Open Eyes (Open Skies) by Marysol James Read Free Book Online

Sonia’s bright eyes and curly hair desperately. “Yes, baby. Soon.”
    “OK. Do you want to talk to Granny?”
    “I do.”
    “OK, hang on.”
    “Vicky?”
    “Hi, Mom.”
    “OK, so. Tell me all about your first day.”
    “Mom, I am going to like working here.” Vicky sighed, happy. “I am really going to like it.”
    **
    Rob glanced up at Vicky and Lindsey. The women were going through the marketing budget for the rest of the year and Lindsey was handing over all the projects in process.
    He studied Vicky now, taking her in. She was wearing a plain brown skirt – straight up and down, no clinging or showing her shape – and the same white blouse she had worn to her interview. Her blazer was black and simple, and her hair was pulled up in to a tight bun. Very little makeup, no jewelry at all. Rob knew she was thirty-nine, but she looked older: she was an attractive woman, but she seemed to be doing her damndest to actually hide that fact. In the week or so that she’d been working here, Rob had never seen her in anything remotely attention-grabbing.
    Lindsey caught his eye and he got to his feet and joined them.
    “Ladies,” he said.
    Vicky looked up at him and smiled. The difference it made to her face was astounding; she looked so serious all the time, so worn down. She seemed to be a woman with a lot on her mind and on her shoulders, and these moments of lightness were touching.
    “Vicky noticed something about the Christmas holiday ad,” Lindsey said, gesturing at the mock-up that the studio had sent over late in the afternoon the day before.
    “Yeah? What’s that, Vicky?” Rob turned his full attention to her.
    When those stunning blue eyes focused on her, Vicky blushed. “Oh. Well, it wasn’t really me. Maybe Lindsey can –”
    “Vicky,” Lindsey said. “It was you… you noticed it. So you tell Rob.”
    Rob watched Vicky gather up her courage to take credit for something. What had happened to the kick-ass woman that Alina Katz had told Julie about? Had six years out of the workplace damaged Vicky’s self-confidence that much?
    “OK. OK, well.” Vicky cleared her throat. “I was thinking that this year’s ad looks quite a bit like the ad from four years ago… I’d say it’s basically a carbon copy, actually.”
    “It is?” Rob asked, trying to picture the Christmas ads from then in his mind.
    “Yes.” Vicky turned to her computer and pulled it up. “See?”
    As Rob studied the two ads, his heart sank. “Yeah. Yeah, you’re right. How did we miss that?”
    “So – do you want that?”
    “Sorry?”
    “I mean, do you want to run the exact same ad as four years ago? I mean, it’s not a bad ad or anything. But if you do, I don’t see why we need to pay a studio thousands of dollars to reinvent the wheel.” She shrugged. “I can easily update the text on the old ad, maybe change the images. Why pay Robinson Studios full-price to do the exact same project they did four years ago when I can do it for free?”
    “I see your point.”
    “I think we also need to ask if Robinson simply pulled out the files from then and recycled them, hoping we wouldn’t notice. I’d suggest that you go for a meeting and talk about the need for them to produce original content for their clients, every single time.”
    Rob and Lindsey blinked at Vicky’s no-bullshit tone.
    She carried on. “But if you want to spend the winter budget, then why not use it properly? I mean, come up with something totally fresh?”
    “The thing is, it’s already mid-September, and we need to get that ad out within the next three weeks,” Rob said. “I don’t think there’s time to create a whole new concept and commission it from the studio and place it…”
    Vicky blushed a bit. “Well, ummm… I have an idea for an ad.”
    “You do?” Lindsey said.
    “Yes. I worked on it last night, at home.”
    Rob stared at her, impressed. “OK. Let’s see it.”
    “It’s really basic…” She was floundering