Pretty in Ink (3 page)

I see the looks of shock as, instead of Louisa, Mrs. Winters, Schmidt & Delancey’s editorial director, enters and takes her place at the front of the room. Mrs. Winters is known for her thick gray bun and her formidable poker face, though privately I suspect a wig is responsible for the former and Botox for the latter. A halo of hush surrounds her at all times. Mrs. Winters delivers the official party line: “Ms. Harding is stepping down from her position as editor in chief of
Hers
magazine in order to pursue other interests.

“Are there any questions?” she quips.

No one dares speak up. I hear Zoe mumble, “Is that what we’re calling unemployment these days? ‘Other interests’?”

“OK, then, that’s all for today,” says Mrs. Winters. “We’ll give word as soon as there’s any further news.” Filing out of the conference room, we all flash our fake “No hard feelings” smiles at Mrs. Winters. I catch Drew, our photo editor, staring at me with a look of uncensored pity. Then Abby pats me on the back in a “Keep your head up” kind of way. Accustomed to being envied and admired and looked up to, I feel totally out of my element—and scared. That’s when I understand. Louisa wasn’t saying she was sorry about her own situation; rather, she was apologizing to me. Because I will soon be out of a job, too.

2

A
s any decent (and anxious) reporter would, I begin preparing for my Mimi meeting as soon as we get the e-mail. It’s from Laura, the new assistant: “Hi all! I’m scheduling each person fifteen-minute time slots with Mimi so she can get to know you and your roles at the magazine.” In other words, so we can defend our jobs with everything we’ve got. My appointment is on Friday, two days from now, which leaves plenty of time for due diligence.

A morning’s scroll through LexisNexis reveals that Mimi hails from Kansas farm country (which may as well be Uzbekistan, as far as I’m concerned); she attended the state school, then bartended in St. Louis for two years before shipping out to New York and working her way up at the big tabloids, meanwhile marrying and divorcing two men, first a nurse and then a doctor. Most recently the executive editor of the lowbrow celeb rag
Starstruck,
she’s earned herself a reputation for being smart (despite the mediocre pedigree), ruthless, and impulsive. I uncover a decade-old photo of Mimi with her arm slung around our very own recipe creator, Debbie.

I make my way to
Hers
’ test kitchen, and then hover outside until Debbie invites me in, as is protocol. “So you know the new boss from before, huh?” I ask.

“Diligent digging,” Debbie says. “What, did you hire a PI to get the scoop before your meeting?”

“Guilty as charged, minus the PI. I’m nervous! So is it true?”

“Yeah, Mimi and I worked together at
VIP,
although I don’t like to advertise the fact. That was the brief blip I spent hounding celebrities’ every move. I reported on what they ordered in restaurants, how much of their meals they actually ate, and whether or not they requested doggie bags. A very fulfilling job, as you might imagine.”

“Jeez. So what’s Mimi like?”

“If I remember correctly, she’s notorious for never using the bathroom—even after downing venti lattes and on late nights. Total freak. Also, she adores purple.”

“Huh.”

“I’d love to keep gossiping, but I’m neglecting my risotto, and I fear if it dries out the new boss will have my head.” Debbie flashes a wicked smile.

“Return to your stirring, then.” I swipe an apple on my way out.

On the day of my meeting with Mimi, I’m dressed smartly in eggplant capris and a lavender button-up, a manicure to match. But my scheduled time slot comes and goes, and then the appointment is pushed back three more times. I struggle to come up with three more just-right outfits. When it’s finally my turn, I enter Mimi’s office with as much confidence as I can fake. For my first real-life encounter with the woman who’s already become a myth in my mind, I’m wearing my fourth and final purple getup, a lilac silk sheath I picked up at a BCBG sample sale (unfortunately by this point I’ve bitten my magenta nails down to the quick). I’ve brought with me a long list of my responsibilities, plus a longer list of ideas for revamping the magazine. I’m genuinely excited at the prospect of transforming
Hers
into a more impactful, serious-minded publication. I’m anxious to finally show off my journalistic chops.

The first thing I notice in Mimi’s office, perched on a ledge behind the desk, is a portrait of the old boss Louisa’s children, the boy gap-toothed, the girl squinty-eyed—some sort of joke or just an oversight? My research revealed that Mimi is not a mother. I feel the kids eyeing me accusingly from within the frame, like I’m on trial.

“I hear you work on our marriage coverage,” Mimi says, pronouncing the word “marriage” like it’s “cancer.”

“Yes, for three years I’ve been writing the love, sex, and relationship pages.” I’m proud of the stories I’ve written for
Hers,
especially the marriage ones; it’s thrilling to receive dozens of letters each month from readers praising my work and thanking me for helping their relationships. “I actually have some ideas for—”

“Are you married, then?” Mimi interrupts.

