The Boss

by Abigail Barnette

  When he stopped me on my way through reception and said, "Good luck today, Sophie," I noticed the looks that got me, and I held my head up a little higher as I crossed the main office floor.

  India Vaughn, senior beauty editor, sidled up next to me as we walked. "Sophie Scaife, I think you just got the seal of approval."

  "Don't be too intimidated," I quipped. "He doesn't really like me all that much."

  She shook my hand, which is actually pretty tricky to do when walking side by side with someone. I was impressed at how professionally I pulled it off.

  Let me tell you about India. India had been the office Brit before Neil came to Porteras. She has black hair and light eyes, and looks like she could play a president's wife in a movie. She knows more about nail polish than any other human being alive. I once went to a Christmas open house at her apartment, and I swear to god, she had an entire walk-in closet of just beauty products, like she’d taken a little slice of Ulta and slotted it into her home.

  She was also an incredibly demanding boss by reputation, and I really wanted to impress her.

  "Don't be nervous," she reassured me, but I didn't mind being nervous. It helped me stay ahead of the game. "Gabriella had nothing but good things to say about you."

  "Did she?" My mind spun. Gabriella had said things about me to India? Before she'd left and put my name on that list? Did that mean... "Was Gabriella considering me for this job before she left?"

  "Well, yes... didn't she tell you?" India blinked at me as she pushed through the doors to the beauty department. The room was amazing, with lighted vanities and worktables covered in cardboard USPS boxes overflowing with samples of the latest cosmetics. In one corner there was a light box and a digital camera on a tripod. A girl with green-striped black hair up in a messy bun leaned over the light box, drizzling sparkly nail polish onto a piece of glass.

  "Jessica?" India asked, and the woman straightened. She was wearing the coolest rectangular glasses I'd ever seen, and had gorgeous brown eyes. "This is Jessica Nguyen, our other assistant editor."

  "Yes!" I remembered her from the short-lived online makeup tutorial series she’d done for the magazine’s website. I shook her hand. "I really liked the spring pinks last year."

  She beamed at me. "I never thought that would fly. You know Gabriella and petal pinks."

  "I had faith in you," India laughed. Then she addressed me. "Look, I know that working for Gabriella was extremely challenging. But you stayed on for two years, so I know you can handle this job."

  A phone rang somewhere in the office, and India excused herself to answer it.

  "So, favorite lipsticks. Go." Jessica's eyes twinkled at the very mention of lipstick, and I realized I had just walked into my dream job. Weird, I’d always seen myself more like Jake, making a big deal over important clothes and designers.

  When I had been a teenager flipping through fashion magazines, the only things in the pages I’d been able to afford on my meager allowance were the cosmetics. I’d saved for weeks to buy Clarins eye shadow quads and Bobbi Brown tinted moisturizer. So, I knew my shit where product was concerned.

  "Illamasqua 'Flare'," I ticked on my fingertips, "YSL 'Rose Boheme,' and of course MAC's 'Please Me.' Did I pass?"

  Jessica was about to say something when India hung up and headed straight for the door.

  "What's up?" Jessica asked, and her concern made me a little worried.

  "It's Rudy." India pronounced his name with great disdain, stretching the syllables in her working-class accent, like Roo-dee. "It sounds like I'm about to be scolded."

  "Scolded?" I asked after India left. "What does she mean?"

  "Well, ever since Elwood took over the magazine, he and his little henchmen are instituting all of these bullshit policy changes." Jessica rolled her eyes at Neil's name.

  "Ugh," I pretended to sympathize. "What dicks, right?"

  "You know Rudy Ainsworth nixed four really good pictures from that Versailles spread?" Jessica's jaw dropped dramatically before she continued. "Because they had fur in them. They're trying to 'cut back' on the use of fur."

  "In Porteras?" No, dipshit, in the other magazine you work for. "That's never going to work."

  Jessica nodded in agreement "Tell me about it. Come on, let me show you around."

