A Daddy for Alexi by Joe Satoria

2. WARREN

WEDNESDAY

I’d been working at Fizz since it started. I was part of the pitch to the big companies, and I was there in those late nights with the owner sitting around a dining table fleshing out ideas.

Before working here, I was writing ad-copy and pitching marketing ideas for a chocolate brand. A fairly big one in England. I decided on leaving because I was thirty, and if I wanted to go up the ranks, I’d need to be there for another ten years.

Marcus Ducet offered me a job, digital marketing executive, with a small percent ownership of the company too. In my contract it said two percent, but that wasn’t what interested me. I had big ideas, bold ideas, ideas that if played right, they could skyrocket my career beyond just pitching for a single company. I wanted my own agency, or maybe I’d been watching too much Mad Men. John Hamm did have a twinkle in his eyes, and that was enough to keep me interested.

“Shit, crap, rubbish, boring,” Marcus listed off. He sighed, pushing himself out beneath the glass boardroom table.

The boardroom on the office floor was a long room, definitely not needed for such a small company. He was renting the floor, and he liked getting all the use out of it. The walls on both sides were windows. One facing out to the city, the other frosted, facing a hallway. It was currently occupied by myself, Marcus, and my marketing team. Nick, Gareth, and Jane.

Marcus paced the length of the room.

I stood. “If you gave us a little bigger budget, we might be to—”

“No, no,” he approached, raising a finger at me. “I’m not upping a budget that realistically shouldn’t be as high.”

“In all fairness, the first quarter figures were fantastic,” I said, “and that was all down to me. You gave me the budget to hire, you didn’t say it was either hire help or have a working budget.”

I turned to see the three faces looking back at me. They had that same expressionless worry in their eyes, like they didn’t want to show fear. It was probably for the best. Marcus was ruthless, and that’s how I knew he was going places. If he smelled their fear, he might have HR in here signing termination sheets.

“Jane has the figures for the online ads,” I said, “they’re converting well. And we have to remember, this is a new business. You have to build brand awareness.”

“Brand awareness,” he snapped. “I’m employing you for brand awareness, and yes, first quarter figures were great, but if investors see this dip, they’ll think that initial high was a fluke. Do you think it was a fluke?”

Looking back at the three employees with their different flavoured Fizz branded drinks on the table. I shook my head. “No, you have a solid product, and that’s going to help us when you score those prime supermarket spots.”

He raised a hand, his fingers curling. He looked like he wanted to grab something to smash.

“How about this,” I interrupted him mid-action. “We’ll get back to work on the pitch for next week, and I’ll see what else I can do for brand awareness. Nick had a great idea about t-shirts with large orders from the website.”

Marcus’ head turned to a slow nod. “And make sure you’re pushing the low sugar angle,” he let out through a long exhale.

I ushered them out of the boardroom. They gathered their images and papers from the table. I waited behind to see Marcus cool down. He gulped at a can of red apple Fizz.

He pulled away from the can, burping. He wiped his mouth on a tissue in his other hand. “I’m not mad,” he let out through a gasp. “I’m trying to get this thing off the ground, and I feel like it’s being hobbled at every corner.”

“Hobbled?” I asked with a glimmer of laughter.

“I feel sabotaged.”

Wow, now that was a big word. “I don’t think anyone is sabotaging you, or the company. It’s got great legs, small legs, but they’re great, and they’re going places if you let them.”

“Warren,” he let out, puffing his cheeks. “I invested so much money in this, a lot of it is inheritance money, but that’s what it’s there for. And only a small percentage of it was investments, but as we grow, I’m going to want investments, and then eventually for the drinks monopoly to buy me out and I can go sun myself on a super yacht.”

“Big dreams, for the future,” I said. I knew his dream, he’d told me about them, over and over. He didn’t want the business at all. He wanted to make the business look good and put a pretty bow on it so he could sell it. I knew that’s what he was doing. “I know Shaun is dealing with operations, but are you sure you can even handle a big order from a supermarket right now?”

