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  I shook my head. “I don’t know,” I replied, wanting to possess her more than anything in the world.

  Her situation with boys was like a baseball game: someone was always up to bat, someone on deck, and a couple dozen guys waiting in the dugout, every one of them hoping to round the bases with my best friend. I felt more like a hot dog vendor in the stands than one of the players.

  Sometimes she would ask my advice about a particular guy, and I would give her a remarkably self-serving answer, and she would just look at me with a funny expression. I was miserable. She once said that since I was her best friend, when she got married I’d have to be her bridesmaid, which meant I’d have to shave my legs, and how did I feel about chiffon? I don’t know if she was purposely torturing me or if it just came naturally.

  At sixteen things changed. I had a growth spurt, and the opposite sex took a sudden interest in me. This had an interesting effect on McKale. While she had relished sharing every excruciating detail of her dates, she never wanted to hear about mine. She initiated a “don’t ask, don’t tell” policy. I remember one fall afternoon, two girls came over to see me while McKale and I were talking on the front porch of her house. They sidled over and joined us. One of them had a thing for me, and both were laying the flirt on pretty heavy. McKale stormed inside, slamming the door behind her.

  “What’s her prob?” one of the girls asked.

  “Jealous,” the other said. I remember feeling a warm rush of hope.

  Still, if she had romantic feelings for me, she hid them well, and for the most part, I suffered in silence. And for good reason. McKale was my best friend, and there’s no better way to ruin a friendship than to declare your love to an unreceptive recipient. Fortunately I never had to.

  One warm June day—it was my seventeenth birthday—we were on the hammock in her backyard, lying opposite each other, her tiny, bare feet next to my shoulder. We were gently rocking back and forth, arguing about where the Beatles would be if it weren’t for Yoko when she suddenly said, “You know we’re going to get married someday.”

  I don’t know where this news came from—I just remember an impossibly large smile crossing my face. I tried to act cool. “You think?”

  “I know.”

  “How do you know?”

  “Because you’re so madly in love with me you can’t stand it.”

  It seemed pointless to deny it. “You noticed?”

  “Yeah,” she said matter of factly. “Everyone notices. The mailman noticed.”

  I felt stupid.

  Her voice softened, “And the thing is . . . I feel the same way about you.”

  She swung her legs over the side and sat up, bringing her face close to mine. I looked up at her, and she was staring at me with wet eyes. “You know I love you, don’t you? I could never live without you.”

  I probably felt the same way a lottery winner feels when their number is read. At that moment, a friendship of seven years disappeared into something else. We kissed, and this time I could tell she liked it. It was to be the second greatest day of my life. Our wedding day was my first.

  There’s a problem with marrying up. You always worry that someday they’ll see through you and leave. Or, worse yet, someone better will come along and take her. In my case, it wasn’t someone. And it wasn’t something better.

  CHAPTER

  Three

  The assumption of time is one of humanity’s greatest follies. We tell ourselves that there’s always tomorrow, when we can no more predict tomorrow than we can the weather. Procrastination is the thief of dreams.

  Alan Christoffersen’s diary

  McKale and I married young, though it didn’t seem young at the time. Probably because I felt I had been waiting my whole life and wanted to get on with it. We got an apartment in Pasadena, just three miles from where we grew up. McKale got a job as a legal secretary for a small-time lawyer, and I went to school at the Art Center College of Design, just a bus ride away from our home.

  Those were good years. We had our arguments—all marriages require adjustments—but they never really lasted. How can you hurt a person you love more than yourself? It’s like punching yourself in the head. I got good at apologizing, though she usually beat me to it. Sometimes I suspected that we really just fought so we could have fun making up.

  The thing we argued most about was children. McKale wanted to start a family right away. I was against the idea, and because logistics and finances seemed to be on my side, it was an argument I always won. “At least wait until I’m out of school,” I said.

  As soon as I had graduated from college and landed my first steady job, McKale brought up the subject again, but again I told her that I wasn’t ready. I wanted to wait until life was more secure. What a fool I was.

  I worked at Conan Cross Advertising for about three years before I decided to hang out my own shingle in October of 2005. That same week, I started a city-wide billboard campaign to promote myself. The billboard read:

  AL CHRISTOFFERSEN IS A MADMAN.

  The board created a small stir locally, and I even got a call from a lawyer threatening to sue me on behalf of his client, with whom I shared the same name. After three weeks I made a few changes to the sign. It now read:

  AL CHRISTOFFERSEN IS AN MADMAN

  (Call Al for some sane advertising advice.)

  The campaign won me another ADDY and brought in three very large clients. If I thought my previous employer ran a sweatshop, it was an afternoon tea party compared to being self-employed. I’d spend all day pitching and meeting with clients and most evenings producing the work. Several times a week, McKale brought dinner down to the office. We’d sit on the floor of my office and eat Chinese takeout and catch up on each other’s day.

  As my agency grew, it became clear that I needed help. One day it walked into my office. Kyle Craig, a man with two first names, was a former rep for the local television station. I had purchased time on his station, and he had been following my agency’s meteoric rise. He made me an offer: for a salary and 15 percent of the company, he’d take over client relations and media buying so I could focus on marketing and advertising creation. It was exactly what I needed.

