Pretty in Ink (14 page)

“I don’t know, Mom. We’ve got a lot going on here. Rob wants us to spend the weekend looking at more house listings.”

“Oh, don’t be absurd. You belong in Vermont as much as a dairy cow belongs in Times Square.” I bite my tongue. Asking my mother to explain this absurd comparison, or disputing it with something logical, would only lead us down a black hole of frustration. In fact, the thought of living 200 miles away from my mother has never sounded so appealing. I’m half-prepared to call Rob right now and, out of spite, suggest we gather our things and relocate north tonight.

“Oh, Leah, don’t pout. How’s this: I’ll give you creative control over the editorial mix, and you can have final say-so on the wording of the actors’ bios.” This is her hard sell; we both know how difficult it is for my mother to cede control. “What do you say? It’ll be fun to collaborate!” She sounds so eager and excited. This always gets me, my mom’s devotion to the craft.

I’m remembering how I grew up worshipping my mother. I mimicked her bottomless ambition and dreamed of following in her footsteps. She ingrained in me like a religion the idea that editing a magazine was the best job in the world; you got to use creativity and business smarts, you were charged with the lofty mission of sharing vital information and inspiration with the masses, and every single month you created something real and tangible, a valuable object that millions of people across the country would race to get their hands on and pay actual money for. My mother made it sound like the most exhilarating and prestigious work in the world, and of course I did everything I could to make it just like she had.

And yet, after my mother fell from her pedestal a decade ago—she’d refused to figure out the Internet and was alienating her younger staffers with constant invocations of Betty Friedan and Gloria Steinem—it was as if she’d lost her entire self. Ever since then she’s been puttering around her apartment, irritable and bored, having never developed any outside interests or hobbies, scoffing at my father’s suggestions that she join a women’s league or a book club.
Like mother, like daughter,
people used to say to us, and I’d beam with pride; now this maxim sends a shiver down my spine.

“Mom, I have to get back to my job.”

“Of course you do, dear. I’ll figure out the programs myself. You know I love you.”

My chest wells up with emotion—is it pity? regret? affection?—and I stutter, “OK, I’ll ask Maria if she’s free on Sunday. If she can watch the girls, I’ll meet you in the city and we can do Cara’s programs.” With my mother, I always end up caving.

 

The next morning, I arrive at my cubicle to find Lynn staked out, juggling a slew of layouts. “We’re finalizing all the art for October, and I need your input,” she says.

It occurs to me that now that Victoria has moved on to the more important month of November, for all matters October I’m not the executive divided by two, or a “co-”; I’m the actual executive editor. At least for a few weeks, I can maintain the illusion of wielding real power at work.

“Here’s the ‘Lingerie for your body type’ story,” Lynn says, spreading the sheets across my desk. “There’s the ‘How to talk to your kids about sex’ one, and that’s the essay by the woman who lost both her legs when a limo ran over her.”

I point to a bunch of printouts of fruit. “What’s all this?”

“I’m thinking for the lingerie story, let’s construct life-sized pieces of fruit and then have them model the bras and panties, as if they were mannequins. That way, you match your body type to the fruit—you know: pear shaped; apple shaped; and banana shaped for long and lean—and then you pick your corresponding getup. Ta-da! See, I drew a mock-up.”

A skimpy thong is stretched over a pear’s bulge, lending the fruit a pair of fleshy love handles. “Interesting idea,” I say. “Although I think when women realize they’re, say, apple shaped, they don’t want to think they look like an actual apple. Better to have a model with just the slightest curve of a tummy and call her apple shaped, so the readers will be reassured that it’s not so bad to be round in the middle.” I cannot believe I have to explain this to our creative director; this is Women’s Magazines 101.

“Huh. But mmm, these pictures look so delicious. Don’t you just want to eat them up?” When I don’t respond, Lynn turns to the next board. “OK, so for the parenting story, how about let’s recruit actual couples to have sex and we’ll stage it so their kids walk in on them. A photographer will pop out to capture the looks on their faces. What do you think?”

I am working on a response along the lines of
“Are you flipping kidding me?!”
but somehow conveyed in a respectful manner, when Laura bounds over to my desk. “Copy flow meeting!” she announces, miraculously saving me from commenting on Lynn’s plan to traumatize children and parents across America.

