by Meg Cabot
Please. Can you imagine doing the lap sit in Features? George Sanchez would crush everyone beneath his massive girth.
As a Human Resources representative, Jen, you are not supposed to show bias against weight-challenged individuals.
Whatever! George just needs to lay off the Krispy Kremes. Which he wouldn’t be half so tempted by, if the T.O.D. hadn’t fired Mrs. Lopez. Wait. WHAT did she just say we’re supposed to be doing?
Oh my God, you so need to be off those hormones. We’re supposed to be dividing up into groups and building shelters for ourselves—
Don’t even tell me. Using those old back copies of the Journal she’s got lying over there?
Yes. But we aren’t allowed to use tape or scissors.
Motherf******!
JEN!
Seriously, this is the stupidest—
Uh-oh, she’s dividing us into groups now.
I’d better be in your group, or—
* * *
To: Amy Jenkins
Fr: Stuart Hertzog
Re: Ida Lopez
Sweetheart, I have done everything I can to prevent it, but the fact is, I simply can’t get you out of a pretrial discovery conference with Mitch. He is insisting that it be sometime this week, and so I thought tomorrow would be best. . . . That way we can get it over with. And you don’t have to worry, because I’ll be right by your side the whole time.
He wants Kate Mackenzie there, as well. God knows why. I’ve given up trying to second-guess my brother. He is, not to put too fine a point on it, a freak of nature. If it were not for the fact that I remember our mother being pregnant with him, I would suspect he was adopted. I promise you none of the other Hertzogs are like Mitch.
Well, except for possibly my sister Janice. But she’s young enough that hopefully any defects in her character can still be cured.
But like I said, he is a fine, fine lawyer. Remember, I love you, and would never let anyone or anything hurt you.
After the depo, I’ll take you to lunch, anywhere you want to go.
All my love,
Stuart
Stuart Hertzog, Senior Partner
Hertzog Webber and Doyle, Attorneys at Law
444 Madison Avenue, Suite 1505
New York, NY 10022
212-555-7900
* * *
To: Kate Mackenzie
Fr: Jen Sadler
Re: Trust Games
Told you we’d trounce those losers.
J
* * *
To: Jen Sadler
Fr: Kate Mackenzie
Re: Trust Games
Yeah, but, Jen, we’ve known each other since college. The Reception staff turns over every six months. Did you really think they were going to have their house up faster, or that it would be more secure than ours?
Kate
* * *
To: Kate Mackenzie
Fr: Jen Sadler
Re: Trust Games
Come on! They’re younger than we are! And we kicked their asses! Even when Amy came by and tied that scarf around your head, we STILL beat them. With one of our team members BLIND!
And what about the Budget staff? Some of them have worked together for YEARS, and we still beat them. WE RULE!!!
J
* * *
To: Jen Sadler
Fr: Kate Mackenzie
Re: Trust Games
I’d forgotten about this competitive side of yours. It’s been a while since we played Scrabble, I guess. It isn’t really a very attractive trait, Jen.
Kate
* * *
To: Kate Mackenzie
Fr: Jen Sadler
Re: Trust Games
Who cares? WE WON!!!!! I am telling you, it is only a matter of time until we take over this place, you and me. It’ll be Kate and Jen’s Free Therapy Clinic in no time! Just you wait and see!
J
* * *
To: Jen Sadler
Fr: Kate Mackenzie
Re: Trust Games
Um, yeah, okay, CALIGULA.
I just got a call from Amy. She wants me in her office STAT. She actually said that. What does she think this is, anyway, an emergency room? Is she defibrillating a heart in there, or just filing people’s 1099s?
I hope we open up Kate and Jen’s Free Therapy Clinic soon.
Kate
* * *
To: Kate Mackenzie
Fr: Amy Jenkins
Re: Tomorrow
To review what we just discussed, tomorrow morning you and I will appear at 9 a.m. in the offices of Hertzog Webber and Doyle to be further deposed in the matter of Lopez vs. the New York Journal. You will be dressed in a professional manner. You will answer all questions put to you in a truthful manner. You will not, however, say anything that could be construed as not reflecting positively on your employer.
This is a serious matter, Kate, and I am counting on you to handle it in that way, and not allow whatever personal feelings you might have for the employee involved to cloud your better judgment.
Amy
Amy Denise Jenkins
Director
Human Resources
The New York Journal
216 W. 57th Street
New York, NY 10019
212-555-6890
[email protected]
This e-mail is intended only for the use of the individual to which it is addressed and may contain information that is privileged and confidential. If you are not the intended recipient, you are hereby notified that you have received this transmission in error; any review, dissemination, distribution, or copying of this transmission is prohibited. If you have received this communication in error, please notify us immediately by reply e-mail and delete this message and all of its attachments.
