Jonathan Dee - Palladio

Over the next three weeks, Osbourne never once appeared in the CLO offices. He left no procedural instructions for any of the creative teams and no word on how anyone might get in touch with him. The portion of the staff charged with saving the Doucette account was near mutiny. Dale and Andrea were delegated to go to Canning’s office and demand that the pitch be handed over to someone else. Canning was a man of strong, ephemeral passions, and this year it was fishing; fly rods leaned against the glass wall behind his desk, through which the bend of the Hudson just beyond the George Washington Bridge was barely visible. Slumped at his desk, speaking with his eyes closed and his fingers massaging his forehead, Canning told them wearily that since Mal Osbourne was technically a full partner, he couldn’t be removed from a particular project if he didn’t want to go, any more than Osbourne could kick Canning off an account if he had a mind to. All Canning could do was to repeat Osbourne’s assurance that he would be responsible for the final presentation in Philadelphia — which did, yes, include his actually showing up for it. Canning had Mal’s email address, and he promised to send another desperate message, though if the response to his prior desperate messages was anything to go by, he said, he might as well put it in a bottle and drop it in the cyber-sea.

The teams were more dejected than ever when this conversation was relayed to them. Something in the tone of Canning’s promised message to his partner must have changed, though, for the next morning there were email messages for all of them, informing them of a specific date on which a messenger would appear at CLO to pick up all their final storyboards, artwork, magazine copy, videotapes, and market analyses, and would take these packages to Osbourne for his final selection.

John, who had gradually forgotten about pleasing the client in his pursuit of the enigma of what might please Osbourne, gave in at least in part to Roman’s vision of the anti-campaign: he hired a photographer (“Too bad we can’t get Diane Arbus,” Roman said), and asked bemused casting directors to send over glossies of the lumpiest, most unglamorous, least photogenic people they could find. “They don’t even have to be clients,” John said. “Maybe there’s someone who works in your office …” John and Roman picked eight photos and then staged and filmed a fashion show, laying in music and the sound of wild applause for the dummy TV spot to be used in the pitch, if their idea was the one Osbourne chose in the end. Osbourne sent no further word. On the appointed day, the four teams came out to the lobby one by one with their packaged materials, and waited there, staring at the elevator door, unconvinced that the promised messenger would actually arrive. At around four o’clock he came, a teenager with a hand truck: he gathered up the bulky packages and immediately got back into the elevator, looking nervously over his shoulder at the eight strangers glaring at him resentfully, jealously. As soon as the door closed again, Roman bolted to the receptionist’s desk and grabbed the receipt out of her hand. It had no destination address.

That was on a Friday. A week later, with the pitch in Philadelphia just three days away, Osbourne had not been in touch. Anxiety in the office had given way to gallows humor as the eight staffers faced the prospect of traveling together to Philadelphia and standing helplessly before the Doucette search committee with absolutely nothing to say. Roman bought one of those old desktop wooden labyrinths, with a marble one maneuvered around a series of holes, at a vintage toy store and played with it at his desk all day long. At two o’clock he announced that he couldn’t take it anymore and went home for the weekend. So John was alone in their office when the phone rang.

“John!” The voice was so lively and forthcoming that he didn’t recognize it right away. “How have you been? It’s Mal Osbourne.”

John glanced through the open office door to the empty hallway. “Fine, thank you,” he said. “I … well, how are you, sir?”

Osbourne laughed. “I can really hear the South in your voice, on the phone,” he said. “Listen, I won’t keep you, here’s why I’m calling: I’m driving down to Philadelphia for the thing on Monday, and I wanted to know if you needed a ride down.”

John swallowed. “Well,” he said, “that’s extremely kind of you. But the others are going down together, on the Metroliner, including my partner, and I already made plans to meet them. I don’t …”

“Sorry?” Osbourne said.

“I don’t think it would look right, for me to cancel on them, and arrive with you. I mean thank you for the offer, I’m sure I would prefer it. But just in terms of … decorum.”

“Ah,” Osbourne said. He sounded embarrassed. “You’re probably right. I hadn’t even thought about it. You’re right. Very thoughtful of you, very …Well, I guess I’ll see you at the Nikko on Monday then.”

“Sir?” John blurted out.

“Sir?” Osbourne repeated, with gentle mockery. Perhaps he was one of those people who were most themselves on the telephone, like Glenn Gould. “Mal.”

“Mal, I just wanted to ask quickly, while I had you on the phone, if you, which of the approaches, the four approaches, you decided to go with for Doucette.”

“Oh, yes, of course,” Osbourne said. “Right. None of them.”

“None of them?”

“That’s right. Well, see you Monday then? Have a good weekend.”

Within a minute John realized that he had made a mistake by even asking: for, no matter what the answer had been, he would now have to ride with his seven colleagues on the train to Philadelphia knowing something they didn’t know. He couldn’t tell them what he had learned without explaining how he had come to learn it, and in the process estranging himself from their trust, through no real fault of his own.

They made the trip on the crowded Metroliner, sitting together in two adjacent double seats, empty-handed, plotting revenge for what they saw as their impending humiliation. Mick, a bald copywriter who had been at CLO longer than any of them — his work for Doucette had actually won a Clio three years ago — showed them a list he had made over the weekend of the most expensive restaurants in Philadelphia, where they might all go for an obscene blowout lunch on the company dime. The meeting was scheduled for 11 a.m., but since none of them had anything to say, they didn’t imagine that making a noon lunch reservation would present any problem.

A Daily Event Schedule in the lobby of the Nikko directed them to a tenth-floor conference room. It was ten-thirty when they pushed open the door and saw Osbourne standing in the center of the white, thickly carpeted room, at the head of a rectangular conference table. Behind him were arrayed four large easels, each covered by a black cloth. Osbourne wore black jeans above a shiny pair of cowboy boots, a blue silk shirt, and the same light floral tie he had worn that summer morning in Soho with John. He had shaved off his beard and mustache.

“Welcome, everybody!” he said brightly; and then, incredibly, “John! Good to see you again!”

“Mr Osbourne,” John said, horrified.

“Will you take care of the introductions?” Osbourne said.

Dry-mouthed, John introduced his seven colleagues to their boss, each of whom was staring at John in wary amazement.

“I’d like you all to sit over here, on either side of me,” Osbourne said, pointing to the side of the table opposite the windows. “We have a few minutes before the Doucette people arrive, so there’s coffee and bagels over in the corner if you like.” John wouldn’t have believed, from their only other encounter, that Osbourne had it in him to be so upbeat, so socially attentive. “Roman Gagliardi,” Osbourne said meditatively, and Roman, who was already seated with his head in his hands, looked up at him warily. “You’re the guy who did those excellent spots for Fiat, do I remember that right?”