Musings of a Gossip Queen: A Chick-Lit Comedy

by Victoria Bright

  I turn in different angles, falling more and more in love with the dress. “I think I’ll go with this one. We don’t have a lot of time anyhow and I still have to do my hair and makeup.”

  Taylor glances at her watch. “Shit. Yeah, it’s already six. I have to head there to get ready for the show in a few minutes. Let’s grab your shoes and a few accessories and get out of here,” she suggests.

  I agree and head back to the dressing room to change out of the dress. I definitely can’t wait until tonight.

  6:38 p.m.

  My apartment

  Shit. Shit. Shit. Shit. Shit.

  Time is quickly winding down and I’m still at my house. I’m supposed to be halfway to the venue right now and I’m just now finishing my makeup. Milo watches me as I dash around the apartment like a madwoman as my phone alerts with text messages. Luckily Madison is running a little late herself and offered to pick me up, otherwise I’d be even later than I would’ve been originally.

  Grabbing my clutch and iPad, I bounce on one foot as I pull my other stiletto on and make my way out the door. As long as I don’t trip down the stairs in this long dress and high heels, everything should be good.

  Madison looks annoyed when I finally come out of my building. I take my slow, sweet time coming down the stairs, making sure she’s had enough time to see my dress in its amazing glory before I enter the car. I almost want to laugh when I see what she’s wearing. She’s dressed in a plain pink dress with oversized, chunky necklaces and bracelets. Ew. That’s the best she could come up with? How typically boring of her.

  “I didn’t know we were supposed to be fancy,” she says, looking me up and down.

  Um…what? It’s a fashion show, you twit. It would make sense to dress as if you have some kind of fashion sense and not look like you’re going to a middle school dance.

  “I would assume one would want to look their best when going to a fashion show,” I say.

  Blake- 9, Cunt Cakes - 0.

  “We have to stop by the office really quick to get another battery for the camera. This one is dying,” she says, disregarding my comment.

  “Okay, but we have to hurry. We don’t want to be too late,” I say as a text message from Silas comes through on my phone.

  Sex Bomb: Hey, something came up with Carrie Jo for our project, so I won’t be able to make it tonight. Send my congrats to Taylor and I’m sorry!

  I frown at the message. Fucking great. Now I have to deal with Madicunt at this fashion show alone and he won’t get to see the dress.

  Blake: Oh no! I’ll let her know.

  “Looks like Silas won’t be able to come,” I say out loud.

  Madicunt releases an audible sigh. “Great. This evening would’ve been more bearable to sit through if he came,” she mutters as she pulls into traffic.

  I roll my eyes. The feeling’s mutual, bitch.

  6:54 p.m.

  Hot Topic Magazine

  Madison pulls up in front of the office, parks, and looks at me. When I don’t move, she gestures toward herself.

  “It doesn’t make sense for me to get out to get the battery in case I have to move the car,” she says. I roll my eyes. It seriously wouldn’t have killed her to run inside to get the damn battery. She’s the one wearing flats while I have these high stilettos on.

  I open the door with a huff, gather my dress, and rush inside the building. The cleaning crew moves around the lobby placing wet floor signs down, oblivious to my presence. I cross over to the elevator and ride it up to our floor, mumbling how much I hate Madison as I walk down the hallway.

  As I get closer to the break room, I hear weird noises that give me pause. Thankfully the hallway is carpeted, so it’s easy to creep along. I slowly walk further down the hallway, my eyes widening as I realize what I’m hearing. As much as I’ve heard Taylor over the last couple of weeks, I definitely know a moan when I hear one. How trashy could Gary be to bang someone here at the magazine?

  I stop in the meeting room and grab a battery from the docking station and head back out, my curiosity getting the best of me. I have to see with my own eyes who this is getting their freak on in the break room. Tiptoeing the rest of the way down the hall, I stop outside the break room and peek inside.

  Oh my fuck. Oh my fuck. OH MY FUCK.