* * *
To: Mitchell Hertzog
Fr: Sean
Re: Mom
Look, I’m sorry I interrupted your important business lunch or whatever it was, but seriously, I don’t know how much longer I can put up with this. She is a FREAK, all right? A FREAK.
Guess what she did NOW. Go on. Guess. I go to the mall for one frigging hour to see if they have the new X-Men comic in, and what does she do? WHAT DOES SHE DO?
She sprays everything in my room with that drug-detecting spray.
I am not even kidding. You know that spray you can buy on TV for like $19.95 or whatever? That spray that turns a color if there’s drug residue on whatever object you’re spraying?
Well, she sprayed that shit ALL OVER my room.
And OF COURSE I don’t do drugs—at least, not at HOME, I’m not a MORON—so OF COURSE the shit didn’t turn a color.
But guess what? EVERYTHING IN MY ROOM IS STICKY. Seriously. It’s like Stacy’s freaking twins have been here. I mean, even my LEATHER JACKET is sticky! The leather jacket I had to save for MONTHS to buy, because you know Mom won’t let me go near the money Gramps left me. I mean, I had to work the graveyard shift in the quad store for that jacket.
And now it’s like one of those adhesive fly strips. I’m not kidding. There was actually a moth stuck to it already by the time I got home.
I confronted Mom about it, and she says—get this—STUART told her to do it. STUART. Mr. Just Say No himself.
I can’t stand it here anymore, Mitch. I think there’s a very good chance I might go completely mental and take her goddamn Madame Alexander doll collection and put it out with
the rest of the garbage where it BELONGS!!!!
Or do you think I’m overreacting? But think about it, Mitch: My UNDERWEAR is sticky. And not because I’ve been having any fun in them!!!!
Sean
* * *
To: Sean
Fr: Mitchell Hertzog
Re: Mom
Thanks for those last couple of lines about your underwear. That’s really something every guy wants to know about his little sister. Not.
Look, I told you, you’re welcome to stay with me anytime you want. But keep in mind the only way you’re going to convince Mom and Dad that you’re all right to go back to college is if you play it their way for a few months. If you cool it on the hair dye and the diatribes at the dinner table against gross materialism, you should have them eating out of your hand by the time apps for fall semester come rolling around.
Keep your chin up, and send everything to be dry-cleaned . . . at Mom’s expense, of course.
Mitch
* * *
To: Kate Mackenzie
Fr: Dolly Vargas
Re: You
Darling, it was SO sweet of you to pretend to be Skiboy’s girlfriend yesterday. You really are an INVALUABLE little roomie. I can’t imagine what I ever did without you.
Now, I’m going to have a late night tonight—the fall shows, don’t you know—so if you wouldn’t mind just letting Skiboy in when he shows up—it will probably be around nine—I’d love you forever. He’s had some entanglement with his landlord—I don’t know what, I try not to pay attention when he talks, he’s so dull. But those shoulders! Oh!
He promises not to be any trouble. And no need to worry about Peter, he’s got his golf lesson at Chelsea Piers tonight, so we won’t be seeing him until Wednesday at the earliest.
Ciao!
XXXOOO
Dolly
* * *
To: Kate Mackenzie
Fr: Dale Carter
Re: Lunch
Okay, so I know I owe you an apology for that whole thing today at the restaurant. I’m really sorry. In fact, I’m so sorry, I already wrote a song about it. It’s called “Chicken a la Kate.” Will you PLEASE come to our gig tonight so you can hear me sing it? We’ll be playing over at Bryant Park, for one of the designers for the fall fashion runway shows. It’s our first official gig with our new label.
And in spite of what Scroggs thinks, we are not sellouts to be playing at a fashion show. I mean, isn’t that what life is, really? A fashion show?
So was that guy I poured chicken on really your lawyer? Or is he like your new boyfriend? Because it looked to me like he likes you as more than just, you know, somebody he’s lawyering for.
Dale
* * *
To: Dale Carter
Fr: Kate Mackenzie
Re: Chicken
Client. The people lawyers do their “lawyering” for are called clients. And that is what I am to Mitch Hertzog. His client. That’s all.
But Dale, you seriously have to give up on the whole trying-to-get-me-back thing. Because I’m not coming back. I’m not saying I don’t still love you—there’s a part of me that will probably always love you. But during this time I’ve spent away from you, I’ve realized something, and that’s that I’m not in love with you anymore. I don’t think I have been for some time.