  I have to admit, I was only half paying attention to most of what Jessica was telling me. So not smart on my first day in a new job, but I couldn't stop thinking about what a colossal mistake it would be to cut fur from the pages of Porteras. It wasn't that I was pro-fur. Dead animals squicked me out, but anti-fur designers were thin on the ground. Fur was a battleground that Neil would lose on, and besides, where was the line? First fur, then leather? At least we could still run non-fur pieces from designers who used fur, but when would that end?

  Without the support of the designers and advertisers, Porteras really would flame out, and fast.

  Jessica was showing me how to photograph a good swatch of wet polish - and finishing the project my arrival had interrupted in the process - when India came in, completely crestfallen.

  "We have to start the issue over." She dropped a printed, stapled list onto the center worktable.

  “February?” Jessica chirped, alarmed. “We just got all the sample requests in.”

  “January.” India dropped into her chair, her head in her hands. “We have to start over on the January issue.”

  "Start over?" Jessica's tone indicated she couldn't even conceive of the idea. "But we'll be like eight days behind schedule."

  India looked up, her perfect black brows lifted. "Well, then I suppose we should clear our schedules."

  "What's wrong with everything? Mr. Elwood loved the proofs at the meeting- ”

  "Neil Elwood is a horse's ass," India snapped, and it was so blunt I couldn't help my horrified burst of laughter.

  "Sorry," I muttered, covering my mouth in shame.

  "It's all right, Sophie. Sorry.” India pinched the bridge of her nose, her dark brows drawing down, her eyes squeezing shut tight. "It's a new mandate from on high; we're not to feature products from any company that tests on animals or uses ingredients manufactured by companies that test on animals."

  Jessica made a kind of strangled noise. "B-but that means no Esteé Lauder, no Bobbi Brown, Clinique, MAC, Fekkai..."

  "And no one owned by any of the corporations like Proctor & Gamble, which means your perfume profile is a bust." India shook her head. "This is going to reduce us to Avon and Mary Kay. Not exactly high fashion."

  "Avon and Mary Kay test on animals," I supplied unhelpfully.

  India forced what was very clearly a "we're fucked" kind of smile. "Well, I guess it's time to get on the phone to some nice vegans and see what we can do."

  The day was brutal. As far as first days went, it replaced the time I started working at GAP on Black Friday as the worst first day of my life. We spent most of the morning researching. All of the samples we had on hand were from companies on the no-no list. India decided that we'd spin the month as a return to natural beauty, in the hopes that someone in management would see how absurd this all was.

  Look, it wasn't that I wanted to think about bunnies getting lipstick smeared in their eyes, but I also didn't want my job to go down the tubes. If word got out that the magazine was going cruelty-free, we were going to lose a lot of ad revenue.

  Jessica and I did most of the running in and out of the building, to stop by company offices for last minute samples, or to department stores to buy what we couldn't get overnighted. I was exhausted, my feet hurt, my hands were covered in eye shadow swatches in colors named “Kale” and “Brigid’s Flame”, but I supposed it could have been worse. As I was staggering through reception at eight o'clock, Deja was still at my old desk. She looked up and waved at me to come over.

  Going into the old office felt completely weird, and the most bizarre pang of homesickness gripped me. Deja had the iPad Neil had lent me, and I almost puked up my heart at the sight
of it. Had she looked at it? Had she seen that picture?

  "Mr. Elwood wanted to make sure he returned this yesterday, but in the chaos with his emergency, he forgot." She handed it to me with a smile, not one single hint of knowing in her expression.

  Then I felt guilty and paranoid. "Thanks," I said, gesturing to the door. "I'm going to head home, I'm beat.”

  "I heard about the bad timing." She grimaced to convey her sympathetic horror. "Get some rest."

  On the train on the way home, I opened the iPad. I was hoping to find a message or something there to tide me over until I saw Neil again, even though I realized how silly that hope was. I'm sure flirting with me wasn't high priority when his poor mother was lying in a hospital bed.

  Still, I was delighted when checked the notes app.

