Over Her Dead Body (2 page)

After letting myself into my apartment, I helped myself to the last cold beer in the fridge and checked the calendar on my BlackBerry. I had a fairly busy week ahead, but I’d have to make time to talk to editors and see if there was the potential for another contributing-editor gig someplace else. I’d forgotten that tomorrow night I was having drinks with Robby Hart, an old pal from
Get,
the magazine I’d worked at before
Gloss
—and where I’d first met Cat. Robby was a great networker and the perfect person for me to brainstorm with.

As it turned out, my drink with Robby was the only step I ever had to take in my job search.

The spot he’d chosen for us to meet on Thursday night was a wine bar on the Lower East Side. Robby was already at a table when I arrived, dressed as usual in a cotton plaid button-down shirt with a white undershirt peeking out from underneath. I guess you can take the boy out of Ohio, but you can’t take Ohio out of the boy. As soon as he spotted me, he stood up to greet me and offer one of his big toothy Robby smiles. He’d never been Mr. Svelte, but I realized as we hugged each other that he’d put on some weight since I’d seen him last.

“Wow, it’s so good to see you,” he said. “It’s been too long.”

“I know. I’ve been so looking forward to this.”

The waiter strolled by just as I was sitting down, and I asked for a glass of Cabernet.

“Nice ’do,” Robby said, pointing with his chin toward my hair. “I almost didn’t recognize you.”

“Thanks, I decided to grow it out. But just watch—once it’s finally long enough to pull into a sloppy bun, they’ll be out of style.”

“Well, at least you’ve got some to grow,” he said. Robby was my age but totally bald.

“So tell me—how’s the new gig?” I demanded. “I’m dying to hear.”

Robby had stayed at
Get
until it folded, then gone in desperation to
Ladies’ Home Journal,
where he’d assigned and written celebrity pieces for several years. Three months ago he’d bagged a job as a senior editor for
Buzz,
the very hot celebrity gossip magazine. Circulation at
Buzz
had languished until the top job was taken over about a year ago by Mona Hodges, the genius—and notorious—editor known for resuscitating ailing magazines. Sales had since skyrocketed, and in a recent profile, Mona had claimed that forty-nine percent of her readers would choose an evening reading
Buzz
over sex with their husbands.

“Well, I’ve got to admit, it’s awesome to be at such a
buzzy
magazine,” he said. “When people used to find out I worked at
LHJ,
all they’d do was ask if I had a recipe for chicken chili or knew how to get ink stains out of clothes. But when someone finds out I work at
Buzz,
their eyes bug out.”

“That’s fabulous, Robby,” I said, but as soon as I said it I saw his eyes flicker with uncertainty. “
What?”

He squeezed his lips together hard. “On the other hand, it’s been a tough learning curve,” he conceded. “They expect your writing to be very cute and snappy, and I’m not so experienced with that. The chick in the office next to me wrote this line about Hugh Grant the other day—she said he had the kind of blue eyes you could see from outer space—and all I could think was why can’t I write something like that? Though I think I’m finally starting to get the hang of it.”

“Do you work late most nights? I heard someone say that there were sweatshops in Cambodia that have better hours than
Buzz.
”

“Mondays are the worst because we close that night,” he admitted. “Sometimes I’m there till five a.m. Tuesdays are the one early night ’cause things are just gearing up again. The other nights—it all depends. They say it’s going to get better now that Mona has finally settled in.”

“And you’re covering TV?” I said.

“Mainly
reality
TV. Behind-the-scenes stuff. Are the bitches really as bitchy as they seem? Who’s bonking who? The head of the West Coast office says we should just change the name of the magazine to
Who You Fucking?
I guess it’s pretty dumbed-down stuff from what I used to be doing, but what difference does it make?”

“What do you mean?”

“Well, we tried to make the celeb stuff at
LHJ
more
journalistic,
but it was wasted effort considering who we were dealing with. I suggested to a celebrity’s publicist once that we could approach someone like Maya Angelou to do the interview, and you know what he said to me? He asked to see her clips.”

I laughed out loud.

“So you see,” he continued, “there’s a watermark you can never rise above, anyway.”