Lynn and I join Victoria and Abby in Mimi’s office. “Exciting news,” our boss announces. It’s hard to believe that any aspect of copy flow could inspire excitement, but Mimi is clearly basking in whatever imagined brilliance she’s about to share. “To save time, I’ve devised a new routing system. We’ll send separate printouts of a story to all the different editors involved, everyone can make their notes, and then the main editor will scoop up all the files and integrate all the comments, easy-peasy.”

Mimi is clearly delighted with herself, but her plan is preposterous. I picture all the editors scribbling conflicting comments on their personal printouts of a story, and the ensuing clash of egos as everyone debates whose insight is smartest, whose opinion counts most. Mimi’s proposal will complicate what is well known as one of the simplest, most streamlined routing processes in the industry. This change can only be about the boss asserting her authority.

It’s this pettiness, or perhaps my renewed (if deluded) idea that my opinion actually counts around here, that spurs me to speak up. Without masking my impatience, I blurt out, “We tried something similar with Louisa and it only confused things. This kind of so-called time-saver doesn’t actually save time, and it isn’t necessary for our small staff.”

Abby puffs out her cheeks, her code for “Put a cork in it.” I’m no idiot; I realize any reference to B.M. (Before Mimi) is blasphemy, as is any overt failure to fall in line with the current agenda. But it so happens I know what I’m talking about. And I have a hunch that, after dumping the whole October issue on me during our little Skype powwow yesterday, Mimi may cut me some slack.

“This will be different, you’ll see,” she says, in a strange tone that makes me question whom exactly she’s trying to convince. She offers no follow-up explanation of how it will be different.

“Well, I think it’s a wonderful idea,” says Victoria.

“Great,” Mimi says. “We’ll implement the new system immediately.” She clicks her red pen, and I’m left wondering if she actually has faith in the plan or if she’s just pleased with her power.

“Knock, knock.” Zoe appears on the office’s threshold. Mimi has told the staff she’s always accessible to them, but I can’t imagine she actually meant it, and certainly not during a meeting. I can tell that whatever Zoe’s planning to ask, she’ll pay the price for it.

“Yes?” asks Mimi.

“I have a question about vacay?” Zoe has that awful habit of ending her statements in the higher inflection of a question, making her sound unsure of everything she says. I’ve pointed out this tic to many a junior staffer in the hopes of helping them sound more professional, but that kind of suggestion might come off as insulting to our Web manager. Plus, Zoe gets away with talking like a text message, with so many acronyms and abbreviations it makes my head hurt, so what do I know? “My besties and I are going to the Jersey Shore the week leading up to Labor Day? Just wanted to give you the 411, so you’d know when I’ll be away?”

“Ooh, fun, what part of the shore?” This from Lynn.

Mimi releases a sibilant sigh. “We’ll be shipping the November issue then, as you know. You don’t actually think we can have people zipping away on vacations, do you?” Abby peers out the window, clearly not wanting to be involved in this public shaming.

“Well, we planned it months ago. I already laid down bank for the hotel,” says Zoe. “It would be majorly inconvenient to cancel.”
Shut up,
I want to yell at her.
Just stop talking.
At least she knows to stop short of saying, “I already cleared it with Louisa.”

“Well, you should’ve realized it would be a bad time,” says Mimi. She stares Zoe down until she leaves.

I wonder if Zoe too watched Mimi on the
Today
show last week bemoaning the fact that Americans use less than 50 percent of their paid vacation days. She meticulously outlined all of the health benefits of getting away, explaining how time off is the most important way to rejuvenate and refresh. “Look, vacation makes you a better worker,” Mimi said, staring into the camera. “Your boss
wants
you to go away.” I laughed at the television set, thinking,
She does indeed.

When our meeting adjourns, I return to my desk and, rather than get going on the giant stack of October stories populating my in-box, I start planning my own pretend vacation. And not the long-weekend-upstate-with-a-slew-of-kids variety—in other words, the only kind of vacation Rob and I take these days, which is “vacation” in name only. I’m thinking of a real, true break. I envision fleeing halfway around the world to Asia; I wanted to honeymoon in Japan, though Rob ultimately talked me into Italy. I picture myself scaling Mount Fuji, slurping noodles in Bangkok, visiting the temples of Bali and Laos. I’m all on my own, unreachable by phone and even e-mail.

