She shrugs limply. “When am I not?” she counters, setting her drink down.
Okay. True. “Do you want to talk about it?”
The only response I get is her deadpan expression that says,Do I look like I want to talk about it?
So, I move on. “Do you remember when I went to the semi-formal dance in middle school with the new kid from my grade?” I ask her, folding my straw wrapper into an accordion.
She thinks about it for a second. “Jason? Is he the one who made you cry in the bathroom when he danced with that mean girl who bullied everyone?”
I nod. “That’s him.”
“What about that douche?”
I see she still hasn’t forgiven him for hurting me. That’s sort of sweet. “You told me to kill him with kindness—”
“No,” she cuts me off. “I told you to fill his locker with garbage and dirty gym socks, and you told me you weren’t doing that.”
I snort. “Okay, butafterthat, you told me the second-best option was to kill him with kindness. So, I was always nice to him. And he eventually apologized for ditching me for Marni and asked to be friends.”
Kourtney sighs. “I still can’t believe you agreed to that. He was a loser.”
“We were twelve,” I remind her.
She doesn’t reply.
“Anyway,” I go on, “I have a work thing that I need advice on. Because I don’t know if killing him with kindness will work. Our client is…” An asshole. Dickhead. Douchebag. All of the above. I filter those names out. “…stubborn.”
“Who is it?”
I give her a look. “You know I can’t tell you that. I signed an NDA.”
“Celeb,” she theorizes. “Cocky, probably. Let me guess. He’s either in a cheating scandal, a paternity lawsuit, or hit someone he shouldn’t have and is facing charges.”
I blink at my older sister and her dry delivery. I can speak about the case hypothetically as long as I’m not naming namesthat would give his identity away. “To my knowledge, he hasn’t fathered anyone or hit anybody.”
She hums. “Cheater. Got it. Okay, so he’s under fire for a cheating scandal, and you need to boost him back up. Don’t you just have to make up stories that put him in a good light? You don’t have to pretend to be nice to him.”
I wish it were that easy. “For me to figure out how to put him in a good light, I have to study him and learn his behaviors to train him on whatnotto do. My boss basically wants me to do PR101 with him until I can come up with a few stories that could change people’s perspective of him. Then there are the events he’d have to do to further that image, which can be hard if he’s not believable. And that’s onlyifhe agrees to go that far. Some people prefer press releases online or statements on their Instagrams with half-assed apologies that they don’t mean.”
My last meeting with Janel was not fun. Especially when she told me that Thomas Moskins wanted me to work with him one-on-one without Janel present. The only thing she’s concerned about is me calling him a dickhead, which is going to be hard. But I’ll manage.
Probably.
“I’m not sure what advice I can give you that you don’t already know,” Kourtney eventually tells me. “If you can’t kill him with kindness, then just make sure he knows his place since actual homicide is frowned upon.”
I glare. “That’s all you have?”
One of her shoulders lifts. “People who are used to getting their way aren’t going to change overnight, Winnie. I wish they did.” Her frown twitches her lips, and I wonder if she’s thinking about her husband. “But they all have soft spots and weaknesses. If he’s going to be a stubborn prick, make sure to knock him down a peg. Match his energy. If he didn’t need you, he wouldn’t be in your life. Right?”
I slowly nod. I’d basically said as much to him during our initial meeting. A great first impression, but clearly one that didn’t scare him away. “Yeah…”
“So keep reminding him of that,” she finishes. “You’re Winter-Freaking-Bronte. You’ve gone through too much to let some rich dick try to tear you down. You’re here to make his life better, not to let him make yours worse.”
Would he try making mine hell? That’s the last thing I need. “What if I fail?” The thought isn’t one I like having, but it’s a real possibility.
Sometimes, these people come to our agency, do well with the first few steps of our process, and then go right back down the rabbit hole that got them into trouble in the first place. Then all of our hard work goes down the drain because they don’t know how to be decent human beings.
Like Kourtney says, they don’t change overnight. Some don’t change at all.
