no response to Brian’s message.  He left the note stuck to the poster. 

Thursday morning when he arrived he glanced at the boards thinking the note would still be there.  There was a note on the Eyeconics board, but it wasn’t in the same place where Brian had placed his.  Brian set down his briefcase and went to check if he was right.

The post-it read:

Love the color.  So much better.  You have a great eye.

Brian smiled.  This person didn’t dispute that Brian had had the same idea about the color.  He or she merely complimented him.  Brian was impressed at the lack of ego involved in that statement.  The person who wrote it had talent and innate understanding of art, but also was generous and gave credit where credit was due.  Brian thought he could like this person.

He grabbed a post-it and wrote:

Like me you have a great eye and a quick wit too.  Come work for me.  BK

He hesitated for a second, wondering if he should offer a job to an unknown.  Then he took a deep breath and stuck the note on the board in a different location so that whoever placed the original there would notice the change.

The note was still there the next day.  Brian wondered if he had pushed too hard.  But why wouldn’t this person want to work at Kinnetik.  It was a great company.  It offered a future that was unlimited for whoever was coming up with these advertising gems.

Brian was about to rip the note off the board and throw it away.  The person he was writing to obviously wasn’t interested in a job.  Maybe he should forget the whole thing.  The trouble was that he didn’t seem to be able to forget about whoever was doing this.  He decided to leave the note where it was.

Friday morning there was no reply to his message.  It had become his custom to check if the note was in the same place every morning.  It was one of the first things he did when he got to the office.

The post-it was in the same place he had put it.  He went over to check that it was his note, hoping that it might be an affirmative reply to his offer.  His own words stared back at him.

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