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  The Beginnings of a Plot

  Allison is a series of loosely connected stories that travel through the thin thumbtack wall that separates my cubicle from hers. Her tales are so disjointed that sometimes she seems less a person than a device, like the Illustrated Man in the Ray Bradbury book whose only function is to provide a narrative arc.

  Because we work for the same magazine, Allison and I see each other regularly, across the conference table, outside the bathroom, but we never get beyond polite nods and blank, meaningless smiles. I know so much about her life—the men who don’t call the next morning, the awful women whom her father dates, the vacations that fall through, the recurring yeast infection that the doctors can’t figure out—that I can barely look her in the eye. These are things I shouldn’t know. These are things that I’d play close to my chest, that I wouldn’t talk about at work, that I’d leave the office and find a pay phone on the street to discuss. I’m always painfully aware that the flimsy wall between us is like a scrim and if you shine the light on it from the right direction it disappears completely.

  I’m surprised, then, when Allison sticks her small blond head over the barrier and says, “Vig, can we take a meeting?”

  This request is so out of left field that it takes me a few seconds to process it. Even though she has addressed me directly, even though she has used my name, I assume at first that she’s talking to someone else. There must be another Vig present. I look up, expecting to see this other Vig standing beside me, but I’m alone in my cubicle. I stop typing.

  “Can you spare a few?” she asks, her head tilted in a friendly angle. “This shouldn’t take too long.”

  Since I have overheard almost every conversation she has had for the past two years, I know this isn’t true. Everything Allison does takes too long. The abrupt, expedient nanoconference that the senior editors rely on to keep things moving along smoothly doesn’t exist in Allison’s universe. She is vulnerable to long digressions and often finds herself a million miles away from her point. Instead of beaming herself back to the beginning, she painstakingly retraces her steps. I don’t know how the people on the other end of the line deal with it, but sometimes I have to get out of my seat and take a walk to the water cooler just to get away.

  Although I have a mountain of work to get through before six, I’m too curious to say no. Allison’s interest in me is unprecedented, and I can’t take the chance that it will happen again. There are very few things I enter into thinking “once in a lifetime,” but I think that now as I stand up.

  “All right,” I say, looking up at her expectantly.

  “Not here. Do you mind if we…?” She gestures with her head.

  I’m not used to her showing any sort of discretion and for a moment I fear that she’s going to fire me. But this moment is fleeting and I toss away the thought. Allison is an associate editor just like I am; she doesn’t have that sort of power. In fact, she has no power at all.

  Since I don’t mind, I follow her down the hall. The Fashionista offices are dark and dreary and the only natural light can be found in private offices behind closed doors. We walk past Reception and through to the advertising side. I’ve never been over here before and I am instantly struck by how nice everything is. The surfaces are shiny and the lighting is soft and not quite fluorescent. We make several twists and turns and arrive at a swinging door that says Ladies’ Room. Allison enters a code and opens the door. We are in the executive washroom, which has three pristine stalls and a small carpeted lounge area with a black leather couch. Sitting on the couch are Kate Anderson from Accessories and Sarah Cohen from Photo. I am thoroughly disconcerted by the couch, the carpet and the company. Although not so very far from home, I feel like I’ve stumbled down the rabbit hole.

  “Hi,” I say, puzzled and a little bit uncomfortable, as though I am sitting at the wrong table in the lunchroom. I’m years past this and resolve to shake it off. I look at Allison for an explanation. She in turn nods at Sarah and Kate, who both jump to their feet.

  “Thanks for coming,” says Sarah, putting her hands on my shoulders and pushing me down onto the couch. I reluctantly take a seat.

  “Why am I here?”

  “You’re the linchpin,” says Kate.

  “The linchpin?” I repeat.

  “Yes, the linchpin,” agrees Allison.

  “The linchpin?” I say again.

  “The pin that linches it,” explains Sarah.

  I examine all three with curiosity. “What pin am I linching?”

