.jpg)
When I’d been at A.G.A. about three years, along came a new senior vice president of Communications, Dave S. On the surface, Dave was a very different animal from the other executives at the association, seemingly more sophisticated. In the summer, he wore three-piece cream-colored suits, while many had adopted the leisure suit.
Dave turned out to be a pretty nice guy with issues. He wasn’t bad looking, though a little pasty, with slightly receding brown hair. He wandered around the offices smoking a pipe, using ghastly tobacco that rivaled the cigars of Bill M., who by now had been demoted to the ambiguous position of speech writer. Remember, in an association like ours, only one speech was needed, to be slightly altered as required. The perfect job for Bill.
While amiable, Dave soon proved to be a pain in the ass. It seemed he never did anything. He was never in his office long enough. He often spent time in our cubicle shooting the breeze and flirting. I frequently had to sternly tell him to go away so we could get something done.
A.G.A. had sent me on terrible business trips to Detroit, Tampa, and Atlanta (well, not so bad).
Suddenly I heard I’d be going to cover the annual meeting in San Francisco. We’d all be staying at the Four Seasons.
Swell.
Once I settled into my room and started making the rounds, it didn’t take long for Dave to sidle up to me. He made it very clear that he’d arranged for me to come.
So!
I immediately berated him and disabused him of any illusions he might be harboring about our ‘connecting’ in San Francisco.
I thought I’d made myself clear until Dave approached me in the hotel lobby – in front of Bud L. the association president – and handed me a $40 box of Godiva chocolates. At the time these were the ultimate luxury chocolates and had only recently been introduced.
I tried mental telepathy, “Have you lost your mind? Jesus, Dave.”
He didn’t seem to get how inappropriate this was and maybe Bud didn’t even notice but I was furious and distanced myself as much as possible for the rest of the trip. I made it safely home without having to fight off the busy hands of my vice president.
A couple of months later, Dave came into our cubicle with breaking news: he and his wife were separated. Dave was living in a basement apartment at a friend’s house on Foxhall Road in the city, a very wealthy enclave. While this news didn’t interest me, Dave began hitting on young women like my editorial assistant, Tammy, and a couple of secretaries.
Tammy, about 23, was thrilled, that is until she realized he wasn’t going to wine and dine her. In fact, his idea of great sex was to couple in the storage area under the bow of his crappy little sailboat, littered as it was with life vests, old ropes, and the flotsam and jetsam of life at sea. Tammy may have been naïve, but she wasn’t stupid, and she broke it off after a couple of weeks.
More bizarre was Dave’s involvement with a young secretary named Sara, which lasted longer.
One day, I was coming out of our cubicle and damned if a GORILLA didn’t lumber past me.
Gadzooks!
Of course, I followed. By the time I caught up with the gorilla, it was causing quite a tizzy among the secretaries in the government department. Well, come to find out it was Dave’s birthday and for some strange reason Sara thought it would be funny to dress up as a gorilla and surprise him. Oh, he was surprised, all right, and very much not amused.
Comments