  My eyes have to be playing a trick on me. Shayla and Caesar?!

  I’m pretty sure my jaw is on the floor. There’s no doubt that Caesar is plowing into this girl from behind and she seems to be enjoying every minute of it. I just have to remember not to ever eat at that particular table again.

  Turning on my heels, I damn near run down the hall to the elevator, my heart pounding in my chest. What about her boyfriend? What if he finds out?

  I still can’t believe it.

  Shayla and Caesar having sex in the break room. Just when I didn’t think things could get any crazier in my life. I’ve never had a piece of gossip this life-altering! Of course I can’t tell anyone, but oh my God! I should’ve seen this coming with how they interact with each other, but it doesn’t make it any less surprising. But man, is everyone in New York a cheater? Sweet baby Jesus in a play pen. It seems like no one in this town is exclusive to anyone these days!

  Madison looks at me with a raised brow when I get back in the car. “What’s wrong with you? You look like you’ve seen a ghost,” she says, putting the car in drive and pulling out into traffic.

  If only she knew.

  A ghost has nothing on what I just saw.

  7:12 p.m.

  At the fashion show

  We find seats along the second row, which is a complete miracle considering how packed the venue is. Everything happens so fast. I quickly power on my iPad and start typing away as the music plays and the models strut down the runway. Madicunt doesn’t say much, simply snapping pictures of the women and men as they pass us.

  Refraining from jumping up and down when Taylor makes her appearance on the runway proves to be harder than I originally anticipated. Tears actually burn my eyes as I watch her walk and I clap even louder when she manages to do her turn in those hideous platform shoes without falling. She comes out multiple times in different chic outfits, owning the catwalk each time she struts. We all stand to our feet and clap when they do the final walk at the end of the show with the designer. I didn’t like any of the outfits displayed tonight, but Taylor did an amazing job. I don’t think I could be any more proud of her.

  10:27 p.m.

  Backstage

  I give Taylor a tight hug when she comes out of her dressing room. “You were great out there!” I exclaim with a smile.

  “Thanks! I was so nervous. I appreciate you guys coming to support me. It really means a lot to me,” she says and looks around. “Where’s your boyfriend?”

  “Something came up so he couldn’t make it, but he sends his congrats,” I say, noticing Madicunt scowling in my peripheral.

  Grady approaches Taylor with a bouquet of tulips, handing them to her as he kisses her on the cheek. “You did very well, dear,” Grady says.

  “You think so?”

  “Yes. You have a lot to learn, but it was good for it being your first time,” he says. Taylor’s smile wavers a bit at Grady’s backhanded compliment.

  “I personally think you were the best out there, but I may be a little biased,” I say. A slight sense of relief washes over me as her smile widens again.

  “Thanks, Blake. That’s really sweet of you,” she says, hugging me again.

  “Excuse me, are you the Blake that writes the As Told By Blake column with Hot Topic magazine?” someone asks behind me. Wow, do I have fans already? I turn around and am a bit surprised to see London’s younger sister Paris. The last time I saw her was in the bathroom at the first party I went to with Taylor. What could she possibly want with me?

  “Yes. Can I help you?” I ask. She slaps me across the face and grabs a handful of my hair. What the actual hell?!

  “You can start by minding y
our fucking business and stop publishing my life in that shitty tabloid!” she yells as she gives my hair a yank.

  “Let go of me, you psycho!” I scream, trying to remove my hair from her hands. Security appears from all directions, moving us away from each other as I try to process what just happened. That little bimbo bitch just slapped me and damn near pulled my hair out! All of this drama over an article?

  “Let go of her!” I hear someone else yell as they pull Paris in the opposite direction. I twist and see Madison trying to pull Paris from me. How surprising. I was sure she would’ve gotten much joy out of seeing me be attacked.

  “Ow! Ow! My hair!” I shriek. After another few seconds of hair pulling and shrieking, the security guards finally pull us apart.