  Sophie

  I'm so sorry I can't be there for your first week in the beauty department. Be assured I am lending my support from afar. Since I don't have your personal email address, have mine. I'd love to hear from you, I find myself missing you already.

  P.S. Deja is under the impression that this iPad belonged to you, so don’t try to return it at the office.

  He signed it with his name and an email address I'd never seen before. But what I focused on was the "missing you" bit of the message. Missing me? He would have left this note while he was still in the office. I have to admit, that made me feel pretty warm and fuzzy.

  When I got home, Holli was out. I pulled my laptop from its usual place under the couch and flipped open the screen. Then I logged into Gmail, typed in his address, and stared at the blank message field.

  Of course I wanted to tell him what a huge mistake it was for the magazine to go cruelty-free. I wanted to tell him about all the extra work it caused for us, and all the people he was pissing off, people he needed to run Porteras. I wanted to warn him that these changes were too sweeping and sudden, but I recognized that now, when he was across the Atlantic tending to his mother's medical crisis, was definitely not the time.

  I was questioning my loyalties, too. Did I want to tell him all of this because I was looking out for him, or the magazine? The fact that I couldn't decide - and without knowing if this were an issue he cared passionately about - was a little too confusing for me.

  On top of all that, I didn't know how much of our relationship was just sexy fun times, and how much was friendship. Was he the kind of friend I could be honest with, or were we still in the "be nice, and make sure you don't fuck it up" stage?

  He wasn't the only one having difficulties separating the person in his mind for six years from the actual person in the new relationship.

  Since I wasn't going to broach the subject in an email anyway, I tried to let go of the hectic workday and focused instead on what I really wanted to say to him. I settled on:

  Neil, I hope everything is okay. Don't miss me. I'll be here when you come back.

  Call me if you want. If not, that's okay.

  I paused, my fingers tapping gently on the keys without actually typing anything. Clearly, text was not my medium when it came to men. He'd been pretty emotionally blunt with the "I miss you" talk. Was it okay to say something like that back?

  I settled on, I'll be thinking about you, and hit send. I forced myself to go to bed without waiting for a reply.

  Chapter Twelve

  In the week that followed, my contact with Neil was confined to short email messages, and that was fine by me. With as busy as things were at the office, I wouldn't have had time for much else.

  India, Jessica, and I worked into the wee hours on the weekend, then came in early and stayed late all the way through Thursday. I'd forgotten all about the party Holli had wanted to throw for me until I was leaving on Friday morning.

  "We pushed it back to nine so you'll only be an hour late," she quipped as I headed out the door. I really hoped I could make it at all. I'd known that the beauty department was a busy area of the magazine, but I'd no idea how much planning and effort went into selecting how the products would be featured. I'd just been in the meetings where they'd shown Gabriella the page proofs and she had given a yes or a no.

  By the time I got home - to an apartment full of people at ten o' clock, as Holli had predicted - I was mentally and physically exhausted, but mostly caught up. At least, caught up enough that we were taking the weekend off. Which was its own kind of bummer; I was supposed to have spent the weekend with Neil. Work would have been a convenient distraction.

  After a quick round of greetings and congratulations on my new position, I excused myself to change from work clothes to party attire. Then I rejoined everyone to get my socialization on.

  The party was like most parties attended on Friday nights by exhausted working twenty-somethings. Music, booze, and talking. At the risk of making myself and all my friends sound old before our time, the days of pushing couches off fire escapes were way, way behind us. In fact, everyone had mostly cleared out by one o'clock, except for Deja. She and Holli were kind of semi-flirting on the couch, and I had started to feel like a bit of a third wheel. So when Holli suggested we all go out and grab something to eat, I turned them down.

  "You guys go, I'll stay here and clean some of this up," I said, exaggerating my yawn. "Then I'm off to bed."

  "Don't clean it all up," Holli warned me. "I'll be here tomorrow to help."

  After they left, I took a trash bag and started collecting red Solo cups. I was pouring out an unfinished drink in the sink when my phone rang, and Neil's number was displayed on the screen.