I keep up my daydreaming through the rest of the afternoon and into my commute home. I begin my walk down to Penn Station as I always do, utterly in awe of this incredible city where I work. Central Park is brimming with blooms, and the streets are energized and bustling, the swaths of faces lit up with that collective postwork glow. I conjure up the image of myself as a little girl strolling down this very block, hand in hand with my mother, all dressed up to spend the day with her “helping out” in that glittering high-rise where she reigned supreme.

It’s a decent trek from my office to the train station, twenty-five blocks south along Eighth Avenue, and my guileless reveling fades fast. Within a few blocks, all signs of the park’s greenery vanish and are replaced with crowds of stalls schilling cheap pashminas, knock-off sunglasses, and every variety of schlock. An occasional whiff of toasted pecans from a Hot Nuts cart reminds me of the city’s irresistibility, but mostly it’s a march of endurance. I power through the increasingly seedy streets until my journey culminates in the ultimate den of squalor: Penn Station.

Now I am desperate to board the train, flee the city, and settle in to a softer, suburban day’s end. I crave a vodka soda in my backyard, where I often spot a blue jay zipping across the sky, whirring his “welcome home” whistle. I marvel at how, in the span of fifteen minutes, I’ve transformed into a dozen nuances of myself, from happy city girl to staunch suburbanite. How mutable, my mind-set. Maybe any setting—even rural Vermont—would suit me given the right mood.

The train lurches out of the station, and through the window I watch the cityscape of crowd and construction give way to green and sprawl. When our family expanded from two to five last year, the concept of space suddenly felt like a basic human necessity, and Rob and I fled from New York like refugees. I’m grateful for so much about our home in New Jersey: a basement storage space that’s bigger than our former Brooklyn one-bedroom, a yard that doesn’t mean a postage stamp of concrete but rather a vegetable garden and plenty of room to play, neighbors whose names I know and whom I actually like, having both a car and a place to park it.

The train speeds by a big park, and my mind moves on to babbling brooks, freshly cut grass, cows grazing in fields. I conjure up an oddly clear image of my three girls, a bit older, running around a blueberry patch; they fill up gallon milk cartons with berries, and then the four of us head home to bake fruity muffins.

It’s only many hours later, when I’m in bed and wrapped up in sheets and Rob’s elbows and knees, that I realize I’ve stolen this bucolic family image straight from a brochure. It’s something Rob left out on my desk, an advertisement for an orchard located a mile from his favorite house in Vermont, conveniently dog-eared to a photo of three little girls picking berries. I’m embarrassed by my imagination’s pilfering, its lack of creativity.

Despite the unoriginality of the image, I’m suddenly craving blueberry muffins, in particular the ones from a deli near our old apartment in Brooklyn. The woman who ran the place would split a muffin down the middle and nestle a pat of butter between the halves.

“
Psst
, Rob,” I say, nudging my sleeping husband.

He rolls over, his eyes slits. “What time is it? What’s the matter?”

“It’s late. And nothing,” I say. “Remember the muffins from Baxter’s Deli?”

“Uh-huh.” I’m fairly sure Rob is still in la-la-land, but then he comes out with, “So yummy.”

“I know, right? You could go out till the bars closed, and then pop in and they’d have a batch fresh from the oven, ready for the next day.” I’m thinking how, unlike back in Brooklyn, no store within ten miles of our New Jersey home is open at this hour—all’s quiet on the Westfield front. I urge myself to feel comforted not bothered by the thought.

“Rob.” I poke him again.

“Mmm?”

“Let’s plan a house-hunting trip up to Vermont.” My husband nestles me closer to his warm body, and I drift off to sleep, certain I’ll dream of muffins, buttery and warm.

10

L
aura’s frequent interoffice calls set off a Pavlovian anxiety in my chest, so my heart is already thumping when she says through the receiver, “Coverlines starting.”

