The Making of Mia

by Ilana Fox

  ‘How much?’ Joshua asked.

  ‘They’re retailing in Japan for the equivalent of ten pounds, but we’ve been talking to the manufacturer and have managed to get enough to mount 900,000 for the July issue at a pound a pop. What the manufacturer doesn’t realise is that Eva managed to sell them five adverts across our other properties – DG is taking two ads, Lewd is taking one plus an advertorial, and Honey is taking one as well – and that these are covering the cost of the MP3 mount on Gloss as well as bringing in a tidy profit.’ Mia looked at Joshua triumphantly, but rather than looking impressed he looked pissed off.

  ‘And on whose authority did you do that? Only editors can create initiatives like that, and even then individual publishers can only OK cross-advertising once they have spoken to me.’

  Mia stared at Joshua. ‘I’m pretty much running Gloss now, and I just thought—’

  Joshua interrupted her. ‘Do bear in mind that you are only deputy editor of Gloss, and therefore anything like this not only needs to be run past me, but also past Madeline.’

  ‘It’s a bit difficult when Madeline’s hardly in the office,’ Mia said sullenly, and she kicked herself. She’d let her guard down, and Joshua’s eyes flashed in anger. It was the first time Mia had overstepped the mark.

  ‘Madeline is certainly there long enough for you to brief her on your plans for the magazine. She told me last night that she feels pushed out of her own title, and even though you’re bringing in results I want you to spend more time filling her in.’

  Mia quietly ate the rest of her meal, and when she’d finished she cautiously arranged her cutlery on her plate.

  ‘I apologise,’ she said. ‘I should have discussed it with both of you. It won’t happen again.’

  Joshua shot her an easy, relaxed smile from across the table. ‘That’s better,’ he said, and Mia felt herself tense up. She hated it when he patronised her. ‘Don’t do it again, and if you’re finding it hard to work with Madeline tell me. It’s what I’m here for.’

  Mia took a sip of water. ‘I do have to admit that my relationship with Madeline is struggling somewhat. I’d be happy for some advice, if you have the time.’

  Joshua indicated for a waiter to take their plates away, and then he gestured for Mia to continue.

  ‘Madeline seems … she seems disinterested. I know that she loves the magazine, and that she wants to stay involved, but I do find it difficult when emails asking for her opinion go unanswered. There is only so much chasing I can do, and when a deadline approaches I have to make the final call, normally because she isn’t here. It’s difficult to be sympathetic to what she is going through,’ Mia said carefully, ‘when I don’t know what it is that is keeping her occupied.’

  Joshua stared at Mia for a few moments, and then he lowered his voice.

  ‘Can I be personal with you?’ he asked, and Mia nodded. She had been hoping that her relationship with Joshua would move from the professional to the private, and it looked as though it was finally going to happen. The more information she had on him, the easier it would be to fuck him over, Mia thought.

  ‘Madeline is … well. How old would you say Madeline is?’

  Mia shrugged. ‘Thirty?’ she guessed.

  Joshua let out a callous laugh. ‘Just goes to show those expensive creams I buy her are doing the trick. No, Madeline’s approaching forty, and like most women her biological clock is ticking away. As you know, it’s in the family interest for me to have an heir, and although Madeline is keen for a son she is struggling to provide me with one. We’ve been trying for years, but Madeline may have left it too late. The stupid bitch should never have lied to me about her age.’

  Mia tried not to look at Joshua in shock as she digested his insensitive language about his wife, and she hastily reminded herself of who he really was. Nothing he did, she thought, should surprise her any more, and she recalled how much of a bastard he’d been when she had accidentally sent Madeline the knickers meant for Marina Stone. Mia told herself to remember why she was here in the first place. She had been having such a great time running Gloss and working with Joshua that she had almost forgotten she was only there to wreak her revenge. It was time to play the game.

  ‘It must be difficult,’ Mia said, reaching over to Joshua’s hand and putting her own on top of it. ‘No wonder poor Madeline is looking exhausted.’

