Peggy walked into the office the next morning, and for the first time since the previous merger, felt awkward in her surroundings. The entire building seemed to be tinged by a different light, the conversations around her felt foreign and unimportant. Stan's usual antics didn't amuse her like they had only a day ago, and she felt like refusing every call that came to her.
"Stop it." She whispered to herself, taking another look at Topaz's latest campaign. "Don't make it weird for yourself."
"You make it weird for all of us when you talk to yourself, Peggy." Stan raised his eyebrow at her.
"Shut up Stan."
"Hey, don't get mad at me." Stan held up his hands innocently. "I just don't want you to pull a Ginsberg on me. Although, if you're going to chop off your nipple, could you give me the whole breast? You could be like some Amazon woman and get a bow and arrow." Peggy shut her file angrily, glaring at her coworker.
"You're a pervert. And insensitive."
"You like it."
"You have no clue what women like." She snapped, and went to grab her purse. "I am going to go and get coffee."
"OK, but we have a meeting with Don to discuss that new menswear account in 5 minutes."
"Shit. I forgot." Peggy sat back down and lightly banged her head on the desk. She retrieved her cigarettes from her drawer and lit one up. "I don't know why they want me on this. What do I know about men's fashion? This isn't something that wives go down to the drugstore and buy for their husbands. Men go in and buy their own suits." Stan shrugged and twiddled his pencil between his fingers.
"But are men really dressing for themselves, or are they dressing because they want women to be attracted to them?" Peggy snorted.
"That obviously isn't a concern for you."
"I know. I'm most irresistible naked."
"I guess your only kryptonite is a hotel room." She retorted. Stan looked down, and although it was hard to tell beneath the forest growing on his face, she was pretty sure he was blushing. Peggy smirked, and busied herself grabbing research and notepads, trying not to think more than four minutes into the future.
"So." Don sat in his chair, surveying the creative gathering around him. "We're finally breaking into Men's Wear. Hugo Boss wants to have a much larger presence in America. It's going to be hard – they're a German brand, and the kind of customer they want to attract hasn't forgotten World War II yet. Our advertising has to be sensitive, tasteful, and completely by-pass the mention of war, nationality and Channukah." John and Stan chuckled, but Peggy's face was a humourless slate. Don eyed her cautiously while putting out his cigarette. "Any ideas?" There was a moment of silence before Peggy opened her mouth.
"What about the word 'boss'? I think that men want to be seen as powerful, as masters of their own destinies. What if we had a television commercial where there is this big retirement party for the CEO of a company. We can state that with a sign at the entrance, 'Welcome to the retirement out of CEO, Mr. So-and-So'. There are hundreds of beautiful women there, done up to the nines, and all of their husbands, milling around, and we focus on this handsome man. He's making some small talk with another man and his wife, and someone approaches him and says 'Excuse me, you must be Mr. So-and-So.' The man smiles graciously and he says 'No, Mr. So-and-So is actually at the front'. The approaching man apologises and before he leaves, says 'But I bet you're next in line.' Then they both smile, and a voice-over says the tagline." Don looked at her critically, and Peggy felt smaller than that look had made her feel in a long time.
"So we're saying that Hugo Boss isn't for rich men, but poor ones trying to look rich? We're saying that wearing Hugo Boss makes you look like you're at retirement age? How much is a scene with hundreds of extras going to cost? What kind of grand ballroom are we going to have to rent out? And the dialogue sounds like the usual bullshitting that goes on at these events, not like the guy is actually going onto bigger things. What else do you guys have?" Stan and John kept silent, while Peggy looked down at her lap. Finally, Don sighed and noted "The boss theme isn't a bad one. Just find a way to do it better. Go off and work on this right now, we need a presentation by Monday afternoon."
"Jesus, are we going to be stuck here over the weekend again?" Stan asked.
"If that's what it takes." Don replied. "The marketing team from Germany is meeting the American Hugo Boss executives on Monday morning, followed by a meeting with us Monday afternoon. It needs to get done." Peggy led the shuffle to the doorway, and Don let out a sigh as John shut the door after them.
He was irritated, partly by Peggy and partly by himself. Of course she couldn't sweep sex aside so easily. She was Catholic. He always seemed to conveniently forgetful that sex mattered a lot more to other people than to him. However, there was also a seed of something else. He had the power to make her uncomfortable, to doubt herself. It was a power he enjoyed. When he and Teddy had flown back from Chevy, Don had insisted that he come along to the office to tell Peggy. Part of it was rectifying his past mistake, and making her a genuine offer of employment, rather than commanding obedience. She had earned his respect this time around. Another part, and perhaps the bigger half of the whole, was that he wanted to let her know that no matter where she ran to, he would find her, and bring her back into the fold. She had looked trapped, and Don had felt a sense of accomplishment. He had made her, and no protege forsakes their mentor that easily.
