The Pull

Chapter 9

The restaurant was only two blocks away, so we walked there in silence. Once there we got seated in a booth of sorts, which gave some seclusion but also meant the silence between us became impossibly obvious.

"Is there a story to your name?" Ben apparently decided he'd sulked enough, do the right thing and save us both from this awkward moment.

"Sort of. My mom was a bit of an eccentric. Tamara is after the painter, Tamara de Lempicka. Puck, because she loved the sense of mischief and evocative language that belongs to the character. She also thought Puck would work no matter if I turned out to be a boy or a girl. Although I'm pretty sure she was hoping for a fairy." He rewarded my joke with one of those soft, lovely chuckles.

"You speak of her in past tense. Is your mother gone?" I was a bit taken back by the straightforward question. However, I had gathered Benjamin Campbell was a straightforward kind of man.

"She died when I was thirteen." I had said those words many times, but it still hurt every time. Ben looked at me with sympathy in his eyes.

"I'm sorry for the worlds' loss because it sounds like she was a remarkable woman. But more than that, I am sorry for your loss. I can see the love in your eyes when you talk about her."

This man never seized to surprise me.

"She was. She was totally out of her mind, but she was amazing. Those thirteen years were the best of my life, so I'm glad." Shit, we needed to change the subject before he asked something else. "How about you? Where did you grow up?" I blurted out. Wow. Such a date question to ask your boss.

"Um, well, I was born in London. Me, my older sister, and my parents lived there until I was seven. Then we moved to Kobe in Japan. After that, Hongkong. Then Singapore for a while. I moved back to London when I was seventeen. After college I moved around for a while and then finally ended up here in San Francisco."

"Wow. Why all the moving?"

"My father runs this MedTech company. They operate mostly from Asia, that's why we ended up there in the first place. I suppose growing up like that made me somewhat restless. I just kept it up."

"Make sense, I guess. What other countries have you lived in?"

He seemed somewhat reluctant to answer the question, which of course piqued my curiosity.

"Isn't there anything you'd like to know about the job?"

Wow. Not subtle at all.

"Yes, of course. How long have the team been working in this constellation?" He sat back in his chair.

"Will started about a year ago. Laney and Shiloh's been working together before they came to Papercut, it was Lane who suggested Shiloh when we went looking for a 'copy'. They've been with us for two years or so. Ty started out as an assistant four years ago when he was still in college. He's been in this team for eight months. And Lou's been with us for almost six years."

"Ok, so they know each other pretty well. That's good. Are we working on any big accounts right now?" He smiled slightly when he heard me say 'we'. I hadn't thought about it, the word came naturally because it felt right. I wanted to stay and be a part of this team, Benjamin fucking Campbell or not.

"Yes, as a matter of fact, the biggest one this year. It's a company who need help with brand work. They're launching a new, vegan, and sustainable product and want to kick some meat industry butt while doing so. We're about to start working on their launching campaign in a couple of weeks."

I felt my pulse raise as he spoke. I'd missed doing work for things that actually mattered. For the past few years, it had all been about beer brands and sports shops and food stores and fashion. Fun brands but it was just about consumption. This, this could make a difference for the future if we did a good job. It was important.