Truth in Advertising Page 0,107

see how it turns out. Do you remember the original?”

“Original what?”

“The original spot. Apple 1984?” I’m speaking Russian, if her expression is any indication. “This is a spoof,” I add, instantly ashamed at using a word I loathe, sounding like something from A Prairie Home Companion.

Cindy says, “Oh. No. I didn’t know that.”

She’s smiley, maybe thirty, thirty-one. Athletic looking. She’s cradling her son—I think it’s a boy—on her chest, his back to her, her arm across him like a seat belt, holding him under his well-padded crotch. He’s staring at me.

I say, “What’s his name?”

“Nathan.”

“How old?”

“Ten months next week. Do you have kids?”

“I don’t.” I feel I should say more, explain why a man of almost forty doesn’t have children. The hair and makeup woman comes over.

She says to Cindy, “Excuse me. Hi. Sorry. You’re up soon and I just need to do a touch-up.”

Cindy turns and holds the baby out toward me. “Would you hold him for a sec? I don’t want the powder to get on him.”

Before I have time to answer she hands him to me and then focuses on the makeup woman.

He’s lighter than I imagined, despite his pudginess. His face is close to mine. He takes his hands and grabs fistfuls of my cheeks, which does not feel great. A primal noise emanates from him.

I say, “Hi.”

He opens his mouth and puts it on my nose, leaving a great deal of slobber in the process.

I pull back. “What are you doing? You can’t eat a nose. Who eats a nose?”

He laughs.

I say it again. “Who eats a nose?”

He laughs again.

He doesn’t blink. He just stares and waits, smiles.

Pam comes up next to me.

She says, “What are you doing?”

“Holding a baby.”

“I can see that. I guess I meant why are you holding a baby?”

I say, “I’m helping. His name is Nathan. He likes me.”

Nathan puts his mouth on my nose again. I could get used to it. His breath is remarkably pleasant.

Cindy says “Thanks,” as she takes him back and heads back for her close-up.

I watch them walk away and turn to see Pam looking at me.

I say, “What?”

“What am I going to do with you, Dolan?” She shakes her head and walks away.

• • •

Later, a major problem arises when one of the junior clients notices that the industrial-size box of diapers made available for the baby changings throughout the day is the leading competitor and not Snugglies. This caused no small amount of consternation and a trip by two PAs to the nearest Ralph’s. A small uproar in response by the moms, fully seventy-five percent of whom complained that they preferred the leading competitor’s brand and refused to use Snugglies. This provoked a call to the Snugglies legal department, asking if a baby not wearing a Snugglies diaper, but a competitor’s, could legally appear in the spot. Several lawyers were consulted and a conference call was scheduled thirty minutes later, wherein four in-house attorneys, Jan and her team, and several team members back at the New York headquarters took forty-five minutes to decide that the babies had to be wearing Snugglies, even if you couldn’t see them. The moms were told to change their babies or forfeit their day-rate and residuals. Every one changed their own baby’s diaper.

• • •

My cell phone is buzzing. I must have fallen asleep.

I answer.

Pam says, “They’re here. They landed at LAX thirty minutes ago.”

It takes me a second. It’s just after midnight and I’d only gone to bed a half hour ago. Keita arranged a dinner at Matsuhisa, a well-known sushi restaurant in Beverly Hills. Jan, Pam, Ian, Martin, Alan, Jill, Flonz. Keita was a star, the perfect host, ordering, translating. Somehow we were all friends. Flonz made Jan the center of attention. Flonz and Martin were fast buddies after the first bottle of wine. By the third they were praising each other’s greatness.

“You’re kidding,” I say to Pam.

“When it absolutely positively has to be there.”

“Jesus.”

Pam says, “FedEx wanted me to let you know they’re profoundly sorry and as a gesture of their appreciation of your business would like to offer you free shipping next time you send internationally.”

“I’ll keep that in mind for the next relative who dies.”

Pam says, “They’ll be at the hotel soon.”

She made calls. She lit into people, people’s managers, shift supervisors. She spoke with people in Boston and Memphis and Düsseldorf and Hong Kong. She made it her mission. Of this I am sure. Just as I am sure she would never, ever