  Joshua let out a bark of laughter again. ‘I don’t see what’s so exhausting about IVF, I must say – and the company is paying for her to have the best treatment on Harley Street. No, Madeline only has herself to blame for this; she should have told me her real age from the start so she could have got pregnant sooner, but she’s one of those “career women”,’ he said, disgust prickling at his voice. ‘She’s not like you, playing in magazines until she finds a rich husband to take her away from all of it. She actually meant it when she said she wanted to be the most powerful woman in magazines! Shame she was never much cop at it …’

  Joshua drained his post-lunch brandy, and looked around the dining-room. Most of the businessmen had gone back to their offices, and the only people who remained were women who were dressed in designer clothes and had an air of being drugged on whatever painkiller was in fashion. Joshua ran his eyes over their bodies disinterestedly.

  ‘Do try to keep Madeline in the loop, though, please. The last thing I want is for her to go running to my father moaning about how she’s feeling undermined. Father has a soft spot for her – well, I suppose he would given she’s my wife – but really, I think the sooner she is pregnant and unable to work, the better.’

  Mia stared at Joshua incredulously – did he really believe that all Madeline was good for was to be a baby machine for him? Despite experiencing a wave of pity for Madeline, Mia felt her heart leap. If Madeline could get pregnant Mia would have full control of the magazine, she thought. The IVF couldn’t work soon enough.

  ‘And if Madeline doesn’t manage to get pregnant, then, well, something is going to have to be done,’ Joshua said ominously, and he stared intently at Mia until she began to feel uncomfortable. Trouble was definitely brewing for Mrs Garnet.

  October 2006

  ‘So you’re happy with that features list?’ Lucy said, sitting on a chair next to Mia’s desk and swinging her legs. She was dressed completely in black – spike knee-high boots, opaque black tights and a black baby-doll dress – and the only colour on her was a deep red slash on her lips. Her skin was lightly tanned, and her hair gleamed under the fluorescent lights of the office. ‘I wasn’t sure about the “divorce interview” with Britney, to be honest, but Jessie claims it will be an exclusive.’

  Mia smiled at her features editor. ‘It all sounds good – just make sure Jessie takes more than one dictaphone, and that the lawyers legal everything before and after it’s passed on to the subs.’

  ‘Will do. Now what’s this I hear about the Media Guardian phoning up earlier for a quote from you?’ Lucy said cheekily. ‘Are you doing an interview?’

  Mia shook her head. ‘I’m not quite sure what that was about, to be honest. They were asking questions about Madeline, mainly – maybe they’re doing a profile on her.’

  ‘What sort of questions?’

  Mia thought for a moment. ‘They asked what it was like working for her, and if the success of Gloss was down to Madeline overdoing it.’

  Lucy laughed. ‘Overdoing it? She’s hardly ever here.’

  Mia grinned. ‘That’s what I said, and then I asked them to scrap that comment. I suppose they wanted a quote or two about our run of success recently – it was nothing very interesting.’

  ‘What isn’t very interesting?’ Joshua Garnet asked, as he walked past Mia and Lucy on his way to his office. He was dressed in a dark blue Savile Row suit and he looked fantastic. Even though she hated him, Mia had to admit he was incredibly attractive, despite looking nothing like William.

  ‘Oh, the Media Guardian phoned up Mia to ask what it was like working for Madeline,�
�� Lucy said.

  Joshua looked at Mia sharply. ‘Did they ask anything else?’

  ‘Not really,’ she replied. ‘They wanted to know what it was like working on a thriving magazine, that kind of thing. I gave them bland, inoffensive answers, don’t worry.’

  Joshua grimaced. ‘Bloody journalists have been sniffing around us recently – I had to sack one of our newer cleaners for speaking to them. I think they’re trying to do a hatchet job on us. Why they persist in hating everything Garnet Publishing does I’ll never know …’

  ‘Jealous of our achievements, I expect,’ Mia said smoothly. For once Joshua’s poker-straight face looked worried, and it gave her a tiny thrill. Little did he know, she thought, that when the time was right, he was going to be the subject of her revenge – and it was going to hurt more than a newspaper running a negative article about him.

