I settle into an easy cross-legged pose in the dimly lit meditation room and try to let my mind drift, but moments from Saturday evening creep back in ... Keegan stretched out on the floor next to me, facing me and propped up on his elbow ... my feet in his lap as we watched the movie ... his expression when I admitted I used to have a crush on him ... the sheer ... what?
What was his expression?
Confusion? Yes. Definitely. But not just confusion. There was something else there as well, and it's driving me crazy that I can't tease it out.
I'm not great at reading people's emotions. Probably because I spend so much time in my own head. Even with the people I'm closest to, I have to consciously queue up my thoughts and words. That means that sometimes I miss things.
Which is how I feel about Saturday night. Like I got distracted and missed something important, and my creative mojo has been off ever since.
Surely I'll get a great idea for the ad if I just let my mind wander a bit. I try to think about how broad Reid's shoulders looked this morning. I try to picture him stalking across a field in the early morning mist, wearing a greatcoat, a la Mr. Darcy. I even try to imagine him wielding a lightsaber, dressed in black, like Kylo Ren.
But my mind won't settle. It just keeps coming back to my best friend, lying on the floor beside me in a show of solidarity, trying to help with my work, even though it's got to be boring AF to him. Trying to help, even though he hates floors, because ...
The idea hits—fully formed—like it's downloaded into my brain directly from the creative ether. My eyes pop open.
I stumble to my feet, heart pounding, only to stand there in the center of the small room, looking around frantically for a moment, until my gaze lands on my drawing tablet.
Thank God I brought it in with me.
I grab the pad and then sink back to the floor as I flip it open and slide the stylus out. I start sketching as soon as a blank page loads. It's all short lines and imperfect angles. The roughest of sketches as I chase the images down and force them onto the screen.
Twenty frantic minutes of drawing later, and I have enough of it down that I can show it to Teresa.
When she's not at her desk, I check the break room first. Eventually, I find her in the conference room where our meeting will be. It doesn't start for another twenty minutes, but I'm not surprised she's already there, getting her laptop hooked up to the projector. That's Teresa in a nutshell. Always prepared. Always one step ahead.
And I know she wants the Butler account as badly as I do. We aren't the only team who is pitching ideas today, but she and I both know we're the best team.
She glances up when I enter. “Good. You're here. I was afraid I was going to have to go pry you out of one of those meditation rooms.”
Forester+Blake is respectful of the creative process. I could spend all day in a meditation room and Matt, the VP of creatives, wouldn't say a word about it. Teresa, on the other hand, likes Tad and I to “be present” so we can function smoothly as a team. Which sometimes feels like code for “be available for me to boss around, even though I’m not technically your boss.”
“Meg, can you go sit in the back of the room and make sure the lighting is right on these slides?”
“Sure. But first, can I sh-sh-show you this new idea?”
“Can it wait?” She doesn't even look up.
Why does she always blow people off like this? It's like whatever's going on in Teresa-world is somehow more important than the rest of us. But I need for her to hear me out before this pitch, so I try again.
I smooth my ruffled feathers and try again gently.
“It's for the Butler pitch.” I offer, perhaps a little too timidly.
This time she arches an eyebrow. “The Butler pitch is in five minutes.”
I look down at my watch. “Fifteen.” I hold out my tablet to her. “And you and I both know what we have isn't good enough.”
Teresa's gaze flickers over the image dismissively, and then she rolls her eyes. “Seriously, Meg? Now? Even if this brainstorm of yours is better than what we've been working on, we don't have time to rework the pitch.”
“Just hear me out.” I pause, queue my thoughts, and measure my words. “We're not pitching to Butler until Monday. That's plenty of time to rework the final pitch. Besides, w-w-what we've got now is hackneyed. Y-you said so yourself yesterday. Frazzled mom steam-cleaning? That's been done. This new idea is s-s—”
“Is sexy. Yes, I know. Meg, all your ideas are sexy, but we're pitching an ad for a steam cleaner. I just don't see how that can be sexy.”
“Just look at it. Please.”
Teresa sighs, but takes the tablet from me. “I'll glance through it.”
A few minutes later, while we're waiting for upper management to show up—i.e. Reid, Matt, and Pete, Teresa's boss—I watch as Teresa flips through the sketches I made just a few minutes ago. Yeah, they're a little primitive, a little rough, but they're good.
