I go back to my work for a while, answering emails and checking in with my clients. Or at least, I try to. My focus keeps slipping, snagging on the quiet scratch of his pen against the glossy paper.
Clementine’s strategy seems to be working, an old client from Boston has emailed me with an update about her publishing career, and I field a few questions from other members of the firm who have questions about their own projects.
“Remy?”
I hold up one finger as I finish re-reading my email draft. Once I’ve hit send, I swivel my chair toward Owen. He’s finished signing his stack of photos.
“Alright.” I clasp my hands together. “One last thing.” I hand him the two stapled-together papers I’ve left sitting next to my keyboard. “I want you to go through this list of charitable programs. Comment on their socials and repost their information to your account.”
If he’s going to rebuild his image, it has to mean something. People can tell the difference between a performance and a pattern. This needs to look like the latter.
Owen wrinkles his nose. From his expression, you would think I handed him rotten garbage. “No.”
There it is. Resistance, immediate and instinctive. Not calculated, not strategic. Just a hard stop.
“No?” I repeat.
He sits back in his chair. He won’t touch the printout. “Fuck virtue signaling.”
I’m shocked that he even knows what that is. I drop the papers in front of him. “Look, I hear you. But I don’t think you appreciate how much influence you have over people. You have over six hundred thousand followers. Amplifying these causes on your platforms might not be the same as donating a hundred dollars to every one of them, but it might help them more in the long run.”
Owen is giving off majorI-want-to-flip-a-tablevibes. “So you want me to shout out a bunch of random charities—”
He hears noise where I see opportunity. That’s fine. It’s my job to bridge that gap, whether he likes it or not.
“They aren’t random,” I interrupt.
Owen scowls at me for a few more seconds. I stare right back, utterly nonplussed. Eventually, Owen huffs out a breath and plucks the printout off the desk. As soon as he starts reading, his expression softens.
“Oh,” he says. “I didn’t… okay.”
The change is immediate. Not dramatic, but real. Whatever he expected to see on that page, it wasn’t this.
Every charity I included on the list deals with some aspect of men’s mental health: therapy, anger management, counseling, and mentorship programs for boys. I didn’t pick them at random, and aside from the fact that it will look good for Owento support these causes, sharing resources for men’s mental health might actually help some of his followers in the long run.
I turn back to my computer, but before I delve into the next email, I notice movement in the corner of my eye. Owen has pulled out his wallet.
“What are you doing?” I ask.
Owen types in his card number. “Donating a hundred bucks.”
That’s not part of the plan. I didn’t ask for that. For a second, I just watch him, trying to decide if this is another performance or something else entirely.
“To which one?”
He nods to the paper. “All of ’em.”
“I said youdidn’thave to.”
“Might as well, while I’m at it.”
I watch him for a moment, bemused.
He flicks his eyes up from the screen. “What? It’s a good cause. Maybe I’ll inspire some of my followers to do the same.”
“I couldn’t agree more.” I get back to work, but it’s harder to focus than before. I keep checking in on Owen, who does exactly what I asked and more. I want to ask him why—surely he isn’t doing this to impress me? Maybe he wants to impress me, perhaps to show that he doesn’t need my services anymore? If that were the case, I’d expect him to make more of an effort to impress me.
I don’t understand Owen Rourke.
