Page 72 of The October Arrangement

“Have we changed the creative for Montclair Tribeca?” I asked.

“Twice since we started building,” my father said. “It didn’t matter.”

“What’s the creative campaign now?”

“You don’t know?” My father pulled out his phone.

“I don’t personally approve every fucking Instagram post,” I said.

“Well, maybe you should start.” He handed me his phone.

A video started playing. The first shot was a slow aerial of the building, then a cut to the lobby, and finally into one of the units. A caption appeared across the screen at the end of the video: “Elevated Tribeca Living,” followed by the Montclair logo.

“Well?” my father asked.

“I think it looks great.”

“That’s what everyone says. But I have yet to hear someone say they love it,” my father said. “Nobody seems excited about it.”

“We’re selling twelve million dollar-plus apartments. We’re not making TikTok dances. Our clients are a bunch of rich, snooty millionaires and billionaires who are wound so fucking tight they wouldn’t know excitement if someone handed them an instruction manual.”

“I’m aware, son,” he sighed.

“We need to sit down with marketing,” I said.

“I already did this morning. They want another three hundred thousand for the next phase of the campaign.”

“Absolutely not.” I laughed. “I’m not throwing more money at something that clearly isn’t working.”

“Then we need another approach. Any ideas?” His brow arched.

I walked back to my desk and sat down. I’ll have Sonia set up a meeting for tomorrow. I want Marketing, Sales, Digital, and the Tribeca team there.”

“Then let me know a time, and I’ll make sure I’m there,” he said. “By the way, Mary told me she ran into Bella at the boutique.”

“Yeah. Bella mentioned it last night,” I said.

“She likes her.”

“Mary likes everybody.”

“She said she’s beautiful and you two would make an adorable couple.”

“Fuck off.” I pointed at me, and he laughed.

He stood up from the couch and walked to the door. “Her words. Not mine.” He winked and walked out.

I woke my computer, pulled up Montclair’s Instagram account, and found the Tribeca campaign. I watched one video, then another, and another. They were polished and professional. So why the hell wasn’t anyone responding? I looked over the financials again. We were at a significant loss. We’d sunk an enormous amount of money into the Tribeca project. That was normal. What wasn’t normal was sitting on more than fifty unsold units this far after launch. If we didn’t start moving them quickly, the problem would only get worse. Every month those residences sat empty cost us money.

Chapter Twenty-Seven

Bella

I sat at the dining room table on a Zoom call with Geneva.

“Your work is excellent, Bella.” She smiled. “Our fall products are selling so fast, we can barely keep up. We’ve seen a massive increase already this quarter, and we know this will be our best quarter yet.”

“I’m happy to hear that, Geneva. Hopefully your Christmas campaign will do the same.”