Tempting the New Guy. Alegra Verde

      “Any magician worth his salt can escape from a locked cage or a pair of handcuffs.”

      —Murphy, the theater owner (The Perfect Poison)

      Clement Johns was a new account exec at Davies and Birch Advertising. He was from the South, born in Memphis, and he had a slow, dusky way of talking that sent shivers up my spine every time he came up behind me and said my name. Something he seemed to enjoy, because he did it at every opportunity. I’d be standing in the lunchroom, staring at the microwave, waiting for my Cup-a-Soup and he’d come up behind me. “Glory,” he’d breathe on my neck, the word tickling the soft hairs at my nape. “A lovely name for a beautiful woman,” he’d say from behind me as I bent over the copier tray to retrieve my copies. I said, “Thanks, that’s sweet of you,” the first couple of times, but that seemed to encourage him. So I started rolling my eyes at him whenever he tried to catch my eye, and when he came up behind me, I’d get my cup of soup or my copies or my supplies and make my way around the pillar that he’d become.

      He was a find. Not because he looked like Jude Law, with his straight-teethed smile, the boyish look of his slightly mussed fair hair and the glow that emanated from his gaze, but because there was a definite charm to his Southern purr and his confidence was backed by substance. After earning an MBA from Stanford, he’d gone out to L.A. and bounced around from agency to agency before he went home and started his own ad firm, which focused primarily on evaluating and purchasing internet ad space. He came to Davies and Birch with a solid client list and a technical manual he’d developed that identified primary venues and established a criteria for judging their potential effectiveness. The firm had hired him in at substantial cost, given him a staff of two and a small corner suite of offices. It was a sound move. The clients were impressed with the expanded markets and the projected figures looked as though the firm’s faith in Johns would be realized sooner than expected.

      He and his crew were to take center stage at the morning staff meeting. Bruce Davies was, as usual, at the head of the long oval table and Lucas Birch at the foot. Johns was to present a list of up-and-coming sites with suggestions for how and by who they might be best used. It was his first presentation to the staff at large. Claire, Davies’s assistant cum secretary, had reserved three prime center seats for Johns and his staff. The two nerdy looking guys who worked with him were fresh out of CUNY. They took two of the seats and dutifully held the one between them for their leader. But Johns, instead of assuming his position of prominence, slid in next to me as I sat on the mini sofa that rested against the wall behind Davies.

      “Glooory, Glooory,” he whispered savoring the extra set of O’s as he lowered himself beside me. I thought of that scene in The Long Hot Summer. He had stretched out the O’s and crooned my name just like the randy group of teenaged boys had when they’d hidden in the bushes and called out “Euula, Euula.” A giddy Eula in the guise of a pert Lee Remick had giggled from her perch on the veranda. Her husband, Tony Franciosa, who’d been sitting there with her and other members of the family, hadn’t been tickled in the least by their antics. He’d gotten red in the face as he ran to the edge of the porch, shouting and threatening all manner of violence at the boys. “Gloory,” Clement said again close to my ear. It tickled and I laughed. Clement grinned, maybe he meant to make the connection.

      Davies turned and glanced briefly at the two of us before turning to begin the meeting.

      “Been looking for you,” Clement murmured as he leaned close to my ear, his warm breath whisking across my cheek.

      I looked at him, eyebrows raised as if to say “I can’t imagine why.”

      He grinned again and slipped a flier for an off-off-Broadway production of Tennessee Williams’s The Glass Menagerie onto my lap.

      “Tonight?” he said, for my ears only. “They so rarely do the old masters up here.”

      I raised my eyebrows.

      “You and me,” he said, touching my chest and then his with the tip of his finger.

      It made me smile, but I didn’t say anything one way or the other. Instead, I put a finger over my lips, urging him to be quiet before we drew any more attention. Bruce Davies glanced back at us again, before returning his attention to a status report from the accounting department. The report, which ended with a recommendation that a new set of limits and restrictions should be placed on company credit cards, finished to a chorus of groans as Davies nodded and said he’d consider the suggestions.

      “Mr. Johns.” Bruce spoke without turning around even slightly. “The floor is yours.”

      Clement stood and, smiling, began his report. However, when he found himself speaking to the back of Bruce’s head, he moved to the center of the table and stood behind the chair that his two staffers still held vacant for him. He delivered the presentation with his usual aplomb, but when he was done, he came back to squeeze in next to me. “Well?” he wrote on the back of the flier, and handed it to me with a pen.

      “You were fine,” I wrote, feeling like we were in high school, passing notes.

      “Not the presentation,” he scribbled. “The play?”

      I shook my head.

      “Why?” he wrote.

      “Busy,” I mouthed.

      “Doing what?” he wrote.

      Of all the nerve. I gave him the high brow and turned my attention to Linda, the receptionist, an attractive older woman who was also charged with ordering supplies and managing repairs. She seemed to have a beef about people not signing guests in and with people expecting her to deliver their messages, when the system required that they pick them up from the desk. She was the last, and after Birch said a few words of encouragement, everyone began to file out of the room.

      Bruce was instantly besieged by two account executives, so I took the opportunity to try to slip out. I made my way quickly around Johns as he bent to pick up his materials from the floor, but soon he was up and following me to the door. When I didn’t slow down, he called after me. “Wait, Glory,” he was saying from behind me when I heard Davies say, “Glory, I’d like to see you in my office.” I turned back to Davies and nodded. Clement looked at Davies, then he looked at me. I turned and kept walking, but Clement followed me out the door and down the hall.

      “Hey,” he said, grabbing me by my upper arm.

      I

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