  Until I saw that number, I'd had no clue how much I'd been missing him. I scrambled to answer, breathless and drunk, praying I wouldn’t say something stupid, and blurted a loud "Hi!" into the phone.

  "Oh, uh, hello. I wasn't expecting you to sound quite so awake." He, on the other hand, did not sound awake at all.

  It was probably the exhaustion and the booze, but I almost burst into tears of relief at finally talking to him again. I kept it cool, thank god. "Holli had that party for me tonight, to celebrate my promotion," I reminded him.

  "Yes, of course. I'm sorry, I'd completely forgotten. Am I interrupting it?" he asked.

  "No, not at all," I assured him. "Everyone's gone already. How about you, is everything okay?"

  "Fine, everything is fine. I'm actually back in town. My flight just got in and I’m sitting outside the airport now." There was a bit of a pause, as though he didn't know what else to say, and then he asked, "I hate to bother you, but would you mind if I came by?"

  I chewed my lip as I surveyed my apartment. It looked like twenty people had been crammed in the small space, drinking and hanging out.

  "At your own risk," I warned him. "We did just have a party."

  "I understand completely. I'll see you in about an hour then? If it isn’t too late?”

  I hadn't heard him so hopeful and flustered since the night he had come to my apartment drunk and looking for a booty call. It was adorable. "No, that isn't too late." It would put me at twenty-two hours awake, but I could sleep when I was dead. I just wanted to see him. As I puttered around the house for an hour, constantly checking the clock, I refused to examine the anxiety that had my stomach all twisted up in knots. I missed him, so what? I was allowed to miss him, right?

  At some point, I stopped pouring out half-empty cups and sat down with a drink of my own. I don't know when it was that I'd nodded off, but the intercom startled me awake. I sloshed rum and Coke from the cup onto my sequined, white tank top and groaned. "Hang on, I'll be right there!"

  What was I doing? He couldn’t hear me all the way down on the street. I hit the call button and gasped, “Sorry, sorry! I’m buzzing you up right now.”

  I dabbed frantically at the stain with a crumpled napkin, until he knocked. When I opened the door, Neil stepped immediately inside, sweeping me into a crushing embrace.

  "I missed you so much," he mumbled against my neck, and I staggered backward, my hands coming up between us to give myself a lit
tle space.

  "Whoa there, cowboy!" I disentangled myself, laughing. "Did you happen to be drinking on the flight?"

  He laughed sheepishly and stepped back. "I'm sorry, it appears the Klonopin isn't entirely out of my system."

  "You take Klonopin to fly?" I laughed with him and rose on my tiptoes to kiss his cheek, one hand against the front of his sweater to retain my admittedly wobbly balance. "Most people just get hammered."

  "Yes, and it seems that all those people were in your apartment tonight." His eyes widened as he took in the wasteland of cups and paper plates before him. "Your living room smells like a still."

  "No, that... might be me." I looked down and brushed at the stain on my shirt. "Let me go change out of this... unless I'm not going to be wearing it for long?"

  He grinned at me and shut the door behind him. I held out my hand to him to lead him to my bedroom.

  It's strange when you're showing someone the place where you live for the first time. Neil had been in the apartment before, but never my bedroom. When I flipped on the light, I saw it the way I assumed he saw it. The white plaster walls, the green shantung duvet cover and what suddenly seemed to be far too many beaded throw pillows. Way too much stuffed crammed into one small space.

  He gestured to the dress form beside my sewing machine. "Do you design clothing?"

  "No, but I do tailor mine." I shrugged. "I get a lot of free stuff, not all of it fits. You can hang your coat on that, if you want."

  My closet wasn't really a closet as much as it was a water pipe I wasn't supposed to hang stuff on, and a lot of my bedroom window was blocked by an enormous mirror in a chipping gilt frame. I felt kind of embarrassed. My place looked like a hostel compared to his room at the W, and I could only imagine what his apartment was like.

  His eyes followed the movements of my hands as I pulled the shirt over my head. I smiled to myself and made a beeline to the bathroom. "Hang on, I need to rinse this before it sets."