"But I am, sir," I insisted doggedly.
Baxter pressed the heels of his hands against his eyes for a moment,
then sighed, grinned wryly, and waggled an index finger at an empty
plastic contour chair.
"I guess maybe you are at that, son. Sit down, sit down."
I folded gingerly at knees and hips and slid back into the chair,
pressing my perspiring palms against the sides of my pants to get rid
of their uncomfortably slippery feel. "Thank you, sir."
There was a silence, during which I breathed uneasily, and a bit too
loudly. Baxter seemed to be trying to say something.
"I suppose you're wondering why I've called--" he started, then stopped
short and flushed with embarrassment. I felt a sympathetic hot wave
flooding my own features. A copy chief in an advertising company almost
always reacts to an obvious cliche.
Then, with something like a look of relief on his blunt face, he
snatched up a brochure from his kidney-shaped desktop and his eyes
raced over the lettering on its face.
"Jery Delvin," he read, musingly and dispassionately. "Five foot eleven
inches tall, brown hair, slate-gray eyes. Citizen. Honest, sober,
civic-minded, slightly antisocial...."
He looked at me, questioningly.
"I'd rather not discuss that, sir, if you don't mind."
"Do you mind if I do mind?"
"Oh ... Oh, well if you put it like that. It's girls, sir. They block
my mind. Ruin my work."
"I don't get you."
"Well, in my job--See, I've got this gift. I'm a spotter."
"A what?"
"A spotter. I can't be fooled. By advertising. Or mostly anything else.
Except girls."
"I'm still not sure that I--"
"It's like this. I designate ratios, by the minute. They hand me a new
ad, and I read it by a stopwatch. Then, as soon as I spot the clinker,
they stop the watch. If I get it in five seconds, it passes. But if I
spot it in less, they throw it out and start over again. Or is that
clear? No, I guess you're still confused, sir."
"Just a bit," Baxter said.