I lean back in my chair and tilt my head to the side, examining the artwork on my computer screen as Christina -- the creator of said artwork -- leans across the desk to point out a change she made in her most recent edit of the Uncork New York campaign.
“I decided to switch out the photo,” she says. “It’s pretty similar to the last one, but I thought this one was more candid. They really look like they’re having a good time.”
“They’re at a wine tasting; they should be having a good time,” I laugh. “Nice job. I love it.”
Christina settles back in her own chair, giving me a shy smile as she says, “Thanks.”
“Send it to Josh and tell him to have it printed. They’re scheduled to meet with us on Friday. I want you to sit in on the meeting, too, so they can know who the genius was who came up with the visual for this campaign.”
“I don’t know about genius.” Christina says, looking down and biting her lip.
“Don’t sell yourself short. You’re good. It’s why I brought you to New York.”
Truth be told, I’d been impatiently awaiting Christina’s college graduation ever since she started as an intern with Kinnetik in Pittsburgh two years ago. She was this quiet college girl who kept to herself, but her work truly spoke for itself, and she never shied away from a project, even when the entire art department was afraid to take it on. She was independent, good at what she did, always got the job done without needing anyone to hold her hand, and best of all, the clients loved her work. And in spite of her quiet disposition, she wasn’t afraid of Brian either, the way most of the art department is. She’d stand up for her work when needed, and Brian respected her for that; he still does. She more than proved her worth to the company during her year as an intern, so as soon as she got her diploma last December, I told Brian I wanted her here with us in New York, and he agreed.
“I still can’t believe I’m here in New York,” she says, shaking her head. “Living in Manhattan. I’ve lived my whole life in Pittsburgh, and I really thought I’d be stuck there forever.”
“Are you kidding? With your talent? You’re too good to be stuck in the Pitts.” I’d picked up Brian’s often-used moniker for our hometown years ago, because it seems to fit. Sometimes Pittsburgh really is the pits.
Yeah, my mom still lives there -- which might be its only saving grace at this point -- and I miss her, but I don’t think I’ll ever talk her into moving to New York because she likes having a driveway and a big backyard with a huge garden where she spends hours tending to flowers and vegetables every spring and summer. So I still go back occasionally to visit her, but other than that, there’s no big draw.
The dating scene seems to be one area in which Pittsburgh’s nickname fits particularly well, although even after more than a year in New York, I’m still not sure that the scene in the Big Apple is much better. The pool is much larger, sure, and a lot more diverse, but there are still plenty of jerks, deadbeats, and sleazeballs to be had. Not that I need a man to feel validated or worthy -- I don’t -- but I like to have fun and I like to meet people, and I like sex. And if I find the man of my dreams -- the one who doesn’t want kids, who just wants to travel and see the world and go to fancy restaurants and theatre shows and generally enjoy the finer things in life -- then that’s great. But even if he continues to elude me, I’m still going to have fun in the process.
Christina and I are going over a couple of things for some other campaigns we’re collaborating on, when we suddenly hear a lot of coughing coming from the direction of the semi-private bathroom that connects Brian’s office and mine. It’s the one he had put in when we first started leasing this office space -- with all of the adaptations he needed to make it functional for him -- and it just so happened that taking a little bit of space off of both of our office suites was the only way to make it work. But it had to be done, since he refuses to share a bathroom with the rest of the staff. (And honestly, I can understand why, even though we don’t really talk about things like that. Let’s just say that a girl can learn a lot through observation. And if one wants to learn much of anything about Brian Kinney, one has to be good at observation, because he’s not giving anything up easily. He never has.)
“Is he okay?” Christina asks, obviously concerned.
I roll my eyes and wait for the hacking to stop before I reply. “If you ask him, he’ll say he’s fine.”
That’s Brian’s standard answer for every situation that might make him seem vulnerable or, dare I say, human: “I’m fine.” Even when it’s painfully obvious that he’s not fine. And this is certainly one of those times. He’s been coughing all day, with our only reprieve being when he was out for a lunch meeting with a client, who probably wondered why he hadn’t canceled. But that’s just Brian -- when he gets sick, he spends the majority of his time either pissed off or trying to pretend that he isn’t sick. At this point, he’s spent the last two weeks oscillating between the two, and I’m about to lose my patience.
