A Consult

LaVieEnRose

I'd been working at Kinetic for all of six weeks when Barnaby came up to me and said, "Sonia. I need you to take the lead on the mock-ups for the Levinson campaign."

Hang on. Remember how I said I'd been here six weeks? "I thought Evan was on that campaign." I didn't actually know Evan very well; he'd been on some kind of leave and had only come in for a few afternoons since I'd been hired, but everyone talked about him with some pretty intense reverence, and I'd seen a few campaigns he'd worked on and they were really good.

"That was when Levinson wasn't due for ten more weeks," Barnaby said. "It's moved up, it's due tomorrow, and Evan isn't back from leave until--" 

"I'm sorry, did you just say tomorrow?" 

He gave me a look. "I've seen your resume. Don't act like you haven't done bigger work with more pressure."

"This is pretty big damn work." And pretty big damn pressure.

"Yes. It's one of our most lucrative campaigns, and it goes right up to Brian." So not just one of the partners, oh no, Brian Kinney, Kinetik himself. Barnaby clapped me on the shoulder. "I'll get you the file. Don't screw it up."

So I set aside everything else I was working on and basically any other thought I had in my entire life and focused completely on this campaign. It was for sneakers, nothing too exciting or original, but I somehow had to make it seem exciting and original, so...great. I took about an hour to draw out a mock-up of an ad with three male models and, after getting Barnaby's seal of approval, ran it up to Kinney.

His assistant wasn't at her desk, so I went straight in. Brian himself was on the phone and didn't even glance up when I entered, but there was another guy in there, sitting on the couch, blond, slight, good-looking. He raised his eyebrows at me.

I held up the mock-up, and he nodded and reached out his hand for it. 

"Uh...I'm supposed to bring it straight to Kinney." 

"To Kinney?" he said, and I nodded. "I'm Kinney for the time being. Let me see." He had a stack of files on the table in front of him, so it seemed somewhat legit, even if he was wearing jeans and a t-shirt and lounged on the couch like he owned the place. With a dog at his feet.

I handed him the mock-up and pulled a chair up to the other side of the coffee table. 

He opened the folder. "I'm Deaf, by the way, so don't try talking to me while I'm looking at this."

This wasn't all that surprising; Kinney's assistant is Deaf, after all, so I knew that Brian knew sign language. It didn't shock me that there'd be another Deaf person working here. Maybe he was some kind of temp, filling in for Emily.

He gave my sketch a long look and said, "This won't work."

"We can't get the models?" I said.

"No idea what you're saying. See, look at this." He set the drawing on the table and turned it around to face me. "His feet wouldn't be in the shot. See where you have this one's knee? The bottom of his leg wouldn't bend like that, it would take up space over here and crowd the other one out of the shot." 

"Okay, they don't have to pose exactly how I--"

"Still can't read lips. What you should do is have one of them..." He put his foot up on the coffee table, but it seemed difficult for him, maybe painful, like his leg didn't bend easily. "Hmm." He waved for Brian's attention and signed something, and Brian put his foot up on the desk without pausing in his phone conversation. 

Justin said, "That's how you should do it. The way his knee cocks out a little naturally, it'll highlight the shape of the top of the shoe."

I blinked. "Okay. I really think I should get Kinney's perspective before I redraw the entire--" 

"Again, not getting a word." He tapped the page. "Redraw it and bring it back up. By noon if you can."

I must have just gaped at him, but he gave me a smile and went back to the book he was reading, and Kinney was still on the phone, so I just...left, fuming internally and wondering what the fuck just happened.

"What did he say?" Barnaby asked me when I got back downstairs. 

"I didn't even get to him," I said. "His new assistant or whoever gatekeeped me and told me to make all these changes. Who the fuck is this guy?"

"What guy?"

"I don't know, he was in Kinney's office. Blond, Deaf."

Barnaby's eyes widened. "Justin's here?" He tapped next to his mouth when he said his name.

"I guess?"

Barnaby pinched the bridge of his nose. "That's Brian's husband."

"Okay, so why is Brian's husband trying to make artistic decisions?"

"Justin," Barnaby said, doing the mouth thing again. "Justin Taylor."

"Justin..."

"Yes."

"Justin Taylor as in--" As in Art Forum, New York Magazine, and the New York Times Art and Design section. 

"That's the one." 

Christ, talk about a power couple.

"He's a brilliant artist and he's been married to our top advertising executive for ten years," Barnaby said. "He comes in every once in a while and offers some advice when art comes through the door. Word to the wise? Take it. If anyone knows what Kinney's looking for, it's him." 

"Yeah, no shit. Okay."

So I sat back down at my desk and tried to remember the stuff Justin had told me that I hadn't really been paying attention to at the time, and I redrew the ad. I got Barnaby's okay, yet again, but this time he said, "Run it by Justin."

"You know I don't know sign language, right?"

"There's an interpreter around," he said, which was very helpful, thank you, so I just went back up to Brian's office. Emily was at her desk this time, and I could see through the glass doors of Kinney's office that Justin wasn't in there, just Brian reading something on his computer screen. I could bring this straight to him...

I sighed and said, "I'm looking for Justin?" to Emily. I tapped next to my mouth like Barnaby had.

She raised an eyebrow and did the same thing, mouthing, "Justin?"

"Yeah."

She gave me a weird look but eventually shrugged. She signed something that looked like snapping a stick in half and then moved her hands like walls.

"Break room?" I said.

She gave me a thumbs up.

"Okay. Thank you."

I walked down the hallway past the accounting department to the break room. Justin was standing at the microwave with his back to me. 

