gay imp, but an imp. Then he began to sing. “I gotta be me. I gotta be me.”
“Enough. You know the software we use?”
“You betcha.”
“Good speller, impeccable grammar?”
“Philistine. P-h-i-l-i-s-t-i-n-e. Participle phrases are used chiefly to modify nouns, but a dangling participle is confusing to the reader. For example, ‘Sitting on his ass, the bird flew by the window.’”
Just then the phone rang.
“Phone manners?” barked Jeff.
Phil pushed a button on the phone and started speaking into his headset. “Columbia-Starr Communications. Mr. Jeff Brooks’s office. How may I help you?” Phil frowned ominously. “Mr. Brooks did what? And then the cops told him what? And now the Smoking Gun wrote what? No comment. And that’s my final comment. Thank you for calling Columbia-Starr Communications. Shaping The World, A Million Minds At A Time. Have a nice day.”
Phil hung up and gave Jeff an expectant look.
Okay, the guy was good, better than the last four temps he’d had. Jeff looked down at the phone. “Who was that?”
“Your mother. Baked ziti at her apartment Wednesday at eight.”
It was too much to comprehend after four hours of restless sleep, and a hard-on that was now mummified permanently. “What about all the other stuff you were saying? With the cops?” The last thing he needed was more Sheldon-fodder for the rags.
Phil wiggled his index finger. “Fastest mute finger in the West.”
Jeff nodded. “Okay, you pass. I like my coffee black,” he ordered, taking off for the zen-like quiet of his office.
“No sugar?” yelled Phil.
Jeff slammed the door.
“Savage!”
JEFF’S HEADACHE WAS JUST beginning to recede when the intercom buzzed.
“A Mr. Summerville is waiting for you, Mr. Brooks. Should I show him in?”
Sheldon’s dad. Quickly, Jeff flipped through the morning trade rags to see what sort of lies, half truths and full truths were being written about her.
The Post mentioned her makeout session with the goalie. The Daily News listed a Sheldon-sighting at Crobar, but it wasn’t too bad. All in all, they’d written tons worse about Sheldon before.
Only two items today. Maybe her father would be happy.
Thirty seconds later, Wayne Summerville was in his office.
“What the hell am I paying you for, boy?”
Okay, not happy. Jeff forced a smile. “There’s the blind item on Page Six about the wayward socialite that’s been giving large amounts of cash to the homeless.”
“That’s not my daughter,” he said, leaning over Jeff’s desk, probably so Jeff could feel the full force of his anger.
Check. Anger felt.
“It might not be, Wayne, but people could assume it is. That’s the beauty of blind items. We can plant something with the Daily Dish tomorrow.”
“Jeff, now listen. I like you, boy. Really do. But your firm is charging me an obscene amount of money to transform my daughter’s image into something more palatable to our stockholders. And do you know what’s happened to my daughter’s image since I hired you?”
Jeff stared into the dark dredges of his Columbia-Starr Communications coffee cup. “What, sir?”
“I didn’t think it could happen. Truly didn’t believe it could happen, but her image has gotten worse. Gone right in the toilet.”
“Your daughter’s a rather headstrong young lady.” It was an understatement from a man well-versed in overstatements.
“Then get tough, Jeff. I want to announce her engagement in three months, and when she’s off swapping spit and who knows what other bodily fluids with a bartender at some newfangled club in the Meatpacking District, it’s not going to happen.”
Jeff lifted his head and backtracked for a moment. “What engagement? A marriage engagement?”
“Sure. Sheldon’s marrying the heir to Con-Mason U.S.A. We’re signing all the papers in a few weeks.” Wayne rubbed his hands together. “It’ll be the biggest merger this side of the Mississip since Exxon-Mobil. Course that’d be west of the Mississip. Damn, it’d be the biggest merger in this whole gosh-darned country.”
“She knows this?”
“The merger?”
“The marriage?” asked Jeff, frowning.
“Sure. Joshua’s a presentable boy, Harvard grad, one of the cities most eligible bachelors, and we’ve had a long talk. Right proud of my little girl.”
“An engagement,” muttered Jeff. This wasn’t the Dark Ages where women were forced to submit to the whims of men. At least, in most cases.
“It’s a win-win for everybody. Sheldon gets more money than God and the devil combined. Summerville CP gets expansion into the Chinese markets that Con-Mason’s already has such a lock on. And best of all, there’ll be no taxes to pay on the stock swap because of the laws of this fine country that protect the sacred union between a man and his wife. God bless the USA.”
Jeff felt the urge to cross himself but refrained because he didn’t think Wayne would see the humor.
“I’ll do better, sir. Now that I have a full understanding of the situation, I’m sure Sheldon and I can work something out,” he said earnestly, all while subversive ideas were buzzing around in his head.
Yeah, he’d talk to her. He could rescue her. Explain to her the options she had. Jeff choreographed the entire scene, heroic orchestration playing in the background. Close up to her sea-blue eyes as she stared at him worshipfully.
Jeff smiled to himself.
“And I’ve got an incentive for you, Jeff. Sort of my way of insuring that we all succeed. When the merger happens between Con-Mason U.S.A. and Summerville CP, we’re going to need a firm to do all our public relations work. Never believed in trying to do that sort of thing in-house, better to let the pros handle it. And I think Columbia-Starr Communications would be right perfect. Course, then they’d have to call it Columbia-Starr-Brooks Communications. Sounds nice, don’t you think? Just like heavenly bells to a man’s ear.”
Then Wayne grinned at Jeff, his sea-blue eyes long faded to dollar-sign green.
And thus, Jeff was slapped back into the coffee-cup dregs of his reality. The world of Sheldon Summerville was a gold-studded planet, a monied universe. Wayne Summerville bought companies over breakfast and Jeff Brooks saved up eight long years for a boat. Tomorrow’s disillusions were today’s grand illusions. In his business, Jeff had to be careful not to believe his own