  “Are you okay?” Madison asks as I smooth my hands over my hair.

  “Yeah, I’m fine,” I answer, realizing how shaky my voice is. Well, there’s a first time for everything. How many people can say they’ve been slapped by a socialite?

  I can still hear Paris calling me all sorts of names across the room, so much so that security comes back over to us. “I’m sorry, but I’m going to have to ask you guys to leave,” he says.

  “What? But she’s the one who attacked me! Why can’t she leave?” I argue.

  “Ma’am, please don’t cause a scene. I’m going to ask your group again to leave,” he repeats.

  “Go work for a real magazine, bitch!” Paris yells behind us as we walk toward the door. As well as finding a man that doesn’t belong to her sister, she should also look into finding a therapist. What a psycho bitch.

  9:12 p.m.

  Outside

  Madison and I walk back to her car in silence for a little while.

  “Who was that?” she finally asks.

  “A girl I wrote an article about for the magazine.”

  “Ah. Mad about the rumor you published?”

  “I simply reiterated what she’d told her friend. It’s not like I made it up,” I mutter.

  “That’s the risk of this job, I guess,” she says.

  “I suppose so,” I say. “Sometimes I wonder why I still do this.”

  “Do what?”

  “Write gossip. I’ve already experienced what happens when your gossip destroys people’s lives. Yet, my career involves me doing that on a grand scale. If I have to worry about being slapped in the face every time I come out to an event, then maybe I’m in the wrong business.”

  I have no idea why I’m even telling her this, of all people. Hopefully this doesn’t come back to bite me in the ass one day.

  “Every job has its downfall,” she says. “You’re good at what you do. I wouldn’t give that up just because one person happens to be a basket case.”

  I look up at the sky to make sure it’s not about to cave in. Madison is actually giving me a compliment? This night is getting even more crazy!

  “Wow. I didn’t expect to hear that from you. But thanks,” I say.

  She shrugs. “I have to eventually give credit where it’s due.”

  “What’s your real issue with me anyhow?” I ask, genuinely curious to hear her answer. Although I know what the obvious answer is, which is Silas, I want to hear it from the horse’s mouth, no pun intended.

  She sighs. “I guess it’s just hard to see something you’ve worked so hard to get be taken so easily I guess. I didn’t become creative team leader until I’d been there for two years. Before then, we didn’t even have a team leader. So imagine having a new girl come in and damn near getting it because she manages to score a big interview in her first week? Not to mention that I’ve known Silas for five years and he wouldn’t budge at all in my direction. You’re here less than a month and now you’re dating him.” She glances over at me for a few moments and then looks away. “But everything doesn’t last forever, right?”

  “What’s that supposed to mean?” I ask, narrowing my eyes at her. Is this another one of her threats or something? After the night I’ve had, I’m seriously not in the mood for it.

  She hits a button on her keyring to unlock the door. “It’s just an observation,” she says and gets in the car.

  I shake my head and slide into the passenger seat. Leave it to Madison to turn a potential kumbaya moment into something that feels sinister. I almost thought we were making some kind of progress to at least being cordial.

  Silly me.

  9:49 p.m.

  My living room

  I toss my keys on the table and kick off my shoes as Milo runs around in circles around my feet. Tonight has been insane and will make a crazy blog post.

  I trot to my bedroom and change into a tank top and shorts. My mind reverts back to the drama from this evening. If I’m being honest with myself, is this really worth it? It’s all fun and games until things become very real and literally slaps you in the face. Is this what I seriously aspired to be? Writing rumors and gossip about people I didn’t know? I think back to the conversation I had with Taylor on my first day at work. She’d told me that Hot Topic didn’t have a great reputation, so was I doomed the moment I started working there?

  And then there’s Silas. If Herrera picks him up, he’ll end up leaving the magazine and will be traveling the world taking pictures of models. What will happen with us while my world-renowned photographer boyfriend is excelling in his career while I’m just stuck in a cubicle in a tabloid magazine office?