  “Our plan,” says Allison.

  “Your plan?” I ask.

  “Our plan,” Allison says with satisfaction.

  “But which plan?” I’m forced to ask, as if she has so many different plans that I can’t keep them all straight.

  “Our ingenious plan to take down Jane McNeill.”

  Jane McNeill

  You know Jane McNeill. She is a familiar type—tough but good. She might have an abrupt manner, but she knows her job and sells magazines. You’ll learn a lot from her, kid.

  Don’t believe it. There is nothing good about her. Her temper is short, and her patience is like a shot of smooth whiskey—gone in one gulp. Kindness is an affliction that weak people suffer, and if you take a week off after your mother dies, she’ll roll her eyes in front of everyone, as if your personal indulgence is a great inconvenience to her. She delights in humiliating you in front of the entire staff, and when you actually know the answer to an out-of-left-field question about, say, hemlines in the fifties, and can form an intelligent response, she will reach deep into her bag of tricks until she finds something you know nothing about—like what Martha Washington wore to George’s inauguration. Meetings are tense and awful and you always feel as though you’re arguing a case in front of the U.S. Supreme Court on a topic you know nothing about—quick, list three reasons for the silkworm strike in Upper Volta. (This is a trick question; silkworms aren’t unionized.) She is an anxiety-dream factory and you’re the well-oiled cog that keeps it running smoothly.

  Jane is rarely in New York, but her presence is logarithmic and can be measured like an earthquake. When she comes into the office two days in a row, the devastation is a hundred thousand times worse than if she had just dropped by for one. Small villages crumble, and your self-esteem, already compromised at several stress points thanks to shoddy workmanship, disappears completely in a cloud of dust.

  You suffer her abuse for two endless years before finally getting the promotion that the managing editor had been dangling in front of you like a carrot on a stick for more than eighteen months. (“If you can just hold on a little longer, Vig…. An assistant editorship at Fashionista goes a long way.”) It’s only when you are about to smash your computer with a hatchet and walk away from the rubble that Jane calls you into her office to inform you of the good news. You are still at the magazine and you are still subjected to the slings and arrows of her outrageous temper, but you are no longer on the front line. There is another detail-oriented self-starter at your desk and it’s now her job to absorb the blows. She’s being paid to be your shield. You are so glad not to be her—and so ashamed at the relief you feel—that you avert your eyes whenever you pass the desk.

  Jane does sell magazines, but that has to do more with the susceptibility of the public than the freshness of her ideas. Every year, at her insistence, we run an article on the classic style of Jackie O or the effortless grace of Grace Kelly as if these things haven’t ever been done. But they have. You’ve seen all the pictures before, only alongside better-written text.

  The secret to Jane’s success is aligning herself with up-and-coming magazines that are already on the rise and then taking credit for their inevitable increased sales. She’s done it before at Face and Voyager, and she will do it again when the next big thing appears on the horizon. She has a genius for self-promotion and a sort of ruthless glamour that appeals to the publishers of glossies.

  You’re not the only one who is cou
nting the days.

  A Plot Takes Shape

  The bathroom on Fashionista’s editorial side isn’t the sort of place where I go to sit down and get comfortable. It’s a busy spot with lots of drive-thru traffic and little privacy. The stall doors are cut low, and you can see the foreheads of your co-workers as they zip up their jeans. If you want a moment alone, your best bet is the elevators. Sometimes you get one to yourself for all twenty-two floors.

  Allison, Sarah and Kate seem quite at home here. While I watch the door, waiting for strange executives to enter, they slide onto the counters and fluff their hair in the unflattering mirrors.

  “Now is the time,” says Sarah.

  “Now is the time?” I ask, struck by how much I don’t know. I don’t know why now is the time, I don’t know how I can be a linchpin and I don’t know what plan they’ve devised to bring down Jane.

