Bruno was avoiding me.I didn’t like it, but I wanted to give him some space. A week passed, then two, and still I heard nothing from him. Instead, he sent his people directly to me. It was strange, really. In some cases, it was logical. For example, Meredith, the blond who could have been related to Little Bo Peep, arrived, sweetly requesting consent to find and hire musicians to record with James. Clearly, she needed my consent to hire and fire people. So I set her up with HR and told them they could assume her choices were approved by me.
Some of the other requests felt sort of unintentionally demeaning—like I found myself wondering why Bruno's people were coming to me. For example, Eric Preston, a sound engineer, appeared in the doorway of my office looking seriously upset as he demanded to know where we kept the “damn” office supplies and to get an employee badge or equivalent credentials so that the militant doorman would stop treating him like he was “trying to commit corporate espionage.” Marcus, who seemed to be everywhere and nowhere, also emailed me daily, asking questions about connecting him with people in marketing or any number of departments. He had no qualms about expecting my help, so eventually I just asked him if he would like an assistant who was familiar with the workings of LSA. I received a resounding yes.
My favorite approach by a member of Bruno’s pack was my meeting with Josh Devereau, who lived up to his name by looking like a raven-haired lumberjack on the cover of a romance novel. He booked an actual appointment and presented a very detailed PowerPoint on why he thought it made sense for James to record a full album, not just a single. His final slide was a picture of James and underneath it, he wrote, James Baker has the voice of Sinatra and sex appeal of Idris Elba and Lenny Kravitz.
“And?” I’d asked, laughing.
He shrugged. “I mean, the man is hotter than habanero hot sauce.”
I made a show of consenting to the album because I didn’t have the heart to tell him I’d already assumed James would be recording an album, not a single.
Eventually, the infamous, hotter than hot sauce, James Baker found his way to my office one afternoon to ask me if I thought it would make sense to assign him an image consultant. He seemed kinda shy and skittish about the whole thing, taking a seat across from me and bouncing his knee the entire time.
“I don’t know,” he said, pausing to nibble at the cuticle on the middle finger of his left hand. “It just seems like if I am going to have a number one single, then I probably need a look.” He made invisible air quotes when he said the word look. The energy that he was giving off made it obvious to me that the whole having a ‘number one’ single made his stomach turn.
“You okay, James?” I asked kindly, leaning over my desk in his direction and resting my chin on my palm. “’Cause, honestly, you look a little peaked.”
“Uh, yeah,” he fretted, and then standing, he waved his hands nonchalantly. “Forget about the image consultant. I don’t know what I was thinking.”
“It’s a good idea,” I said confidently.
“It is?” He stammered the question and then collapsed back into the seat behind him, dropping his face to his hands as he blubbered, “Crap, what am I doing?” His legs were so long that he reminded me of a daddy longlegs spider, but like a habanero-hot one.
“Getting catapulted into the public eye not your bag?” I asked.
“No, I’m good,” he said while he pressed the palms of his hands against his closed eyes—clearly an attempt to relieve pressure.
“Can I get you an aspirin?” I offered. This time he just shook his head no. I hit the intercom button on my phone and said to Lorelai, “Will you get Mr. Baker an appointment with Gail Byron, please? Sometime this week.” To James, I said, “Byron’s the best personal brand consultant I know.”
James thanked me at least fifteen times, and I remained cordial and pleasant with him, but inside, the magic emotional wall that kept me from bothering Bruno crumbled. James wasn’t even close to ready for what was about to hit him. Having a hit single was going to come with press and fans and being recognized on your way out of the bathroom at the gas station. You had to prepare people for that—and it seemed to me that while James might have had more vocal talent than the average bear, he was mortally uncomfortable with the idea of being famous.
He had to be handled. You can’t just throw a lamb to the wolves. You surround the lamb with a lamb-friendly wolf brigade. For James, a great image consultant and a PR team were the metamorphic equivalent of an army of wolves. And it should have been Bruno handling that shit. James was his man, not mine.
So after seventeen days of no contact whatsoever, I stomped my way down the hall, punched the button to call the elevator, and made my way to the fourth floor, growing more and more inflamed with each passing moment. From the outside I’m sure I seemed fine. Nothing to see, just your average under-twenty-five COO of a major recording company strutting through the halls, boarding the elevator of her domain with a smile. But inside I was on tirade.
Who does he think he is, a king? Why am I taking care of ID cards and image consultants? I’m the COO for Christ’s sake. I don’t have time for this shit. And honestly, what is he doing? For over two weeks I’ve approved everything his people have asked for and has he come to me to discuss even one idea? Has he said thank you or offered one iota of softness? His life is in my hands, goddammit, and I’m doing everything I can to make him see that I support him, and still he’s treating me like an infectious disease!
