Chapter Five

      Gioioso

      “We’ve been courting Gioioso for way too long. We’re tired of dating, it’s time to commit.” Felicity looks unusually severe in her dark tailored suit. She paces around the conference room like a panther sizing up her prey. “This meeting is our big shot, and I don’t intend to blow it.”

      It’s Wednesday morning, and Felicity’s gathered three creative teams around the table to brainstorm: Dylan and Luke, Carrie and Matt, Simon and me. Felicity is unusually tense, which in turn makes all of us twitchy. Also, she happens to be right about Gioioso. If we don’t land this account at the big pitch in two weeks, we’ve wasted months courting a client we’ll never work with, and that represents dollars we’ll never get back.

      “So, what do we really know about Gioioso?” Felicity looks around expectantly, eyes wide.

      Dylan, always confident in that jovial, frat boy way that makes me cringe, pipes up first. “Plus-size clothing for women, very upmarket.”

      “And very Italian.” Carrie swings her blond bob flirtatiously. “Gioioso means ‘joyous.’”

      “Also sometimes translates as ‘buxom.’” Luke’s eyes flit to me with a crooked smile.

      Yes. Buxom. I got that from the Google Translate page, too. Cheerful fat girls. Just my thing. I notice Carrie shooting a furtive glance my way. She and Matt exchange a quick smile. Looks like I’m the elephant in the room. I sometimes wonder how I got hired here at all. Maybe it was a diversity mandate; they had to fill their fat-girl quota.

      Carrie, always eager to get in on a private joke, adds slyly, “They have an extensive line of plus-size undergarments.”

      Just in case anyone wasn’t already thinking about that fucking picture, now they are. Thanks, Carrie.

      Felicity turns to Simon and me, eyebrows arched in expectation. “Thoughts?”

      “Well, I’ve been thinking...” My throat seizes up the way it always does when I try to speak in front of a group. I clear it and start again. “The plus-size market needs a fresh approach. Most of the comparable clothing lines in the U.S. have a distinctly dowdy look. Totally unsexy.”

      “It’s hard to make a size sixteen look remotely appealing, let alone sexy.” Felicity looks around at everyone, as if challenging us to disagree.

      “Exactly.” Dylan, who backs up everything Felicity has ever uttered, nods solemnly.

      Simon’s dark eyes dart to me quickly before focusing on Felicity. “What I think Ruby meant to say is that one possible concept here could be ‘big is beautiful.’”