Just like when Jackie called, I contemplate ignoring it, but there’s always a small chance that there’s a real issue I’ll need to sort out, so I pick up the phone.
“Jeff,” I say, balancing the cell between my shoulder and ear as I make my way to the kitchen for water. He hates when I call him Jeff, usually correcting me quickly, so I can tell he’s extra pissy when he doesn’t.
“Why am I hearing that you just threatened to blacklistFan Magazine?” he asks as I reach up for a glass in one of the cabinets in order to keep myself calm and steady.
“Because I just threatened to blacklistFan Magazine,” I explain before putting my glass beneath the faucet and filling it. Once that’s done, I lean back onto the counter and focus on the call.
“You can’t do that, Leo.” I shrug, even though he can’t see it, and take a long sip before responding.
“Strange, I believe I just did. His employee touched one of my clients. I told Jackson he needs to let him go, or I’m blacklisting the entire paper.” A heavy sigh, one I’ve heard more and more over the years, leaves Jefferson’s lips.
There was a time when I was Jefferson’s star employee, the one he would point to in meetings to show what people should strive for, the one he promised partnership and cooperation with. There was a time when I didn’t absolutely despise Jefferson Sterns, but those days are long gone
Now we tolerate each other, stuck in a stalemate neither of us can leave without imploding.
“What happens if they keep him around?”
“Then I blacklist him, Jefferson,” I say as if he’s a child who doesn’t understand the basics.
“You can’t blacklist one of the most popular tabloids in the country, Leo.”
“I can, and if they continue to work with paparazzi who feel it’s acceptable to lay hands on my clients, I will, in fact, be doing that.”
“We need them, Leo.”
That right there is why his firm, Perfect Image, will fail the moment I leave this company. He gives the media, the tabloids, the press far too much power, too much sway. His need to keep them on his good side, rather than the other way around, is part of what’s turned his morals inside out and made him someone I despise being attached to.
“There are a dozen other tabloids desperate for exclusive information on our top clients. I’m not worried about this one.”
“You’ve fucking lost it. I knew it when you said you were going to disappear, but now it’s affecting my bottom line. I was speaking with Jackie, and she thinks you’re getting a bit soft. Your contract with Willa is up soon, and?—”
“Now, Jefferson, I would be really careful of any threats you might want to throw my way,” I say, standing up straighter now. This has been coming for some time; we both know it, but I’ve been holding it close to my chest.
The truth is, Jefferson knows I want out.
I joined Perfect Image as a publicist ten years ago, fresh out of school and eager to prove myself. I started with clients no one else wanted, proved myself, built my client list, and brought in the firm’s highest earners, including Willa Stone and Altas Oaks. While Jefferson does have some big names, we both know that the ones I have and the contacts I have are much more lucrative for the firm than anyone he has ever brought in. When I leave, the business will probably crumble in the years that follow.
We are fully aware know the only reason I stay is I have an iron-clad non-compete clause in my contract barring me from quitting and starting a business with any clients who are on current contracts with Perfect Image, and the only reason he doesn’t fire me is because if he does, that same contract states that if I’m fired outside of the well-laid out terms of stealing, breaking my contract, or sabotaging the company, that non-compete is null and void. And more importantly, Jefferson knows that I won’t do anything that could risk my clients’ reputations by leaving their publicity solely to Jefferson.
“Now, I’ve got things to do,” I lie. “And I would like to do them. If you have any other questions about my business or my clients, I might suggest simply not worrying about them and instead focusing on getting some high-earning clients of your own. I know that’s a foreign concept for you, but maybe if you had some, you wouldn’t have to use my clients to fix yours.”
“Oh, fuck off—” he starts, but before he can say anything else, I hang up, then turn my phone to do not disturb, fighting the urge to throw it at the wall.
Then I step back outside, the sky dark now, and try to take a few deep, calming breaths to slow my heart rate and center myself. Days like this only cement the fact that I need to follow the exit plan I’ve laid out, take the time out here in Holly Ridge to find myself, and figure out what’s next. Figure out who I am—what I want to be—without work. I’ve spent so much of my life hustling, building the publicity firm I love with everything I have, but every day I realize it brings me more stress than joy.
It started last November while trying to find a solution for a client of Jefferson’s who was accused of domestic abuse. I was on the phone with him, arguing that we should drop the client because the evidence was substantial, and he refused. After some choice words, I hung up on him. As I stewed over the bleak outlook of my career and the fact that I was essentiallytied to this sinking ship with no other option in sight, my chest tightened, and I couldn’t breathe. Panic shot through me, and I was sure that was it. My assistant later told me that all the color had left my face, and she called an ambulance before saying a single word to me.
In that moment, I was sure I was having a heart attack just like my father. My father, who worked his entire life to give my mother and me everything we needed and wanted, only to die of a heart attack when I was twenty. Worked himself to death, my mother loves to say.
As the ambulance sped through traffic, as the EMTs murmured to one another about blood pressure and radioed in words and numbers that meant nothing to me, all I could think waswhat was I leaving behind?
My father left behind a legacy. A construction company co-owned by his brother that, to this day, still keeps my mother’s bills paid. A wife who loved him so much, she never moved on, never dated again. A son. A family.
In contrast, while I have a handful of friends and acquaintances, who in this world would truly miss me? Sure, a headshot of me smiling would be on some montage of people lost over the last year during an awards show, and people would clap, and there would be some social media posts, but other than that. Nothing.
I’d be leaving nothing. I’ve worked myself to the bone, but that was all I had.
Thankfully, a few hours later, I learned that I wasn’t having a heart attack: I was having a panic attack, spurred by the stress of my job. Although I was somewhat embarrassed, a doctor sat me down to tell me it was a sign, and that if I continued down the path I was going on, I would wind up here with a real heart attack, considering my family history.
