A Winter Dream - By Richard Paul Evans Page 0,54

hours, we began winding down so we could introduce Mr. Ferrell to the creative teams. As we were getting ready to leave Mr. Grant’s office, he asked why I had left Chicago. I told him the truth. When I finished, Mr. Grant paged his assistant. “Get me Holly in H.R.”

Shortly after our meeting I went down to visit the creative directors on their individual floors, leaving Mr. Ferrell and Mr. Grant behind. I stopped in the energy room for some popcorn, then went to see Kim in front of Potts’s office. She was working intently on her computer and didn’t notice me standing at her desk.

“I thought they would have let you out on good behavior by now,” I said.

Kim’s face was animated with excitement. “J.J.!” She jumped up and came around her desk to hug me. “What are you doing here?”

“Just visiting the old neighborhood.”

“It’s so good to see you. How is New York?”

“New York was . . .” I paused to find the right word. “Interesting. But I’ve been transferred again. I’m back in Chicago.”

Kim was so excited she hugged me again. “I’m so happy for you. This is so exciting.”

“What’s so exciting?” Potts asked, walking from his office. I turned to face him.

“I think she means I am, Peter.”

He froze at the sight of me. “What are you doing here?”

“I’m coming back.”

“Not on my watch you’re not. I don’t know how you got here, but I guarantee you won’t last here more than a week.”

He didn’t see Mr. Grant and Mr. Ferrell walk up to us. “Never guarantee what you can’t deliver, Peter,” Mr. Grant said, his voice angry but controlled.

“Mr. Grant . . .” Potts said. Then he turned to Mr. Ferrell, genuflecting. “Mr. Ferrell, it is such an honor to meet you. Your work, the Florence Initiative, is sheer genius.”

“You should tell that to the man who made it happen,” he said, turning to me. “I believe you’ve met Mr. Jacobson, our new Global Chief Creative Officer for Leo Burnett Worldwide.”

Potts looked like a man who had just been convicted of double homicide.

“Unfortunately,” Mr. Ferrell said, “from what I just heard, it sounds like you have a problem working with him.”

Potts flushed. “No. Not at all. Things are good,” he said, turning to me. “Everything’s good, right?”

“Not everything,” Mr. Grant said. “As you know, Peter, Leo Burnett is proud of the work we’ve done in creating an egalitarian work environment. We’ve worked hard to abolish the traditional models of corporate hierarchy and elitism and replaced it with cooperation and teamwork.

“I just spoke with H.R. It would seem that our way of doing business is very much at odds with your practice of what I’ll call for lack of a better term, personnel exiling. For that reason we’ll be making some changes. Timothy Ishmael will be your replacement as senior creative director.”

Peter looked panicked. “Please don’t fire me.”

“We’re not firing you,” Mr. Grant said. “We have a wonderful opportunity for you in New York. In fact, it’s the very same opportunity you gave Mr. Jacobson, and look how that worked out for him.” He winked at me. “And I’m told that you’ve already met your new manager, Leonard Sykes.”

I finally understood the dream I’d had in New York. And Leonard’s broken pots.

CHAPTER

Thirty-two

I have decided to journey the dark path to my past—to find the light of hope or to permanently extinguish it.

Joseph Jacobson’s Diary

At noon the agency closed. I took my things to the hotel, then caught the Blue Line at Clark and Lake. I was going to the diner. A small, hopelessly optimistic part of my psyche hoped that April might have called and left some contact information with Ewa or one of the waitresses. But the realist in me knew that wasn’t likely. I was going to the diner to formalize my loss and put the past to rest—like going to a funeral to see the deceased.

I had intended to go straight to Mr. G’s, but when the train stopped at Irving Park, my breath caught a little. How many times had my heart ached as she stepped off the train here to go home? Then I thought of something. Perhaps April’s roommate, Ruth, would know how to find her. I jumped off the train just before the doors closed.

In spite of the patches of ice, I practically ran the distance to her apartment. The main-level door was locked, so I buzzed the apartment, twice, but there was no answer. I waited there a