“
Buzz
can get pretty nasty, though—right?”

“It’s mainly this one gossip section that’s down and dirty. It’s called ‘Juice Bar.’ You don’t want to get on their radar if you can help it. The rest of the magazine is cheeky but not nearly so bitchy.”

“Well, are you happy you made the switch?” I asked skeptically as the waiter set our drinks down in front of us.

“Overall, yes. It’s great experience and the pay is certainly better. I got a twenty-thousand-dollar bump in my salary—which I need right now. I wanted to tell you this in person—though it’s still hush-hush: Brock and I are applying to adopt a kid.”

“Oh, Robby, that’s fabulous,” I said, giving his hand a squeeze. “You’ll be a fantastic parent.” And I meant it. Robby was one of the kindest, most thoughtful guys I’d ever worked with, and I knew that he’d always felt frustrated that as a gay man he couldn’t have a child.

“Thanks,” he said, beaming. “I’m dying to be a dad. The problem is Brock’s business has been hit or miss lately, and if our application is going to be accepted, I must have a well-paying job. So I just need to grin and bear it and hope I can get on top of things.”

“Wait—I thought you said you were on the other side of the learning curve.”

“Sort of. I mean, I think I’ve started to get the hang of the
style,
but the weekly pace is still a problem for me. If I had more time, I could do a better job of polishing my copy, but I don’t—and then later it gets tossed back to me for endless revisions.”

“Is she really as bad to work for as people say?” I asked. I was referring to Mona Hodges. Though editor in chiefs could be tough, Mona’s reputation made her unique in the pain-in-the-ass-to-work-for category. She was reportedly cold, demanding, arbitrary, and at times even abusive. Some people believed that Mona had been spurred to be this way so she could stand out from the pack by generating press about her antics—the all-publicity-even-bad-publicity-is-good-publicity theory. She supposedly was insanely jealous of Bonnie Fuller, the editorial director of a rival publication. Bonnie had a more illustrious track record in juicing up magazines and causing circulation to skyrocket. Though Bonnie had the advantage of having a longer tenure in the business and therefore more time to make her mark, it still galled Mona, who was impatient to get recognized. The “I be bad” strategy apparently was meant to gain Mona recognition faster, even if
hers
was all negative.

Robby rolled his hazel eyes. “Well, she can come on strong if she doesn’t like what she sees. I heard her verbally bitch-slap the poor mail guy the other day because he’d left a package in the wrong place. But she’s a genius at what she does, and our sales are through the roof. There’s a lot to learn from someone like her. I just wish I could get the hang of the copy.”

“You feeling pretty stressed?”

“Yeah. And the worst part is I’ve been using Cheetos and chocolate as my stress reducers of choice. I’m so fat now that I have
man
tits. When Brock and I start telling the world we’re becoming parents, people will think that
I’m
the one giving birth. But enough about me. How’s your life, anyway?”

“Not so great.” I told him the whole story and described how much of a curveball it had thrown me.

As I was speaking, Robby’s eyes widened and his jaw went slack. With his elbows resting on the table, he stretched out both arms and flipped his hands over.

“Omigod, I just thought of something,” he said. “I know the perfect job for you.”

“Where?”

“
Buzz
magazine.”

“Huh?”

“Wait till you hear this. They’ve decided to treat celebrity crimes in a more journalistic way, rather than just write them up as gossip stories. And they’re looking for some really great journalist types to do them—people they can offer contracts to. I never once thought of you because I knew your contract with
Gloss
ran through the end of the year.”

“But is there really enough celebrity crime out there to make it worth their while?”

“Absolutely! I mean, every week some celebrity tries to leave Saks with a Fendi purse stuffed down her bra or shoots his wife with a Magnum. God, you’d be perfect for this. Needless to say, for selfish reasons it would be so great for me to have you there.”

“But we just finished talking about how tough it is there.”

“But it would be different for you,” Robby declared. “Mona is secretly intimidated by anything truly journalistic. She wouldn’t micromanage you because she doesn’t see that as her strength. And it wouldn’t be expected for your copy to be all cute and perky. You’d be in the power position. And from what I’ve heard, the crime stuff is going to be overseen by the number two guy, Nash Nolan. He looks like a bully, but he’s perfectly decent. Please, let me set up the interview.”