He scoffed. “It’s not about filling the order with the big supermarkets,” he said, shaking his head. He squeezed the drinks can. “It’s about getting them interested enough to order.”

“Gotcha!” There was no talking to him about it. It wasn’t my business, but my name was at stake. I couldn’t be the name attached to a botched business venture. “I’m going out for lunch today, but don’t worry, I’ll be thinking about the marketing strategies.”

That was a lie. I needed to do anything but think of that. It wasn’t that I was creatively blocked, but I didn’t know how to top the first quarter, and I was an excellent top—at least, with no previous complaints.

Out of the boardroom, I went to the toilets. I need to splash water on my face after that.

There was someone in there, occupying one of the stalls. Just when I wanted to give myself a long monologue in the mirror, or a pep talk—the same thing.

A hitched breath caught my ear.

“You ok in there?” I called out.

There was no reply, but I could hear the heavy breathing. It was sadness.

“If this is about what Marcus said,” I began.

“Hello?” a soft voice responded.

That wasn’t from my team.

“Oh, sorry, I thought you were—”

The door opened.

With pink eyes and a blotchy face, it was the guy from yesterday. He stood, slouched in posture. He looked up, wide eyes. He brushed a long hair behind his ear. “Hi,” he said, pulling at the sleeve of his sweater, collecting them in his palms.

“Everything ok?”

“I’m fine.”

I knew a lie when I heard one. He wasn’t fine. He’d been crying, or at the very least upset.

“You work in customer services, right?” I asked.

He looked away, nodding to himself. He picked up his gaze to the lanyard around my neck. “Oh,” he muttered. “You’re—you’re from yesterday.”

“Lose your lanyard again?” I asked, noting he didn’t have it around his neck.

“It’s in my pocket,” he said. His voice was soft. He finally made eye contact again. His green eyes were intense, a little wet and raw around the edges.

“Let me guess,” I said, clicking my tongue. “Asshole customer on the phone?”

He cracked a smile. “I’m just—” He looked worried, breaking eye contact again. “It’s nothing.”

“I won’t tell anyone,” I said. “Do you want to go for coffee? We can trade stories?”

“I can’t—I have to—”

“Nonsense,” I chuckled. “Let me take you for a coffee. I want to know what happened. If it’s work related, I won’t say a word. If it’s personal, no pressure. But in all honesty, I would like someone to talk. And you look like a great listener.”

“You do—I do?”

I nodded back, watching as he blushed pink across his cheeks and nose. “And it is lunchtime. You can’t be hiding out here alone for lunch. I won’t let you.”

“I woke up late, so I was—”

“Even better,” I offered back with excitement. I placed my hand on his shoulder.

He pulled away, stepping back. “I was going to visit one of the shops, but I can go alone, so you don’t have to make plans with me.”

“I was going to eat alone, so you’d be doing me a favour,” I said.

Looking at him, his aversion to eye contact and touch. I felt for him. I wanted to take him in my arms and squeeze him. The way I would a dog.

“Ok,” he agreed.

“We can compare stories,” I chuckled. “My team are great, but they nearly all got fired today because the owner won’t put any more money into marketing.” I rolled my eyes and gesticulated with a hand in the air.

“Oh no,” he grumbled, a pain on his clenched face. “That doesn’t sound nice.”

“It’s fine, it’s ok,” I said, “of course, he was just annoyed because of reasons.” I couldn’t go around telling everyone company business, even if he did have the type of face that made me want to express every feeling I’d ever had. “I’ll just say, the business is profitable, but he wants more profit.”

He cracked another smile. “That’s capitalism, I guess.”

I snickered at the comment. “For that, I’ll buy you lunch.”

“And that’s communism, but I don’t think my comment is equal to lunch.”

Shaking my head as I locked eyes with him again, catching him in a smile. He seemed intelligent. “Maybe not, but I think being forced into spending your lunch break with me is definitely worth something.”

He pressed his lips together a little, the smile fading again. In the swell of my chest as it dipped and rose with each breath, I wanted to keep him smiling. It was an easy thing to achieve. I didn’t know why more people didn’t try to have people smiling. It was free.