The doors to the elevator opened with a ding and I walked right past the empty lounge area where artists' entourages usually spent hours making phone calls and playing Wordle, straight to the control room. I threw open the door and was appalled to find Bruno, Meredith, Eric, Josh, and James all strewn about the place, on the couch, in the chairs, looking entirely unmotivated. There were two grease-spotted white pizza boxes next to the soundboard and a half dozen open beer bottles on the hand-carved wood table in front of the deep-brown leather couch. James and Meredith were still munching, and Eric was picking at the label on his beer. With a tight smile and my hands on my hips, I bossed, “Does anyone work around here or are you all just trying to make me look like a fucking idiot?”
Four stunned faces stared at me, but Bruno remained unfazed. He smirked. “We work but we also fucking eat lunch and enjoy lives, Ava-nator.”
“You know you're not even supposed to have food in here.” I was barking. I sounded bitchy even to myself, but I didn’t care. I couldn’t tolerate the way he was treating me or the way he was running the show. I had to get through to him and if that meant being the boss bitch, well, I could handle it.
He didn’t give an inch. “Luckily, I’m the CEO of the company so I can change the fucking rules.”
“You can,” I smarted, glaring at him. “But if you don’t get your fucking shit together, someone else will be running this company in five months.”
Pissed, he glared back at me, unwavering. Neither of us so much as blinked. We’d entered a childish battle of wills, a staring contest.
As an arguably intentional attempt to distract us from our showdown, Meredith sighed, lifting the floppy slice of pizza that she was still holding to her mouth, and then lamented, “You know, women always have to work harder than men.”
Waiting for her statement to fall like the bomb she intended, she took her bite of New York’s finest and leaned back in her chair to chew.
I rolled my eyes at her because even though what she was saying was one hundred percent right, it was also clear she was just looking to shift the tension in the room. However, Bruno surprised me by turning on her. “Oh my God, Mer. Will you, for once, just shut the fuck up?”
She shrugged, her mouth circling as she finished the last morsel of her bite, and then she smiled. “Probably not.”
Bruno’s demeanor shifted and his face softened as he started to snicker. “Totally, not.”
Then Josh stood, mumbling something about having to pee.
In response, Eric said, “Strange, me too.”
Eric rose, and in tandem, they shifted their bodies to make themselves smaller as they slipped past me, escaping into the lounge.
James took Meredith by the hand, signaling for her to put down the pizza, which she did after hastily taking three or four bites, and then he said, “I’m not going to pretend I have to pee. This is between you”—he pointed to me—“and him.” He pointed to Bruno. “So, Mer and I are gonna give you some space.”
Pushing a harsh breath out my nose, I managed to sound marginally sane when I said, “Much obliged.”
They stood and walked toward the door and as soon as Bruno couldn't see her face, Meredith winked at me. I wasn’t looking for support from Bruno’s friends, but something told me that having Meredith on my side wasn’t a bad thing.
When I heard the door behind me click, I snapped for real, unloading all my annoyance at him in one rambling rant.
“What. The. Ever. Living. Fuck. Bruno?” I dropped my voice to a whisper-scream and signaled to James by pointing to the door he just exited. “That man is terrified of being famous. Do you know that? Do you know Josh made a PowerPoint asking to let James make a full album? Why would we sign anyone for one song? Also, Marcus emails me every day. Every day. Are you even trying to manage your friends? Running a company isn’t just all pizza and beer and music. You have to do things. You have to manage people. Otherwise, they won't trust you. This isn’t a game. It’s your whole fucking future.”
Cocky, Bruno lifted his arms, spreading them wide and draping them across the back of the big ol’ couch. I couldn’t help but notice his hands. They’d always been masculine, even when he was a teenager, just thick and strong. He had the kind of hands that made me feel like he could palm my lower back and make all the stress melt away.
“Are you done?” he asked calmly.
My inability to affect him was annoying, but I held my ground, echoing Meredith's sentiment when I said, “Probably not.”
Picking up my callback to Meredith’s response, the corner of his smile lifted and he let a little chuckle escape though his nose. Then he nodded to himself before saying, “My friends like you.” He looked off to the left, not making eye contact with me, and he spoke slowly like it was hard for him to get the words out. “They trust you and see value in the things that you do.” He paused. And then he turned back to look at me when he said, “But I know that’s always been your forte. You are good at everything. You’ve always known how to manage the world. How to make friends. How to impress people.”
I started to speak to somehow attempt to rebut or explain what he was saying about me, but then I stopped. I didn’t have to justify being good at working at LSA. I’d earned my role.
He continued. “I’m good at this. I’m good at managing the people that make the music and knowing talent when I see it. You know that. You know you can trust me, Ava. I’ve proved that to you, more than you’ve ever proven it to me.”
I swallowed, then looked down at the floor. He had. Of course he had, but I still needed to be in the loop when it came to the work he was doing. I needed him to stop shutting me out if I was going to be able to support him.
Holding my head high, I said, “I don’t want to fight with you or yell at you, but this isn’t working. You can’t keep me on the sidelines. If you’re going to have three hit singles in four months, then you need to let me help you. That’s how you get it done, with my help.”
He stared at me, his face completely placid, giving me no inclination of his thoughts whatsoever. Finally, he said, “I’ll think about it.”