My mind was racing. I’d never once imagined myself at a magazine like
Buzz,
yet I had to admit I was intrigued. The magazine had become a must-read in the last year, and people would get to know my name—just in time for the launch of my book. That advantage could end up outweighing any negatives.

“But I don’t really follow celebrities that much,” I said, playing devil’s advocate.

“You’ll find out everything you need to know the first week on the job. There are only about thirty celebrities who matter anyway, and you don’t even have to know their last names. Have you ever met Mona, by the way?”

“No. I’ve seen her picture in the
Post,
but I’ve never had the pleasure of a face-to-face.”

“Look, there’s no harm in just talking to her, is there?”

No, there didn’t seem to be any harm in talking.

“Okay, I’d be open to an interview,” I told him.

Robby beamed when he heard my reply. “She’ll love you,” he said. “And she’ll turn on the charm in the interview—within limits, of course, because it’s Mona we’re talking about. There are two things you need to watch out for. When she’s talking to you, she’ll lean in and stare at you really intently. The first time I met her, I thought she was checking out my pores and I half expected her to prescribe an exfoliant before I left. And she’s wall-eyed—in just one eye. Always look straight at her face. Don’t make the mistake of following the bad eye—it drives her insane when people do that.”

I let Robby go ahead and set it up.

My appointment with Mona ended up being on the Wednesday after my drink with Robby. The
Buzz
office, to my surprise, was only a few blocks south from
Gloss
’s, at Broadway and 50th. It took up half of the sixteenth floor of the building; the other portion was occupied by
Track,
an upstart music magazine owned by the same company. Robby had once told me that
Buzz
staffers sometimes bumped into people like Justin Timberlake in the reception area.

There were plenty of people bustling around in the large open offices when I arrived. Their blasé expressions remained unchanged as I was led through by Mona’s assistant, yet I could sense some of them following me with their eyes. Perhaps a few were wondering if I was a potential replacement for them.

The front wall of Mona’s office was made entirely of glass, but the blinds were drawn today. Her assistant asked me to wait outside, and through the half-open door I could hear a woman and a man in conversation.

“Take a few days to review it, but then we need to get moving on it,” said the man, his voice moving closer toward the door. “Try to give Stan a call as soon as you can.”

A second later, a fiftyish, dark blond man, dressed in a dark suit, charged by me. I recognized him as Tom Dicker, the owner of the company. His picture appeared in “Page Six,” in the
New York Post,
almost as often as Mona’s did. I barely had a chance to give him a thought when Mona herself stepped outside, dressed in too tight black pants and a sleeveless neon yellow top, and ushered me into her office.

Robby was right about the fact that she’d attempt to be charming. Mona smiled pleasantly as we shook hands, though her voice was oddly flat, with a slight midwestern accent. Robby was also right about the wall-eyed thing. As Mona’s left eye drifted off, I had to fight the urge to follow it—or worse, turn my head, because it created the illusion that someone had snuck into the room and was standing just behind my shoulder.

I’d heard people make fun of her looks, but her face wasn’t unattractive, especially for someone in her early forties. It’s just that the wandering eye kept her from being pretty. And at around five six she was slightly pudgy, a fact exaggerated by the pants she’d chosen. Her best feature was probably her hair. It was auburn colored and glossy as a movie stallion’s—though she was wearing it in an unfortunate new shag cut with loads of layers heaped on her head. Her hair was just too thick for that kind of style, and it made her look as though she might be distantly related to a Wookie.

Without bothering to tell me to take a seat, Mona plunked down into the chair behind her desk, so I slipped into one facing her. She glanced at the package of material I’d sent over by messenger and then back up at me.

“So what’s wrong with this deal you’ve got with
Gloss
?” she asked bluntly.

“Nothing at all,” I said. “But
Gloss
may be going in a slightly different direction, so I’ve been keeping my ears open for other opportunities.”

“You read
Buzz
?”

“Not religiously,” I confessed. Something told me it was smarter not to bullshit Mona. “But it’s definitely a guilty pleasure I indulge in at times.”