These Girls (10 page)

Renee sighed, thinking about the spa trip the current beauty editor, Bonnie, had gone on last month. She’d booked two full days of appointments. She was rubbed and plucked and exfoliated and deep-conditioned and highlighted and decuticled and spray-tanned—then sent home with a giant shopping bag of products, everything from sable brushes to scented candles to La Mer skin cream. And she was paid for doing it! Just the thought of it made Renee feel like melting into a puddle of aromatherapeutic bliss.

“Hey there.”

Renee looked up to see Nigel, the editor in chief, leaning against her desk. He was a smart, quick guy, but something about him made her always want to cross her arms over her cleavage. He didn’t stare at women’s chests when he talked, but Renee had the feeling that was only because of a concerted effort on his part.

“Pop by my office, okay? Five minutes.”

“Of course.”

Renee snatched her makeup bag from her top desk drawer and headed for the bathroom. One thing about being beauty editor: You had to look the part. Women in New York were always well-groomed, but beauty editors had to take it to a new level. Renee made a mental note to call a friend who was in design school at Parsons and borrow a few outfits. And she’d ask Bonnie if she could raid her stash of makeup.

Renee assessed herself in the full-length mirror. A silky pink blouse reflected a rosy wash of color onto her face, and her below-the-knee, gray pencil skirt made her hips appear at least an inch or two narrower. Her open-toed heels, bought at a steep sale, were a half size too small and were killing her, but free foot massages would take care of that problem faster than you could say “complimentary pedicure.” Now she added a swipe of golden bronzer over her cheeks, dabbed her lips with gloss, and squirted on perfume. She brushed her hair, checked to make sure none of the tags on her clothes was sticking out, and adjusted the cream-colored silk scarf around her neck.

She knocked on Nigel’s door exactly seven minutes later, and he called out for her to enter.

Both Diane and Jessica were already there, sitting at a circular table in a corner of the spacious office.

This wasn’t a one-on-one meeting, Renee realized as she fought to keep the smile on her face. He was chatting with all three candidates, and she’d just made her first mistake. She should’ve taken the five minutes literally.

“Sit down,” Nigel said, motioning to an empty chair.

She also should’ve brought a pad of paper and pen into the meeting. Another misstep. She’d assumed this would be a casual chat—oh, hell, she’d secretly hoped she might be getting the job offer since she was a few years older than Jessica and
Diane and had been at the magazine longer—but she shouldn’t have expected anything. Jessica didn’t have a notepad either, but Diane was ready to take notes on her iPad.

“Look, I’m going to be straightforward here,” Nigel said. “The three of you are up for the job. And we’re going to do something a bit different this time around.”

Renee forced herself to look at Nigel instead of sneaking peeks at Jessica and Diane. She kept a pleasant smile on her face, as if he was inviting them to a cocktail hour instead of a journalistic gladiator ring.

“Normally we’d do a few rounds of interviews,” he said. “But we’re trying to be more interactive with readers. We need to boost our social media presence. You guys are our guinea pigs. Our subscribers are going to pick which one of you three gets the job.”

Jessica raised her hand, as if she were in second grade puzzling over an arithmetic problem. “Like, they’re going to vote?”

Renee silently cheered that unprofessional, annoying
like.
She refused to feel bad about it. Diane was engaged to a short, hyperactive Wall Street trader, and milk-sniffing Jessica had a trust fund. Neither of them needed the job the way Renee did.

“In a sense,” Nigel said. “You’re each going to get a significant online presence. You’re going to write blogs and tweet. We’re creating special Facebook pages for the three of you. Whoever gets the best response—the most followers, the best dialogue on your blogs—wins the position. Obviously you’ll need to keep doing your regular jobs, but I’d suggest you devote as much time as possible to this.”

“Wow,” Jessica said, her face immobile. “That sounds so exciting.”

Definitely Botox, Renee decided.

“We want people to feel invested in the process,” Nigel said. “You know we’re shedding subscribers like dandruff—hell, all
the magazines are. We need an infusion of young readers. You three are something of an experiment for us, but I think it’ll work.”

I can do this,
Renee thought. She had two hundred friends on Facebook already; she’d ask them to come over to her new page. If they spread the word, rallied others to join in, she’d get a running start. She shifted in her seat, and her Spanx cut painfully into her waist.

