“We watch as the door gets dingier and more scuffed, marking the passage of time. As we’re watching, a different guy shows up and knocks at the door. The door opens, and the same girl throws her arms around him and pulls him inside. He, too, leaves after spending the night.”
Chris was smiling as though he couldn’t wait to get to a punch line.
“So we see the same thing happen a couple more times. It’s always a different guy and the same girl. Each time she waves goodbye the next morning, she seems a little less satisfied. The last time, she stays at the door, looking a bit miserable. There’s a bottle of Pura-Tea in her hand. The camera moves in close as she lifts it to her lips. We see her skin sparkle as the purifying antioxidants work their magic. When the camera pulls back again, she’s framed not by a doorway but a wedding arch, and we see she’s wearing a flowing white bridal gown. One hand is holding her new husband’s hand. The other is still clutching the bottle of Pura-Tea. The tagline appears: ‘Pura-Fide.’”
Chris burst into laughter, and the rest of them instantly followed suit.
Harriett leaned forward in her chair to study the last board. It was truly remarkable. If she hadn’t known better, she would have sworn the whole thing had been crafted by an alien species. They live alongside us, she thought. Some work with us. Some fuck us. And some do both. And yet they seem to know absolutely nothing about us.
“What is it?” asked Andrew, sensing trouble.
Harriett sat back and wove her fingers together. “I don’t think I get it,” she said.
“What don’t you get?” Chris asked.
“The whole thing,” Harriett told him. “So this chick sleeps with lots of guys, and it makes her sad. Then she drinks a tea. It purifies her, and suddenly a man wants to marry her.”
“That’s it!” Chris seemed relieved. “You got it!”
“So sleeping around made her dirty?”
He cleared his throat. “It’s meant to be tongue in cheek. We’re just riffing on society’s hang-ups.”
“Ah,” Harriett said. “I see. You’re playing off the common misconception that women who like to fuck are whores, and men won’t marry whores. Perhaps the girl in the ad should be douching with Pura-Tea instead of drinking it? I mean, you’d want ladies to purify their real dirty bits, would you not? How much tea would they need to buy for each guy they’ve fucked?”
The four men in the room stared at her.
“I think you may be taking this a little too personally,” Andrew finally said.
Harriett grinned. “You’re married. How did you make sure Celeste was pure before you slid a ring on that finger?”
Andrew blanched. “Can we not bring Celeste into this?”
“Now who’s taking it personally?” Harriett laughed. Not at her joke, but his chutzpah—acting as if she were besmirching his wife while everyone in the agency knew he was screwing a junior copywriter. “Show the ad to Celeste. See what she makes of it.”
“Celeste has retired from advertising.”
“As I recall, Celeste was retired from advertising,” Harriett corrected him. “Who’s the target audience for this campaign, again? May I see the brief?” She read the target section, though she needn’t have bothered. “They call them the Mindful Moms. Affluent, health-conscious women age thirty-plus. They love yoga, drink herbal teas, and champion social causes . . . Holy shit, that sounds just like Celeste, does it not?”
In fact, it sounded like every woman in Mattauk. From the viewpoint of giant corporations, they were all the same person. They were all Mindful Moms.
“By the way,” Harriett added, “how old’s the girl in this spot? She looks a little young for a Mindful Mom. Where’s she hiding her kids while she’s banging everyone in the neighborhood?”