“Hey, looking this good doesn’t just happen. You have to work at it,” I said while making a goofy model pose.
“I’ve missed you,” Tami said as she came back and gave me a hug.
I’d missed her too.
◊◊◊
We drove to the Henderson, a landmark hotel, for the interviews. The Henderson had one of the best restaurants in our town; I’d taken Beth there for a Thanksgiving date my freshman year. Frank and Adrienne found me when Tami and I entered the lobby.
“You both look nice,” Adrienne said.
When I’d come out of my shower, I’d seen that Tami planned to wear a dress, so I bypassed my jeans idea. Now I was glad I had.
“What’s this about interviews?” I asked.
“This is a PR gold mine,” Frank said a little too excitedly.
“Better than stealing the Millennium Falcon?” I asked.
“No, not even close,” Frank admitted.
At least he didn’t try to lie to me.
“David, this gives your friends in the business a boost of exposure. With you, Halle, Zak, and Leah here, it helps promote your movie coming out. I was able to get a number of clients to donate dresses, so there is also that angle,” Adrienne added to Frank’s excitement.
“So, this is good for you?” I teased.
“Of course it is.”
“Who’s my date?” I asked to change the topic.
“There was a problem with that …” Adrienne sputtered.
I turned to Tami.
“Want to go to Prom with me?” I asked.
“David, I don’t even have a dress,” Tami complained.
“You didn’t let me finish,” Adrienne said. “Someone will be here tomorrow. I just have to confirm they finished their shoot early.”
I wasn’t reassured in the least.
“We can leave early and hit the mall,” I suggested to Tami.
“Like they’re going to have anything left,” Tami complained. “Let Adrienne find you a date.”
That whole ‘not in control’ issue was starting to come to the forefront. Tami read me like a book.
“If she doesn’t find you a date, I’ll go. I have a dress at home that would work,” she said.
“I don’t want you to feel like you’re a backup plan or something,” I said, worried how this looked.
They all laughed at me. Yeah, it was way too late to pull that one off. I just gave up and followed Frank.
I was surprised when Frank pulled me into a small conference room. He shut the door and motioned for me to sit down in one of the chairs, then sat down next to me.
“I have an update for you on our contingency planning for Operation CP,” he said.
I’m sure I looked confused.
“CP, as in counterpunch,” he said. “We figured it was better than ‘Operation Feminazi.’”
I snorted in amusement.
“We’ve put together several short video clips. Each of the clips shows the actual questions and answers relating to the four areas we expect them to attack you on. Those are the feminist movement, rape, abuse, and sports. As soon as we find out which issues they’re reporting on, the appropriate clips will be immediately emailed to the news outlet. We will also send along some additional supporting material.
“Included in that additional material will be a summary of the videographer’s activities and criminal history, complete with mug shots. Next will be a video of the comments they made while they were loading up their car to leave. That clip makes it crystal clear that they plan to heavily edit their footage to make you look as bad as possible.
“The next item in the package will be the stick. Ms. Dixon used her firm’s document drafting system to generate a letter that can be tailored to the particular issues raised by the media with a few simple keystrokes. Once the name and address of the media contact are put in, it takes less than a second for the document to exist. It can be printed out or attached to an email immediately.
“You’ll like this. The letters say, in polite lawyer-ese: ‘You now have the true facts and are aware that what the two women created is a lie. If you publish or present their information as though it is true, we will be happy to own a large piece of your outlet,’” Frank said, warming to his task.
I thought we didn’t plan to attack the media, but I paid them for a reason. Frank seemed to be in his element; he lived for situations like these. I think he liked the slick system Ms. Dixon’s firm had for creating letters.
“Your lawyers and I have put together a summary document outlining what happened from our perspective. It directs anyone who reads it to your website and other social media. There we will have all the footage, including the raw unedited footage.
“Once we have the clips the two women are using, we’ll have a team ready to put together tailored responses. It should only take an hour, two at most, to have those available to the media and on your website as well,” Frank explained.
Frank leaned back and took a deep breath. It sounded like they’d been busy.
