Margo Report

Margo ducks her head into my office this morning.

"Hey you," she says. I hate it when people say "hey you" in that cute way. I blame Jennifer Aniston, who always said "hey you" on Friends. Margo can say it without incurring my scorn because she is otherwise perfect.

"Margo!" I say, a little too eagerly. Tone it down, dude. "Uh, how's it going? You have a good Christmas? New Year's?"

She slips into my office and leans against the wall. Margo is wearing a black 3/4 sleeve V-neck sweater with a matching skirt and is carrying her usual Odwalla.

"Christmas was great," she said. "New Year's sucked."

"Well, that's no good."

She blows a stray lock of hair out of her face. It's an adorable gesture. I hope I'm not staring.

"Yeah, Brett and I broke up on New Year's," she says.

Who? Oh, she means Evil Val Kilmer, her dick boyfriend. (see post Evil Val Kilmer Must Die, 10/8/04)

"Oh. I'm sorry, Margo. Is that a bad thing?"

She looks at me for a second, then smiles thinly. "No. No, it's not a bad thing. People should be with people who want to be with them. Right? Does that make sense?"

"Absolutely. Life's too short. For what it's worth, I'm sorry." Liar.

"Thanks, Mackenzie." She switches gears. "Hey, you getting ramped up for the presentation on Friday?"

She means the preliminary brand strategy meeting where I have to throw some concepts at the QuantumWorks steering committee - Bradbury, Clarke, and Quentin - and see if anything sticks. Curiously, I am devoid of my usual pre-presentation anxiety. Maybe it's because the steering committee are all a bunch of fucking supervillains.

"I'm fully ramped," I say.

"I don't know what that means," she says.

"Yeah, me either."

She sighs. "Allright, back to work for me."

As she's leaving I call her name and she stops. She looks back at me and arches her eyebrow a little, which I find really sexy. "Yes?" she says.

"Guys are dicks," I say.

Margo smiles a little sadly and leaves.

So. Evil Val Kilmer is out of the picture. This is good news for me.