“Go ahead and send these image files over to Josh when you get back to your desk,” I tell Christina. “We’ll talk later about the meeting. In the meantime, I’m going to try to convince the boss to go home.”
Christina laughs as she gets up from her chair. “Good luck,” she says, smiling. Even in her short time with the company so far, it seems she already knows Brian pretty well.
“Oh, don’t worry. I have my ways.” I wink at her as she walks out of my office, and I hear Brian start up again not even a second later. I slip my stilettos back on my feet before I get up from my chair and straighten my skirt, then walk out of my office, throwing my shoulders back like I mean business, because I do. I stand at Brian’s office door while I wait for this particular coughing fit to end, and he’s gulping down water when I knock on the door frame to let him know I’m there. He motions for me to come in and sets the water bottle down on his desk.
“What’s up?” he asks, his voice hoarse, as I take a seat in one of the chairs that sits in front of his desk.
“You need to go home.” I don’t have time to waste, so I’m cutting right to the chase here.
“I stayed home for two days last week.”
“Yeah, and you’re still sick.”
“I’m fine.”
I fight the impulse to roll my eyes again, because I knew he was going to say that. “You’re not fine.”
“Blame Justin,” he says, not really arguing with my assertion that his previous statement was wholly untrue. “He works in a fucking germ farm.”
“Then how do you explain the fact that Justin isn’t sick, and you are? You could have picked this up anywhere -- a door handle, elevator buttons, the coffee shop you go to every morning. And as much as you’d like to believe you’re superhuman, you are every bit as susceptible to viruses as the rest of us mere mortals.”
“This has to be some kind of mutant superbug, I swear.” Brian stifles a cough and takes a swig of water. “I can’t get rid of it. Justin’s been making me green smoothies every morning, and I swear I’ve been eating my vegetables. I even bought a fucking $10 bottle of cold-pressed juice this morning instead of my latte. I’ve tried everything.”
“Everything except actually resting.” I know I sound bored, and it’s because I am -- I’ve heard every single one of Brian’s excuses before, a million times over. But I’m letting him get it out of his system before I pull out the big guns.
“I don’t have time. The deadline for this ad is Thursday.”
“And we’ve got it covered. It’s basically done -- it’s just finishing touches now. I can take care of making sure that gets done, so you can take care of you. Go home, sit in a hot shower for a while, and go to bed. Take a nap.”
Brian opens his mouth to protest, but quickly finds himself in the throes of yet another coughing fit. I purse my lips and look up at the ceiling, waiting for it to be over, and I know that I’m right. What he needs is to go home and rest. I’m worried about him, but I also know that Brian tends not to respond well to such emotions being openly directed at him, so I’m choosing to stick with my “bored-slash-annoyed” countenance for this particular encounter. When Brian finally manages to catch his breath, he drinks even more water, then tilts his head back and closes his eyes for a moment. “Christ,” he says. “I can’t fucking breathe.”
“All the more reason to go sit in that hot shower. And honestly, you should probably see a doctor.”
“It’s just a cold. They can’t do anything for a cold.”
“I think we’re way past ‘cold’ at this point. Colds turn into other things sometimes, you know. Again, you’re human.”
“I hate doctors. All they do is lecture me.”
“Maybe because you don’t listen to them. Alas, sometimes they’re a necessary evil.”
Brian sighs, and I half expect him to launch into another coughing fit, but he doesn’t. “I know,” he says quietly, and he’s not looking at me, so I know I’ve probably won. But, just in case, I fire off my parting shot anyhow.
“You have one hour to wrap up what you’re working on now, and then I’m calling Damon to tell him to lock your computer down.”
“Fuck you.” Brian looks up at me, meeting my hard stare. “You wouldn’t do that and you know it.”
“Try me. And if that doesn’t work, I’ll call Justin. Frankly, I’m surprised he let you come in today, if you sounded anything like this earlier.”
Brian sighs and looks away again, and I wonder if perhaps he and Justin already had a similar conversation this morning. “Alright,” he says. “But just for today.” He pauses, then adds, “Maybe tomorrow.”
“Definitely tomorrow,” I counter. “I’m busy too, and I can’t fucking concentrate with all of your hacking and coughing. So if you won’t think of yourself, at least think of me.”
“Your alternative could be unemployment.” Brian quirks his eyebrow upward and looks at me, as if to say, “your move.”
