Chapter 61
A team of uptight-looking, suit-wearing jerkoffs were seated at the big, white conference table at FitFams headquarters, scanning Dee’s stony face for a reaction to their PowerPoint presentation about what she could do to better manage the company’s recent onslaught of bad PR. This crisis-management team, sent against Dee’s wishes by Walhickey, had laid out a six-step plan to rehabilitate her image, visibly improve diversity at the company, and divert attention away from her ongoing buyout talks with that corpulent carbuncle, Glen Fowler.
The team had suggested Dee create and widely publicize a FitFams Pipeline Program that would identify promising, underprivileged, and disadvantaged Black and brown students at high schools around the country who could apprentice, intern, be mentored, and go on to work for the company as coaches and staffers. The crisis managers had also laid out a new set of graphics and colors for a social-media campaign that would push out a softer, kinder version of Dee.
“We think all of this would go a long way toward improving your public image and popularity ratings while doing some real good in this country,” Jerkoff Number One said. “It’s a win-win.”
Dee paced at the back of the room, trying to get her step count up. Her leadership team was there and knew better than to weigh in with opinions.
“Yeah, no,” Dee said.
“Are you saying, ‘yeah,’ as in, ‘yes?’” Jerkoff Number Two said. “Or are you saying, ‘no?’”
Dee stopped pacing and gave him a withering look. “I’m saying no.”
She put both palms on the table. “I know what it’s like to be ‘disadvantaged.’ I didn’t have ‘privilege.’ I came from nothing. Less than nothing. My father was dirt-poor and worked hard his whole life, only to see his job outsourced. I honestly think that’s why he left us — he was just too humiliated to stay. My mother? She raised me, alone, for a year and we got by on the canned goods my Dad had left in his half-finished apocalypse bunker. That’s where I came from, and I was still able to build this company into the great success it is today. With hard work you can scale any socioeconomic barrier.”
Jerkoff Number One was visibly slack-jawed.
“Don’t look at me like that,” Dee said. “I take great care of the people I love” — enthusiastic nods from Shelly and Tara here — “and I am an award-winning philanthropist who has helped hundreds of homeless people get something to eat. But I keep my charity work separate from my business.”
Jerkoff Number Three winced.
“Now, you say you want to change the way the public perceives me? I’m sorry, but how many times have you been brought in to ‘rehabilitate’ the image of a male CEO?” Dee asked. “I’ll assume, from your silence, that the answer is zero times. No one bats an eye when a man is firm, assertive, and takes no shit. But when a woman does it? We need to work on her image.”
“This isn’t about your gender,” Jerkoff Number Four said. “We just want to help you, to preserve the valuation of your company, and get you in the best position for your buyout.”
“You want to help me? Here’s how you can do that,” Dee said. “You can find out who is spreading lies and campaigning against me. I mean, just today there was an anonymous post on Instagram about how I once sexually harassed a member of my cleaning staff in Minneapolis. I mean, what the hell? I don’t talk to the cleaning staff, much less grope them.”
She thought she heard Jerkoff Number One swallow on a dry throat. She hadn’t given them any water. Let them be dehydrated.
“That’s not really the kind of work we do,” Jerkoff Number Two said. “We don’t root out naysayers and expose them in an effort to build our clients up. We focus on our clients, and what we can control — the way the public sees them and the way the media represents them.”
“Well,” Dee said, taking a seat. “Then you can go.”
“Go?” asked Jerkoff Number Four.
“Yes,” Dee said. “You have 20 seconds to grab your shit and leave. Then I call security.”
The Jerkoffs quickly scooped up their papers, folders, spiral-bound leave-behinds, and briefcases, knocking over Cora’s empty coffee cup as they scrambled for the door.
“Have a great day,” Dee said.
Her leadership team sat in silence.
“I knew they’d be useless; I told George that, but he never listens to me,” Dee scoffed. “Rehabilitate my image? Give me a fucking break.”
“We agree with you, 100 percent,” Ben said. His teammates nodded in agreement.
Cora tried to smooth the stress-crease between her brows that had reappeared because she hadn’t had time to re-up her Botox. “So what do you want us to do? You want us to find out who put up those stickers, and who’s going after you?”
“Yes,” Dee said. “That’s exactly what I want you to do. And then I want you to ruin them.”
“Got it,” Tara said, standing up and signaling for the rest of the team to disperse and give Dee some space.
She sat alone in the conference room and picked up her phone, then scrolled through the FitFams account on Instagram. Cora had done a fantastic job of curating a beautiful grid of images from the studios. It was all pink lights, sweaty skin, triumphant fist bumps, and straining muscle. Look at all of these happy, healthy people. How could anyone think she was hurting anyone?
Then Dee tapped over to an account called FitFamsFraud and gritted her teeth. It was an anonymous account, and Jimmy’s efforts to uncover its IP address via a phishing link were thwarted. Clearly the account was run by coaches who’d been fired and who wanted revenge. The posts talked about reform and justice and unionization, but that was all a smoke screen for the greater purpose of the page — to take Dee down.
She logged out and then logged back in under one of her finstagram accounts, this one with the name “TessaT1993,” and tapped out a comment: “Dee has done so much for women. I think maybe you just hate yourself, baby girl.”
Dee logged out again and switched to another fake account, “Lilypad4ever,” and replied to Tessa’s comment. “Tessa, don’t even waste your time with these losers. They’re just shouting into the void. No one is listening! FitFams is the best fitness studio out there, bar none, and these bitches are just bitter because they don’t work there anymore.”