  Allison nods and avails herself of one of the myriad hair-care products that litter the counter. She leans forward, sweeps her hair over her head and spritzes. Today she is wearing gray linen pants and a white sleeveless blouse. The outfit should look elegant and svelte, but on Allison it looks like something she threw on because everything else was in the wash. Brushing the bangs out of her eyes, she says, “Now is the time to strike.”

  I take my eyes off the door. We’ve been in here for ten minutes and it hasn’t opened once. I’m beginning to believe it never will. “All right,” I say.

  “We have a window of opportunity,” explains Kate.

  “A window?” I watch Allison flip her head over again and give her hair another spritz. When she rights herself, she looks exactly the same, only redder.

  “A small window,” clarifies Sarah, just in case I assumed the window was wide and spacious.

  “There’s no way Marguerite Tourneau is going to last long as editorial director,” says Allison, putting the hairspray down, the last spritz having done its job. “You just know Jane is going to oust her within two months.”

  Sarah rolls her eyes. “Two months? Ha! I give her a week.”

  “Longer than a week,” says Kate. “More like a month.”

  “A whole month?” Sarah is doubtful.

  “It must take at least that long to get her hiring papers through Human Resources,” Kate explains, logically. “You can’t fire someone before you’ve officially hired them.”

  This reasoning satisfies the three of them and they turn to look at me. I’m sitting on the couch, my back against its supple leather, minding my own business. Linchpin, ingenious plan, small window, time to strike—I’ve been paying attention. I don’t know why but I have.

  They are staring at me with hungry, expectant looks in their eyes. “What?”

  “Will you help?” they say in unison, like they’re a cheerleading squad.

  “I don’t know. What’s the plan?”

  Allison looks at the other two. Kate conveys no with her eyebrows. Sarah backs her up with a less discreet shake of the head. Allison sighs. “We can’t tell you the plan until you agree to help.”

  I never go blindly into situations. Awful things always happen. “I can’t agree to help until you tell me the plan.”

  My immutable will irritates them and they glare at one another, speaking whole sentences with their eyelash flutters. I’m tempted to excuse myself, to give them a moment alone in order to have this discussion in private, but I’m too comfortable and I stay firmly affixed to the couch. I have no doubt of the outcome. They can flap their eyebrows all they want, but sooner or later they will tell me the plan. They have to. I’m the linchpin.

  Allison Harper

  Allison Harper is an unlikely beauty editor. Her ordinary appearance doesn’t match anyone’s image of glamour. She tries, though, wearing the right strappy sandals (Jimmy Choo) and the right pants (Emanuel Ungaro) and the right lipstick (Lip Glass by MAC), but something about the finished product refuses to pull together in the right way. Even though the elements are there, even though on a mannequin the look would be impeccable, something about her humanity throws everything off.

  At thirty-two, Allison is three years older than I am. In recent months her usually upbeat disposition has taken on a particularly dour bent. She was passed over again for a senior editor position—they head-hunted from another top glossy—and she’s starting to realize things. She’s starting to realize that her future might not work out after all and that despite a pair of fine eyes, she’s not an Elizabeth Bennett. Allison Harper isn’t the heroine of her own story. She is, instead, a secondary character, a Charlotte who will trade her dreams for compromises that may or may not work out. That past life regression conceit that might have led her to assume she was Cleopatra is fading. She’s starting to realize she was nobody, a nameless slave whose existence passed unrecorded.

  It’s an awful, uncomfortable thing to watch and I take the long way to the bathroom to avoid her cubicle. On late nights when the offices are almost deserted, I hear her on the phone with her best friend relating the day’s trespasses. There is a mystified quality in her voice as she explains how she wasn’t assigned the Girl Talk feature (“So tell me about your beauty regimen: Is it eyeliner mascara or mascara eyeliner?”) or even the Style Wise Man interview (“If you had to choose between leather and suede, which would you pick and why?”). In angry tones she tells Greta that she was given yet another advertorial piece that will be yoked together from industry press releases. This is not what she went to Columbia for.