“Just try a day without me.” I smirk, because I know he won’t object to that. He can barely stand it when I’m on vacation. “And this isn’t going to be like the two days you spent at home last week, where you kept right on working. I don’t want any phone calls or emails, nor do I want to hear about any phone calls or emails from you going out to any other employee. For the next 36 hours, you are resting. Do I make myself clear?”
“Crystal.” He attempts to stifle another cough, but quickly loses the battle, ending this round with a groan and an arm wrapped around his torso.
“I’m calling a car for you,” I say, as I get up from my chair and start toward the door. “I’ll tell them to be here in an hour.”
“Make it thirty minutes,” I hear him say behind me, and I can’t help but smile to myself on my way out.
“Sure thing,” I say, turning back to face him. “I’ll see you Friday.”
I shake my head as I make my way back to my own office, still amazed at how stubborn Brian can be. But I suppose that’s one of the secrets to his success -- he never gives up on anything. At least, not very easily, and probably not until he’s forced to. But after more than two decades of working for him or with him, I’m fairly well-versed in the “Kinney Operating Manual,” as Justin calls it, and I know exactly how to push Brian’s buttons to get him to do what he needs to do, even when he doesn’t necessarily want to do it.
As I sit back down in my chair, I’m already making a call to the car service we contract with. They agree that someone will be at the front door to our building in about a half an hour, and I’m just about to shout that in the direction of Brian’s office when he starts coughing again. This time, it’s followed by a string of expletives, and I’m really just hoping that he’ll actually rest when he gets home, though I have my doubts.
Thirty minutes later, Brian is gone and the office is a hell of a lot quieter. I click around a little on my computer until I’m in the folder where the images for Remsen’s new print campaigns reside, and I’m not the slightest bit surprised that I don’t really see anything that can be improved upon, even though I’m sure Brian has spent the last few hours -- save for his lunch meeting -- overanalyzing them. But that’s just Brian, and it always has been. Once upon a time, it was why he was so good at what he did, because it meant he saw things other people didn’t, but now, twenty-plus years later, with his own hand-picked and hand-trained staff to take care of every last detail, it’s just overkill.
I double-check the copy -- because the last thing I’d ever want to do is give Brian more ammunition to prove the necessity of his never ending overanalysis if there actually was a typo -- then send everything on to the publisher, declaring it finished, even though I’m sure Brian would have continued to torture himself until he found one more thing to tweak. But that’s the difference between him and me -- he’s a consummate perfectionist, and I’m more focused on efficiency.
By 4 p.m., I’m already looking forward to the date that I have planned tonight -- dinner and drinks on the Upper West Side with the guy I’ve been seeing for a couple of months now, Richard. Brian doesn’t like him, but honestly, I don’t really give a shit what he thinks. It’s not that I don’t love Brian, but let’s face it, his point-of-reference when it comes to love and dating is a little bit questionable at best, and a fucking disaster at worst.
I still remember the years before he met Justin, back when he was going out every night and fucking everything that moved and had a dick. And I also remember the slow process of all of that changing, as Brian came to terms with the fact that Justin really did love him, and maybe -- just maybe -- he could love Justin back and everything would be okay. Of course, that journey was anything but linear, and it involved a lot of ups and downs and setbacks and a whole lot of pissed-off, angry-at-the-world Brian as a cover for sad-and-lonely Brian, but I’m thankful that, in the end, they found their way back to each other. Honestly, I think they were just meant to be from the beginning. There was something different about Justin all those years ago, and some part of Brian knew it, even though it took him a long, long time to admit to it. I think those of us who had been with Kinnetik from the beginning all breathed a sigh of relief when we found out Brian was moving to New York, because we all knew who else was in New York, and how much of a better person -- and a better boss -- Brian was when Justin was around. Still is, really.
So, as much as I love and respect him, Brian is the last person on earth I’d be seeking dating advice from, given that the only person he’s ever truly been in a relationship with is the one he’s married to, so his experience with actual, real relationships is extremely limited. And as much as I do like having a good time (and sex) I’m certainly not setting myself up with any “no names, no phone numbers, no repeats” policies, because it would be kind of nice to find that man of my dreams one day. But since not asking for Brian’s opinion has never stopped him from giving it, I’ve been the unwilling recipient of many comments from the peanut gallery on my dating life since I moved here, and Richard has been no exception.
