Chapter 11
I had been looking forward to the Advertising Club of New York’s ANDY Awards, partly because O’Donnell & Associates was up for an award, and it was always great to attend as a nominee, and partly because it was one of the few times a year where the whole New York City advertising community came together and I got to see people I hadn’t seen in way too long.
Now there was the added pleasure of seeing Wes and the C-Kicker team, minus Julien, so I was certain a good time would be had by all. And even if we didn’t take home an ANDY, since the competition was very stiff in the video category, I was secretly thrilled that Wes was going to hear my name being called as a nominee.
Held in the gothic High Line Hotel, the banquet hall, known as The Refectory within Hoffman Hall was just that, a hall. Long and fairly narrow for a banquet facility, the room, lined with panels of wainscoted wood, soaring clerestory windows and a beamed concave ceiling, included a wood burning fireplace and was truly like no other space in New York City. Historic and romantic, The High Line Hotel was the former estate and mid-17th century apple orchard of Clement Clarke Moore, and it is said that Moore penned ‘Twas the Night Before Christmas on the property.
The room was set with small round tables for six, a raised stage at one end and bars set up on the far end. I first noticed Wes standing in line at one of the bars. He had his left hand on the lower back of a young woman, with waist-length near black wavy hair, an almost embarrassingly short skirt and heels that would have landed me in the emergency room having one or both ankles casted when I tripped over my own feet.
“Tara.” I turned to see who was calling my name as Renata and Kelly approached.
“So good to see you,” I gave each woman a hug. Renata was again dressed in an eye-turning outfit, this time in fuchsia. I loved that her style matched her outgoing personality.
“Where are you originally from?” I asked her.
“Puerto Rico,” she rolled her R’s.
I laughed, “You are one hot mama!”
Rolling her eyes, Kelly agreed, “That, she is. Don’t let her have too much to drink or she will have this entire room doing a conga line before they serve us dessert.”
Wes and the woman turned from the bar, drinks in hand. Her look was exotic and she was quite beautiful. It was her body that surprised me. Small in stature, with a tiny bone structure, she was less developed than Scarlett and my first thought was, oh how sweet, he brought his daughter.
“Wes’ daughter is beautiful,” I commented to Kelly and Renata. The reaction that I got was certainly not what I expected as Renata rolled her eyes and Kelly pursed her lips. “What?” I asked.
“That’s his girlfriend,” Kelly’s tone was hushed.
“Is that legal?” It was my kneejerk reaction and it was out of my mouth before I could stop it.
Both women laughed. “I like this one,” Renata declared.
Sneaking another look at them, my stomach suddenly felt sour. Wes was no different than my ex, hooking up with twenty-something year old arm candy. And for what? To make themselves feel young and virile? What the hell could he talk to this woman about? Would she get his references when he threw in a song lyric circa 1990 or how he felt during an historical event? What the hell was wrong with these men?
Just buy a freaking convertible, I wanted to scream across the room at him.
The overhead lights flashed signaling the meal and program were just about to begin. Finding our table with the number 18 sticking out of the centerpiece took some doing.
“Who the heck arranged this,” Jonathan bitched, as we sat down. Chris and Jamie were at the next table with Wes and his staff, while Jonathan and I sat with our clients from the Literacy League. It was the commercial we created for them that had earned us today’s nomination.
Looking through the program and at all the nominations, I said to Jonathan, “What an honor it is to be nominated with these people. Look at this group!”
“I think either JWT is going to win it for the Macy’s Believe Campaign or M. Silver & Associates for 9/11 First Responders’ Foundation.”
“I think you’re right. I’m just really honored and humbled to be nominated with them.”
The waiters served our salad course and I tried my hardest not to look over at the next table, but I couldn’t stop checking out Wes’ girlfriend. I felt like I needed to take her on a playdate with CB or something.
Prior to serving dessert, the program began, with the chapter president thanking everyone for being there and talking about the strength of the organization and what was accomplished within, and created by, the New York group truly shaped global opinion, buying and trends.