“No.”

“In a relationship?”

“Well, until recently, yes.”

“So then, no?”

“Um, I guess not.” I flash on an image of Jacob, and my eyes blur with tears. I blink until they recede.

“So, where do you get your ideas, Jane? How do you put yourself in the shoes of our readers?”

“I do research, of course. I know plenty of people who are married, so I talk to them, and I pay close attention to our reader mail.” I’m trying to hang onto Mimi’s wandering attention, secretly fuming that marriage has apparently become a prerequisite for my job. Never mind that I graduated top of my class from Medill School of Journalism. “I don’t pretend to be an expert, but I have a dozen real experts on speed-dial, and their knowledge—”

“Oh, Jane, I think the reader is bored to death of hearing how to spice things up with her slob of a husband, how she should buy lingerie to impress him, how she needs to schedule sex to stay intimate, blah blah blah. I think she’d rather die than read another article about the Holy Grail of date night.” I’m making an effort to maintain a neutral expression as my new boss insults everything I’ve covered at the magazine for three years. It’s a particularly cruel prelude to firing me, I think, but at least it will soon be over. She adds, “Don’t you agree, Jane?”

“Uh, I guess so.” Mimi nods, like we’re now collaborators. Maybe this is a game, and she’s egging me on to see if I’ll wither under the pressure or stand up for myself. I take a breath to calm my racing heart. “I will say, I’ve gotten lots of mail from women grateful for our sex and marriage advice. And Dr. Sharon Hellerman—”

“Oh, Christ, Dr. Sharon Hellerman!” Mimi emits a strange sound that may or may not be laughter. “Do you think that old bag has had sex once in the past decade? I picture Sharon and her husband of a thousand years sitting down to watch reruns of
Love Boat
each night, then chastely kissing each other on the cheek and tucking themselves in to twin beds, Bert-and-Ernie style. Marriage expert, ha! Please don’t let me catch her name in the magazine again.”

I jot down, “No more Dr. H,” wondering how I’ll cancel this afternoon’s phone interview without rescheduling.

“Listen, Jane, you’re a young, attractive, unattached girl. If you showed up at a dinner party full of our readers, you’d be the star of the show. The rest of them would be coupled up and likely bored to death of their partners, dying to hear your stories from the fun, exciting single life. They’d hang on your every word about your latest first-date catastrophe or the mind-blowing sex you had with the guy you met out at the bar last night. And believe me, I’ve been on both sides of the fence, so I know what I’m talking about.”

I’m nodding furiously, as if I have a clue about what it’s like to have a wild one-night stand, and like it’s no big deal to chat about it with my new boss.

“So how about this?” Mimi says. “What I’d like you to do is to start a blog on our Web site. We’ll call it something like ‘Sex and the Single Girl: Having Her Fun Before She Snags the Ring,’ and you can chronicle the highs and the lows of your dating life. OK?”

“Jeez, well . . .”

“All right, then. Good talk. We’ll get to the rest of your pages as we go along. Great to meet you, Ms. Jane Staub-Smith.” Mimi clicks her red pen, shakes my hand, and then calls Laura in to usher me out of her office.

Back at my computer, I neglect my e-mail and instead load up a game of Tetris. I think of Marjorie Dawson, the woman I’ve invented to be the face of our eight million readers, the one I picture when I come up with story ideas and the one I write to. There Marjorie is returning from her dental hygienist gig to her home in the suburbs of Minneapolis, a bag of groceries tucked under each arm, a golden retriever lapping at her feet, and an eight-year-old son answering her greeting without peeling his eyes from the newest Pixar flick playing on the screen. I imagine Marjorie starting dinner, then taking a break to log on to HersMag.com, where she’s confronted with the latest post on “Sex and the Single Girl,” a recounting of my botched make-out with that awful chubby guy after I downed one too many margaritas last Friday night. I shudder at the thought.

“Jane, are you
trying
to get yourself fired?” Leah appears in my cubicle and reaches across the keyboard to close out my Tetris game.

“Hey, I was about to beat that level.” Leah’s
I’m-disappointed-in-you
look is the worst; nothing makes me feel guiltier. “So, Mimi wants me to start a blog.”

“Oh, yuck.” Leah shares my disapproval of the oversharing epidemic that’s infected our culture; still, we’re careful to keep our reproach under wraps, for fear of becoming office pariahs. “Well, do you think you impressed her? Did she like your ideas?”

“I honestly have no idea,” I say.

