Page 28 of Grace & Henry's Holiday Movie Marathon
I’m on South Charles Street, a few blocks from our row house, sitting in my idling car and listening to the heater. I haven’t been anywhere near here since I bolted with a duffel bag over my shoulder back in January. Edgar Allan’s, Grace’s bar, is about six blocks up, tucked away on a side street next to a fancy Italian place.
When I left Grace’s house earlier, I meant to head back to my apartment. As I drove, though, I thought of her, Ian, and Bella in that haunted house of theirs. If they were tough enough to be there, maybe I could handle being here.
The L.A. thing was inevitable, I guess. Still, it felt like it happened so suddenly.
It was a normal Thursday at the office about a month ago, just before Halloween. My creative partner, Winston “Win” Jennings, and I were in the conference room pitching Smyth Jewelers on their annual Valentine’s Day campaign. Smyth had tasked us to help them sell engagement rings to Baltimoreans. Win and I came up with a campaign called “Real Love.”
The idea was to strip away the airbrushing because this isn’t exactly an airbrushed kind of town. Instead of hiring hot models from god knows where to put on jewelry and make out, our plan was to featureactual locals—real people—who’d bought their engagement rings at Smyth. Creatively speaking, it was a slam dunk, and the pitch couldn’t have been going better. I’d just run the bosses from Smyth through my look-and-feel boards. When it was Win’s turn, he displayed pictures of a local couple we’d found.
“I’d like you all to meet Baltimore’s own Gus and Charlotte,” said Win in his silky presentation voice. Candid images of Gus and Charlotte flipped by on the LED screen. Late twenties, working-class, ordinary-looking but surprisingly photogenetic. Gus behind the counter of an old sandwich shop in Cross Street Market. Charlotte in her black-and-light blue Baltimore City Parking Enforcement uniform.
“Gus here used to make Charlotte’s sandwiches for her two or three days a week,” said Win. “Pastrami on wheat with Swiss. For him, it was love at first sandwich. For Char…well, it maybe took a few bites.”
As the clients leaned forward and smiled, I felt a tremor at the base of my throat. I took a deep breath and held it, which had usually been enough to fend off these sudden waves of emotion since Brynn died.
“Then one day, about a month in,” said Win, “Gus got up the nerve to shoot his shot and ask Charlotte out on a date. She wasn’t a hundred-percent sure, but she thought, ‘Why not?’ Well, let’s say things worked out all right.”
Another montage started. Gus and Charlotte at a Ravens game. A picnic in the sun. Line dancing. Charlotte pretending to put a ticket on Gus’s pickup. Then, finally, a shot from Charlotte’s Instagram page of her holding out her left hand. The diamond—purchased at Smyth—was modest, but it sparkled, and I felt my eyes start to burn.
Wedding photos came next: Gus and Charlotte puffy- and pink-cheeked from champagne and the Baltimore humidity. The lighting was iffy, their teeth were crooked, but their smiles dazzled as much as Charlotte’s little diamond.
“Come on, look at that,” Win told the clients. “Traditional advertising is great. But you can’t re-create that kind of joy with models. And why would you want to? Because, folks…” Win paused, and I braced myself. “…this is what real love looks like.”
I’ve never cared for the expression “burst into tears,” but that’s exactly what I did. Everyone stared: Win; Regina, our boss; the clients; the intern with the nose ring who was running the Keynote presentation. I pointed at my face and said words that didn’t make sense. “I’m…a thing. Sorry. I’ll just…excuse me.” Then I hurried out of the room.
I passed the bar of coffee machines and healthy snacks, Regina’s empty office, the bullpen where the junior creatives work. I didn’t look at the plaque near reception that readForever In Our Hearts. I ducked into the office that was now inhabited by a woman named Linda, the agency’s new media buyer.
“What’s up, Henry?” asked Linda. When she looked up at me, though, she hesitated. “Henry?”
“Hi, Linda. I need a minute.”
“What can I do for you?”
“No. I mean, a minute alone. In here. Without you.”
It took a beat for her to get what I meant. “Ah. I’ll go then.”
It’s hard to say how long I was in there by myself. Half an hour maybe. I was on the floor, my back against the wall, trying to get myself under control. There used to be an ugly-but-very-comfortable couch there, but it was gone because Linda redecorated when she moved in. The office had previously belonged to Brynn, who—along with Art of the Brand’s founder, chief executive officer, chief financial officer, executive creative director, and five account executives—died when the agency’s plane crashed into a rocky field in Arizona on its way back from L.A.
Eventually Win came to check on me. I wasn’t crying anymore, just staring. He grunted as he eased down onto the floor beside me. “How’s it going, brother?”
“I liked this office better when it was Brynn’s,” I said.
“Me, too.” He crossed his long legs at his ankles. “I miss her candy dish. Those little Snickers, right?”
“Fun size,” I said.
“It’s Linda’s office now, though,” he said.
I pictured my wife’s replacement hire lurking outside her own door, wondering if this job was worth it. “I’ll tell her I’m sorry.”
“Nah,” said Win. “We’re creatives. People expect this kind of thing from us.”
“Is the client pissed?”
“Quite the opposite. I made a joke about how brilliant of a copywriter I am. They’re all in. We did it again.” Win held out his fist, which I reluctantly bumped.
A knock came a few minutes later—our boss, Regina. She rolled Linda’s chair out from behind the desk and sat across from us. Like most people in advertising, Regina usually dressed casually, but since the clients from Smyth were there, she’d gone with one of her tailored power suits. She became our boss when our previous boss, Manny, died in the crash.