I said, "Justin?" rolled my eyes at myself, and then went over and tapped him on the shoulder. 

He turned around and said, "Oh, good, another draft?"

"Yeah." I handed him the file and watched him spread it out over the table. It was kind of surreal that Justin Taylor was looking over my work. That I was this close to him. That I just touched him. Also now that I was standing over his shoulder I could hear this somewhat alarming wheeze every time he breathed, and I wondered if he knew he was doing it.

"This is really good," he said. He looked at the pencil in my hand. "Can I...?"

I gave it to him, and he immediately erased and sketched and erased and sketched and I just stood there, marveling at the way lines poured out of his fingers like there wasn't even a pencil there. I love watching people draw who can really draw, and God, he could. I had an art teacher explain to me once that the difference between an artist and a regular person is that an artist sees everything in lines, and that's why they can translate it to paper. Justin drew the lines like he could feel them.

"So something like this," Justin said, and there it was, my idea but better in just about every single fucking way. 

"You're kind of amazing," I said, and I could tell by the way he watched my lips that he didn't quite get what I was saying. All's the better. How embarrassing. I pointed at the door to the break room and said, "I'm going to go color this."

"You're gonna go do something! Okay! Good luck!" He grinned at me, and wow, that smile was just as impressive as the drawing.

Okay, way to go, Kinney.

I went downstairs to polish and color the mock-up, and finally, finally, I had something I felt confident in bringing up to Kinney. I grabbed an iPad with the proof on it so I could show Brian a few font options and ran it back upstairs, where I practically collided with Kinney in the hallway before I made it to his office. He was talking to Cynthia, one of the other partners, and he seemed stressed.

"--all over my ass about getting this in, like he didn't just fucking change the deadline this morning, I'm supposed to be at the fucking hospital by now--" 

Cynthia nodded to me, and Brian stopped and turned to me.

"You're Sonia, right?" he said.

"I am."

"You have the Levinson proofs? Fucking pricks." 

"Right here."

He took the iPad from me and immediately his lips twitched into half of a smile. "I see you've met my husband."

"He's incredible."

"Mmhmm." He was about to say something else, but his eyes shifted next to me when Emily came up beside me and started signing so fast I couldn't believe anyone could understand it. Brian said something to her and then looked back to me. "Have to deal with a mess in payroll. Leave this on my desk and I'll take a closer look at it after. Do not bother Justin." He turned to Cynthia againn. "Did the cleaning crew fucking come last night? He's having another goddamn asthma attack."

Cynthia signed something to Emily, who signed something to Brian, and then they were all overlapping and talking over each other and it seemed like my cue to leave. I went down the hall to Kinney's office, breezing past Emily's obviously empty desk. Justin was on the couch again. I have asthma, and the way he was breathing made my chest ache with sympathy. He had a nebulizer mouthpiece in his hand, which he tried to put down when I came in, but I said, "Don't you dare," and I could tell from his rueful smile that he understood. "Are you okay?" 

He reached for the iPad.

I said, "Kinney said--"

He rolled his eyes and held his hand out more insistently, so I gave it to him. He held the mouthpiece between his teeth and scrolled through the mock-ups I'd made, then shook his head. "Do you have..." he stopped and wheezed. "A blank one?"

I nodded. "Keep scrolling. Are you sure you're--"

"Oh, here, okay," he said, and then he got to work messing around with the font while I stood there awkwardly and listened to him struggle to breathe. He barely seemed to notice, except when he turned to the side to cough harshly into his elbow. Eventually he handed the iPad back, with a new typeface and font placement, and...yep, this was perfect.

"Thank you," I said, and he nodded and smiled. I went to leave the iPad on Kinney's desk, but before I could leave, Brian himself walked in. He paid no attention to me and immediately started signing to Justin, asking him questions, judging by his facial expressions.

"I'm o..." Justin said, but then stopped and wheezed out a breath, and Kinney's eyes got a little wide. He sat down next to Justin on the couch, signed something to him, and pressed a hand to his chest. Justin shook his head.

"Can I do anything?" I said. 

Kinney said, "This actually isn't that bad."

"Oh."

"Pretty much," he said, with a sigh, signing while he spoke. "We're working on it." He stood up and came over to his desk and looked at the iPad. "Wow, so am I just giving Justin your salary today, or..."

"I am very grateful. Buying him flowers."

Brian snorted and gestured to his face. "Not flowers."

"Oh. Maybe not."

"I barely did...hh. Anything," Justin contributed from the couch.

"You shut your mouth and breathe," Brian said. He turned to me. "However much you had to do with it, this is good. Thanks for rushing."

"Sure. And um..." I glanced at Justin.

"Like this," Brian said, touching his hand to his chin and bringing it out. I copied it at Justin, who smiled. "You should see what he can do when he can breathe," Brian said. 

"I have, actually. I saw his show a few months ago at the Weller gallery. I had no idea he was your husband." 

I saw a warmth in Kinney I hadn't seen before, and hadn't really been able to imagine before that moment. "It's very strange, I agree."

"You sure I can't get him anything?"

"Emily's on it," Brian said. "Go jump in on the Eriks campaign. Take it easy. You did good work today. I'm learning the value of not working yourself to the bone," he said, with a look over my shoulder at Justin.

"Sure. I'll bring up a mock-up in a few hours?"

He shook his head. "We're getting out of here. Put him to bed."

"I am relieved to hear that."

"Yeah, people generally are." He gave Justin a small smile. "No one lets you do anything, huh? Poor Sunshine."

"Fuck...you," he wheezed, but he was smiling. "I saved your ass today."

"Yeah, what else is new." He handed the iPad back to me and said, "Keep up the good work, you two."