Chapter Text
If there is one thing that has never intimidated George Russell, it’s the size of a meeting room. From the most minuscule of closets to convention centre-sized halls, George has seen them all; there’s nothing too big for him to handle, too small for him to adjust to.
When he eventually gets to the head office of Miller & Co. at 12:45 on a Wednesday afternoon, though, he has to admit that he’s… impressed by how Bertha seems to alter when she’s in a business setting. Not cowed, he tells himself, when something tugs at his chest at the sight of her in thick-heeled shoes and a pencil skirt that sits pristinely against her frame. He is not cowed. He is simply very, very impressed.
He watches her yell at her teammates from the safety of the receptionist’s desk, and suppresses a giggle as he takes a sip of his coffee; a woman by the name of Mrs Bruce had pressed a mug into his hands but moments before, insisting that Miss O’Brien had left orders that Mr Russell be taken good care of before she could see him. George doesn’t remember the last time a company other than his own had taken such good care of him.
It doesn’t take very long for Mrs Bruce to come back in a flurry of stylish black and warm-smelling perfume; briskly carving them a path through the madness, she shows him to the meeting room. As he pads through the carpeted halls, George can’t help but stare at the myriad past campaigns littered on the walls; wherever he looks, there’s something he saw at the bus stop last year, or on the train last week, or shoved down his mailbox two days ago. This is exactly why Clay had chosen Miller & Co.; not only do they have a dragon for an Advertising Manager, but they also happen to have an impeccable track record. Bertha, he thinks, is truly nothing short of marvellous.
“Just wait here for a moment, Mr Russell,” says Mrs Bruce, opening a frosted glass door for him to step through. “Miss O’Brien will be with you by the time your meeting slot rolls around. I’m so sorry that she can’t come in earlier, but—”
“That’s perfectly all right,” George interjects, his voice as smooth as icing against a sheet cake as he sits in a leather-upholstered wheelie chair “I know that Miss O’Brien is a very busy woman. Thank you for showing me in, Mrs Bruce— this coffee is incredible, by the way.”
“That’s all Miss O’Brien’s work,” Mrs Bruce says with a wink, and disappears before George can ask for the blend.
He checks his watch— something diamond-encrusted that he’d gotten himself for Christmas last year— and nods. There are nine minutes until showtime. Nine minutes until he gets this show on the road. Nine minutes until he has his first proper, official business discussion with Bertha O’Brien, whom he’d kissed several times behind the gym and made out with in the girls’ bathroom at Homecoming when everyone else was watching the marching band and—
George is certainly efficient when it comes to expelling unwanted thoughts from his brain, setting up his MacBook, and laying out a few rough mock-ups of the ad, which he had doodled over the week; he would hate for Bertha to think that he’s unprepared. Apart from gaining a considerable amount of wealth, George Russell has learned to organise his equipment since he graduated from Auburn High School with a 4.0 GPA and an inhumane amount of Honours classes under his belt.
Five minutes later, Bertha sweeps into the room like an organised hurricane; Mrs Bruce trails behind her with a small stack of documents to sign, a detailed brief to read over, and a shockingly colourful folder labelled, “DESIGN MOCK-UPS.”
“I didn’t know that you would be covering the mock-ups too,” George says, after they have shaken hands and gotten the typical pleasantries out of the way. “I’m very impressed, Bertha. The last three companies we went to made us do our own.”
“Well, then,” Bertha says, “it’s very obvious that they were scalping you, George, or that their designers were sleeping on the job. The fee that you pay is all-inclusive. It’s meant to cover every aspect of the design process.” She pauses. Her eyes wander across his dazed face, and he thinks he must be dreaming, because there’s seemingly a hint of fondness; a whisper of affection for his idiocy. “But don’t worry about us behaving dishonestly like that. I’d sooner resign before I deny a customer what they’re paying for.”
“It’s good to hear that there’s some integrity left in this industry,” George says weakly, tucking his own crude mock-ups into his briefcase again. “Jesus. I feel as if Clay and I have been played for fools.” His voice hardens as he looks up to glance at the projector that Bertha is fiddling with. “I swear I read every single row of fine print on that contract before I signed it. I can’t believe I missed that.” This, George thinks, is more embarrassing than the time he walked out of an Olive Garden without paying, and ended up being chased across the parking lot by his indignant server.
“We tend to miss what’s right in front of us, George,” she says, calm and cool as she hooks a USB to her computer. Her back is still turned to him, but her words bounce off the soundproofed walls. “And you shouldn’t worry about those other companies and the subpar experience they gave you. Not when you’ve found us. And me.”
“Yes,” George says, but his head swims with betrayal, fury at himself for being such an asinine fool and wasting his money on terrible advertising companies, and a whisper of bitterness for Richard Clay, who is incriminated for failing to see what George had also missed. George Russell is ashamed of it, but his wrath is an unchecked beast that rears like a wild horse when he is angry. In hindsight, the horse has bucked so many people to the ground; shattered so many things he cares about. He will not let the horse ruin this rare moment with her.