  Mia watched him sweep back to his office, and just as she began to imagine Joshua begging her for forgiveness, Lucy interrupted her. She was staring at Mia with interest.

  ‘A penny for your thoughts?’ she asked, but Mia merely shook her head at her features editor, and tried to push her emotions out of harm’s way. She smiled brightly, and sensing that it wasn’t the right time to probe any deeper, Lucy summarised the meeting and returned back to her desk. It had been bugging her for a while now, but after her exchange with Joshua she couldn’t ignore the feeling in her gut that something about Mia wasn’t quite right. Lucy put on her mirrored Gucci sunglasses – something everyone did in the office when they had a hangover – and stared at Mia directly. She reminded her strongly of someone, but much to Lucy’s annoyance, she couldn’t quite work out who it was.

  Mia was working late on a dummy copy of a relaunched version of Gloss when she heard Madeline’s extension ringing incessantly. It wouldn’t stop, and it was distracting Mia from her report on a selection of revamped logos. Sighing, Mia went into Madeline’s office to turn the ringer off, but as she leant over the desk she jolted the mouse, which, in turn, woke the computer from hibernation. Mia glanced at the screen and saw Madeline’s email was open, and unable to resist, she sat down at the editor’s desk and stared at the inbox. The newest three emails were all from a journalist at the Media Guardian, and they all asked the same questions – why Madeline was ignoring their phone calls, and if the rumours were true: that Joshua was preparing to sack her from Gloss to make way for Mia, and that he was going to divorce her for not providing him with an heir.

  Mia looked around the deserted office and felt her heart thudding. Although she quite liked Madeline – or what she knew of her – Mia recognised that she was the one obstacle to achieving her dream: to become editor of Gloss. If Madeline got pregnant Mia knew she’d become editor by default, but the IVF wasn’t working, and as a result Mia had to remain as deputy editor. It wasn’t enough – she wanted to be officially in charge, and she wanted Joshua to come to a decision about the editorship now, and not in a year’s time when he decided enough was enough.

  Trying not to feel guilty, Mia clicked open the first email and read it in full. The journalist’s questions were personal and invasive, and Mia wondered how Madeline was coping under the pressure of trying to please her husband in both the office and at home. Judging by the number of ignored emails in her in-box Madeline wasn’t coping professionally at all, and Mia wondered briefly if she ever regretted marrying into the Garnet dynasty. She was certainly paying for it now. Without pausing to think, Mia quickly typed out a response to the journalist as Madeline and pressed ‘send’. As she walked back to her desk Mia reasoned that the sooner Madeline was put out of her misery, the better it would be for everyone. And then, she thought with a smile, Gloss would be hers.

  Mia was taking her first sip of her Starbucks skinny latte when she froze. She’d taken the Media Guardian out of the main newspaper when she’d spotted the cover – a photograph of Joshua and Madeline on their wedding day. Mia quickly turned the page over and found what she was looking for – an exclusive article with a reproduction of an email that claimed Joshua Garnet insisted on sleeping with all the Gloss cover girls. The email had been sent, according to the story, from Madeline three days before and it said, quite clearly, that Joshua was a philanderer who abused his position of publisher.

  Mia allowed herself a small smile before drinking the rest of her coffee. Joshua would be forced to sack his wife now, she thought, and Mia briefly wondered what the scene would be like at the Garnets’ home. She was willing to bet it wasn’t pretty. Mia turned the page over to see what other industry news there was, when the colour drained from her face. The next headline asked ‘Has Madeline Gone Mad?’ and the accompanying article detailed Madeline’s ‘breakdown’ in a double-page spread.

  To accompany the article, the newspaper had printed several photographs of Madeline. The first showed her triumphant as she won the Editor of the Year Award, but the second was a paparazzi shot of how she was now – tired, frail and seemingly more interested in shopping in Selfridges than taking control of her magazine. In the image Madeline was looking at baby clothes longingly, and Mia felt guilt consume her – it had never occurred to her that by sending an email as Madeline she’d be giving the journalists even more ammunition to do a character assassination on her. To distract herself from the image of Madeline cutting a lonely, pathetic figure, Mia finished reading the article, which suggested that Joshua Garnet was not only going to sack, but also divorce his wife for making up rumours and being incompetent.

