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Chapter 2
Pushing through the double doors on the third floor of the Beak Street building, I can see Suki already holding court in the glass-walled meeting room. A dozen of my colleagues sit in two neat rows listening with rapt attention. Editor in Chief of Love Life, Suki Cavendish is a slim four foot eleven with a keen aversion to heels, yet she always manages to be the most prepossessing person in any room. Today she is dressed in a tailored cream jumpsuit with her black hair pulled into a taut chignon.
Carefully opening the glass door of the meeting room, I creep towards the only free seat left, right at the front. The only thing Suki hates more than lateness is ‘freegans who shun consumer society’. I’m only two minutes late, but Suki stops talking and everyone turns to look at me. My friend and flatmate Vanya shoots me a sympathetic look from the end of the row.
‘Nice of you to join us, Laura,’ Suki says, one eyebrow darting up her forehead. ‘Since you’re already standing, perhaps you can help me today?’
Oh great – I’m in the hot seat. Suki likes to punctuate her monthly round-ups with a Q&A full of impossible hypothetical questions. It’s like being on a game show that you can never win.
‘What are we doing here, Laura?’ Suki’s lips pout in my direction, like a cannon preparing to fire.
‘Having a meeting?’
Everyone laughs, which makes me even more nervous. I wasn’t trying to be funny; Suki does not like funny.
‘No, what are we doing here?’ Suki glares at me, lifting her hand up to indicate I should stay standing while I’m in the hot seat.
Though Suki is short, she refuses to raise her eye level to look at people taller than her. I once heard her tell a male client that she didn’t see why she should give herself neck ache – if people want to look her in the eye, they can come down to her level. As a result, when you speak to her, you find yourself hovering in a crouch position. Vanya swears that she once saw Suki have a whole meeting with a particularly tall IT guy on his knees.
‘Do we all show up at this office for fun?’ Suki asks. ‘Are we here designing blueprints for atomic submarines? What are we doing, Laura?’
‘Um, working for one of the top lifestyle platforms in the UK?’ Yes! I remembered to call it a lifestyle platform. Suki doesn’t like it being referred to as a website, she thinks it’s reductive. Love Life started out as purely interiors, but now covers everything from real life stories to beauty products and travel.
‘We are selling a dream – that is what we are doing,’ says Suki, clapping her hands together. ‘We are showing people the life they want – the enviable love stories, the perfectly designed breakfast bar, the expensive mini break to Paris that might save their relationship. We suck people in with a dream, and we send them away with … Laura?’
‘Hope?’ I try. Suki stares at my chin, unblinking. ‘Style tips? Um, a smile?’ I crouch down a little lower. My glute muscles have gotten so much stronger in the four years I’ve been working here. ‘Hope?’ Damn it, I think I said ‘hope’ already.
Straight out of university, I worked for a music magazine. I’d have to wait backstage after gigs to try and bag interviews with bands. I learnt how to thrust myself forward, find just the right question for musicians who had little time for me. I only lasted nine months before my editor tired of my ‘retro taste in music’ and replaced me with a nineteen-year-old synth metal fan, but it was long enough to learn how to think on my feet and to swallow my nerves. Yet here, regardless of competence, something about Suki renders most of us incapable of forming intelligent sentences.
‘We send them away with stuff, Laura. Suck them in with dreams, grab them with targeted ads, and send them away with stuff! Our followers might not have perfect lives, but they can have a new luxury mattress, a stylish holiday, the exact bronze light-fitting that Kylie Minogue has in her Melbourne kitchen-cum-diner. With our help, they can buy a fragment of perfection.’
I nod, holding my chin between thumb and forefinger, attempting to look as though I’m studiously digesting Suki’s wisdom. Personally, I feel the world could do with a little less stuff, but no one’s going to pay me to peddle my ‘reuse, recycle’ philosophy in this room. I have a staff job here, which, as a journalist, is almost impossible to come by. So, I count myself lucky and try to keep my head and my eyeline down.
‘And so, we find ourselves with a problem.’ Suki turns her attention back to the room and resumes pacing slowly as she talks. ‘In the current climate, no one wants to buy stuff. People are learning they can live with less. They can work less, earn less, buy less, do less, travel less – talk more, read more, enjoy the little things, the free things. Do they need another handbag, another outfit, another upgrade to their phone? Do they need sushi delivered at eleven p.m., Jazzercise classes, and BB cream for the cellulite no one ever sees? Do they, Laura?’
‘Quite,’ I say, nodding solemnly. Ha! I can’t be wrong if I say ‘quite’.
An invisible fishhook pulls at the edge of Suki’s lip before she whips her face back around to face the room.
‘So, where does that leave us, as purveyors of stuff?’ Suki slaps the wall, rounding off her oratorical frenzy. ‘What do people want when life gets tough?’
Her eyes dart back to me.
‘Um, sex?’
Everyone laughs. I have sex on the brain today. I blame the hot fireman and feisty redhead.
‘Love,’ Suki corrects me. ‘Love is what makes people feel good when the world outside feels bleak. Our “How Did You Meet?” and proposal pages are consistently the most clicked-on sections of the site. If we can lure in the numbers with love, we might just be able to keep the product partnerships paying all our wages.’
Suki takes a pen from the table and starts scribbling on the white board behind her, the pen squeaking like a mouse being garrotted. She writes, ‘Love = Views, Views = Sales, Sales = Jobs’.
‘We need clicks, we need content that warms people’s hearts.’ Her voice takes on a sombre tone. ‘The reality is, if site traffic is down again this month, we won’t be able to sustain a team of this size.’ Murmurs of concern circle the room; people glance at each other nervously. We already lost three colleagues in January. Suki’s face softens, her eyes full of compassion as she holds out her hands to the room, ‘And you know you are all like family to me.’
Her ability to flit from tyrannical to faux maternal in the space of a sentence is disturbing.
‘So, what unmissable content have you got for me – Vanya?’ Suki releases me from standing with a finger click, and my glute muscles sing in relief. Now it’s Vanya’s turn, and I know for a fact she was out on a Tinder date until 3 a.m. last night, and that she has a killer hangover to show for it. Vee and I rent a place together near Queen’s Park. I put in a good word for her here last year after the literary journal she worked for went under. There are only a few people I could embrace into both my home and my work life, and Vee is definitely one of them.
‘Well, I had a couple of article ideas.’ Beads of sweat dot Vanya’s upper lip, and her usually smooth black bob has sprung into frizz on one side. Suki clicks her fingers, indicating she should fire off her ideas. ‘Bed linen to save your marriage.’ Suki shakes her head. ‘Kitchen appliances you didn’t know you needed.’ Silence. ‘Working-from-home wardrobes of the rich and famous.’ Suki grimaces. Vanya’s voice gets thinner; she pulls her arms up into her sleeves as though trying to hide inside her top. ‘Top ten lipstick shades to make your face look younger, happier … wiser?’
