“Yes?”
“These are beautiful pieces, and your talent is clear. But I think I speak for everyone when I say that what you’ve presented us with here is surprising, given the work we’re used to seeing on your website and social media.”
“Bill,” says Ivonne, her tone warning. But when she looks back at me and smiles, there’s a gentle encouragement there that seems condescending. “Go ahead and finish, Meg,” she says, as though the rest is a formality, or a generosity.She came all this way, her tone seems to say.
I look back and forth between them, and for a second my old instinct comes roaring back—to smooth this over, to placate. To continue on as though I haven’t noticed anything at all is uncomfortable here.
But I’m going to fight for this work.
I turn my head to the projector screen, feign a few seconds of contemplation, as if Bill has revealed a great mystery about my own work to me.
“Actually, that’s a great point, Bill. This is very different from what I’ve been doing with my custom planners. I’m known for . . . something more traditionally whimsical, you might mean?”
He tips his head in acknowledgment, and a few of his colleagues nod in agreement, too.
“I absolutely could have produced those kinds of treatments for you, and it would have fit in really nicely with your existing lines. But I think if you’re making an investment in creators, you want their lines to stand out from what you have. When Ivonne first called me for this opportunity, I studied what you have on the shelves, and it’s beautiful, and functional. And these days, it’s also the same kind of work you can see on hundreds of hand-lettering accounts all over social media, by amateurs and professionals alike. What was most exciting about this opportunity for me”—I break off, laughing a little at myself—“well, once I got over atinybit of creative block—was the thought that my version of a line could offer something new. Something that’s accessible to everyone, but also something that’s uniquely me. And since these lines are based on creator names, this seemed like the right direction to take.”
I take a breath when I finish, noticing that Bill doesn’t look all that impressed with my answer. Ivonne is making some notes, though whether that’s a good sign or not, I can’t quite tell. Some of the others at the table are looking again at the sketches, and I can only hope they’re seeing them with new eyes.
I get a few questions, most of which seem pretty generic, and a light round of applause. Ivonne stands to thank me, shaking my hand and telling me how glad she is I came in, how talented I am.
But she doesn’t say that I’ll be hearing from her.
It doesn’t truly hit me until I walk out—that heart-sinking feeling that it didn’t go well at all. They wanted flowers and fairies, more brush-lettering, moreBloom Where You’re Planteds. The other night, talking to Avery during that awkward run-in, I’d felt so sure of myself, so sure I was on the brink of something, so proud of the way I’d pushed myself to create something new, so pleased with the sketches I’d produced.
But now I feel close to the way I did in those moments right after—when I’d finally looked up at Reid and seen the expression on his face. It’s part disappointment, part foreboding. It’s the sense that I’ve read everything wrong, that I’ve misunderstood.
Make It Happyn didn’t want something new, something that required my creativity. All they wanted was more of the same, and I blew it.
I keep my head up as I walk to the hotel lobby, refusing to crumple, even though I’ve gotrealcrumply thoughts, my impending covering-the-rent problem being the most immediate. I’ll need to add planner clients, and soon. I’ll need to think about hours at the shop, maybe. It would help if Lark would want to move on the wall commissions, though God knows I’m not going to press it. I duck into a bathroom to change into flats before braving the trip home, and notice my hands shaking with adrenaline. It seems fair enough to break my promise to myself now, since the pitch is over. I root inside my bag for my phone.
As soon as I tap the home button, all I see is stacked notifications. Three voice mails, over a dozen texts.
All from Reid.
Reid, who knows where I’ve been this afternoon. Reid, who would never want to interrupt.
Immediately, I feel sick with worry.
And as soon as I start reading, I see I have every reason to.
This city loves a scandal.
And as scandals go, the Coster Capital investment securities fraud is a big one.
It all started to unravel this morning, apparently. 9:36 a.m., if you wanted to be precise about it, and the newspapers, at least about this, certainly seem to want to be. That’s when the FBI, along with members of the New York City Business Integrity Commission, entered the building where Reid has been employed for the last six years. Within two hours, they had seized every single computer from the company’s three-floor office space. They had also boxed up every single piece of paper in Alistair Coster’s office, as well as every single piece of paper in the office of his long-serving assistant. They had taken photographs; they had posted notices to the office’s sleek double-entry glass doors. For all of that time, Mr. Coster—one of the city’s most successful businessmen and one of its most generous philanthropists—had been allowed to wait in a conference room with two FBI agents, so long as he did not attempt interactions with any of his employees.
And then he was marched, in handcuffs, out the front doors, only a few steps away from where I’d stood two nights prior.
Where I’d stood talking to his daughter.
It isn’t the first time, of course, that some high-flier finance guy in Manhattan has gone down for fraud. In fact, I’m pretty sure it isn’t even the first time this year. But the Coster story has a lot to recommend it, even for people who don’t know anything about the numbers, even for people who find it difficult to understand the complicated financial scheme that’s apparently been defrauding investors for over a decade, lining the Coster family pockets in the meantime.
No, you could get interested in the Coster scandal even if you don’t know what “futures” are, even if you’ve never heard of “blue chip” stocks, even if your financial experience is limited to balancing your own checkbook.
You could get interested because of Reid Sutherland.
His name is everywhere, and not just on my phone.
