These Girls

by Sarah Pekkanen

  Hadn’t Abby just said that? She felt her cheeks flush, wondering how her dating habits had suddenly become part of this conversation and why Joanna seemed to be acting like her mother.

  Abby changed the subject. “Can you let me know a bit more about the salary and benefits? Will you be offering health care?”

  “I think Bob and I should talk a little bit privately, then maybe we can give you a call with all the details?” Joanna said. She phrased it like a question, but it wasn’t one. She was letting Abby know the job hadn’t been formally offered. Somehow the two of them had become locked in a silent struggle.

  Abby gave in first. “That sounds perfect. You have my references, so I’ll just wait to hear from you.”

  It wasn’t until Abby was turning the key to start her Honda Civic that she realized: The whole time, Joanna hadn’t held Annabelle. Had she even looked at her new daughter?

  Later Abby would wonder if Joanna had a premonition about Abby and Bob; it could’ve been why she was so prickly. But then why would she have offered Abby the job?

  The next morning, Joanna had called. Abby was still asleep—it was eight o’clock on a Saturday, and it took her three rings to locate the phone.

  “I didn’t wake you, did I?” Joanna asked.

  Abby could almost picture her, clad in top-of-the-line spandex, skin glistening from an early-morning aerobics class. She was probably feeding celery and apples into the restaurant-quality juicer Abby had spotted in the kitchen last night.

  “Oh, no,” Abby lied. She held the phone away and cleared her throat and tried to sound alert. What was it about Joanna that made her feel like everything was a competition?

  “I’m going back to work in a week,” Joanna said. “We actually had someone else lined up, but she took another job without telling us. Isn’t that lovely? So now we’re scrambling. Bob can take a little time off, but I don’t know how much longer his clients are going to be patient. We really need you as soon as possible.”

  “I have to give two weeks’ notice at the day-care center,” Abby said. She added, “I’m the head caregiver there,” even though she’d already told Joanna that. She wanted to show Joanna that she was important, too. That people needed her.

  “I understand,” Joanna said, but her voice was brusque. “Well, could you move in sooner and help out a bit in the evenings? Annabelle goes to bed early, and maybe Bob could get out and do some work if you’re in the house. I mean, we’d pay you, of course. We could do an hourly rate until you start fulltime. I’ve got to go to Michigan next week; we have a primary coming up and things are going to be nuts for me. And if Bob gets an emergency call from a client—well, it’ll look bad if he has to turn them down. That’s how you lose accounts.”

  Did Joanna always talk this much, and this quickly? Abby was exhausted just listening to her.

  “Sure,” Abby said. When she’d made her plan to go to grad school, she’d given up her apartment to save money and was crashing with her girlfriend Sara, who spent most of the time at her boyfriend’s house. Abby paid half the rent, and everyone was happy with the arrangement—but Sara knew it would be temporary and wouldn’t mind the short notice. “I can move in over the weekend.”

  The relief in Joanna’s voice was clear, and soon Abby realized why: Joanna was never around. She left every morning at 8:15 and was rarely home before 8:00 P.M. At least one night a week, she traveled with the senator as he tried to shore up support in towns like Kalamazoo and Ann Arbor. She had a busy, important job—Abby heard her on the phone one evening, feeding information to a reporter for The New York Times—but Abby felt sorry for her.

  Joanna didn’t know what it felt like to walk in the golden morning with a calm, alert baby tucked snugly against her chest. She hadn’t spooned the first taste of avocado into Annabelle’s mouth and seen a shocked look spread over the baby’s face before she spit it back out. Did Joanna ever take a long moment just to put her nose against Annabelle’s head and inhale deeply?

  Joanna had handed over the best part of her life to Abby and walked away without a second glance.

  Six

  SHE WAS A FINALIST for the beauty editor job!

  She had to stop bouncing around like a game show contestant who’d just won a cheap toaster and think, Renee admonished herself. First she needed to assess her competition. Two other women, both in-house candidates like Renee, were in the running. Renee knew the name of one of them: Jessica, a fellow associate editor.

  Jessica was nice enough, Renee supposed. Pleasant, that was the most fitting word for her. She had sleek blond hair, her best feature, although her face was a little pinched, as if she were perpetually sniffing a carton of milk to see if it had gone bad. She was slender and of average height and just kind of . . . vanilla. Jessica’s voice never varied from a low, easy pitch, and she didn’t show much emotion—no big smiles or deep frowns. She seemed to be lacking the gene for excitement. That couldn’t all be Botox, could it? Jessica was only in her twenties—although nowadays that’s when some women started preventative Botox. Renee suppressed a shudder, thinking of injecting poison into her forehead—though she reserved the right to become a flaming hypocrite and embrace it in another decade or so if crow’s-feet made an appearance.

  So, Jessica wasn’t a huge threat, unless she saved all her spark and channeled it into her writing. Who was the other contender? At times like these, it paid to be friends with all the best office gossips. Renee made a few calls and came up with the name: Diane Carlson.

  Diane was tricky, Renee thought, idly doodling on a piece of paper on her desk. She was smart, for sure, a Yale grad who never let anyone forget it. And of course, she was skinny. A whippet probably had a higher body fat percentage than Diane. But Renee thought Diane wanted to be a writer. Other than bright, witty briefs about new products, there wasn’t a lot of writing involved in the job, although it did require a special talent to describe eyeliner in a hundred new ways during the course of a career. Maybe Diane saw the job as a stepping-stone. Or maybe she coveted all the free goodies, too.

  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 ask
ed, 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.