We gather in the conference room, where Mimi has posted the stories she wants to advertise on the October cover: the cheaters piece, the eleven-minute abs workout, the
Office Jungle
beauty story, Ravenous Rhee’s guilt-free desserts. Louisa always had us tout the stories of substance: the personal essay from a prominent Brooklyn writer about the surprising joys of parenthood, the article detailing groundbreaking treatments for breast cancer, all the stuff that differentiated us from the dozens of other women’s rags on the newsstand. I respected that Louisa wanted to educate the readers, to teach them to care about the weightier pieces, even if our newsstand numbers were often dismal. Mimi, on the other hand, is sticking with the reliably hot sellers: sex and dieting. It’s smart, I suppose, but it makes me sad.

We start with the workout. “Stronger, fitter, firmer in a flash,” Victoria suggests.

“The incredible ab flattener,” Jonathan adds.

“Fit in eleven minutes: You’ve never looked sexier,” Zoe says.

It’s like an auction, the ideas shouted out spitfire, every editor competing to win Mimi’s approval. With Louisa these meetings were structured and formal—each person given her turn to read out her ideas, everyone nodding politely.

“Slim down in just eleven minutes—six-pack, guaranteed,” Laura says. Mimi clears her throat; even for us, it’s a bit too much of a stretch to guarantee a perfect stomach in the time it takes to smoke a cigarette.

“Pssssht grrr shttt,”
comes through the phone; we’ve patched Leah in remotely, but something’s amiss and her voice has broken down to gravel.

“Huh?” says Victoria, and Leah repeats herself. They keep this up through several iterations, until Mimi says, “Oh, good idea!” though the reception is no clearer. We move on with the meeting, and the line remains silent. I eye Laura, though I don’t think she’s quite smart enough to have tampered with the tech system. Part of me hopes Leah has hung up and is doing something more interesting with her time than standing by and listening to this garbage.

Though the truth is, I can spew out trash like the best of them: “Eleven minutes to a trim and toned tummy. Break out the crop top!” I suggest.

“Ooh, that’s a great one,” says Mimi.

“It
is
great!” Zoe chimes in. I see Debbie mime a hand job under the table, which Abby swats away. Zoe considers herself a coverlines expert; she believes because she works on the Web and has mastered the search engine optimization gobbledygook that she knows exactly what draws people in. But a headline that catches the eye of some idiot surfing the Web at two a.m. in search of cat gifs is not the same thing that’ll work on a discerning customer at the newsstand. Besides which, there’s the simple (and I’m ashamed to admit, gratifying) truth that not one of Zoe’s suggestions has ever made it onto a
Hers
cover.

“Let’s put that one on the top left,” says Victoria. I shrug. The top left is the holy grail of the coverline. We in the business like to believe that if the four or five words we place in that prominent spot are brilliant and enticing and sparkly enough, they’ll have the power to convince hundreds of thousands or, heck, millions of newsstand idlers to single out and grab our publication, to
choose us.
It’s all very desperate, our eagerness to please, and it’s reflected in our ideas—the promises more and more extreme, the oversells more and more outlandish. No one who does this article’s variation on a sit-up thirty times, three times per week, will lose a pound, never mind be miraculously toned for a crop top. Before Sylvia got the ax, she’d sometimes drop in on the coverlines meetings, but then always leave soon after, looking like she was about to faint (Louisa began scheduling the meetings when she knew the research chief would be out at lunch). It’s a matter of mystery why the magazine’s cover has never been subjected to the same strict standards of veracity as the contents within.

Next up is Ravenous Rhee’s guilt-free desserts. “Delectable treats, all for less than a hundred cals,” Laura suggests.

“Have you guys tried those so-called treats?” Debbie spits out, clearly disgusted. “Delectable, my ass. And it’s ‘fewer than,’ not ‘less than’ a hundred calories.” The recipe creator pulls out her chair with a squeak, stands up, and walks out on the meeting, murmuring something about having real work to do.

“She’s right, the cookies are totes gross,” says Zoe. “But on the plus side, you can stuff your face with them and still not get fatso!”

“How about ‘Indulge in sinfully delicious goodies—guilt-free!’ ” I suggest. “Or, ‘Five
OMG–so amazing
desserts, you won’t believe they’re healthy!’ ”

“Fantastic,” says Mimi. “That makes me hungry for an actual cookie, diet be damned. Laura, go catch Debbie and tell her to bring down some cookies. I’d love lemon cream, or ginger molasses, the chewy kind and preferably warm. Now, let’s try the beauty story. Thoughts?”

