C. Caulfield:No one ever really saw me as smart. Even Lynton, he didn’t think I was all that smart, not at first.
Durant:You seem very smart to me. I think you must be, to have been able to do what you did with Dennis Kirtenour.
C. Caulfield:::scoffs:: Well.
Durant:You must take comfort, in some way . . . in feeling special to Lynton. To someone with his reputation, particularly with women. It must feel good, to be the only one.
C. Caulfield:The only one what?
Durant:The only woman he treated as a true equal. He never conned you out of anything.
C. Caulfield:Didn’t he?:: long pause::
Durant:If you mean time with your daughters—well, from what I saw here today, it doesn’t seem to bother you that you’ve been away from them all this time.
C. Caulfield:::short, sardonic laugh:: If there’s one thing I learned from Lynton, it’s how toseem.
Durant:I beg your pardon?
C. Caulfield:But at the same time, he didn’t really teach me that. I think I had a knack for it, in a way. I’ve always been good at seeming all sorts of ways. Maybe that’s why he picked me, you know?
Durant:You’re saying that what you just did to those girls—
C. Caulfield:Oh, it’s “girls” now, is it? You almost sound like you really care about them.
Durant:You’re saying that was all some kind of con?
C. Caulfield:I’m saying . . . I’m saying I know who I am. I know what I’ve done. And I know my daughters are a lot better off without me.
:: recording stops::
Chapter 30
Adam
“There’s no way to do it in a podcast space.”
“I disagree. I think if we situate—”
In the second floor conference room of the Broadside office in Boston, my colleague Madhura—a senior producer with probably fifteen years of experience—cuts off my other colleague Cody—who only got hired six months before me—with a noise of strangled frustration.
“There’s no way tosituateit,” she says. “You needvideoto make it work. Pictures, at the very least.”
“It’ll drive traffic to the website,” Cody tries.
“Do you want to listen to a forty-minute podcast where someone’s telling you every two and a half minutes to check thewebsitefor the big reveal? There’s a reason HGTV exists! People don’t want interior design in theirearholes.”
“We could use chapter art,” someone volleys back, and Madhura—who is really mad, if she saidearholesin a meeting—groans quietly.
“Chapter art is an idea,” Cody says, absolutely clueless, and scribbles a note on his tablet.
Everyone around the table squirms in discomfort.
Everyone except me, that is.
It’s Tuesday afternoon, and Tuesdays at Broadside are “trend report” meetings. They used to be in the mornings, which everyone knows is better for meetings, but our CCO, Emma—that’s chief creative officer, a title Salem hates—likes “Tuesdays at Two.” We get email reminders on Mondays with a stylizedTin the body. Salem also hates those emails.
“Why don’t we take a step back, hmm? What else is still working?” says Emma, in her typically soothing voice.