Don lit another cigarette and turned his chair to face the window. This would blow over, he knew. Eventually, it would be like nothing had ever happened.
Peggy sat back at her office, staring at the ceiling of her office. 'Hugo Boss. Hugo Boss. Huuuuuggoooo Booossssss... men. Men in suits. Confident men. Men with everything they wanted. Because they had the suit. The suit brings them endless riches. Not only financially, but life's riches as well.' She made a scribble on her notepad before she heard a knock at the door.
"Come in." She said, and checked her watch. Where was Stan? He had promised her tuna on rye half an hour ago.
"Hi Peggy, I hope this isn't a bad time." Peggy felt the blood drain from her face and into her heart, which seemed to have picked up speed. Of course. The only thing that could make this day better.
"Hello Ted." For a moment, Ted stood in the doorway, indecisive about whether he was allowed in. He then took a deep breath and crossed the threshold, closing the door behind him.
"Peggy, we have to talk."
"Well," she felt her mouth go dry, and her mind raced. "If this is about the Sunkist campaign, I'm sorry but we're incredibly busy and I won't be able to make time for it until next week and -" Ted shook his head and waved his hands.
"No, no. That can wait, I know you guys are busy right now and I don't want to take up a lot of your time." He took another breath, and fixed her with an earnest gaze. "Peggy, I am getting divorced." She felt her stomach drop, and the colour rush back into her cheeks.
"Oh. I'm sorry Ted."
"No Peggy, I am sorry. I know that I promised you that I was going to leave her, but then like a coward I ran off to California to try to save something that I knew couldn't and shouldn't be saved." He waited a moment before adding "She and the kids are staying out there. I'm alone in New York now." Peggy nodded, but her mind was blank and she couldn't find any words. "I know that you probably don't want to see me, or talk to me ever again, and I understand that. But I'd like to have the chance to make it up to you. I don't know if you'd ever see me as relationship material again, but I thought we could at least have a good working relationship. I'd like to take you out to dinner tomorrow. I'm not expecting anything, I just want to be on good terms, like we used to be." Peggy looked into his earnest smile, and felt conflicted between her anger and the joy of having him look at her like that again. Like with the two of them together, they could conquer mountains and cure the common cold.
"Ted, I-" Peggy took a deep breath and looked at her desk. "I'm not sure." Ted nodded, looking like a kicked puppy, and she couldn't help but feel badly.
"Look, I don't want to push you into anything. If you decide you only want to talk to me when absolutely necessary, I will respect that. But I will give you my phone number if you decide you're willing to give me a second chance. It doesn't need to be dinner on Saturday. It can be coffee on Sunday, or lunch on Monday. This time, I mean it when I say it: I will drop everything to see you." Ted grabbed a piece of paper on Peggy's desk and scrawled out his number on one of her notepads. Peggy nodded, still not looking at him. Once again he stood awkwardly at the doorway, until he finally showed himself out the door.
Peggy couldn't say this was her shittiest day at work. She had been through a lot worse that weird tension with Don and awkward encounters with Ted. But she was ready for the day to end, both of them to leave, and to console herself with work.
She wound up sending Stan and John home at 6, telling them she expected them back in the office by 10am the next morning. As per usual, at 8pm she was still working, and would be back in the office by 8am, if she bothered leaving. She needed to create the basis of a few more ads before the other two came in again, as she hoped that if she had some ideas ready to go, their collective time in the office would be a minimum. She knew that Stan was madly in love with a new girl he was seeing, and didn't want to intrude on that more than necessary. Besides, neither of them had pissed her off too badly in the last week, so they deserved a break.
In fact, she deserved a break too. A vacation. Maybe she'd go to Rome this time. Or Madrid. Get some sun, learn a language, find a hot European lover... maybe she wouldn't come back. She'd live on the beach and catch oysters and never grow old.
"Peggy?"
And just like that her fantasy was ruined. Don stood her in doorway, with his hat and coat on and his briefcase in hand.
"Oh," she said, unable to hide the disappointment in her voice. "I thought that you had already left."
"And I thought you had too." He replied. He looked at her as if he was trying to figure out a grand puzzle, and it made Peggy want to smack her creative director in the face. "Why didn't you come to my office? If you're working on the Hugo Boss ad, I could have helped."
"I thought you were gone." She repeated, and glanced nervously from her desk to the clock. Don sighed, and put down his case and his hat as he stepped into the office.
"Peggy, if this is about last night - "
"No!" She shouted out, surprising the both of them. She took a moment to smooth the folds of her skirt as she sighed. "No Don. That was... what it was. I just need some time to myself to think about all of our campaigns. It gets a little too hectic and noisy during the day." She managed to raise her eyes and give a pleading smile, mentally begging him not to push the issue. Don nodded, and almost looked as if he was going to say something else. But then he just nodded again, and turned back around towards the door.
"Goodnight Peggy."