“I assume we can blog about anything as long as it relates to beauty?” Diane asked, typing away.

Nigel waved his hand. “Extra points for creativity,” he said. “No one’s going to hold your hand. We want you three to show us what you can do. The floor is wide open.”

“So we can utilize Foursquare,” Diane murmured, as if to herself.

“Come again?” Nigel asked.

“Oh, it’s just an interactive device that works with Facebook and Twitter,” Diane said. “If I check in to a press conference for Clinique, it’ll show my location. Another way to stay connected.”

“Brilliant,” Nigel said.

Renee glanced over and noticed for the first time that Diane’s pink iPad case exactly matched the hue of her skirt. She hadn’t expected Diane to be trying this hard. She must want the job as badly as Renee did.

“When can we start?” Renee asked, perching on the edge of her seat.

“Tech Support is working on your Facebook pages as we speak,” he said. “Go get ’em.”

All three women stood up and headed for the door. As Renee walked back to her desk, her cell phone rang. The area code was from her hometown, but the number was unfamiliar.

“Renee?” The young woman’s voice sounded friendly but uncertain. Renee frowned as she tried to place it.

“It’s Becca.”

“Oh!” Renee said. She swallowed. “Hey there! How are you?”

“I’m good . . . well, maybe a bit nervous, too. This is kind of crazy, isn’t it?”

“Completely,” Renee said with a little laugh. She tried to form a mental picture of Becca based on vocal cues but came up blank. “I’m glad you called.”

There was a pause and Renee looked around, noticing her co-worker in the next cubicle was glancing over. Did she sound strange? She sat down quickly, glad for the partition that served as a shield, even though her voice would carry over it.

“Anyway, I just had coffee with . . . Marvin,” Becca said. The hesitation was almost imperceptible, and Renee wondered if Becca had been about to call him her father. It must have been strange for her to figure out how to refer to him. “It was nice. He told me a little bit about your job. Am I catching you at a good time?”

To tell the truth, she wasn’t. The office was bustling with people, and this wasn’t a conversation Renee wanted overheard. But all she said was, “Sure! It’s great.” Then she winced: She sounded like she’d inhaled a sip of helium.

“So I thought maybe I could come to New York in a month or two,” Becca said. “But please don’t worry about helping pay for the ticket. I’ve got a free voucher since I was bumped off a flight last year.”

“Well, then let me cover half the hotel,” Renee said. “It’s the least I can do.”

“Oh,” Becca said. Had she expected Renee to invite her to spend the night?
Should
she have invited Becca to spend the night? But something inside her resisted it. Becca was still a stranger, and their relationship was already complicated enough.

“If you want—” she began, just as Becca said, “Really, that’s so generous.”

“Sorry,” they both said at the same time, and then Renee really
did laugh. This felt like an awful blind date, an experience with which Renee was unfortunately all too familiar.

“It’ll be easy to get a flight, I can just get a reservation at the last minute as long as there’s space,” Becca said.

“Sure,” Renee said. “Is there anything special you want to do in New York? See a show or something? We don’t have to decide now—it’s not hard to get tickets at the last minute.”

“That sounds like fun. So should we look at our calendars and e-mail about a good time then?”

“Perfect,” Renee said.

“Great,” Becca said.

There was a long pause while Renee tried to think of something else to say.

“Um, well then, we’ll talk soon?”

“Okay. Great,” Becca repeated. “Bye.”

Renee turned off her phone and put it down on her desk.

“That sounded awkward.” Her friend David the photographer was leaning against her cubicle’s chest-high partition. “Were you fending off a stalker?”

Renee rolled her eyes. “George Clooney again. He never takes a hint.”

“Want to grab a coffee?”

Renee hesitated, then shook her head. “I’d love to, but I’ve got to work.”

That part was true, but what Renee really craved was a chance to be still for a few minutes, to absorb the phone call in private. Becca had sounded nice—a bit uncertain, but open and friendly. That was what was so unsettling.

She’d sounded exactly like Renee.

Cate watched as Trey walked up to the cafeteria table, two steaming cups of coffee in his hands. He wore jeans, a T-shirt,
and a brown leather jacket, and Cate was pretty sure that, if James Dean were alive, he’d be throwing a jealous hissy fit.

