Up and Down (6 page)

Diane went in search of a washroom, while we waited for the bags.

“Are you all right, Amanda?” I asked. “You seem a little preoccupied.”

“Of course I’m all right. I’m just getting myself psychologically ready to present with Crawford,” she explained. “They say you only get one shot with him, so I want to make it count.”

“With ten of us on the team, I’m worried that he won’t even notice us,” I replied. “He’ll certainly remember Diane’s glasses, but after seeing them, I can’t imagine he’ll have any sensory capacity left to remember us.”

A slight smile threatened the corners of her mouth.

“I know what you mean,” Amanda said. “I thought that security guy was going to confiscate them as an unidentified and suspicious object.”

“Yep. He seemed quite shocked, perhaps even repulsed, when she actually put them on her face.”

After we checked in to the Washington Plaza on Thomas Circle
NW
, we cabbed it over to the
TK
office on 14th Street
NW
for the rehearsal at 2:30 p.m. The vast lobby was all marble and glass, with an Amazonian receptionist in a futuristic booth in the centre. There was actually more glass than I thought.

“Are you all right?” Amanda asked as I bounced my face off the very clean and clear plate glass door.

“I did that on purpose, just to break the tension,” I explained. “And perhaps my nose.”

I recovered and nonchalantly opened the door while enduring the most unspeakable pain I’d ever experienced. The three of us approached the receptionist with my eyes still streaming.

“Sorry about the door,” the receptionist said in greeting. “I usually prop it open to avoid such collisions. You must be the team from the great white north. Welcome to
TK
D.C.
, I’m Cheryl.”

“Hello, Cheryl. I’m Diane, the
TO GM
. This is Amanda Burke, account director, and finally, with the red nose and teary eyes, David Stewart, senior consultant.”

I waved and wiped my eyes. I’ve never understood why your eyes water when you hit your nose. Why doesn’t your nose run?

“Just have a seat and I’ll alert the corner office that you’ve arrived.”

We all sat down and I turned to Amanda.

“Okay. When you’re feeling nervous before the presentation tomorrow and you need something to lighten the mood,
just think of my nose and that glass door over there, and you’ll be fine.”

By the time we all heard footsteps coming down a very long corridor behind Cheryl’s command post, I could finally see straight again and my eyes were no longer swimming.

“All hail Canada and welcome to Washington!”

We all heard the southern drawl before we laid eyes on the
D.C.
GM
.

“Diane with the fancy glasses, how are you, darlin’?”

“Always great to see you, Crawford. You’re looking as tanned and relaxed as ever,” replied Diane. “Don’t you do any work around here?”

“Not if I can help it,” Blake answered. “You know that.”

“Crawford, this is the designated account director on the
NASA
pitch …”

“I know who this is. Amanda Burke. It’s so great to make your acquaintance at last. I’ve been so impressed with your leadership on this so far and you look just as I pictured you in my mind’s eye.”

In the charm department, Crawford Blake was very well-endowed. He kind of made me queasy. Amanda wasn’t expecting this southern gentility assault and seemed to succumb to an anxiety aneurysm of some kind. She searched first his face, and then the floor for the words she needed.

“Well, umm, thank you and it’s great to meet you too … umm …”

I was standing right next to her and without moving my lips I whispered his name and hoped he hadn’t heard.

“… yes, Crawford. It’s great to meet you Crawford.”

Diane jumped back in.

“And Crawford, this is our new guy, David Stewart, who knows the Canadian Space Agency inside and out.”

“Well, well, now that’s the kind of insight we need on this pitch. I figure the
NASA
boys will be mighty impressed with the depth of our team.”

I just nodded and shook his extended hand, which was big and surprisingly sweaty.

We were escorted to the boardroom, where the rest of the
NASA
pitch team was gathering. Introductions were made and the bonding began. Amanda had regained her poise and personality and even managed to direct several complete sentences in a row to Crawford, who claimed the big chair at the head of the gigantic polished boardroom table. Lovely, shiny table. I was dying to launch myself headfirst down the length of it in a great slide for life but thought it might not leave the best first impression. Oh yes, and Amanda would probably have had a coronary. Diane was occupied explaining the artistic antecedents of her pair of glasses to two younger
TK
D.C.
fashionistas. Eventually the kibitzing died away and Crawford took control.

“Okay, team, let’s get this done,” he began. “Let me start by saying that it is wonderful and rare to have the opportunity to work with our colleagues in the land of snow, slush, and ice
hockey up there in the province of Toronto. I really must get myself up there for a visit sometime. I welcome the three of you to our warmer climes and hope that we’ll have many more chances to work together after we win this thing tomorrow.”

We nodded and smiled. Something about this guy was rubbing me the wrong way, but it was hard to cut through the bonhomie to get to what was really bugging me. It was probably just the standard American ignorance of Canada – a very old story. I bet I could name all fifty state capitals, yet I doubted Blake could identify even a handful of Canadian provinces. I decided not to test my theory right then, as Crawford still had the floor.

