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She was also an incredibly demanding boss by reputation, and I really wanted to impress her.
“Don’t be nervous,” she reassured me, but I didn’t mind being nervous. It helped me stay ahead of the game. “Gabriella had nothing but good things to say about you.”
“Did she?” My mind spun. Gabriella had said things about me to India? Before she’d left and put my name on that list? Did that mean... “Was Gabriella considering me for this job before she left?”
“Well, yes... Didn’t she tell you?” India blinked at me as she pushed through the doors to the beauty department. The room was amazing, with lighted vanities and worktables covered in cardboard USPS boxes overflowing with samples of the latest cosmetics. In one corner there was a light box and a digital camera on a tripod. A girl with green-striped black hair up in a messy bun leaned over the light box, drizzling sparkly nail polish onto a piece of glass.
“Jessica?” India asked, and the woman straightened. She was wearing the coolest rectangular glasses I’d ever seen, and had gorgeous brown eyes. “This is Jessica Nguyen, our other assistant editor.”
“Yes!” I remembered her from the short-lived online makeup tutorial series she’d done for the magazine’s website. I shook her hand. “I really liked the spring pinks last year.”
She beamed at me. “I never thought that would fly. You know Gabriella and petal pinks.”
“I had faith in you,” India laughed. Then she addressed me. “Look, I know that working for Gabriella was extremely challenging. But you stayed on for two years, so I know you can handle this job.”
A phone rang somewhere in the office, and India excused herself to answer it.
“So, favorite lipsticks. Go.” Jessica’s eyes twinkled at the very mention of lipstick, and I realized I had just walked into my dream job. Weird, I’d always seen myself more like Jake, making a big deal over important clothes and designers.
When I had been a teenager flipping through fashion magazines, the only things in the pages I’d been able to afford on my meager allowance were the cosmetics. I’d saved for weeks to buy Clarins eye shadow quads and Bobbi Brown tinted moisturizer. So, I knew my shit where product was concerned.
“Illamasqua ‘Flare’,” I ticked on my fingertips, “YSL ‘Rose Boheme,’ and of course MAC’s ‘Please Me.’ Did I pass?”
Jessica was about to say something when India hung up and headed straight for the door.
“What’s up?” Jessica asked, and her concern made me a little worried.
“It’s Rudy.” India pronounced his name with great disdain, stretching the syllables in her working-class accent, like Roo-dee. “It sounds like I’m about to be scolded.”
“Scolded?” I asked after India left. “What does she mean?”
“Well, ever since Elwood took over the magazine, he and his little henchmen are instituting all of these bullshit policy changes.” Jessica rolled her eyes at Neil’s name.
“Ugh,” I pretended to sympathize. “What dicks, right?”
“You know Rudy Ainsworth nixed four really good pictures from that Versailles spread?” Jessica’s jaw dropped dramatically before she continued. “Because they had fur in them. They’re trying to ‘cut back’ on the use of fur.”
“In Porteras?” No, dipshit, in the other magazine you work for. “That’s never going to work.”
Jessica nodded in agreement “Tell me about it. Come on, let me show you around.”
I have to admit, I was only half paying attention to most of what Jessica was telling me. So not smart on my first day in a new job, but I couldn’t stop thinking about what a colossal mistake it would be to cut fur from the pages of Porteras. It wasn’t that I was pro-fur. Dead animals squicked me out, but anti-fur designers were thin on the ground. Fur was a battleground that Neil would lose on, and besides, where was the line? First fur, then leather? At least we could still run non-fur pieces from designers who used fur, but when would that end?
Without the support of the designers and advertisers, Porteras really would flame out, and fast.
Jessica was showing me how to photograph a good swatch of wet polish— and finishing the project my arrival had interrupted in the process— when India came in, completely crestfallen.
“We have to start the issue over.” She dropped a printed, stapled list onto the center worktable.
“February?” Jessica chirped, alarmed. “We just got all the sample requests in.”
“January.” India dropped into her chair, her head in her hands. “We have to start over on the January issue.”
“Start over?” Jessica’s tone indicated she couldn’t even conceive of the idea. “But we’ll be like eight days behind schedule.”
India looked up, her perfect black brows lifted. “Well, then I suppose we should clear our schedules.”
“What’s wrong with everything? Mr. Elwood loved the proofs at the meeting—”
“Neil Elwood is a horse’s ass,” India snapped, and it was so blunt I couldn’t help my horrified burst of laughter.
