Thomas settled in to watch Tessa's presentation. It had been two years since he had watched her work and he would have been lying if he said he wasn't looking forward to it. She was the best at working a large group and making each person feel like she was talking just to them. The first time he had ever seen her she was pitching a new client for their firm. He had just started with the company and his supervisor had suggested he sit in on the presentation to get a feel for how the teams worked.
He remembered settling in at the back of the room to watch when a Senior Vice President who had come along to show the client how important they were to the firm sat down next to him. Then the VP leaned over to Thomas and nodding toward Tessa said, "That's a dangerous woman right there." Thomas wasn't sure what to make of that comment at first, but luckily the VP went on. "Watch her. Learn from her. She's the best we have. Those men (pointing toward the lobby where another firm was waiting to pitch) won't know what hit them. Men always assume a pretty woman can't be smart. By the time they figure out how wrong they are they will be behind the curve."
Thomas and the VP had then watched Tessa and her team present a perfectly choreographed and planned pitch that came across as completely off the cuff and relaxed. And then he got to watch as the VP's words came true. As they were leaving the office Tessa and her team stopped to shake hands with the other agency there to pitch. The lead from their team tried to trip Tessa up on an obscure fact about the company's founder. Tessa smiled at him and then corrected his error on the year. All while the owner of the company was watching. Tessa's team won the business.
Six months later he and Tessa were assigned to the same pitch team for an incredibly large and important piece of business. As they were told, "No pressure but this will take the agency to the next level if we land it." They had merged their two creative teams and cherry picked the best junior account people they could find. It hadn't always gone smoothly in the beginning. There were Thomas' people and Tessa's people. At the end of her rope in a meeting Tessa finally took charge. She had everyone lay their business cards on the table. Then she shuffled them all up and spread them out. She told everyone, "Without reading them, pick yours out. You can't can you? Because they are all the same. We are one company here. Trying to do the best for this one company. There isn't yours and mine. We all work for them. That bold name on the card? The one printed largest? That's not yours is it? It's theirs. But the trick is, if we all work for them, do our best for them, then it's the best for us as well. We will win this account. But only if we work past the petty bullshit and just do our best."
It was corny. But it worked. Everyone seemed a little embarrassed about their behavior and after that spent more time working together than in separate groups. Including Tessa and Thomas. They spent hours together working out the pitch, going over the company's product line, the current advertising materials, deciding what they would want to keep and what they would want to toss. Reviewing the creative. Reviewing the media prospectus. Fine tuning the presentation. They won the pitch. The agency threw a party to celebrate. And there Thomas met Wal, Tessa's husband.
Wal. What sort of name was Wal anyway? His full name was Walter but god forbid he go by that or even Walt. It was Wal. He was an artist. Not a creative like they worked with in the agency, he wanted to make that perfectly clear, he was an artist. He wanted to create things that moved people. Thomas had joked that they wanted to do the same. Moved people to buy their products. Wal did not laugh. Wal moved on to have a conversation with one of their creative directors. Thomas thought about warning him that the woman he was about to speak to had had not one but five gallery showings of her work so he might not want to mention she wasn't a true artist. He thought about it. But he didn't say a word.
He and Tessa became the go to team over the next few years for landing new business and for keeping old. She was perfect at large presentations, he was the go to guy for the glad handing one on ones. They floated from team to team co-leading more projects than they took separately. And their friendship deepened. They enjoyed each other's company, which was good since they spent so many hours together. In the office and on the road. Pitching, visiting clients, going to seminars, festivals, conventions. Team T&T.
And slowly Thomas had noticed a shift, a change. He realized as he was getting dressed one morning that he reached for the tie Tessa had commented on the week before. Not because it went with his suit more, but because he knew they were having lunch that day and he wanted to wear something she liked. He started looking forward to the times they could be alone. To talk about more than just work. He knew as much about her as he could. She drank bourbon. Not just because her father was from Kentucky and felt it was the only civilized drink, as she would tell people. But because she liked to see the look on people's faces when she ordered it. "Nobody expects a girl to drink bourbon" she said. And she also liked that you could sip a single glass of bourbon all night while entertaining a client and they would never notice you weren't drinking as much as they were.
She knew things about him as well. She knew that he didn't remember his father. That he had left when Thomas was two; gone out for a pack of cigarettes never to come back. She also knew that it was at Thomas' mother's suggestion that he go shop for those cigarettes in another state. And that when Thomas was in his early 20s he had met his half brother and discovered that the only thing worse than not having a father growing up would have been to have had his.
He remembered the first time he thought about kissing her. They had been to an awards dinner, their agency had won two major awards for complicated campaigns that he and Tessa had both been a part of. While they were walking back to the parking garage filled with champagne and good wishes he had known that he was going to kiss her. That he couldn't not kiss her. Then her phone had buzzed, Wal. Of course. Wal who didn't even ask if they had won, just wondered when she was planning on coming home. That had ended that. But that was just the first time he thought about it.
Then came The Lunch. That's how he had thought about it. Still thought about it. The Lunch. When she told him that she and Wal were getting divorced. That he couldn't stand living in Chicago anymore. Felt that it was just a small Midwestern town trying to act like a city. It was stifling his creativity. She said she thought she had always known it was coming. That she didn't want to be crass and say it was a starter marriage as so many magazine articles were talking about right then. But as they decided to divorce she realized that they had never really blended anything. They lived in her condo that they had never bothered adding his name to. Their bank accounts were separate. They had no children together. They had met in college and he had been so different from anyone else she had known she said she thought maybe she had confused fascination with love.
Thomas remembered the rest of the day going by in a blur. Tessa was going to be single. There was no more Wal. Seriously, who calls themselves Wal? He caught himself watching her in a meeting that afternoon. Looking for any hint of sadness that she and Wal were no more. He couldn't find any. When she caught him staring at her and smiled his heart started to race. Tessa was going to be single.
That night when he got home he walked in to the living room to find Janice sitting on the floor playing Hi Ho Cherry-O with the boys. She was wearing his sweatshirt. It was much too big on her but she said it was the most comfortable thing they owned. Taylor took his turn then ran over to Thomas; mouth already going a mile a minute to tell him about the day. Taylor who looked like someone had blended Thomas' face and Janice's face and made a new face. Kyle looked more like Thomas but acted more like Janice. Still a blend of the two. Which he guessed is what had happened. The living embodiments of them.
After they had gotten Taylor and Kyle settled in bed for the evening Thomas told Jan they needed to talk. It was like his mind and mouth were working independently of each other. He hadn't meant to say that but out came the words,"We need to talk." At first Janice replied with a breezy, "Okay, let's talk." Then she looked at his face and realized it was a serious talk. She sat on the couch, "All right...what?"
And out it came, he had no idea what he was doing but apparently he had been thinking about it for awhile. "I think I should put my name in the ring for the managing partner job in the new branch in Austin."
So here they were two years later. He was running the Austin office. Tessa had become the lead Account Manager for the Chicago office and last he had heard she was engaged to a finance manager with a normal name. As he watched her presenting the company vision to the blended Chicago, New York and Austin managing teams he thought to himself, "Yes, she is a dangerous woman."
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