Stop, Stamp and Staplers

Three small fires in my inbox before the coffee finishes cooling. Dramatic, predictable, and exactly the product I sell.

8:02 a.m. — Client One: a neighborhood kombucha co‑op. Batch fermented wrong, glass in product. I send the calm checklist, the stern emoji I save for recalls, and a courier address for sanitized returns. Add a two‑paragraph caption for socials that says “We’re pausing sales while we test and replace. You deserve safe fizz. Here’s our plan and our number.” People forgive competence.

8:19 a.m. — Client Two: a mid‑town slow‑made fashion label posts a behind‑the‑seams video. “Hand‑finished” coat dunked in dye, bare hands. Comments combusting. I draft an apology that reads like action—supplier audit, traceability, worker‑safety commitment—then flag counsel. I add three receipts: the OSHA guidance link, the PPE invoice, and a calendar invite labeled NOT OPTIONAL.

8:37 a.m. — Client Three: an app‑first daycare pushes a notification linking to a vendor with a missing allergen tag. Parents panicking. I send the triage checklist, pause the push, and map a data‑flow patch so legal has something neat to read. I attach a script for the front desk: no improvisation, no speculation, plenty of phone numbers.

My name is Jodie Leigh Newman. In college, Lily shortened it to Jei because I ran the improv club’s publicity like a military campaign—checklists, soothing voice memos for panicked kids, a stapler that lives in my bag. Now I run a boutique crisis PR shop from a sunlit second‑floor office above a linen store that smells like eucalyptus. Our whiteboard mantra is blunt and capitalized: REPUTATION IS A HABIT.

At 9:10 I’ve corralled the fires into managed burns. Today matters: the city food festival pitch. Three weeks out is when sponsors start circling and mistakes multiply. I straighten the navy blazer that signals “I sleep” and definitely hides last night’s cold noodles.

Lily texts while I walk into City Hall Annex.

Lily: If you are practicing your “I’m not nervous” face in the mirror, stop. It reads like constipation.

I selfie her a serene smile in the elevator reflection.

Lily: Colonoscopy chic.

Jo: I hate you.

Lily: Breathe. Refuse meetings that say “synergy.” If they ask about availability, say “strategically flexible,” not “hungry.” Hungry is for raccoons and interns.

Jo: Copy. Also Client Two thinks hand‑washing is a vibe.

Lily: Arrest her. 🤪

City Hall Annex Room 204 looks like a civic rec center that saved up for nicer chairs. A scrubbed‑clean clock ticks loud. The festival committee sits in a semicircle: a deputy from the Mayor’s office with a confident bun and a pen that probably signs proclamations; the logistics lead clutching clipboards like talismans; the organizer in a mustard sweater whose ethical earrings dangle like a promise.

“Jodie,” Mustard Sweater says, smiling too sweet, standing to shake my hand. Her palm is warm. “Coffee?”

“Yes, please,” I say, and spend the first ten seconds pretending sipping slowly is a hobby and not an arrest of panic.

I pitch clean. No jargon, no slide with a hero shot. Public vendor lists. Co‑authored policies with community reps. A “we messed up and we fixed it” board on site with time‑stamped updates and a QR code. Sensible and specific.

They nod in the spots you want them to. My examples land between practical and human.

“Say a vendor undercooks the chicken skewers,” the Bun says, testing me.

“We pull the lot, feed it to nobody, swap the skewers for sealed fruit, post the reason at the booth and the fix at the board, and we comp the line with vouchers,” I say. “You don’t hide the smoke; you show them the fire extinguisher.”

The logistics guy clears his throat. “You’ve done large‑scale food events?”

“We supported Harbor Night Market through a vendor permit meltdown and Dockside Chili through the judge controversy.” I let a smile slip. “Long story. Nobody died and the chili did.”

Clipboard cracks a reluctant laugh. Mustard Sweater flips a packet, scanning. “We’re excited about a new main sponsor interest,” she says. “You may have heard the Alvarez Group is interested.”

The name acts like a dropped pan. Lucas Alvarez: citrus and smoke, kitchens in places people forgot, a past that used up a chunk of my life. I’d boxed it under STUFF WE WERE TOO YOUNG TO FIX and put the box on a high shelf.

“Lucas Alvarez’s company,” she repeats, watching my face with neutral kindness. “He grew up here. Wants the festival to anchor his return.” Then unshyly added, “Handsome guy too.”

Right. I snickered inwardly.

My practice face cracks by a millimeter. “Oh.” Professional rain. “News to me.”

“We’ll need someone who can steer sponsors as well as vendors,” the Bun says gently.

“We can do that.” My voice is even. Boundaries are my second religion. “We’ll set expectations in writing.”

Mustard Sweater nods like she’s seen women do this math before. “We’ll be in touch by the end of the day if we have further concerns.”

Outside, the air is municipal and frank. Back at the office, I tell Lily as soon as my phone finds signal.

Lily: Well?

Jo: We pitched. Alvarez might sponsor.

Lily: Ha. Need me to bring a paper bag?

Jo: Don’t. 🤦🏻‍♀️ I’ll decompress at the café.