They began with the internet advertising awards, clearly the largest growing category and the youngest, hippest nominees.
“Are they even allowed to drink yet?” Jonathan took a sip of his white wine.
The next category was video-based, first starting with commercial, which took forever to get through and then finally into our area of non-profits and public service announcements. Jonathan and I clenched each other’s hands under the table.
“We should all be proud to be nominated. This is so competitive and your message was among the best and really resonated with people,” I told our clients.
As they started reading the names I could feel my hand shaking within Jonathan’s or maybe it was his shaking that was jostling mine. Although I didn’t expect to win, I think it’s human nature to hold out hope until the very end. Because you never know.
Smiling at each other and the clients when our names were called, I squeezed Jonathan’s hand tight and looked over at Chris at the next table. Momentarily, I caught Wes’ eye. The smile on his face was magnificent. Everyone was sharing in this moment of joy.
And then the inevitable, the winners were read, “Mia Silver and Seth Shapiro of M. Silver & Associates for the 9/11 First Responders’ Foundation.”
Clapping loudly for them, Jonathan leaned over and said in my ear, “If I had to lose to anybody, I’m glad it’s them.”
I hardly heard him as I focused on the winning team two tables away. With beatific smiles, Mia and Seth high-fived. I had known them for over a decade, not well, but enough that we’d always talk at events. It was what happened after the high-five that caught my attention and raptly held it captive.
Mia turned to an exceedingly handsome man with thick dirty blonde hair sitting on her right and they kissed. The look they gave one another took my breath away. The love. I felt their love and it made me ache. As she left him to go to the podium to accept her award with Seth, she and the man held hands until the contact broke at the end of their fingertips. And then he watched her, the pride radiating off him like a solar flare. It was then I noticed his wedding band and looked up at the podium to see Mia was wearing one, too.
My heart bloomed with happiness for Mia. I was aware that her affinity for 9/11 charities was not just rooted in being a native New Yorker, but also that she lost her boyfriend in the towers. I hadn’t seen her in a while, between work and the divorce, I had missed more Ad Club meetings than I had attended over the past two years.
And now here she was married and probably to the handsomest man in the room, a man who looked to be in his early to mid-40’s and I guessed Mia was close in age to me. So why was it that the handsomest man in the entire room didn’t need a 25-year old? This man was clearly deeply in love with a woman his age. Why? Why was he not running after child brides like Frank and Wes?
“Tell me this,” I asked Jonathan. “Mia’s husband doesn’t seem to need a 20-something girlfriend and he’s better looking than all the ones that do. Why is that?”
“Because that man doesn’t have an insecure bone in his body.”
“Can you clone him for me?”
“Only if we can clone one for me too.” Jonathan pouted. “Did you notice Seth has a handsome Prince Harry redheaded significant other, too?”
“No, I was so busy watching Mia and that man who adores her.” Turning to take another peek at them, “I want that.”
“Get in line, sista.” Jonathan squeezed my hand under the table.
I waited until they began the print awards before excusing myself from the table. Returning from the ladies’ room I wandered the ornate building, stepping outside to admire their outdoor bar, Champagne Charlie’s. Leaning on the railing, I watched the after work crowd enjoying the balmy spring evening as they winded down the end of the day with a cocktail.
The sleeve of his suit jacket brushed my bare arm, giving me goosebumps, as he leaned on the railing next to me. It was a déjà vu moment of our last night in the Caribbean.
Looking at him, I smiled. “Your daughter is beautiful.”
“My daughter?” He looked genuinely confused and I reveled in his discomfort as he was going to have to tell me who she was. “Oh you mean Keiko? No, no. She’s not my daughter.”
“No?” I feigned confusion. Say it Wes.
“My daughter,” he laughed uneasily. “Ouch, that hurts.” He paused, looking out at the garden and not making eye contact with me. “Keiko is my girlfriend.”
Keeping up the charade of confusion, I too looked out at the flower garden and just nodded my head.
