I stop walking and pretend to be concerned, “You think I should’ve written something?” Her beautiful eyes go wide. I keep walking to the back stairs. We can hear the crowd in the auditorium on the other side of the curtain. “I’ve known all the brand talking points since birth, I’ll pull them straight from my ass. It’ll be grand.” I stop and turn to her. “How do I look?”
She grimaces.
“Well damn, Janie, don’t hold back now, what?”
“You look…hung over? Messy? And is that last night’s suit? You look like you just came from a wild threesome next-door.”
Now my eyes go wide. She’s not too far off. I’m not one to turn down drinks upstairs with a set of red headed bombshells.Twins.No man turns down twins. When it came down to it, though, I just passed out. Much to the disappointment of said bombshells.
“You did, didn’t you! You’re kinda disgusting, you know that?”
I ignore her accusing eyes and pull a staffer over, “Excuse me, d’you have any hair and make up people on site today?”
The woman seems frozen, shocked I’m speaking to her.
“Girl,” Janie touches her arm. “Look at his hair. And the bags under his eyes. We need to get someone over here stat before he goes on stage.”
“Right! Yes, sorry, of course, they’re in a green room right down this hall.”
She leads the way but I’m not really watching where we’re going. I’m too busy smirking at Janie. Who is busy turning her nose up at me.
“I don’t think I’ve ever had a woman tell me I look like shit.”
She looks away, “I didn’t say that.”
“Would you like to?”
She fights a smile and locks eyes with me, “Benedict, you look like shit.”
I laugh with a hand to my chest, “Have to say, I don’t love it.”
She just shakes her head as we are ushered into the big bathroom with a wall of dressing room style mirrors. Three people fuss over me at breakneck speed. They shower me with compliments, I try to rub it in Janie’s face but she’s too busy doing her own fussing. She takes my coat and asks for my tie, producing a hand steamer out of somewhere. She interrupts my new fan club to say, “More concealer,” and “Let’s powder his forehead more.”
It’s comical, if not a bit frustrating, hownot impressedwith me she is. Makes my blood start to run south if I think about it.So, instead, I think about the stupid Clark Industries values and mantras, whatever jargon I can use to fill twenty minutes on that stage.
In under five minutes, I look awake, freshly-showered and firmly pressed. I tie my tie and button my jacket and turn to Janie.
I stretch out my arms, “Better?”
She studies me, her eyes searching my whole body. The blood is rushing downward again. Not ideal since I’m about to be standing in front of ten thousand Clark employees. I look away from her and wait.
“Lose the tie,” she finally says.
“You sure?”
“Yeah. You’re not Emerson, you’re the fun, younger brother. Tie feels phony.”
“You’re right,” I say as I tug the thing off. I’ve never felt comfortable in them. Weird that I never thought to just ditch them altogether. “Brilliant. Let’s go,” I say, bundling the tie up to toss into the trash.
“No!” Janie grabs it. “This probably cost as much as his rent! Here!” She tosses the tie to the handsome bloke that did my hair.
“Yesss, girl. Good looking out!” He beams back at her. She just nods.
Then we’re off to the races.
I give my speech which she deems, “Pretty good, considering.”
She tags along as I hit trade show booths one after another. I praise the teams and sample the goods while she says as little as possible. We watch demonstrations. We listen to pitches. She nudges me when I zone out as poor sap after sap try to sell me the same story over and over.
