Arthur Hailey - Wheels

By May-June, decisions had to be firm so that the agency could do its job; therefore, auto company people began making up their minds because they could read a calendar too. This was also the time that the Detroit high brass came into the picture, and they made final decisions about advertising, whether talented in that particular direction or not.

What bothered Barbara most - and others too, she discovered later - was the appalling waste of time, talent, people, money, the exercise in nothingness. And, from talking with people in other agencies, she knew that the same process was true of all Big Three companies. It was as if the auto industry, normally so time-and-motion conscious and critical of bureaucracy outside, had created its own fat-waxing bureaucracy within.

She had once asked: Did any of the original ideas, the really good ones, ever get reinstated? The answer was: No, because you can't accept in June what you rejected last November. It would be embarrassing to auto company people. That kind of thing could easily cost a man - perhaps a good friend to the agency - his job.

"Thank you, Barbara." Keith Yates-Brown had smoothly taken charge.

"Well, J.P., we realize we still have a long way to go." The management supervisor's smile was warm and genial, his tone just the right degree apologetic.

"You sure do," J. P. Underwood said. He pushed his chair back from the table.

Barbara asked him, "Was there nothing you liked? Absolutely nothing at all?"

Yates-Brown swung his head toward her sharply and she knew she was out of line. Clients were not supposed to be harassed that way, but Underwood's brusque superiority had needled her. She thought, even now, of some of the talented youngsters in the agency whose imaginative work, as well as her own, had just gone down the drain. Maybe what had been produced so far wasn't the ultimate answer to Orion needs, but neither did it rate a graceless dismissal.

"Now, Barbara," Yates-Brown said, "no one mentioned not liking anything." The agency supervisor was still suave and charming, but she sensed steel beneath his words. If he wanted to, Yates-Brown, essentially a salesman who hardly ever had an original idea himself, could squash creative people in the agency beneath his elegant alligator shoes. He went on, "However, we'd be less than professional if we failed to agree that we have not yet caught the true Orion spirit. It's a wonderful spirit, J.P. You've given us one of the great cars of history to work with." He made it sound as if the ad manager had designed the Orion singlehanded.

Barbara felt slightly sick. She caught Teddy Osch's eye. Barely perceptibly, the creative director shook his head.

"I'll say this," J. P. Underwood volunteered. His tone was friendlier.

For several years previously he had been merely a junior at this table; perhaps the newness of his job, his own insecurity, had made him curt a moment earlier. "I think we've just seen one of the finest rustle piles we ever had."

There was a pained silence through the room. Even Keith Yates-Brown betrayed a flicker of shocked surprise. Clumsily, illogically, the company ad man had stomped on their agreed pretense, revealing the elaborate charade for what it was. On the one hand - automatic dismissal of everything submitted; an instant later, fulsome praise. But nothing would be changed. Barbara was an old enough hand to know that.

So was Keith Yates-Brown. He recovered quickly.

"That's generous of you, J.P. Damn generous! I speak for us all on the agency side when I tell you we're grateful for your encouragement and assure you that next time around we'll be even more effective." The management supervisor was standing now; the others followed his example.

He turned to Osch. "Isn't that so, Teddy?"

The creative chief nodded with a wry smile. "We do our best."

As the meeting broke up, Yates-Brown and Underwood preceded the others to the door.

Underwood asked, "Did somebody get on the ball about theater tickets?"

Barbara, close behind, had heard the ad manager ask earlier for a block of six seats to a Neil Simon comedy for which tickets, even through scalpers, were almost impossible to get.

The agency supervisor guffawed genially. "Did you ever doubt me?" He draped an arm companionably around the other's shoulders. "Sure we have them, J.P. You picked the toughest ticket in town, but for you we pulled every string. They're being sent to our lunch table at the Waldorf. Is that okay?"

"That's okay."

Yates-Brown lowered his voice. "And let me know where your party would like dinner. We'll take care of the reservation."

And the bill, and all tips, Barbara thought. As for the theater tickets, she imagined Yates-Brown must have paid fifty dollars a seat, but the agency would recoup that, along with other expenses, a thousandfold through Orion advertising.

On some occasions when clients were taken to lunch by agency executives, people from creative side were invited along. Today, for reasons of his own, Yates-Brown had decided against this. Barbara was relieved.

While the agency executive - J. P. Underwood group was no doubt heading for the Waldorf, she walked, with Teddy Osch and Nigel Knox, the other creative staffer who had been at the client meeting, a few blocks uptown on Third Avenue. Their destination was Joe & Rose, an obscure but first-rate bistro, populated at lunchtime by advertising people from big agencies in the neighborhood. Nigel Knox, who was an effeminate young man, normally grated on Barbara, but since his work and ideas had been rejected too, she regarded him more sympathetically than usual.

Teddy Osch led the way, under a faded red awning, into the restaurant's unpretentious interior. En route, no one had said more than a word or two. Now, on being shown to a table in a small rear room reserved for habituates, Osch silently raised three fingers. Moments later three martinis in chilled glasses were placed before them.

"I'm not going to do anything stupid like cry," Barbara said, "and I won't get drunk because you always feel so awful after. But if you both don't mind, I intend to get moderately loaded." She downed the martini.

"I'd like another, please."

Osch beckoned a waiter. "Make it three."

"Teddy," Barbara said, "how the hell do you stand it?"

Osch passed a hand pensively across his baldness. "The first twenty years are hardest. After that, when you've seen a dozen J. P. Underwoods come and go . . ."

Nigel Knox exploded as if he had been bottling up a protest. "He's a beastly person. I tried to like him, but I couldn't possibly."

"Oh shut up, Nigel," Barbara said.

Osch continued, "The trick is to remind yourself that the pay is good, and most times - except today - I like the work. There isn't a business more exciting. I'll tell you something else: No matter how well they've built the Orion, if it's a success, and sells, it'll be because of us and advertising. They know it; we know it. So what else matters?"

"Keith Yates-Brown matters," Barbara said. "And he makes me sick."

Nigel Knox mimicked in a high-pitched voice, "That's generous of you, J.P. Damn generous! Now I'm going to lie down, J.P., and I hope you'll pee all over me."

Knox giggled. For the first time since this morning's meeting, Barbara laughed.

Teddy Osch glared at them both. "Keith Yates-Brown is my meal ticket and yours, and let's none of us forget it. Sure, I couldn't do what he does - keep snugged up to Underwood's and other people's anuses and look like I enjoyed it, but it's a part of this business which somebody has to take care of, so why fault him for a thorough job? Right now, and plenty of other times while we're doing the creative bit, which we like, Yates-Brown is in bed with the client, stroking whatever's necessary to keep him warm and happy, and telling him about us, how great we are. And if you'd ever been in an agency which lost an automotive account, you'd know why I'm glad he is."