  Kyle was well dressed, ambitious, and charming: a consummate salesman. He was the kind of guy who could talk a nun into the cigar-of-the-month club.

  McKale didn’t really like Kyle. She didn’t trust him. She told me that the first time they met, he had flirted with her. I shrugged it off. “He just comes across that way,” I said. “He’s harmless.” Truth was, I liked Kyle. We were rogue ad guys—young, smarmy, slick-talking boys who worked hard and had fun doing it. Back then there was a lot of fun to be had.

  One of those times was when the suits at the Seattle county commissioner’s office asked us to prepare an advertising proposal for their chronically un-hip county fair. The year before, there had been a gang-related shooting at the fair, and attendance and profits had fallen through the floor. They predicted that this year would be even worse. The director of county services heard we were good and invited us to pitch their account. I created a hilarious campaign with talking cows. (That was before California Cheese Association’s HAPPY COW campaigns. You could say I was into talking cows before talking cows were cool.)

  Neither Kyle nor I had ever met the people we were pitching, and so, to break the ice, I thought we’d have some fun by presenting a prank billboard campaign. In the history of bad ideas, this was the equivalent of a concrete parachute. I failed to take into account that bureaucrats don’t have a sense of humor.

  The temperature dropped a few degrees as the fair’s marketing committee entered our office. There were three of them, rigid and gray—so tightly wound I expected their heads to start spinning.

  I didn’t know their names so I created my own for them: Hat Guy, Church Lady, and Captain High Pants. They sat at our conference room table and looked at me expectantly. I’ve attended funerals that were less solemn. Unwisely, I stuck to my pla
n and presented the first prank board.

  Come to the fair,

  The GANG’S all here

  They stared at the sign in stunned disbelief.

  “Gangs . . . ,” Church Lady squeaked.

  “Here’s the next one,” I said. Kyle’s eyes were practically bulging.

  Show your TRUE COLORS

  attend the county fair

  No one spoke for a moment, then Hat Guy said, “Colors? Like gang colors?”

  Without answering him I revealed the next slide.

  Have a KILLER Time

  at the county fair

  Their three, trout-like mouths simultaneously fell open, and Church Lady gasped. Captain High Pants looked down for a moment and adjusted his glasses. “I think we’ve come to the wrong place.”

  Kyle jumped to his feet. “Hey, we’re just pulling your chain,” he said. “Having a little fun.”

  “That’s right,” I said. “I just thought we’d lighten things up with a little humor.”

  Captain High Pants looked at Kyle with the cold stare of an immigration officer. “This is your idea of humor?”

  Kyle pointed at me. “Actually, it’s his idea of humor.”

  “I don’t find it very amusing,” Church Lady said, standing.

  They gathered their things and walked out of the room, leaving Kyle and me looking at each other in astonishment.

  “That went well,” Kyle said.

  “Think they’ll come back?” I asked.

  “Nope.”

  “Yeah, me neither,” I said.

  “Bunch of cow-lovers,” Kyle said. “I hope the Crips stage a shoot-out in their hog exhibit this year.”

  (Note: The agency they eventually selected produced the most boring campaign I’d ever seen, which fit them nicely: a television campaign with two old biddies who looked like Mayberry’s Aunt Bea, sipping iced tea and talking about the good ole days when the Fair came to town.)

  CHAPTER

  Four

  Often the simplest of decisions carry the direst of consequences.

  Alan Christoffersen’s diary

  The beginning of the collapse came on a day like any other. The alarm went off at six, and I reached over and hit the snooze button. McKale nuzzled up to me, pressing her soft, warm body against mine. She began gently running her nails up and down my chest, one of my favorite things in the world. I exhaled in ecstasy. “Don’t stop.”

  She kissed my neck. “What are you doing today?”

  “Work.”

  “Call in sick.”

  “It’s our company. Who would I call in sick to?”

  “You can call me. I’ll give you time off.”

  “For good behavior?”

  “No. You’re not good at all.”

  I smiled and kissed her. Every morning I woke up amazed that this woman was still in my bed.

  “I wish I could. But we’re pitching the Wathen account today.”

  “Isn’t that why you have Kyle? Can’t he handle these things?”

  “Not today. This is the big one I’ve been preparing for all month. I have to be there.”

  “You’re no fun.”

  “Someone’s got to pay the bills.”

  Her expression changed. She lay back. “Speaking of which . . .”

  I rolled over. “What?”

  “I need more money.”

  “Again?”

  “I haven’t made the house payment yet.”

  “For this month or last month?”

  She grimaced. “. . . last month.”

  “McKale.” I groaned in exasperation. “I got a call at the office last week from the leasing company. They said we missed the last two months’ payments.”

  “I know. I’ll get to it. I hate handling the money. I’m no good at money.”

  “You’re good at spending it.”

  She frowned. “That was mean.”

  I looked at her and my expression softened. “Sorry. You know you’re the reason I earn it.”