  Allison blames Jane for her career’s inertia, which is a reasonably accurate assessment. Jane doesn’t make decisions based on skill and merit like other working professionals. She hires beautiful editors who can’t write and fires ugly ones who can. She chooses her assistants as if selecting a fashion accessory, and we are all a matched set: tall, thin, straight chin-length brown hair.

  The magazine is run like a seventeenth-century French court. You don’t speak unless spoken to. You avert your eyes in Jane’s presence. Her need for subservience is almost pathological, and if it weren’t against OSHA rules (see under “repetitive stress injuries”), she would no doubt have us genuflect. Her interest in Fashionista will last only as long as its growing readership does and the second there is a dip in sales, she will be gone. She will be off this leaky ship, and the magazine will start the long slide into insolvency. Witness the now defunct Voyager and the struggling Faces. Investing in good people and laying the groundwork for years of successful magazine publishing is not part of her plan. After Jane the deluge.

  It is little surprise that the peasants are revolting.

  The Linchpin

  I’m the linchpin for two reasons: Jane respects me and Alex owes me a favor.

  “No, he doesn’t,” I say.

  “Yes, he does,” Allison contradicts.

  “No, he doesn’t,” I say again. As a lowly associate editor, I’m little help to anyone, even myself.

  “Yes, he does. Last May’s makeover issue,” an unseen Sarah calls out from one of the stalls.

  “Last May’s makeover issue?” I’m trying to remember some fleeting interaction with Alex Keller but nothing comes to mind. Nothing comes to mind because we’ve never interacted.

  A toilet flushes and Sarah emerges, zipping up her ankle-length capris. “Last May’s makeover issue,” she says definitively, turning on the taps to wash her hands.

  The May issue featured a special makeover-your-life section, which ran alongside the regular assortment of bashes and balls, but Keller stayed in his corner and I stayed in mine. “He doesn’t owe me a favor.”

  “Carla Hayden,” Kate says, and looks at me expectantly.

  “Carla Hayden?” The name sounds vaguely familiar but I don’t know why. She could be a famous actress, a Tinseltown hairstylist or a new Fashionista employee. Names inhabit a small, rarely used portion of my brain.

  “Carla Hayden,” says Sarah with a nod. She dries her hands on a paper towel, tosses it into the trash and throws herself onto the couch
next to me. I’m accosted by her perfume, a flowery confection that smells expensive.

  “Short, a little pudgy, dishwater-brown hair,” adds Allison, as if these details are the sort that will jog my memory.

  As far as I’m concerned this describes half the world. I stare at them blankly.

  “She was a May makeover,” Kate says.

  Sarah turns to me with a frustrated sigh. “You put her in a Chloe bias-cut dress and gave her blond highlights.”

  “Oh, the Chloe,” I say, recognition striking at last. It’s their fault that it took me so long. If they’d had the presence of mind to bring the May issue with them, we could have sorted this out five minutes ago. “Her name was Carla Hayden?”

  “Carla Hayden Keller,” says Allison.

  “Carla Hayden Keller?” I repeat.

  “Carla Hayden Keller,” Kate nods.

  “You mean he’s married?” I try to imagine the sort of woman who would wed a bad-tempered, wart-faced troll. Short, pudgy and dishwater-brown didn’t seem the type.

  “She’s his sister,” corrects Sarah with a laugh. “She dropped her last name to throw Jane off the scent.”

  “His sister?” Keller never gave the slightest indication that he had siblings, so we didn’t factor any into his life story. It seems bad-mannered—and typical—of him to start throwing them around now. “I didn’t know he had a sister,” I say, cross. We should have known about a sister.

  “He has two,” Kate declares.

  “The bastard,” I say, trying to make sense of this development, which was at odds with what we already knew about him. Sisters should have been a civilizing force on the young Alex. “They must be older. They must be older and domineering and mean like Cinderella’s stepsisters.”