  Mia suddenly felt ashamed of herself; after all, what had Madeline ever done to her? She’d given Jo Hill her first break as Joshua’s PA, and even when she’d sent Madeline the knickers picked out for Marina Stone she’d never been mean to her – she’d just chosen to believe her husband over her. And, Mia thought glumly, what wife wouldn’t? Mia wondered what Madeline’s reaction would be to the article detailing her breakdown, and worried that she’d helped Joshua push her over the edge. As the guilt firmly began to set in, Mia looked up from her desk, spotting some of the editorial team whispering to each other in shock while holding the newspaper. A couple of the designers were talking to Helena, wondering if Joshua really would sack Madeline, and they concluded that he most probably would have to, that there was no way he could condone Madeline’s talking to the press and saying such explosive stuff.

  By the end of the day Mia was sick of everyone talking about the situation, and her head pounded, despite the Nurofen she’d swallowed. Debbie had tartly told her that both Joshua and Madeline would be working from home that day, and Mia had fended off all types of intrusive questions about what was going to happen from her team, from other magazines within the group, and from the press. Although she hated Debbie with a passion, she felt a tiny twinge of sympathy that the girl had had to answer the phone all day to the media. If she had been Joshua’s PA she’d have probably burst into tears, but Debbie had remained calm, telling every journalist that phoned up that Garnet Publishing had ‘no comment’, and that a statement would be released at some point during the week. Mia noted that Debbie enjoyed feeling important, and she wondered if she knew more than she was letting on.

  Of course, it was entirely possible that Joshua would issue a press release explaining that Madeline had been under a lot of stress and that she was sorry for the email she had sent, before allowing the situation to die down and putting Madeline back in her office as normal. Mia wondered if Joshua’s silence on the situation was indicative of that, and as minutes ticked away the tension headache that had wound itself around her head pulled tighter. An hour before she was due to go home Mia picked up her bag and caught the Tube back to Hampstead, where she allowed herself to bite her nails and feel as insecure as she had done when she had been overweight and called Jo Hill. Even a bar of chocolate did nothing to ease the pressure.

  That evening Mia had just sunk on to her sofa to watch EastEnders when Joshua phoned her mobile. As she had predicted he sounded fucked off and tired, and Mia reminded hersel
f to sound sympathetic and not anxious to know what had been happening. She knew how much Joshua hated the appearance of desperation in anybody, and she was determined to play it cool.

  ‘It’s been a hell of a day, but I’ve managed to speak to the board and we now have closure. Madeline has “resigned”, but before we issue a statement to the press, my father and I would like you to confirm that you’ll be editor of Gloss. Before you say yes we need you to agree with two conditions.’

  Mia stared at her phone incredulously – she was so excited that she wasn’t sure if she could breathe. This was the most amazing phone call of her life; she could feel her tension easing away and her head feeling light. Just before Mia floated away – or fainted – Joshua continued.

  ‘Number one, we need to get some decent press about Garnet Publishing into the media asap,’ Joshua began, and as he spoke Mia realised she’d never heard him sound so efficient before. She wondered if Harold Garnet was in the room with him, and where Madeline Turner was. Were they in Joshua’s living-room while Madeline was in the bedroom? Or had Joshua decamped to a hotel, desperate to leave the marital home? ‘As soon as you sign on the dotted line we’re going to want to do some intensive PR with you. You’re going to be the youngest women’s glossy magazine editor in history, but you’re also the little sister of a major Hollywood star, so the company is going to want to capitalise on that. Although many people already know who you are, by becoming editor of Gloss you are going to be A-list. Everyone will know your name, and everyone will be watching your every move.’

  Mia remembered how she had seen Joshua and Madeline entering Chantez a few years earlier, and how awe-inspiring they had been. Mia was younger, prettier and skinnier than Madeline Turner had ever been, and she instantly realised that by committing herself to a career of editing Gloss she was agreeing to become a serious player, one who was talked about as much as her magazine was. It was the stuff dreams were made of.