“Look your prettiest: Seven makeup tricks for dewy skin, shiny hair, and eyes that pop,” says Laura.

“I’ve got it,” says Zoe. “Dare to go bold! The cast of
Office Jungle
shows off the season’s hot new colors.” When no one fawns over the idea, Zoe exhales a dramatic sigh.

“Your get-gorgeous
hmmmmpth, pop, pop . . .
best features,” tries Leah over the spotty line.

“How about, ‘Makeup so magical, you’ll get carded again’?” Victoria suggests it, so everyone squeals their approval, never mind that the story has nothing to do with antiaging.

“Perfect,” says Mimi. “Actually, let’s do that one on the top left.”

I wonder if Abby will speak up about the coverlines focus groups, the ones we ran with real readers last winter. One of the things we discovered was that beauty lines bomb on the top left. Participants told us they were sick to death of hearing about all the new products they needed in order to be pretty; they just wanted to be reassured that they’re already gorgeous. They would’ve hurled rotten tomatoes at a line suggesting they’d need magical makeup in order to look young. Alas, this meeting has already consisted of lies upon lies. Abby, along with the rest of us who attended the focus groups, holds her tongue.

 

In the days following the coverlines meeting, something funny starts happening: First I’m invited to a senior staff meeting about the relaunch, and then I’m asked to join a committee on our social media update. When Laura calls to say Mimi would like me in on a future strategy brainstorm, I begin the long walk from my desk to the boss’s office, and can feel everyone’s stares like lasers burning through my dress. Some eyes are hostile and others are in awe—all seem to wonder why I, a lowly associate editor, have been chosen.

Honestly, I’m wondering the same thing. In Mimi’s office, it’s just Victoria and me. I don’t even ask if we’ll be patching in Leah from her home office.

“So who would you rather sleep with, Brad Pitt or Johnny Depp?” Mimi asks. She and Victoria turn to face me.

“Um, I guess Johnny Depp. Pirates are hot.”
Jeez, where did that come from?
I feel ridiculous, but I’m coming to understand that these “brainstorms” are often just excuses to dish about Mimi’s date last night, the progress on her kitchen redecoration, or celebrity crushes.

“Good point,” says Mimi. “Captain Hook can take me any day. Ha! I think Johnny’s stare is smoldering.”

“Oh, yuck, he creeps me out with those buggy eyes,” says Victoria. “Actually, I’m not a fan of either one. They’ve both had kids out of wedlock, which I think is totally immoral.”

“I suppose that is kind of trashy,” says Mimi, a surprise since her chosen November cover girl’s sole claim to fame is getting knocked up at age seventeen and becoming a terrible mother. “But we’re not asking whether you agree with the guy’s life choices, Vic, or if you’d hire him for a job. Quite simply, who would you rather bang? Ha!”

“I guess Brad Pitt then,” says Victoria. “But I’d only cheat on my husband if I was held at gunpoint.” As this debate continues, I try to minimize my panic about the real work piling up back at my desk. I’m learning a rendezvous like this can last a few minutes or all afternoon.

“Well, our jury is hung, no pun intended.” Mimi cackles, though the statement doesn’t even make sense as a pun. “Jane, will you take a look at these résumés?”

I grab the stack. “Which position are they for?” I fear I already know.

“We haven’t come up with an exact title yet, but it’ll be a senior position, maybe features director,” Victoria says, handing me one of Mimi’s red pens. “Mark the ones you like. We’re looking for someone really special.” More special than Leah, I suppose she means. “Mimi and I plan to look through them, too, but we thought you might have some interesting thoughts.” Her glance plays over me, questioning,
Whose side are you on?

I scan the first C.V., a magna cum laude graduate of an Ivy League university, a dozen years of experience in consumer magazines plus another decade at newspapers, currently the executive editor at a major lifestyle Web site. I find myself comparing her résumé to one I invent for Leah: staff mentor for three years, best giver of birthday gifts, most cutting critic of dumb sitcoms. I wonder, if we hired this woman to replace Leah, could Leah then snap up the woman’s old position? This feels like a total betrayal, and yet it is now my job. “I’ll go through them this afternoon,” I say.

