Lindsey Kelk - I Heart Forever

‘But you don’t know what the new strategy is yet,’ Joe replied.

Well, he had me there.

‘We’re still very excited.’ I looked longingly at the door, wondering how upset Delia would be if I just kicked off my Choos and legged it. ‘About the whole new strategy brand extravaganza.’

My new boss continued to stare at me across the desk while tumbleweeds blew through my empty brain. Of all the times for the voice in my head to decide she had nothing to say.

‘You’re English.’ Joe uncrossed his legs and something that could have almost passed for a real smile appeared right above his chiselled jaw. I wasn’t sure if it was a statement or a question, so I just smiled back and gave half a nod. I didn’t want to scare him off if he’d decided to play nice.

‘My girlfriend is English,’ he continued. ‘But she lives here now, obviously.’

‘I wonder if we know each other,’ I replied while giving myself a mental telling off for assuming this insanely well put together man with incredible hair and no wedding ring, who was in charge of the women’s brands at Spencer Media, must be gay. There had to be at least one perfect-looking straight man, if only to make all the others feel terrible. ‘It feels as though every British person in New York is connected in some way or another, even if it’s just from devouring fish and chips with your bare hands at A Salt and Battery twice a year.’

We looked across the desk at each other for a long moment and I imagined what kind of a woman would snag a man like this.

‘Probably not?’ I said, shaking my head and sitting back in my chair.

‘Probably not,’ he agreed. ‘But back to Gloss .’

This is all going to be fine, I reassured myself as he flicked around at the screen of his iPad. The magazine is in good shape, you’re doing a good job. They actually said that, at your last appraisal: you’re doing a good job. No one knows how much stationery you steal, or about that time you followed Chris Hemsworth for fifteen blocks after Mason tipped you off that he was coming into Ghost for an interview. No one knows .

‘I hear you’re doing a good job,’ Joe said, still flicking through his notes.

SEE, my brain shouted, IT’S ALL OK.

‘But Gloss is a small part of a big machine,’ he went on. ‘I’m sure you’re already expecting to hear this, but there are going to be changes in the next couple of months.’

‘Changes?’ I replied. ‘What kind of changes?’

‘The kind of changes that take us from the third most profitable media company to the first,’ he stated. Dear god, Joe Herman was a confident man. ‘And those kind of changes aren’t always popular.’

‘No,’ I agreed, my knee bobbing up and down underneath my desk, my black tights catching every time. ‘I suppose they aren’t.’

‘But this isn’t high school, we’re all adults,’ Joe said. ‘No one is here to be popular.’

I was, I wanted to say. I was there to be popular. Being popular was great, as I was certain he already knew. There was a distinct air of Captain of the Football Team about this man.

‘My job will be to look at how our brands can work more closely together to maximize our workforce.’ He held his hands out in front of him and then clasped them together to reinforce his point. ‘We have three separate women’s brands with three entirely separate editorial, sales and marketing teams, talking broadly to the same audience, Belle , Gloss and The Look . That doesn’t make sense.’

‘It makes sense to me,’ I replied. ‘People don’t only read one magazine.’

‘People barely read magazines at all,’ he argued. ‘You’re aware of how quickly Gloss ’s online readership is growing versus your print numbers?’

I swallowed and shuffled myself upright in my seat. Why hadn’t I prepared for this meeting? Apart from forgetting I had it altogether, why didn’t I have all the latest numbers in front of me? One minute I was signing off receipts for manicure dates with Beyoncé, and the next I was fighting for the future of my magazine. This was not how I’d planned to spend my Tuesday afternoon.

‘Next week we’ll be announcing a consolidation of the marketing teams,’ he announced. ‘Instead of having one team per mag, we’ll have one team per brand stream.’

‘You’re going to make people redundant,’ I said slowly.

‘Certain positions will be eliminated,’ he replied. I felt as though I’d stepped into a bucket of ice water. People I knew were going to lose their jobs, six weeks before Christmas. It was like the first hour of a Lifetime movie without the happily-ever-after resolution tacked on the end. And I should know, I’d seen every single one of them.

‘Once the new marketing team has been established,’ Joe added. ‘We’ll be doing the same thing with the sales teams.’

‘And then the editorial teams,’ I guessed. He nodded and my knee crashed into the underside of my desk, knocking over my pencil pot. I righted it with trembling hands.

‘Nothing is confirmed,’ Joe said, resting his hands on his knees and graciously looking away as I calmed myself. ‘And we don’t want to worry anyone at this moment in time, so this conversation will be strictly confidential.’

‘I wasn’t about to call everyone in to announce the good news,’ I replied, full of fire for my magazine, for my team. ‘My people are good, Joe. They’re creative, they work hard. You won’t find better people doing what they do anywhere in this building or anywhere else in the city.’

It took me a moment to realize my voice had risen, I was half out of my chair and the entire team was watching through the glass walls of my office. Pushing my hair behind my ears, I cleared my throat and sat back down. Joe leaned forward and a full, wolfish grin appeared on his face. He had fantastic teeth. The utter bastard.

‘I heard you were passionate about what you do,’ he said. ‘And I heard you have a great staff at Gloss , so there’s no need to go to war just yet. I won’t lie, Angela, I like passion and I like balls. That attitude is going to serve you well in the new Spencer Media.’ Joe’s eyes lit up as he spoke and I was suddenly very, very worried. ‘ Gloss doesn’t have the heritage of Belle or the familiarity of The Look but it is a fresh and vibrant brand. With you, I see growth potential. My job here is to prune the dead wood and encourage new buds and I already know I don’t need three mags in print with three full editorial teams and three editors to run three very similar outlets.’

Oh shit. Shit shit shit shit shit shit shit. Shit.

‘Is Gloss a bud or are we dead wood?’ I asked, my brain completely blank. I’d never been much of a gardener, as the dead succulent on my windowsill would attest.

‘ Gloss is a branch on the Spencer Media tree,’ he corrected, ‘that will either flower and bloom or wither and die.’

Such a reassuring man. Clearly Delia had employed him for his gentle way with words.

‘I’m meeting with all the editors in my brand stream this week.’ He flipped at his iPad and raised his eyebrows. ‘And then I’m out of town for Thanksgiving. I’ll schedule a follow-up meeting with you as soon as I’m back so we can discuss my strategy.’

‘Fantastic,’ I said with altogether too much enthusiasm for someone who felt as though they’d just been slapped across the face with a four-day-old kipper.

‘I have to say, I was very curious to meet you.’ Joe reached across the desk and took my hand in an absurdly firm handshake. ‘You didn’t take a traditional route into this job and you seem to be excelling. I know Delia has a tremendous amount of faith in you.’