Apparently Brian has seen him more than once at a gay bar that he and Justin hang out at sometimes in their neighborhood, hitting on guys and buying them drinks. I think the first time he mentioned it, he thought it was going to be some kind of a revelation, but it wasn’t, because I already knew that Rich was bi. It doesn’t bother me, but it sure as fuck seems to bother Brian, though I don’t know why. It’s not like Brian is the one dating him, and it’s not like Rich is leading some sort of double life either. And Rich and I aren’t exclusive, nor are we trying to be -- not right now. So if he wants to go to a gay bar and have a drink with a guy and maybe even take him home, that’s his business and he’s entitled to do that, just the same as I’m entitled to meet someone at a bar and go home with them.
I know what Brian is doing -- he’s being protective of me, the same way he always has been. That’s just his nature; he’ll do anything for his friends, and he never wants to see anyone he cares about get hurt, physically or otherwise. But I’m a big girl, and I can take care of myself. I’ve reminded him of that several times, but it’s still no secret that Brian is not a fan of Rich in the slightest, and I’m pretty sure he wishes we’d break up. But that’s not up to Brian, and he’s just going to have to suck it up and deal with it, and at least make nice if I end up bringing Rich to an office function. It hasn’t happened yet, but I know it’s probably going to, and I’m honestly dreading it a little bit.
I’ve just picked up my phone to send a flirty little text to Rich when it dings with a message from Justin: So someone finally got him to go home, I see. Guessing it was you. Thanks. The message was followed by a kissy-faced emoji.
I hope he’s actually resting, I reply back. He sounded awful, and I know he felt like shit. Please make him see a doctor.
The message I receive in return is just a photo -- Brian, asleep on the couch, with his laptop alongside him at a strange angle as if he hadn’t placed it there on purpose, but it had slid off his lap instead when he fell asleep.
I type out a quick reply: Don’t tell me he was working.
Justin’s reply is short and sweet: Yep.
Give me an hour and your IP address, I type back. I’ll take care of that for the next couple of days.
A few minutes later, Justin sends me their IP address and a heart emoji, which I know is his way of thanking me for helping him keep Brian on the straight-and-narrow when it comes to taking care of himself. He’s been a lot better about that ever since he spent weeks laid up with a severe kidney infection that was a direct result of not doing what he was supposed to be doing, but he’s not perfect by any means. So when I see him starting to slip into old habits, I make it my mission to do whatever I can to make him “do the needful,” as one of our international clients once said in an email, inadvertently kicking off the longest-running inside joke of all time at Kinnetik. And if that means literally pushing Brian out the door and turning off the lights in his office, then that’s what I’ll do. The first time I did that, he was more pissed off at the fact that I was pushing him than anything, and claimed I was treating him like a child because of his wheelchair, but I kindly reminded him of all of the times I’d physically shepherded him out of the office when it was necessary at Ryder, and Vangard, and ultimately Kinnetik, because if I hadn’t, the man would have hardly slept at all. And he hasn’t said a word about it since.
I send Brian and Justin’s IP address on to Damon and request that he block Brian’s access to the entire Kinnetik domain, while I set up an autoresponder on Brian’s email: Out of office Wednesday and Thursday. For questions or emergencies, please contact Cynthia Moore. I end the message with my office phone number and my email address, and set it to end on Friday, with the intent to change it if necessary. Actually I’m kind of hoping I will be changing it, because I think five days in a row of rest would do our boss a world of good.
By the time I get ready to leave the office, Damon has assured me that Brian won’t be able to access anything from home -- not his email, not our file server, nothing -- and I, in turn, have assured Damon that if Brian tries to fire him, I won’t let him. I know Brian won’t do that, though. Most of the time, when he’s talking about pink slips, he’s all bark and no bite. Still though, it works, and it gets people to do what he wants them to do.
Since I sent Brian home, I’m the last person to leave, so I turn off all the lights and lock up around 6:30, then stop by the coffee shop for a little pick-me-up to enjoy on my commute back to my apartment near Central Park. I finally get a chance to send that flirty little text I intended to send earlier, though I know Rich is probably on a train too. He gets it pretty quickly, though, and responds with a string of emojis that tell me a whole lot about how amazing the rest of my Wednesday evening is about to be.