  She leaned forward and kissed me. “I love you.”

  “I love you too,” I said. “I’ll have Steve transfer some money into your account.” I sat up. “We may be celebrating tonight. Or not. Either way let’s do something fun. We have the whole weekend.”

  She got a big smile. “I have an idea.”

  “What?”

  “I’m not going to tell you.” She put her finger on my lips. “I guarantee you’ll never forget this weekend.”

  Neither of us could have guessed how right she was.

  CHAPTER

  Five

  Humans waste far too much time worrying about things that will never befall them. It’s my experience that the greatest tragedies are the ones that don’t even cross our minds—the events that blindside us on a Friday afternoon when we’re wondering how to spend our weekend.

  Or when we’re in the middle of an advertising pitch.

  Alan Christoffersen’s diary

  I pulled into my private parking stall about twenty minutes after nine. Kyle was already in a bad mood. “Glad you could make it,” he said, as I walked into the office. I was used to this. Kyle was always uptight before a big presentation.

  “Relax, Kyle,” I said calmly.

  Falene walked in behind Kyle. “Good morning, Alan.”

  “Morning, Falene.”

  Falene was my girl Friday—a sleek, olive-skinned beauty of Greek descent whom Kyle had met on a model search and hired as our executive assistant and resident eye candy. Even her name (her mother had given birth the night she saw Bambi) was exotic.

  “Relax?” Kyle said, his voice strained. “This is the Super Bowl. You don’t show up late on game day.”

  I kept walking toward my office followed by Kyle and Falene. “Are they here yet?”

  “No.”

  “Then I’m not late.”

  “Can I get you anything before the meeting?” Falene asked.

  “How about a sedative for Kyle?” I said.

  Falene smiled wryly. Even though Kyle had hired her, she had never been crazy about him. Lately the relationship seemed worse.

  “I’ll meet you in the conference room,” Kyle grumbled.

  I understood why Kyle was so anxious. The client we were about to pitch was Wathen Development Company and the campaign was for an upscale housing development called The Bridge: a $200 million project, with 400 units, two clubhouses, and an 18-hole golf course. Their annual advertising budget exceeded $3 million.

  Wathen, a brash, perennially tan forty-something developer, arrived about fifteen minutes later. He was flanked by his accountant, Stuart, and Abby, a British woman we’d never met and whose role was unclear. Kyle and I shook hands with them as they entered our office.

  “What can we get you to drink?” Kyle asked.

  “What have you got?”

  “What’s on tap, Falene?” Kyle asked curtly. Falene glared at him, then turned to Wathen.

  “Mr. Wathen,” she said, “we have . . .”

  “Call me Phil.”

  Falene smiled. “Okay, Phil. We have juice: cranberry, apple, pineapple, and orange. We have seltzers, vanilla and peach, and Coke, Diet Coke, Pepsi, Perrier . . .”

  “They still make that Perrier?”

  “I’m afraid so.”

  He laughed. “I’ll have a cranberry juice. Could you mix a little pineapple in with that?”

  “Certainly.”

  “Abby,” Wathen said, “what’ll you have?”

  “Nothing.”

  “I’ll have a vanilla seltzer,” Stuart said.

  “Very well,” Falene said. “I’ll be right back with your drinks.”

  As Falene walked out, Kyle invited everyone into the conference room. As we were settling in around the table, something peculiar happened—something a little difficult to explain. I suddenly felt a sharp pain up my spine, followed by a powerful emotional flux, a bizarre feeling of oppression that seemed to press the very breath from me. At first I wondered
if I was having a heart attack or a stroke, then an anxiety attack. Whatever it was, it passed as quickly as it came. No one seemed to notice that I was breathing heavy.

  I had designed the conference room to showcase my myriad awards. The walls were textured with plaster then painted aubergine and covered with gold-framed advertising awards. The south wall had two crowded shelves that held our trophies. The awards on the east wall were concealed behind a screen that descended from the ceiling.

  When everyone was situated around the table, I turned on the room’s projector, and the Wathen Development logo appeared on the screen.

  Falene returned, careful to take the first drink to Wathen. “There you are, sir, I mean, Phil. Cranberry with a splash of pineapple. Anything else?”

  “Just to be twenty again,” he said.

  Abby rolled her eyes.

  She distributed the rest of the drinks, including a Coke to Kyle, which, I noticed, she did without looking at him.

  “All right,” Kyle said, “if it’s all right with you, Phil, we’ll begin.” Wathen nodded, and Kyle dimmed the lights with a hand remote. “Thank you for this opportunity. Our objective, as your future agency, is to create a campaign that will not only result in capacity occupancy of your new development, but a demand that will keep your real estate value strong and growing.

  “Our campaign employs a multimedia approach that includes television, radio, newspaper, Internet, and outdoor advertising. We propose to launch the campaign with a fifty-billboard showing with the express purpose of creating name awareness. We’ll accomplish this with a three-phase outdoor message, the first to begin as soon as you’re ready to pull the trigger.” He pointed to me. “Al . . .”

  I pressed a button on the remote to unveil the first billboard comp.

  Bridge under construction