This is an excerpt from my novel Finally, Some Good News, out now.

What Do You Do

He was on Tinder. What do you do, she asked.

He was a secretary. His company provided data driven solutions to optimize cross platform branded content. He might have done something else but he’d spent 20 years drunk. The want ad said room for growth.

He built Powerpoints. When a client was on the phone he hit spacebar. Today, a Webex with Wentworth. The media planning agency. They represented the Clear and Clean Skin Care division of the Nonmedicated Facial Cleansers and Body Washes/ Poufs division of the Consumer Packaged Goods division of Johnson and Johnson. Wentworth was a subsidiary of UAG, which was a subsidiary of Group J, which was a subsidiary of PWW Group. PWW was a holding company based in Paris. Chartered in Ireland for tax purposes. PWW bought advertising time from television stations en masse. Sold it on arbitrage markets it created. The purpose of UAG and thus Wentworth was to help create demand for advertising time. PWW could then buy low and sell high. This was illegal in America. All advertising agencies were therefore subsidiaries of three conglomerates out of Europe.

The Webex was about Clear and Clean’s possible cross platform branded campaign with Ellen! Its thesis was that J & J should buy in, even at Ellen!’s stratospheric-seeming 46 CPM. J & J’s own market research found that teens and tweens identified with civil rights and related ideals. Engagement hadn’t been this significant since Vietnam. Cementing the brand to environmental awareness and/ or social justice was correlated to a 38% uptick in urge to share branded content. Teens and tweens were tough. But you could seed brand elevation if you got to the moms while the moms still controlled CPG spend. Ellen! had moms.

Ellen! planned to profile a transgender teen. There were two candidates. Candy, 14, was a figure skater from Oklahoma. Sparkle, 15, a cheerleader/ poetess from Utah. Sparkle was the new face of Clear and Clean’s campaign. Candy had signed with Unilever. Both CPG behemoths wanted in on trans teen anti-bullying. But Unilever’s Dove line was entrenched with overweight over 25’s. Plus, Sparkle was biracial. Her optics were better for Ellen! and frankly, Candy wasn’t hot. Ice sports don’t test well with Hispanics. Unilever would thus be ill-advised to match the 46 CPM Ellen! was asking. Even with the surge in show engagement from Ellen’s newly adopted Pomeranian, Duchess. But for J & J it made sense.

Clear and Clean’s flagship cleanser was a proprietary solvent derived from Butane. It had been used to hose out tanker trucks that carried juice and other food grade fluids. When it had been found to cause cancer in rats this use was discontinued. R & D tried it as an upholstery cleaner and a mentholated cooling wipe for genitals and armpits. Neither tested well. They settled on a new facial product for teens. From 12 to 17 many young people develop acne. Whether they use facial cleanser or not, it arises, persists, then simply goes away. But brand affinity established at 12 drives purchase through adulthood.

There were 30 slides. He only fucked up once. The pie chart over a photo of Sparkle. Ass aloft in a strong boy’s hot palm. Silky hair and pom poms flying. She was the spitting image of the star of a video he’d seen on motherless.com. Teen Tranny Gets Rock Hard Riding Bro’s Cock. A Mexican boy with the face and body of a 14 year old girl and a narrow hairless penis with an angry curve like a scimitar bobbed on another boy’s lap. She had moves. He’d been disturbed by his erection. Quickly x’d out the browser tab. He lingered a beat too long until the Regional Brand Outreach Manager impatiently cleared her throat.

It went well. His team knew Ellen! They’d optimized Target and Tide’s co-branded Ellen! cross promotion of Jane the Virgin. It told Hispanic moms about Tide’s soothing effect on neonatal skin. Tide was a viscous blue serum derived from volcanic ash. The co-branded online video segments garnered 2 million views per day. 1/10th that of motherless.com. If J & J bit: room for growth. A career. In ten years he could run the division. Fifteen more and he could die. It’s boring to talk about, he said.

Tell me

It has to do with marketing, he said.

What do you do exactly

Why do you want to know so bad

I’m rad and I deserve a guy who’s rad, she said.

She did makeup for infomercials. Don’t match dog pictures, he remembered. Small dogs replace a child. Big dogs replace a man. Women with dogs always die alone. She had a pit bull mix. It wore a bandana.

He messaged her “cunt.” Waited for the three dots in a bubble to know she’d seen it. Unmatched her and opened motherless.com. It was his birthday. He was 39.