“We have a truly great opportunity tomorrow to land one of the biggest and most prestigious clients we’ve ever had at Turner King.
NASA
is a household name in both our countries and around the world. Their achievements in the last half century have shaped our nation. Regrettably, their influence appears to be waning. Our job is to restore the lustre to
NASA
and bring the people back to marvel at its miracles. I guarantee you that
NASA
is as straitlaced an organization as you’re ever likely to encounter, and they can be easily spooked. So let’s keep it real tomorrow and not scare them with ideas that are too far out there. I’ve seen the deck and it’s a winning presentation. So let’s divvy it up and make sure everyone has a piece. If you’re in the room tomorrow, you’re going to be saying something.”

We spent the next few hours mapping out the presentation and then running through it once as if we were in
NASA
’
S
boardroom.
It was my very first rehearsal for my very first
TK
presentation. So this was how things worked in the agency world. I admit, I was impressed. But I was also a little concerned about the budget. All elements of the proposed program had been painstakingly budgeted according to the various hourly rates of the professionals involved and the anticipated time required. The North America–wide program came in at just under five million dollars in fees, before expenses. Then in the meeting, Crawford arbitrarily upped the number to six million to ensure we weren’t shortchanging the agency. Six million bucks in fees for a yearlong continental program still seemed like a lot of dough to me. Then again, we were pitching
NASA
, famous for purchasing a nineteen–million-dollar toilet for the International Space Station, so perhaps we weren’t out of line.

Here’s how the show was set up for the following morning:

We ran through our parts once and tweaked the slides a bit. Crawford and Diane left after their parts to have dinner together. After that, Amanda finally seemed to be back in her element and jumped right in the middle of it all. She was still uptight, bossy, and domineering. But without her, the Canadian angle on the plan might well have disappeared. By early evening, we were just going through the motions. Amanda said it was time to quit rehearsing before we became too practised. We needed to leave some adrenalin in the tank for tomorrow. Interesting. I was learning a lot.

When we left, Amanda rushed ahead to open the glass door for me in the lobby. I played my part and stepped very gingerly through the opening with my hands held up in front of my face. For the first time, I heard her laugh. It was nice to see little pieces of the unguarded Amanda surfacing. It seemed she felt good about the
NASA
presentation.

That night in my hotel room, Google and I dug a little deeper into Crawford Blake. Beyond what I’d learned about him earlier, I discovered that he’d been a baseball star at his rural Mississippi high school. He played third base, the hot corner, and swung a heavy bat. Blake helped lead the team to a state championship in his senior year. The stuff of American dreams.

Just before shutting down, I put my time into the tyrannical time tracking system,
PROTTS
. Too bad the time wasn’t billable, but we were still in pitch mode.

“Oh, that’s just great. We’re up against the Tupper Group,” Amanda sighed as we entered
NASA
headquarters on E Street
SW
around 11:00 the next morning. “They are good.”

A dozen or so of the most uniformly beautiful people I’d ever seen were milling about in the lobby, all smiles, returning security badges to a harried guard.

“Wow, looks like a
Vanity Fair
photo shoot waiting to happen,” I observed. “How do you know who they are?”

“The tall blond woman flirting with that younger suit on the left runs Tupper in Toronto,” Amanda explained. “I interviewed with her last year when I was at the end of my
TK
rope. I’m better now.”

We moved over to the other side of the lobby to join the rest of the
TK
crew assembling there. A few of our folks exchanged casual nods with the Tupperites but there was no overt fraternizing with the enemy.

“Just keep smiling, folks, and act as if we’re walking on sunshine,” Crawford said under his breath. “Diane, put those funky glasses back on. That’ll intimidate them.”

When Diane complied, I realized that he’d been serious. Diane turned to face the Tupper Group as they moved en masse towards the door.

“See, they’re retreating.” Crawford paused until they were out the door before continuing, “Okay, everyone, huddle up.”

Again, I thought he’d been kidding but was immediately enveloped in a minor swarm of
TK
staff as we gathered around our leader. He actually put his arms around Diane and Amanda, who happened to have ended up on either side of him. On cue, we all leaned into the scrum.

“Okay, guys, the nasty people have gone and the field is ours. This is our day. This is our hour. This is our moment. Seize it. We have the team. We have the program. And we have the opportunity. Just do your thing in there and we will win this. Americans will once again be captivated by space travel, and our world and any others they might find out there will be put right.”

Unaccustomed to the half-time Vince Lombardi speech, I only just managed to stifle an eye-rolling smile. I half expected him to shout “
Break”
at the end and have us all clap our hands. I glanced at Amanda and was struck by the intensity contorting her game face. She looked like a barefoot Tony Robbins disciple about to sashay across red-hot coals. I confess it was kind of freaky. But then I looked at Diane in her haute couture glasses and
realized Amanda wasn’t really that freaky at all. It also registered with me that Crawford Blake had failed to acknowledge that Canadians were part of this play too. Typical.