Three blocks later the café smells like toast and design thinking. A chalkboard says THINK BIG, TIP FAIR. A jar on the counter has ALVAREZ KITCHENS in his looping hand—Citrus Ancho Marinade. Those omitted explanations used to be a method: he exited when things felt like confrontation. That memory is not nostalgia; it’s a fenced wound. It’s why I keep lists and Post‑its—because I learned to treat silence as a possible exit strategy.

The barista, who knows me as “the woman who edits for sport,” wiggles the jar. “You try this yet?”

“I try to avoid spicy nostalgia,” I say. “Matcha, please.” He gave a weird look.

I tuck into a corner table, tidy the pitch deck until the bullets look like scaffolding instead of possibility. I built a page for sponsor management that reads like policy. I add a line at the top: PROFESSIONAL IS A CHOICE. I put Lily on call to discuss details and become a shock absorber.

At 3:03 p.m. an unknown number blinks. I answer on speaker so Lily can hear the soundtrack if it implodes.

“Jodie Newman speaking,” I say with the voice I reserve for clients and combustible situations.

A voice lands—lower, careful, threaded with familiar laugh lines. A low tone I heard a million times across dorm rooms and night caps.“Hi, Jei.”

Lily does a choking table‑drop on the other end of our silent call. I ignore it because there is a meeting point to uphold.

“Lucas.” I keep my voice iced but not cruel. “Congratulations on your return. The team told me we’ll be working together.”

“Is buzzing what we say now?” He still has the charm that was useful once. “Anyway, Hi. You sound… official.”

Well, Six years does that.

I took a deep breath and, “Professionally, I’ll send an agenda for the kickoff,” I say. “We’ll coordinate comms across partners.” I click my pen, a tiny metronome.

“Professionally, great.” He pauses, like he’s weighing a memory in his mouth. “Personally—I wanted to say hi.”

“We keep personal off‑site,” I cut in before the old orbit begins. It’s kinder than it looks; boundaries are a service I sell to other people, and I will not fail myself. “Table it.”

A beat. He exhales. “Right. Okay.” Then the pivot I remember—adaptable, quick. “I’ll have my ops lead looped in. We’re aiming to highlight small vendors on our channels. If you need anything—tell me.”

That last sentence tugs like an unfinished knot we both tied. “Noted,” I say, and end the call.

He left. Not rhetorically—actually left.

Six years ago his note slid under my door like a polite dismissal: I don’t know how to do this without hurting you. I need to go. It wasn’t theatrically cruel; it was efficient. He chose absence as an answer. I learned then that silence could be a deliberate thing, a tool to be wielded.

When Lucas called today, there was a small pulse of that old absence right under the hello. I didn’t let it swell. But later, in the elevator, while Lily screamed emojis at my chest, the memory came back raw: the felt of that paper, the way it made me tidy my life into timestamps and receipts. He’d walked away before anyone could ask him to stay; I’d been left to translate his disappearance into a ledger.

So when he says “Hi, Jei,” now—when his voice fits into a weekend I almost never let other people touch—it’s not just the man I used to know. It’s the person who once chose leaving over talk. That choice puts pressure on everything he offers now. Promises on his end won’t only be about PR; they’ll be about not walking away again.

My chest drums for five seconds. Lily counts the beats out loud like a bomb tech on the line. “One, two, three… are you going to throw up or buy that marinade you mentioned?”

“Neither,” I say. “We’re going to write an agenda that could bore a golden retriever.” I type “Agenda” at the top of a blank document and fill it: shared values, logistics, sponsor lanes, crisis protocols. Make it boring on purpose. Boring is safe.

We work. Contracts arrive. A vendor asks if popcorn oil counts as dairy. (It doesn’t, unless butter. I add a note: “Popcorn is a gateway chaos.”) A podcaster wants five minutes “to talk vibes.” I send a reply about safety, equity, and trash schedules. Routine hums like a properly oiled machine.

At six, Lily wanders into my office with a bag of pretzels and a moral stance. She perches on my desk, feet tapping the drawer that sticks. “Okay. Tell me your rules.”

I read them aloud because saying them makes them real. “Personal stays personal. Comms only through official channels with CCs. No late‑night nostalgia messages. If Lucas’s dimples do the thing, stare at a stapler.”

She writes them down like a judge. “Add: no attending any ‘just catching up’ dinners. Those are emotional ambushes with bread.”

“Approved,” I say. “And the stapler is neutral.”

“It’s Switzerland.”

“It’s been neutral for years.”

She grins and holds my stapler up like a gavel. “We believe in you, counsel.”

Before bed I make one tiny, visible pact. I tape an index card to the bathroom mirror where I will see it first thing: Fact‑check your feelings.

It is a small, bossy ritual—annoying and kind, like Lily. It’s a promise to treat emotion like evidence, to test impulses against procedure. The festival is three weeks away. Sponsors will arrive. Old things smell like new opportunities. Boundaries matter.

I sleep with the stapler under my palm like a promise. The last uninvited thought is simple and stubborn: his laugh in a dorm kitchen, the citrus on his hands, the smoke in his hoodie. Then the quiet, the hum of the fridge, and the next day waiting in the wings.

In the morning, there will be fires. I have water and a list.