Leah nods, betraying nothing, but I imagine she’s mourning the loss of her power. As executive editor, Leah was in charge by default during that strange, rudderless week post-Louisa and pre-Mimi, although we all understood that her authority had an expiration date.

 

“Jane, we have a problem.” I can identify that high-pitched whine anywhere, and I feel myself breaking out in blotch: Sylvia Rogers,
Hers
’ research chief, marches up to my cube.

“What’s wrong?” I ask, not really up for a Sylvia confrontation after my dress-down with Mimi.

“We have a red-alert situation.” To the research chief, a red-alert situation is a first draft that says an apple contains four not five grams of fiber. No doubt this attitude is a result of her past life as a fact-checker for the
Los Angeles Times,
where incorrect information could mean a source suing or a threat to national security. I respect Sylvia’s dedication, but it’s my opinion that a story about healthy snacks does not need to be treated like an investigative report on Guantánamo Bay.

Sylvia points her talon-like finger to a stack of papers. “In this article, ‘Fit in Date Night—Fast!’ one woman alleges that her minigolf outing with her husband lasted forty minutes, but the gentleman who runs the golf course just told me it should take only thirty minutes to complete.”
Oh, jeez,
I think. Sylvia’s most frantic freak-outs are usually caused by he-said, she-said disputes.

“This is from the woman’s quote, right?” I ask. Sylvia nods soberly—she’s bone thin, but somehow still has a double chin. “If she said it took forty minutes, let’s say it took forty minutes.”

“But the man who knows the course best says it takes only thirty.”

“If it would make you feel better, then we can say thirty. That’s fine by me.”

“Well, that wouldn’t be accurate, since the woman made a point of saying it took forty minutes. Apparently the couple hired a babysitter for an hour and, taking into account travel time, she mentioned they didn’t have time left for lovemaking after the date.” I smile at Sylvia’s reference to sex. Our research chief is older than my mother. I sometimes imagine her sharing a bed with several cats, although in fact she has a rather dapper-looking husband.

“Should we compromise, split the difference?” I ask. “How about we say thirty-five minutes?”

“Then we’re being doubly inaccurate. No one said it took thirty-five minutes!” Sylvia emits a snort, as if my idea is ludicrous.

“What exactly do you suggest we do, Sylvia?” I sense my composure begin to crack.

“Can we eliminate the time reference altogether?”

“The premise of the story is that parents have very little free time, so we’re sharing ideas for short date nights that they can actually squeeze in.”

“I understand. But . . .”

“Why don’t we say, ‘It took us forty minutes’ and then put something in parentheses like, ‘Some people can get through the course in half an hour’?”

“I don’t know. Maybe we should check with Mimi.”

“I guess if you think that’s the only solution, but I know she has a crazy schedule today.” I’m trying to help Sylvia out. If Mimi is fed up with Dr. Sharon Hellerman’s quotes about marital harmony, then she certainly won’t have the patience for a nitpicky concern from our research chief. “What if we add the word ‘about’?” I suggest. “As in, ‘It took me about thirty minutes’?”

“Hmm. I’m not thrilled with the idea, but it may work.”

“Great.” There, I nailed it, striking that note of finality that’s the only way to shake Sylvia. She skulks away, off to harangue someone else about the facts.

I hear Zoe, our web manager, cracking up from the next set of cubicles. “Now, I’d estimate that that conversation took about five minutes,” she says, masterly aping Sylvia’s voice, “but my high-tech, specially synchronized watch recorded an exact time of four minutes, thirty-two seconds. How might we rectify this discrepancy?” I giggle, and glance over my cubicle wall to Laura, thinking maybe I can draw the new girl in; collectively ridiculing a target is such an easy way to bond. But Mimi’s assistant won’t catch my eye. She’s staring at her screen, pretending she hasn’t heard a thing.

 

I know I’m in denial that Jenny is gone when, for the second time in a week, I lean over my cubicle and say, “Listen to this,” primed to read my friend a letter from a prison inmate requesting more brunettes in the magazine. Laura looks up from the other side of the divide. “Oh,” I say, startled.

Earlier, I’d begun reciting a press release for a contraption that measures the blood alcohol level of breast milk, “so Mommy can booze
and
feed baby.” I’m freshly disappointed each time I spot Laura in place of my old friend.

I remember when Mimi told me about the girl who would become my new cubicle-mate, describing her as “our illustrious new team member, Laura Maxwell”; she hadn’t realized Jenny was still within earshot, packing up her stuff. That’s when Jenny dubbed her replacement, sight unseen, “Whore-a Maxwell.” I’m glad Jenny never had to see how said illustrious new team member has transformed her former cubicle—the walls now plastered with cheesy
True Blood
posters and photos of herself among gaggles of lame-looking girls clutching neon cocktails.