  I stretch out on my bed with a sigh and grab my iPad. Maybe I’m thinking too much into this. I didn’t come all the way to New York just to give up on what I want just because some crazy lady slaps me. Maybe I could work for another magazine, one with a better reputation. It won’t hurt to look, I suppose.

  10:23 p.m.

  In bed

  Blake Unfiltered blog post #796

  What a fucking day.

  Two major things happened today and I don’t even know which one to start with first, so I’ll just start in the order that things happen. When I went back to the office to get a battery for the camera to take to the fashion show tonight, I caught Shayla and Caesar getting it on in the break room. It was weird, but then again, not really. It seems like it was an inevitable thing that was bound to happen with all the giggling and such. It only makes me wonder if that was their first time. Now that I think about it, it makes me also wonder if they’ve done it on more than one of those tables. I almost don’t want to eat in the break room at all at this point. After seeing that, I know I won’t be able to look at either of them the same. I’d much rather see Shayla with Caesar than that loser I met last weekend at her house though. I’ve been itching to text her and ask her about it, but then she’ll know I saw them. Secrets are so hard to carry when you have no one reliable to share them with!

  The second fucked up thing that happened today is that I managed to get slapped by a socialite I wrote an article about. She comes up to me while I’m with Taylor and slaps me and pulls my hair because I revealed the fact that she was sleeping with her sister’s boyfriend. I was simply doing my job. When I thought about being a gossip columnist, I didn’t take situations like this into account. Madicunt of course took pictures of the ordeal, so I won’t be surprised if she writes an article about me being attacked.

  Anyway, Taylor did well at her fashion show today. Grady ended up coming. I’m almost starting to feel as if I’m going to be expected to sleep with him sooner than later. He bought me another dress today for the event. I’m pretty sure he’s spent about $20K on me already and he’s only met me twice. Isn’t that what pimps do for their potential whores or something like that? I’ll have to Google that to see. If that turns out to be true, I won’t accept anything else from him. Taylor can sleep with him all she wants; I wouldn’t touch him with a ten-foot pole, even if he were the last dick on Earth. Tonight was definitely interesting, but not entirely in a good way. I just want to sleep off the craziness that ensued today.

  After doing some thinking, I feel I may need to rethink working at Hot Topic. Maybe I
should go somewhere with more prestige or with a better reputation. When Silas becomes a famous photographer, I wouldn’t want him to be embarrassed to tell his famous friends that his girlfriend works for a mediocre tabloid magazine that no one really takes seriously. I’ll possibly start looking around soon. I’m sure there are plenty of opportunities for gossip queens in New York, right?

  xoxo,

  B

  Chapter Fifteen

  Friday, January 30th

  9:45 a.m.

  Small Girl, Big City

  By Madison Hill

  Sometimes things always come back to bite you in the butt!

  Drama ensued backstage at Olga Jyvolksi’s fashion show last night between Paris Carlton and Hot Topic’s very own Blake Spencer, writer of the column As Told By Blake. Carlton confronted Spencer about the article that was published on her before slapping [Spencer] in the face and pulling her hair.

  The fight became so chaotic that Spencer was then thrown out of the fashion show despite being invited by a no-name model. I guess the lesson here is that you reap what you sow! Check out the video below! Do you think Paris was right or wrong for her attack? Vote in the poll below!

  Ciao,

  M. Hill

  Ugh. That bitch. I knew she’d write about what happened.

  Blake - 9, Madicunt the Nark- 1.

  10:00 a.m.

  At my desk

  Gary walks into our team area and claps his hands. “Listen up, peeps,” he calls out. Everyone stops what they’re doing and turns to look at him. A part of me is hoping that he’s going to tell us that Madison has finally fallen in that sewer drain I’ve been wishing for, but I’m pretty sure life wouldn’t let me be so lucky.