Despite his evident affection for the concept of business itself, George usually finds himself dreading how business meetings unfold; they are always boring, so he listens out for the occasional nuggets of wisdom dispensed from the speaker like a puzzle. When he and Clay play this odd game of theirs, it’s up to the two of them to collate the bigger picture together. It’s a bit of fun; it’s an exercise; if George is being completely honest, it’s a nerd’s pastime.
Today, though, he finds that he cannot tear himself away from Bertha’s presentation— not even to take notes. Wit and confidence radiate like jewels from her every word, just as they always did when she’d rant about war and politics or whatever she’d learned about in AP History as she drove him home in her sister’s secondhand Corolla.
With an animated voice that draws him in like a moth to a brilliant flame, Bertha runs him through everything from proposed platforms to projected revenue. She takes him through the process of how they narrowed the target demographic and how they specifically crafted a myriad of resources for this project. She brings in a bespectacled young woman from the design team, who introduces herself as Marian, to give George a detailed breakdown of the billboard she created with his specifications in mind. Two hours fly by in the blink of an eye, and George finds himself wondering why Russell Industries struggled with subpar advertising agencies for so long when this was right here, when Bertha was right here.
“That was incredible,” George tells her, after he has signed the final few contracts. “I’m very impressed with your work.”
“You always have been,” Bertha replies, sweeping her papers into their respective folders and putting the newly signed contracts into a plastic sleeve. “But what can I say? I am nothing if not organised and diligent.”
“Says the girl who had her college essay written by the time she finished the tenth grade,” George nods. A smile cracks on his lips. “You haven’t changed a single bit, Bertha O’Brien.”
“And neither have you, George Russell.” The smile that she returns is nothing like the one she’d given him on the night of the party; that one had been artificial, a sharpened grin crafted from years of practice in front of a mirror. Bertha’s current expression is soft exactly where it should be; the curve of her mouth glides gently across her face, lingering in the tide of memory. “Ten years have done nothing but age your forehead.”
Instinctively, he runs a hand over the slight divots that have recently assumed permanent residency. “I never really did shake that habit of frowning when I think.”
“Then I take back what I said. You’ve changed a great deal, George, if you’re thinking so much.”
He can’t help it. He snorts, and soon they’re both laughing as if they’re not twenty-eight and professional, but eighteen and simultaneously precocious and immature, ready to plunge into the waters of the world.
“I forgot to ask when I saw you the other night,” she says suddenly, “but… what happened to your glasses? I thought you were allergic to contact lenses.”
“My…? Oh,” George says, and his mind suddenly floods with images of the battered, prescription tortoiseshell frames he used to tout to school. Bertha had made a habit of “stealing” them from him during lunch, and he’d grab wildly at the blurred, brown-haired mass in front of him until they both collapsed against the steel cafeteria benches, her lipstick staining his cheek. “Right. I got Lasik surgery three years ago.”
“I see,” Bertha nods slowly. “That explains it.”
“I’m impressed that you remember them at all,” George says.
“I don’t forget, George,” she reminds. “And it turns out that a photographic memory is extremely helpful if you’re trying to claw your way up the corporate ladder.”
“I cannot help but agree,” he replies. He licks his lips— dry despite the coffee— and the words tumble from his mouth before he has another chance to think them over. “Might I ask, then, if you’d be interested in reminiscing over dinner sometime next week?”
“Dinner?”
“Unless that’s too forward,” George says, backpedalling so quickly he can hear the gears grinding in his head. “I was only—”
“Well, hold on,” Bertha says, looking somewhat amused. “I haven’t said no yet.” She cocks her head at him. “I’ll text you sometime tonight to let you know.”
“Yes, of course,” he says hurriedly. His cheeks, he surmises, must be flushed beyond recognition, as if he’s some sheltered schoolboy. “I do apologise if this has made me seem very… unprofessional, but it’s not often that I meet someone from home, you know? Auburn’s big, sure, but Chicago’s so much bigger, so—”
“I get it,” she interjects, ending his miserable tirade of lies. He wonders if she can see right through his act; if she knows that he just wants to see more of her because he’s still sort of in love with this woman. “I’ll let you know.”
“Right.”
“I hate to always be the person who leaves first,” Bertha says, “but a Mr Merrick wants to meet with me about a continuity issue in one of our campaigns, so I’ve really got to go. It’s always a pleasure to see you, George— I’m sorry I can’t stay.”
“No, please don’t apologise,” he insists. “We’re both busy people.”
They shake hands, her palm warm against his clammy one— and then she’s gone. Mrs Bruce is the one who leads him back to the elevator and sees him down to the lobby; his chauffeur is waiting right outside the building, and he requests to be driven back to the office.
He calls Clay in the car and tells him that the meeting was a success. George wisely leaves out the bit about dinner, and the thumping of his heart when he realised that Bertha had remembered his stupid tortoiseshell frames ten years after she’d last seen him wear them.