And it’s not just because you won’t make a commitment. It’s because I realize now you and I have completely different values and goals in life. I mean, really, Dale, what am I going to do when you and the band go on tour? Follow you around the country? I’m not a groupie. That wouldn’t make me happy. What makes me happy is helping people.
And don’t say that YOU need my help and that that should be enough for me. I’m not talking about looking after someone’s bowling shoes or keeping the apartment stocked with coffee filters. I’m talking about helping people to make career and life choices. I know it may not seem like it sometimes, but ultimately, when things are going the way they should, that’s what I do here at the Journal. And I really really love it.
But even you have to admit that my job and your job are totally incompatible. I mean, how many rock stars have you seen on Behind the Music who are married to human resource representatives? Not even one.
So Dale, please, please, please move on. I’m not coming back, not ever, and I know that, in time, you’ll see this is for the best.
Love,
Kate
Journal of Kate Mackenzie
According to Professor Wingblade, all human beings have worth and dignity. But I wonder if he would still feel that way if he met the T.O.D. I mean, she really is reprehensible. A little while ago, when we met up here in the outer office of Hertzog Webber and Doyle, she took one look at me and was like, “Well, it’s about time you dressed like a professional.” Right in front of the receptionist and Stuart and everything!
Thank God Mitch wasn’t here yet. But still. I guess she thinks we can ALL afford to raid TSE anytime we want. Maybe if I were making seventy grand a year like her, and not forty, like me, I could. But on my salary, it’s Ann Taylor Loft or nothing.
And she’s been so mean to poor Mrs. Lopez! I have to admit, I was kind of surprised to see her here—in Mitch’s office, I mean. I guess I forgot this whole thing revolves around her, and not the T.O.D. She does have a way of making everything be about her—the T.O.D., I mean.
Like when Mrs. Lopez was all happy to see me and offered me a slice of carrot cake from this pan she’d brought along, the T.O.D. gave me the dirtiest look for actually taking it. The cake, I mean. Maybe she was just jealous because Mrs. Lopez didn’t offer her cake. . . . Probably she’ll turn it into a whole big thing about how I’ve let the department down or something by siding with staff instead of management. I bet I’ll be playing trust games from now until the end of time.
I don’t care, though. This cake is heaven. If only I could make something as good for dessert when I go over to Mitch’s. Mrs. L gave me the recipe. And they say the way to a man’s heart is through his stomach. . . .
He has on a Wonder Woman tie today. I love Wonder Woman. SHE would never let a tyrannical office despot make her feel guilty for eating cake.
What’s really weird is, when he showed up, Mrs. Lopez gave HIM cake, too. Not Stuart. She didn’t offer STUART one. But she did his brother.
Which means Mrs. Lopez’s whole thing about Stuart (whatever it is) isn’t because of a Hertzog FAMILY trait.
Why I should find this so comforting, I hardly know. But for some reason, the fact that Mrs. Lopez likes Mitch makes me not feel so bad about liking him, too.
Oops, here comes his assistant. I guess it’s my turn.
Ida Lopez’s Carrot Cake
Preheat oven to 350° F. Butter and flour two 9-inch cake pans.
Sift together and set aside:
2 cups flour
2 ½ teaspoons baking soda
2 teaspoons cinnamon
1 teaspoon salt
In a separate bowl, combine one cup canola oil and 1 ½ cups sugar. To the oil/sugar mixture add three eggs and the dry ingredients. Then add:
1 cup unsweetened apple sauce
3/4 cups grated California carrots (squeeze out the juice using cheesecloth)
1 cup walnuts
Mix on low speed until just incorporated (do not overmix). Divide batter between the two cake pans. Bake for 40 to 50 minutes. Give pans a quarter turn every 15 minutes.
To make the frosting, cream together 13 oz. cream cheese (room temperature), 5 oz. butter (room temperature). 1 ½ cups confectioners’ sugar, and 1 tablespoon lemon juice.
* * *
Deposition of Kathleen Mackenzie
in case of Ida D. Lopez/United Staff
vs.
The New York Journal
held at the offices of
Hertzog Webber and Doyle
444 Madison Avenue, Suite 1505
New York, NY 10022
* * *
Appearances:
Kathleen Mackenzie (KM)
Mitchell Hertzog (MH)
Amy Jenkins (AJ)
Stuart Hertzog (SH)
Ida Lopez (IL)
Jeri Valentine (JV), attorney for the plaintiff