I thought about ringing my mum to tell her I’d started my new job.
‘Darling, well done!’ I imagined her saying. ‘I’m so proud of you and I know how hard you’ve worked.’
What were the chances of her saying that? Slim to nil. She’d listen in silence, making sure I was well aware that she wasn’t remotely interested in what she considered the frivolous and superficial world of women’s magazines. Then she’d tell me about some lecture she’d been asked to give somewhere prestigious – she was an economics don at a college at Oxford University and was always jetting off round the world to be a guest speaker at various conferences. She’d probably throw in some fawning about my future sister-in-law, Isabelle, who was one of Mum’s former PhD students – she’d met my brother Rick at a department summer party that I’d not been invited to. Isabelle was going some way to making up for the terrible disappointment my career choices had brought my mother and she talked about her a lot. She might even do the thing where she’d tell me about a friend’s son or daughter who’d just been made partner at a law firm, or published some ground-breaking scientific research, or started their own charity. She’d fill me in on all the details, then with self-pity dripping from every word, she’d say: ‘I always thought you’d end up doing something like that, but you went a different way…’
No. Mum was not the person I needed to speak to right now. And ringing Jen wasn’t a good idea either. She was ignoring my calls for a reason and I wanted to give her time to calm down.
Maybe I couldn’t settle because I needed to get down some ideas for the magazine? I turned on my laptop and opened a new document, but after staring at the blank screen for half an hour, I admitted defeat. Instead, I padded through to the kitchen, made another cup of tea, and grabbed the rest of my family-sized bar of chocolate out of the fridge. Then, even though it was only eight p.m., I went to bed and snuggled up under the duvet. I spent the rest of the evening looking at old photos of my time in Australia – my time with Damian – on my laptop.
What can I say? Every girl needs a hobby.
I’d always regretted the way Damo and I had split up – it had been pretty brutal – but I’d never regretted moving on because I knew I’d had good reasons at the time. But now I’d seen him I was struggling to remember what those reasons were.
I scrolled through the pictures until my eyes were burning. Damo and me climbing Sydney Harbour Bridge, trekking in the bush, messing around at the pool on the roof of our apartment block… It was like watching a montage from a rubbish romcom.
I woke up at five a.m., with a crick in my neck and my head resting on my laptop. I’d dribbled on the screen, which was frozen on a photo of Damo sitting on the edge of a bright blue pool, wearing nothing but denim shorts and a smile. I shut the laptop with a snap and, groaning, I dragged myself out of bed.
‘Back to work,’ I told myself firmly as I pulled on my gym gear. ‘No distractions. No complications, just work.’
One spin class, one shower and two flat whites later and I was raring to go. I gathered the team in my office, ready to start brainstorming ideas to transform Mode and send its sales soaring.
At least, I was ready. The rest of the team looked at their feet and didn’t speak.
‘So we’re looking for someone to put on the next cover,’ I said. ‘I know Vanessa mentioned Sarah Sanderson but I’m really after someone zingy and exciting and a bit younger than Dawn Robin – lovely though she is.’
I’d read Vanessa’s interview with the soap star yesterday and it was fine. Great, in fact. It just wasn’t very Mode. Passionate as Dawn was about home baking, I couldn’t see sassy, twenty-something professionals queuing up to find out what she used to make her scones rise.
I beamed at Vanessa.
‘It was a great chat,’ I said through gritted teeth. ‘Any ideas about who we should do next?’
Vanessa leafed through her notebook painfully slowly. It was obvious to me she’d not prepared for the meeting at all.
‘I met that MP, last month, at a book launch,’ she said finally.
‘MP?’ I tried very hard not to roll my eyes.
‘That young one,’ she said, still turning pages. ‘The one who no one expected to win, except she did and now she’s an MP even though she’s only just graduated.’
‘Oh, yes,’ I said, feeling a bit excited. ‘Joanna Fuller?’
‘That’s it,’ Vanessa said. ‘What about her?’
‘Perfect,’ I said. ‘We’d need to shoot her though – make her look more Mode. And MPs are a nightmare to get time with. We might need to do the shoot and the interview whenever we can and sit on it.’
Vanessa nodded.
‘So what about next issue,’ I said. ‘Any ideas? We need to be quick, because we’re late planning this one.’
Not content with taking half the team with her to her new job, Sophie had apparently stopped planning future issues as soon as she’d handed in her notice, leaving me with barely anything in the bag and very tight deadlines.
No one seemed to share my sense of urgency.
Vanessa shrugged. She really was infuriating. I looked at my own notes.
‘What about Amy Lavender?’ I said. ‘She’s everywhere right now and her agent owes me a favour, which is lucky because our budgets are very small. If we can shoot her and interview her on the same day, we’ll have time to use it next issue. I’ll sort it out.’
‘Great idea,’ said Milly. ‘I love her. She’s hilarious.’
Vanessa looked furious.
‘Fine,’ she said, even though it was clearly anything but.
‘What else?’
‘We’ve got the Jurassic diet plan,’ Vanessa said. ‘It’s the new paleo. Basically you only eat kale and chia seeds, mushed together in a kind of primordial ooze.’
I brightened up. This was more like it.
‘Get someone to do it,’ I said. ‘And write a diary. And find a nutritionist to sing about how fabulous it is, and another one who’ll trash it completely.’
Vanessa sighed, but she didn’t complain. She wrote something on her pad that seemed to be a lot more detailed than what I’d just said. I wondered if she was writing rude things about me. I used to do that when I was an intern and editors were dismissive of me – though I really thought someone of Vanessa’s age and experience should have been past that by now.
I moved on.
‘Fashion?’ I said.
The fashion editor was a woman called Riley who I had worked with briefly years ago. I’d been so grateful to see a familiar face when I’d realised who she was yesterday, that I’d almost hugged her. Thankfully I’d stopped myself just in time.
Now she leaned back in her chair, stretching out her long brown legs – which were bare even though it was January – and smiled at me.
‘I’ve got a dresses shoot that’s in the bag,’ she said. ‘But if we’re doing Amy Lavender, we could hang on to the dresses for next issue and perhaps we could get her to do something instead?’
‘Yes,’ I said, ridiculously pleased that finally someone was using their initiative.
‘She wears lots of vintage stuff, right?’ Riley went on thoughtfully. ‘How about I take her for a trawl round some of the shops near here. We can do a feature on how to wear vintage clothes, ask Amy for her tips, and get her to model what we find.’
I