“I can see it in your face, Tara. Just say what you want to say,” Wes’ tone was no nonsense and more than a little defensive, but he had not moved away from me and our arms were still touching.
Without looking at him, I surprised myself by baring my soul. “My ex’s new wife is twenty-five,” and then I turned to him with a smile, “and a half. Yes, she still counts halves. I call her CB, which stands for Child Bride. So clearly this is my issue based on my own shit.” And I shrugged my shoulders.
He nodded. “I can only imagine I dropped a few notches in your estimation today.”
Without any true focal point, I stared back out at the garden, because I couldn’t look him in the eyes and tell him the truth. The man was a customer. “It’s not my place to judge you.”
“But you do.” He bumped his shoulder into mine.
“It’s my shit, Wes.”
Leaning into me a little bit, he began to talk, “Six years ago I lost my wife, Lisa, to breast cancer. She’d only been sick, let me rephrase that, we only knew about it for two years. She was asymptomatic for a long time and by the time the cancer started presenting, we had a whole host of issues on our hands.”
Reaching across with my left hand, I laid it on his left forearm and gave it a squeeze, “I’m so sorry.” I looked at his handsome profile and let my hand remain on his forearm.
He just nodded and continued, “During those two years, I was her biggest cheerleader. She wasn’t going to die because I wasn’t going to let her. I kept pushing her on, cheering her on. So, when she did die, I went to pieces. How could that happen, I was cheering, pushing, finding new treatments all over the world, working with nutritionists, spiritualists, you name it.”
“I’m so sorry,” was all I could repeat through my tears. My heart wept for him and his wife.
“After she died, I took off to Mexico and literally sat on a rock in Zihuatenajo for two weeks. Seriously.” He looked at me, his eyes sharing an intensity of pain that matched his resolve. “I sat on a rock and didn’t move. I couldn’t understand how it happened. I’d moved Heaven and Earth to fix it. To fix her. So, how the hell did she die? How?”
Tears were rushing down my face and I could hardly breathe. My hand on Wes’ forearm was now more for me, an anchor to hold me up, than it was for him.
“Finally, Stacy came and got me. She made me leave my rock and go home. I was just totally non-functional for a while and then one day when I was doing research, because I hadn’t yet let go, the concept of C-Kicker came to me. I knew the apparel industry inside and out and no one was meeting this need. And that is what gave me purpose again and transported me back to the land of the living.”
Nodding my head, I was too emotionally devastated to speak.
“And do you want to hear the kicker of all this?” He bumped my shoulder again.
“There’s more?” I choked out.
“You know when it rains it pours. Stacy has breast cancer, too. We’re dealing with her second recurrence of it now.”
“Noooo.” My response was low and guttural, another barrage of tears drowning my cheeks.
“She says hello, by the way.” Wes smiled at me.
I laughed through my tears, “What? You told her you saw me? I’m shocked that she remembered me.”
He nodded and smiled, “Yeah, she remembered you all right. She said she wishes she hadn’t been so mean to you. You might be on some long list of people she has somewhere that she needs to apologize to.”
“How is her prognosis?”
“We’ll see after she finishes this round of chemo.”
I nodded, not knowing what to say. We were silent for a few minutes and I wondered if the segue of conversation from Keiko to his confiding his past to me was some sort of explanation for his relationship with her. And if so, what did it mean? That after his wife, he wanted something different? Maybe younger might be equated with health in his mind? I wasn’t quite sure. But I was glad he’d confided in me.
“Wes Bergman, why do you always have a girlfriend when we meet?” I shocked myself when what I was thinking came out of my mouth.
The look in his eyes was not one I expected. I was anticipating a joke or wisecrack, but what I saw was a man who was dead serious. He moved his arm from mine on the railing and slung it over my shoulder, pulling me into him. With lips against my temple, his voice was gruff as he said, “I’ve never greeted the morning light with anyone but you.”
I don’t know if he thought it would make me happy to hear that I was the only one he’d ever done that with, but it had the exact opposite effect, and I’m sure it bewildered him as much as it surprised me to feel me stiffen in his arms and look away.