“Sugar, cream, Splenda?” Trey inquired. “Just consider me your personal stewardess.”

“Thanks, but wouldn’t you be a steward?” Cate asked, taking a packet of Splenda from the selection he put on the table.

“Good point. The dresses probably wouldn’t do anything for my legs anyway,” he said. “And if they did, I’m not sure I’d want to know about it. So listen, I can’t tell you how much I appreciate you and Renee looking after Abby.”

“It’s our pleasure,” Cate said quickly. “But actually, I wanted to chat with you about something else.”

Trey raised an eyebrow. She’d let him think the meeting was about his sister moving in. Or rather, she’d e-mailed him a vague message, knowing that he’d come to that conclusion himself.

“It’s work-related,” Cate said. She swirled half a packet of Splenda into her coffee with a little wooden stirrer and forced herself to look at him. “I know you haven’t written much for our magazine before.”

“Ever,” Trey said.

“Really? Anyway, I wondered if you’d consider taking on our cover story for February.”

Trey leaned back in the chair, which was way too small for his body. Her eyes skimmed across his face, but she couldn’t read his expression. She’d never noticed it before, but his light blue eyes were rimmed with a darker shade—almost a navy.

“Is it a singer? Actress?” he asked.

“Both,” Cate said, giving herself a mental shake. “It’s Reece Moss.”

Cate continued talking quickly, hoping Trey wouldn’t say no before she’d gotten out the rest of her pitch. “She’s sewn up so tight by publicists and managers that we don’t have much hope of getting anything interesting out of her. We’re going to have
to recycle the same old stuff, and I really don’t want to do that.”

“I wouldn’t, either, if it were my first issue as features editor,” Trey said.

Cate tried to conceal her surprise. She hadn’t realized he’d known that much about her. Had he checked her out as a potential roommate for Abby—or had he known before then?

“You know she’s going to be even more locked down than usual,” he said. “Given the Robert Pattinson thing.”

Cate nodded. Reece’s brief fling with Pattinson had had a meteoric effect on her already soaring career. At twenty-two, she’d burst out of small film parts to nab the lead in a Scorsese movie opposite Leo DiCaprio. She’d played a prostitute, and her gritty performance had belied her wholesome image. She’d sung the lead song on the soundtrack, too. She’d won a Grammy, and nearly nabbed an Oscar nomination. If Cate managed to get a real story about her—something that delved below the press releases and carefully constructed statements by a publicist—it would be a huge coup. She knew Trey could deliver it.

“I’ll do it,” he said.

“Really?” she breathed out the word on a sigh of relief.

“Least I can do,” he said. “Just take good care of my little sister.”

Cate lowered her eyes, suddenly feeling ashamed. She hadn’t meant to use Abby’s pain as a bartering tool. “I would even if you weren’t going to do the story. I mean, we would. Renee and I.”

“Speak of the devil,” Trey said, breaking into a smile. He waved, and Cate turned around to see Renee standing in the checkout line, a green salad and a bottle of Perrier on her tray. Cate waved, too, and she could see Renee collect her change and then hesitate, clearly debating whether to join them.

Sorry,
Cate thought as she broke off eye contact and turned back around, hoping Renee would take the hint. She would’ve loved to have invited Renee to join them, but she and Trey
hadn’t finished hashing out the details of the story. She needed to tie him to a deadline before she went into the editorial meeting later this afternoon.

“So, shall we say three thousand words? Think you can get it in in a month?”

“No problem,” Trey said.

“You don’t have any questions?”

“You’ve already told me what you want. Nothing repackaged. I should cut through her handlers. Find something new.”

Cate hadn’t expected it to be that easy. “Okay, then,” she said, taking a sip of her coffee. “I’ll get you a contract today.” Out of the corner of her eye, she saw Renee pass by and join a staff writer sitting a few tables away.

For the second time, Cate felt a flush of shame. She should have invited Renee to join them. She knew how Renee felt about Trey—
everyone
knew. She’d just been so nervous about this story, about getting it right.

Should she invite Renee over now? No, it would look strange. She was already taking a bite of her salad and chatting animatedly with the other woman.