Chapter 1: The Plan has Changed

It was late Friday afternoon. I was in the office packing the stuff I needed for a meeting with a client the following week when the intercom buzzed. I was working for a medium size advertising agency in Chicago, Illinois. I had been working there for five years, right after I graduated from ISU. My best friend, my roommate at ISU, and now my boss Nick recruited me to work for the agency.

It was Nick on the intercom. "James, can you come over for a while? The plan has changed."

"Damn it!" I mumbled. This wasn't a good sign. Nick was the man who knew me best, better than my parents and better than all my previous girlfriends. I knew him very well too. What he indicated by the change of plan would mean I wouldn't be going to Atlanta as planned. I was supposed to go there for a review meeting with a client. It was going to be a piece of cake for me. The client's budget wasn't huge; they had been very happy with our performance; I knew them well; and we had been maintaining good relationship for a number of years. The secretary of the client's president, Alice, was a hot tease. I almost got into her pants last time. I had been drawing up a plan, which I justly believed that it would work this time. Now this "change of plan" was going to kill all my hopes.

I went into Nick's office with a mean look. Nick laughed. He knew what I was thinking. There weren't many secrets between him and me. When I first met him at ISU he was a senior and I was a freshman. Since then we had been sharing each other's secrets. I knew almost everything about his life, his wife, and even company information that I wasn't supposed to have. I was his best man when he married his wife two years ago. I never dared to tell her I knew what size of lingerie she wore, how frequent she had sex with Nick, and all the juicy details about their life together.

"Well, your guess is correct, you're not going to Atlanta." Nick maintained a wily smile. "Dave's going instead."

I was more than disappointed. Dave was another Account executive in the agency. He was known to be an expert in dealing with hot teases. I could picture Dave riding on the woman I had bought a dozen of condoms for.

"We may have a crisis with Roger & Wilson. We just know that another advertising agency made a presentation to them this morning. Together with the screw-ups we had earlier this year, this could mean losing a big client. We need someone better to lead the presentation and negotiation in Monday's meeting with them."

"Fuck!" I muttered. Dave was going to get the beauty and I was going to have the beast. I knew why it was me who was chosen to handle this crisis. I had known Roger Dreyfus, co-founder of this nationwide cosmetic distributor, for most of my life. Roger's dad and my dad had been in the same platoon in the Vietnam War. We had been having strong ties all my life. In fact it was me who got Roger & Wilson for this agency and had been dealing with them until Dave joined the agency 2 years ago.

"Jennifer will be going with you." Nick added with another wily smile.

"You've got to be kidding!" I leaned forward in the chair. Jennifer was an assistant art director who joined the agency about six months ago. She was a bitch. Whoever complimented her soft blonde hair, her ocean blue eyes, her firm breast, or her slender legs, would be considered an impetuous jerk to her. I knew that well, I made all those remarks when I first saw her, and since then had been a total jerk as far as she was concerned. She was creatively talented, which could explain her being recruited into her position only 2 years after her graduation. However, whether it was prejudice or difference in views, she had never concurred with me on anything, not once. In meetings we always had the most scorching disputes which were usually ended with her calling me "Jerk". She must have been born to hate me. We just had a hot clash that morning. She almost hurled her folder at my face.