Back at my desk, I try to subtly conceal the résumés under a stack of copy. “Any insider info for someone out of the loop?” asks Zoe, who finds a way to nose her way into every piece of business that is not hers. “Or will I just have to rifle through your desk when you’re gone?”

“Very funny,” I say, reminding myself to start locking my desk at night.

 

“Coffee break!” Afternoon coffee is the newest event; Laura actually inputs the timeslot—4 to 4:20—on our calendars so meetings won’t interfere. I used to grab my cup from the office machine, but last week Victoria said to me in her joking-but-not-really voice, “Starbucks runs are like, kinda mandatory.” I feel like I’ve been trapped at a high school dance, with all the accompanying angst about who clusters with whom and, of course, the nonstop gossip.

I wander by Abby’s office. “Coming?” I ask.

“I’m allergic to caffeine,” she says, a slight smile on her lips.

“Lucky duck.” I don’t think a caffeine allergy exists.

Everyone gathers in clumps by the elevator, and the split is mostly obvious: one group of the old staff, one of the new, with occasional crossovers (Zoe sometimes edges her way in with the new crowd, and yesterday Jonathan announced he was “extending an olive branch” and headed out with Drew and Debbie). I’m the wild card—in the awkward gray space of being of the old guard, but suddenly co-opted by the new—so I remain passive and noncommittal. It’s like the snowball dance, when the girls stand on the edge and silently beg a cute boy to single them out from the crowd, only in my case, I wish I were invisible and that everyone would just leave me alone.

In Starbucks, Victoria hands me an iced latte and pulls me over to a table with her and Mimi.

“I don’t know how I managed it, but I resisted the scone,” says Mimi.

“Good for you,” says Victoria.

“Here, here.” I raise my cup. Yesterday Mimi caved in to her scone craving and we had to reassure her it wouldn’t go straight to her thighs. I spot Zoe a few tables away, likely bitching to Drew about Laura and dissecting Victoria’s bargain-basement wardrobe. When I’m grouped with them, if pressed for input, I add something catty and then immediately feel bad. In fact, I know Laura’s in a tough spot, and I sort of admire Victoria’s unwillingness to unload half of her salary on expensive outfits.

At 4:20 I shuffle back to the office with the pack, my latte untouched. As usual, I’m too on edge to drink it.

 

As per Mimi’s instructions, I’ve gathered everyone’s final round of ideas memos for the November relaunch. It’s clear some people have gotten with the program—pitching juicy stories about women who gained and then lost and then regained one hundred pounds; round-table discussions between reality stars in which we pick the fights, let them duke it out, and then declare a winner; and fashion stories based on celebrity kid trends.

Some of the names on the cover sheets are unfamiliar—it’s those new freelancers, the potential replacements, I think. One proposes sensational real-women stories: a tightrope walker who’s been in traveling circuses for forty years; a five foot one, ninety-nine-pound mother of three who’s the most successful bounty hunter in Tennessee; a mail-order bride who’s been hit by lightning; and a woman who found out on her wedding day that her fi-ancé was still married. Gold mine. I do favors for some people, correcting Zoe’s misspellings and grammar mistakes, jazzing up Leah’s wording, and subbing out an adjective from Debbie’s memo that I’ve learned Mimi dislikes. But ultimately, not everyone can be saved. And although I didn’t ask for it, I fear I will have a hand in who else stays or goes.

 

The night before the meeting to present
Hers
’ fresh vision to the advertising sales team, I try on my new suit. “Spin around,” says Jenny, who’s come over to offer moral support. “Show me the full view.”

I check myself out in the mirror. “I look like a lawyer. I don’t feel like me.” In preparation for the meeting, which I was invited to without explanation, Mimi sent me off to Saks Fifth Avenue with her corporate card and without a spending cap. I imagine Abby knew nothing about it.

“Well, I think you look fantastic,” Jenny says. “And after so long of being overworked and underpaid, you’re finally getting the recognition you deserve. It’s a sign, I know it.” Jenny, who still hasn’t found work since Mimi fired her, seems to have transposed all of her career ambitions onto me.