A man in an Armani suit was playing with his phone under the table. A woman in a bright pink blazer cleared her throat. Victoria’s left eyebrow arched so high it nearly left her forehead.
“What I do have is an authentic connection with realpeople. And that’s why you’re going to hire me.” I cued Parker, who’d taken advantage of my brilliant stalling techniques to bluetooth the conference room’s Wi-Fi to my phone. I lifted it in the air, like a sword swinging William Wallace signaling a charge.
With all eyes on me, I hit play. The gigantic conference room video display flickered to life, showing a video of a no name hole-in-the-wall taqueria in East Los Angeles.
“This is Doña Maria,” I said, my voice louder. Less shaky. On screen, an older Hispanic woman rolled tortillas by hand behind the chipped tile counter. “Before I posted this, she was about to lose her family restaurant. Now she has lines around the block and hired her nieces to manage the social media accounts I set up for her.”
Out of the corner of my eye, I saw Parker pecking away at the keys on his laptop. He must have hacked into the room’s audio setup because dramatic music started playing over the surround sound speakers.
I swiped to another post. “This is Jin’s Bubble Tea in Korea town. He named a special drink after me. The ‘Bubble Trouble.’ Why he insisted on using the word ‘trouble’ is not important right now. What is important is that it became his bestseller after I posted about it. Not because I’m polished. But because people trust what I recommend.”
I took another deep breath. A few heads were nodding. Armani suit guy stopped playing with his phone. “People don’t follow me because I show them a fantasy life,” I said. “They follow me because I’m real. I tell them where the bathroom is hidden in Venice Beach. I show them which food truck has the best refried beans even though they’re in a sketchy parking lot in the industrial section of Burbank. I warn them when the cute new bistro serves mediocre, overpriced food.”
An executive with slicked-back hair leaned forward, a fakesmile fixed on his face. “That’s charming, Miss Li, but our clientele isn’t interested in food trucks. They want champagne wishes and caviar dreams. They want the fantasy.”
“Do they, though? Or is that what you think they want because that’s what you’ve always crammed down their throats?”
Parker, miracle worker that he was, had somehow juxtaposed my gritty, authentic, real content with LuxeLife’s corporate website, which was filled with polished photography that looked fake and posed. In my posts, people were smiling, laughing, living their best life. The LuxeLife people looked like actors and models getting paid to flash their pretty teeth.
“Your target demographic isn’t just wealthy baby boomers anymore,” I pressed. “It’s millennials who’ve finally made it. Despite the odds. GenZ trust fund babies. Tech entrepreneurs who wear hoodies to board meetings. They have money to spend, but they’re not impressed by the same things their parents were. Certainly not their grandparents. And not the things you’re trying to sell them.”
Slicked back hair guy made a snort. Others were whispering and shaking their heads. Marcus leaned over and whispered into Victoria’s ear, then glanced toward the door. Probably wondering how long it would take the security guards to rush in and toss us out.
“Actually, you know what,” said the pink suited woman. “She has a point.”
“I do?” I asked.
“She does?” asked Marcus at exactly the same time.
Pink blazer girl nodded. She was, by far, the youngest one in the room, other than me and Parker. She made cutesy eyes in his direction. “Mind if I take over?”
“Be my guest.” Parker’s cheeks turned the same color as Pink Blazer girl’s wardrobe.
She poked a few swipes on her tablet and took over the screen share, displaying lots of colored lines crossing up and down on a graph. “Our customer research shows exactly that trend. Our demographics have been skewing younger every year.”
“To be fair,” interjected a man with a voice like he narrated golf tournaments on the side, “Miss Li’s background isn’t exactly aligned with luxury travel. She said herself she started reviewing hole-in-the-wall Mexican restaurants? That’s quite a leap to our five-star properties.”
I felt my face flush. Not from embarrassment. From being pissed off. “Is there something wrong with Mexican restaurants?” I asked.
The room fell silent as everyone’s attention shifted from me to him. “No, no, of course not,” Golf Voice backpedaled. “But it’s a different market segment entirely.”
“You mean affordable?”
“No. It’s just, well, you know …”
“Or is your problem that my heritage is Chinese, so you find it incongruous that I’d appreciate Mexican cuisine?” It wasn’t the first time some suit had made assumptions based on ethnic stereotypes.
Golf Voice’s face went the color of undercooked chicken. “I didn’t mean …”
“You know what’s funny?” I cut in. “Asian Americans can enjoy Mexican food. Wealthy people can enjoy street tacos. And believe it or not, people who drop a thousand dollars a night on a LuxeLife hotel still want to know where the locals eat.”
clap … clap … clap
All eyes turned toward the head of the table, where Victoria executed a movie climax worthy slow clap. Or she was summoning the security guards to throw me down the trashchute. Or possibly trying to operate one of those clap activated nightlights they hawk on late-night TV.
Victoria wagged her finger at me. “I like this girl, Marcus. I like hera lot. She’s got grit.”
The executive who’d questioned my background looked like he wanted to melt into his expensive chair. Parker did a little fist bump with himself.
